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This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for February 9, 2014

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1. While checking a friend’s Facebook page for syntactic irregularities, I chanced to see a link for a recipe for tartiflette. I can’t tell you how upsetting this recipe for tartiflette is to an old Maine man who won't eat anything he can't pronounce. Is this recipe for tartiflette not an example of how our Maine eating habits are being undermined by culinary insurgents? Yesterday quiche. Today tartiflette. Where will it end?

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2. If you are lucky you have a good neighbor. If you have a good neighbor, how would you describe him or her with words? Although it is a hard thing to do, I’m going to try. Back when I was young two couples got together several evenings every week to play cards. And it came to pass that three out of the four found themselves very much attracted to their friend’s spouse. --- So much so that they wanted to swap. One young man, however, was very pleased with his wife. But, because the other three were all in favor of the swap, he went along with it and married his friend’s wife just to be agreeable. Down on the coast of Maine where I come from, they point him out and tell you that you couldn’t find a better neighbor.

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3. Are you an old timer? I just realized that I am an old timer. An old timer is not only someone who was born and brought up in a home that had no indoor toilet, refrigerator or telephone, but who was pretty well along in high school before his mother learned to drive a car.

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4. Do you know when and where to use a semi-colon? When I realized that I’d never used a semi-colon because I didn’t know how to use a semi-colon, long time radio friend Pegg said, “Many people lead rich, full lives without the need of a semi-colon.” It is really easy to believe something when you want to believe it in the first place and I really want to believe that my ignorance of the semi-colon makes me no less of a person. Period.

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5. Please don't tell me I'm getting bitter in my old age. I’d rather believe that I’ve become more insightful.

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6. Perhaps you’ve noticed that movies on TV are getting bloodier and bloodier. When someone gets shot, you see half their insides sprayed across the screen in color. Children watching movies are not expected to be distressed by this. But if a rat is shot in the movie or run over and squished by a truck, there is a disclaimer at the end of the movie that the rat was not actually hurt so the kids won’t feel bad. When these little kids get big enough to drive automobiles, will you feel safer on the crosswalk as a human being or a rat?

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7. As part of President Obama’s plan to cut health care costs, we hear that the American Medical Society is promoting fighting with ice picks on college campuses. Doctors are presently treating thousands of men in their 50s and 60s who have torn ligaments and scar tissue in their knees --- football injuries from 40 years ago. Although these injuries are practically impossible to treat, they eat up billions of insurance dollars annually and cause a lifetime of pain and immeasurable suffering. A medical spokesman says that there is no effective way to treat old football injuries. When a joint is destroyed in your body, it will continue to plague you until you die. On the other hand, a flesh wound will soon heal. This is why college students in Germany fought with sabers. They could sport a macho scar on their cheek --- a mark of youth, strength and virility --- but still keep their knee joints intact should they need to march into France, Poland or Holland. The Medical Society, as a whole, thinks that ice picks are the way to go, although there are several orthopedic surgeons who would like to see the continued crunch of broken bones and ligaments on playing fields.

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8. I looked up the word Taoism and this is what I found. Taoism: the philosophy of Lao Zi that advocates a simple honest life and noninterference with the course of natural events. So, no birth control pills for your 17-year-old daughter?

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