JULY
29, 2026 
SCAMALOT
I correspond mostly via email, rather than letters or telephone calls. And when my phone does ring, there may not be a live person on the other end. Unless I'm expecting a call, I routinely let it go to voice mail, because if the caller is real I can call them back.
This was the case for a spate of calls early this month.
In seven of them, sincere and natural-sounding actors read from nearly identical scripts. In most cases, the caller failed to wait to hear my “begin speaking” tone. She gave her first name but didn't mention mine, and she did not identify the company or government agency she was allegedly representing.
“Hey! Um, my name is Anna. I'm reaching out because we pulled up your Medicare profile and there's a note here showing your 2026 plan update hasn't been confirmed yet. We just need a quick confirmation from you, so your coverage doesn't get interrupted. Just confirm for me. Do you have both Part A and Part B?”
She asked the A-and-B question but usually hung up without waiting for an answer. In two cases, after a pause she did ask my voice mail “Hey, can you hear me?” and paused again before hanging up.
Anna — that was my mother's name — sounded so friendly and concerned that I was sorry not to give her a reply, but I'm convinced these calls were attempts to get personal information.
Later in the month I got more.
“How are you doing today? (eight-second pause) Hey, can you hear me?” (hang up)
“It's Diana. How are you doing today?” (hang up)
“...William. How are you doing today?” (hang up)
“...Andrea. Ahem, I contacted you earlier about the cash-back benefits associated with Medicare. Do you remember us talking about that? (eight-second pause) Hey, can you hear me?” (hang up)
Every month, U.S. consumers receive roughly 4.25 billion robocalls! Many are automated reminders about payments and appointments, but two billion are telemarketing and scams. Paul Harris posts that these messages “always sound like some recorded $#!+ from unsavory operations that want to get my information and do bad things with it.”
JULY
26,
2020 
MENCKEN'S 100-YEAR-OLD PROPHECY
One hundred years ago today, H.L. Mencken wrote an article in the Baltimore Evening Sun calling the Republican candidate for President, Warren G. Harding of Marion, Ohio, “a numskull like the idiots he faces.”
|
|
Mencken held a dim view of the intelligence of the electorate. He called voters “quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental.” According to him, the whole thinking of the “boobocracy” is based on emotion — mainly “dread of what they cannot understand.” |
In a nationwide race, “all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre,” he wrote. “The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men.
|
“As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. “We move toward a lofty ideal. “On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” |
|
|
Or, as 1 Corinthians 15:52 inspired Sir Walter Raleigh to prophesy in about 1600:
Full many a Christian's heart |
|
JULY
24, 2026 IT'S
NOT IMPOSSIBLE
With the new cure we're advertising, RELIEF IS ON THE WAY!
Uh, better rephrase that. We don't want to get sued for making false promises, and there is actually a chance that we can help.
RELIEF IS POSSIBLE. We must admit it's unlikely. But anything is possible, right?
JULY
22,
2016 
GRAPHICS
TIP
|
Backgrounds for bilingual Asian and European texts really ought to have different aspect ratios. If we insist that complex ideograms be no taller than English letters, we make them almost too small to read. Compared to the lower-third identifier, the designer of the seed advertisement on the upper left had a better idea. Also, Mr. Umpire, make sure Cookie doesn't try to eat the bat! (Om nom nom nom.) |
|
JULY
20, 2026 RAPID
REPLIES
Anne Ashcroft Mayer, who graduated from Oberlin College a year ahead of me, has illustrated another children's book with her husband. She wanted it to be publicized on our Oberlin reunion website.
So
I went to her website,
found the title, looked up the book
on Amazon, copied the plot summary and the picture of the cover,
condensed the summary, and prepared a notice for the Oberlin
site. Explaining the process, I sent a preview to her at
7:35 AM. She replied with revised copy at 8:29. I
made the changes, posted the notice,
and told her “Tis done” at 8:52. At 8:55, she
replied “Wow! Fast. Many thanks.”
Of course, we were corresponding via email. And, by the way, we live on opposite sides of the world. I'm in Pennsylvania, and she's in Australia. When our nations were young, this simple exchange of four messages would not have crossed the oceans in a mere 80 minutes. It would have taken weeks, probably including a change of ships in London.
The world has changed. Amazing, isn't it?
JULY
17,
2016 HE
WON ON THE THIRD BALLOT
These days, political news comes too rapidly for me to keep up. So does news about violent events. For example, I don't think President Erdogan of Turkey was expecting a coup attempt on Friday. And then this morning, the #2 headline in my news feed warned of another assault:
Froome expecting Quintana attack on Grand Colombier
Now what? Is Quintana a new terrorist group? I was not familiar with any of those proper names. Clicking on the story, however, revealed that the subject was the Tour de France bicycle race, where Chris Froome is the defending champion and Nairo Quintana is “known for his ability to launch sustained and repeated attacks on ascents of steep gradient.”
I actually do watch some of the Tour on TV, but I didn't know the names because I pay absolutely no attention to the competition. I'm still unclear on the concept of a “peloton.” Instead, I watch the beautiful scenery unfold. It's almost like exploring the back roads of France from a tour bus.
At one point we glimpsed an aerial view of a lovely little village alongside a river, dominated by an ancient square stone tower atop a hill. I needed to turn to the Internet to learn that the town was Cessenon-sur-Orb and the tower was the only remaining part of a fortress that was probably built in the ninth century. That's the sort of thing that interests me.
Did you know that I once helped broadcast a GOP political convention in northern Ohio? This happened so long ago that the delegates nominated a moderate Republican for President!
|
|
Also, they heard a speech from a different moderate Republican who served as the “permanent chairman” of the convention. Although he was not introduced as The Next President Of The United States, he actually did become the second-to-next. This man “personified a certain strain of Republicanism,” David M. Shribman recalled last Sunday. He was “wary of big government but willing to use it to assure the rights of minorities, stingy at home but generous abroad, willing to play the partisan but also willing to play 18 holes with his party rivals. So much of that is gone — the openness to bipartisanship, the instinct for compromise ... a practical approach to conservative government where he believed it was possible to disagree while remaining respectful to one another.” |
|
Who was this chairman? Check out this month's 100 Moons article. And by the way, the convention to which I'm referring wasn’t held in Cleveland but in a small town 30 miles away.
|
|
JULY
16, 2026 OPEN
YOUR EYES!
|
|
I saw a video clip once in which a curious kitten had wandered away from its family. Its mama came around the corner, saw the kitten, went over and sniffed it to confirm that it was hers, then slapped its face and yelled at it for straying. She picked the kitten up by the scruff of its neck to carry it back home. Good parenting. My father didn't like cats. Didn't trust them, perhaps. It seems they always have their eyes half closed, apparently plotting something nefarious against us. Thus it's startling to see a cat with a startled expression like those below. “Wow! Did you see that? What's going on?” |
|
An extreme example: a commercial titled “Cats Lose Their Cool” for Temptations. Whenever I see this image, I open my eyes. I don't cross them, however. |
|
JULY
14,
2016 A
COUPLE OF UPDATES
When I started working in television 46 years ago, I worked for one cable TV company and then another. Each cable system needed to fill the dial with a full 12 channels, so they originated one themselves. Most of the time this channel ran automatically. Viewers heard background music and saw an automated display of weather conditions and messages. Some of the latter were paid local advertisements, but subscribers could also request public service announcements for their organizations. Cablecasting these PSAs was good for business.
Also on July 1, a Mississippi law was about to go into effect. It would have violated freedom of religion, because the state would have imposed the opinions of a favored group of churches upon everybody. The bill’s sponsors didn’t see it that way, of course.
“Amid lobbying from Baptist and Pentecostal groups,” the Associated Press explains, “the Republican-led Legislature passed House Bill 1523 this spring.” The law would have protected three Baptist and Pentecostal beliefs: “that marriage is only between a man and a woman; that sex should only take place in such a marriage; and that a person’s gender is determined at birth and cannot be altered.”
At the last moment, however, a federal judge blocked the law, saying it “unconstitutionally establishes preferred beliefs.” That’s the very opposite of religious liberty.
The state’s Democratic attorney general, Jim Hood, announced yesterday that despite pressure from his governor, he won’t file an appeal against the judge’s ruling.
|
|
“All HB 1523 has done is tarnish Mississippi’s image while distracting us from the more pressing issues of decaying roads and bridges, underfunding of public education, the plight of the mentally ill, and the need to solve our state’s financial mess.” “To appeal HB 1523 and fight for an empty bill that dupes one segment of our population into believing it has merit while discriminating against another is just plain wrong. I don’t believe that’s the way to carry out Jesus’ primary directives to protect the least among us and to love thy neighbor.” |
JULY
12, 2026 HOW'S
YOUR GUTTER?
I've been watching a lot of news, which nowadays seems to be a never-ending soap opera with the latest constantly breaking. Yesterday's Presidential executive order? Disallowed by a judge today. This morning's ceasefire? Shattered by this afternoon's bombing. Senator Lindsey Graham? Dead.
So I took notice when anchor Madison Evers suddenly popped on my screen with an urgent update. “Here's Chris Counahan,” she said, “with the LeafFilter gutter report.” Then Chris, who turned out to be the president of LeafFilter, spoke for the next 12 seconds. And that was it. Turned out to be only a short commercial.
It meant nothing to me — my landlord takes care of any debris on the roof — but it did catch my attention.
|
JULY
10, 2026 As a follow-up to the article below, Gail DeGood-Guy has posted on Facebook some photos of her actual July 8 reading of the Declaration of Independence.
|
|
|
Gail has long been active in veterans affairs around Richwood. She writes, “This will (more than likely) be the last event held at the Richwood Opera House and we wanted to make it a great one! A wonderful crowd showed up to hear and we're thankful for each person there! “...Thanks to America 250-Ohio for encouraging us all to do this reading State-Wide! I believe we did our community and the State proud! “God bless these United States of America!” |
|
JULY
8, 2026 THIS
EVENING AT MY OLD OHIO HOME
Richwood, Ohio, didn't exist for the first 56 years of the United States. Not until 1832 would my future home town be laid out by Philip Plummer. In 1890 the Opera House was erected to serve as a town hall.
Five hundred miles to the east, the Declaration of Independence had been adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776. On the evening of July 8, Colonel John Nixon first read the Declaration aloud in Philadelphia's State House Yard.
Thus the Declaration was not originally proclaimed in front of Richwood's Opera House, as depicted below. Nevertheless, this imagined scene will be reenacted there at 6 PM this evening.
Tucker Bugg will deliver the document which will be read to the assembled villagers by Gail DeGood-Guy, daughter of one of my father's one-time employees and a retired Air Force Senior Master Sergeant. It's part of the America 250 observance of July 8, a synchronized reading by over 700 communities nationwide.
JULY
5,
2016 LASSIE
NEEDS US! WHAT IS IT, GIRL?
Sometimes, somehow, when an animal is in distress it knows to ask a human for assistance.
|
|
The classic story, which later made it into Aesop’s Fables, was first reported by Apion. In first-century Rome, a recaptured runaway slave named Androclus had been sentenced to be devoured by fierce wild animals at the Circus Maximus. However, one of them came up and licked the prisoner’s face. Emperor Caligula asked what was going on. He learned that three years before, Androclus had hidden in a cave which turned out also to be sheltering a whimpering lion. Normally it’s very dangerous to corner a wounded animal in its den, but this big cat allowed Androclus to remove a large thorn from its paw, and they became friends. The animal in the Circus was that very lion! The emperor pardoned the slave, and thereafter Androclus was seen making the rounds of the shops with his lion on a leash. |
We jump ahead to this May, alongside Mill Creek near Interstate 75 in Cincinnati. Police Sgt. James Givens was parked in his cruiser. There were geese in the vicinity. “Normally they don’t come near us,” he said. “I always thought that they were afraid of people, and people say they will attack you if you get close to their young’uns.” But then a mother goose came knocking on his car door.
|
She kept pecking and pecking, and the sergeant thought she was asking for food until she walked away and stopped and looked back. Givens got out of his cruiser, and the goose led him over to one of her goslings that had gotten itself tangled in the string from a discarded Mother’s Day balloon. Specialist Cecilia Charron joined him to untangle the little bird. That took at least a minute. The mother goose waited patiently a few yards away, honking softly every few seconds to reassure her young’un. Finally it was free, the mama gave two happy honks, and the two of them headed for the creek. |
|
|
|
Also in May, a 25-year-old elephant called Pretty Boy was shot in the head by poachers in Zimbabwe. He sought refuge in Mana Pools National Park, wandering around with a hole in his forehead for weeks before help could arrive. “When it did, he motioned for assistance,” according to reports. |
“It's like he knew we were there with the intention of helping him,” said Dr. Lisa Marabini, who with her husband Dr. Keith Dutlow founded the Animal and Wildlife Area Research and Rehabilitation Trust. The elephant approached the two veterinarians; they tranquilized and X-rayed him and treated his wound. AWARE Trust says “the elephant is recovering inside the park, and the vets will return for routine checkups.”
Dr. Marabini noted that, even after all the harm humans had done him, Pretty Boy was remarkably gentle towards the people who helped him. “I never usually feel totally comfortable getting very close to a wild elephant,” she said. “But there were no aggressive vibes coming from him whatsoever. He literally emanated serenity.”
|
UPDATE: Speaking of Lassie the collie, who ran barking for help when Timmy fell into the well, I remember that the boy who portrayed Timmy on TV from 1957 to 1964 was named Jon PROVOST. He's only three years younger than I.
I
also recall Sports Illustrated's all-time greatest
lefthander, Warren SPAHN, who pitched through the 1965 season. |
|
|
Six decades later, I remember those surnames. I was easily able to enter them as answers in an "ornery" crossword from the May 2026 issue of Games World of Puzzles — a periodical that has not neglected us elderly Baby Boomers. |
|
JULY
4, 2026 JEFFERSON'S
IDEALS
Today we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Its author, Thomas Jefferson, went on to become the third President of the United States. Surprisingly, his tombstone doesn't mention his Presidency. Jefferson instructed that his epitaph should list only three achievements.
|
|
Here
was buried |
Today we recite the text of the first of those accomplishments, the Declaration. But what of the second? Let us not forget Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom.
Drafted in 1776, it asserts that “our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.” The statute decries “the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who ... have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others.”
In this 21st century when born-again folks promote Christian Nationalism, Dr. Patrick Schreiner of the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary writes that “eliminating all dissent might sound attractive, and it certainly would allow governing authorities to get things done more quickly. But squashing dissent violates human liberty, equality, and the vision of the founding fathers”
Let us remember Jefferson's revolutionary efforts for political freedom, and freedom of thought, and education.
|
|
JULY
2, 2026 I recently found myself waiting at a light behind an algae-green monstrosity like this, with no nameplate and apparently no rear window. I knew it was a Tesla, but I couldn't remember what the model was called. One mustn't search the Internet whilst driving, so I finally had to pull over and use my smartphone to find the answer. |
Probably I failed to remember the model's name because it makes no sense. “Cyber” relates to computers or computer networks, not slab-sided vehicles. But the company's founder thought “Cybertruck” sounded cool and futuristic.
Now, having made unnecessary government cuts that starve children, he's a trillionaire. So what do I know?
|
“Just saw a Cybertruck in real life and I laughed and I laughed,” reports Keith Dunne on Bluesky, where PandaMom adds that “I never cease to be amazed at how absolutely hideous the Cybertruck is and that people actually buy them.” “Chap Gebassi” notes, “People will still buy it — while defending it to the hilt to avoid admitting they were the mark, and they got got.” |
|
|
EARLIER
POSTS BY MONTH:
POSTS FROM 2007 THROUGH 2016:
|
