I'm glad everyone from Jesse Jackson to Rush Limbaugh is attacking this stupid idea: "Ebonics," or "black English." When this boneheaded concept was floated back in the early Eighties they called it "Ghetto Speak." Some idiots on the Oakland School Board felt that to better teach Afro-American children, the schools should have curricula in the regional slang. I can see it now. "Hey bitch, we got homework?" Over two decades ago The Burbank School District was pondering a course that would recognize "I be scared," as equally correct as, "I am scared." Well people, I am scared. This idea is so bad, so backward, so inherently insulting to those it is meant to help, that I'm having a hard time even making fun of it. English as a third language? Bi-lingual education has proved to be a disastrous waste of time and resources, but political forces keep it alive in spite of its failings. This new Tri-lingual approach further fractionates the learning process and would have similarly disastrous effects. Are we supposed to spend a part of the Spanish bi-lingual day teaching Latino students Ebonics? "Yo" means "I" in Spanish . . . that's a problem right there! I've been deep inside the back hills of Kentucky where English sounds like a foreign language. I call it "White Trash Speech." They must be teaching it that way because everyone makes the same mistakes. I be real scared.



Jerry Garcia is probably grateful he's dead right now, so he doesn't have to witness firsthand the cat fight between two of his three former wives. There was a short contract drawn up between Jerry and his one-time mate, "The Mountain Girl," so called, that provided 5 million bucks for her over the years. (Who says you can't put a price on love?) Jerry's wife at the time of his death wants that money for herself. Watch as the sparks fly! "Jerry never loved her," "Jerry was too stoned to know what he was signing," "Jerry was a creative genius who cared little for money," "Jerry didn't realize how much five million was." I hope people don't think this little of me when I'm gone. Jerry Garcia, Leader Of The Band and driving force of a monster touring machine that was for decades a top grosser in concert revenues, knew exactly how much five million was. Jerry's heroin addiction isn't to account for foggy reasoning regarding the contract, the latest wife even admits that. It's just a of vulture picking bones if you ask me. It speaks to the need for air-tight wills professionally prepared and safely tucked away in the even of a posthumous cat fight.



Friendly skies my foot. You think the way they price automobiles is voodoo how about airplane tickets? Airlines will advertise a wonderful price that applies to a limited number of seats. Once those seats are gone the price ratchets up to the regular fare and worse. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group decided to call 325 different travel agents asking about prices on each of 23 trips for one person on a specific day. As you probably guessed, they didn't get 23 similar prices across the board, they got 180 different prices for those 23 identical trips. Travel Agents (who are probably frightened and rightly so, that they are the next buggy whip industry) were able to deliver lower prices than if the airline was called directly, the study found. At least until the internet replaces travel agents altogether we still have advocates on our side and should utilize them. The bottom line of the survey was common wisdom: buy in advance, stay over a Saturday night, and repeatedly hound your travel agent with the question, "Are you SURE this is the lowest price?" One tip from me: request the low-sodium meal: it's usually better tasting as well as being better for you.



"Unlimited access" may be a boon to net surfers, but it's a headache to the phone companies. More and more online services are adopting the magic $19.95 a month figure (is it just coincidence that this amount mirrors basic cable?). While a typical phone conversation runs under five minutes the average internet connection lasts up to an hour. So what you ask? With local access numbers and long connect times, the phone companies aren't making the kind of money they would like. It will be a cold day in Hades before I pity the phone companies, but a problem that affects you and me personally is the online congestion unlimited access allows. If someone wants to tie up his / her phone line all day watching stock quotes trail by they can do it. That is, unless their provider has a built in monitoring system by which a connection is terminated if somewhat constant activity isn't detected. Leave it to the enterprising hackers out there to come up with a work around with such products as, "Keep-Alive" and "Stay Connected" which supposedly thwart the monitors. Of course, the providers are devising ways of detecting these programs to cancel them out if detected. So how "unlimited" unlimited access really is remains to be seen.



The fat content of a Wendy's Big Bacon Classic is equivalent to a complete Thanksgiving turkey, a pack of hot dogs, seven sticks of butter and a Volkswagen van. No it isn't, but the real statistic is scary enough. Loveable Wendy's founder and spokesman, good ol' Dave Thomas had his arteries slam shut on him recently and he's under the knife for a bypass before his heart explodes. What do you want to bet his recovery meal menu doesn't include a Single With Everything? Live by the burger, die by the burger I always say. I wonder when they cut his chest open and start hacking away at his heart if someone will chime out, "Would you like fries with that Mr. Thomas?" Wendy's spokespeople have suggested that it's just unfair to link Dave's vascular problems with a high-fat diet. Yeah, that would be unfair. (Who are these people?) Dave Thomas' blooper reels are always a high-point on Dick Clark's television shows, but there may be a reason for all of those cute and folksy on-camera flub-ups. Has anyone checked the blood flow to his brain? Oh. . .that would be unfair to link his eventual heart failure to the junk food he sells and presumeably eats. I hate being unfair.