Flights Of (Holiday) Fancy

 Christmas Eve.  The sun chased the morning rain, but not the cold. Still, the weather was good enough for a late afternoon ride to Fort Totten.

On the way out and back, I wended along the Flushing Bay promenade, past the World’s Fair Marina—and within arm’s length, or so it seemed, of the new LaGuardia Airport terminals.

Few things are driven more by technology, and less by aesthetics, or at least visual displays, for their own sake than the design of aviation facilities.  Still, for a moment, one could believe the new terminal was decorated for Christmas:

Pedaling Big Macs Into Phone Juice

In the past 30-something years, I've entered a McDonald's maybe a dozen times:  to use the free Internet or the bathroom.  All right, I actually had an ice cream cone at a McDonald's in Turkey:  My host and guide on the Aegean coast thought he was doing something nice for me, an American.  And I actually went to chez Ronald just off the Rue de Rivoli because of its colorful display of macarons like the ones you see in Parisian patisseries.  They were actually better than I expected, though no rivals for the ones from Fauchon.

Never, though, have I ever been under any illusion of improving my health when walking under the "Golden Arches."

That means I'm not part of the target market for a Shanghai, China branch of the chain I regarded as "the Evil Empire" until Starbucks.  (Then came Amazon.)  You see, I would never, ever believe that such a global monolith would install stationary bikes so its customers could burn off the Big Macs, fries and shakes they're consuming.  

OK, so that makes me a cynic (or, perhaps, just a New Yorker).  But I'm not smart enough to figure out, on my own, just why the company that all but singlehandedly introduced the Standard American Diet (SAD) to a people that had subsisted, for milennia, on rice, vegetables and whatever fish or fowl they caught that day.

So what are those faux-Peloton devices doing in a branch of Mickey Dee's?

Well, you see, since Chinese are smart (or at least skeptical) enough to doubt that the top brass of what Ray Kroc wrought are trying to promote fitness, the next logical step was to "greenwash" at least one of their franchises.  If you want people to think you care about their well-being and their kids' future, you do something that helps the environment--or at least seems to.

So, that Shanghai branch installed those stationary bikes to generate power.

That sounds, if not noble, than at least wise and conscious. But customers burning off their burgers aren't generating electricity for the lights or fryers.  Rather, the "juice" is used to charge customers' phones and other portable devices.

.@McDonalds “get slim” meal in #Shanghai 😂 pic.twitter.com/xjyF6swehl

— Alvin Foo (@alvinfoo) December 17, 2021

I have to wonder, then, whether it actually helps to generate sales:  After all, wouldn't some customers buy more of what McDonald's sells if they're burning at least some of it off?

Funny how China, ostensibly a Communist country, has learned how to use capitalism in ways that we in America haven't even imagined.

A Happy Holiday For Juan

We've all heard the expression, "The early bird gets the worm!"

Well, like so many oft-repeated bromides, it's true until, well, it isn't.

Case in point:  I followed my doctor's advice and got the first COVID vaccine available to me.  Of course, I followed it up a month later with the second dose and, last month, a booster.  

Well, if I'd waited, I'd be $200 richer.  Not long after I got my second dose, New York, where I live, was offering $100 people to get the vaccine.  Now it's offering that same amount to folks who get their booster jabs.

Even though I would've liked getting that money, I am of course glad I followed my doctor's advice.  Had I waited--who knows what could have happened?

Still, I have to wonder about, basically, bribing people to do what's best for themselves and the people around them.  I mean, we usually bribe kids to do what they don't want to do.  

So, while much of the world--I'm thinking in particular of Africa-- doesn't have any COVID vaccines to give its people, we in this country have to offer that spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down.  Does that make the United States look like a nation full of sulking, petulant children?

All right. I shouldn't speak so badly of children, I know.  I don't have kids myself, but I've been around enough to know that while they have their moods and outbursts, most have a basic sense of right and wrong and really want to help, or at least please, people.  That they're sometimes rewarded for it is, la cerise sur le gateau.  

So it was for a 10-year-old boy named Juan.  He lives in Port Isabel, in the southernmost part of Texas.  Last Saturday, police temporarily lost sight of a male suspect they were pursuing.  Juan was riding his brother's bicycle and guided the officers in the direction of the suspect, whom they arrested.

From the Valley Central News

Juan was riding his brother's bike because he didn't have one of his own.  So, to thank him for his help, the Port Isabel police surprised him a new bike.  Needless to say, this is a happy holiday season for him.