Neff Zone August 27 2004

Print Edition: August 27, 2004

THINGS I LEARNED WHILE YOU WERE ASLEEP

I have one of the most common forms of insomnia. I fall asleep most nights, but once I awaken I’m up for the rest of the night. Because of this, since I was a kid, I’ve listened to late-night radio talk shows. This means I have a wealth of semi-useful information at my disposal that most folks never accumulate (because they are sleeping like normal people). So, just in cased you missed them, here are some things you might like to know…

What do you do on your day off? I listened to reports about the Tour de France bicycle race and the riders are absolutely amazing. They go out and do a stage of the race, 125 miles or so, up and down hills, through villages, averaging about 30 miles per hour. The next day they do the same thing – and this goes on for a month. You might like to know that on their rare "days off" they "loosen up" with an "easy" 50 or 60 mile ride. This level of conditioning is made all the more impressive to me because I routinely see people panic at the prospect that they might have to park beyond the first three spaces next to the door at Wal-Mart. Heaven forbid that they would have to walk an extra 16 feet and burn a half dozen calories. Why, they might drop from exhaustion before they get to the cigarette counter.

Speaking of athletes, at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, each of the athletes was given 51 condoms upon arrival. Supplies ran low, however, and officials had to order another 20,000. For the current Olympics in Athens, the Olympic Village pharmacy ordered 130,000 condoms for the 16,000 athletes (81 per participant). Sort of lends new meaning to the phrase, "Let the Games begin," doesn’t it?
If the presidential election were held today, Californians could not vote. California’s Secretary of State has revoked certification of most of the state’s electronic voting machines, and there are at least a dozen lawsuits pending that deal with handicap access to voting.

I thought of California recently when I learned that Michigan is debating whether to repeal its helmet law for motorcycle riders. Did you know that in California motorcyclists are allowed to "ride the lines" on freeways. That means that while cars and trucks are zooming along at 70 mph, motorcycles can ride the white stripes that divide the lanes. I saw this in April when I visited my brother in LA. These nuts pass just inches from your side window. They scared the stuffings out of me.

You might like to know that you can’t use the term "snowman" anymore. Educational testing companies say it’s geographically chauvinistic, because people in the South may never have seen a "snowperson." Here’s a thought, make "Frosty the Snowman" required reading in Southern schools. No wait, that won’t work because not all schools in the South have advanced literature courses.

Kids, don’t go to England. The House of Lords in Parliament just voted 226-91 to allow parents to use moderate spanking when disciplining their children.

The French have this inborn capacity to tick off Americans. They wouldn’t send troops to Iraq, which made Americans very angry, so much so that President Dubya tried to turn French Fries into Freedom Fries (even though French Fries are actually a Belgian invention). Now it turns out that Americans are working 20% more than they did in 1970, while the French are working 24% less. The French couldn’t go to Iraq because they were on vacation! Out of the office!

There is nothing more sickening and abhorrent than the beheadings taking place in Iraq right now. Most Americans agree that only sub-human barbarians could perpetrate such crimes. Just thought you’d like to know that the government of Saudi Arabia publicly beheaded 53 people last year for various crimes. This is our ally, folks.

Jim Neff is a local columnist. Send comments to neffzone@yahoo.com