Pay-as-You-Breathe Plan

    Everyone, it seems, wants to help the beleaguered councilmen find a way to raise desperately needed revenue.  And it is a heartening thing indeed to witness the spectacle of citizens, inspired by a sense of civic duty, take time out from their vital TV watching to come to the aid of their lawmakers.

    Let us now consider Mark Keats' idea, never tried before.  He calls it the Pneumometer Plan- pronounced new-mom-eater.  In plainer language, it is a breathing meter.

 

    From a baby's first breath, this pneumometer would be permanently attached to the nose.   Anyone caught without it or caught tampering with it would be subject to  a fine.

 

    A basic tax rate per cubic foot of pure air inhaled by citizens would be established by the council.  Naturally there would be a reduction in the rate when there's smog.  And those who insisted on an occasional whiff of pure oxygen would have to pay extra.  Athletes, movie heavies, glass blowers and other deep breathers would, of course, be given a special rate because their work requires a greater volume of intake.

 

   

 

    Naturally a few minor problems would arise.  For example, if someone could not afford to pay this pneumometer tax would he be denied the right to breathe?  Doubtless the councilmen could work this out.

 

    In fact, if things got really tough they could also slap a tax on exhaling.  But don't hold your breath.

 

 

   THE SOUND came on with overwhelming loudness in a neighborhood theater the other night and a woman attending her first movie in months shouted absent-mindedly, "Turn it down!"  Her husband, sitting next to her, said quietly, "You're in a theater, dear, not home watching TV."  The people around her roared.

 

 

    WEATHER OR NOT

 

 

    A BURBANK bachelor who has to move because an upcoming freeway extension will chop up his home has found a nice two-room apartment near Warner Brothers studio.  A heated pool is available outside and inside it has a built-in radio, piped-in music and a garbage disposal.  These he can use.  But he's puzzles about the intercom system.  If he says something to himself in the kitchen he wonders if he can get to the bedroom in time to answer.  He was a sprinter in high school but he doesn't think he can make it.

 

 

    A YOUNG WOMAN who had pleaded not guilty to a traffic charge came before Municipal Judge Ralph Dills in Compton and, as is procedure, he asked if she wanted a court trial or a  jury trial.  Obviously confused, she said she didn't know.  The judge, who maintains a dignified, almost severe demeanor in court, repeated the question and again the woman said she didn't know.

 

    Still pretending to be severe, he said, "Let me put it this way.  Do you want to be tried by big daddio or 12 laddios?"

 

 

    AT RANDOM — Of the eternal restaurant query, "What kind of pie do you have?"  a subscriber recalls that a  waiter in a  greasy spoon joint in Central City, Ky., always answered, "Open face, hunting case and lattice work — all apple." . . . How come, Joe Laitin asked his postman, his mail was delivered  about an hour later on Thursdays than on other days.  Simple.  Thursday is Life magazine day and his motorcycle go-cart will not climb the hill with them so he has to walk . . . For the TV cliche file Betty Buras says don't forget the line, delivered with deep anguish, "I killed him as surely as if I'd held the gun myself!"  . . . Tranquilizer note:  Modern Medicine tells of a doctor who instructed a hillbilly patient to take one pill five times a day.  "What do I do," he asked, "put a string on it?"