1st Quarter 2013Week 4

Jan 20 - 26Page 1

TABLE OF CONTENTSISSUE 2013.04

SECRET CODESpages 1-4

FAMOUS WOMENSACAJAWEA

pages 5-6

SILLY PUTTYpages 7-8

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SECRET CODESby Janet Spencer

WORLD WAR IIWhen Roosevelt and Churchill were scheduled to meet in 1943, they knew the Germans were desperate to find out where the meeting would be. News was leaked that it would be at the place identified in code as Casablanca. The Germans figured that since “casablanca” was Spanish for white house, the meeting would take place at the White House. They sent all their spies to monitor the White House while Roosevelt and Churchill had an uneventful meeting in Casablanca, Morocco.• On December 6, 1941, President Roosevelt

sent a message to Emperor Hirohito in Japan pleading for peace. He sent the message by telegraph in a simple code used for every-day transmissions. In Japan, the telegram sat for ten hours unread due to a backlog of messages. Had he sent the message in a top security code, it would have reached the Emperor immediately. But it did not— and the next day, Pearl Harbor was attacked.

• Actress Lucille Ball reported that every time she walked near a certain area, she heard Japanese radio broadcasts coming across some lead fillings in her teeth. An investigation revealed a Japanese radio station hidden underground.

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Q: What do you call a frog spy?

A: A croak and dagger agent!

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We’ve lost someone who was always in our corner, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii. Unlike too many of our elected officials, Sen. Inouye was one of us. In World War II, serving in Italy in 1945, Inouye fought in an action that can only be described as horrific: After being shot in stomach, he continued fighting and leading an assault against a German stronghold. He was holding a primed grenade that he was about to throw when he was shot in that arm, leaving the grenade in his no longer functioning fist. Somehow he managed to grab the grenade with his other hand and toss it into a bunker. With his arm mostly severed, he continued fighting until he was shot in the leg and collapsed.

Forget New Mattress, See Doctor Instead

Once in a field hospital, his arm was amputated. For this action he received the Bronze Star, Purple Heart with oak leaf cluster and Distinguished Service Cross. That Cross should have been the Medal of Honor, but wasn’t, likely due to Inouye’s race. Inouye was a Nisei, a Japanese American born in Hawaii to Japanese parents who had immigrated before he was born. It wasn’t until President Bill Clinton upgraded the Cross in 2000 that Inouye received his long-overdue Medal of Honor, along with 19 others on his all-Nisei combat team.Innouye had been a senator since 1963, the second-longest serving senator, and had served in other public positions before then. It’s said that in 58 years, he never lost an election.One bill he reintroduced in the Senate time and time again was to restore Memorial Day to its historical correct date, May 30, instead of the one-size-fits-all last Monday in May. The bill never made it, but he kept trying because he believed in it.Whoever replaces Inouye in a 2014 special election in Hawaii will have some big shoes to fill.

Lose a Friend

SECRET CODES (continued):• On December 6, 1941, Japan was preparing to mount an attack on Pearl Harbor. A Japanese spy in Pearl Harbor walked right up to the telegraph office in town and sent a dispatch to his confederates describing where the warships were located. The telegram cost $6.82 and apparently nobody in the telegraph office thought it was suspicious.• On Dec. 6, 1941, a new employee at the Office of Naval Intelligence, Mrs. Dorothy Edgers (who had been employed there only a month), decoded an intercepted Japanese message that indicated Hono-lulu was to be the target of a Japanese attack. She showed it to her superior officer, who said it needed more work and could wait until Monday.• In May of 1942, the Japanese were preparing to mount a major attack somewhere in the Central Pacific. The U.S. had broken the Japanese code and were aware of the impending attack. However, they didn’t know what the target would be. The Japanese called the target “AF” and the Americans could not figure out what place that denoted. Then they came up with a scheme: they had Midway send an un-coded message saying their water distillation plant had broken down and they were short on drinking water. Then they monitored the Japanese trans-missions. Two days later, they intercepted a coded message from Japan reporting that “AF” was short of drinking water. When the Japanese descended on Midway, the American forces were ready and waiting.• When agents stormed the Japanese embassy in Portugal, they seized a Japanese code book, think-ing it would be helpful to the Allies. What they didn’t know was that the Allies had already broken the code. Now that Japan knew the code book had been stolen, they changed the code. It took a year before the U.S. could break the new code.

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DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I have back discomfort upon lying down. It doesn’t matter where I lie or what posi-tion I’m in for my back to hurt and often one or both hips. Getting out of bed in the morning is hard and uncomfortable. Once I have had my morning shower and am up and around, I’m fine.We have thought of replacing our mattress, but how do we find something that will help? What would you recommend? -- M.W.

ANSWER: I strongly recommend that you see your family doctor before you invest any money in a mat-tress.Some of what you describe fits the picture of osteo-arthritis -- stiffness upon wakening, difficulty getting out of bed and relief of symptoms after taking a hot shower. Before you spend a penny on a mattress, have your back examined and the problem diagnosed.The booklet on the different kinds of arthritis explains each and how it is treated. Readers can obtain a copy by writing: Dr. Donohue -- No. 301W, Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Enclose a check or money order (no cash) for $4.75 U.S./$6 Canada with the re-cipient’s printed name and address. Please allow four weeks for delivery.DEAR DR. DONOHUE: I looked in the mirror this morning and couldn’t believe what I saw. My right eye was bright red. It looked like someone had punched

me. When my husband saw it, he asked if he had hit me while he was asleep. He didn’t.It doesn’t hurt. My vision is perfect. My eye looks frightful. Do I need to see a doctor? -- Y.T.

ANSWER: Your question is asked repeatedly. My long-distance guess is a subconjunctival hemorrhage. The conjunctiva is a cellophane-like covering of the eye. Beneath it is a network of invisible blood vessels. When one of those delicate vessels breaks, blood cov-ers that part of the eye.Coughing, sneezing or straining causes the breakage. Sometimes it happens for no apparent reason. The eye looks awful, but no real harm is done. The blood is ab-sorbed in about a week. You can hurry it up by putting warm compresses over the closed eye.You need to see a doctor if the eye begins to pain you, if the blood stays for longer than a week or if it hap-pens time and again.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: How good are prunes for constipation? I am often constipated and have unsuc-cessfully tried many remedies. They might work for a short while, but then I am constipated again. I’d like to try the prune way, if you say that it works. -- M.A.

ANSWER: It works for many, but I can’t give you a guarantee.Five to six prunes twice a day can change your bowel habits in a week or so.Prunes have fiber, one reason why they exert a laxa-tive effect. Fiber keeps food waste moist on its passage out of the body. Prunes also contain sorbitol, a natural laxative. In addition to the laxative action, prunes have antioxi-dants, substances that counter the bad effects coming from cell chemistry.Prunes have undergone a name change; they are now called dried plums.

To Your Good Health By Paul G Donohue M.D.

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If you plan to list your home for sale when spring arrives, it’s to your benefit to use the months until then getting your property in good shape. At the very least, make plans so you can get started immediately in a few months.While it’s generally not safe to paint rooms when the doors and windows are closed, you can make your decorating plans. If you spot the paint on sale (common in the winter), go ahead and buy it now. As long as the cans stay com-pletely sealed (tuck them in a closet so they won’t freeze in your garage), the paint will be

good for a long time to come. Before you paint, take the cans back to the store and ask them to run the cans through the shaker again to en-sure the paint is thoroughly mixed.Start interviewing potential real-estate agents. Let them come through your home and tell you what items you need to fix or change to get the best sale price. Learn about the agents and what they offer, but don’t sign any contracts yet.Have a home inspection. The result will be your to-do list over the next few months. At the very least you’ll be warned about those items before a buyer hires his own inspector and notes them in a sales contract as negotiating points. If you have snow on the roof, the inspection will be a bit limited, but the condition of the house and its systems will give you an overall idea.Do interior repairs now. A new toilet and sink in

the bathroom, and later, paint, a fresh shower curtain and new towels will add to your po-tential sales price.If you’re going to have landscaping work done when warm weather comes, get on the sched-ule now. Talk with a landscape planner at a few home and garden places and nail down what you’ll want.De-clutter. For many homeowners, getting rid of excess clutter is the most time-consum-ing of all home-sale activities. Start by going through closets and toss clothes you haven’t worn in three years, and also reorganize kitch-en cabinets. Depersonalize your home by removing fam-ily photos. Look for artwork to go in the blank spots. If you find it on sale and know you won’t change your mind, go ahead and buy now.

Start Preparing Now for Spring Home Sale

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1. Is the book of Job in the Old or New Testament or neither?

2. In Luke 17, when Jesus healed 10 men of leprosy, how many returned to thank Him? 0 - 1 - 3.

3. What woman restored to life by Peter was known for helping the poor? Dorcas, Leah, Abigail, Miriam

4. Where are the names Abaddon and Apollyon used to denote Satan? 2 Peter, 3 John, Jude, Revelation

5. Who contracted leprosy for lying to the prophet Elisha? Deborah, Gideon, Gehazi, Matthew

6. From 2 Samuel 20, who led David’s armies? Aaron, Dan, Abner, Joab

Creamed Celery and Peas

If your family usually gives vegetable dishes no respect, give this ultra-easy side dish a try.

1 1/2 cups finely chopped celery1 (2-ounce) jar chopped pimiento, und-rained2 cups frozen peas, thawed1/3 cup fat-free sour cream1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1. In a large skillet sprayed with butter-fla-vored cooking spray, saute celery for 6 to 8 minutes or just until tender. Stir in undrained pimiento and peas. Continue cooking for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring often. Add sour cream and parsley flakes. Mix well to combine.2. Lower heat and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes or until mixture is heated through, stirring often. Makes 4 (3/4 cup each) servings.

¥ Each serving equals: 80 calories, 0 g fat, 5 g protein, 15 g carb., 148 mg sodium, 4 g fiber; Diabetic Exchanges: 1 Starch, 1/2 Vegetable.

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and where to poop, how to cover it up, and how to keep itself clean and neat (by washing its fur with its tongue). You can reinforce this: Set up your new cat’s litter box, as well as its bedding, toys, food and water, ahead of time. As soon as you bring your new cat home, take it to the litter box and let the cat check it out.If your cat doesn’t get it the first time, and piddles elsewhere in the house, don’t scold it. Try to catch it as soon it happens, pick the cat up and place it in the litter box. It should connect quickly.What if your cat refuses to use the litter box and goes elsewhere? Move the box to a quieter part of the house. If that doesn’t work, or if the cat appears lethargic or meows a lot, contact the veterinarian right away. Cats that don’t use the litter box often are ill, not stubborn.

DEAR PAW’S CORNER: I’m going to adopt a cat soon, and I’ve never had a pet. My friend told me that cats aren’t easy to train, so I’m worried. Will it be difficult to train my cat to use a litter box? -- Sara in Columbus, Ga.

DEAR SARA: Congratulations on adopting your first pet! Cats can be great companions. While it’s difficult to teach a cat to fetch or roll over like a dog, house training is usually much easier to accomplish.Cats have a natural instinct to cover up their droppings. This hides them from predators. A litter box caters to that instinct.A kitten that is old enough to be adopted (usually 12 weeks) has typically been taught by its mother how

Potty Training a CatBy Samantha Mazzotta

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“The first thing we did was to take into consideration the age of the contestants, and how we could best help and guide them,” she said. “They don’t live on the ranch; they are not going to be competing. We encourage the families to also change their nutrition choices, and get them out there and exercising. This is all done in a kid-friendly way.”

Q: Can you tell me when Charlie Sheen’s “Anger Management” returns for a new season? -- John R., via e-mailA: The FX comedy -- whose series premiere was the most watched cable-sitcom premiere in history -- returned on Jan. 17. The network has ordered 90 new episodes, which will be produced over the next two years.

1. PERSONALITIES: Who wrote the 1960s book “Unsafe at Any Speed,” which detailed safety shortcomings in the auto industry?

2. GENERAL KNOWLEDGE: What color is la-pis lazuli?

3. GEOGRAPHY: The Falkland Islands lie off the coast of which continent?

4. HOBBIES: What does a spelunker do?5. U.S. STATES: What is the official nickname of the state of Illinois?

6. LANGUAGE: What does the Latin term “ipso facto” mean?

7. ART: What is chiaroscuro?

8. CARTOONS: What is the name of Porky Pig’s girlfriend?

9. SCIENCE: What kind of gases are neon and helium?

10. MOVIES: Which three comedians starred in the film comedy “ÁThree Amigos!”

Answers on the back page

element, and the guy rides off in the end. But if he comes back the next time, you know there’ll be some more shooting and some girls and some action, and another little bit of the story will get told. That’s what I wanna do. I’ve never felt really compelled to do the bigger, better, more bang, more stuff. You can still make a good West-ern.”

Q: Has “Body of Proof” been renewed for another season? -- George T., via e-mailA: The Dana Delany-starring medical drama will return to ABC for its third season on Feb. 5 at 10/9c with a two-part season premiere (with the conclusion airing the following Tuesday). This season, Dr. Megan Hunt tackles the biggest case of her career, and her biggest personal mystery life: Did her father really commit suicide, or was he murdered?

Q: I love this season of “The Biggest Loser,” but I won-dered if they are nervous about including kids this time around? -- Harriet W., Owings Mills, Md.A: I spoke with host Alison Sweeney and asked her just that. Being a mom herself, she told me that the show plans to help these kids in the best way possible, and won’t make them submit to the grueling programs that the adults go through.

Q: I heard that Luke Perry and Jennie Garth are plan-ning to do a project together soon. Is that true? -- Dahlia A., via e-mailA: When I spoke with Luke recently, he was mum on the subject of Jennie, but he WAS eager to tell me about his latest Hallmark Movie Channel movie: “Goodnight for Justice: Queen of Hearts,” which pre-mieres Saturday, Jan. 26, and re-airs throughout the week. (Check local listings.)On his love for his “Goodnight” series, and Westerns in general, Luke told me: “I don’t need any aliens with my cowboys. I’ll just take my cowboys straight up if that’s OK with everybody else. We all talk about Westerns. There were some great ones made.“What I love about (the “Goodnight”) movies is that you know what you’re going to get going in, which makes it like the old Western serials that would play before the movies. There’s a bit of a cliffhanger

¥ On Jan. 31, 1606, in London, Guy Fawkes, a chief conspirator in the plot to blow up the British Parlia-ment building, jumps to his death moments before his execution for treason. He had been found lurking in a cellar of the Parliament building with 2 tons of gunpowder.

¥ On Feb. 1, 1884, the first portion of the Oxford English Dictionary is published. In 1857, members of London’s Philological Society decided to produce a dictionary that would cover all vocabulary from 1150 A.D. to the present. It took more than 40 years to complete.

¥ On Jan. 28, 1915, the captain of a German cruis-er orders the destruction of the William P. Frye, an American merchant ship off the Brazilian coast. He had ordered the Frye to jettison its cargo as con-traband, but the ship’s crew refused. It was the first American merchant vessel lost to Germany’s aggres-sion during World War I.

¥ On Jan. 29, 1922, in the middle of a film, the Knick-erbocker Theatre in Washington, D.C., collapses, killing 108 people and sending another 133 to the hospital. Accumulated snowfall from a blizzard col-lapsed the theater’s roof, which fell down on top of theatergoers.

¥ On Jan. 30, 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg names Adolf Hitler -- fuhrer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party) -- as chancellor of Germany. Hitler’s meteoric rise to prominence in Germany was spurred largely by the German people’s frustration with dismal economic conditions.

¥ On Feb. 3, 1950, Klaus Fuchs, a German-born British scientist who helped developed the atomic bomb, is arrested in Great Britain for passing top-secret in-formation about the bomb to the Soviet Union. The arrest of Fuchs led authorities to several other indi-viduals, including Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the U.S.

¥ On Feb. 2, 1991, Hurley Haywood begins his quest for his fifth win at the 24 Hours of Daytona. In 2008, Haywood retired from full-time racing with more en-durance victories (10) than any other driver.

SECRET CODES (continued):WORLD WAR I• When American decoding experts inter-cepted and deciphered a message from Germany to Mexico, they found that Germany was offering Mexico a large chunk of the United States if only Mexico would join with them in the war. This message was pivotal in pushing the U.S. into World War I.• Zeppelin L-49 was returning to Germany during World War I after having bombed London. It was over France when it ran out of fuel. There was no way the aircraft was going to make it back to Ger-many. The captain, knowing they were doomed to be captured, knew it was essential to get rid of the code books. But he couldn’t burn the books because the zeppelin was filled with flammable gas. So he or-dered his men to shred the books and toss the pieces of paper over the side. When they were captured, Colonel Richard Williams of the U.S. Army Intelligence was frustrated when he found that the code books had been destroyed. So he sent the troops out to search the ground following the path the airship had taken. By nightfall they had collected 22 sacks full of tiny scraps of paper. Williams set his men to the task of reconstructing the book. By midnight they had put together a complete map of the North Sea showing the call sign positions for a U-boat rendezvous.• William and Elizabeth Friedman were a mar-ried team of cryptanalysts who were instrumental in

cracking many codes. Once the British sent themsome sample messages from a new encoding device they were considering using throughout the British Army. Within three hours of receiving the five mes-sages, the Friedmans had deciphered them. The first message, ironically enough, said, “This cipher is absolutely indecipherable.”

EARLIER WARS• A captured slave was brought to General Lysander, leader of the Spartan forces around 400 B.C. A message the slave was carrying was handed to the General. There were many hostilities going on, so Lysander suspected the message would bear important information. However, it did not. Then he noticed the slave’s belt was decorated with a series of letters that made no sense. He took the belt and wrapped it around a thin rod. There, down the side of the rod, was a perfectly legible message. It said that the Persians— who were supposed to be allies of the Spartans— were planning to take over. Thus fore-warned, Lysander rushed his forces back to Sparta and ruined the plot.• Around 300 B.C. Histiaeos was the gover-nor of the ancient Greek city Miletus. He was being held under guard and couldn’t get any messages out— but it was imperative that he inform his people behind enemy lines that he planned to overthrow Darius, the king of Persia. He shaved the head of his servant and tattooed the message on his scalp. After the hair grew back, he sent the servant out on an er-rand. The message was delivered.• During the Revolutionary War, messages were sent via Anna Strong’s clothesline. She signaled an American spy whenever a boatman was ready to carry secret messages across Long Island Sound. A black petticoat hung out to dry meant that the boat-man was waiting. The number of hankies next to it indicated which cove he was hiding in.• Paul Bernard was a French spy in World War I who sent his secret messages home by writing the essential information in the top right-hand corner of postcards, and then putting postage stamps over the writing.• Thomas Jefferson invented a coding instrument called the wheel cipher that is still used by the U.S. Navy today.

A.J.’s New Lease on His Racing Life

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WOMEN IN HISTORY:SACAJAWEAIn 1803, President Thomas Jefferson completed the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson hired Lewis and Clark to explore the area. Lewis and Clark and their men left St. Louis on their journey in 1804, and stopped to spend their first winter with an Indian tribe in what is now North Dakota. There, they met a trapper from Que-bec named Charbonneau, and his young Indian wife, Sacajawea. • Sacajawea was born in what is now Idaho around 1790. When she was 12, she was kidnapped and carried hundreds of miles away, to where Lewis and Clark met her. It is thought that Charbonneau won her hand in marriage in a card game. When Lewis and Clark met her, she was pregnant, and soon gave birth to a baby boy named Jean Baptist.• Lewis and Clark needed someone who was familiar with the territory to help guide them to the Pacific coast, and Charbonneau was a good match. Having his wife along was very advantageous for several reasons. First, she spoke Shoshone and served as an interpreter. Second, she was familiar with the country and helped make crucial decisions regarding which route they should take. Finally, having a woman and a baby along on the expedition convinced other tribes that the group of men was a peaceful party, and not a war party. • There was one other reason why her presence was important. Lewis and Clark knew that they would

Not only has the flu arrived early this season, but it appears to moving quickly. Seniors are at risk of becoming extremely ill from the flu, so it’s up to us to do everything we can to avoid catching it.

We say this to little kids all the time: “Keep your hands away from your face.” But it’s true. Granted, the flu is respiratory and is generally spread through someone sneezing or coughing near us, but flu germs can live on surfaces. If transferred to our hands and then our face, we can catch the flu.

An important point: People who have the flu can give it to you a whole day before they even know they’re getting sick.

Some hints to avoid the flu:--Carry hand wipes when you shop. If the store

doesn’t have any near the carts, use yours to wipe down the handle and seat before you touch it.

--Use alcohol-based wipes on your phone and doorknobs at home, just in case.

--Stock up on hand sanitizer and keep a small bottle with you when you go out.

--Stay out of stores after school hours when small children might be with their parents.

If you haven’t had a flu shot for some reason, call your doctor and ask if you should have one. Age alone, if you’re over 65, can put you in a high-risk category, and so can any medical condition you might have.

If you do get the flu, ask your doctor about a prescription for an antiviral drug. The drugs work best if started within two days of getting sick. They can make the symptoms a little easier to handle, and they can prevent complications like pneumonia.

Avoiding the Flu

need to abandon their boats in order to cross the mountain range that separates what is now Mon-tana and Idaho. In order to do that, they would need to procure horses from the Indians. They hoped Sacajawea could help them negotiate a trade when the time came. • After months of grueling travel, the explorers reached the head of the Missouri river in August of 1805, and began looking for Indians who could pro-vide them with horses. Sacajawea recognized the area they were in, as it was very close to the place where she had been born. In an incredible stroke of luck, the first Indian scouting party they met was led by none other than Sacajawea’s own brother, who had not seen her since she had been kidnapped years before. It was an emotional reunion, which was made much harder when her brother was forced to tell her that their parents had died while she was away. Of course, Lewis and Clark and all their men were treated like family, loaded with provisions, and sold all the horses they needed to make the difficult crossing. • Sacajawea, Charbonneau, and Jean Baptist remained with Lewis and Clark for the duration of their two-year journey, and eventually even moved to St. Louis at the request of Clark. Clark even adopted Jean Baptist as his own son, making sure the boy received the best possible education and ensuring he was given many opportunities to travel the world. Jean Baptist died at the age of 61.• What became of Sacajawea is uncertain. It’s known that she gave birth to a baby daughter while she lived in St. Louis, who died as a child. Some claim Sacajawea died of a fever at the age of 25; others say she died an old woman in 1884. • It is sad to reflect that if Sacajawea died in 1884, she would have lived long enough to see the genocide and subjugation of the Indian nation by the very nation of people she had assisted by leading them across the wilderness as a young woman.

It’s racing, after all. So it’s only natural: What goes around, comes around. The alternative is parking behind the wall, so you go along with it. This month, A.J. Allmendinger is right back where he was a year ago. But boy, oh boy, has the scenery changed. Nearly a year ago, Allmendinger carried the Michael Shank Racing team to victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona and was sitting atop the racing world.His outgoing demeanor, quick wit and ready smile made him a perfect fit for modern racing stardom. And that seemed to be in store, since he was on the cusp of long-awaited NAS-CAR success at the highest level, or so it seemed. Several weeks before last year’s Rolex, he’d been hired by Roger Penske to replace Kurt Busch in Penske’s No. 22 Sprint Cup Series ride.But any momentum Allmendinger owned disappeared in a long string of mediocre (and worse) finishes during the first half of the 2012 Cup season. But finishing several laps down and behind the wall is nothing compared with the sidelin-ing he suffered when he returned to Daytona in July for the midseason 400-miler. Not long after NASCAR’s traveling road show set up shop for an early-July weekend, word spread about Allmendinger failing a random drug test.“That’s when all the hell in my life started -- the July race (in Daytona),” he said during last week’s Daytona sports-car test session. Allmendinger soon lost his Penske ride. When his suspension was lifted, he did mop-up duty the last month of the Cup sea-son for James Finch’s Phoenix Racing. As of now, the Rolex 24, with his defending-champ teammates at Michael Shank Racing, is the lone entry on his to-do list.But he’s painting a positive picture.“I’m a lot better person than I was when I sat here a year ago,” Allmendinger said. “Racing is a priority, but it doesn’t have to control your life. For 30 years, it controlled my life, and once it gets taken away, it doesn’t control it anymore and you have to figure out, ‘OK, what kind of person am I?’“Once you get all those defense mechanisms and all the walls down, it’s just you standing there as a person. You gotta look at yourself every day. That’s what I do. It’s a constant battle, because there’s good and bad.”

A.J.’s New Lease on His Racing Life

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Crafty Crafters MarketplaceHere you can list your craft items

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I’m not here to say “I told you so.” I am here to give you hyper-accurate insight about your favorite sporting events before they happen ... if at all.Regular readers of this column could have known -- if they were wise regular readers -- that purchasing a ticket for the BCS Championship game in Miami was a waste of their hard-earned money. It was a bad matchup between Alabama and Notre Dame, particularly if you were on the Irish Catholic side of the equation. Whenever there’s a marked disparity between any two parties, doesn’t hilarity, in turn, often ensue? Isn’t that why you need two sides of the magnet, the opposite polarities in life. Every Abbot needs a Costello and unto every Martin may there be a Lewis. Jack, meet Diane. Gryffindor guy, you go have fun over there, flying around the sky on your broom with those Slytherins.For me, my favorite odd coupling, if you will, was Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, two more-authentic-than-fiction guys played by Jack Klugman and Tony Randall on stage and screen. They used to call them “The Odd Couple.”The story goes like this: Felix was kicked out of his house and divorced by his wife ... a divorce Felix did not want. Felix, a sports photographer, turns to his friend, newspaper sports writer Oscar Madison (also recently divorced), and Oscar agrees to let him crash at his apartment for a while. Felix was anal retentive; Oscar was a slob. Felix was effeminate, while Oscar was the living embodiment of masculinity because he was a sports writer (duh).The storyline almost always followed the formula of Oscar not necessarily saying he told Felix so ... but that Felix would have been better off if he had been a little more, you know, regular. And since the playwright, Neal Simon, was said to take particular pride in basing his stories on real-life events, the part where the sports writer is always right would seem plausible always. According to The New York Times, an esteemed daily newspaper who paid somebody to look into the matter, Oscar’s three-bedroom apartment in the 14-story walkup at Central Park West and Park Avenue would be worth $4 million in today’s money. Oscar was likely renting at the monthly rate of $30,000. Again ... $30,000 per month -- and that’s before utilities and the party-line phone with the Pigeon sisters. All of that, plus nightly poker games, on newspaper sports writer and photographer’s salary! But, you regular readers know, as you do get a little more wise, you make your way a bit further down the authentic South Beach experience, you learn that maybe guys like Felix weren’t all that different from the regular guys after all, and that his story maybe rang a bit more true than Oscar’s. Does that say your shouldn’t listen to a sports writer when he tells you so? Of course not. It merely underscores the fact that you should never trust a playwright.

A Sporting ViewBy Mark Vasto

L o c a l l y O w n e d

P r o m o t i n g L o c a l B u s i n e s s e s

An Odd Coupling

BIBLE TRIVIA ANSWERS: 1) Old; 2) 1; 3) Dorcas; 4) Revelation; 5) Gehazi; 6) Joab Answers

1. Ralph Nader2. Blue3. South America4. Explore caves5. Land of Lincoln6. By the fact itself7. Use of light and shadow in artwork8. Petunia9. Noble gases10. Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short

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archaeologists arrived and took the statue of Aphrodite to France. King Louis XVIII dubbed it the Venus de Milo and donated it to the Louvre, where it remains today.

¥ You might be surprised to learn that Humphrey Bogart wasn’t the producers’ first choice for the role of Rick in “Casablanca.” An actor named George Raft was originally offered the part, but he turned it down because he didn’t like the script.

¥ In 2010, a new species of slug was discovered in the mountains of Borneo. It is distinguished from other species of slug by its novel method of mating: It shoots its mate with a so-called love dart made of calcium carbonate and containing hormones. The researchers nicknamed the gastropods “ninja slugs.”

¥ If you’re traveling to Kansas anytime soon, be sure to remember that it is against the law in that state to catch fish with your bare hands.

¥ During the original run of the classic 1960s TV series “Gilligan’s Island,” some viewers took the show rather too seriously. Several telegrams were sent to the U.S. Coast Guard asking why the poor people hadn’t yet been rescued. ***Thought for the Day: “I want a man who is kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?” -- Zsa Zsa Gabor.

¥ It was Martin Luther King Jr. who made the following sage observation: “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”

¥ Are you a dromomaniac? If you travel compulsively, you are.

¥ The famed statue Venus de Milo was lost to history for nearly 2,000 years. No one knew of its existence until 1820, when a Greek peasant tilling a field on the island of Milos hit stone -- several carved blocks of stone, to be specific. Within a few weeks,

The Greater Birmingham Humane Society, found-ed in 1883, is the largest and oldest humane soci-ety in Alabama. Over the course of our history we have witnessed the changes in our community and yet have never left the original mission of Dr. Phil-lips “to promote respect for life through education and prevention of cruelty to animals and people”

Animal Adoption - 205.942.1211 - 300 Snow Drive, Birmingham, AL 35209 - WWW.GBHS.ORG

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RuthFemale, Puppy

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CarlisleMale, Puppy

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TuxMale, Kitten

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AllieFemale, Adult

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DevonMale, Kitten

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Any Questions or ConcernsEmail us at: kkeith@gbhs.org

The Greater Birmingham Humane Society (GBHS) is a nonprofit in Birmingham, Alabama that has been serving abused and abandoned pets in Birmingham since 1883. The Greater Birmingham Humane Society was one of the first humane societies in the United States. Today the GBHS cares for nearly 9,000 animals a year and serves pets and people through their various programs which include, but are not limited to, pet adoptions, animal cruelty prevention, and humane education.

Please email us your questions to kkeith@gbhs.org

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