Cow tipping is an urban legend that tells of hayseeds on the farm sneaking up on a sleeping cow in the middle of the night and, well, tipping it over. In reality, this prank would be a lot harder to pull off than one might be led to believe in that cows do not sleep standing up, and a full grown cow can often weigh in at about a half-ton. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun with cows: How about cow patty bingo?
Had a little touch of the flu last week, but I am pleased to announce that I am back thumping away at my computer keyboard. But my run-in with what turned out to be a relatively benign parasite got me to thinking about how the relationship between a virus microbe and its human host might be considered an apt metaphor for the relationship of humans with this beautiful planet upon which we reside.
Viruses are different than your standard bacterium in many ways: most bacteria are harmless, for example, and, in certain cases, are actually beneficial to their human hosts. Further, fewer than one percent of all bacteria actually cause disease, although the ones that do can be doozies, such as those that are responsible for the bubonic plague, cholera, meningitis and tuberculosis as well as serious and life-threatening staphylococcus infections.
Now that major league baseball is moving into the playoffs I thought I would re-visit a subject I wrote about at the beginning of the season. Specifically, I posted a piece regarding the ginormous compensation deals that some professional baseball players are able to negotiate during their short careers (Alex Rodriguez in particular), and I questioned whether they deserved such huge salaries. The article, which wasn’t really so much about baseball as it was about the business of baseball, sprouted from a comment by a friend of mine (follow this link to read the article).
Yet another good friend of mine (yes, I have more than one), upon reading my piece on Rodriguez, made a simple and straightforward suggestion as to what might be done with all that excess cash in which major league baseball is seemingly awash, which I opined would go to the owners if not to the players. Her query: “Couldn’t it go to charity?” That struck me as an interesting question and piqued my curiosity sufficient to inspire me to do a little research (not too much, just a little). So this article takes yet a different tack: It addresses what people in the baseball business, as well as other professional sports, do with all that money.
My first duty station following graduation from boot camp was the USCG Air Station located on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Upon arrival I was hustled into a small classroom along with several other spanky new Seaman Apprentices where we were addressed by the station’s Master-at-Arms. The MA informed us that, among other things, there were certain businesses in nearby Honolulu that were strictly off limits to all Coast Guard personnel. He even provided us a list with the names and addresses of these verboten establishments. This was great. Without that list it would have taken us weeks to find all those places.
Back in 1973, the OPEC oil cartel initiated an embargo on the sale of oil to the U.S., which caused oil prices to increase from $3 to $12 a barrel. In response, then-president Richard M. Nixon found himself in the difficult position of having to find ways to conserve the nation’s energy resources. His staff promptly advised him that driving an automobile at a speed of 55 mph, on average, uses less fuel than driving at any higher speed over the same distance. Thus, he decided to issue an executive order mandating a 55 mile per hour national speed limit.
Great.