News of the Cities, From West to East

Today’s lunchtime news chum brings together three articles related to specific cities. So let’s go through them, from the West to the East:

• Los Angeles. Mention the name “Felix” to people of a certain age, and a little ditty comes to mind: “Felix the Cat / the Wonderful Wonderful Cat / Whenever He Gets In A Fix / He Reaches Into His Bag of Tricks”. As people in Los Angeles, and they will think of Felix Chevrolet, a car dealer near USC with a gigantic Felix-the-Cat sign. Well, that sign is in the news, because what what once used to be a lovely neon sign has been updated to be an LED sign, and people are complaining that it’s just not the same thing. They’ve started a petition to bring back the neon (petitions being all the rage). For me, what is more worrisome is the trend. Neon has a lovely glow about it. Just imagine if all the wonderful neon in Las Vegas were replaced by boxy boring lettering (oh, that happened) or LED lights stimulating neon. Would it be the same?
• St. Louis. In the heart of St. Louis is a wonderful quirky museum called the City Museum. It is an adaptive reuse of an old shoe manufacturing facility, and the place is just wonderful. I visited it quite a few years ago and had a delightful time. The museum includes cranes, old bridges, a human-sized hamster wheel, vintage opera posters, a room of preserved insects, a bank vault, a fish tank full of turtles (and one very friendly 39-pound catfish), and at least one alien dressed like Elvis in a coffin—all accessible via stairs, elevator, tunnel, or slide. The museum also houses an aquarium and an old-fashioned shoelace-making facility. I mention this because Mental Floss has a wonderful article on the City Museum, covering 11 uniquely awesome things about the museum. These include a 10-story slide, a school bus perched on the edge of the roof that you can go into, a ferris wheel on the roof, the world’s largest (working) pencil… and largest underpants… well, you get the idea.
• District of Columbia. Ah, the lovely District of Columbia…. our 51st… oh, right. It seems DC is up in arms with the Dept. of Defense, insisting that the DC flag be flown whenever other state flags are flown. The request grows out of a complaint from a DC couple upset that state flags were flown for each of the graduates at a Naval Station Great Lakes graduation ceremony, but not the home flag of their son. The state’s district’s non-voting delegate to congress is urging the Senate to accept a provision of a House-approved defense bill that would require that the flags of the District of Columbia and the territories be displayed by the armed forces whenever the flags of the 50 states are raised. As for the DOD, they have encouraged military departments to display the D.C. flag but left the final decision to discretion of commanders. M’self, I think we should solve the problem another way. We have loads of “states” wanting to leave the union (well, really, people therein, although many cities want to secede from their states and remain part of the US). So why don’t we turn the tables around and add DC and Puerto Rico as states? Let’s encourage the people that want to live here!

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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Fast Food for the Brain

As you’ve figured out by now, I do a news chum post when three or more collected bookmarks form a theme. That’s happened again, and the theme for this post is junk food:

• The Twinkie Defense. Evidently, there is a baker’s strike, and as a side effect of the strike, Hostess Brands may file for liquidation if it continues. Yes, folks, that means the maker of the popular snack cake may go out of business (as early as today), and the branded Twinkie (as well, I guess, as Hostess Cup Cakes and Ding Dongs) may go off the shelf. But don’t worry. The ones left on the shelves will never go stale.
• Ruining Tea. Most people don’t go to Starbucks because their coffee is good. After all, if it was, why would they feel the need to doctor it with so much fattening crap. It’s gotten to the point where real coffee drinkers prefer McDonalds Coffee. Luckily, us tea drinkers have been relatively safe. Until now. Starbucks has purchased Teavana for $260 million. Teavana, which already had overpriced and overmarketed tea, is a perfect match for Starbucks. Starbucks said it plans to expand Teavana’s existing 300 mall-based stores while adding a “high-profile neighborhood store concept.” According to Starbucks, the Teavana deal is a “signal that we have moved our plan to fundamentally transform the consumer tea experience in both North American and international markets into high gear.” Sigh. I love tea because I drink it black… and I already have great sources for tea (Upton, Stash, Franklin Tea). I also believe it is important to support your local coffee or tea shop, not the megachains.
• Your Drink is Bad For You. We’re learning more and more what we drink is often bad for us. First it was large sodas. I’ve just talked about the junk people add to coffee.  Today’s news brings a report of another hazard: it appears the calories people get from booze nearly equals the calories they get from sodas. According to the report, soda and other sweetened drinks are the source of about 6 percent of the calories adults consume, on average. Alcoholic beverages account for about 5 percent. A 12-ounce can of regular Coca-Cola has 140 calories, slightly less than a same-sized can of regular Bud. A 5-ounce glass of wine is around 100 calories. Now people are asking whether New York will ban large alcoholic beverages. Of course, I’ve got a different question. I only drink black tea. So where am I getting my extra junk calories .

 

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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