Midweek miscellany

I told you a lie. Not intentionally. But a lie, nonetheless. It turns out that Dr. John Linna of Neenah, Wisconsin, is not a 69-year-old retired Lutheran minister. Dr. John Linna of Neenah, Wisconsin, is a seventy-year-old retired Lutheran minister. So sue me.

Maybe something that isn’t true is not a lie if the person who said it thought it was true when he or she said it. (When does “intelligence” become “flawed intelligence” become “falsehood” become “lied through his teeth”? We’re still sorting that one out as a society, aren’t we? A recent U.S. president is still being vilified in many quarters because of this very question.)

Be that as it may, Dr. John Linna has posted another knee-slapper on his blog:

“I gotta tell ya them Science people got it all over us dumb flat earth lay people type guys.
Take this Global Warming stuff.
Dere was no question da earth was getting warmer.
I mean even us dummies could see that polar ice melting and feel with da poor polar bears.
But to make C02 da cause that was brilliant.
They had dis graph made by a computer and ya know it showed that correlation between the C02 and the warming. Ya it did.
Well it did for a while. But den da warming didn’t keep up with da graph.
Minor glitch they said.
Well even us dumb flat earth people know computer projections aren’t hundirt per cent.
But then C02 kept going up ( ve tried our best to stop it it) but da warming didn’t.
In fact for three years the United States got colder.
Now Europe got dat colder too.
At dis point us dumb flat earth lay people would give up . Possibly C02 isn’t the culprit.
Dumb us.
The Science is settled but the vocabulary needs dat adjustment.
So the scientists gave us Global Climate Change.
Now whatever comes ve can blame dat on C02.
If we freeze den its C02
If we cook then its c02
If there is a drought then C02
If we have a flood C02.
If we have a huricane C02.
If we don’t have many hurricanes C02.
Boy I’m sure glad that science is settled.
Otherwise us dumb flat earth lay people would be looking for other causes. Dumb us
We might think sun spots or magnetic shifts, or big cities.
But we can’t do much bout those.
We can fight dat C02.
I love dat Science.”

In case you care to have a look for yourself, Dr. John’s blog is called Fortress Linna . I warn you, though, don't go over there. You will get all caught up in a little town called Pigeon Falls that is in Dr. John’s basement and then you will have to go back and read hundreds of posts so that you can understand even half of what you are reading, and unless you understand Ukrainian you will also have to find a good language translator site. You may even begin to believe in dragons.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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All of the cold weather in recent days has reminded me of some other cold places I have experienced:

Three Nebraska winters with the U.S. Air Force;
Three Poughkeepsie, New York, winters when I worked with IBM (followed, I'm happy to report, by seven much warmer winters in Boca Raton, Florida);
The month of February in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1969;
A frigid, snowy week in Michigan in early January 1982 when the temperature in Atlanta was even lower than the temperature in Detroit;
Several weeks in and near Chicago during the winter of 1984 while working for AT&T.

Speaking of Chicago, I happened to be the only occupant in an elevator in the Sheraton Hotel on Michigan Avenue when a very blond family stepped in speaking something besides English to one another. As I had spent a month in Sweden fifteen years earlier (Feb. 1 to Mar. 1, 1969 - brrrrrr!), I knew they were Scandinavian, not because of their blondness but because of the lilt of their speech. I had managed to pick up a few Swedish phrases (Var finst der herrtoaletten?, that sort of thing), so after a few seconds of wondering whether my fellow passengers were Swedish or Norwegian or Danish, I took a chance and asked, “Har ni svensk?” (Are you Swedish?)

Their eyes lit up. “Oh, ja!” they said, and began speaking rapidly to me in their native tongue. I had no idea what they were saying. My floor had arrived, and as I left the elevator I said, “Förlåt, jag förstår inte svenska.” (Sorry, I don’t understand Swedish.)

I have always wondered what those very blond Swedes said to one another after the elevator doors closed.

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I don’t know who irritates me more, Regis Philbin or Kelly Ripa.

Hoda Kotb or Kathie Lee Gifford.

Joy Behar or Rosie O’Donnell.

Judge Judy or...well, nobody irritates me more than Judge Judy.

I probably watch too much daytime television. It’s a wonder I find time to blog.