Category: News

My beautiful wife, the park board member, attended a news conference this week as Bass Pro Shops donated kayaks and gear for rental at the local lake where my boys and I never catch fish.

You can read the story here: Bass Pro donates kayaks, funds for kids’ programs for Springfield parks.

She is dressed casually because she was told she might get to try one of the kayaks for photos. I think she was disappointed that she did not.

ESPN talkers discuss whether Aaron Rodgers has a brighter future with the Packers or with ‘Jeopardy’ and if he is good enough to be the host:

Aaron Rodgers’ future may or may not be in “Jeopardy.”

He is the only guest host openly campaigning to become permanent host.

“I would love to be the host of ‘Jeopardy!’ yes,” Rodgers said.

Clearly, this sports writer doesn’t know much about Jeopardy! or the current state thereof or he would realize that another person is actively campaigning to be host–but his guest spot has not come into the rotation yet. But the sports journalist is probably rather busy reporting on sports, which means a lot of retread speculation on the NFL Draft currently. It’s myopia coupled with the journalist’s ability to speak ex cathedra about anything, since what journalists don’t know isn’t true or important.

Some of us pay attention. A lot of attention. Some of us could point out that Jeopardy! did not hold its annual online competition for contestants this year. Or maybe some of us were specifically not invited. Which some of us might suspect.

Seen at Instapundit, this just in: Scientists turn beer waste into new protein sources, biofuels.

You know, the Australians have been doing that for 100 years.

Living on a desert island surrounded by salt water pretty much means Australians have had to invent many, many nasty things to eat, or they would starve.

However, one does not get Federal grants now unless one does something “new,” and instead of doing it because they’re going to waste away otherwise, our American scientists are doing it for the environment. Natch.

So my boys were both off of school on Good Friday, and since it was two weeks out from our adventures on spring break, I wanted to take them somewhere if I could think of it. I mean, we have the Springfield places that we’ve either gone often, doesn’t interest them, or is priced for tourists.

So I thought about a road trip.

I thought about going out to Poplar Bluff to have lunch with my brother or nephew, but it’s six hours round trip, and we had church service in the evening. So I looked around for used book stores or places to go that might have interesting things to do. Bolivar apparently has a used book store that is a seamstress’s sideline and a couple parks. But I saw the It’s a Mystery book store down in Berryville, Arkansas. It’s only about an hour and a half away, and it looks like Berryville has plenty of places to eat and a town square to walk around. So I piled the boys into the car with their old road trip Game Boys and, when everyone asked our destination, told them, “It’s a Mystery.” That was about the best part of it.

So they’re guessing as we start down Highway 160. Is it Branson? Is it a museum? And then the youngest, still at the private school, asks, “Is it out of the state?”

“Do you want to go out of the state?” I asked, playing coy.

“If I go to another state, I have to quarantine for two weeks from school,” he said.

Oh, yes, now I remembered that edict from the school. Of course, I hadn’t thought of it because we weren’t “traveling” in the vacation sense; we were taking a day trip on a lark. So I screeched the brakes as we approached the Welcome to Arkansas sign, barely averting the disaster of having him home for two weeks.

Well, it wasn’t quite that dramatic, but I did have to abort the mission and curse the arbitrary PANDEMIC!!!!! protocols which determined that a small town seventy miles away was more dangerous than big cities three hours away on other states’ borders.

So we ended up driving an hour and a half taking the long way around to a diner thirty minutes from our home in Marionville, which did not impress us, and then driving to run a couple of errands in town.

So I basically spent four hours in the car yesterday going nowhere.

It’s not the adventure we’d hoped for, but at least the goal and the result will have been memorable.

Anticipation is building for a boom in US hiring this year

US jobless claims rise to 719K as coronavirus still forces layoffs

The magic of the anticipation far outstrips the reality.

Remember this?

Me, I’m going long on Unexpectedly futures.

Inside the $1.6bn ghost town abandoned in 2008 – before anyone moved in:

The Ozarks region of Missouri was set to become home to a prosperous town featuring a shopping mall, a 390-room hotel, the country’s second-largest indoor water park – and dozens of castle-like townhouses.

But the $1.6bn investment went to waste as the town remains uninhabited almost 15 years later.

The Indian Ridge Resort was hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis hit; resulting in defaulted loans and a halt in the construction work.

As someone who watches the bankruptcy auctions from time to time, I still see a lot of those lots coming available for only the past taxes due.

I am not sure why this is news in England today for some reason. Perhaps the new deadly COVID variants are not as bad as advertised. Like COVID itself.

Bullet strikes window of Dollar General store in northwest Springfield, Mo.:

bullet struck a front window of the Dollar General store at 2535 W. Kearney Street in Springfield, Mo. Monday night.

The bullet did not penetrate the window, right by the front door. Police say the bullet came from a low powered weapon, possibly a BB gun, fired from someone driving by the store.

BB guns fire small round balls powered by compressed air. Not bullets. But one would not expect journalists to know that.

Beverly Cleary, author of children’s book ‘Henry Huggins,’ dead at 104

Larry McMurtry, Novelist And Screenwriter Of The West, Has Died At Age 84

I can’t help but notice that the former article is in the New York Post and features a picture of Beverly Cleary with George W. Bush and the latter article is from NPR, which tops the article with a picture of McMurtry with President Obama. So I guess we know how to feel about the death.

I actually have been reading The Last Picture Show for a couple of days, and I absolutely hate it. McMurtry’s death is only one of the coincidences with my reading of the book. I’ll mention the other in the book report.

Cleary was 104, and McMurtry was 84.

But from today’s NY Post celebrity snaps, we have:

Snoop Dogg with his granddaughter.

Ha, ha! You’re old, old man. I still have kids in school, and can pretend like I’m young for a couple of years yet.

‘Dad bods’ are the biggest turn-on for singles in the pandemic sex era:

Embrace the bulge: Scales have once again been tipped in favor of the common man.

Nearly 75% of singles are more turned on by a “dad bod” over any other body type — including a mate with rock-hard washboard abs, according to a sexy new survey of 2,000 people by Dating.com.

Wait a minute, who is the most likely to use a dating site and not go to the latest high-end club to pick up models?

People with normal bodies.

So when they, the dating site, says that “single” especially the ones on their dating sites think a little paunch is sexy, don’t you think the paunchy would be more likely to sign up for their dating site?

Could I be more skeptical and cynical if I tried? I shall try!

Two longtime workers dead at Roundy’s Distribution Center in Oconomowoc; suspect takes own life after chase, crash:

Two longtime workers were killed inside the sprawling Roundy’s Distribution Center and the suspect later died by suicide following a car crash in Milwaukee, authorities said Wednesday.

Law enforcement officials skimped on details, but the deaths sent a shock wave through the small suburban community and reminded people across the region of other incidents of workplace violence, especially the deadly shootings at the Molson Coors brewery just over a year ago.

Two law enforcement sources identified the suspect as Fraron Cornelius, 41, of Wauwatosa. A union official said Cornelius had worked at the facility for around 20 years.

Although, to be honest, my father worked for Roundy’s when its warehouse was in Wauwatosa. It moved out to Oconomowoc after he passed away.

When I was living with him, I worked at a Roundy’s-supplied grocery store, so he would sometimes write messages on the pallets coming to my store. Of course, when he would go on strike or get locked out, I’d cross the picket lines to go to work.

Oscar Mayer Weinermobile returns to Springfield! Here’s where to find it:

The Oscar Mayer Weinermobile is rolling through the Springfield area over the next few days.

Oscar Meyer has six weinermobiles touring the country year-round. From Thursday to Saturday, the hot dog on wheels makes it first visit to the Springfield area since 2019.

Spoiler alert: The first stop, yesterday, was at the Walmart on Kearney which lies between the Air and Military Museum of the Ozarks and ABC Books.

So we saw it on our excursion yesterday that took us from one to the other.

The boys, who are young men now, were so excited to see it that they were boys again briefly.

Runner struck by projectile at Battlefield, Mo. park:

The Battlefield Police Department is trying to figure out what hit and injured a runner Thursday at a city park.

Police say a runner was on the track that circles the city park, then struck by some kind of projectile. That person went to the hospital Thursday with minor injuries and has since been released.

Hopefully, we’ll see a follow-up story. This really does nothing but lead to questions. What kind of projectile? Nerf dart? A crossbow bolt? A BB? A pellet from a pellet gun? Did the runner possibly know whomever fired it?

This park is only a couple miles up the road from me; my boys walk to it from time to time. It’s attached to the Battlefield City Hall and Police Department. It is quite likely just as safe as it ever has been, but incomplete stories like this lead to inchoate fear.

When a twentyager Internet content generator wants to OWN! the Religious Right!

Fetal Cell Lines Were Used to Make the Johnson & Johnson COVID Vaccine—Here’s What That Means

Two LSU employees had troubling records. Many ask why they’re not fired.
Former Fox host Eric Bolling considering congressional campaign

Earlier this week, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans urged its parishioners to avoid the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, calling it “morally compromised” because it was developed and tested using cells derived from aborted fetal tissue, reported NBC News on March 2.

The stance conflicts with that of the Vatican, which said in December that it was “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to receive any COVID-19 vaccine, even one based on research that originally used cells derived from aborted fetuses.

If you don’t have a solid grasp of human biology, this is where it gets pretty confusing. To be clear, there are no vaccines that involve stem cells from aborted fetuses.

Please, help confuse things further.

Johnson & Johnson confirmed in a statement released Tuesday that the vaccine formula itself includes no fetal tissue. So what does make their COVID-19 vaccine so much more controversial than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines?

The particular cells that are involved in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are called PerC6 cells. “These are retinal cells that came from a fetus that was aborted in 1985 in the Netherlands, which were treated in the lab to allow them to reproduce in lab settings since that time,” Barker explains.

Okay, so the cells used in the vaccine were the product of aborted fetus cells, not directly aborted fetus cells. So there’s not fresh aborted babies in each dose, much to Planned Parenthood’s chagrin–there go the profits!

But, truly, the unsigned author of this piece has a dizzying intellect, capable of narrowly tailoring definitions to get exactly the explanation he or she wants, regardless of whether it’s completely true or not.

Endangered tiger dies during artificial insemination procedure at Colorado zoo:

nine-year-old female tiger, Savelii, has died due to complications from an important artificial insemination procedure at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs Thursday. The zoo says it was part of a globally important reproductive effort to prevent extinction of the Amur tiger species.

For several months, the zoo had been working to breed Chewy, the male tiger, and Savelii naturally. Natural breeding for tigers can be precarious as it can often be aggressive and even result in death.

You know, there might be a metaphor for politically driven science in there somewhere.

Scouting for art, not ballplayers: 833 works from Ted and Maryanne Simmons go to St. Louis Art Museum:

In some baseball cities, after Cardinal Ted Simmons took off his catcher’s mitt, he put on a pair of white gloves.

He became friends with a museum docent near Philadelphia, a curator in Houston. They’d let him wear gloves to examine fine pottery or open an antique desk or cabinet to see it up close. “I wanted to hold that Paul Revere tankard in my hand,” he said.

In exchange, Simmons left tickets at will call so his museum friends could go to the Phillies’ or Astros’ stadium for a game.

A fair trade for a guy who, off the field, scouted art, not hitters.

Back home in St. Louis, he and his wife, Maryanne Ellison Simmons, would discuss and research art they wanted to buy. A married team for 50 years, their passion meant a home filled with beloved furniture and artwork.

Not a framed jersey to be seen.

“Collecting art enabled me and Maryanne to have a life separate from baseball,” Simmons said. Sports memorabilia was kept in the attic.

Now they are sharing their art: The St. Louis Art Museum has acquired 833 works, mostly contemporary prints but including drawings, collages and photographs.

Read the whole thing.

Although Ted Simmons also played for the St. Louis Cardinals, or so I heard, and lives in St. Louis, c’mon, man, to a boy growing up in the housing projects in Milwaukee in the early 1980s, he was a Brewer and was on the one team (one!) that went to the World Series. And lost to the Cardinals. Oh, how a Milwaukee boy born to a woman from St. Louis suffered. As did the neighbors on either side of the apartment in which we lived, as she would bang on the walls with a plastic baseball bat to let them know the Cardinals had scored a run.

Many will need to dial all 10 digits before calling soon.

C’mon, man, it just means you’ll have to type an extra couple numbers when setting the contact in your phone, ainna? I mean, who dials any more?

By the way, as my cell phone number is still from the same area, I already have to dial ten for local 417 area calls placed from my cell phone. So the actual amount of change this represents for me is very negligible indeed.

Unlike when they split the St. Louis area into two area codes in 1996 which did have an impact on me. Because suddenly calling a lot of my friends was long distance. Ask your grandparents what “long distance” meant, you damn kids.