The new year is off to a rocky start. After a nightmare annum in 2019 during which the entire continent of Australia burned down, every single person in Syria was killed and Jusse Smollett was not beaten up in Chicago, 2020 is offering more of the same. (1) Those clever Chinese have opted for population control by pandemic, releasing the horriferous Coronavirus on the world; (2) Venezuela clown president Nicolas Maduro has turned his country into a destitute banana republic, disgorging over 3000 people a day into poor old Colombia; (3) The Red Sox traded superstar Mookie Betts to the Dodgers for a ham sandwich, and (4) Donald (Timex) Trump, who takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’, is somehow still president of the USA.
Before you head for the Golden Gate Bridge for a swan dive into the briny deep, however, consider the good side to this apparent mayhem. First, business at the Foxconn medical face mask company in China has never been so good. New employees are being hired by the pedicab-load and wages have risen to forty cents an hour practically overnight. Second, those floating disease mills called cruise liners are watching the bottom fall out of the ocean-damning cruise market as CNN shows one ship after another marooned somewhere off the coast of Maracaibo, infection numbers growing by the day.
As for beseiged Colombia, now they have extra help for their undermanned cocaine fields and processing plants, leading to an expected drop in U.S. coke prices. And if we play our cards right, the Trumpster might be out of office and locked in a dusty New York jail a year from now. As the inimitable Jack Heywood once said, “It’s an ill wind that bloweth no man good.”
The Flying Pie, being inherently optimistic, is expecting positive results on several fronts for the balance of the new year. Bill has a snazzy updated and advanced pacemaker which not only spunks him up but under certain circumstances provides for limited time travel and allows him to become invisible. Siobhan is nearing the end of her decades-old battle with the FDA and hopes to have her very own drug on the market before Santa arrives. And our colorful home town of Fairfield continues to add new and exciting enterprises. We’ve already got the Russian Orthodox Church fun palace, and only a few days ago local cattle baron/beekeeper/landscape painter Gary Borse alerted us to the fact that a gallivanting crew of merry extraterrestrials has decided to enter the service business just off Marion County Route 316 between Fairfield and Reddick. Their business cards promise cheapest rates and a money-back guarantee, so you might want to take down their number. Hey, you never can tell when you might have a need for “Crop Circles “R” Us.”
Robots Are People, Too
Good news for AI fans in Pieland. You’ll be thrilled to learn that Japan, of all peoples, is gearing up to build a robotic moon base, of, by and for your friendly neighborhood robots. Droids will begin construction of the $2.2 billion project near the south pole of the moon this year. The base will be powered by solar panels, according to Waseda University President Katsuhiko Shirai. The 660-pound droids will roll on treads and operate within a 60-mile radius of the base. They’ll be equipped with solar panels, seismographs to investigate the moon’s inner structure and arms to gather rock samples, which will be returned to Earth via rocket. Keep it under your hat but eventually construction will begin on a Disneylike robot tourist facility on the moon.
This, of course, is an idea who time has come. With the ever-growing number of robots on Earth (Amazon, alone, has 100,000), it’s only natural that the more affluent cross-section would be interested in vacation travel, preferably to a spot uncontaminated by human detritus. Voila!---we have Nippon Robot World, full of all those things which make robots smile.
“It’s actually very economical,” Shirai contends. “Think of all the money you save when you don’t have to create atmosphere. And rest rooms.”
Chitetsu Watanabe Is 112
Want to live to a ripe old age? Okay, maybe “ripe” isn’t the politically correct adjective. But if you want to live to 110 or more, look for clues from someone who has been there. Chitetsu Watanabe is your man, now confirmed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living male at 112 years, 352 days as of today. He was born on March 5, 1907, a smidge before Bill Killeen, and is the oldest brother to seven siblings. Watanabe thinks it was a good idea to be born in Niigata, Japan, his original home town and current residence, so you could start there. Also, it’s okay to go to war but try to make it near the end of the war after the dust stops flying, like, say 1944. And if you decide to retire, stay active. Chitetsu and his son built a new family home when he was 70 and grew fruit and vegetables there until he was a perky 104. Most people can’t even eat fruit and vegetables when they’re 104. Oh, and contrary to popular opinion, you can have dessert. Watanabe has a sweet tooth (at least one) for custards and cream puffs. His best advice? “Don’t get angry. Keep a smile on your face.” In case you’re wondering, Chitetsu doesn’t feel like a big shot for making it to 112. His Japanese neighbor, Kane Tanaka is 117. “That’s OLD!” marvels the champ.
A Billion Here, A Billion There, It All Adds Up.
Yeah, we know, you’re mad at Jeff Bezos. His Amazon workplaces are torture chambers, he’s wiped out half the small businesses in town and he has altogether too much money. So tell us, how come you liked Scrooge McDuck so much?
For everyone who says Jeff has so much money he doesn’t know what to do with it, au contraire, my little friends. Bezos has just committed $10 billion American dollars to fund scientists, activists, nonprofits and other groups fighting to protect the environment and counter the effects of climate change. Uncle Jeff, the world’s richest man, has joined a growing list of billionaires dedicating substantial funds towards combating the impact of global warming, so don’t be mean to Mike Bloomberg just because he’s rich. Anyway, the Bezos Earth Fund will begin issuing grants this summer as part of the initiative. If you need a few bucks to solarize your pot greenhouse, give him a call.
“I Think It Clever Of The Turtle In Such A Fix To Be So Fertile.” (Ogden Nash)
It looked like curtains for the breed when good old Lonesome George died in 2012. George, 100 years old give or take a year, was the last known member of the Chelonoidis abingdonii species, a tortoise street gang which inhabited Pinta Island in the Galapagos chain. But not so fast, my friends! While on a recent expedition to the islands, researchers from the Galapagos Conservancy found a female tortoise at Isabela Island’s Wolf Volcano who turns out to be a relative of Lonesome George. We know, you’re asking yourself how do they know these things? Ancestry.com. They’re all over this stuff.
Turns out, rascally human beings have been moving tortoises around out there for decades. There could even be additional hybrid critters with Pinta Island lineage in other areas of the Galapagos. The researchers found another 18 females and 11 males from Wolf volcano which are partially related to another species from Floreana Island thought to be extinct. Lonesome George would be proud.
My Kingdom For An Organ!
Forty years ago, Vitaliano Salera and Rose Valenzuela were crowned homecoming prince and princess at Santa Ana Valley High School in Southern California. Naturally, the royals lost touch with one another after graduation, as do we all, but magically reconnected when Salera married Valenzuela’s best friend. Good thing, too. Recently, Salera was diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure due to diabetes and needed a transplant to live. Everyone he knew was tested, but there was, of course, only one ideal match: the princess. She immediately agreed to be a donor and they both went through surgery a few weeks ago.
“To give a kidney to somebody so they can hold their wife’s hand a little bit longer or see their granddaughter grow up to be a young woman, that’s what she did for me,” Salera told NBC Los Angeles. Both are recovering well and Salera’s surgeon said his kidney function is “essentially normal.” The moral of the story? You can’t have enough old phone numbers. Or maybe: take better care of your kidneys.
So Far It’s Only Books-A-Thousand But She’s Optimistic
Book-lover Noelle Santos was a little pissed. In 2014, Barnes & Noble decided to close its lone store in the Bronx, leaving the borough bookless. Now, a cynical observer might comment rudely about the need for books in that Gobi Desert of intellectual curiosity, but Noelle would beg to differ. “Okay, it’s not Berkeley, but we have our fair share of readers. As a kid, reading was my window outside of my little five-block radius, which many of my peers never expanded beyond.”
Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut
When we were kids, nobody had peanut allergies. We never heard of such a thing. But kids were tougher then and we had Mr. Peanut to keep an eye on things. Once Mr. P. unaccountably disappeared, these ridiculous allergies began popping up and younguns started dropping like flies. The slightest hint of a peanut was enough to rush a kid to the hospital. Children with allergies can experience scary reactions, including hives, swelling and fainting, and about one million kids in the U.S. are currently affected, according to the FDA. Only one out of five children will outgrow the allergy.
Earlier this month, the FDA approved Palforzia, the first peanut allergy drug for children. While under a doctor’s care, patients will ingest controlled doses of Palforzia, which is made of peanut protein. If they tolerate the drug, patients will take it for several months, eventually reaching a daily maintenance dose. The drug is not a cure and users will still have to avoid peanuts. Use has been approved for kids betweeen the ages of 4 and 17. If you are foolish enough to take it one day earlier or later, your pylorus will turn purple and probably explode. As always, heed the warnings on the label.
That’s all, folks….
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