I Ve Been Going Through a Lot of Out-Of-Town Newspapers Again. It S a Last Resort When

In the News

I’ve been going through a lot of out-of-town newspapers again. It’s a last resort when I can’t think of anything else.

--This is from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. I love that name, “Post-Intelligencer.” Intelligencer isn’t in my dictionary. The story says that Bill Gates is giving $10 million to the Seattle Art Museum.

Gates seems like a good guy even though he’s rich. It’s hard for someone rich to seem good. In the movies, anyone rich is always a bad guy.

--The Toshiba Corporation…they made the computer I have…has settled a law suit brought by two men over some flaw in their laptops, for a billion dollars.

The story says, “Mr. Shaw and Mr. Moon, the two plaintiffs, are to receive $25,000 each…their lawyers stand to make $147 million.”

The guys who brought the suit get $25 thousand – the trial lawyers get $147 million. This is Justice in America?

--The World Wrestling Federation sold $170 million worth of stock in itself.

Professional wrestling is a mystery to me. It’s so obviously fake I don’t know why anyone with any brains would watch it. Of course, I may have put my finger on the answer right there. No one with any brains does watch but that still leaves them a huge audience.

--My favorite sports story was about the New York Giants quarterback, Kent Graham. He took a hit to the head a few weeks ago and had to leave the game.

The doctor told the coach Graham shouldn’t go back in because his head wasn’t clear…he couldn’t answer some questions fast enough. One of the doctor’s questions that Graham couldn’t answer was: “How many nickels are there in $1.35?”

That wasn’t a fair question. No professional athlete could answer that even when his head was clear. Ask him how many hundred thousand there are in ten million. That’s their kind of money.

--The Coca-Cola Company is testing a vending machine that will automatically raise the price of a can of Coke during hot weather.

In hot weather maybe I’ll automatically buy a can of Pepsi.

--In Miami Beach a restaurant added a tip to the bill of a black customer but didn’t add the tip to the bill of any white customer. The owner said he did it because black people don’t tip enough.

Tipping is a stupid custom we ought to get rid of. The tip should be part of the bill. Black or white doesn’t enter into it.

--I wish I needed a job in Houston, Texas. The Houston Chronicle has pages and pages of job openings. The worst time I ever had in my life was looking for a job. People with jobs are terrible to people who want one. That’s strange because they must have looked for work at some point themselves.

--I don’t know how sports teams in various cities decide what their nickname will be. They aren’t all as good as the Yankees, the Green Bay Packers or the Red Sox. The hockey team in Albany, New York, has the worst name I ever saw. They call themselves the River Rats. In the same league, Rochester is called the Americans, Albany is called the River Rats, and I come from Albany.

--A columnist in the Hartford Courant says HARTFORD’S DEMOCRATS NEED NEW LEADERSHIP. That doesn’t make them a very special political group, does it?

--Some police officers in Evansville, Indiana, were assigned to pose as customers in a club where nude dancers were performing. During the show one of the dancers touched an officer’s nose with her breasts. After they watched the whole show, the cops arrested nine of the girls.

Can you imagine a policeman coming home after work from a job like that? He walks in the door, his wife’s in the kitchen getting dinner and she says, “What kind of a day did you have, dear?”

He could say, “Had my nose to the grindstone.”

By the way, there are twenty-seven nickels in $1.35.

From Andy Rooney, Years of Minutes, pp. 417-419.