IN PRAISE OF LOSERS

Recently there was a discussion on a group blog about family matters. This blog, The Corner at NRO, usually deals with national and world matters of great import. It was funny to see how poorly they understood family matters.

I t seems the daughter of a friend of one of the contributors had met a sad end because she had married a ne’er-do-well. This started a round of comments mainly, or perhaps exclusively, among the men on the blog. The result of all that deep thinking by deep thinkers was you should not let your daughter associate with losers.

Yeah, right.

As the epitome of “loser” during my youth, I strongly resent that conclusion.

I suspect that none of those contributors to that blog lived what Americans would call a ‘normal life’ in their youth. Either that or they have no recall of their youth. When I was a kid I, and all the other kids, knew that parents were pretty easy to deceive.

Here’s an example taken from real life: A pretty girl moved into my neighborhood. A friend and I (we were 14 or 15) decided to go meet her. Much to my surprise, my friend got all slicked up, shiny shoes and everything. I went in my everyday terminally scruffy outfit, torn tennis shoes and everything.

The father intercepted us before we could meet the girl. The pre-interview lasted real quick for me. My losin’ ass was out of there in a flash. This father could tell a winner from a loser. He was right. My friend had won the girl’s virginity inside of a month. It would have taken me years.

My friend was the “Eddie Haskell” type. Most of the Eddie Haskells of the world succeed really well with parents, unlike the character played by Ken Osmond in Leave it to Beaver. Parents eat that shit up.

Do I sound bitter?

Of course I’m bitter. To this day I have never learned the social skills that my teenage friend had back then. But I had my life and he had his. He wound up owning a service station back in the old neighborhood. My life is mostly recorded here.

Here’s another example: In my twenties I fell in love. I had a rival for the lady’s affection. He was a university graduate and a member of the US Olympic Team that was competing that year. I was a high school dropout and had a low paying job in surveying. Can you guess how her family advised her? Right. I lost out and went on to overseas work.

I saw her recently and found how it turned out. He had treated her horribly, had bailed out on her and their four kids and, when he died destitute, left her deeply in debt.

(No, I did not do a dance in front of her. I waited until later. I am compassionate.)

These are just a couple of stories that involved me. I could go on because I had a life and remember stuff. The point being that all those deep thinkers at NRO either didn’t have a youth or can’t remember it.

TOMORROW THE WORLD 

YOU LIKE MUSIC?

I’m about to do you a big favor. As I type this on my computer I’m listening to Billie Holliday on the internet. This is through the courtesy of something called Pandora Internet Radio. Click on that link and you’ll have it for free. It will play while you use the computer for other things. Want it off for a moment? Turn down the sound on your speakers.

This site is a marvel. Tell them you favorite song or performer and they will play that and a string of similar music. If they get off the track and play something you don’t like, you can tell them and they won’t play that again.

They set up a “station” for each of your favorites. So far my ‘stations’ include Ray Charles, The Kingston Trio, Chicago, The Beatles and Dizzy Gillespie. The fun is in the surprises you can find when they play similar music. I had forgotten all about Dinah Washington. That’s odd because when I lived in that all black barrack on Guam she was being played all the time. I must be getting old.

I discovered that Natalie Cole is pretty good. I rate her with Sarah Vaughn and Ella. That is pretty good. Also I learned to appreciate Nancy Wilson and Bette Midler. Julie London is outstanding. How strange it is when all of them sound best when doing something written by Cole Porter.

Does it sound like I only listen to women singers? A guy comes up occasionally but the women are the easiest to listen to. Sometimes when a piece comes on I have to put up the site to find who the performer is. I heard I Wish You Love being sung in English but in the style of a European chanteuse. You know the style, more emotion and sincerity than musicianship. I was enchanted by the chanteuse, which I suppose is their aim. I brought up the site to find the artist. Guess what, it was Bette Davis. You know her, she’s the one with the Bette Davis eyes. I told the site I liked it. Now they will play it more often. Neat.

If you like music you’ll like this site.

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! 

PASSENGERS SCREENING PASSENGERS

A few days ago there was a little noticed story about a passenger “Mutiny.” This is how the story begins in the Daily Mail of London:

Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed

Passengers refuse to allow holiday jet to take off until two Asian men are thrown off plane

By CHRISTOPHER LEAKE and ANDREW CHAPMAN 12:08pm 20th August 2006

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.
…
Passengers noticed that, despite the heat, the pair were wearing leather jackets and thick jumpers and were regularly checking their watches.

Initially, six passengers refused to board the flight. On board the aircraft, word reached one family. To the astonishment of cabin crew, they stood up and walked off, followed quickly by others.
…

"Some of the older children, who had seen the terror alert on television, were starting to mutter things like, 'Those two look like they're bombers.'

"Then a family stood up and walked off the aircraft. They were joined by others, about eight in all. We learned later that six or seven people had refused to get on the plane.

"There was no fuss or panic. People just calmly and quietly got off the plane. There were no racist taunts or any remarks directed at the men.

You can read the whole story *HERE*. But another part of the story was yet to come. The on-line edition of the Daily Mail asked for comments. Here is the comment section as of this writing:

Add your comment Reader comments (5)

5 people have commented on this story so far. Tell us what you think below.

I have never in all my life heard anything so stupid. I can't believe that we Brits have become so hysterical and gullible over just a few years.-

Patricia, Jarrow,Tyne and Wear

How absolutely appalling. That people would allow their ill-founded prejudices to spill over and affect these two men, already cleared by airport security, is simply farcical. -

Lorrie, Manchester, UK

What next? Not letting Asian people board buses or even worse segregating them just like in America until recently. We must tackle the root causes of ignorance and not judge a book by its cover. As a British Muslim I feel less and less part of Britain because of the media and government campaign that lumps the trouble makers and law abiding Muslims in one basket-

Malik, London

What a disgrace. -

Tom, London

What knee-jerk ignorance!-

Bernie, Canada

Can you believe it? There are only five comments and all of one opinion: opposed to the actions of the passengers. How much would you bet that they have received hundreds of comments supporting the passengers that they have refused to print? Here is that stupid political correctness again.

I, for one, support shunning all Muslims until they get their house in order. Only they can do that. Make it clear that it is their problem.

I SUPPOSE YOU'RE GONNA BLAME ME 

THE THAI SEX INDUSTRY

I wrote several days ago how politically correct a writer in The Nation, a Bangkok English language newspaper, had been when writing about the hordes of single women here in Bangkok. She made no mention of the elephant in the living room which is the Bangkok sex industry.

There must be some law, written or unwritten, that bans mention of that industry here in Bangkok. One community blog here specifically bans reference to it. Both of my blogs have suffered temporary suspensions because I described what goes on inside sex establishments. But my mentions were either incidental or anti-pornographic in nature. What does anti-pornographic mean? Well if pornography is intended to cause sexual arousal, my writings are intended for the reader to swear off sex forever. So the suspensions of my blogs were brief.

Now the recent arrest of John Mark Karr here has put the Bangkok sex industry in the world’s spotlight. Surprise, surprise. It led to an editorial in The Nation today. It begins:

EDITORIAL

A perfect lure for paedophiles

The massive size of its sex industry makes Thailand a prime target for those looking to exploit children Thais cringed in embarrassment while watching US press reports on the arrest in Bangkok last week of an American suspect in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. One undesirable effect of the media frenzy surrounding the arrest of John Mark Karr, who was previously arrested for possession of child pornography, was the poor publicity it generated for Thailand, which was variously described as the "sex capital of the world" and a "paedophile's paradise".

I recommend you read the entire editorial *HERE*. I hope they keep it available for a while. It might be groundbreaking stuff. I haven’t seen anything like it before.

There is also an interesting story *HERE* from a lady who has interviewed prospective male teachers here in Bangkok. Scary!

BEHAVIOR WATCHING 

BEHAVIOR WATCHING

This just in:

Houston airport screeners to be trained in behavior watching

HOUSTON -- Security personnel at Houston's two major airports may soon be watching for strange or possibly alarming behaviors and facial expressions among throngs of travelers.

Mark Mancuso, deputy director of public safety and technology at the Houston Airport System, said members of his staff are slated to be trained in observation and detection techniques to see unusual behavior in airline passengers that might indicate malicious intent.

You can read the full article *HERE*.

I’ve been through screeners many times. Once a sniffer dog got overly interested in my butt when I was trying to board a flight to Mexico. What do people smuggle into Mexico? I think I had a case for sexual harassment. It was obvious what the dog wanted. It made me feel like an object.

I’ve done the Tijuana border crossing many times. Going south is free sailing. Coming back can sometimes bring a problem. My first time down there, a long time ago, the traffic was light. I rolled down my window for the US border guard.

“Are you bringing back any alcohol, sir?” he asked.

“Yeah. Just a bottle of tequila.”

“I’ll have to confiscate that, sir.”

“Whaaat?”

So, much to my amazement, he took my bottle.

“You mean,” I asked him, “all I had to say was ‘no, I didn’t have any,’ and I could have kept it?”

He didn’t answer.

What a system that was. Only the people who told the truth were penalized.

Another time I decided to act guilty just to see what the US border guard would do. So when I pulled up to him I acted nervous and wouldn’t make eye contact. Sure enough, he ordered me off to the side and did a search of my car. How about that? No way would I tell him I was putting on an act just to see how he would react. That might have pissed him off. So our border guards have been doing behavior watching for a long time.

It was easy, being innocent, to act guilty. Would it be easy, if I were guilty, to act innocent? I don’t know. That problem hasn’t come up.

HEZBOLLAH, HAMAS & OTHERS 

HEZBOLLAH

I am no fan of Hugh Hewitt. Everything he sees is through the screen of his religion. You must keep that in mind whenever you read him. It’s as if there’s an asterisk at the end of each paragraph. I always picture him in a Boy Scout uniform with short pants and knee high socks.

But there was an interesting posting on his website recently. This is how it began:

Posted by Dean Barnett

1) What would happen if all the Arab nations and their terrorist proxies like Hezbollah set down their arms and gave up their ambitions to drive Israel into the sea?

There would be peace in the Middle East.

2) What would happen if Israel disbanded the IDF, junked its nuclear weapons and declared to its neighbors that she would do anything to live in peace?

Israel would be annihilated, millions of its citizens killed. The term genocide could be used to describe the ensuing holocaust, but since that term has been so hopelessly debased by American academics, a new term would have to be created like super-duper-mega genocide to really capture the nature of things.

Isn’t that the best description of the situation in the Middle East you have ever seen? Who could argue with the truth in that? Okay, many would, but they would be wrong.

Mr. Barnett goes on to say that Hezbollah was the victor in the recent skirmish. You can read the entire posting *HERE*. His point seems to be that in just surviving, Hezbollah won. This was the stated goal of the Hezbollah leader in the midst of the fighting. He said if only they survived, they won. That sounds to me like someone who was getting his ass kicked. And that’s what happened. Hezbollah got their asses kicked.

Israel, it seems to me, is much better off now. There will be a buffer zone in the north protected by 30,000 troops from various nations, including Lebanon. Israel, in effect, gains these forces as allies because they are there to keep the peace and that is all Israel wants. These troops will be, in effect, on Israel’s side.

What am I missing here? Doesn’t that seem like a huge victory for Israel?

I must be missing something.

JONBENET RAMSEY

When I was 19 I was invited for Christmas with a friend’s family in New Hampshire. While I was there, my friend’s sister put on a show for me and the whole family. She put on some very brief, sexy clothes and got into a series of provocative poses on a table top in the living room. The family was enchanted. They thought she was “adorable.” I thought it was pretty sick. The girl was only 8 years old. Call me a prude.

That explains why I was suspicious of the Ramseys when their little daughter was killed. I have this prejudice about grownups trying to make little girls look sexy. Call me a prude.

But then the Ramseys “lawyered up” before the body was cold. They didn’t seem to want to cooperate with the investigation. In short, they acted guilty as hell. And I believed they were guilty as hell.

Now they have arrested this nut here in Bangkok who has confessed to the murder. The news is reverberating around the world. I think we all can agree this guy is a nut. The only question is: is he a dangerous nut? He seems confused in the details of the murder. For one thing, he says it was an accident. Really? Here’s a quote:

"It's hard to imagine a more intentional, deliberate murder than hitting a little girl in the head so hard that she had almost a foot-long fracture in her skull and then deliberately fashioning a garrotte to twist until it buries in her neck and slowly stops her breathing," said Silverman, the former Denver prosecutor. "This has always been a case of deliberate murder.”

There are other things. There is apparently no evidence he was even in Boulder at the time of the murder. His ex-wife, with whom there is no love lost, says he was with her at the time.

I don’t know but I would bet this is a phony confession. I’ve been wrong before.

JONBENET RAMSEY 

THE THAI BAHT

This from today’s The Nation:

Experts see baht at 35.50 per dollar

The Thai baht is expected to strengthen further - even test the Bt35.50 resistance level against the US dollar - because the Bank of Thailand (BOT) is unlikely to buck the global currency trend and seeks only to ensure that the baht's adjustment to the dollar's depreciation is consistent with other Asian currencies, experts said yesterday.

Robin Wilkin, a JP Morgan Chase technical strategist in London, was quoted by Reuters as saying the baht could potentially rise a further 5-6 per cent against the US dollar before meeting resistance on the charts.

He said he expected a move towards between Bt36.50 and Bt35.50, representing the baht's strongest point since 1998-99. After breaking through the Bt37.44 level last week, the baht should be stronger and the US dollar's bearish position confirmed.

You can read the complete article *HERE* if they keep it up for any length of time.

In the US there are a group of stock market investors called contrarians. What they do is assemble advice from “experts,” find out what the majority is thinking, and then do the opposite. The theory is that “experts” are more often wrong than right. The theory is that “experts” only endorse a trend when it is nearly over.

Are the contrarians right? Near the tops or bottoms of markets they are nearly always right. That is to say, the “experts” are wrong.

Will that happen with the value of the Thai baht? I can only hope. The strengthening of the baht would seem to make me richer on paper because the large majority of my current assets are here in Thailand. But, in reality, I lose hundreds of dollars every month because of the unfavorable exchange rate.

It would be good for me and Thailand if this contrarian is right.

LADY TESTIFIES ABOUT HER NIGHT WITH ME 

PORT BLASTS

PORT BLASTS

This from the AP today:

A nuclear explosion at the Port of Long Beach could kill 60,000 people immediately, expose 150,000 more to hazardous radiation and cause 10 times the economic loss of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, according to a new Rand Corp. study.

The study released Tuesday by the Santa Monica-based think tank was the latest to address concerns about the possible vulnerability of the nation's ports.

It analyzed the possible effects of terrorists detonating a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb in a shipping container unloaded onto a Long Beach pier.

In addition to the human casualties, such a blast might destroy the infrastructure and every ship at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which together handle about one-third of the nation's imports, the study said. Damage at port-area refineries could create critical shortages.

The two ports have taken steps to tighten security.

Last September, the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles received the second- and third-largest security grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, $12.7 million and $11.4 million, respectively. The money is to go for protecting ports from small craft and underwater attacks and enhance explosive detection capabilities.

Efforts are also under way to design a facility within the Port of Los Angeles where agents could thoroughly inspect suspicious cargo.

Currently, customs officials screen cargo with radiation monitors and X-ray machines at the docks then truck suspicious containers to a warehouse six miles away for closer inspections.

I’m sorry you bright guys at Rand but this seems pretty dumb to me. If a nuclear device reaches the port it is likely too late. What are the terrorists going to do? Give you two days to find it just to taunt you? I think not.

Inspection must take place at the port of embarkation. Even that is not enough. Why couldn’t a cargo ship be intercepted at sea and a nuclear device put on board? What would prevent that, perhaps with the cooperation of those on board?

The only solution is for the cargo inspection to take place some miles out to sea. Sure that would be tough but we live in tough times.

You can read the story *HERE*.

PORT OF LONG BEACH 

POLITICALLY CORRECT 2

I am going to reprint this article in its entirety because it’s pretty interesting and so you will know I didn’t leave anything out. This is from today’s issue of The Nation, one of Bangkok’s two English language newspapers:

Thai women staying singleIt's well known that Thai parents are like their peers in other Asian countries. Their children's future is at the top of their agenda, and they take it as their solemn duty to provide their offspring with the best education possible.
They pay a lot of attention to their children's life partners and to their grandchildren, and their care-giving lasts up to the very final day of their lives.
But it seems that as the years have gone by, children, particularly the females, have embarked on a mission to relieve their parents from worry.
The National Statistical Office says that more and more women are deciding to stay single. And as Thailand is not that receptive to the single-mother concept, that means the more unmarried women, the fewer new children.
The office's latest statistics are quite interesting. Women of child-bearing age, 15 to 49 years, number 18.7 million. While only 6.1 million live in urban areas, 37.2 per cent of these are single. More interestingly, Bangkok has the highest percentage of single women, 41.8 per cent.
What do these figures show?
Bangkok has a reputation as a big city in which most workers have white-collar jobs. Obviously, they earn more than those working with their backs turned to the sun. Now that they earn more, they can follow a more independent lifestyle - spending their hard-earned money on whatever they like.
Unsurprisingly, an executive with the Mall Group said that of all the departments in a department store, Cosmetics showed the highest growth rate in terms of sales. Despite dismal economic circumstances, first-half Cosmetics Department sales jumped more than 20 per cent against average growth of some 10 per cent for all departments.
Even though few women have better jobs than the men, more and more women are becoming more prosperous in their particular occupations. Unlike in some countries - such as Chile, where women earned 19 per cent less than men in 2003 and where the gap was nearly 40 per cent in jobs requiring a high level of education - Thai women can study to as high a level as they want and reach for any job they can dream of.
It seems it's no longer applicable to use the phrase "Boys like to learn, girls like to play at tea parties" in regard to Thai women. Women can be as serious as men when it comes to work, if not more serious.
To married people, nothing could ever be better than an independent life in which they need not worry about others' feelings. And more and more single women are of the same opinion. Getting married means building a family, usually with one or more children. Obviously, they do not want to end up with the same worries that their mothers had for them.

Notice anything that was left out? Right. That is the elephant in the living room here in Bangkok, sometimes known as the sex capital of the world.

MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN LOYALTY 

THE MUSLIM QUESTION

I don’t like to comment on the ‘Muslim Problem’ here in Thailand for fear of helping ‘those people.’ I’ve been through this sort of thing before and might inadvertently give the ‘wrong people’ advice. The newspapers here check out my blog even if no one else does. I had a tiny effect on the recent political unrest. So I will limit myself to reporting.

There are many similarities with the beginning of the insurrection in South Vietnam. The terrorists go first after the people who speak out against them. It is like a death warrant for a Muslim leader to speak out against them. They target teachers, police and politicians. They made a huge mistake when they assassinated a prominent Buddhist monk. Killing a peaceful Buddhist leader is not taken lightly here in Thailand. They bully store owners to shut down when ordered so they can show their ‘power.’

The newspapers here were once very sympathetic toward worldwide Muslim terrorists. They had articles by Muslims defending Muslims with no balancing viewpoint. Then happened that horrible Muslim bombing of a wedding party in Jordan pulled off by a man and wife. The papers here stopped defending Muslims. That was similar to the My Lai incident in Vietnam which lost us the Vietnamese street forever. I could sense the difference in everybody.

There is a major difference between here and Vietnam. The terrorists can only move freely among the Muslim population. The Muslim population is confined generally to the south and amounts to only 4% of all Thais. They will never have much influence among ethnic Thais.

There is a long boundary with Myanmar (Burma) and a smaller, but still substantial, boundary with Malaysia. These boundaries are nearly impossible to police. While Myanmar only has a small (also 4%) Muslim minority, the majority of Malaysians are Muslim. Based on these figures, I would say the major Muslim threat to Thailand, if there ever is one, will eventually prove to be external.

POLITICALLY CORRECT 

POLITICALLY CORRECT

POLITICALLY CORRECT

When I was a kid we had a saying for people who were verbally inhibited. It was, “They couldn’t say shit if they had a mouthful,” if you’ll pardon my English. We had ‘political correctness’ then but not to near the extent that it exists today.

Here is a research from UC Berkeley (alert, alert, red flag) that finds that:

Staying single is a killer, doctors have warned.And bachelors between 19 and 44 are twice as likely to die than married men in the same age group.

An eight year study of almost 67,000 adults found those who remained alone were 58 per cent more likely to have died during the period than those who were either in wedlock, widowed, divorced or separated.

So what did they come up with for this huge difference in the death rates?

His team found "risky" behaviours could not explain the differences because the unmarried group were only slightly more likely to smoke than their married counterparts, and they were less likely to drink alcohol regularly. They also exercised slightly more and were less overweight.

Prof Kaplan, of the University of California, said: "Accumulated evidence suggests that social isolation increases the risk of premature death. Marriage is a rough proxy for social connectedness."

Interesting huh? They defined “risky” behaviors among single men as smoking, drinking, overeating and lack of exercise. They couldn’t say “gay” if they had a mouthful of something.

While all or a majority of single men aren’t gay, a huge majority of gay men are single. Why wouldn’t that enter into the equation?

Almost everyone in America recognizes that the gay life style is life threatening to single men except these UC Berkley investigators who were looking into the subject.

You can read the entire article *HERE*.

BLONDE LADY 

MIGUEL TEJADA

I was watching the Baltimore Orioles play the other morning. (East coast day games start at midnight here in Bangkok. Our TV games usually start at 6 AM. That would be a west coast night game.) Their shortstop, Miguel Tejada, failed to hustle on two hits. Both hits should have been doubles but, because he loafed on the way to first, he was held to singles.

Miguel Tejada is, on paper, one of the most valuable players in the game. He is a slick fielder at the most important defensive position and he hits like the better outfielders. At 12 million a year, he might be considered underpaid when compared to other players. He is only thirty years old and a sure bet for the Hall of Fame.

But what do you do when your star player doesn’t hustle? One of those plays cost the Orioles a run in a close game with a contender. There is nothing the field manager can do. It’s like tying to handle a 400 pound gorilla. That one game might not be representative of how he has been playing, but according to the TV analysts it was.

The front office was trying to trade him before the July 31 deadline. His lack of hustle might be why they couldn’t make a deal. Not many teams want a 400 pound gorilla on their roster, at least one they can’t handle.

Before the season the Orioles looked like a contender. They had a hard hitter at every infield position and had brought in a pitching coach from Atlanta who was reputed to be the best in the game. One problem: They also brought a high profile, expensive catcher when they already had a high profile, expensive catcher. That seemed kind of wacky. It turned out to be a problem. Big surprise. They recently had to trade one and cash for a prospect.

So Baltimore is far out of the race. Perhaps that resulted in Tejada’s lack of hustle, or perhaps his lack of hustle was one of the reasons. I don’t know. I do know I wouldn’t want him on my team.

ONE OF MY NEIGHBORS 

HOW TO BALANCE A CHECKBOOK

No, this is not a joke. This is solid advice.

The easiest way to balance a checkbook is to ignore pennies. Why keep track of pennies? Are you going to write a check to almost drain your account? If not, you don’t need to know how much is in there down to the last penny.

After each check you write, only balance the account to the dollar. That will save half the math. When the statement comes, you may have to adjust your balance by a couple of dollars. So what? Some times I only look to see if I’m close and don’t bother to adjust. When I had an interest bearing checking account I sometimes only adjusted every few months. Then I would have to add quite a few dollars to my balance.

Remember, the main reason for keeping a running balance is so you don’t overdraw. So why keep track of pennies?

I should mention that my accounting method was one of several things that exasperated my ex. She was a Budget Director and despised my relaxed attitude toward our bank balance. So be warned.

THAI LADY 3 

A DRUGGIE NO MORE

I’m not a druggie any more. I wrote June 1st in Drugs and Me that I was taking Xanex. or Zolam or whatever the hell it’s called. It’s hard to make out from the packaging over here. Yes, it’s sold over the counter here in Bangkok. And it’s cheap; less than 20 cents a pill.

It’s a tiny little pill. (Yes, for you perfectionists out there, it is both little and tiny.) The label says 0.5 mg. Even so, it comes with an indent in the middle so it can be easily broken in half. I was only taking a half of a pill an hour or so before bedtime but the effects still were very strong. (There were practically no side effects.) I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and slept soundly through the night. I awoke in the morning sharp and full of energy.

So what’s the downside? My time on earth is limited. I don’t want to spend nine hours a day sleeping. That’s one. Also, I could feel that stuff in my system all day. That annoyed me. I don’t know if it diminished my mental capacity. That is hard to measure but I suspected it did and I didn’t like it.

I just quit cold turkey. There was no problem in cutting it off. On the internet it says there is a danger of addiction but I didn’t notice a thing, except that it took several days before I sensed that stuff was out of my system. That’s a strange feeling to sense a drug in your system.

On the plus side, the problem that caused me to take that tranquilizer in the first place has disappeared. I now sleep as well at night without the drug as I did with it. So maybe that drug was a cure. Perhaps it should be prescribed for a short time just like many medicines. (No, I don’t smell another Nobel Prize.)

Now my drug of choice is alcohol. That is probably the most dangerous drug on earth, in terms of damage it has caused. It is a joke to make marijuana illegal while alcohol is around. You want to save countless lives? Switch alcoholics to marijuana.

While I’m on this subject, let me comment on the Mel Gibson thing. In my experience, alcohol dissolves inhibitions. That’s why you try to get chicks drunk on dates. People when under the influence, do or say what they would like to do or say when sober but are too inhibited. Is there anyone on earth who doesn’t know that? Yes there is. The people who are defending Mel Gibson don’t know that.

MEL GIBSON LOOK-ALIKE 

JUNE ALLYSON DIED

Alan King had a comedy routine that involved mostly reading obituaries. He was famous for his comedic rants and this one was about how unfair it was that women outlived men. Some of the obituaries described horrific accidents in which the husband died but not the wife. In one, the lady leaped out a window in a suicide attempt, landed on her husband and killed him. She survived. King’s anger at these reports kept the audience in stitches.

Near the end of his act he went into the audience to let some of them read the last line of the obituary. Invariably it said, “Survived by his wife.” The last one was the death of the oldest living West Point graduate. He had an audience member verify the last line. It was, he shouted in indignation, “Survived by his wife!” The crowd loved it. Permit me to say, he killed.

That came to mind when I read about the death, at age 88, of June Allyson. She was one of the top movie stars of the 50’s. She was the epitome of the girl next door. Not the Playboy version but the sweet, demure, approachable girl next door. Far sexier, with her husky voice, because she seemed obtainable. She starred with many big male leads of the day, Jimmy Stewart, Van Johnson, and Peter Lawford among others.

The last I heard of her she was married to Dick Powell. She had starred with him in a movie. After the fifties, she sort of sank out of sight. She not only survived the death of Dick Powell, she lived a whole lifetime since. After his death, she was married three times. At the time of her death, she had been married for 30 years! I’m thinking, if Alan King could hear about this, he could add it to his act.

But Alan King had died at the age of 76. Oh yeah, he was survived by his wife of 57 years.

JUNE ALLYSON