Sunday, October 31, 2010

Wanna buy a cat?

OCTOBER 31, 2010

 HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Let’s be careful out there.

Let me tell you a little story from my youth. My mother took me and my brother and sister trick or treating in the early 1960s in Streator, IL. This left my dad home to deal with the kids that came to our door. Back then, kids went trick or treating for several days. We always made a haul. This particular year, on Halloween, we ran out of candy, after we left with my mother. This was not good since my parents had a small chain of convenient marts. We always had the good stuff at our house when our friends wanted a snack.

My dad came up with an idea that solved two problems at once. Our cat had given birth to a litter of kittens weeks before. We had four or five left. My dad didn’t want them around. He dropped kittens into the treat bags of the next several kids who came around until the kittens were gone. The kids apparently thought this was great. Of course when they got home and saw what kittens do when they are excited or scared, the kids realized most of their haul had been peed on by the kittens. They didn’t seem to care.

We returned home with our mother. After a few minutes, a lady knocks on the door and my mother answers it. The lady is a little upset with us. She is loudly voicing her displeasure to my mother as she hands the kitten to her. She wasn’t real concerned with the ruined candy but explaining to her daughter that the kitten had to go home was another matter. My mother had no idea what this woman is talking about. She glances over to my dad who is rolling on the floor in tears from laughter. At about this moment, my sister notices the kittens are gone. Now she is upset. I think my dad was more a scared of my whimpering sister than he was of my yelling mother. He had likely seen my mother upset much more often than my nine year old sister.

This was the only Halloween we were told to take our bag of candy to our rooms and go to bed. My parents wanted to be alone and not for the usual Catholic reason.

The lady that yelled at my mother was the only one who brought a kitten back. We also never got soaped again. And, we got rid of most of the kittens. I don’t think my sister ever got over that event but it became part of family yore from then on. My dad only spoke of it when company was around to prevent my mother from reventing. She too laughed about it for years after a while.

Before you vote on Tuesday, read these statistics and then vote them rascals out of office.

Health Statistics
An "Investor's Business Daily" article provided very 
 interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations 
 International Health Organization.

 Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years 
 after diagnosis:

  U.S.              65%

  England        46%

  Canada         42%

 Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received 
 treatment within six months:

  U.S.              93%

  England        15%

  Canada         43%

 Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it 
 within six months:

  U.S.              90%

  England        15%

  Canada         43%

 Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within 
 one month:

  U.S.              77%

  England        40%

  Canada         43%

 Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:

  U.S.              71

  England        14

  Canada         18

 Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in 
 "excellent health":

  U.S.              12%

  England        2%

  Canada         6%


 I don't know about you, but I don't want "Universal Healthcare" 
 comparable to England or Canada .

Check this last set of statistics!!  

 AND THE WINNER IS VERY INTERESTING!

 The percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in 
 the private business sector prior to their appointment to the 
 cabinet.  You know what the private business sector is... a real 
 life business, not a government job.  Here are the percentages.

 T. Roosevelt........  38%

 Taft.....................40%

  Wilson ................52%

 Harding..................49%

 Coolidge..............  48%

 Hoover................. 42%

 F. Roosevelt.........  50%

 Truman..................50%

 Eisenhower........... 57%

 Kennedy..............  30%

 Johnson.................47%

 Nixon...................  53%

 Ford..................... 42%

 Carter..................  32%

 Reagan...................56%

 GH Bush................. 51%

  Clinton   ................. 39%

 GW Bush................ 55%

 And the winner of the Chicken Dinner is:  
                                                                                                            Obama........... 8%  !!!
                                                         This alone can explain the incompetence of this administration....! ! ! !!     8 %


 How can the president of a major nation and society...the one 
 with the most successful economic system in world history... 
 stand and talk about business when he's never worked for one?.. 
 or about jobs when he has never really had one??!  And neither 
 has 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers!  They've spent 
 most of their time in academia, government and/or non-profit 
 jobs....or as "community organizers" when they should have been 
 in an employment line.
I don’t make this stuff up. I merely report it. The accuracy has not been fact checked.
                                                             
Notable births on this date:

1887 Chiang Kai-shek Chekiang Province, China, pres of Nationalist China
1912 Dale Evans Uvalde Tx, cowgirl (Roy Rogers Show) now that’s scary. Lyle Lovett could never marry an old Dale.
1920 Dick Francis Wales, jockey/novelist (Whip Hand, High Stakes) good horse racing novels
1931 Dan Rather Wharton Tx, news anchor (CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes)
1937 Michael Landon Forest Hills NY, actor (Bonanza, Highway to Heaven)
1942 David Ogden Stiers Peoria Ill, actor (Winchester-M*A*S*H, Doc)
1950 Jane Pauley Indianapolis Indiana, newscaster (Today, NBC Weekend)
1950 John Candy Ontario Canada, comedian (SCTV, Uncle Buck)

Notable deaths on this date:

1865 William Parson 3rd Earl of Rosse & maker of large telescopes, dies
1926 Erich Weiss better known as magician Harry Houdini, dies in Detroit He has never come back like he said he would as his last trick.
1983 George Halas NFLer, dies at 88
1984 Indira Gandhi PM of India assassinated by 2 of her Sikh bodyguards

Notable events on this date:

1517 Luther posts 95 theses on Wittenberg church-Protestant Reformation
1815 Sir Humphrey Davy of London patents miner's safety lamp
1864 Nevada admitted as 36th state
1922 Benito Mussolini (Il Duce) becomes premier of Italy
1940 Deadline for Warsaw Jews to move into the Warsaw Ghetto
1950 Collazo & Torresola attempt to kill Truman in Washington, DC
1952 1st thermonuclear bomb detonated-Marshall Islands
1963 Ed Sullivan witnesses the Beatles & their fans at London Airport
1963 Leaking propane gas explodes, kills 64 at "Holiday on Ice" (Indiana)
1964 Barbra Streisand's "People," album goes #1 for 5 weeks
1987 1st jockey to win 9 races in 1 day (Chris Antley at Belmont)
1988 1st Monday Night NFL game in Indianapolis, Colts beat Denver 55-23

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

Email: brucebrennanlaw@aol.com

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