This from NOTEFLIX’s “Troubles In The Garden”. FLASHBACK!! Our hero, the Multicolored Bluebird of Happiness remembers the painful time he fell out of his baby-hood nest and wondered if he’d ever be safe again – in this strange and scary world. (To be continued).
WHAT’S NEW? HOW’S THE WORLD TREATING YOU?
- A study shows crows in urban areas have higher cholesterol than do the crows in the rural. They eat from the fast food remains. Though we can learn this fact, we probably won’t let such knowledge affect our behavior. Anyway, what is with studying crows? I thought we learned from the behavior of mice.
- Another study shows that students keep getting arrested for sexual misconduct; some argue that this is because they are reading about things other than what is in the news. What do they know about civil behavior? Playing computer games and studying math and I-Tech stuff all the time…they do not know about Crime and Punishment, apparently.
- More with the studies: Men are less likely to wear bike helmets than are women. The ‘young’ are the worst in the not wearing of head gear.
- They did a study with green beans and graham crackers and kids. Here is what they found: Kids like graham crackers. (more than 60% of them). And they like puppets who like graham crackers – even if the puppets are meanies. They even like the puppets who were mean to the green beans. These kids must be the same ones you see running around in the restaurants. Either there is no hope – or I want in on the money that does these studies.
- Many of the world’s parents have PTSD…and then their children are PTSD influenced. This explains the headlines we see today.
- Here is another one: Studies show Mortality rates are 20% higher for the elderly who are socially isolated and 33% higher for those who live alone. Me? I’ll go out and see people every day if I have to; but I want to die alone.
- Data sows that more people die from Sink holes than from Sharks. And twenty (20) times more people die from Tornadoes than from Sharks. Have a Tornado whip up a Sink Hole and drop a Shark into it – somewhere in the Mid-West – and you have a Blockbuster movie on your hands.
- Doctors who profit from Radiation Care prescribe it more often than doctors who don’t make any money from the prescription. Duh.
- GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Remember that title? Good, good book. Me? I think, unfortunately, we are looking at a world of DIMINISHING EXPECTATIONS. A lousy title for a lousy book; but we could also be looking at the obverse: EXPANDING REMEMBERANCES…a sort of a fictionalized version of our past – to make us feel better. Fake past. Maybe there is a book there.
- There are more than 2300 Escape Rooms in the U.S. Is that enough? Do we need more? I’m beginning to see the need for these rooms. Sometimes I feel like I want to go in one of them and never leave.
NEW WORDS – OR TWISTS ON THE OLD
- SWATTING: In which someone reports a false emergency, the purpose of which is to get a S.W.A.T. team to descend on an address. Who thinks these things up? Kids? Certainly not mature, old people.
- STATE CAPTURE: A form of systemic corruption in which companies (public & private) have improper influence over the state. Can you imagine such a thing?
- AUTOCRATIC CAPTURE: In which the politicians have improper influence over companies. Can you imagine such a thing? What is confounding that Both STATE CAPTURE and AUTOCRATIC CAPTURE can exist in the same place at the same time.- defying all known rules of physics.
- DEMOCRACY: A system of government based on the suspension of disbelief. I believe I either said that, or I stole it.
My allotment is up. I’ll leave you with a few words from the Sages – so you will not feel alone:
- “I have always wished my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.” -Bjarne Stroustrup
- There are things you just can’t do in life. You can’t beat the phone company, you can’t make a waiter see you until he’s ready to see you, and you can’t go home again.’ -Bill Bryson
- “Stay all night, Stay a little longer. Dance all night. Dance a little longer” -Words to an old Hillbilly song
- I’ll never get out of the world alive” -Hank Williams (More words from a Hillbilly song)
- “If you walk away from a landing, it’s a good landing.” -Chuck Yeager, The “Right Stuff” test pilot
Back at you later, if the waters don’t rise.