Purple Martins and the fledgling sparrow

Today is DDay. June 6, 1944 perhaps one of the most significant days in our history. God bless those who were left in graves on Normandy. Friday June 3rd was a day worth recalling. In my driveway that day I noticed a speckled shell, half open and the pinky flesh of a baby bird. I stood for a moment mersmerized by the hairless, eyeless creatures, struggling , stretching, laboring to be born, to break free its shell. At fist glimpse I was unsure of what I was seeing. I'd had seen assassin bugs on the drive, huge nasty-looking creatures and thought this one of them. I stopped myself from stomping on the thing I thought was a bug. I'm glad I did. In a split second I realized that this was not a bug but a bird, or rather a bird in a shell.

Rather than interfere with the bird and knowng that its age there was little I could do, I left it to its fate.

The next day June 4th Saturday morning I looked and there was that tiny bird still trying to crack out of its shell... the creature had been there 24 hours and was still fighting for its life.

Now to back up and prepare to tell the rest of the story. Our mail box is a large metal contraption. The upper part, polished brass for mail, the lower level is a slot where the newpaper would normally be placed. About a month or less ago, we stopped subscribing to the local paper. Several weeks after that I noticed hay, grass and other materials pushed to the back of the storage area under the mail box. I knew birds had made a nest there, but not what kind. Later in the day, the grass and hay were back, the rebuilding had begun again, this time with my knowledge and approval.

As it happens we have been visited by one of the more private and reclusive birds: purple Martins. Purple Martins are known to build their nests high. Many people in this area have long poles with bird houses on them. Martins seek these out. Martins avoid lower nests, will not nest near a tree and are very selective. All of which I didn't know before discovering the nest. Since then I've learned a great deal about purple marins. It is said that once Martins build a nest they return to it year after year. Not only that but they return on a schedule. almost the same day each year. I also leanred that Martins will not harbor or nurse other birds.

Well back on my Saturday time line. I picked up the fledgling, though it wasn't even to that point, and held it in my hand. The bird, moved attempting to shake the shell off itself. Knowing I could do nothing for the bird and unaware of what species it was I thought- the nest of Marins is six feert away. I'll put it there. Several hours later, after the mail came, I looked on the ground and the shell and bird had been evicted from the nest.

I picked up the bird again and my wife got her bird book out. It seems our little fellow was a sparrow.. a very common bird in this area. I still couldn't decide waht to do. Obviously at some point I had to put the little bird somewhere and hope for the best.

After holding the little bird for an hour and taking some moving film, I put it back in the newspaper slot where the Martins have their nest. I made sure to put it as far back as I could. Several times over the last few days I have checked, the sparrow and its shell were no where to be found and I presumed the Martins have adopted it. I hope though as I mentioned Martins are not knownt to adopt other species. What happened to the little guy I cannot say but I can comment on what I have discovered about the amazing Martins.

First these Martins should not be living under my mail box which is only 4-5 feet off the ground. Second Martins are rare and brave. Whenever I go to the mail box the Martins flee the nest, landing as close as possible and constantly keeping an eye on me. As I open the mail box, the Martins begin diving toward me, emitting a scream. The Martin is a small bird, with wings that remind me of a Stealth Bomber. The wings are short and have an aerodynamic angle to their edges. Thus the Martin is able to swoop and dive at full speed. Not that they frighten me, but it does get to be an annoyance to simply try to get the mail. The Martins pitch a fit, will not fly off and abandon the nest. Instead they remain steafast and bold, swooping and screaching.

Have the Martin's adopted the sparrow? I can't say. I hope so. And finally one last interesting but unrelated comments. As I said whenever I go to our mail I lightly tap the mail box, alerting the Martins to flee. Notice dear read the next time you see a police car stop a driver that the police will always touch either the back fender of back door of the car stopped-in as they approach the driver. They does thise in order to leave finger prints, marking the car just in case. Irrelevant to purple Martins and Sparrows but interesting none the less.

Stay tuned. We will try to download the film of the sparrow in its shell.

Marshall Dillon has died

Sad news from the world of entertainment, the man who played Marshall Matt Dillon for 20 years on the TV show Gunsmoke died today or yesterday; the scroll on the news station screen didn't specify. Who can forget the impact the man had on generations of young Americans. This was a hero, not only on the screen but also in the war. At six foot seven and a half inches, Arness was not eligible to train as a fighter pilot, his chosen interest in the war effort. Instead he became a soldier and served in the Italian Campaign,. Wounded at Anzio, Arness always displayed the stiffness in his leg from that wound. His huge presence seemed to be the reason for his long strides and odd manner of walking but it was the wound that caused that... Also I can also remember how Arness mounted and dismounted his beuatiful gray quarter horse, Buck. He always pulled that injured leg over and off the saddle stiff-leggedly.

So what was it about Matt Dillon that made him so much a part of our television history. The list of charatersitics is unlimited. Dillon stood for law and order in the wild, reckless world populated by unsavory, vicious and dangerous villains. Matt was always there to shore up any clamity. The good found shelter in his immense shadow; the evil- justice.. Probably the most intriguing aspect of Gunsmoke was the unspoken relationship of Matt and Kitty Russell, the proprietress of the Long Branch Saloon. Kitty had the tendency to say Maaatt with a cooing, admiring tone which lead viewers to believe there was a relationship. So year after year we waited to see if the saloon keeper and the Marshall would ever marry, if the show would ever indulge us with an explanantion of their relationship. He was her hero and ours. But if were they intimate, why wouldn't they marry. Sad to say, Amanda Blake left Gunsmoke after the 19th season. The show aired but one more season but no mention of Miss Kitty's departure was ever mentioned. Miss Blake died of AIDS not long after leaving the show.

For me and for many of my generation, watching Gunsmoke on Saturday nights ended as we began dating and being out on Saturday nights. Of course several other factors contributed to my generations straying from its Saturday night ritual of Jackie Gleason, Have Gun Will Travel and Gunsmoke. First the change from black and white to color affected the film noire, the black and white certainty of the law and seemed to diminsh the show. Then the show moved from a half hour to the whole hour which diluted its impact. Also new characters were added, Newly and Festus, and Arness began to fade into a perpetual state of being away only to return in the nick of time to save Dodge from the wicked. For me the longer show appeared to be just padding.. By that I mean half hour scrips were being extended to an hour with digressions and humor. None of these features improved the show! Rather they seemed to be the work of advertising. Here was a popular show with a loyal following. Have Gun Will Travel left the air and Gunsmoke attempted to fill the vacancy but didn't.

For me Gunsmoke was a integral part of growing up. It taught values our society held and was moving towards. Matt was a good man, fair and decent. He treated the Indian renegades with dignity and decency. In later episodes racial considerations came into the scripts. Black characters began to appear on the show and Matt was a model of the equality toward blacks which our soceity was now beginning to recognize. We, as a nation, were moving towards a more fair society and Matt showed us that this was the right thing to do. He took the side of freed slaves being pressed upon by racists, ex-Confederates and other unsavory types. The lesson to the country was that things were changing. Our heroes recognized the evil of our ways and were showing us the way we ought to behave as a society and individuals.

Then there was the explosive element of Viet Nam, student protests, drugs and sex and rock and roll. Gunsmoke was out of its element. True, the values we had been learning on Saturday nights had been planted and blossomed. Westerns became passee, cowboys associated with racism. The morals that Gunsmoke gave us didn't fade though. We may have strayed from our Saturday nights at home with the family watching the tube into the abyss of sex and drugs and rock and roll but we held tight to those principles that Gunsmoke so surreptitiously taught, equality under the law, fairness, honesty. Even our mission in Viet Nam played back to those values.. we were going to help the weak against the strong incursion of the evil Red Empire. This was what America was all about, or so we thought in our more lucid moments. Like Matt Dillon we were going to ride to the rescue of the down trodden, the over run, the weak. We were Marshall Dillon riding high in the saddle.. our morality as large as Arness himself. Those who served carried these principles forward into action. Those who didn't felt that their efforts to stop the war were also based on the things we learned watching Gunsmoke.

As mentioned in a previous blog, what truly amazes this writer is the caliber of writing on Gunsmoke, Paladin and indeed most Westerns including Wagon Train and The Virginia. The writing augmented the message. The stories were life lessons, morality plays. Those Western helped form our modern values. I miss the caliber of shows but am gratefull that they are available on DVD.. and now on channels such as the Western Channel. If the reader can find DVD's or broadcasts of Gunsmoke, I suggest the reader take time and watch. You will be amazed at how influential Gunsmoke and other Westerns were. Why they got such a bad rap in later years confuses me. I guess the level of killing, all in the line of duty, was unacceptable. I guess our tastes changed. All that aside there will never be another television show with the power of Gunsmoke. This humble writer smells an opportunity... a movie of Gunsmoke. It's going to happen.

For this writer I have set aside my middays to watch Gunsmoke, I scower the shelves at Sam's for DVD's of these and other shows and I revel in the glory and greatness of 1950-60's television. God bless James Arness.. a hero both on and off the television screen.

why we love and hate westerns

Last Halloween a trick or treater came to our door. I guess the little guy was about 5 and with his dad. The boy had on a holster, gun, boots, cowboy hat and maybe even spurs. I thought to myself.. today young boys don't get holsters and guns as they did when I was a kid. So this little fellow was an immediate flash back to my youth. Without knowing it, a tender spot for those cowby shows was touched, smitten when after I asked the little guy what or who he was. He boldly offered "a cowboy." His dad added, there aren't many of those left. My mind did flips.. True quite true. I had a momentary flash of depression over the

loss of that spirit, the can do attitude that fueled my nostalgic desire for Westerns. Here's the good news.

They're back! Yes, westerns are back, well at least at my house. It all started when I first discovered that Gunsmoke is on my cable carrier every day at noon and one o'clock. Then as a guest as my son's house I found that his cable included a Western Channel. After that I got a DVD of Have Gun WIll Travel, Season 4. The more I watched the more I reflected on the the themes of the shows I was able to watch. Surreptitiously those Westerns carried important moral lessons, most being 'morality plays" in the classic sense. Exactly what is a morality play.. a story which teaches a moral lesson. Watching Marshall Dillon and Paladin I kept seeing the moral lessons of the 50's and 60's repeated in show after show. Tolerance, honesty, character, respect for the law were repeated season after season. Those values stuck to us, made tremendous impressions. Especially because our parents sanctioned and even watched the shows with us. What impresses me most is the caliber of writing in these two shows.

Gunsmoke was the preeminent TV Western. The show ran for an incredible 20 years. I recall one episode in which Anthony Zerbe plays two roles, twins, one a priest , the other a bandit. The dialogue was filled with Biblical quotes as the plot unfolded.. Thematically this was the battle between good and evil as its centerpiece. The evil brother had also once been inclined towards a career as a clergyman but fell because of a flaw. Evil brother and good brother are juxtaposed with evil one showing no fear of damnation. Eventually Matt Dillon tracks the bad brother to a church where the evil brother has asked for sanctuary. In the course of sanctuary, good and evil brothers argue, and good brother strikes the evil one killing him in a scene reminiscent of the death of Thomas a Beckett in the movie version of Beckett. As I checked the credits I caught the name of the writer, William Kelley. My insatiable curiousity lead me to Google up Mr. Kelley whose credits were amazing. He won an Oscar and write dozens and dozens of shows. This particular episode was noteworthy for its excellent camera work, the director did a smashing job of photgraphing Anthony Zerbe in his dual role. Yes, that's been done. But Gunsmoke did it very well. Then I saw an episode of Have Gun Will Travel that was actually called Everyman.. a morality play I often taught. Boom. I finally got it. But even more impressive is the level of writing, acting and directing. Those two things seem to be a thing of the past. Never mind the moral lessons or the values which we boomers learned on Saturday night on CBS; it is the writing that most impresses me. Televion today has descended into a series of 'reality shows' and talent searches. No need for writers, no cost for performers, nothing but commercials. How about those commercials that are shown twice back to back. Isn't that insulting. As an aside, relevant but a bit off target, who has been swayed to buy Geico insurance by the guy doing his Joe Friday immitation.

What did Westerns provided us with in the 50's. Short answer, heroes and justice. The bad guy always got his due, justice was served. So that's what we loved and still love about Westerns. Maybe it was the two-fisted, no back-down characters who not only brawled but also showed a more tender side when dealing with children and women.

Now to flip the discussion to criticism of Westerns. I notice that Paladin kills at least one guy every episode, some times several. Thus one could say that the shows promoted the idea that justice too often came fom the barrel of a gun. And in our anti-gun culture, kids are discouraged from playing cowboys for many reasons. Native Americans when they were included were portrayed as savages. This charaterization ran smack dab into the awakening of a new view of Native Americans. They were savages, half clad, wearing war paint, threatening the settlers and comitting unspeakble atrocities. The acidity of that view has since been changed. We became aware of the atrocities in the West that America perpetrated on the indigenous peoples. Westerns became associated with horrific acts committed by the whites who settled the west. Really wasn't the area already settled? Oh well, you get the idea. Our collective conscious got to us and told us that cowboys and Westerns perpetuated those very views so liking such shows was racist.

The shows also were characterized by all white casts.. seldom did a minority appear. I pull back on that generalization because Paladin did have an Oriental woman in a recurring role, Unfortunately her name was always Hey Girl. Many may say that Westerns had a racist crust to them, no doubt there is something to that argument. But that wasn't specific to Westerns, it was true in all programs. Can anyone ever remember Perry Mason defending a black person. Not likely. Then there is the whole negative view of cowboys as racists, red necks a stereotype that has come down to us. Is there truth to the stereotype. I can't say that.. I think that there were cowboys of all colors in the West, they just weren't on television because in the 50's , when America had a population of 180,000,000 and the majority of people were white, advertising and programing were geared to sponsoring shows that that audiences wanted to see.. and audiences like to see people like themselves. Today our population has nearly doubled, The WWII generation has almost disappeared from the country and a new sensibility , a new code has been established. A code which associates anything pre-twenty-first century as racist and evil. Despite that Westerns continue to attract us. I hope they always will because there was much good in them.

the finite infinitive

Not to be or to not be that is the topic in question. What does this splitting of the infinitive or its verb say about the misuse of language? It is not merely ignorance, laziness or the declining use of the English language. Rather I think the implications go much deeper. An infinitive has infinite possibilities. It is raw, uncooked, off the leaf, the seed of future use but what can we say about this change in use...perhaps it's always been so, perhaps it 's a cultural trend to be noted and expanded to other areas of life. First one notices that the verb stands alone with its negation separated from its coded form, proclaimed by the infinitive to. Not to know is very much different from to not know... the emphasis shifts from knowing to the ever expanding 'not' of the speaker. One may deduce that this shift is an example of the effect of individual speakers strengthening the negation. We hear this in the sarcastic comment to certain activities.. I'm going to Europe, NOT. Something humorous comes out of this... we're being the butt of a joke.. with NOT the punch line. Quite similarly the negation from a distance is a play on language , a divergence from it with NOT becoming an auxiliary verb itself. Verbs are morphing into nouns and other parts of speech.

Recently I heard a foreign-born speaker who actually used the infinitive correctly which amazed me.. I thought it worth mention that native speakers in the U.S. almost categorically misuse this convention. One could explore the rise and fall of the English infinitive, NOT. Why bother most will ask? People understand what's being said! BFD, split the infinitive what's the harm? Everybody knows what is meant.

The contracting of language use is implicit in this one departure from convention. Convention thus becomes unconventional. The new language, the plain English movement has played its role. Parring down adverbs and adjectives seems to make more people sound literate.

Every infinitive split from its root source becomes a different verb. Using the the opening lines as a template, one can infer that not to be is conclusive, final, ontological, uncorrupted. A thing, state of being or action is NOT... In the modern use.. it is not the verb which receives its positive or negative charge from its infinitive form. With a split infinitive, the adverb turned auxiliary verb "NOT" becomes primary.. One might as well say to not makes 'not' a verb instead of a verb marker. Nothing new, English is endlessly flexible constantly flexing its muscles, inventing new words, changing the use of others.. nouns become verbs, verbs become adjectives.

But what does this splitting of the infinitive say beyond the lack of grammatical instruction in our society? Many things! First we are a pragmatic people. If you understand my meaning, who cares if you use the proper form in any case. Second I believe that putting the 'not' directly in front of the verb adds emphasis. I don't approve, but it's happening.. Infinitives are probably not going to be in the future. I hold the first view that this one example shows a larger problem. Anyone who understands pronoun cases in English ( as simple as pronoun cases can be) will daily cringe to hear for you and I, for she and me or him and me done went there. It occurs to me that correct use of pronoun case (and there really only two which can be confused: nominative and objective) is a direct consequence of the "whole language" movement. However,as we are a litigious society, a disembodied verb pre-empted by negation as if the negation itself had become a anti-verb, alone verb-like in its popping about, makes sense.

Which brings me to pronouns cases. Some one one asked me if I could explain it in 30 minutes, I knew she meant 15, hoping for maybe 5. I said I couldn't do it and didn't. It can be done in 90 minutes with 3-4 drills and then a quiz. I didn't have the time, she didn't want to spend it... so heck with it. You see a pronoun takes a verb in 3 ways: the easiest way is the possessive, almost always the easiest and most correctly used: mine, your, her, their, ours, its, the exception being the possessive before a participle (but that's another lesson). Simple one down, two to go: Nominative pronouns I, you, he, she, we you , they- the active doers work with verbs as the doers of the verb r the be-ers of the verb. Am I sounding pretentious. Too bad.

We can tag a pronoun onto the Subject-Verb and make it an objective pronoun and here's whereit gets tricky: Lisa called her,. They saw me. I saw Lisa and her. Lisa saw her and me, The objective case pronouns : me, you, him, her, they, your (p)them are almost exclusively direct objects. What the heck is a direct object... and why does anyone care. Good point. Stop reading, if you're bored, or in text-soeak if your board.

But these are only two of the many misuses we daily hear. Verb tenses seem to perplex many people.. I seen them, I have saw them... are a few examples of uses I often hear. This is often true with verbs expressing the primary states of being... to have, to be, to do with an auxiliary such as to have. I'm sure this reflects a deeper disconnect people have with language and existence. It's so simple, so logical once one understands the basic sentence structure of English. But why is such widespread misuse spreading and why does it continue to spread (or to continue to spread)with almost alarming rates.

Here is a superficial look at several common errors one hears everyday, both on television and in society. Homophones, homonyms and words that sound alike are often improperly used... It may be a simple as hearing loss.. as in the case of a Median Strip not a Medium Strip on a highway. Also note the use of bobbed wire and rot iron. More to the point there is the confusion over Cavalry and Calvary. Christ was not crucified at Mt. Cavalry. It was Mount Calvary. Here we have sorry example of the growing decline of historical perspective that is an after-effect of the secular humanist-linguist movement. Get real Lem who even knows where Christ was crucified.

Nothing so aggravates this writer like the subject-verb disagreement and improper pronoun use one hears on the major television networks from so-called educated people. People who as journalism students should have had a basic understanding of English grammar, usage and its parts of speech and their proper use. NOT. What are journalism schools teaching, body language, politically correct terminology or libel and slander law? But it doesn't end there... I've heard things from so-called tele-journalists that worry me. One Fox commentator referred to the American flag as the stars and bars... which is what the Confederat flag was called. Recently a Fox anchor called North Korea a tenderbox... instead of tinderbox... Either the sympathies of the reporter were in the right place.. or perhaps it was an unconscious double entender. For educated people responsible for reporting, such gaffs are unacceptable. Can anyone argue that not reporting the news in conventional English is a continuing source of language misuse across society.

So who cares? Nobody! This commentator will continue studying and enjoying the use and misuse of the English language. To not do so or not to do so would be laziness which is probably the root of all our language gaffs and not to do so would be a criticism that this writer is unwilling to admit. For one who loves language, the peculiarities and variances are a source of endless complaint and often joy.

More later or NOT.

Media Matters

Media matters

Recently I've been collecting misinformation, partiality and out-right lies from various media outlets, namely television news broadcasts. Point, there are biases in news reporting. In fact I dispute that there is any way not to report according to a given point of view: the Heisenberg Effect being my reference here. But there are also errors which make for humorous commentary.

My observation of media bias finally drove me to write about things I've seen and heard. I'll begin with June 6, 2010 and CNN. On DDay I was unable to find any mention of the importance of the date in our local newspaper. No kidding, not a word! Later in the day I began watching CNN at 6 in the evening- to be honest 6:30. From 6:30 to 7:00 CNN did a piece on Black-Jewish dialogues followed by a piece on Lebron James. Perhaps I missed the tribute to DDay that CNN showed. Perhaps there wasn't one. Still, CNN should have dedicated more time to this most important day in our nation's history.

On the day that President Obama first visited Louisiana to assess the damage done by the BP oil spill, Fox News made comments that 300 workers had been hired, albeit off the street, to make the President's visit a photo-op. Asinine! The three hundred individuals on the beach were most likely Navy Seals or some other elite branch of the military. It would be ludicrous to send the President of the United States to a beach with 300 people who have had no security check. Shame on Fox for claiming that the President's visit was merely a photo-op, staged with complete strangers.

Several nights ago while watching Chris Matthews on CNBC , I was appalled. Mr. Matthews was blathering on and on about James Bond- I didn't catch the beginning of the piece. Matthews

blithely said (and I paraphrase here), "We all loved the James Bond books when we were kids. I read all of them." Now, Matthews may have been alluding to the works of Ian Fleming but his phrasing made it sound as though James Bond was the author. Shame on Matthews for disseminating what could be misconstrued as false information.

But it gets better, or worse:

Fox is not immune to idiotic comments. On Friday, July 2,2010, Doocey the younger was reporting on a huge American flag which is hung on the Brooklyn Bridge. After blathering on and on about the size of the stars (3 feet in diameter) and the stripes (five feet tall) Doocey referred to the American flag as the "Stars and Bars." No kidding- I nearly catapulted out of my seat. Just how dumb does a TV commentator have to be to mistakenly refer to the American flag as the Stars and Bars and not the Stars and Stripes. For Mr. Doocey's benefit and many others who do not know the difference, The Stars and Bars was the flag of the Confederacy.

Who are these reporters and where were they educated?

But here comes a true favorite. Recently our local television station ran a scroll regarding students from the Arts High School. The scroll said-and I got this verbatim-that the students would be going to Carnage Hall in New York. Carnage Hall! Obviously the person who wrote the scroll didn't know what carnage meant, had never heard of Andrew Carnegie and was completely oblivious to the error. By early the next morning, someone had edited the mistake.

Tonight one of the most mispronounced words in the English language caught my ear. Every time I hear this word mispronounced I want to grab the speaker and shake him. The word is cavalry and it usually incorrectly pronounced calvary. The irony of this is that most people who make this error don't know the significance of the word they are saying . A few other people with as much free time as I have will recognize that Mt. Calvary is where Jesus was crucified. In other words those who incorrectly pronounce cavalry, calvary need to be corrected and quickly, especially if they claim to be Christians. Or, perhaps they believe the calvary crucified Jesus on Mt. Cavalry.

People- the open area between two roads is not a medium- it's a median.

Finally and this one goes back to a radio broadcast about a famous rock and roll singer who was found dead of gunshot wounds in his family room. Ouch. You got to love those misplaced modifiers.

Please forgive any typos or other errors I may have made.

Lem

The Toylet and more

The all new cross between a Toyota and a Chevrolet will be coming soon to a dealership near you. It's called the Toylet. I hope readers will excuse this bit of bathroom humor but what a concept. Imagine a car that runs on poop. A car you can fill up without leaving the comfort of your driver's seat. Of course there is one tiny problem- emissions. But the Excrement Protection Agency (EPA) will certainly embrace and allow this daring new idea.

Only kidding folks.

Here's the heart of the matter. Many of you may know that years ago the state of Maryland and probably the United States had movie censorship boards which decided which films were suitable for public viewing and which weren't. Whatever happened to those boards? When were they disbanded? Has anything replaced them?

Today there doesn't seem to be any standard for films. Has anybody else noted how many films have not been rated and yet are coming to theaters near you? But the real question that confronts us is what happened to the Constitution that allowed such censorship in those days? Isn't it the same Constitution? When did it change? Who changed it? Why? Oh, I get it: it's the same Constitution only with a different interpretation? I guess it's the new and improved Constitution, upgraded for today's audiences. But is everything really new and improved? Could it be new and unimproved or old and unimproved? While you are wrapping your mind around that, have a nice day or maybe not.

ENTERTAINMENT AND LIESURE(sic)

I can spell but Fox News can't! Today, April 2, 2010, Fox News ran a scroll about the improvement in the jobs market as issued by the White House. One area which showed marked growth was (according to Fox) Entertainment and Liesure. Now was Fox making a joke of the president's comments or was this a spelling error made by the network. According to Lem- in this his first article under the new title Lem's Gems (formerly known as Lem's Corner)- Fox would do well to hire proof readers or at least people who can read and write the English language instead of filling up its air time with an endless line of pretty faces. Don't take that the wrong way. I like the faces Fox has hired but in the process, Fox is besmirching its reputation by not hiring editors and production staff who have some skills in the English language. This is the least a network that claims to be America's 'fair and balanced' network can do. By the way Fox- I'm available. I wouldn't be the first former teacher to grace the payroll at Fox, would I.

Here's a gem from the pen of Lem. Ever wonder what the advertising phrase "new and improved" means? Here you go: it means we (the manufacturers) have a new package (as in the 11.5 ounce pound of coffee) that has "improved" our (the manufacturers) profits. So that's what's new and improved.

Consider this: somewhere in this great land of ours there is a government sponsored program designed to find out whether woodpeckers get headaches from their pecking. Well, if there isn't one- there will be. Or should there be? Think of the positive benefits- we could find out what chemical in the woodpecker's brain prevents or cures its headaches. Isn't that something we could all agree is worth tax payers' money? The Entertainment and Liesure industry could sell this compound to all those who can afford to be entertained and liesurely.

I hope any and all who've read this enjoyed the humor of it. And don't forget to tune in for another episode of LEM'S GEMS.