From Readers Digest to Ketchup

We used to subscribe to Readers Digest back in the 70s, so that must have been when I read that stuff about language. After several years, however, the articles in Readers Digest seemed to be saying the same things over and over again, so we let our subscription expire. We still have several reference books that we bought from them, and we do use them now and then. Today, while sitting in the doctor's waiting room waiting for my hypothetical wife to come out, I thumbed through a current copy of their large print edition, so it must still be around. From what I could tell, most of it seemed to be written by teenagers. Maybe it always was, but I notice it more now because I am no spring chicken myself.

The main reason for the improvement in the Red Chinese economy is all the manufactured goods that our guys buy from them. Before Nixon traded Taiwan for two teddy bears, they used to buy a lot of that stuff from Taiwan and Japan. I can't remember when was the last time I saw something from those two countries, it's pretty much all from Red China now. As far as I know, Taiwan and Japan are getting along just fine without our business. Of course a lot of our cars come from Japanese owned companies, but more and more, those cars are actually being made in the U.S. I heard or read in the news once that the wage scale of Japanese auto makers is now comparable to the wage scale of U.S. auto makers and, if the Japanese companies build their cars here, they save on the shipping costs.

I heard something about those Yazidis on that mountain top, but I thought they were evacuating them with helicopters. This was a few days ago and, of course, the situation could have changed by now, or maybe I didn't get it right in the first place. You know how that goes.

A few years ago, when I was still on Multiply, one of my contacts was a Scotsman, and he wrote several blogs about their secessionist movement. He was against it himself, believing that Scotland could ill afford to maintain their own transportation system, postal service, and military. I hadn't heard about it for awhile but, just a few days ago there was something on the TV news about them wanting to still use the Pound Sterling as currency if the secession referendum passed. The Englishman I currently follow on Ipernity says that his country uses both the Pound and the Euro and, when  he tells us about something he has recently purchased, he gives the price in both. I don't know why some Scots want to secede, but I have heard that a lot of the people in the U.K. are tired of subsidizing the poorer countries in the European Union. Also, the headquarters for the EU is in Brussels, Belgium, and they figure it should be in London.

Any looking up that I do will have to wait for the weekend, but Tartar sauce and ketchup are at the top of  my list.