Good morning my fellow Rotarians.  And this week I’m reporting a few news stories that border on the very strange.

NOT EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY

Green Tree, PA:  Gary Mathews, 44, is a "furry" dog.  This man likes dressing up in a dog costume. Mathews says he has a special affinity for the 1980 TV show "Here's Boomer", which is about a stray dog who is a hero.  This was the motivation behind Mathews petition he filed in Allegheny County Court requesting to have his name changed to "Boomer the Dog."  Judge Ronald Folino denied Mathews' name change, ruling it could "cause confusion in the community" and has the "likelihood of unintended consequences," such as being perceived as a “bizarre" person!   Plus, the judge added, Mathews simply "is not a dog."  Oh yes, there was another factor in the judge’s decision.  Among the exhibits in support of Mathews petition was a letter from a close friend who goes by the name Hobnose Bordercollie.

WHO NEEDS CAFFEINE WHEN YOU HAVE ADRENALINE?

Westminster, B.C., Canada: Two uniformed police officers were standing in line at a Starbucks to buy coffee. When they got to the front of the line and started to give their order to the clerk, a man cut in line ahead of them.  He showed a gun and was there to rob the store.  The "astonished" officers wrestled the robber to the floor and took him into custody.  The more surprising fact is that the cops had just had a nice chat with the robber 10 minutes earlier when they walked into the coffee shop.  Apparently, the robber never connected the dots!

WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BIG TOE???

Grand Rapids, MI:  48 year old Jerry Douthett came home and passed out after a night of drinking on the town.  When he woke up , he started screaming, "My toe's gone! My toe's gone!" and sure enough, his wife confirmed that Jerry’s big toe was missing.  Their dog Kiko, a Jack Russell terrier, had chewed the big toe off of Jerry’s right foot. "He ate it," Jerry said, explaining he had injured his toe a few weeks back and it was so swollen he couldn't wear shoes. As it got worse over several weeks leading up to the chewing, he noticed that every time he was around their dog, he would sniff at his toe a lot. 

Jerry’s wife, a nurse, took him to the emergency room, and doctors pronounced him lucky; the dog's actions alerted them to discover that Jerry was an undiagnosed diabetic.  The infection in his toe could have gotten much worse if the dog hadn't done something. Doctors removed the rest of the toe and sent Jerry home with a new medical regimen. Step 1: Keep the dog well fed!

And there you have this week’s bottom of the news on this Friday, March 23^rd, 2012.

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St. Patrick’s Day Green River

Good morning my fellow Rotarians.  With one of the most celebrated holidays around the world is upon us, so I thought I’d share some fun facts regarding St. Patrick’s Day…

It started as a religious holiday in honor of St. Patrick, a patron saint who according to legend, was credited for driving all the snakes off of the island of Ireland in the mid 300’s AD.  Around 400 AD St Patrick introduced Christianity to the Irish people and March 17th is the date of his death.   

It’s the one day when “everyone” is Irish, or at least they act like they are.   The last US census showed that nearly 34 million Americans have Irish ancestry and yet the country today only has 4.1 mil people.  

This holiday has been celebrated for over 1000 years in Ireland and the first US celebratoin was started by Irish immigrants with a parade in Boston, MA in 1737.  

As a church holiday St Patrick’s Day has been celebrated in Ireland since the 1700’s.  In 1996 the city of Dublin started a St Patrick’s Day Festival, a 5-day event that last year had nearly one million people attend from around the world.  The festival is designed to showcase Ireland’s culture and to spur economic development.  Ireland encourages people of Irish decent to return to their homeland during the month of March each year.

The shortest St Patrick's Day parade in the world takes place between two pubs in a tiny Irish village. In the town of Dripsey, County Cork (on SW coast), their parade only runs 100 yards from the Weigh Inn to the Lee Valley Inn.  The Postmaster Dermot O`Leary dresses up as St Patrick with 30 groups in the parade.

In the US…  Chicago dyes its river green, Indianapolis dyes its main canal green and Savannah dyes its downtown city fountains green.  At the University of Missouri in Rolla, Alumni paint 12 city blocks kelly green with mops and Seattle paints green stripes down the middle of their downtown streets.

Although Saint Patrick's Day has the color green as its theme, St Patrick’s original official ‘saint’ color was blue and at one time that was the official color associated with this holiday.

Corned beef and cabbage is the most common meal eaten in the US for St. Patrick's Day, even though historically this is an American (rather than a traditionally Irish) meal.

And finally, if you drive on St. Patrick's Day you are 20% more likely to be killed or injured in an alcohol-related crash than on other day of the year.  So, here’s my question, would it be more dangerous driving yourself, or riding with an Irish driver???  Your call! 

And there you have it, our St Paddy’s Day Bottom of the News!  A top O the morning to ya, on this Friday, March 16, 2012.   ###

Kid Life Lessons

Good morning my fellow Rotarians. After spending the past week in Florida, its great to be back to one of my beloved four seasons! Actually, I love having four seasons, but I digress.
 
I spent this past few days at a John Maxwell leadership event with a day working on a national youth initiative we will be rolling out this spring. At one point someone mentioned Paul Harvey’s work to help young people and it reminded me of something he wrote for his grandkids 20 years ago. I thought I’d share it with…

We tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we made them worse. For my grandchildren, I'd like better.

I'd really like for you to know about hand me down clothes and homemade ice cream and leftover meat loaf sandwiches. I really would.

I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated.

I hope you learn to make your own bed and mow the lawn and wash the car. And I really hope nobody gives you a brand new car when you are sixteen. I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in.

I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother/sister. And it's all right if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he's scared, I hope you let him.

On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope you don't ask your driver to drop you two blocks away so you won't be seen riding with someone as uncool as your Mom.

When you learn to use computers, I hope you also learn to add and subtract in your head and to read from books.

I hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush and when you talk back to your mother that you learn what soap tastes like.

May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole.

I don't care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don't like it. And if a friend offers you dope or a joint, I hope you realize he is not your friend.

I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your Grandma/Grandpa and go fishing with your Uncle. May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays.

I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor's window and that she hugs you and kisses you at Christmas time when you give her a plaster mold of your hand.

These things I wish for you - tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness. To me, it's the only way to appreciate life.
 
And that’s our bottom of the news for this Friday, February 24, 2012. ###

Government 'Common Sense' - Not!

Good morning my fellow Rotarians.  Today's stories are true and exemplify the not-so-common-sense examples of government at its finest!

The EPA

A 2007 federal energy law requires companies that supply gasoline in the U.S. to blend in a certain cellulose-based ingredient into the gasoline starting in 2012 -- even though (as the Environmental Protection Agency well knows) the ingredient does not now exist. A New York Times reporter checked with the EPA in January and found that the gasoline supply companies will still have to pay penalties for noncompliance (and most likely, according to EPA officials, even-stiffer penalties in the coming years).  Research scientists say the ingredient is still two or three years from actually being produced.  A petrochemicals association executive said… “It belies logic.  Only a federal government agency would get away with imposing a fine for non-usage of an ingredient that doesn’t exist.”  The EPA is projecting to collect between 15 and 18 million this year in fines.   

Local City & Fire Department

To meet its municipal budget, the town of South Fulton, TN, assessed each residence $75 a year for firefighting service, but in the name of "liberty" gave people the chance to opt out of coverage. Vicky Bell chose not to pay, and when her home caught fire in December, firefighters rushed to the scene -- but only to be on hand in case the fire spread to her neighbors, who had paid their fees.  The firefighters were ready and able to put out the fire, but were told to stand by and watch as Bell's home burned to the ground.  Wow. 

The IRS

The U.S. Treasury Department's inspector general for tax matters revealed this pass month that the IRS had certified 331 prison inmates as registered "tax preparers" during 2011, including 43 who were serving life sentences. Over 200 of the inmate did NOT disclose that they were in prison. The Treasury Dept blamed a 2009 federal law because it encourages online filing of tax returns and that law changed the rules to become a "tax preparer", which is now a simple-to-pass online 120-question test.  Here’s the kicker…  USA Today reported last November that inmate tax prepares were able to submit false or fraudulent tax returns to scam the IRS for nearly $39.1 million in 2009 alone. 

There you have it, just a few examples of government common sense at it’s best!  And that is the bottom of our news for this Friday, February 17, 2012. 

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Get Out of My Car!

Good morning my fellow Rotarians.  The story I’m about to share with you is supposedly a true account recorded in the Police Log of Sarasota, FL. 

An elderly Florida lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car, found four guys in the act of leaving with her vehicle. 

She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her lungs, “I have a gun, and I know how to use it!  Get out of my car!”

The four men didn’t wait for a second threat.  They got out of the car and ran like mad. 

The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got in the drivers seat.  She was so shaken that she could not get her key into the ignition.

She tried and tried, and then she realized why.  It was for the same reason she had wondered why there was a football, a Frisbee and two 12-packs of beer in the front seat.

A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces farther down the lot.  She loaded her bags into her car and drove to the police station to report her mistake.

The police sergeant to whom she told the story could not stop laughing. 

He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four very pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair and carrying a large handgun.

No charges were filed.

The moral of the story?  If you are going to have a senior moment… make it memorable!  And that my friends, is the bottom of our news for this Friday, February 10, 2012.   

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Gotta Love a Rivalry!

Good morning my fellow Rotarians.  You know it is no secret of the rivalry that has gone on for centuries between the British and Irish.  Here is an example of an encounter that made me laugh…   

This is the transcript of the actual radio conversation from naval communications between the British and the Irish off the coast of Kerry in October of 1998.  This radio conversation was released by the Chief of British Naval Operations in October of 2008, 10 years following this incident.

IRISH:  Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

BRITISH:  Recommend that you divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

IRISH:  Negative, you will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

BRITISH:  This is the Captain of a British navy ship, I say again, divert YOUR course.

IRISH:  Negative, I say again, you will have to divert YOUR course.

BRITISH:  This is the aircraft carrier HMS Britiannial, the second largest ship in the British Atlantic fleet.  We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels.  I demand that you change your course 15 degrees north, I say again that is 15 degrees north, or counter measures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.

IRISH:  We are a lighthouse.  Your call.

Hmmm, love a rivalry!  And this is the bottom of the news on this Friday January 27, 2012.

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Honey, They Stole My Car!

Good morning my fellow Rotarians.  Well, it’s great to be back to Elmcrest.  Here’s a story that I can relate to.

Several days ago as I left a meeting at our church, I desperately gave myself a personal TSA pat down. I was looking for my keys. They were not in my pockets. A quick search in the meeting room revealed nothing.

Suddenly I realized, I must have left them in the car. Frantically, I headed for the parking lot. My wife, Diane, has scolded me many times for leaving the keys in the ignition. My theory is the ignition is the best place not to lose them. Her theory is that the car will be stolen. As I burst through the doors of the church, I came to a terrifying conclusion. Her theory was right. The parking lot was

empty.

I immediately call the police. I gave them my location, confessed that I had left my keys in the car, and that it had been stolen. Then I made the most difficult call of all, "Honey," I stammered. I always call her "honey" in times like these. "I left my keys in the car, and it has been stolen."

There was a period of silence. I thought the call had been dropped, but then I heard Diane's voice. "Ken" she barked, "I dropped you off!" Now it was my time to be silent. Embarrassed, I said, "Well, come and get me." Diane retorted, "I will, as soon as I convince this policeman I have not stolen your car?"

Boy, this one could really happen at our house!  And this is the bottom of the news on this Friday January 20, 2012!

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