[4/25 disclaimer. In the constant upheavals of my life and the world around me, I’m now just picking random stuff to post about, from the 60 or 70 items in my ever-expanding queue — whatever catches my fancy at the moment. Don’t try to make sense of it as a whole.]
Regularly playing on MSNBC, the tv commercial “No Time to Wait”, featuring an earnest and friendly Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (now 78 years old) telling us
I have AFib (/éfɪb/ atrial fibrillation, the irregular heart rhythm)
which I heard as
I have aphids /éfɪdz/
(You can watch the commercial here.)
A screen shot from the commercial; Kareem is holding a basketball just in case you’ve forgotten who he is
It’s immensely pleasing to me that he’s still alive and is doing good things.
The commercial is produced by the Bristol Myers Squibb-Pfizer Alliance, to raise awareness of conditions requiring prompt medical attention.
As for aphids, from NOAD:
noun aphid: a minute bug that feeds by sucking sap from plants. It reproduces rapidly, often producing live young without mating, and may live in large colonies that cause extensive damage to crops.
It’s no doubt relevant that I’m a plant person, and that some roses around the corner from my house, roses that I see regularly on my walks around the block, are terribly afflicted by aphids. (There are several insects that are ferocious predators on aphids, and I keep wanting to get some to help the neighborhood flora.)
The image of Kareem bedeviled by aphids is affecting, but nevertheless funny.
April 20, 2025 at 3:18 pm |
Hah! When I saw your headline, I feared the worst for your patio plants and was about to write to you about everything we tried when we were growing hops, which attract aphids like mad. My favorite, albeit temporary, solution, was, as you say, to import predators — we sent away for refrigerated lady-bugs, who went through the most adorable, faux-threatening phase as aphid-lions. Well, they were genuinely threatening to aphids, but endearing to us, especially when they would prop themselves up on various of their back legs and look like they were trying to imitate a very tiny Tyrannosaurus. Of course, lady-bugs live where they like, and they didn’t stick around for another year.
I was glad to see Kareem too! Still a very good looking and simpatico guy.
April 20, 2025 at 5:37 pm |
We had aphids in Columbus — bad thing, since Jacques was, like my dad, a rosarian. We did the ladybugs once, and they were both fun and effective, but of course then went off to other things. (It turns out there are insects much more aphid-voracious than ladybugs, but by the time we discovered this, we were into safe soaps, which worked fine for us.
As for Kareem, much to admire. Very tough, highly focused, principled, disciplined (which gave him a very long successful career), and as fiercely political as you could wish for. Not to mention talented in many surprising ways, beyond his ability to send himself up on tv shows and in the movies. But dogged with terrible medical problems, which is why I’m so pleased to see he’s still alive (quadruple bypass surgery and
two different kinds of cancer are the worst of the lot).
He wouldn’t take any kind of crap from anyone; he gave up the hook (which was so much fun to watch) because he came to think it was too hokey, and he was serious about the game; and he was an attentive mentor for younger players. He has a sly sense of self-deprecating humor that comes across in his AFib commercials. There are very few professional athletes I would have any interest in meeting, but he’s one of them; I’d shake his hand and thank him for the life he’s lived.