Wry On The Rocks

     Boston Mayor Thomas “Mumbles” Menino has wasted no time in reacting to Arizona’s new draconian policy toward illegal immigrants.  Recognizing that illegals may not be able to trek their way through the former Arizona gateway to Boston, the Mayor with the backing of the Boston City Council, has announced a 25-million-dollar plan to fly illegal immigrants directly from Juarez, Mexico to Boston’s Logan airport.

     “To treat illegal immigrants as criminals is abhorrent”, the Mayor claimed in his announcement.  When asked if the very word illegal wasn’t defined as not legal, i.e. criminal, the Mayor responded that he didn’t need any smart-ass college type reporter parsing his words. The Mayor spoke for a few more minutes, but the best anyone could make out was, “mmhwha musha bublleme… ” or something like it.

    The Mayor did admit later he had no idea what parsing meant.  Or abhorrent.

     The most annoying television commercial of the week has to be courtesy of National Floors Direct.  The female spokesperson was fairly appealing….the first 2,000 times I saw the ad.  Then she started to wear on me.  Now she drives me out of the room!  She actually makes me  miss Billy Mays. 

     But here’s what really gets me about the commercial….their claim to “next day installation.”  Now this is the same claim made by a competitor, Empire Today.  While Empire couldn’t afford a real live spokesperson, relying instead on a little cartoon spokesperson and an annoying jingle, they too offer ”next day installation.”

     Now, here’s my question.  Just how many unemployed hardwood floor and rug installers are there in the country?  I mean these are national companies and they’re promising anyone in America, “next day installation”?  What do they have, a busload of immigrants waiting in back of every Wal-Mart across the country just waiting to nail down some boards in your home?  When was the last time you needed some work done in your house and your contractor said, “oh yeah I can come tomorrow.  I mean what the hell, I’m not doing anything else this month!”

     Billy Mays may have offered a money back guarantee on a product with an average three-day life span, but even he knew better than to promise “next day installation.”

     Arizona  Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill which will permit state police to stop any person who “it reasonably believes” could be an illegal immigrant.  This has set off a fire storm of protests from every corner of the Mexican community including the Mexican government.  Activist Jorge Mujica has called for a boycott of goods in Arizona by all Mexican inhabitants.  It is feared that sales of food stamps could come to  grinding halt, lottery ticket sales would collapse and free school lunch programs would dry up.

     But the worse threat comes from the top.  Joining the call for action, Mexican President Calderon has called for a complete halt of all trade with Arizona.  As a result, effective the 1st of May, Arizona residents may no longer have access to Tequila, fake Rolex watches or bull fight paintings on black velvet.

     Katie Couric just lost an evening news viewer.  At 8:15 this morning on the CBS Good Morning America show she “previewed” the news that she would be reporting on her 6:30PM show TONIGHT!  How she knew  10 hours ahead of time what the news of the day was going to be is simply unbelievable.  It’s an amazing gift, but I wonder though if CBS has really thought this “preview” idea through.  Why would anyone waste time watching Katie at night when she’s already dished  the scoop in the morning?

     In an effort to one-up Katie and CBS, it is rumored that Brian Williams will begin giving the Tuesday night news on his Monday night broadcast and continue to stay ahead of the competition by a good 24 hours through-out the week.

     The best bet, however, is on the ABC evening news where Diane Sawyer is going to be announcing the Wednesday PowerBall number on her Tuesday night show.  Now that’s network news worth watching.

                   (read more on this at www.wrysandwherefores.com)

    My wife and I always enjoy a few glasses of wine with dinner and the other night had a particularly lovely 2008 fish bladder with our lamb chops.  It was slightly more expensive than usual because it was not just any fish bladder, but sturgeon bladder which has less of a hint of salt water to it.  Not everyone, of course, favors fish bladder;some of our friends, for example, prefer a hint of egg white in their Pinot Noir while others prefer the smooth taste of milk byproducts in their Merlots.  These are just a few of the items that vintners might add to their grape concoctions.

     Because of the slew of forest fires in California this past year or so, you may find more and more wine from the state higher than usual amounts of fish bladder or other “additives” to hide the smokey taste of the recent harvests.

     If the FDA ever gets around to demanding full disclosure on wine labels it will be a boon to the average consumer.  I can never remember if the ‘99 is better than the ‘04 or vice-versa, but I damn sure know how much fish bladder I want in my burgundy.