Excuse me while I get a few things off my chest

A few things that’ve been floating around between my ears:

* I understand that the folks who run Atkins Nutritionals have just filed for bankruptcy.

That means we can pretty much bid (a fond) farewell to low-carb everything.

How many of these fads have there been?

Does anyone remember when food wasn’t something to be counted, weighed, measured, scooped, divided, portioned, allotted, and whatever until you were so sick of doing any or all of the above you just went out and hammered down (“Hold the cherry, I’m on a diet”) a banana split?

If you suffer from “Dunlop’s disease” – the condition wherein your belly has “done lopped” over your belt – there’s a sure-fire method to lose weight. Eat less. Get up and move around more. As long as the laws of physics govern the universe, I guarantee this one will work. Bet the ranch on it.

* Anyone else believe that midnight’s always a good time to head home? You see, many of us have noticed that, after midnight, trouble’s out and about and, with fewer people on the streets, the chances of it finding us rise dramatically.

To put it simply, nothing much good ever happens out on the streets after midnight.

* Looks like John Bolton is our representative to the United Nations. This has quite a few people all a-twitter because he’s been described as blunt, tough, direct, forceful, hard-edged, no-nonsense, etc., etc., etc.

Minor aside: He also has one gawdawful-looking mustache, but that’s just a clean-shaven man’s opinion.

Because of the above (no, not the mustache), he’ll supposedly have a tough time getting along with many of that body’s perfumed parliamentarians and non-payers of parking tickets.

OK, so he may not be “Mr. Manners.” However, whenever there’s a massacre in the making or a bit of genocide going on, whenever there’s a war to be stopped or a major scandal (oil for food ring a bell?) to be investigated, I kind of like the idea of having some blunt, tough, no-nonsense people in place. They might actually do something other than issuing “harshly worded memos” or, worse, the umpteenth (widely ignored) resolution regarding the matter.

We might also remember a quote attributed to George Orwell: “We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” The quote refers to soldiers. The sentiments, however, are just as applicable to individuals such as Mr. Bolton who now represent us.

* If NASA really wants to keep the shuttle fleet in operation, it should start recruiting astronauts from among NASCAR pit crews. The upside would be that not only would such people be able to fix things on the fly, but they’d probably also find ways to hide extra fuel onboard and jack engine output up another 10 percent or so. The downside, of course, would be all of those decals they’d put on the side panels.

* To the “Baby Boomers” out there: Our skin is wrinkling, our hearing’s going and our hair is thinning. “Sagging” best describes our body parts. We’re no different than any previous generation. We will get old – pills, creams, injections and surgeries notwithstanding. It’s high time we just accepted that fact.

* Following the recent terrorist attacks in London, the powers that be in New York City announced that subway passengers’ bags and backpacks would now be searched at random. Unfortunately for us all, in a contest wherein the losers get turned into a pink mist, the same powers that be also announced that they would not allow any “profiling” (aka: paying special attention to those whose descriptions match previous perpetrators) to take place.

Let’s try an experiment. Close your eyes and think of just about every major terrorist attack that’s occurred since the Munich Olympics.

How’d you do? Did you form an image of the perpetrators? Did you come up with grandmothers in wheelchairs?

Me neither.

In today’s world, though, we can’t focus on who did come to mind. Wouldn’t be proper, you see. In the politically correct universe of today, it’s always better to be blown to bits than to ever “offend” anyone.

One day, though, we’re going to have a little situation here in the United States like the one they had in Belsan. Then, by all that’s holy, every “grandmother in a wheelchair” had better be careful because that’ll be when we finally realize the danger these “ladies” pose and the gloves will truly come off.

* Finally:

OK, guys. Listen up. Just like wearing four yards of pants at mid-thigh with your underwear showing looked purely dumb, so does wearing a baseball cap with the bill pointing off into space somewhere near your ear. Sorry, someone had to say it.

Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Comments can be sent to larrysim@att.net.