A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy

 

snow job

Where do expressions like 'couch potato' and 'snow job'come from anyhow?

Ever wonder? Are you at all curious? Do you simply not care? Are you some kind of 'meathead'or something? Hey, it's the weekend, right, and you've turned off your brain, flipped the sign to 'sorry, we're closed' , shutdown, plant closing, gone fishing, out of business, arcanus compressum. Ezra understands. Really, he does.

But somebody has to write the blog. Even if the archives keep disappearing. Even if only 2 out of 400 million Americans read it. It's a tradition that derives from a sense of duty. And, we, as Americans, understand a thing or two about duty, don't we? Like bringing democracy to political shut-ins around the globe. Or keeping the light of freedom burning? What kind of bulb does it take anyway? Did it really take 300,000 Americans to change a light bulb in Iraq? Ask what you can do for your country, not what your country can do for you.

Ezra had a hunch and followed up on it. He spent 15 hours online, or poring over old books and newspapers in the library. Read thousands of pages, scanned 2 miles of microfilm, wore out a pair of glasses in the process. And, you know what? Ezra was right after all.

The expression 'snow job'did originate in Ithaca, New York. First used in an editorial from the Ithaca Journal, the coinage acridly described the campaign promises made by mayoral candidate, Edwin Stewart back in 1920. Since Edwin's name generously dots all the maps of Ithaca, it's fair to say that Ithaca got snowed, after all. (No, we're not getting more snow.)

Are you surprised? Isn't Ithaca the place they call one of the most 'enlightened' cities in the US? Isn't Ithaca gorges? Isn't this the only place Ezra has ever seen a retail store using 'volunteers' ? Sure, they're called fair trade representatives - working for 10,000 Villages. Kids still in high school, cutting deals with remote Andean villages for shipments of handcrafted baskets and whatchamajiggers. What do the natives get in return? Ithaca is Gorges t-shirts? Check out the display window for 10,000 Villages outside Center Ithaca. You'll get a chuckle unless you happen to be wearing your standard Ithaca-issue rose colored glasses.

Didn't the taxpayers receive a snow job when they paid $500,000 for solar panels for the library. First of all, there may not have been enough available sunlight in Ithaca to power a pencil sharpener. Now the city is erecting this Cayuga Green project, putting up buildings next to the library that will block whatever sun we do get, rendering those solar panels as useless as yesterday's chewing gum.

Don't they tell us that all this development Mayor Cohen and his 10 dwarfs have lined up around town will produce more jobs, bring in more tourists, increase tax revenues? So, what we get is less parking, all the construction noise and grit, a city that's beginning to resemble Milwaukee. Meanwhile Cohen & Co. are all jumping ship to take the new jobs that are opening up. All eleven of them.

Welcome to the snow job capital of the United States. Ezra's surprised that George Bush didn't parachute in to Ithaca this Thursday to tell us the war is over. Instead of landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier only 39 miles from shore. Too many 'progressives' around for comfort? Get serious.

Oh, by the way, Ezra was only kidding about Mayor Stewart and the origins of the expression 'snow job.' We're getting another five inches tonight.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 7:32 AM