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Fifth Friday Footnotes, Follow-ups and Far-Flung Fripperies:

• What happened to the pitcher’s wind-up? It just disappeared without a trace.
• Footnotes are due for a big comeback. I’d explain why, but most readers wouldn’t care.
• I bought a used memory foam mattress, but now I lose sleep worrying about what it remembers.
• I can’t bear to use post em notes for notes that won’t be posted. Even if it’s nothing more than a lick of adhesive on the back, it feels wasteful.
• We all want to defeat the current band of Sunni rebels. Can we first agree what to call them? The White House prefers ISIL, but we’d already learned to call them ISIS. Now some media have adopted their self-proclaimed title, Islamic State. Our front is not exactly united.
• By the way, a similar problem plagued the early years of combatting Al Qaeda. Federal agencies couldn’t agree on a uniform spelling for various watch lists.
• Sometimes I’m busy but bored. Does that ever happen to you?
• Eastern Oregon: it’s our nearby nowhere.
• Large organizations don’t suffer from over-lawyering as much as under-leadering. Lawyers advise leaders, but so do janitors and office supply purchasers. Legal advice shouldn’t be taken as a command. Helpless leaders but don’t inspire.
• Except for the flying part, haven’t our cars become everything we expected from jet packs?
• I wonder how many modern maladies are rooted in boredom and ennui. We can treat anxiety, rage, sadness, but what about the tragic sensation that there’s nothing really going on?
• Adolescence has become continuous. I blame “new math.” We removed rote learning because it was boring for the adults, not understanding the comfort its mastery gave children. They play video games now to fill that hole, but without an endpoint — like a bottomless stack of flashcards.
• The phrase “full flight” means three or four completely different things.
• The world got better when it somehow became cool to be uncool.
• If you’re looking for the world’s most sustainable energy, I’d start with hope.
• Inevitability is a weak-minded shortcut, a lazy mad-lib, a comfortable despair.
• I wish we could tax every “if only” and give the money to every “so that.”
• When was the last time you were irked? Have you forgotten how good it felt?
• Good design is articulated intent.
• I’m surprised toilet paper manufacturers haven’t touted 3-ply and 4-ply alternatives. What has prevented a ply war?
• Now that I’ve learned my lucky bamboo isn’t technically bamboo, how can I be sure it’s really lucky?
• If I haven’t made a list, it’s not long before I begin feeling listless.
• Do eggs, when still in their shell, have a right-side up?
• Nobody feels glum anymore.
• More than we’ll admit, we choose feeling like good parents over whatever is best for our children.
• How did sea salt become better than just plain salt?
• Isn’t it odd that every meeting lasts an hour, regardless of the topic’s complexity?
• Large RVs seldom are painted red. I guess they don’t want to be mistaken for a firetruck. Or a barn.
• Is there a worse feeling than being halfway through a book before remembering that you read it before?
• Let’s just say “kindred” sometimes sounds like two words to me.
• I love window shopping, but only if it involves buying actual windows.
• The primary purpose of hot salsa is to sell more medium salsa.
• Is there any road in Eugene more useful and less used than the Northwest Expressway?
• Hopeless romantic? There’s no other kind.
• Clutter is cowardice. There’s courage in completion.
• Resilient is the new sustainable.
• When you work for Les Schwab, “retirement” sounds like a second career very similar to your first.
• When a frozen food’s “Best By” date is sometime in 2018, how good could “best” be?
• I can’t prove it, but I suspect the Kristens and the Kirstens of the next generation are conspiring to embarrass us.
• I hope somebody got paid well to rebrand polyester as “micro-fiber” because they earned it. (They got a big assist from cotton’s “thread-count” goofiness.)
• None of us get what we deserve. And for that, every day, we should be thankful.

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Don Kahle (fridays@dksez.com) writes a column each Friday for The Register-Guard and blogs

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