A Dance Called Dangerous
Have you ever read through a sentence, only to roll your eyes and wonder, “Did that just say what I thought it said, because it almost, kinda, maybe, made sense?” If you have ever had such a reaction, you may have experienced a paraprosdokian - a sentence with an unexpected ending. It literally means “against expectations” in Greek. Here are just a few to boggle your brain:
DNA and Magnetism
The whole world is abuzz with news that COVID vaccines cause our bodies to become magnetized. There are countless videos on the internet demonstrating how metal objects start to stick to people who have recently been vaccinated. It is not clear if the site of injection is magnetized or we, the vaccinated ones, turn into magnets. It does, however, explain why, after receiving my vaccinations, my needle now is always pointing North. That is the basic theory behind magnets and if you don’t know it, I have to complain about our educational system.
The truly scary China Virus variant
Just when it appears that life in the United States is returning to pre-pandemic condition (I hesitate to say "normal," because, in my opinion, very little in this country is "normal" anymore), the CDC issues yet another warning about a China Virus variant. As of Tuesday, the CDC lists four "notable" variants on its website, code named Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta. The CDC acknowledges that viruses "constantly change through mutation, and new variants of a virus are expected to occur." But don't get too comfortable with that fact, the CDC warns. "Sometimes new variants emerge and disappear. Other times, new variants persist."
Supreme Court restores privacy in smackdown of California
When you join with others in support of a cause, state officials don’t have a right to track you. That’s the upshot of last week’s Supreme Court ruling affirming the right to support nonprofit groups without being monitored by the state.
Eating Airplanes
What’s the strangest thing you ever remember eating? My youngest daughter, at age two, tried to eat a worm, and my husband once ate chocolate-covered crickets; but neither of those comes close to what Michel Lotito devoured! According to funfactz.com, between 1959 and 1997, Michel ate almost 9 tons of inedible and dangerous junk. Among other things, he consumed eleven bicycles, seven shopping carts, a metal coffin, a cash register, a washing machine, a TV, and 66 feet of chain. Then he decided to tackle a big-ticket item; he ate an entire airplane - an old Cessna - which took him 2 years to consume. Michel died in 2007 at the age of 57, the official cause of death being a heart attack. I don’t know - 57 is incredibly young - could he perhaps have been consuming “junk food” that, in the end, took him out?!
