Catch of the Day

The song titled “Half Breed” and recorded by Cher in the 1970s resulted in great strides being made in overcoming, if not totally eliminating, the presence of this stigma. Like Cher, my mother was not afraid of her heritage; in fact, she was quite proud to be a Native American and always wore her heritage as a badge of honor. [QY: Note, from imdb.com: “Cher is of Armenian heritage on her father's side, and of English and German, with more distant Irish, Dutch, and French, heritage on her mother's side.”]

Author Doesn't Get It

Query: Is this a direct quote?

Answer: Close enough, yes.

Class, what is wrong with this answer?

Demoticons

A client I've had since Atlanta days is a fabulously successful businessman who came here from South Korea in 1976 with $200 and barely passable English. He got off his flight at Indianapolis and wondered, "What do I do now?" Forty years later, he's an institution in Atlanta, in his chosen industries nationwide, and in his family's hometown in Korea.

Very dignified gentleman, I guess now in his mid-70s.

Just received an email from him with a :-) . I'm horrified, but at least when it comes to cutesy keyboard stuff, he's a few years behind the times. Of course, not as far behind the times as I am. My idea of an emoticon is "[insert emoticon here.]."

People read what they want to anyway.

We've had three teenagers from other countries staying with us roughly since the beginning of the school year. My wife and I recently told them to leave their phones and computers downstairs and they can use them only for a few hours a day in the common areas.

Law of unintended consequences no. 1: Left them without alarm clocks.

Law of unintended consequences no. 1a: Do you know how hard it is these days to find AM/FM alarm clocks? Smartphones have killed them. Finally found a few at Walmarx. You can get just alarm clocks (no radios), and of course you can get all kinds of digital crapola and stuff to plug your phones into.

Get 'em while they last

A big kick for me growing up was listening to AM radio late at night to stations from different cities. Between 1969 and 1977, I lived on the 10th story of an apartment building on Staten Island, NY, facing away from the Empire State Building, which was the primary broadcast tower for NYC at the time. For major TV networks we got Philadelphia TV, not NYC, and at night I would spin the radio dial and pick up the clear-channel stations from Chicago, Nashville, St. Louis, et al., and on rare occasions, I believe, Salt Lake City.

I posted a picture of that building very early in this blog's history. I wonder if the Google has taken it out, along with pictures of my dog and John Cale, although they are not together. That would be a sight.

Today's Quote: Retail

The next couple of decades saw two additional iterations of the no-frills grocery store—the self-service market and the supermarket. The first innovation came from Clarence Saunders’ Memphis, Tennessee, Piggly Wiggly store in 1916. The place was rather small compared to most groceries of the day. His idea was to have the customers pick up the goods in the store themselves (instead of asking a clerk for assistance) and then pay at a central checkout area. Saunders knew this strategy would enable him to cut down on labor costs. He was also convinced customers would buy more if they could see and touch all the merchandise themselves. He therefore created aisles that facilitated customers’ handling of the goods, and he provided baskets in which shoppers could collect the items they wanted to buy. Like with department stores, the public spin on the setup was one of democratic privilege. As early as 1922, the Piggly Wiggly chain boasted that its self-service model “fosters the spirit of independence—the soul of democratic institutions, teaching men, women, and children to do for themselves.”