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Showing posts from October, 2015

Truth be Told

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I feel sorry for those who never got a chance to see "Truth or Consequences." I don't mean the town in New Mexico , either. I'm thinking of "T or C" this morning amid the news that host Bob Barker is in the hospital after a fall near his Southern California home. "Truth" didn't give Barker, 91, his start in broadcasting, but it put him on television for the first time. And there Bob stayed for some 51 years. It was game show---and reality TV, if you want to know the truth---pioneer Ralph Edwards who passed the torch of "Truth" to Barker, in 1956. Edwards created "Truth" on the radio in 1940. The premise was wacky yet simple. The show was among the first "audience participation" offerings of the day. Regular folks would have to answer an obscure trivia question---always designed for the contestant to fail---and when the answer was wrong, there would be consequences. These usually came in the form of w

The Great Pumpkin

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I do believe that this country has gone out of its gourd with pumpkin. It's the biggest food takeover in America since the Italians introduced pizza to an unsuspecting public in the late-19th century. Pumpkin spiced coffee. Pumpkin scented candles. Pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cakes, pumpkin pies. OK, that last one doesn't count. Somewhere, in some board room in corporate America, it was determined that pumpkin spice should be sprinkled, mixed, folded, encased and saturated into every possible food stuff we consume. The ironic thing is that pumpkin, by itself, certainly must taste pretty nasty. It's only edible because of what is added to it. If you plan on buying a pumpkin for Halloween with the intent of carving it, scrape out a portion and eat it, raw with no helpers. I dare ya. Pumpkin isn't invading our food supply, it's the spices added to it that are working their way into our digestive tracts with virulent speed. Starbucks, for example, only