Working Holiday
Here’s an excerpt from an interesting new book on the history of taxation, from an article by Reed Tucker at nypost.com, edited by yours truly: “Unmarried men in ancient Greece and Rome were taxed, as were British bachelors from 1695 to 1706. Some states in the US had a similar policy into the 20th century. But what about those men who were unlucky in love? Were they to be doubly cursed, embraced by the taxman but spurned by womankind? In some places bachelors were exempt if they could prove they had asked a woman to marry but were rejected. In Argentina around 1900 the tax gave rise to ‘professional lady rejecters’ — women who, for a fee, would swear to authorities that a man had asked for their hand and been refused.”
How amusing to see Georgia liberal politicians plead that no one boycott the state’s businesses.
Here’s more woke farce from an article by Bradford Betz at foxnews.com: “A Portland high school has postponed changing its mascot to an evergreen tree after a committee member raised concerns about its possible connotations to lynching.”
Headline from NYP: “NASA plans head-on collision between spaceship and asteroid.” Preparation has begun to find a way to deflect any body that may threaten planet Earth.
Last night the Heroes & Icons channel, 9–4 on OTA in NYC, ran Rescue, season two, episode 29 of Combat!, first aired in 1964. Edward Binns, one of Hollywood’s many great character actors, plays a German in an American uniform trying to trick Lt. Hanley into revealing valuable info. He speaks several lines in what seems, to my untrained ear, flawless German. A Google search turned up nothing on it, although his mom’s maiden name was Bracken, which may be German. A graduate of Penn St., Binns began his career on the stage. There are 181 titles under his name at IMDb. He is one of the 12 Angry Men (1955) and the A-Bomb pilot in the chilling Fail Safe (1964). He is in two episodes each of The Twilight Zone, The Untouchables, Perry Mason, Route 66, Tarzan, Zane Grey Theater, and The F.B.I,, and at least three of several live 1950’s anthologies, as well as The Defenders, Wagon Train, The Fugitive, Dr. Kildare, It Takes a Thief, The Virginian and Police Story. He starred in Brenner, a cop show, which shot 21 episodes from ‘59-’64. He passed away at 74 in 1990… Also of note in the Combat! episode: it was one of the 35 in which Paul Busch appeared as a Kraut soldier. His bio doesn’t indicate a birth place, but his parents were born in Germany. There are 34 other titles under his name, most having to do with WWII. He passed away at 67 in 1993. Here’s a still featuring the guest stars of the episode in question, the pretending-to-be injured Binns in the middle, and series co-star Jason:
Since Corona has put the kibosh on family gatherings, I opened the book shop today. Given the holiday, I didn’t expect much. Surprisingly, the session couldn’t have gone much better. I didn’t sell any of my books, but that’s the case 95% of the time. My thanks to the Super of the building next door to the Chase bank on Bay Parkway, who led me to a bunch of books piled in the lobby. Almost all are of a spiritual nature and may take a while to sell. In the pages of one was a photo of a newborn, the legs of its mom in view. I didn’t have the heart to throw it away. I brought it back to the lobby in case the parents had yet to complete their move… My thanks also to the gentleman who bought the Bible I’d brought out and a little book on cats; and to the folks who combined to buy nine YA novels; and to the young woman who purchased The Pocket Haiku and When I Dance: Poems by James Berry and Karen Barbour. And, to top it off, the prime parking spot in terms of the book shop was available when I returned to the neighborhood. No car hassle until after Thursday’s session.
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