January Blahs
Monday January 23, 2006
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I've got the January blahs. I'm not depressed. I got depressed once in, I think, fourth grade, but back in those days they didn't treat children with mood elevators. Or mood escalators. Or even mood staircases.
In those days, at Hillside Grade School in New Hyde Park, New York, Miss Moore would tell me, in that "Good Morning, Miss Dove" sort of way that teachers had, to put on my galoshes and my hat and I'd feel better in the morning.
There is a real psychological disorder named Seasonal Affective Disorder - or S.A.D.
According to the Seasonal Affective Disorder Association, it "is caused by a biochemical imbalance in the hypothalamus due to the shortening of daylight hours and the lack of sunlight in winter."
You know? I was telling the Mullings Director of Standards & Practices, just the other day, that I thought my hypothalamus had been acting up again.
She told me to put on my galoshes and my hat and I'd feel better in the morning.
Anyway, I think naming a psychological disorder like Seasonal Affective Disorder solely for the purposes of creating a good acronym, S.A.D. is � funny.
Armstrong Williams Alert: The PR firm at which I spend about half my time is named Manning, Selvage & Lee. MS & L has, as one of its clients, General Motors.
Time Magazine's cover story this week is about Bill Ford (great-grandson of Henry) and how he is likely to announce - maybe by the time you've read this - cuts of some 25,000 workers from the Ford US payroll.
When I bought the Mullmobile, a 1999 Landrover Discovery, it was owned by BMW. I was pretty hot stuff, I'll tell you, driving around in a BMW.
Then, without even asking me, BMW sold the Landrover business to Ford. I did NOT consider myself to be hot stuff driving around in a Ford.
It was like sending your mortgage payment to the First National Bank of Upper Iguana for 10 years and then being told you should, henceforth, send your payment to a guy named Vinnie in Secaucus, New Jersey.
And if you miss a payment, foreclosure will be the least of your worries.
Bill Ford, according to Time, is planning to "go out on a limb with bolder car designs" including one new number named the "Edge."
Edge-Sel, I'm betting.
Completing the Record:
On Friday, I made a big deal about Senator Clinton's use of the word, "plantation" to score political points (Hillary Rodham Jemima Clinton). It has since been pointed out to me that this is not the first time in modern times a politician has used such ante-bellum imagery.
It turns out that one Newt Gingrich used the same language in the Washington Post of October 20, 1994 (a couple of weeks ahead of the Republican tsunami in the US House in the mid-term election of that year).
Newt was still House Republican Whip and, talking to a reporter about how differently House Democrats looked at him as opposed to how they viewed House Republican Leader, Bob Michel, said:
"I'm much more intense, much more persistent, much more willing to take risks to get it done. Since they think it is their job to run the plantation, it shocks them that I'm actually willing to lead the slave rebellion."
Hillary Rodham Aunt Jemima Clinton? Meet Newton Leroy Uncle Ben Gingrich.
On a the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the S.A.D. association website, a brief discussion of "Miss Dove," a very interesting history of Uncle Ben's, a terrifying glimpse at the Ford Edsel, a terrific Mullfoto, and another green eggs & ham Catchy Caption of the Day.
y Caption of the Day.
--END --
Copyright © 2006 Richard A. Galen
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