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Script for Most Subversive Comments of 2008 CD #2

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1. One evening when my friend Winky was reading the newspaper he said to his wife, "Here's a man up in Rangeley who was shot for a moose." And Winky's wife said, "Any man who can be mistaken for a moose is better off dead." (081109)

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2. Sometimes I see 20 wild turkeys on my back lawn. A friend of mine told me that he has taken several wild turkeys home for dinner. He says that the breasts are good eating but that the drumsticks are so tough they could be used for Marimba mallets. I asked him, “How often do you shoot a turkey?” He said, “Until he falls down.” (081123)

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3. Children speak the truth. I can remember sitting in the back of a fifth grade classroom while Paul Strout, who was probably 11 years old, stood at the blackboard and did an imitation of me, the teacher. He had everything down --- my mannerisms --- my speech. The stage lost a consummate master when Paul decided to work instead. Adults who speak the truth are likely to be avoided in good company. You will remember one of Agatha Christie’s adult characters who spoke the truth. Everyone was terrified to be in the same room with her. She was eventually murdered, which was probably just as well. Mastering the art of circumlocution is a rite of passage for children. Those who can do it, are accepted into adult society. Those who do it well, write books. Our topic came to my attention on a tour last week when our guide raised a hand without a thumb and asked if anyone had a question. A small boy said, “I see that you have an unfriendly dog.” (080803)

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4. Two lobster catchers from Down East were talking: “If I were to have an affair with your wife and she had my baby, would we be related?” “No, but we’d be even.” (081012)

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5. The Common Ground Fair is the most impressive gathering of people to be held in the state of Maine. They have this Common Ground Fair every year, the last weekend in September, and I’m always there. My favorite event is the sheep dog demonstration. They put these little dogs out in a field with a dozen sheep and when the dog’s trainer whistles, these dogs jump up and herd the sheep into a pen. Every organization in Maine that might be in favor of some positive political or social change is represented at the Common Ground Fair. My friend David Bright said that the most shocking thing he saw there in three days was the endangered species booth. David went over to check it out and there was no one there. (080921) USE ON COVER

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6. My friend John told me that he was standing around outside chatting with a woman when he chanced to look at the scratches in the ledge underfoot and said, “Look where the glacier went through here.” And the woman said, “Recently?” And of course John said, “No, years ago.” And the woman said, “Well, I wouldn’t know. I live over in Friendship.” (081123)

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7. August 2, 2010. The young wife mentioned in this story called me today and asked me if I'd change the names and places in this story because she is about to become an ex wife of xxx zzz and doesn't want to be identified with the man she is about to become an ex wife to so I have. And the revised version goes like this: I went up to Skoglund Island where I did a benefit show for the Wharf, which needs repair. The only way you can get to Skoglund Island if you don’t have a helicopter is to swim ashore and crawl up over the rocks or bring your boat in to the wharf or dock. Call it what you will, the dock is important to the people who live on Skoglund Island. I use the dock myself when I go out there, which tells you two things about me, doesn’t it? I don’t have a helicopter and I do not choose to swim ashore and crawl up over the rocks. XXX ZZZ lives on Skoglund Island. Ten or 11 generations of his ancestors are buried down in the valley so you have to assume he feels very much at home out there. I’ve known XXX ZZZ for several years, but just met his wife, who, through the eyes of this 72-year-old man, is a pretty young thing from away. XXX ZZZ met her on Skoglund Island when she was 18, but told me that after that she had two husbands before he married her. (And today when she called she said it was only one.) I was surprised to hear that such an attractive and well-spoken woman was already on her third marriage (now we know it is only her second) and suggested to XXX ZZZ that perhaps she had made some poor choices. And he said, “Nah, I think she just takes what comes along.” (080803

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8. No matter where you live, you are proud of your town and the things that your town is famous for. Here on the coast of Maine when you go into a restaurant, the best seats are those overlooking the harbor and all the lobster boats. When I visited my brother-in-law Steve who runs a gambling casino in Colorado, the hostess in the casino restaurant very proudly seated me by the window so I could look out and see the Brink’s truck. (080914)

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9. My wife’s brother Steve runs a gambling casino in Colorado. The last time I visited him I noticed that his office was only one of many small offices. He doesn’t have a big office. So I asked him if he really were the boss, and he said, “You sit down in a room with five women and say that you’re the boss and see how far that goes.” (080914)

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10. You can get great books for a quarter at lawnsales. The best books are found when someone has died and the heirs are simply trying to clean out the house. They have no idea of what the books are or the interesting things you can find in them. Here is a comment from one I just got called The Little Brown Book of Anecdotes. On page 76, one reads, “Victor Biaka-Boda, who represented the Ivory Coast in the French Senate, set off on a tour of the hinterlands in January 1950 to let the people know where he stood on the issues, and to understand their concerns --- one of which was apparently the food supply. His constituents ate him.” (081130)

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11. The wheel was invented when man needed to transport material over a great distance. Fire was first utilized when man moved north out of Africa and needed to keep warm at night. Bills or invoices evolved when Maine inn keepers started charging so much that they couldn’t look the customer in the eye when it came time to squaring accounts. (080928)

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12. My friend Julian is a connoisseur of fine men’s clothing. He buys shirts and pants from specialty houses that cater to the upscale outdoor crowd. It is my understanding that some of that clothing is so durable that it will stand alone. One man put a canvas jacket in his driveway and drove over it all summer to soften it up just so he could wear it. (081123)

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13. Have you ever seen something on the evening news that made you wonder if we will ever create a civilized society? Let me give you an example. Tonight on the evening news they showed a woman in the Philippines who had 8 hungry little children. There wasn’t enough rice to go around. The focus of the program was: What can we do to produce more food? (081130)

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14. I just saw a commercial on television that said that my brain might be undernourished. Then, to drive home the argument, it gave a printed quote on the screen from some medical association that said that the problem was ubiquitous. And after ubiquitous it had the word widespread in brackets. I suppose they defined ubiquitous just in case anyone with an undernourished brain were watching. (081019)

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15. Every week they have a husband's marriage seminar out to our grange. At the session last week, the councilor asked Winky’s father, who was approaching his 50th wedding anniversary, to tell everyone how he had managed to stay happily married to the same woman for 50 years. Winky’s father said, "Well, the best thing I ever did was take her out to Monhegan Island for our first wedding anniversary. You know, for our 50th anniversary I think I’ll go out there and bring her back." (081012)

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16. We have a bed and breakfast. And on top of that we have many friends. It is not unusual to see ten or more people eating at our table at any given time. So we find more than our share of things scattered about the house that people have left behind. Today I am dealing with Sally Tuttle’s shirt or light jacket which she left draped over a dining room chair. Because it says, “Made in the USA” on the label, I think I’ll keep it as a curiosity. (080817)

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17. Are computers more efficient than people? Thank back to Y2K. For years we were told that when the year 2000 came in, a computer failure called Y2K was going to shut down banks and railroads and big companies and bring the country to its knees. But the computers didn’t fail and the year 2000 was ushered in with our country still standing strong and proud. It took the republicans almost 8 years of concentrated effort to do what computers and Y2K was expected to do in a millisecond. (081123)

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18. You know that for many years I have studied the life and times of Hitler. But I just learned that two years after many of Hitler’s top generals knew the war could not be won, they continued to paint rosy “progress” pictures. To admit that the war was a lost cause would mean they’d be replaced or demoted. Can you believe that even though their leader also knew that he couldn’t win the war, he wasted his country’s lives and resources for two more years? Yes, perhaps you can believe that. (081026)

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19. Over the past few months I’ve been seeing a specialist for the coughing problem I’m having with my lungs. Unlike my regular doctor, I don’t know anything about this doctor. I don’t know if he has children, if he is married, where he lives, I know nothing. But when I left his office one day in October, he asked me how I thought the election was going to go. I didn’t say a thing. I kind of shrugged my shoulders and slipped out the door. Because --- well, you think about it. Would you discuss politics with a person you don’t know who has a license to inject substances into your body?

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20. No matter what you do for a living, there are certain questions that you hear over and over so many times that you finally develop a standard answer for it. My cousin Truman Hilt is an antique dealer and when people come into his store and ask, “Hey, do you buy antiques?” he always says, “I have to --- I can’t steal enough to stay in business. My brother-in-law Steve runs a gambling casino in Colorado and when people come in and ask him, “Hey, what’s a good machine?” he always says, “The ATM. You can’t lose.” (080914)

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21. Our celebrity friends on television recently reported that some doctors give patients placebos. Patients might feel better, even though the pill does nothing, because they think that they are receiving treatment for whatever ails them. Doctors know that a positive and cheerful attitude is conducive to healing. Laughter heals. But the question seems to be, “Is it right, or even legal, for doctors to play with the minds of their patients?” Then you change channels and see a huge auditorium, crowded with people, who believe that the man on stage can heal with his hands. (081026)

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22. You might have read in the paper that during a typical deer season in Michigan, about a dozen hunters die with heart attacks. That little furry head sticks itself up out of the brush, and these grown men get so excited that they drop right over. Shock from the unexpected can kill. Think of all the teachers who would probably drop dead, if that certain student ever cleaned out the rat's nest in his desk and handed in a paper that didn't look as if he'd blown his nose on it. Yes, the shock from the unexpected can kill, which is why I don't dare risk coming to supper the first time my wife calls me. (080928)

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23. Scientists have discovered that chewing gum helps you remember. The experts found that of the people tested, 35% who were given gum to chew found it easier to remember words. They hypothesized that it might be because chewing increases the speed of your heartbeat, so more oxygen is pumped round your body. Or it could be because chewing gum helps your body make insulin because it thinks food is coming. Even more plausible is the fact that because many of us can’t walk and chew gum at the same time the chewing keeps our mind from wandering and forces us to focus our attention on whatever it is we are trying to remember. (081026)

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24. I can remember reading a book called 1984 years and years before 1984. 1984 is one of those hit-the-nail-on-the-head books that anyone who even pretends to be educated should read every 5 years or so. If you read 1984 way back in the 50s or 60s you might have also wondered if in 1984 we really were going to be living in a society where the state spied on you and where continual war was the norm. But 1984 came and went and in 1984 there wasn’t continual war and the state wasn’t spying on you. That was because George Bush was not yet in office.

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25. Americans think differently than Europeans do. When I was a boy --- back around 1939-1940 --- a crazy man started a war which destroyed his own country, and not only did he have to answer for that war --- the people who supported him were also considered culpable. They had to stand in shame before a world court for giving their leader the votes or legislation or support that enabled him to bring their homes and economy down around their ears. But here in the United States we don’t see things that way. Here, many of a discredited leader’s most ardent supporters are returned to state legislatures and Congress. (081102)

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26. Radio friend John Doucette over in Nova Scotia sends us this news item about a mechanical gorilla that was stolen from outside a store in Machias, Maine. The mechanical gorilla turned up in a cornfield in Swanton, Vt. According to this news article, Ken Booth, who made the thing, helped them find it by posting a YouTube video offering a reward for the gorilla’s return. Then --- another video turned up on YouTube, showing a hooded person demanding a $1 million ransom. You know, I probably wouldn’t believe a story like this, had I not just finished watching the Republican National Convention. (080914)

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27. When I was five or six years old, way back before the Indians cornered the gambling market in Maine, most anybody could set up a slot machine. Alvah Harris had a slot machine in his garage in Tenants Harbor. One day my grandfather Skoglund gave me a nickel to put in that slot machine and I got back thirty-five cents. That was back around 1941 and to the best of my knowledge, since that day I have never put money in a slot machine. When I mentioned this to my brother-in-law Steve who runs a gambling casino in Colorado, he wanted to put my picture in his front window with a sign underneath that said, “This man has a lifetime profit of 700 percent from playing slot machines.” (080914)

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28. My friend Doreen tells me that once upon a time there was a religious commune. It was a friendly commune and everyone got along very well. But one day tragedy struck. A young man fell and hit his head so hard that he didn’t wake up that day. Nor did he wake up the following day. The members of the commune prayed for the young man and every day two or three people stood by his bed singing hymns --- all day long. Then, one day, after 16 weeks, a miracle. The young man opened his eyes and he looked at the people standing by his bed --- and he raised his hand and they could see that he was going to speak. And he said, “Please turn off the music.” (080914)

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29. My wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, left off scrubbing and polishing for two days and went down to Connecticut last weekend for her 40th high school reunion. I took advantage of her absence to put two supers full of honey on the dining room table and to set up the honey extractor in the kitchen. When you extract honey, you cut the wax cap off the little honey cells. If the caps are too shallow in the frame to be cut off, you have to scratch them off with a tiny steel rake. And no matter how carefully you cut off or scratch off the caps, you do some damage to the cells. Fortunately, I knew that when I put those frames back in the hives, the neurotic-compulsive bees wouldn’t rest until they’d cleaned up my mess and made everything as good as new. Which is why I also didn’t worry too much about the mess I made in the kitchen. (081005)

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30. A man I respect recently called my attention to the inevitability of plastic cars. I might mention that this man is in the business of improving plastic computer chips, so his thinking is even a bit beyond that which the layman might consider to be the cutting edge of science and technology. This scientist told me that cars made out of plastic would be as strong as steel. Plastic would not rust out. Plastic, being lighter than steel, would require less energy to move from place to place. If you Google plastic cars you will read that this lightweight car could be powered by electricity or solar energy. Oil is a finite resource. Every last drop of it will have been pumped from the earth in 40 or so years, and there will soon be a day of reckoning when the electric powered plastic car will be the only vehicle on the road. Can you guess why our American corporate giants are putting off this inevitable transition?

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31. Please listen closely because I’m about to say something that might make your life easier. You know that I could never afford to have children. But when I married the widow Marsha VanZandbergen she had two daughters. And now my wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, has three grandchildren. The oldest one was six this week, and although they live in Fort Kent way up by the Canadian border, they drove five hours to get here because the child wanted to celebrate her birthday here with us. I was out in the barn working on my hot water solar collectors during the party, but looked up often enough to notice that the dooryard was full of cars. You know how gobs of cake and partially masticated cookies get ground into the floor at these things, so you can believe that I rushed right in to vacuum up the mess as soon as they were gone. And here is the tip that could save you a lot of bother: At this party --- not one crumb on the floor. Someone had brought a dog. (081102)

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32. If you're on the Internet, you know about junk email. Someone is always mailing you a scheme that will make you rich in two weeks. Another common piece of junk mail asks if you are interested in his or her background. They claim to be able to find your old friends, lost loved ones, dead beat parents, or your debtor's assets. They claim to be able to find safe deposit boxes, social security death records, non-published numbers and driver's license records. They will search vehicle records and pre-trial comprehensive reports. They will verify education, employment and professional licenses. One of the most curious things about this service, is that although they claim to be able to find out anything you want to know about anyone else, they also claim to be able to change your records so that people can only find out good things about you. (080803)

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33. Who do you think cries out for new schools? Can you honestly think that there are a few concerned citizens who have nothing to do except think about what we as a society can do to give our children a better education? If you do think about it, you know that any move to consolidate schools is driven by big money. There is money in constructing buildings. Which, by the way, is why you’ll see big construction money also buying ads on television to bring in casinos. They don’t care if the casino destroys your town and impoverishes your immediate area. They just want to build the thing. Anyway, wouldn’t you think that the officials in the state legislatures who are on the education committees would be people with actual experience in the classroom? Would it surprise to you discover that the people who purport to be serving the educational needs of our children are actually looking out for the business community? Money rules. (081019)

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34. In September I took 8 quarts of honey from my bees. Yes. I stole from my workers. First time in my life I ever felt like a republican. (081005)

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35. My wife Marsha has 47 first cousins and one of them was here last week. She said they had an exchange student in their home for two weeks. Of course, they asked for one who didn't smoke. He was a French kid from Zieer and they picked him because his picture looked so sweet, and they figured he'd be less worldly than a French kid from France. But when he arrived he showed them some nude pictures of himself and told them that his father and grandfather had taken him to a brothel to get him drunk on his sixteenth birthday. Of course, you go down way east on the coast of Maine and that kind of party wouldn't be necessary. But then they found a heap of cigarette butts underneath this kid's bedroom window. I'll bet he'll think twice before he lies on his application again, because they really punished him. They made him drive a car in Boston. (080727) +

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36. You have read 1984 and you are familiar with the concept of “doublethink.” Doublethink is the ability to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in your mind simultaneously, and accept both of them. An example of doublethink is the political ads that one sees on television before an election. Senators, who have always voted with corporate America and against the people they are supposed to represent --- Senators who have been no more than a rubber stamp for the President’s illegal war and tax breaks for the super rich, run warm, fuzzy ads on television. Although uneducated poor people without health insurance and no way to pay their heating bills this winter know that their Senator has voted against them for years, enough exposure to these warm, fuzzy ads just before the election convinced many that their Senator is also working for them. The television ads you see before an election could easily have come out of the Ministry of Love where people learn to believe that two plus two are five. (081026)

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37. Funerals have changed. Back in the good old days when a man died, his friends sat around drinking for a few days before ravishing his favorite slave girl, and setting him off to sea in a burning boat. When I was young, funerals were solemn affairs. You sat up straight in a black suit and black tie and black shoes and black socks and you didn’t dare breathe. But now those in attendance are asked to come forward and “share.” I don’t know about you, but this “share” business grates on my sensibilities. You aren’t asked to stand up and say something. You are asked to “share.” It is my belief that this kind of wimpy language is moving in from California and you can correct me if you think otherwise. Of course, I’m old and old people are always uncomfortable when they are asked to give up their old ways. Nowadays at funerals we see children and grandchildren who stand in front of the assembly and cry as they read a carefully prepared piece. I suppose it is even worse for people who can hear what it is they’re saying. (081102)

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38. It is not uncommon to go out in the woods in the town of St. George, Maine and see a little wooden platform twenty feet up in a tree. I think they call this a tree stand. My friends who are hunters climb up the tree and sit or stand on this tiny wooden platform, sometimes for hours, until an animal comes close enough for them to shoot it. By that time, the hunter is so stiff from just sitting that he can barely climb down the tree. This is why there is hardly a hunter alive who has used one of these tree stands who has not fallen off the thing and dropped kerplunk on the ground. Perhaps you have chanced upon those Wipeout television programs where people crash snowmobiles and skateboards and water skis. But if you have never seen a hunter fall out of a tree stand you realize that Maine’s number one sport has been denied valuable promotional coverage. Are not producers of Wipeout shows remiss in not adding footage of falling Maine hunters to prime time television? (081123)

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39. You probably heard that some militants over there on the other side of the pond captured some Humvees. Big mistake. A week later they had to capture an oil tanker. (081123)

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40. Uncle Jack lives on a piece of sand called Nags Head. Uncle Jack says that a recreational diversion at Nags Head is watching the sand around the brand new house next to yours wash away. Of course the water washes away the brand new house, too, and when the sun comes out after the storm there is nothing blocking your panoramic view of the sea. If you are truly innocent, you might ask why people are permitted to build houses on sand that is certain to be washed away. If you have been around as long as Uncle Jack and The humble Farmer, you know that the realtors and developers sit on all of the zoning and planning boards so they can do anything they want. Why should a realtor care if a new house with five bathrooms washes away after they have sold it? It’s all about quick and easy money. Uncle Jack says that a big construction company with connections wheedled eight million out of an agency called FEMA to put up a protective sand berm 30 feet wide and 12 feet high. One end of it washed out before they had finished the other end. It’s all about money.

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41. There are those of us who trust in science and there are people who don’t. Even back before there was such a thing as science, people wanted answers. And because human nature doesn’t change, ten thousand years ago, people asked themselves the same questions that we ask today. You can well believe that one of the first questions that came to a philosopher’s mind was, why am I here? How did life start on earth? Because people needed answers to these questions, they invented Zeus and Ra and anyone who might have had a different slant on things was hung up by the thumbs. Of course, Zeus and Ra now have more adherents than ever and probably never will be superseded by science. Another question that delves even deeper into the innermost recesses of the human psyche has been asked by your rude mechanicals since the dawn of civilization. If you have ever stood by a bench in any kind of repair shop or office you’ve wondered how it happens, too. No matter how many tables or flat working surfaces you bring into your work area, they immediately get covered with clutter.

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42. You’ve heard me say that I read the Encyclopedia Britannica every day. There must be 30 or so volumes on the shelf by the bathroom door and I just pull out one at random, open it at random, and read for ten minutes at random. The name Karl Follen recently turned up. His activity for civic freedom in Germany kept him from teaching at German universities so in 1824 he came to the United States where he became Harvard’s first professor of German language and literature. While at Harvard Professor Follen was instrumental in establishing the first US college gymnasium. But, in 1835 his appointment as a professor at Harvard was not renewed, probably because he spoke out against slavery. You can understand this because you know what happened to me when I spoke out against fascism. It took a few more years and a Civil War before we were ready to give up slavery. Our 2008 presidential election will probably be considered a turning point as critical as the Civil War: --- it certainly indicated that the people in this country were getting tired of fascism. (080914)

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43. Little public service message here. You have heard me say that I’m putting in solar collectors and a solar hot water heater. Now, Aaron, my son–in-law, says I should put in a windmill that generates electricity, because it is cheaper and more efficient than the solar collectors. So I’m now investigating the cost of installing a windmill to generate electricity on my farm. But, and this is the important part --- Aaron also went on line and brought up a web page that told how much electricity each refrigerator takes. Aaron said that it was silly to generate all kinds of electricity from the wind and the sun when I could cut down on the amount of electricity I need by buying a better refrigerator and other more efficient appliances. I didn’t know that one brand of refrigerator might use ten times as much electricity as another model. Go on line, find out which refrigerator uses the least electricity, crunch the numbers, and you might find that a new refrigerator would pay for itself in two or three years just by the amount of electricity you save. I can tell you about this now without shame because times have changed and we live in a new era. If I’d told you about this thirty years ago, you’d accused me of being a hippie. (081102)

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44. This morning I Googled “how to adjust the pressure switch on a water pump.” We have a new water pump and for several days I’ve heard increasingly louder complaints from management that there is not enough water pressure. I know that there are two little nuts on the water pump switch. In years gone by I’ve twisted both of them at random until the pressure was where I wanted it. But times have changed. Nowadays I can find out anything I want to know about anything or anybody --- in a matter of seconds --- right at my desk. I Googled, “how to adjust the pressure switch on a water pump” and two minutes later trotted down cellar, fully informed, and tightened up the big nut. Yes, times have changed since I walked to our one room school. Imagine walking to that friendly neighborhood school today and sitting down before a computer screen with the world at your fingertips. A few parents have already figured out that there is no longer any need to bus children out of town to an expensive consolidated school where they can sit down at a computer screen. Every day more and more parents realize that a computer screen can be set up anywhere, and before long you will once again see children walking to a small local school.

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45. You have heard of compartmentalized thinking and that is my topic now. When I got out of college I bought a completely furnished house with a garage on an acre of land for $5,000. A year or two later I bought another house with an attached barn on an acre of land for $3500. Back in those days a Maine schoolteacher could buy a house with one year’s salary. Today a Maine schoolteacher would have to work around five years to buy those very same houses, which are now 40 years older and should have depreciated. I can’t tell you how it happened, but the salaries of working people in the United States have been seriously eroded. You might have heard old people wonder aloud how a young couple could even think about buying a house nowadays. But then --- you turn on your television and see that there is a crisis in America: the value of houses has dropped umpty ump percent. In other words, if the value of houses continues to drop, they might get back down to where they relatively were 40 years ago and teachers right out of college might once again be able to buy a house with their first year’s salary. You tell me --- is this good, or is it bad?

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46. Post office employees are about the only people who know how to talk on the telephone. When you call the post office, someone will pick up the phone and tell you who they are. When I answer the phone I also identify myself. I say, “Robert Skoglund, sorry to keep you waiting.” Then, instead of telling me who they are and what they want so we can have a conversation, the mysterious caller on the other end will say something like, “Hello Robert. Is that you?” That brings us back to the beginning, so I’ll repeat what I said, “Robert Skoglund, sorry to keep you waiting.” I’m polite about it. I don’t say, “You called Robert Skoglund. I answered and told you that I am Robert Skoglund. What is it about this conversation that you don’t understand? Now -- I’m trying to be calm while I’m telling you about this although it annoys me terribly --- and you’re in impartial observer, so let me ask you. They are calling Robert Skoglund. I have already mentioned my name twice, but they’ll ask again, “Hello, hello. Robert, is that you?” Are people idiots? Why this, “hello, hello. Is that you Robert?” I want to cry, but I control myself and never reply with “No, I’m Spiderman. Who do you think answers the telephone in my house?” Why can’t people simply tell me who they are and what they want so we can get down to business? I’m Robert Skoglund in Tenants Harbor, Maine, sorry to keep you waiting.

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47. I had never heard of patchouli soap until last September when someone up in Unity told me about it. I might change that to say that although I might have smelled patchouli soap many times, as far as I know I have never heard of patchouli soap until a radio friend named Robert told me that a bar of patchouli soap got him stopped by customs at the border. When he rolled down the car window and the officer got one whiff of what was inside, he ordered Robert to pull aside. The customs officer said he knew Robert had marijuana in the car so he might just as well tell them where it was. Robert denied it so they pulled everything out of his car and combed through everything until Robert remembered that he had a bar of patchouli soap in the glove compartment. I don’t recall why he had it or what he was going to do with it, but if you Google patchouli soap you will learn that marijuana smokers keep it around because it masks the smell of marijuana. Here’s what turned up on line when I Googled patchouli soap: “An oil worn as perfume by dirty hippies in lieu of showering or bathing in any way. Used to mask the scent of marijuana and week old body odor, but usually it merely mixes with the scent to form a new, BO/Patchouli combo that can repulse even those who are olfactorally challenged.” So --- the next time you smell it, at least you’ll know what it is. (080921)

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48. Have you ever met an old neighbor in a store or on the street who extended a withered hand and said, “My word. I thought you were dead.” If it hasn’t happened to you yet someday it will so please listen closely. Every day I record a bit of innocuous social commentary and email it to Public Radio Exchange. PRX, as it is called, might be described as a huge warehouse filled with bits and pieces of radio programs. Young wanna-be producers as well as grizzled used to be producers write and record pieces we hope intelligent people will find interesting and deposit them electronically in this warehouse called PRX. We hope that an enlightened Public Radio program manager might someday actually listen to one of our pieces and deem it worthy of broadcast. Well, there is a new PRX and I was updating my profile on the appropriate PRX web page. While posting my work experience, which was with the Treasury Department between the years of 1955 and 1957, I clicked on the little year box that you are so familiar with and saw that it only went back to 1968. Yes. If you were working in 1955, the kids who are now creating web pages have no idea that you’re still alive. Better get used to it. (081207)

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49. Whom do you hate today? When I was a kid, a grandmother who lived not too far from me was upset when her grandson married a Finn. When we went to war against the Japs and Germans, things changed and we didn’t worry if grandchildren married Swedes or Finns. You might even be old enough to remember when the fear and hatred we had of the Japs and Germans was shifted over onto the Communists. I was already out of high school when just saying that someone was a communist was enough to put them out of business. Then we started doing business with the communists and we couldn’t get enough good things from these people who magically became our friends --- just as the Japs and Germans had done when I was a kid. You should know that I was too young to shoot Chinese communists in Korea and too old when we found an excuse to shoot them in Viet Nam, which, by the way, did fulfill its intended purpose of making a few people very rich. You might have recently been getting redneck email urging you to hate Muslims. If you’ve lived long enough and have a good memory, you realize that it isn’t really important whom you hate and fear as long as you hate and fear someone. Hate and fear are good for big business. And --- if you’re old enough, or if you have read any history, you know that you can pretty well tell who is running things in any given country by what you are allowed to say about whom. During the Bush administration it was difficult for some Americans to find work if they had recently spoken out against fascism. (081005)

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50. In the fall of 2008 a friend of mine who is an employee of the US Forest Service, had to sign a “loyalty pledge” to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. He says that only the Secret Service keeps him from doing what he has sworn to do. (080817)

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51. Back in the 1920s and 1930s you’d hear people say, “He’s coo coo.” Coo coo is an old term that meant that people or things were about as crazy as they could get. Coo coo came to mind today when I heard someone on television mention the war on terror. The war on terror. We are being told that we are waging a war on terror but you really have to be capable of some mental gymnastics to believe that we are waging a War On Terror. See if you can hang here with me as I walk you through it. A while back, some fanatics from Saudi Arabia crashed an airplane in New York City. Immediately, people all over the world who might not have even liked the United States for one reason or another, felt bad for the United States, because these crazy men from Saudi Arabia had killed a lot of innocent people in New York City. But --- soon afterwards, ostensibly to get revenge on this handful of crazy men from Saudi Arabia, the United States attacked a country called Iraq and all that good will we had earned by being the injured party was wiped away. But, before we could attack Iraq, our propaganda machine had to turn things around. We couldn’t call the men who crashed the plane Saudis because we were attacking Iraq. So we had to call them terrorists instead and just hope that Americans who couldn’t read wouldn’t notice the difference. And when you think about it, all those guys over there have brown faces and wear funny looking hats, so one is probably just as bad as another. So it really doesn’t matter if you are blowing up people in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan or India because you are fighting people you call terrorists. The bad news for poor working people is that although there might have only been a handful of these crazy terrorists back on 9-11, every time an American bomb accidentally killed someone, every one of the dead person’s brothers and children and cousins and friends all of a sudden had a very good reason to hate Americans. So every day the American war machine ensures that we will have a never ending war by creating more people that can be called terrorists. This is a great improvement over the old days when we could declare war on Japan or Germany, because back then when the Japs and Germans were pounded into the ground the war stopped. But our military industrial war machine has smartened up a lot over the past 60 years so now they don’t go after Saudis or Germans --- they go after terrorists because a war against terror is a self-sustaining war that can go on forever against an endless and faceless enemy. And because a few very rich people are getting richer by running so-called security and war related industries, you might suspect that it is going to be very difficult to stop this thing they call the war on terror because a war on terror knows no national boundaries. Our American war machine can stagger about like a blind 800 pound gorilla and wipe out people anywhere. What got me started on this so-called War On Terror, anyway? Oh yeah, we were talking about that old term coo coo. Coo coo means that things are just about as crazy as they can get. (080914)

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