The Daily Grill

Happy New Year!

Medical Myth Takes

A study released in the British Medical Journal's December issue reveals seven myths that have become so ingrained in our culture that even most doctors and nurses believe them. Do you?

#1. Reading in dim light hurts your eyesight. Nope. Maybe a little temporary eye strain. However, the jury is still out on whether watching reality TV causes brain damage.

#2. Using cell phones in hospitals is dangerous. Turns out that fear of cells interfering with medical machinery is just superstition. No surprise: using a hand grenade in a hospital does ruin the machines.

#3. Fingernails and hair grow after death. Glad that's not true, because it's kinda creepy. The truth is equally disgusting: your skin shrinks and recedes, making it seem like that stuff keeps growing. Except for Dracula. His does keep growing, but he sees a barber and a manicurist regularly.

#4. We only use 10% of our brain. Totally untrue. Try 11%.

#5. You should drink eight glasses of water a day. Turns out to be the Recommended Daily Allowance of H2O for fish.

#6. Shaved hair grows back fuller and coarser. Wrong again...with the only exception being the Wolf Man and Robin Williams.

#7. Tainted candy from strangers is a Halloween threat. There are no documented cases of this perennial parental scare tactic ever happening...only tainted threatening strangers offering Halloween candy.

Head Scratcher

Yesterday was the day after Christmas and I saw a sight I'm still trying to sort out. One of my hometown's homeless fixtures -- an older gent I refer to as "The Professor" due to his horn-rimmed glasses and shock of swept-back gray hair -- is hunched over in front of the machine at the grocery store that dispenses "scratcher" lottery tickets. He pushes one of his hard-won panhandled dollar bills into the slot, pumps out a ticket, scratches it off and then repeats the process. I don't know if he ever won anything -- I never do -- but it struck me that all those folks who hand him money hope he's spending it on food and necessities. Instead, he's using it in a nearly futile hope of striking it rich. One would think some sort of public welfare office would be taking care of him but, come to think of it (and given the state of such authority these days), The Professor's probably got better odds of helping himself staying with the lottery.

Merry Christmas from The Daily Grill!

Where art the Lord? Try latitude 25.891N, longitude -80.127W

The town council of Bal Harbor, Florida is tired of pranking kids making off with the Baby Jesus from the manger scene in town so this year they've had the tyke outfitted with a GPS tracking device. Now if anyone swipes the Son of God, Bal Harbor cops can swoop down and rescue him. Anyone grabbing the frankincense and myrrh is going to get away scot free, however.

Jingle Bells, Santa Smells

In articles both various and sundry (including this one in the NYTimes), retailers seemed shocked that sales this holiday season are down in a big way across the board. I noticed myself (in the malls I was unfortunate enough to have to brace) that there are a lot of people but they seem to be buying way less gifts. I don't know why there's surprise -- huge gas and heating prices, the subprime mess, fighting a "war" that only White House Resident Bush and his closest friends seem to want -- Americans in general are broke, confused and pissed off. Conversely AND perversely, people this holiday season seem to be much nicer to each other on the roads and in the malls. Nothing like international hostilities and an impending recession to bring out the true holiday spirit!

I Saw The End Of Romney's Campaign

Clever, articulate and genetically perfect presidential candidate Mitt Romney tripped over his own flimsy connection to history recently during his "Faith In America" speech, when he mentioned, "I saw my father march with Martin Luther King." It's already been pointed out that he hadn't actually SEEN his dad and King kicking it but rather, as he put it, he saw it in the "figurative" sense. Shaky, but okay. Until he tried to prop up his malaprop by adding, "I'm an English literature major. When we say I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn't necessarily mean you were there." I'm not a sports fan by any stretch of the imagination but even I know that the only way the Patriots could make it to the Series would be to buy tickets. Not to mention his rambling usage of we, I and you in that last bit of burble. Dan Quayle must be delighted that he's no longer alone in the Abuse of Languages department.

America Wins!

Maybe the writers being on strike isn't such a bad thing, judging some of the new "unscripted" shows that have been announced recently, including this: My Big Redneck Wedding. Yummy. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the CMT cable channel has ordered up eight 'sodes of this white trash delight, which "features a different 'down-home' wedding" each week. Even better? The whole shootin' match, which kicks off on January 11th,  is hosted by Tom Arnold. Yee-haw.

Big Media Bruhaha

In one of those moves that most folks trying to get through their day don't have time to pay attention to, the good ol' Federal Communications Commission just approved new rules that will unleash a flood of media consolidation across America. This means the media giants -- the Rupert Murdochs, the Clear Channels and such -- will further be able to consolidate local media markets, thus taking away independent voices in cities already woefully short on local news and investigative journalism. (Your own local newspaper may have its shortcomings but can you imagine how news coverage on your doorstep would suffer if you had to depend on the USA Today for the local news?)

It just so happens that Congress has the power to throw out these rules -- they did it before when the FCC tried to hand the reins of media control over to the Big Dogs. The current thinking is that  if just 100,000 people demand they chuck out the new regulations, they'll have to listen. Since writing letters to one's Congressperson has fallen out of vogue, all you have to do is click here to sign an open letter to Congress urging them to stop the FCC and stand with the public interest.

Poll Dancing

As Shrillary's poll numbers slide in the face of The Mighty Oprah touting her closest opponent, Barack Obama, one of Clinton's advisors piped up. Not unlike that annoying twerp in school who reminds the teacher that she forgot to assign homework, Bill Shaheen reminded everyone that Obama's admitted history of using coke and pot in his youth might sway voters away. Yeah, because the politicos who WON'T admit to using them are SO trustworthy. Obama can always resort to using the dodge cooked up by a candidate 15 years ago, prior to the '92 election. Who was that again? Oh, right -- MISTER Clinton! Who said, as you may recall when brought face to face with his druggy past: "I did not inhale!"