Just Wondering About Radio Ads and Noah

Here are some things that stop me cold in my tracks:

I wonder why an organization devoted to round-the-clock news, WCBS Newsradio 880, airs commercials that are creepy at the least and blatantly false and misleading in the extreme. I’m referring to all the radio spots about health claims (how’s your testosterone level?) and debt relief (what’s the size of your credit card balance?) and any number of other questionable ads. Don’t they vet the claims? You’d think the standards of an all-news radio station would be higher than simple talk radio which allows shills to promote gold and silver as hedges against post-apocalyptic  times.

I’m also curious as to whom exactly these ads are targeted at and how they match up to WCBS Newsradio 880’s actual audience. I’d have thought the radio station’s listeners were above average in education and income. Yet these ads seem to appeal to the lowest common denominator. 

Treading Water: Pictures of Russell Crowe dressed as Noah in the new Darren Aronofsky film Noah startled me when I saw him wearing pants and fingerless leather work gloves. But a little research on the Web revealed that gloves go back at least to ancient Egypt (here’s a graf from gloves.com.ua: 

“History has a lot of facts of using the gloves in ancient times. They were popular and served as a protection of the hands in Old Egypt. The Pharaohs wore them as s symbol of their high position and women wore them to protect the beauty of their hands (they rub their hands with honey and fragrant oils and put on thin silk gloves). In those times the gloves were made as small pockets without holes for fingers. Then they were made only with one thumb (as today's mittens). Egyptian women used these mittens to protect hands while eating or working.”)

As for trousers, they seem to have sown up (I know it should have read “shown up” but I couldn’t resist the pun) about the time horses were domesticated enough to be ridden. According to a 2009 Reuters article (http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/03/05/us-horses-history-idUSTRE5246HI20090305), “Horses were first domesticated on the plains of northern Kazakhstan some 5,500 years ago -- 1,000 years earlier than thought -- by people who rode them and drank their milk.” 

If Bible believers are to be believed, our world is just 5,774 years old, giving Noah plenty of time to fashion himself a pair of tight fitting pants instead of trampsing about in a bulky robe.  

I’ve commented before that I’m disappointed how few books I’ve read in retirement, but one I did read was David Maine’s The Preservationist, recently re-released under a new title, The Flood. It’s a psychological exegesis of the Noah story as explained through the eyes of the arkman himself and his family. It’s like The Red Tent, imaginative story-telling to fill in the blanks the Bible chose not to include, what Jewish scholars refer to as midrash. 

Interestingly, Maine names one of Noah’s unnamed-in-the-Bible daughters-in-law Ilya. She is Cham’s wife. Aronofsky casts Emma Watson as Ila, Shem’s wife. 

One of my favorite examples of midrash on Noah comes from an early routine of Bill Cosby. He imagines Noah arguing every time God proscribes another task. Finally, in exasperation over his recalcitrant subject, God convinces Noah to stop complaining by asking, “Noah, how long can you tread water?”  

Three Letters: Speaking of the Almighty, has anybody else noticed that with the departure of Tim Tebow and the signing of Michael Vick, the NY Jets’ quarterback controversy has gone from g-o-d to d-o-g? 

Harlem Nights

As I recall the meal some 15 years ago, it was not too memorable. At least as far as taste goes. But as a cultural experience, it was worthwhile.

I’m referring to a pilgrimage to Harlem my staff, Gilda and I made one evening to eat in Sylvia’s Restaurant. The famed soul-food eatery is experiencing additional melancholy recognition these last few days, ever since it was announced Thursday owner and founder Sylvia Woods had died at 86 after suffering the last several years with Alzheimer’s disease.

At the suggestion of Matt, one of our editors, we took the subway uptown to 125th Street that warm, summer evening. About six of us. Some of us must have eaten fried chicken. Maybe some collard greens. Perhaps there was a pork chop. Like I said, the food did not register as among our greatest meals (a review confirmed to me by two other participants that evening). We did not feel different, out of place. We did feel we had tasted part of the culture that makes New York City vibrant.

Some 30 years earlier, during my freshman, or maybe sophomore, year at Brooklyn College, I enjoyed another Harlem experience, a Bill Cosby and O.C. Smith concert at the renowned Apollo Theater. My friend Paul and I were among the few white faces in the crowd. This was, after all, 1968. Few Caucasians ventured onto 125th Street at night back then, even to see Bill Cosby. We sat high up in the balcony, as far back as we could.

Smith performed first, taking particular pleasure in singing his hit, “Little Green Apples,” to Cosby’s wife, seated in one of the stage-right boxes. Cosby emerged from the wings to visually express his pique at being so publicly cuckolded. The crowd roared.

Cosby ended his routine around midnight. The Apollo was just heating up, but we didn’t stay. It was a long subway ride back to Brooklyn. 

  

Springtime, Sounds and Fury

I heard today that most beautiful sound of spring—the whining and rattling of my snowblower peeling off the gasoline in its tank as it prepared to hibernate until late next fall.

Actually, despite temperatures in the 70s, I was reluctant to store the snowblower. I still believe we might get hit with heavy snow sometime in the next two-three weeks. But I couldn’t resist my wife’s entreaties, so I pulled the ripcord and ran the machine for more than 90 minutes until it drained. I surely hope Gilda was right and I was wrong.

I’m close to admitting defeat. The squirrels will not be denied. Despite raising the feeders higher than a four foot vertical jump, despite the conical shields said to guard against squirrels scampering down from above, the rodents, as Gilda not so lovingly reminds me are what they are, have repeatedly breached my defenses and gorged themselves on birdseed. Today’s attack was airborne. From a distance at least six feet away, a squirrel hurled itself at one of the feeders. Once or twice it bounced off the conical shield, but then managed to land under it, along a tall cylinder feeder. The other day another squirrel pushed the top up on a house-shaped feeder and jumped inside. I’ve stopped that ploy by fastening a bungee cord around the house. But a third squirrel (perhaps it’s the same squirrel; I haven’t been able to mark them) catapulted itself to another feeder and managed to push the top up to reach inside. The birds, not even the large grackles, meanwhile, show no interest in defending their feeding rights.

The media are full of springtime news: brush fires because of the dry winter, tornadoes earlier than normal because of the warm winter, worries about summer droughts because of the shallow snow bank on the mountains, and rising gas prices because Obama is a lousy president. Wait. Do people really think the president has anything to do with the cost of gasoline? Emotionally, for sure they do. Intellectually, probably not. But we’re in no danger in this country of letting our intellect trump our emotions. Heck, that’s why some nutcases supported Donald Trump in his Quixotic quest to be president last year and some still see him as a font of reason and political possibilities.

Getting back to Obama, he’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t do something about gasoline prices as his popularity plummets from a month ago. His detractors (mostly Republicans) ingenuously assert drilling for more domestic and off-shore oil would reduce prices. Perhaps, but that’s no short term solution to our current crisis. I do wonder, though, why Republicans have a problem with higher gas prices. Higher prices, after all, are simply a response to market forces (greater demand in China, India and other developing countries, plus oil speculation by financial market profiteers). Doesn’t the GOP endorse a free market? Wouldn’t it be against their laissez-faire principles for government to intervene to artificially lower the price of oil? And even if we drilled for more oil, who’s to say the oil companies wouldn’t export it? Surely Republicans wouldn’t endorse a restraint on their ability to freely trade their oil to the highest bidder?

How tiring it must be for Obama to be blamed for everything. Speaking of being tired, I’m tired of receiving emails that purport to be true and accurate reflections of the thinking or experience of real people. The latest example of misleading and inappropriate material was commentary attributed to Bill Cosby espousing social views so repugnant to what he has always stood for that he had to repudiate it on his personal Web site. Why don’t people check the veracity of these insidious emails before sending them out? It’s easy enough to do. Just pick a few key words, Google them and you’ll probably be directed to Snopes.com or some other Internet site that will authenticate the contents.