Shallow Thoughts : : 20

A Curious Advertisement

I encountered the curious ad (shown at right) in the Sunday paper.

The bold text says: "You use parenting instincts every day. Trust the one that says he's not learning the way he should." The small print isn't any clearer: basically, if your child is having trouble learning and might need a different approach, call this phone number right away.

The image shows a spoon, rubber banded to a toy airplane. The spoon is overflowing with ... what? It looks a little like dog kibble, or possibly deer or rabbit droppings. Or slightly furry peas. All I can tell for sure is that the pieces are dark (perhaps brown) and almost but not quite spherical.

And why has one fallen out? Perhaps the pieces of kibble are metaphorical children. And your child has fallen off the spoon, and won't be getting to go for a ride strapped underneath a jet.

So, parents, if your child seems to be struggling in school and you think he or she may need a different approach to learning, don't let your child fall off the spoon! Put some dogfood in the spoon and rubber-band it to a toy plane! Then call the number. Act now, before it's too late!

Maybe if you call early enough, they'll even let you use their spoon and toy plane.

Tags: humor
[ 20:34 Feb 20, 2008    More humor | permalink to this entry | ]

Obama's too good a speaker

In election news today, we have the report Wounded Clinton eyes big contests on Barak Obama's widening lead over Hillary Clinton:

Mrs Clinton continued to try to depict Mr Obama as a man of fine words but little action.

"It's time that we move from good words to good works, from sound bites to sound solutions... This campaign goes on!" she said

Hey, wait ... isn't that a sound bite against sound bites?

McCain joined in the fun, saying "I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure that Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change."

So let's see if I have this straight: the worst that either Clinton or McCain can think of to say about Obama is that ... he's a really good speaker.

Hmm. Time was when people thought being a good speaker was actually a good thing to have in a president. Isn't that something presidents are called upon to do now and then?

Tags: politics
[ 19:43 Feb 20, 2008    More politics | permalink to this entry | ]

The mysterious vanishing planes

BBC was full of interesting news today.

Definitely the most interesting story was the one about the F-15 pilots rescued off Florida. It begins:

Two US fighter pilots have been rescued after their jets went missing over the Gulf of Mexico, the Air Force says.

Air Force spokeswoman Shirley Pigott said the pilots were rescued after their F-15C Eagles disappeared on a training mission.

The disappearance had triggered a search involving Coast Guard personnel, helicopters, planes and boats.

The Air Force has not yet determined if the planes collided or otherwise malfunctioned. The weather was clear.

Wow, that's quite a story! Not only do we have fighter planes disappearing in midair, but even after the pilots have been rescued, no one has any idea whether they collided.

Tags: headlines
[ 19:15 Feb 20, 2008    More headlines | permalink to this entry | ]