Dutch Treat

Hello World, Happy MLK weekend! For many businesses - such as banks, federal offices or schools - this represents a day off, as a welcome part of a long holiday weekend, for people to reflect on equality and civic responsibility. On the other hand, and for many more other places, the good doctor has joined the aggrieved Christopher Columbus in the "What have you done for us lately" fraternity of historical curiosities who have since fallen by the wayside through no fault of their own. A person could be forgiven for feeling that it's a sad state of affairs in this country when a groundhog in Pennsylvania is celebrated like some sort of national hero, while genuine visionaries with legitimate accomplishments under their collective belts are tossed aside without a second thought. A word of advice to future generations - forget abut discovering or inventing anything, and just be born a marmot instead. Speaking of celebrated luminaries of the past, I recently stumbled across this fascinating tidbit in my online forays - "Robert Benchley: A Profile in Humor" (and I invite you to go right ahead and feel free to visit the web site at www.davidpietrusza.com and see for yourself) which starts out great guns with this opening salvo: ============================================= The publication of Peter Benchley's wildly successful novel Jaws renewed interest once again in the career of his famed grandfather, the author, actor, columnist, critic, and all-around great wit and bon vivant of the 1920's -- Robert Benchley. ============================================= The commentator goes on to detail his career in film and writing, his early life, contemporaries, and numerous anecdotes, each one better than the last. At one point, he describes his subject as a "boulevardier," which apparently is a French word meaning someone who drinks too much - although you wouldn't expect the French, of all people, to even have a word for that, or think it would be necessary to do so in the first place. In any case, it doesn't take long for the whole essay to start skidding off the tracks, with one minor lapse or mishap after another, until it just becomes a painful exercise in groans and eye-rolling for the affronted reader: ============================= it looked life a moving pipe organ a tardy slip even if he just slightly late hunt them down before they wrecked havoc upon the Big Apple Mrs. Parker soon abandoned at the office. with the Gothic script words: "In Memorium." since been overshadowed, but his work remain in print mild criticism of actress Billy Burke's talents ============================= Now, if this were assorted observations on the World Wrestling Federation, or rap music, I would certainly expect typos to be part and parcel of the entire presentation, but in an article of lofty literary aspirations, I found them distracting and disconcerting - and worse, something that the most cursory proofreading would have easily prevented to start with. (Heck, for "The Wizard of Oz" alone, Billie Burke is certainly famous enough to have her name spelled right by just about anybody.) I'm starting to think this idea of being born a marmot is not so crazy after all. Speaking of typos, one place I admit I was not expecting to find them was in the emergency codes on the hospital web page, which were revised to line up with new federal regulations that require standardization among healthcare organizations across the country - or at least that was supposed to be the plan, but I have to say that I have my doubts, based on the following list: 111 - Rapid Response Intervention 333 - E.R. Trauma Red - Fire Green - Evacuation Yellow - Bomb Treat Blue - Cardiac Arrest Bravo - Biohazard Treat Amber - Infant Abduction Orange - HAZMAT Incident I can't speak for anyone else, but personally I don't consider bombs or biohazards as much of a treat, compared to being a threat instead. Of course, the spell-checker is not going to help anyone with that - not that you would think someone would need extra help with a simple word like "threat" anyway - but it did serve to inject an unexpected element of comedy into an otherwise perilous subject. And while we're on the topic of health care, I couldn't help but notice - amidst all of the hoopla, fanfare, controversy and confusion surrounding the Affordable Care Act - that some wags had taken advantage of the program's notoriety to create a FaceBook page dedicated to the Adorable Care Act, replete with all of the most aww-inspiring baby animals that anyone could hope for in any one place at the same time. Their only purpose seems to be touting the benefits of universal health care, and they don't claim to be impartial by any means. In fact, their not-so-hidden agenda has been lambasted by critics, who appear to be impervious to their cuteness. Of course, I could have told them what they needed was a baby marmot right from the start. Meanwhile on the entertainment front, with is own well-deserved hoopla and fanfare, we have the release of the Hobbit sequel, "The Desolation of Smaug," which needs no help from me to improve its popularity, since it's been a runaway success since opening day. In fact, it's been out and playing in every movie complex in the country for so long that even Bill and I finally got around to seeing it last week, so that tells you something right there. We saw it in glorious IMAX 3-D, which can turn the most mundane experience into a riveting spectacle, from James Earl Jones reading the Yellow Pages, all the way down to watching grass grow. The new Hobbit is neither, and certainly lives up to the hype as far as special effects, which run the gamut from mesmerizing to mind-boggling, and everything in between. It features an admittedly slight storyline, but the action never lags, and nobody is going to fall asleep during its headlong and bombastic narrative, that's for sure. Like many "middle segments" of trilogies, this one really doesn't stand on its own, but it's no less entertaining for all that, and we were glad to see it, especially after having already seen the first one. Unfortunately, they leave the story with a fire-breathing dragon about the unleash a reign of terror upon the defenseless townspeople, so it appears that things are about to get a whole lot worse before they get any better. Frankly, my advice to them would be to just go ahead and get a marmot now, that seems to be the only thing that works these days. Elle