Let's talk about sex !

When I joined the Toastmasters organization in 1981, I quickly learned that the topics that you should always avoid are religion, sex, and politics. As a general rule, both I and my fellow Toastmasters managed to do exactly that.

In the past week of so, a couple of news items came to my attention that relate, to a degree, to all three of those topics, so I decided to do more research on them. I can assure you, though, that you are unlikely to be offended by any of the conclusions that I’ve reached.

On July 8, a Texas man named Cirilo Castillo was arrested for the 2nd time in 3 months for having sex with a horse.. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to recreate the act here, but a recent mug shot of him will confirm the fact that he’s not exactly the brightest guy that you’ve ever met:

Strangely enough, Texas does not have any laws against bestiality, so the only crime that Castillo could be charged with is animal cruelty, and then only if the animal had been injured. Even stranger is the fact that there were 13 other states (as of July of 2010) that had no direct prohibitions against the sexual assault of an animal. For now, the sheep in Montana are safe, but their cousins in Wyoming need to be extra cautious.

A few of the states mentioned in the link above are in the “Bible belt”, which is even stranger due to the fact the Bible has numerous references condemning bestiality. Some of those references even mention the penalty of death for the offense.

I recently became aware of the fact that Tracy Arnold, a legislator in Mississippi, had introduced a bill earlier this year (The Protection of the Person Act) which would ban the creation of "a human embryo into which a nonhuman cell or a component of a nonhuman cell is introduced, so that it is uncertain whether the human embryo is a member of the species homo sapiens." In view of the fact that Mississippi has the 4th worst school system in the country, my opinion is that he should be focusing on things that are actually IMPORTANT, but he obviously would disagree. Mississippi, incidentally, has the highest obesity rate in the country (34.9%) , but he’s apparently not concerned with that issue either, and neither is Paula Deen.

Even though I sold cars for a lot of years, Tracy Arnold is definitely a guy that I would NOT buy a used car from:

Not surprisingly, he’s a member of the Mississippi Tea Party, and has received an “A” rating from the NRA for the last 8 years. He and his wife Neecy are pastors at The Vineyard church in Booneville, Mississippi.

Mississippi isn’t the only state that is concerned about animal-human hybrids. Both Arizona and Louisiana already have laws on the books, and Ohio introduced a bill last year that would have imposed penalties up to 5 years in jail and a $1,000,000 fine for the offense. Surprisingly, legislation was introduced at the Federal level in 2009 by 21 Senators (including both of the Senators from Arizona), but the bill never made it out of the Judiciary Committee.

Tracy Arnold, as well as a few other people , would be surprised to learn that research involving inserting human DNA into animals has been going on for close to 50 years, but only to find cures for diseases. For some reason, I don’t think that’s a problem.

Rather than focusing on relations between animals and humans, our legislators should be focused on correcting the laws involving relationships with other humans.

For example, if you’re not concerned about the fact that your children might wind up with six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, you’ll be interested to know that 18 states have virtually no restrictions on which of your 1st cousins that you can marry.

Prior to 1962, sodomy (including certain acts between married persons) was a felony in all 50 states. Over time, state laws against sodomy gradually went away, but it wasn’t until 2003 that the remaining 14 states that still had laws on the books were forced to remove them by the United States Supreme Court. Since not everyone is happy about the recent Supreme Court ruling that voided the Defense of Marriage Act, it wouldn’t be surprising if some states tried to resurrect sodomy laws.

The purpose of laws should be to protect innocent victims, which means that the laws that SHOULD be revised are the “age of consent” laws. Throughout Canada, the age of consent is 16. In America, the age of consent ranges from 16 to 18, and in parts of Mexico, the age of consent could be as young as 12. Nineteen states in America (including most of the “Bible belt”) set 16 as the age of consent. The actual effect of the laws is that they protect an adult who is having sex with a young girl from being charged with statutory rape. The penalty for statutory rape varies by state, naturally, but virtually ALL of them (with the exception of California) impose very strict penalties for the crime - up to 100 years in prison.

I’m not sure if Jerry Lee Lewis was ever charged with statutory rape, but he DID marry his 13 year old first cousin once removed in 1957, which led to a “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” for his career.

Fortunately, the rate of births to teen mothers has continued to drop in America (to a rate of 34 per 1000 girls in the age of 15 to 19). The birth rate is lowest in New Hampshire, which has an “age of consent” of 18 and mandatory birth control training (starting in elementary school) and highest in Mississippi (are you paying attention, Representative Arnold?) , which has an age of consent of 16. Mississippi has NO requirements for its schools to teach either sex education or sexually transmitted disease education. For schools that choose to each either or both topics, they are required to stress abstinence-until-marriage.

Far too many of our state legislators seem to have a weak grip in understanding either human nature or human biology, as evidenced by the fact that Republicans in the Tennessee legislature introduced wording in a sex education bill last spring that defined kissing and holding hands as “gateways to sexual activity”.

You’ve just digested a lot of complicated information regarding a very complex topic (sex) so I’ll close out this article on a lighter note.

If you’ve ever wondered, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?”, the picture below can explain it to you:

You can trust your car to the man who wears the star

Not long after I moved to Flagstaff, I noticed that some of the gas stations in town were labeled “Chevron”, which is a brand that did not exist in the 3 Midwestern states that I have lived in. To a very large degree, Chevron service stations are located in the Southern and Western states of America.

Out of curiosity, I did a little research on the Chevron brand name, and came up with some surprising information.

As it turns out, Chevron is a California-based multinational energy company that is active in over 180 countries. It is engaged in the oil, gas, and geothermal sectors, as well as in power generation. Along with BP, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total, it is considered to be one of the “Big Oil” companies.

At the end of 2012, it was the third largest corporation on the Fortune 500, and was rated the 16th largest public company in the entire world, according to Forbes Global 2000. The company’s revenue at the end of 2012 was $242 billion, and its PROFIT was $26 billion.

Although oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in 1859, the true start of the modern oil industry was at Spindletop Hill in Beaumont,Texas on January 10, 1901. The Spindletop oil discovery led to the foundation of the Texas Fuel Company, which marketed its products under the name of “Texaco”. (Six years later, the Spindletop gushers also led to the creation of a company called Gulf Oil.) Ultimately, Texaco became the only oil company to sell gasoline under the same brand name in all 50 states.

Most of us are familiar with the friendly Texaco man, and you may remember the Texaco commercials from long ago, when a trip to the “service station” meant that the attendant put gasoline in your tank, cleaned your windshield, checked the air pressure in your tires, your windshield wipers, your battery, your oil, your fan belt, and your radiator. The average price of a gallon of gas was 36 cents, and you probably got green stamps with your purchase.

Texaco ultimately became a well known brand, largely due to its sponsorship of the Texaco Star Theatre. When the show was on the radio, from 1940 through 1944, its host was Fred Allen. In 1948, the show switched to television, and it continued there until 1956. The new host of the program was a man named Milton Berle, who quickly earned the nickname “Mr. Television”.

Surprisingly, the roots of Chevron Corporation go back even further than the Spindletop discovery. In 1879, the Pacific Coast Oil Company discovered oil at the Pico Canyon Oilfield north of Los Angeles. The company was sold to the Standard Oil Company in 1900, which ultimately became the Chevron Corporation in 1984. The new Chevron Corporation also absorbed what used to be known as Gulf Oil. In the year 2000, Chevron acquired the Texaco Corporation., and the vast majority of the Texaco gas stations were divested to the Shell Oil Company.

Every time that gasoline prices spike higher, somebody comes up with the bright idea that boycotting gas stations will somehow bring about lower gasoline prices, and snopes has covered a number of those schemes over the years.

As recently as the summer of 2011, Michelle Bachmann (the queen of crazy) was promising voters that she would bring back gasoline that was priced at $2.00 a gallon, even though the price of gasoline is determined on the world market.

Today, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline is $3.48, not much more than it was a year ago.

A more important issue than gas prices, though, are the subsidies that oil company’s continue to get from the Federal Government. At the end of the third quarter of 2012, the combined profit for the “Big Oil” companies was $90 billion, and Chevron was the 2nd most profitable on the list. By the end of 2012, the Big Oil companies had received tax breaks in excess of $2 billion, and the House budget of 2013 would increase those tax breaks by an ADDITIONAL $2 billion.

To protect their largess from the taxpayers, the Big Oil companies have spent $100 million on lobbying expenses since 2011. These expenses also were aimed at blocking pollution controls and safeguards for public health.

All by itself, Chevron has contributed $15 million towards the lobbying expenses. Of this amount, $2.5 million was donated to the Republican Leadership Fund Super PAC, which is closely tied to House Speaker John Boehner.

Apart from general lobbying expenses, the oil and gas companies contributed $15,000,000 in PAC contributions to Federal candidates in 2012, which means that the subsidies aren’t likely to end any time soon.

If that makes you mad (and it should), consider these facts:

1) the number one contributor to the PACs in 4 of the last 8 election cycles (going back to 1998) is none other than Koch Industries. In the other 4 election cycles, the company was either the 2nd or 3rd largest contributor. Koch Industries has provided organizational and financial assistance to the Tea Party, and the company would make a handsome profit if the Keystone XL pipeline ever got built.

2) 86% of the PAC contributions have gone to Republican candidates, and 14% have gone to the Democrats.

3) In January of this year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s re-election war chest received $131, 500 in campaign contributions from oil donors in Midland, Texas. Three days later, a bill to repeal subsidies to oil companies failed by filibuster.

When I was a boy, the typical Texaco gas station looked like this ..

.., and you really COULD trust your car to the man who wore the star. Today, we all need to pump our own gas, and none of us are as trusting as we used to be. Green stamps, of course, are now a thing of the past.

As of last fall, 60% of the American population had little or no trust in mass media, which is the only logical explanation of why FOX News is as popular as it is. Our approval rating of Congress has now sunk to an all time low of 10%, a level that is BELOW our approval rating of cockroaches.

In spite of the gloom and doom in the paragraphs immediately above, it actually IS true that we can still trust the man who wears the star. According to the Wisconsin Police Journal, law enforcement officials have a 90% public approval rating.

There are exceptions of course, one of whom is shown below, but, hey, it’s refreshing to have at least SOME good news in today’s environment.

You get your kicks .. on Route .. 66 ..

On most days of the week, I spend at least a few minutes driving on “the Mother Road”, since part of the original Route 66 goes right through the heart of Flagstaff.

Route 66 was in the news recently, due to the fact that the State Highway and Transportation officials officially decertified the highway on June 27, 1985, bringing to a close its 59 years of service as a gateway to the West.

Much has been written about the road over the years, and numerous artists have performed their own version of the song that was pioneered by Bobby Troup in 1947. The The Rolling Stones did THEIR version in 1964.

Todd and Buzz, of course, brought fame to the road during the TV series that ran from October 7, 1960 to March 20, 1964, but public recognition of the route first came about due to the publication of “Grapes of Wrath”, a novel by John Steinbeck, in 1939, and the release of the movie with the same title a year later.

The 2006 Pixar film, Cars, brought the old road’s magic back again, but nothing that you’ve seen, or read, will ever answer a very basic question, which is how in the world did the direction of the route get selected?

The answer will surprise you, and it’s related to another tale that some people may consider to be far-fetched.

The solid fuel booster rockets that were used in the Space Shuttle were limited in size due to the fact that they had to fit through a railroad tunnel between their place of manufacture and the launch site. The tunnel was slightly wider than the standard railroad gauge of 4 feel and 8.5 inches. If we went far enough back in time, you’d discover that that peculiar measurement happens to be the width of the back end of 2 Roman horses. The “rest of the story“, of course, is that a major design feature of the most advanced transportation system the world had every seen was determined by the width of a horse's ass!

There’s an element of truth to the story, but it actually is just another one of those urban legends.

The story of the route of Route 66 seems just as far fetched, but it’s absolutely true.

In 1857, President James Buchanan appointed a former military general named Edward Fitzgerald Beale to build a 1000 mile wagon road from Fort Defiance, New Mexico to the border of California and Arizona. As an experiment, the survey incorporated the use of camels, which had first been proposed by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis in 1853. The survey team ultimately used a team of 25 camels imported from Tunisian, and the lead camel driver was a man named Hadji Ali, a Greek-Syrian convert to Islam.

The wagon road that Beale eventually got built became a popular immigrant trail during the 1860’s and 1870’s. The general route of Beale’s wagon trail was later followed by Route 66, the Sante Fe Railway, and Interstate 40.

In the final analysis, if you really want to thank the REAL founders of Route 66, you’d have to thank the Muslims, as well as the guy pictured below:

Why I don’t watch television

Until I was about six years old, our family (like most families) didn’t own a television set. Instead, we all gathered around a console radio similar to the one pictured below, and listened to shows like “The Shadow” on Saturday evenings.

We finally got our first TV ( a small black and white set) in about 1955, but it wasn’t until the mid-1970’s that we got our first color television. All of those early televisions, of course, were made in the United States of America. Today, there is exactly ONE company that makes televisions in the United States - in Detroit, no less - and it started business in March of 2012.

In the last decade or so, I’ve evolved to the point that I RARELY watch TV. Part of the reason is that I’d prefer to get my information from the internet, newspapers, or books. The other reason, though, is that it is simply TOO DIFFICULT to turn on the TV.

Our cable television service is provided by Direct TV, and it came as part of our package with our land line and our internet service, through a company called CenturyLink. Our Direct TV service, naturally, came with a remote control, which looks exactly like the one pictured below:

If you count up all the buttons, you’ll discover that there are 45 buttons. In addition, there is also a slider bar at the top. In order to turn the TV on, you need to move the slider all the way to the left and hit “power” button (not the on or off buttons on the right). Then you need to move the slider all the way to the right (to TV), hit “on” . and then “power”. After you’ve done THAT, you need to move the slider all the way back to the left again, but it is NOT necessary to hit either “on” or “power” again. If you are foolish enough to hit the on and off buttons in the wrong sequence, or (God forbid) turn the power on manually, you’ll screw everything up.

If you want to use a DVD player (which has its own remote) then you need to hit the “video” button on the television itself after you’ve managed to get the TV on.

You can also select a “pay for view” movie directly from Direct TV by using either AV1 or AV2. If you’d like to watch regular TV without the commercials, you can also add a separate component for something called Tivo (which comes with its own remote) , which can also record shows that you want to watch later. It even allows you to record one show while watching another. If you’ve got your fancy 60 inch flat screen TV hooked up to a “surround sound” theatre system, you’ll have a separate remote for that, and you can turn the whole thing on using either the AV1 or AV2 position on the slider (I think).

In view of the fact that the average America spends an average of 34 hours of week watching television, it’s pretty clear that all that neat technology can be a dangerous thing. To put that number in perspective, the average American works 34.5 hours per week, and the average employed person in Austria only works 25 hours a week.

Equally disturbing is the fact that we tend to watch more television as we get older. If you wonder how in the world all those crazy politicians get elected, you need to be aware of the fact that FOX News (the goofiest network in existence) also has the oldest viewing audience.

The first PRACTICAL television remote control was invented by a Zenith engineer named Doctor Robert Adler, and it became available in June of 1956. It had exactly FOUR buttons, and it looked like the picture below:

Naturally, other manufacturers rushed to produce better versions, and RCA Victor released what THEY claimed was the first television remote control for a color television in 1961. It had a total of FOURTEEN buttons, which controlled seven separate functions. If you watch the early commercial pictured below, you’ll start to realize that even having fourteen buttons could be confusing.



his master’s voice

(Surprisingly, the first color televisions were available in America as early as 1953, but their high initial cost, as well as very limited color programming, meant that color televisions weren’t very common until roughly 15 years later).

Since our cell phone provider (U.S. Cellular) just got purchased by Sprint, all of us needed to get new phones this week. Since Brian has a Galaxy S3 (which has full data capabilities) the rest of the Brennan family also have some limited data functions, even for our more basic phones. My new phone is an LG Rumor Reflex. In addition to the camera and Bluetooth capabilities that my old phone had, it also has a really neat navigation program, as well as access to Facebook. Amazingly, my phone also allows me to download music, play games, and (hold onto your hat) watch TELEVISION on my phone.

It also came with a slide out keyboard, which makes texting easier.

My late parents would be absolutely baffled by all of the functions that come with modern phones, especially in view of the fact that they never owned an answering machine or a cell phone. Our Direct TV remote control would leave them hopelessly confused, which is pretty much the same reaction I feel every time I decide to watch something on television.

In 1961, the newly appointed FCC chairman, Newton N. Minow, gave his famous “vast wasteland” speech. The entire transcript is posted below:

“When television is good, nothing - not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers - nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials - many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you will find a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it”.

When Minow gave his speech, America had only 3 major television networks - ABC, NBC, and CBS, If you’re a subscriber to Direct TV, you have access to HUNDREDS of channels, including over 190 that are high definition. It’s difficult to imagine that all of those hundreds of channels would have high quality programs, and it’s even hard to imagine that the high definition channels, by themselves, could offer anything worthwhile to watch on a regular basis.

If THREE channels could be considered a vast wasteland in 1961, what would 500 channels constitute today?

In the final analysis, that’s actually the reason that I no longer watch television.

Good night, and good luck.

My mother was a marijuana user

Late in life, my mother became a marijuana user.

If, for some reason, that sentence brings up an image of an old person smoking a joint (like the picture above) let me hasten to clarify.

When mom was in her early 80’s, she developed glaucoma, which is a very common ailment for older people. Glaucoma is defined as an increased pressure within the eye, and it’s the 2nd leading cause of blindness in the world. There is no cure for glaucoma, but it can be controlled through the use of surgery or medication.

In my mother’s case, her doctor felt the THC drops would be the best remedy. The full medical name for the stuff is Tetrahydrocannabinol, and it’s the principal psychoactive component of the cannabis plant.

In addition to its use in treating glaucoma, medical marijuana can be used for a variety of other medical symptoms, principally as a pain reliever.

As of today, 18 states permit the use of medical marijuana. Strangely enough, Minnesota isn’t one of them, so her doctor must have used some creative language to get the drops for my mother in the late 1990’s. Arizona is, however, and Flagstaff just opened its first center recently.

The very first medical marijuana location in Arizona opened in downtown Glendale last December. For the patients who genuinely need it, the treatment isn’t cheap, since it sells for close to $500 an ounce. Patients are limited to 2.5 ounces every two weeks.

There are currently 33,000 patients in the state who have permission to use medical marijuana. If you assumed that each of those 33,000 people averaged one ounce per week, at an average price of $500 an ounce, the state of Arizona would collect $85,800,000 a year in sales tax just from that very select group of people.

It’s a well known fact that there are PLENTY of folks who use marijuana for other than medicinal purposes. Marijuana continues to remain as America’s favorite illicit drug. Although it’s difficult to determine exactly how much “pot” is consumed every year, the size of the market ranges from a low of $10,000,000,000 a year up to $120 billion a year. The price per ounce varies from a low of $258 an ounce in Oregon to a high of $486 an ounce in Washington, D.C..

A few enlightened lawmakers, aware of the fact that the “war on drugs” has been a dismal failure, have come to the realization that the sales tax revenue on a market that is estimated to be a minimum of $10 billion a year would amount to a LOT of money. To date, Colorado and Washington are the only states to legalize recreational use of marijuana, but others will follow soon. Alaska will more than likely be the third state.

According to Virgin Chairman Richard Branson, the “war on drugs” has been a “trillion dollar failure” for the following reason:

1) The United States has the largest prison population in the world, with 2.3 million people behind bars. Of that total, more than 500,000 have been incarcerated for a drug law violation. Since it costs an average of $40,000 a year to house an inmate, our country is literally wasting an astounding $20 billion a year housing inmates who shouldn’t be locked up at all.

2) Just as Prohibition didn’t stop the consumption of alcohol, our drug laws haven’t reduced drug use. The United States is the number 1 nation in the world in illegal drug use.

It’s unlikely that all 50 states will follow the lead of Washington and Oregon. In the meantime, there’s a wide variety of laws regarding the possession of marijuana. Some states call the violation a felony, even for small amounts, while others are far more lenient.

Even the children of drug court judges can occasionally find themselves on the wrong side of the law. The 20 year old daughter of a Cook County judge was recently arrested for possession of marijuana and ecstasy. Since her marijuana possession was considered a felony, her life is going to be needlessly screwed up for a long time. As my son learned last fall, even a felony conviction that was dismissed YEARS AGO can come back to haunt you when you apply for a job.

It’s been roughly 40 years since I sampled some “weed”, and I’m not planning in starting the habit anytime soon. I’m absolutely certain that discussions of the legalization of marijuana were well below my mother’s radar, but her “illegal” eye drops DID provide some comfort for her in her old age.

My opinion is that more of our cash-strapped states will legalize recreational marijuana use within the next 5 years, due to its potential revenue stream from taxes. States currently capture nearly $100 billion a year from legalized gambling, and nearly all of them have operating deficits in their current fiscal year, in spite of their revenue from gambling.

In 1967, the late Timothy Leary coined the phrase, “Turn on, Tune in, Drop out”, and there’s no question that his drug use was legendary. It’s unlikely that the entire country would suddenly get as crazy as he was if all drug laws were abolished, but in times like this, it’s time that we start applying more common sense to our existing laws related to marijuana.

Still looking for that perfect Father’s Day gift?

If you’re still looking for the perfect Father’s Day gift for your dad, I have a suggestion for you.

Vodka.

Vodka is a distilled beverage composed primarily of water and ethanol. The ethanol is produced by distilling fermented substances, such as grains, potatoes, or fruits. Although there are a wide variety of distilled spirits made in the world, vodka is by far the most popular beverage in that category, and the bulk of that consumption is in the former Eastern Bloc countries.

If you vary the recipe a bit, the end product becomes something called “moonshine” and it’s produced in a number of countries around the world. In America, it is often called “white lightning” because it is not aged, and has a high alcohol content.

The name “vodka” is a diminutive form of the Slavic word voda, or water, and the first production of the beverage itself goes as far back as the 9th Century in Russia, or even the 8th Century in Poland.

Not a lot of people are aware of the fact that vodka is responsible for the creation of the internet, but that’s a story for another time.

If you walk the aisles of any liquor department, you’ll find a dizzying selection of vodkas from a variety of places around the globe. In addition to “straight” vodka, most of the producers also have so many variations of flavored vodkas that I’d be afraid to count them all.

Vodka also is sold in a wide range of prices. The first “super premium” vodka was the Polish brand Belvedere, which was introduced in 1996.

The average retail price of Belvedere is $34 a bottle.

The French got into the “super premium” vodka class in 2004, when Grey Goose was first produced.

The average price of a fifth of Grey Goose is $30 a bottle.

One of my personal favorites is Absolut, a Swedish vodka that has been in production since 1879, but it wasn’t introduced to the global market until 1979. It would probably be considered a “premium” rather than an “super premium” brand, and it’s the third most popular brand of alcoholic spirits in the world, after Bacardi and Smirnoff.

The average retail price of a fifth of Absolut is $20.

In 2005, the New York Times did a blind tasting of 21 unflavored vodkas to determine which one had the best test. The list of participants included Grey Goose, Ketel One (from the Netherlands) and Absolut.

The winner was Smirnoff, a Russian vodka that was established in Moscow in the 1860’s, and it’s had a very interesting history since that time.

The average price of a fifth of Smirnoff Vodka is around $12.

You certainly free to spend as much as much as you want on your dad for Father’s Day, but do yourself (and him) a favor.

Buy him a bottle of Smirnoff. Just call it “the water of love”.

How ya doin'?

If you’ve ever lived in (or near) the Chicago or New York metropolitan areas, you’ll know that “how ya doin’?” is a fairly common greeting. You’ll also know that a response to the question is NOT REQUIRED. The reason it’s not is shown in the clip posted below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhEYXcCB1Qw

All of us (including me) have made the mistake of asking someone who appears to be from a foreign country where they are from. The clip below explains why THAT can also be a mistake:

what kind of Asian are you?

Since all of us are of mixed heritage (I’m mostly Irish, but there’s a little Bohemian blood in my makeup as well), trying to stay away from “country of origin” during your initial exposure to a person is a very good idea.

Chapter III of Emily Post’s book on etiquette discussed (at length) how to greet people. Although the advice that she gives IS still applicable today, most of us would find less formal greetings to be acceptable. Bart Simpson’s attempt at greeting people (I’m Bart Simpson; who the hell are you?) wouldn’t work in most situations, but “hello” and “good morning” should be universally acceptable the vast majority of the time. If you still wear string ties on occasion, you’re also allowed to just say, “howdy”.

Like they say in L.A., have a real nice day.