People must be seeking out probiotic products because they seem to be everywhere. But how many know what a probiotic is? Don’t put me on that list. (Let me guess: Someone in favor of a biotic?) And now I see a product advertised as a prebiotic. I don’t have a clue.
In the delicious irony department: Bill O’Reilly is furious that the Florida law that allows the removal of books from school libraries, a policy he supports, caused some of his books to be removed from school libraries.
The little white board in the corner of the physical therapy facility asked its question of the week: What year is it in Ethiopia under the Ge’ez calendar? The correct answer, I was told, is 2016. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church calculates a different time for the birth of Jesus than those who created the Gregorian or Julian calendars. Right now that puts Ethiopia eight years behind us, but the Ethiopian New Year comes in September. Then it will be only seven years behind until our New Year’s Day. With the Ge’ez calendar, I learned, there is no need to memorize the childhood poem beginning Thirty days has September. Ethiopia has thirteen months. Twelve are thirty days long. The month of Pagume, the outlier, has five or six days depending on whether it is a leap year. Who knew?
What does it take to get into heaven? If it is not doing harm to others, I believe I stand a chance. If it is how much good is done to others, I am not so sure. If it is the amount of sycophantic praying to an Almighty, I don’t stand a chance.
When Trump was president murders in the U.S. increased at the fastest rate since national statistics began in 1960 even though murder rates did not increase in other countries during the same period. We should be grateful that murder rates without Trump as president are now precipitously declining with rates much lower than in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.
From now on, whenever I hear that we need armed non-criminals to stop gun violence, I will think of Uvalde.
When I sat down on a bench outside the coffee place to watch the world go by, I immediately saw a shopping cart overloaded with large plastic bags bearing bottles and cans being pushed down the street. This regularly occurring sight is a consequence of two things: New York requires a deposit on bottles and cans of beer, wine, soda and the like. And the New Yorkers I know who have paid the deposit do not return the containers to collect the 5-cent refunds on each container. Instead, we just willingly pay extra for what we buy and feel some very minor righteousness because we place our empties in a recycling can which is (supposed to be) picked up by the city once a week. We recycle and have done our bit for landfills and against litter. Free enterprise steps into this breach. People collect refundable bottles and cans out of those recycling bins and load them into plastic bags on shopping carts, like the one I saw outside the coffee shop. Presumably these go to a redemption center, but I, like my friends, have no idea where the nearest redemption center is. I have read that 64% of the refundables are redeemed in New York state. The 5-cent deposit is the same as it was when the law took effect in 1982, and a higher percentage of bottles and cans were returned back then. Perhaps more would be returned now if the deposit had kept pace with inflation. In any event, many bottles and cans that have exacted a 5-cent deposit are not redeemed, and that means a whole lot of money is not paid back to depositors or the freelance collectors of bottles and cans. Have you ever wondered where the money goes? (I am working on a new song for this age: “Where have all the d’posits gone?”)
