Tonight's Fireworks

A few years ago, my little town of Oradell, NJ celebrated
Fourth of July with a fireworks show. In the midst of the
event, winds shifted and seven people in the crowd were
burned seriously. We learned nothing.

Tonight (Friday, July 3, 2009) Oradell will celebrate the
Fourth by having another fireworks show on the 3rd. The
show will cost our town $20,000.

This week I received my new tax bill for the third quarter.
Taxes for my home increased 15 percent. I now pay over
$13,000 per year for real estate taxes.

Earlier in the week our town planners turned down a
request for a downtown project that would have
generated $50,000 in tax ratables.

Jews and Seventh-day Adventists will not be attending
tonight's fireworks. It is the beginning of our Sabbath.

I just checked weather.com. The forecast is for
thunderstorm activity beginning at 1 PM today and ending
at midnight. Until 9 PM they project "scattered" storms.
After 9 PM the forecast calls for "isolated" storms. I
do not know the difference, but at times I do feel
scattered and isolated.

Who claims that there is no cosmic justice?

*************************

My Favorite Summertime Column

I wrote and posted this column on July 12, 1998:

There is a resort town on the eastern tip of Long
Island, New York, which has been the locale for my
very special one week family vacation each summer.
Montauk is a part of the fabled "Hamptons," yet,
there is a unique combination of New England and
Camelot making this small community so very special.
This year we camped in the dunes at Hither Hills, a
few hundred feet from the Atlantic Ocean.

Part of the camping experience is sharing communal
shower and bath facilities with two hundred other
families. One sacrifices a bit of privacy by sleeping
within earshot of pounding surf and screeching terns
and seagulls. One thing became quite apparent to me
was how long fellow campers sat within toilet stalls
while I waited for my turn. After a few days my
curiosity got the better of me, and not being overly
shy, I decided to explore a theory.

"Is your digestion a bit worse on this vacation," I
asked. "Is it tougher to go to the bathroom?" (Hey,
nobody said being a scientist was easy, particularly
when one designs a completely biased non-double blind
study!)

Every person agreed that things were not working as
well as they did in the privacy of their own home.
Perhaps the lack of privacy was directly proportional
to the time spent struggling to have a normal bowel
movement. "Is your diet any different than your normal
diet?" I asked this question to dozens of male and
female campers and most reported that their eating
habits had not significantly changed.

We were blessed with a week of sunshine, temperatures
soared into the mid-eighties. The mornings were filled
with sandcastles and body surfing. Each afternoon we
would go into town and walk the streets doing touristy
things. Each afternoon we returned to the beach, then
back to town and then back to the campsite again. And
then it hit me all at once. After all, I am the
"Notmilkman." If I don't notice such things, who will?

Besides gallons of 15+ sunblock and sunglasses and beach
sandals, everybody seemed to have an ice cream cone with
three scoops permanently attached to their hand. Well,
perhaps I am exaggerating, but, a close census of the
four dozen stores on Montauk's main street revealed
fourteen establishments selling ice cream. The last day
of my stay I polled those people whose dietary habits
had not changed. "How many ice cream treats do you
average each day?" It was rare to find a person who
had less than two daily ice cream treats. Most
averaged three cones or milk shakes to help ward off
the July sunshine and justify a mid-summer vacation.

A scientific study? Perhaps not. My digestion did
not change. Nor did the bathroom habits of the other
members of my family. Perhaps a controlled study
would be appropriate. You still have August to
perform your own simple one-person test. Eat those
three ice-creams in one day and I defy you to tell
me that things are the same inside of your body.

Concentrated indigestible milk proteins... casein,
a powerful glue. It takes 5.5 kg (twelve pounds)
of milk to make 500 g (one pound) of ice cream. One
liter (quart) of ice cream takes 11 kg (twenty-four
pounds) of milk to make. Four percent of milk is
casein, one of the most tenacious glues known to
mankind. The math is simple, if not extremely
disturbing. Eat one liter (two pints) of ice cream
per day and you are eating 37 ml (1.29 ounces) of
the same glue used to hold a label on a glass bottle
of beer. Is it any wonder that the digestive
processes of a human are messed up?

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com