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Friday, November 6, 2015
FD&C Blue No. 1? Mmm, my favorite Have something to say? We want to hear from you. Submit letters to the editor with your name and phone number via email at editor@ raytowneagle.com or mail to 11780 E. 83rd St. Raytown, Mo. 64138
Jason Offutt Here’s what Raytown is saying FIX THE ROADS Many home owners along Sterling, 61st St and Harvard are not happy at all about this work. The city did not fix the road before putting this mess down. The oil ran down into cracks and the aggregate simply did nothing, but make its way to the curbs as well as driveways and yards. The road is no smoother than before. The road was not repaired For more than nine (9) years the residents on Harvard and 61st St have asked the City, when they intend to repair the road so that the water will actually go into the new drain instead of bypassing it. We have had a couple folks come out to look, but nothing done, except they ”seal” it . This is a huge waste of money. FIX THE ROADS, use asphalt not this mess. We live in a city, not out on a country road. Sean Lindsey THANK YOU Thank you for writing such a great article on the Mission of Hope Clinic. It was thorough and informative of this fantastic service provided for so many. Without the generosity of many, this service could not be provided. Paul Hartman, RE/MAX
News Bites continued from page 3 KCATA worked with Kansas City police to ensure
that people remained safe as they moved into and out of the downtown area. Shuttle rides were completed by 6 p.m.
Customers to see drop in natural gas rates To reflect estimated changes in the wholesale cost of natural gas as well as a change in the company’s actual cost adjustment factor, Missouri Gas Energy customers will see natural gas rates drop under a filing that takes effect on Nov. 13. Missouri Gas Company is an operating unit of the Laclede Gas Company. The actual cost adjustment, or ACA, factor is a mechanism which tracks any over-collection or under-collection of actual natural gas costs over a 12-month period. The net over- or under-collected balances are subsequently either refunded or collected the next year.
Residential customers currently pay approximately $0.53 per Ccf (per hundred cubic feet) of natural gas. Under this filing, the rate will drop to approximately $0.46 per Ccf, a decrease of approximately $0.07 per Ccf. Missouri Gas Energy serves approximately 505,800 natural gas customers in the Missouri counties of Andrew, Barry, Barton, Bates, Buchanan, Carroll, Cass, Cedar, Christian, Clay, Clinton, Dade, DeKalb, Greene, Henry, Howard, Jackson, Jasper, Johnson, Lafayette, Lawrence, McDonald, Moniteau, Pettis, Platte, Ray, Saline, Stone and Vernon.
When it comes to body parts, it’s easy to overlook our friend the colon – unless you’ve eaten Burger King’s Halloween burger, then you’ll start to worry about it. Seriously. Why hasn’t it written for so long, or even called? The Halloween burger’s bun is black. The results are not. Burger King already sells black burgers in its restaurants in Japan. The buns, colored by squid ink, are black, the cheese is black, the sauce is black and the result is as appetizing as pictures from a 1960s cookbook. You know, like the classic Pie Plate Salad. A can of mixed vegetables set in lemon gelatin and covered in tartar sauce. Yum. The black burgers are popular in Japan (so, I can only assume, is Pie Plate Salad). So popular Burger King brought the burgers to America and marketed the item as a Halloween item. The outcome is scary. The burgers turn people’s poop bright green. I can see college students waking up with a headache wondering why they got drunk and ate a box of crayons. The problem is the bun. Unlike the squid ink used in Japanese buns, in America – a relatively squid-free country – the bun is turned black by A.1. Steak Sauce, D&C Red No. 40, molasses powder and FD&C Blue No. 1. Mmm. FD&C Blue No. 1. According to an article on foxnews.com, New York City physician Robert Glatter said the human body can’t break down these dyes, which brings us back to our colon. Those dyes have to go somewhere, and when they
do they make us take notice because strangely colored poop could mean anything from gallbladder disease, to celiac disease to cancer. So, thanks Burger King. But Burger King wasn’t the first commercial food provider to scare us down under. When it comes to Halloween food, General Mills was once king. With the likes of Count Chocula, Boo Berry, Yummy Mummy, Fruit Brute and Franken Berry cereals, children across the country could watch Scooby-Doo on Saturday mornings with their favorite bowl of terror in their lap. The most frightening was Franken Berry. The box featured a grinning Frankenstein’s Monster-like affront to nature and contained pink, ghost-shaped cereal and marshmallows, which turned the milk pink. That’s not all. Packed with FD&C No. 2 and No. 3, Franken Berry turned kid’s poop bright pink, according to Smithsonian.com (and probably mothers from the 1970s who are still screaming). Doctors had a highly scientific term for this condition – “Franken Berry Stool.” I think it’s Latin. A 1972 study on Franken Berry published in the journal “Pediatrics,” was prompted by parents who rushed their 12-year-old boy to the hospital because, well, here’s a description from the study. Remember, a doctor wrote these words: “The stool had no abnormal odor but looked like strawberry ice cream.” Great. Flaming Hot Cheetos can turn stool red. A few pints of Guinness Extra Stout will make it black. Blue Velvet Cake makes you wonder if you’ve eaten a Smurf. And beets – Never mind. Nobody eats beets. Jason Offutt’s latest book, “Across a Corn-Swept Land: An epic beer run through the Upper Midwest,” is available at amazon.com. A native of Missouri, Jason currently teaches journalism at Northwest Missouri State University and has earned many humor writer awards throughout his career. His racy first novel, “A Funeral Story,” is available at amazon.com.
Frank Sinatra, “Ole Blue Eyes,” another national treasure
By George Michaud 1950 didn’t bring too much success to Sinatra. As a matter of fact his career took a dive for the next nearly three full years. In 1953, with the release of “From Here to Eternity” and his subsequent winning of The Academy Award for best supporting actor, Sinatra signed a recording contract with Capital Records and Sinatra’s releases of the albums “Nice ‘n’ Easy”, “Come Fly With Me”, “In The Wee Small Hours”, “Only The Lonely” and “Songs For Swingin’ Lovers” all did well on the Billboard charts and his career was back on top again. In the movie “The Godfather” by Mario Puzo, there is a crooner much like Sinatra depicted on screen by Al Martino playing the fictional Johnny Fontane. Since much of Fontane’s career in the movie appeared to be that of Frank Sinatra, many thought that Puzo intended to show the true relationship between the infamous crime mafia family by the name of Corleone. In the movie, Vito Corleone was the Godfather of Johnny Fontane who helped Fontane out with his career by making an offer he couldn’t refuse to a big band leader to let Fon-
tane out of a contract. To accomplish this the Godfather’s personal assassin, Luca Brasi, would point a gun to the band leader’s head and told him either his brains or his signature would be on that contract. The one scene in the movie we all remember most is the one where Vito Corleone’s family consigliere, Tom Hagen, failed to persuade the film’s producer Jack Woltz to sign Fontane for the lead role in a war movie, which many thought was “From Here To Eternity.” The next morning Woltz wakes up to a decapitated horse head in his bed. This act of intimidation worked and Fontane got the role and the academy award enabling him to go on and start his own film studio. As a matter of fact, Al Martino played the part of Johnny Fontane after Vic Damone turned the role down which surprised everyone. Vic Damone, now in his late eighties resides in West Palm Beach, Florida, enjoying the sunshine. Because many still believe that Johnny Fontane is really about Frank Sinatra, Mario Puzo was asked the question by the press. He never said that it was true but he also never said that it was not true. I met Mario Puzo in Las Vegas around 1972 along with Francis Ford Coppola, his father Carmine Coppola and even had dinner at their home. Carmine liked my client Lloyd Lindroth so much that he wrote a personal tune just for him called “Jazzette” for the harp. I still have that original score in my storage. They were filming in Las Vegas but only a few minutes or two of everything they filmed while there for nearly a month wound up in the film. I’m not
Producer’s continued on page 7
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