Many among us make resolutions for the new year. Among
them are pledges to lose weight, start jogging, obey our parents,
pay our bills, watch less television, avoid lutefisk, go to
church, stay out of jail and avoid county commission meetings
in Salina.
Our litany of resolutions is endless. And boring. What we
need are new year’s headlines and anecdotes to tell us how
things are in our busy, complicated lives – and how, with a bit
of fantasy, they might be.
For example(s):
*
SALINE COMMISSIONER
IS AWARD FINALIST
Saline County Commissioner John Price is among three
finalists for this year’s Etiquette in Government award from
the Council for Rural-Urban Debate (CRUD). A spokesman
for CRUD said Price had demonstrated a “unique understanding
and awareness of life values and compassions embracing
public employees, governing policy and citizen participation
in government.”
Price acknowledged the CRUD nomination, saying the two
other finalists, including a woman, were “scum,” and “lowrent
bottom-feeders. But we’re the bosses, and it takes all
kinds to be bosses in government – even women, the pretty
little things.”
*
ESPN PLEDGES IN-DEPTH
POST-GAME REPORTING
Sideline reporter: Coach, tell us how you felt on the sideline
during this thrilling victory. Are you proud of your team?
Coach: Not particularly. Actually, I was busy thinking about
my new seed catalogues and whether zinnias and marigolds
were best for my front flower beds.
Reporter: Hollyhocks might work if your porch is high
enough, or nasturtiums for a lower profile.
Coach: Ya think?
Reporter, now turning to player: So you’ve finally won the
big one! So what’s going through your mind right now?
Player: Sooo, I have a test on Tuesday – macro economics in
post-war Luxembourg. My tutor has small pox. So I’m worried
about my grade.
Reporter: Get a flu shot.
*
ROSE BOWL OFFICIALS
PROMISE NO MORE BAND
PASADENA – Following a flood of complaints about this
year’s pre-game Rose Bowl ceremony, pageant officials said
they would no longer allow a marching band to perform
original arrangements of the National Anthem before the big
game.
“It baffled the entire crowd,” said one event coordinator who
declined to be named for fear of lynching. “No one seemed
to understand this version, the original score for the Anthem.
Next year, we’ll scrap the band and return to the awesome
popular country-western, or an awesome hip-hop arrangement.
Heavy metal is also awesome. Billy-Don Warbler was awesome
last year with his fiddle and steel geetar and barbeque
smoke Anthem fireworks. The original classical Anthem is not
awesome enough.”
*
ROYALS, RED SOX SIGN FOR
$2.6 BILLION SHAVING AD
The Kansas City Royals and Boston Red Sox, fresh from last
season’s advertising campaign for facial fertilizer from Scott’s
Turf-Builder, have signed a multi-billion dollar contract to
harvest the results.
They’ll be featured in television ads for two of Gillette’s
latest shaving products – the electric Macho Bush Hog, which
features four tiny, replacable weed-whips for trimming longer
beards, and the thick-bladed, Paul Bunyon Beard Axe for those
close, hard-to-get facial canyons.
Team spokesmen said their players had also been offered
new endorsement contracts for personal “sport spittoons” from
Glob-Master and from Sling-Screen, which makes special netting
to catch flying sunflower seed shells.
Officials said the offers may conflict with the players’ forgotten,
unexpired contract with GooberGone, a manufacturer
of absorbent dugout carpeting.
*
LINDSBORG LEADS CHARITY
CAMPAIGN FOR STATE AGENCIES
Lindsborg City officials have launched a campaign to raise
more than $5 billion to help counter the state’s growing budget
deficit, now estimated at more than many thousands of millions.
“State legislators, the poor things, spent more money than
they thought they had cut in taxes, having no understanding of
the difference between red and black ink,” said a press release
from downtown Lindsborg. The problem apparently stems
from a mixup in sorting the governor’s mail, and confusing the
statement balance of his personal bank account with the state’s,
and thinking all was well.
Lindsborg will begin the campaign by sending a team from
Soderstrom Elementary School to help tutor budget-challenged
lawmakers by using a special textbook entitled
My dollar, Your budget and Our Problem
How your bad math led to our worries
The campaign’s second phase will include volunteer fundraisers
from other cities joining the program.
*
ACTIVITY IN WASHINGTON;
HOUSE PASSES A BILL!
WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives on
Monday passed and sent to the Senate a measure that declares
Monday as the start of the work week, increasing speculation
that the Congress may get a bill out of its logjam and send it to
the president for his signature. This year.
Observers were confident that the Senate would quickly
approve the House measure. The bill, after all, is an exact replica
of a work-week measure passed six times by the Senate
last year, but rejected each time by the lower chamber because
not all House members had been consulted during the Senate’s
debate.
Although Monday has been decided as the beginning, skeptics
are doubtful the House and Senate can agree this year on
the day to end the Congressional work week.
Intense debate over the full-week measure was suspended
when proponents announced that they did not have the votes
to decide whether Wednesday or Thursday would end the work
week. A compromise measure, listing only Monday as the
beginning, was quickly drafted and introduced.
*
NCAA EXPANDS BOWL
GAME SCHEDULE
The NCAA, citing increased demand for post-season bowl
games, has added five games to its current 39-game postseason
schedule, including the new Waffle Bowl, to be played
in leap year Februarys in (of course) Washington D.C.
Additions are the Bowl Bowl, the Dot.Org-Dot.Net Bowl,
the Bawl Bowl, Compressed Air Bowl, and Dot-Dot-Dit-Dot-
Dit-Dot Bowl, sponsored by the Association of Federated
Morse Code Cluckers.
The Dot.Org-Dot.Net Bowl is to be sponsored by the
Consumer Affairs division of the American Society of Dot-Net
fishing lures and accessories. The organization had planned to
call it the Fish Bowl but decided the name lacked the flair to
reflect a need for technology in fishing.
The Bawl Bowl is sponsored by the Federation of Persistent
Complainers and Whiners and is already embroiled in a controversy
over changing colors – currently black and blue – for
the sponsoring logo.
The Compressed Air Bowl, in Bicycle Pump, Tenn., is the
brainchild of a newspaper editor in Sterling, Kansas. Several
years ago he offered that bowl site for the Big XII Kansas
Jayhawks, anticipating their first winning season. (For the
Jayhawks, a winning football season is a season with a win.)
The Association of Federated Morse Code Cluckers originally
planned to join as a sponsor for the Bawl Bowl, but its
sponsorship offer was declined by the Federation of Persistent
Complainers and Whiners, who protested the sharing arrangements
as “fair, to a fault.”
The NCAA also denied rumors that it is considering plans
for a sixth new post-season contest sponsored by Kansas legislative
budget planners, to be called the Dust Bowl.
Fantasy headlines and anecdotes for a new year
Forcing paperwhite bulbs
Paperwhites are a form of daffodil that do not require a chilling period in order to bloom. Therefore, they are very easy to force.
Following are the steps needed.
– Use a 3 to 4 inch decorative container that does not have drainage holes. It should be transparent enough that you can see the water level in relation to the bulbs.
– Place 1 to 2 inches of washed gravel, marbles, glass beads or stones in the bottom of the container. We will call the material chosen as “media” for the remainder of the article.
– Place the bulbs on the media so that they are near one another.
Add enough media to hold them in place.
– Add enough water that the bottom of the bulb is sitting in water. Do not submerge the bulb. Maintain the water at this level.
It normally takes 4 to 8 weeks for the bulbs to bloom.
Unfortunately, paperwhites often become leggy and fall over.
Growing in cooler temperatures (60 to 65 degrees) can help but there is another trick that can be useful and involves using a dilute solution of alcohol. No, this trick did not come from an unknown source on the Internet but Cornell University’s Flower Bulb Research Program. They suggest the following to obtain a plant that is 1/3 shorter than normal. Flower size and longevity are not affected.
– Grow the bulbs as described above until the shoot is green and about 1 to 2 inches above the top of the bulb.
– Pour off the water and replace it with a 4 to 6% alcohol solution.
– Use this solution instead of water for all future waterings.
There are two methods to add this solution. The first is to add the alcohol solution to what is already in the container. Add enough to bring it up to the proper level. The second will give shorter plants.
In this second method, pour off all the old solution and replace it with the new each time additional solution is needed.
So, how do we make the alcohol solution? An easy way is to use
rubbing alcohol. This is most commonly 70% alcohol and should be mixed
with 1 part alcohol with 10 or 11 parts water.
Do not use beer or wine as the sugars present can interfere with normal growth.
The researchers were not sure why this worked but suggested the alcohol made it more difficult for the plants to take up water. This water stress stunted growth but did not affect the flowers. (Ward Upham)
Starting onion plants indoors
It can be difficult to find specific onion varieties in sets or transplants, so growing from seed may be a preferred option. Onions are one of the first plants to be seeded for transplanting because they take a significant amount of time (6 to 8 weeks) to reach transplant size and because they can be set out relatively early (late March in much of eastern and central Kansas). Therefore, we want to start onions in mid- to late-January. Onion seed should be placed ½ to 3/4 inch apart in a pot or flat filled with a seed starting mix. Place the container in a warm (75 to 80 F) location until young seedlings emerge. Move to a cooler location (60 to 65 F) when the seedlings are 1 to 2 inches tall.
Make sure they have plenty of light, using florescent lights if needed.
Start fertilizing when the seedlings reach 2 to 3 inches tall using a soluble fertilizer with each or every other watering.
Onion seedlings tend to be spindly with the remains of the seed sticking to the end of a leaf for several weeks. Encourage stockiness by trimming the ends of the leaves when the plants reach 4 to 5 inches tall. Start hardening off the onions in early March by moving the plants to a protected outdoor location. You may have to move them inside temporarily to protect them from extreme cold snaps.
By: Ward Upham
Barton men run away with 105-74 victory at Dodge City to open conference play
Like their counterparts, the Barton Community College men’s basketball team opened up the conference season impressively, dominating the last thirty minutes of play to win 105-74 at Dodge City Community College. Barton erased a two point deficit midway through first half action but a 10-2 run in a 34-12 spurt put Barton out by twenty 53-33 at the break. After Dodge City closed to within thirteen early in the second half, Barton put the foot down with a 16-2 run to blow the game open at the Civic Center. Barton improves to 13-2 on the season while dropping Dodge City to 10-5. The Cougars will have a day rest before Garden City Community College rolls to town for a 7:30 p.m. tip at the Barton Gym.
Ahmad Walker led four Cougars in double-digits with twenty-six points while Jalin Barnes dropped in a career high twenty five. Kenny Enoch with eleven second half points led to thirteen points in the contest while Khalil Gracey came off the bench to score twelve and grab a team high seven points.
George Brock’s twenty points led four Conquistadors in double digit scoring. 7’1″ Payton Pervier recorded a double-double scoring seventeen points and hauling down twelve rebounds. Ameer Jackson and EJ Eaves both came off the bench scoring thirteen and eleven respectively.
