Proof Positive

I’m a firm believer in science and its practitioners, specifically researchers hunched over their workbenches day after day in the dingy basement of some out-of-the-way building.

Without them, we would still be a rag-tag colony of hunter/gatherers living in trees.

“Hi, dear. What’s for dinner?”

“Bark.”

“Not again!”

Thanks to scientific research, we have car alarms, automated telephone menus, mobile phone ringtones, pop-up ads, selfies, boom boxes, microwaved food, Twitter and Facebook.

Imagine life without them.

But sometimes researchers, in their never-ending quest to shine the bright light of knowledge on our dull countenances, do some weird stuff.

Consider this bit of breathless news that broke just this past week:

“New research from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom suggests that restaurants and bars that sell and serve wine in larger glasses cause patrons to drink more, even if the amount of alcohol doesn't vary.

“Over 16 weeks, researchers at the University of Bristol studied serving patterns at a dual bar and restaurant establishment called The Pint Shop in Cambridge. Over the course of the study, the space's owners alternated between three different glass sizes: the "standard" 300 ml, a larger 370 ml, and a smaller 250 ml.

“Not only did they find that people tended to buy more wine when the bar served alcohol in larger glasses, they also found that it was a significant amount more; patrons bought an average of 9.4 percent more wine when it was served in the 370 ml glass, as opposed to the standard 300 ml glass.”

And then this: “The researchers are continuing to study the effects to confirm their hypothesis.”

These guys are geniuses. Not because they came to the startling conclusion that people drink more when the glasses are larger.  But because they found a university to pick up their bar bill in the name of research. 

Brilliant.

In a related development, a group of researchers asked people at bars to rate their own attractiveness. They found that the higher the blood alcohol content of people, the higher they rated themselves on attractiveness. Which I guess is why they put mirrors behind bars.

There is other notable research going on out there. According to the website Mental Floss, a researcher trained pigeons to tell the difference between good and bad paintings made by children. The pigeons were positively reinforced when they pecked at good paintings and after a while, they were able to determine which ones were good, even observing color and pattern cues in paintings they'd never seen before.  Practical application unknown.

Some other bon mots from Mental Floss:

 A study was conducted at the Babraham Institute to determine whether sheep were capable of recognizing the faces of other sheep. When the study concluded in 2001, the researchers had discovered that sheep could recognize the faces of 50 sheep about 80% of the time, and they remembered them for over two years.  Which is better than I could do.

A group of researchers did a study to determine whether the speed and flow of men's urination was affected by people being too near them. In order to do this, they left an observer with a periscope in a public restroom for extended periods of time. He found that the closer a man had to pee next to another man, the longer it took for him to start urinating. He also peed, on average, less if someone was standing next to him. I suspect the research was done at some random sports venue where guys are lined up shoulder to shoulder and 10 deep.

 At the University of Minnesota, scientists discovered that it is just as easy to swim in syrup as it is to swim in water. In order to conduct the experiment, they filled a 25 meter swimming pool with a liquid made of guar gum, a liquid that is twice as thick as water, and it turns out that you can swim in it just fine.  No Olympic records were harmed in the making of this conclusion.

Less we be accused of nerd bashing, scientists poke fun at themselves for quirky studies. In fact, there is something called the Ig Nobel awards, presented each year at Harvard University by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine.

In the past, honorees included two California scientists who conducted extensive research on why woodpeckers don't get headaches.

And another group studied why pregnant women don't tip over. Women, it appears, have slight differences in their lumbar vertebrae that helps compensate for their changing center of gravity. So women are different. Who knew?

Honors also went to researchers who investigated whether suicide rates are linked to the amount of country music played on the radio. My guess is yes.

And Swiss scientists conducted a study that confirmed an empty beer bottle makes a better weapon than a full beer bottle in a fight.

Also saluted was a study that determined that lap dancers get higher tips when they are ovulating; and a woman from MIT who invented an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people do get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday.

The awards aren’t always bestowed for strict scientific research.

The prize for mathematics was once awarded to the Southern Baptist Church of Alabama for their county-by-county estimate of how many Alabama citizens will go to hell if they don't repent.

This year’s prize in Economics went to the Bangkok Metropolitan Police for offering to pay policemen extra cash if the policemen refuse to take bribes.

A few years ago, the British government unveiled plans to allocate research funding according to how much "impact" the research has.

The plans immediately came under fire from academics, who say that curiosity-driven, speculative research has led to some of the most important breakthroughs in scientific history, including penicillin, relativity theory and the theory of evolution.

Not to mention runaway alarm clocks.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector1.

A Lot to Loathe

I found myself in a tight spot the other day.

Boxed in. Surrounded by aggressive and unfriendly crowds.

Fearing for my safety, property and sanity.

Desperately seeking a way out.

 I was in a Trader Joe’s parking lot.

It doesn’t matter which one.  Every one I’ve ever encountered is so small that it wouldn’t accommodate a handball court.

As the old joke goes: Trader Joe’s real estate agent: “How’s the parking lot?”  Land owner: “Terrible.”  Real estate agent:  “Great, we’ll take it.”

Yet we flock to the stores in our never-ending quest for $2 wine, frozen quattro formaggio pizza, hatch chili mac and cheese, green olive tapenade and organic low-fat yogurt wildberry probiotic smoothies.

Topped off with a broken taillight.

So as I waited patiently behind a woman driving a SUV the size of a Space Shuttle fuel tank, I began to wonder. If all Trader Joe’s parking lots are tiny, we can reasonably assume that the chain’s management wants it so.

It’s owned by a German firm and I can envision the CEO slamming his fist on the boardroom table and shouting, “Jawhol! We must teach American shoppers discipline!”

Or probably not. The real reason is much more sophisticated than that.

According to several published reports, TJ’s small footprint --- stores and parking lots --- translates into to cheaper prices for consumers.

“Trader Joe’s sells twice as much per square foot as Whole Foods,” the investment firm JLL reports. “Trader Joe’s sells a whopping $1,734 per square foot… In comparison, Whole Foods sells $930 per square foot.”

It seems strange to me that food sales would be calculated in square feet.  I mean, watermelons are bigger than olives so how does that factor in? But if I was a math major, I wouldn’t be writing this right now.

Building smaller stores with small parking lots is part of the Trader Joe’s business model, it seems, a way to keep costs down and pass the savings on to customers.

They must be on to something. Whole Foods has giant parking lots but you need to refinance your house to shop there.

Speaking of traffic, both off and on road variety, I heard a traffic report on the radio a few weeks ago that said a motorist driving on Laurel Canyon Blvd. hit and sheared off a water main valve. The resulting flood caused mud, some ankle deep, to flow down the street, closing it from Ventura Blvd. to Mulholland.

For the uninitiated, this is a major thoughfare between the Valley and the West Side.

In the grand scheme of L.A. traffic, this was merely a footnote. For sheer psychological carnage, there’s nothing like an 8 a.m. trip down the freeway, any freeway.

But the domino effect was staggering. Commuters tried alternative canyon routes, specifically Beverly Glenn which became so clogged it took an hour to travel from Ventura to Mulholland, usually a 15-minute drive.

And if they were lucky enough to reach Mulholland, it was moving at creep speed.

Others took their chances on the 405 which, instead of being merely apocalyptic, had been transformed into a parking lot.

Ventura Blvd. was impacted.  So was the Ventura Freeway.

It occurred to me that if a terrorist or other maniacal malcontent wants to inflict pain on the good people of Los Angeles, he wouldn’t have to fly a plane into a building or hack our power grid computers.

He could just knock over a few water main valves or fire hydrants. We would be brought to a standstill. Our entire city would become one giant Trader Joe’s parking lot.

The good news is that all of this will be ancient history when we hop into our self-driving cars in the near future. They will whisk us to our destination and return for us when summoned.

No more traffic jams, no more parking hassles, no more accidents, no more road rage. The car will be our servile friend.

Then I read this week that Ford is recalling a total of 1,898,728 vehicles to replace defective Takata front passenger-side airbags.  The defective airbags have been linked to ruptures that can send metal fragments at the passenger, due to deteriorating propellant.

All told, recalls of Takata airbags in 14 different automotive brands currently stands at nearly 78 million to be replaced through 2019.  

Toyota said it would begin to replace defective passenger-side inflators but if parts are unavailable, it has advised its dealers to disable the airbags and affix “Do Not Sit Here” messages to the dashboard.

In the meantime, Toyota, Volkswagen, Fiat Chrysler and Mitsubishi continue to sell new vehicles with defective airbags that will need to be recalled, according to a Senate Commerce Committee report released this past week.

And it’s not just airbags.

General Motors in 2014 recalled more cars and trucks in the U.S. than it sold in the five years since it filed for bankruptcy, according to CNN.

Chief among them was 2.6 million of its small cars due to faulty ignition switches, which could shut off the engine during driving and thereby prevent the air bags from inflating. At least 124 deaths have resulted from the flaw which had been known to GM for at least a decade but never publicized prior to the recall being declared.

Ford once famously recalled 21 million vehicles from 10 model years for a problem that caused some vehicles to slip from park into reverse. Records show Ford’s solution for that problem, which investigators linked to 6,000 accidents and nearly 100 deaths, was to send drivers a warning sticker to put on the dashboard.

And these guys are going to build self-driving cars?  I think I’ll take a hike.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector1.

Historic Histrionics

He is a “rageful, lying, warmongering fellow; a “repulsive pedant” and “gross hypocrite…”

Strong words, indeed. And just who is the subject of this slur?  Donald Trump you say?

Not even close. Although the shoe may fit, this particular quote was directed at then-President John Adams by his vice president, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and fellow Founding Father. The two, formerly fast friends, found themselves matched against each other in the presidential contest of 1800.

We mention this because the hostility level is rising in the Trump/Clinton/Sanders contests.  It should be white hot soon.  But before we cover our ears, avert our eyes  and weep for the future of our country, consider this.

No matter how bizarre and angry the rhetoric becomes, it’s unlikely it will match that of presidential contests in years past.

And the election of 1800 is the gold standard for character assassination, deviousness and mudslinging.

For example, Adams supporters characterized Thomas Jefferson as the son of a half-breed Indian squaw and a mulatto father. Voters were warned that Jefferson’s election would result in a civil war and a national orgy of rape, incest, and adultery.

They claimed Jefferson supporters were “cut-throats who walk in rags and sleep amid filth and vermin.”

As the slurs piled on, Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant, while Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward.

Even Martha Washington got into the act, telling a clergyman that Jefferson was "one of the most detestable of mankind."

So much for the age of civility.

Strangely enough, presidential candidates didn't actively campaign in those days, according to several published histories. In fact, Adams and Jefferson spent much of the election season at their respective homes in Massachusetts and Virginia.

That didn’t stop Jefferson from hiring a pamphleteer named James Callendar to do his dirty work. Adams, on the other hand, considered himself above such tactics.

 Callendar proved effective, claiming Adams had a “hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman” and convinced many Americans that Adams wanted to attack France. Although the claim was untrue, voters bought it, and Jefferson won the election.

Jefferson paid a price for his campaign tactics, however.  Callendar served jail time for slandering Adams, and when he emerged from prison in 1801, he felt Jefferson owed him.

When Jefferson did little to appease him, Callendar published a story in 1802 that claimed the President was having an affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. In a series of articles, Callendar wrote that Jefferson had lived with Hemings in France and that she had given birth to five of his children.

That rumor continues to attach itself to the name of Thomas Jefferson to this day. In fact, a 1998 DNA study found a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Hemings' last son, Eston Hemings.

Adams lived long enough to see his son, John Quincy Adams, elected to the presidency.

He died before his son engaged in a nasty reelection battle with Andrew Jackson in 1828.

Slurs flew back and forth, with John Quincy Adams being labeled a pimp, and Andrew Jackson's wife getting called a slut.

A historian reported that as the election progressed, editorials in the American newspapers read more like bathroom graffiti than political commentary.

 One paper claimed that "General Jackson's mother was a common prostitute, brought to this country by the British soldiers. She afterward married a mulatto man, with whom she had several children, of which number General Jackson is one!"

Jackson supporters accused Adams of having premarital sex with his wife and being a pimp, claiming he arranged an American hooker for Czar Alexander I.

A few other lowlights:

In 1839, Martin Van Buren was accused of being too close to the Pope, when, in fact, he had done little more than correspond with the Vatican in his job as Secretary of State under Andrew Jackson. His opponents, nevertheless, spread the canard that a “popish plot” was afoot to ensure Van Buren’s election.

During the campaign of 1864, Abraham Lincoln was called an ape, a ghoul and a  traitor.  One New York paper suggested that “Barnum should buy and exhibit him as a zoological curiosity.”   A Houston newspaper said he was the “most ungainly mass of legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a single frame.” Political cartoons pictured him as a monkey. At one point, Lincoln’s wife was accused of being a Confederate spy.

During the campaign of 1884  the Buffalo Evening Telegraph accused Grover Cleveland of fathering an illegitimate son a decade earlier in Buffalo. It turned out that Cleveland, a bachelor, had dated the child’s mother, as had several other men. The boy, therefore, was of questionable parentage. Yet the inherently decent Cleveland had provided for him. A chant soon arose in Republican ranks: “Ma! Ma! Where’s my pa? Gone to the White House, ha! ha! ha!”

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector1.

Words Worth Sharing

It’s that time of year when the collective wisdom of the human race is reduced to bite-sized portions and spoon fed to those in whose hands the future resides.

We speak, of course, of graduation day and the speakers who exhort a new generation to succeed where previous generations fumbled the ball on the goal line.

Is anyone listening? A few perhaps, but conventional wisdom holds that the life expectancy of graduation speech is about 15 minutes. After all, there’s more partying than pondering taking place on graduation day.

For those of you whose minds might have been elsewhere during your graduation ceremony, we offer snippets of some really smart speeches we have read over the years.  Next time you run into your local journalist, thank him or her for being there to jot them down:

"Be as bold as the first man or woman to eat an oyster." - Shirley Chisholm, congresswoman.

"A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad." - Theodore Roosevelt.

"When you leave here, don't forget why you came." - Adlai Stevenson.

"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!" - Andy McIntyre.

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit." - Nelson Henderson.

“So, what’s it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don’t recommend it.” ---Bill Watterson.

“You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world.” --- Tom Brokaw.

“I want to congratulate you all upon your graduation from the University of Maryland College of Journalism, and wish you luck as you prepare to embark on exciting careers in telemarketing or large-appliance repair." ---Gene Weingarten.

“Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you graduated.” --- Erma Bombeck.

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.” ------J.K. Rowling.

“If your uniform isn't dirty, you haven't been in the game.” ---Ben Bernanke.

“For the most important decisions in your life, trust your intuition, and then work with everything you have, to prove it right.” --- Tim Cook.

“Life has a very simple plot: first you're here and then you're not.” --- Eric Idle.

“You get to make your own luck. 80% of success in your career will come from just showing up. The world is run by those who show up…not those who wait to be asked.” --- Steve Blank.

"Build resilience in yourselves. When tragedy or disappointment strike, know that you have the ability to get through absolutely anything. I promise you do. As the saying goes, we are more vulnerable than we ever thought, but we are stronger than we ever imagined." --- Sheryl Sandberg.

 “Be Santa Claus when you can.” --- Jimmy Buffett.

"Take your risks now. As you grow older, you become more fearful and less flexible…Limit your 'always' and your 'nevers.' Continue to share your heart with people even if it's been broken." --- Amy Poehler.

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” ----Winston Churchill.

"All that stands between the graduate and the top of the ladder is the ladder." --- Author Unknown.

“During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. ‘Absolutely,’ the professor said. ‘In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello.’ I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.” -Joann C. Jones.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector1.

Food for Thought

When it comes to innovation, there’s nothing like food and drink to fire up the American imagination.

And we’re not talking about filet of free-range bison in a pinot noir reduction served on a bed of organic prairie grass.

We’re talking about stick-to-the-ribs fare, the kind of stuff we’ve been told to avoid but continue to eat in mass quantities.

We can’t help it. We are people whose ancestors rose before dawn to plow the back 40, mend the fences, round up the livestock and shoe the horses all before lunch. And even though we don’t plow, mend, round up or shoe anything these days, we still eat like we do.  Traditions die hard.

We are one nation, burgers and fries for all.

In that spirit, we introduce a few new culinary delights you may have missed.

Out in Brooklyn, a pizzeria named Vinnie’s has solved that age-old problem of dealing with that large, greasy, unwieldly pizza box.

They have invented a box made of pizza. You don’t toss it, you eat it.

Vinnie’s owner Sean Berthiaume says the idea came to him while he was thinking about customers coming in for a slice or two, then discarding their greasy boxes right away.

“Sometimes I get a little upset when customers ask for a box and then they sit down and eat the pizza and they throw away the box right away. So that kinda clicked something in my brain.”  

So the pizza box isn’t just tasty—it’s also environmentally friendly. Save a tree. Eat a pizza.

These guys are no newcomers to the pizza game. Last year, they introduced a pizza topped with smaller pizza slices.

The only problem they’re having is trying to figure out the best way to deliver the pizza without using an actual box thus defeating the whole point.

American ingenuity will find a way. In the meantime, give them credit for thinking outside the box.

Down at the ballpark, nobody will confuse baseball with the Hunger Games.

In Atlanta, they feast on a 20-ounce bacon cheeseburger jammed between two personal-size pizzas—one pepperoni, one plain—in lieu of buns. 

In Texas, where the Rangers hold forth, you can dine on something called the Wicked Pig, a tri-level “Hawaiian roll stacked with pulled pork, bacon, sausage, prosciutto and ham, then doused in barbecue sauce and topped with coleslaw and pork rinds.”

Or the Chicken and Doughnut Skewer, a foot of alternating fried chicken and doughnuts “drizzled with buffalo honey sauce.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are offering the Cracker Jack and Mac Dog, a foot-long hot dog with what appears to be an entire box of Cracker Jacks, a fistful of mac and cheese, plus jalapeños, and salted caramel sauce.

The Philadelphia Phillies will be serving the Wayback Triple Triple Triple, a teetering stack of nine cheeseburgers that clocks in at 1,980 calories.

The world champion Kansas City Royals offer the Champions Alley Burger, “a cheese-stuffed, tempura-battered cheddar bacon burger with sweet slaw, chipotle ketchup and fried pickle on a Farm to Market roll for $19.”

Napkins and paramedics will be available in abundance.

Corporate America is firmly in lockstep on innovative food fare.

Kentucky Fried Chicken, whose motto is “finger lickin’ good” is offering lickable, edible fingernail polish in two flavors: Original, and Hot and Spicy.

Let me guess.  It tastes like chicken.

KFC’s advertising company said the aim of the product was a way “to remind the younger generation” of “the great taste and good times the brand stands for.”

"Simply apply and dry like regular nail polish and then lick — again and again and again to taste why the world's favorite chicken is Finger Lickin' Good," the company says.

Alas, this treat is only available in Hong Kong, at least for the time being.  Why?

According to Forbes, KFC is all over China. And not just with its buckets of fried chicken. The fast-food chain – one of the country’s most popular – has recently unleashed a series of clever marketing props to keep luring in its Chinese consumers, with a special eye on Millennials and Generation Z.

Of course.  Nothing says hip like deep fried poultry.

Innovations extend to packaging as well. We offer as Exhibit A Budweiser’s plan to rename its beer, at least temporarily.

It will be called America.

The redesigned can will replace each element of Budweiser-specific branding with Americana. The beer’s slogan, “King of Beers,” will be replaced with “E Pluribus Unum” (“Out of many, one”), the words featured on American currency. Instead of a description of the brewing process at the top of the can, there will be lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Too bad they couldn’t squeeze the Bill of Rights in there somewhere.

Lost in all this hoopla is that fact that it won’t be a better beer. Just plain old Bud wrapped in a flag.

Considering Bud is owned by a company based in Belgium, why this sudden burst of patriotism?

It will be “probably the most American summer of our generation,” Ricardo Marques, a vice president at Budweiser, told the New York Times. Along with the traditional spring and summer holidays — Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day, this summer will bring the Olympics and the Copa América soccer tournament, to be held in June at sites throughout the United States. 

The re-branding will last until November.

Some might question equating a love of country with a product that can make you fat, lazy and stupid.

On the other hand, we may need to pound down a couple of cans of America before we enter the booth to vote for a president this fall.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector1

The Swamp Thing

We Californians are a welcoming lot.

We open up our Golden Gate to millions of visitors each year, many of whom like what they see and decide to stay despite being confronted by Batman imitators, militant vegans, psychic surgeons and rebirthing therapists.

Occasionally, however, a visitor to our state earns our everlasting acrimony.  And we’re not talking about Mediterranean Fruit Flies.

In this case, it’s the Honorable Rick Scott, the governor of Florida who just blew in  last week from the land of hubris and humidity to lure California businesses to his state.

The way Scott sees it, because California is raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, “700,000 people are going to lose their jobs.  There are a lot of opportunities for companies to prosper in Florida,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

A radio ad paid for by the state warns not only of layoffs but of job-stealing robots. That apparently won’t happen in Florida where time stands still.

All well and good but, according to published reports, businesses don't move between states much, and corporate relocations are irrelevant to the overall economic health of any state.

Less than 1% of the businesses that disappeared from California in 2013 were due to out-of-state relocations, according to data from YourEconomy.org. In addition, only 1% of new businesses in California came from other states.

Of course, that doesn’t factor in the spooky job-gobbling robot factor.

And what about that minimum wage boost? According to one economic study, the industries that will feel the impact of higher wages are ones least likely to move. About a third of workers who will get a pay increase are working in stores or restaurants.

In other words, don’t expect your favorite neighborhood bistro to relocate 3000 miles just to save on dishwasher salaries.

Scott said he’s fixated on getting people, not just businesses, to move to Florida.

So was does the Sunshine State have to offer?

Well, there’s no state income tax. That’s what they don’t have. Here’s what they do have:

Weather: Searing heat accompanied by soul-sucking humidity. Without air conditioning, south Florida would be a populated mainly by alligators and mosquitoes. Come to think of it, the mosquito population already outnumbers humans.

Bills:  Floridians pay some of the highest electric bills in the country. (See Weather, above).

Sinkholes. Florida can lay claim to having more sinkholes than any other state in the nation, Last year, a sinkhole 30 feet wide by 30 feet deep forced the evacuation of a neighborhood near Tampa. The year before, one swallowed a man as he slept in his bedroom.  His body was never recovered.

Storms: The 2015 Atlantic hurricane season was a slightly below average season that produced only 12 tropical cyclones, eleven named storms, four hurricanes, and two major hurricanes. Sure, we have earthquakes. But we don’t have an earthquake season. Hurricane season lasts from June through November. Then, there's the fact that between 1991 and 2010, an average of 66 tornadoes per year struck Florida, making it the third most popular state for tornadoes during that time. In 2014, six of the country's 26 lightning deaths happened in Florida. The state is often called the lightning strike capital of the country. But wait, there’s more. During the summer, there’s a thunderstorm almost every afternoon.

Critters: In addition to flying insects the size of baseball bats, Florida is home to  such endearing creatures as the Giant African Land Snail, an invasive species that could adversely affect agriculture, natural ecosystems, human health or commerce. Florida cockroaches are lovingly referred to as Stink Bugs while a species known as Love Bugs fly in swarms as large as 100,000.

Corruption:  Harvard Law School’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics has issued a report on corruption which finds that illegal corruption is “moderately common” in Florida’s executive branch and state’s legislative branch. Hampton, Fla. has been called one of the most corrupt towns in America.

Theft: Florida tends to lead the nation in fraud and identity theft, according to the Sun-Sentinel. Also in medical malpractice claims. Maybe that’s why the state has one of fastest growing lawyer populations.

Violence: Florida may be just the fourth most populous state in the U.S., but it contains more of nation’s 100 most dangerous cities — a total of 11 — than any other state.

Weirdness: Columnist Dave Barry’s favorite Miami Moments:

—The time a 73-year-old motorist, apparently unaware that he was doing anything wrong, was stopped by police driving his Chevrolet Cobalt... on Runway Nine of Miami International Airport.

—The time two men caught a six-foot shark in Biscayne Bay and decided to sell it to a fish wholesaler. They had no car, so they took the shark – which was still alive – onto the downtown people mover at rush hour.

—The time cocaine smugglers, fleeing from a U.S. Customs jet, threw 20 bales of cocaine out of their aircraft, and one of the bales nearly hit the chief of police of Homestead, who was speaking at a Citizens Crime Watch meeting.

I'm afraid Gov. Scott's Siren Song is falling on deaf ears. I'll be staying right here.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector1.

Shark Bait

I was 10 years old when Dad finally broke down and bought the
family its first TV set.

We wheeled it into the living room, hooked up the rabbit ears,
plugged it in and proceeded to gaze, slack jawed and wide eyed, at
anything and everything that appeared on its 12-inch screen.

That included wrestling and roller derby, Ina Ray Hutton and Her All-Girl Orchestra, live broadcasts of A-bomb tests in Nevada, even test patterns.

It was a miracle.  It also was, in the words of Newton Minnow, the FCC chairman, a “vast wasteland.”

No matter. We watched it all.

Whether or not that wasteland has blossomed into a garden of delights is a matter of conjecture.

I’m probably the wrong guy to ask. Nowadays, my viewing habits pretty much focus on sports, news shows and movies.

I’m not an entertainment snob. But sit-coms make me grimace. Cop dramas are just soap operas accompanied by gunfire. Shows like “The Voice” and “Dancing With the Stars” are like being stuck in eternal audition hell. Reality shows are about as authentic as a $3 bill.

Yet, there is one recurring show that has held my attention. That would be “Shark Tank,” a long-running series in which amateur inventors emerge from their garages and kitchens to pitch their products to a panel of assorted millionaires and billionaires. 

I think what intrigues me most about the show is that there are still lots of people out there, would-be Edisons and Bells and Carvers and Goodyears, who are inventing Stuff.

That’s Stuff as opposed to bureaucracies, subprime mortgages, exchange-traded funds, Twitter accounts and anything with the word “virtual” in its title.

We’re talking manufactured goods, something that has been in decline in the U.S. for years. While the United States has added 520,000 manufacturing jobs since 2010 that figure pales beside the 6 million factory jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics says vanished between 2000 and 2009.

It gives you hope that manufacturing, and the thousands of middle-class jobs that go with it, might make a comeback in this country.

Unfortunately, in too many cases, when Joe Inventor appears before the sharks with his better mousetrap, the first thing they ask him to do is to ship his product to China where it can be manufactured cheaply, thereby increasing the profit margins. 

Most contestants agree. After all, they’re dancing for their dinner.

At the very least, you learn a lot about how these captains of industry think. Contestants are grilled about manufacturing, inventory, distribution, sales forecasts and future products and their answers could determine if they extract some cash from the sharks.

A fair amount of them get offers.  But, according to a story in the New York Post, many of the deals made on the show are never enacted, due to the investors' vetting process following the deal, which includes product testing and the examination of the contestants' personal and business financials.

 In some cases, the entrepreneurs themselves have backed out of the deal after admitting that they only wanted to appear on the show for the publicity.

Those who make the cut can achieve considerable success.

Aaron Krause had invented buffing pads to use in his car-polishing business. To scrub his greasy hands, he used a piece of polyurethane he put inside the pads. It worked like a charm.  Thus, Scrub Daddy, a kind of super sponge, was born. He convinced Shark Lori Greiner to invest $200,000 for a 20 per cent equity stake. His revenue last year was north of $20 million.

Robert Edwards’ mother Judy was constipated. He’d read that raising knees above the hips could ease the problem so he designed a horseshoe-shaped footstool that fit around the front of a toilet. It worked and he dubbed it the Squatty Potty. Greiner also bankrolled this product ($350,000 for 10% equity stake) and sales this year are project to exceed $25 million.

Charles Yim says he was out drinking with colleagues when he was inspired to invent a $50 breathalyzer that plugs into a smartphone. The Sharks bought into the idea for a $1 million investment and 30% equity stake. Shortly after the show aired, two Silicon Valley venture capital firms invested an additional $700,000. Estimated revenue:  $10 million.

Not everyone hits a home run.  One contestant pitched an interactive bird feeder operated by remote control that was designed to keep pesky squirrels away by zapping them with a static shock.  The sharks didn’t feel the buzz.

One guy wanted a candle that could freshen his house but keep it smelling like a man. And so, the Man Candle was born. It comes in scents like pot roast, draft beer, and BBQ not to mention football, golf course, and flatulence.  It didn’t pass the smell test with the sharks.

Another inventor asked for $40,000 to fund his invention, an alarm clock that wakes you with the alluring aroma of cooking bacon. The Sharks decided that not only would it make your bedroom smell like bacon all the time, it was a fire hazard.

“Shark Tank” has joy, sorrow, genius and stupidity.  Sort of like television itself.

Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com. Follow him on Twitter at @robertrector1.