Salute to Pregnancy

The New York Metro published a photo of pregnant women walking the bases at Keyspan Park, home of the Brooklyn Cyclones. This was a "Salute to Pregnancy." Apparently any woman who names her baby "Brooklyn" or "Cy" will receive season tickets for free.

Gee, that seems like a wonderful reason to saddle a helpless baby with a name that will embarrass him for the rest of his life. Cy isn't too bad, but Brooklyn? I thought the 60's were over and we weren't giving our kids stupid names like "Moon Unit," "God," or "Freedom" anymore.

And maybe I'm being a curmudgeon, but why are we celebrating pregnancy at a time when money is so tight? Is this really a great time to be bringing more kids into the world, when families are already struggling to feed the mouths that are already here? I don't get it. Anyone who is pregnant right now got pregnant, at the earliest, last November when the economy was already tanking. It surely wouldn't have been my choice; I'd wait until there was a better economic picture. But, I guess I have always been too sensible.

Maybe it's just a function of more people being out of work and attending the "poor man's opera" because they are home all day anyhow. After all, 9 months after the Buffalo Blizzard of 1977, there was a bumper crop of babies and one hospital in Buffalo gave the newborns tiny tee shirts that said, "Blizzard Baby."

Or maybe I shouldn't be so critical. Maybe having a baby is a way of expressing hope, that the recession will pass and prosperity will return. I sure hope it does so all these babies (and I've seen more pregnant women this year than I have in a long time) will have the food, clothing and shelter they need to grow and thrive.

Big Bucks

Today, AM NY reported that a man who bought a pack of cigarettes received a whomping $23.1 quadrillion charge on his credit card bill.

Sure, it's ridiculous, and he doesn't have to pay, along with the others who suffered a similar glitch. But maybe it was a sign to him, that smoking cigarettes is much, much more expensive than the price of the pack. It might well cost him something worth more than quadrillions of dollars: his life.

The Bay News had a charming photo of Duke, one of the Aquarium's sea lions, giving a "sea lion kiss" to a young lady. The caption read that sea lion kisses are being sold as fundraisers for the New York Aquarium, at $200 a pop. $200? Wait a second! I happen to know that the real cost is $20. What a big blooper for the Bay News, whose proofreaders didn't catch that extra zero.

Then again, if some rich folks decide to buy $200 kisses, maybe the Bay News has done the Aquarium a big favor. It happened to me in my early days as a fundraiser: I tacked on an extra zero to a renewal request of a man who'd sent an unsolicited gift of $100 the year before. My boss chewed me out and told me to be more attentive to details, but the letter asking him to renew his gift of "$1000" had already been mailed. He sent the $1,000, and the next year he sent $10,000. So, we can only hope that this typo will turn into a windfall for the Aquarium.

Duke should only know that his kisses are 24-carat.