No Good Deeds Goes Unpunished...!

That's a saying I've heard all of my adult life, but I have mostly considered it untrue. However, here is a story from Listverse that could prove me wrong.

James Brady

Photo credit: Viorel Florescu/North Jersey Media

In 2013, a man named James Brady was living in a homeless shelter in Hackensack, New Jersey. One day, he was taking a walk. As if by some miracle, an envelope filled with $850 of cash was just lying on the street. James could have secretly pocketed the money, but he chose to do the right thing and take it to his local police station, just in case whoever lost it was looking for the envelope. They told him that if no one claimed the money in six months, it was his. During that time, he tried his best to find part-time work and eventually got out of the homeless shelter by splitting rent on an apartment with multiple roommates.

Sure enough, six months later, James got to keep the money that he turned in. However, since he had gotten the police involved, the state learned of his new $850 “income,” and they revoked his free Medicaid health care, because he “made too much money.

Karma can be a friend, but then again Karma can come back and bite you in the backside whenever she wants. After all...the name is Karma!

Coffee in the kitchen once again.

Does Red Really Mean Fresh...?

I know that all of us have a tendency to choose the red meat as the freshest, but is it really? Here is another article from Listverse that may help to answer that question.

Supermarkets Add Carbon Monoxide To Make Meat Redder

Do you consider the redness of meat an indication of its freshness?

Well! Redness does not always equate to freshness. Supermarkets usually blast their meat with carbon monoxide—the same deadly gas released in car exhaust—to make it red. And that meat will remain red even when it is spoiled.

Meat naturally turns brown or gray a few days after it is cut. To prevent this, the meat industry invented modified atmosphere packaging (MAP). They expose the meat to carbon monoxide before putting it in the MAP packages. This allows the meat to remain fresh for up to a year. Seventy percent of meat sold in stores in the US is treated with MAP.

Consumer groups have attempted to stop the meat industry from using the deadly carbon monoxide in their products. However, the meat industry says it will continue to use carbon monoxide because consumers will not buy any meat that is not fresh.

I guess if we wanted to look at it realistically, we are all at the mercy of the food industry in one way or another. Almost enough to drive us to drink, isn't it?

Coffee in the kitchen this morning...or would you rather have tea?

The Baby Carrot Mystery...!

While this really isn't a mystery, it does contain some information you might find interesting. This article was one I took from Listverse.

Baby Carrots Are Man-made

Baby carrots are the Disney characters of the carrot world. These veggies are small, rounded, and peeled. They also have that stunning orange color. Unlike larger carrots, baby carrots are considered ready to eat. Most baby carrot lovers do not know that baby carrots are just regular carrots trimmed into small sizes.

The first baby carrot was made in the 1980s when Mike Yurosek trimmed some of his broken carrots into smaller sizes. At the time, carrot farmers disposed of 70 percent of their carrots because they were broken or had unappealing shapes. Not willing to lose more revenue, Yurosek used a potato peeler to trim the deformed carrots for sale. They were a success.

Nowadays, farmers deliberately plant carrots for baby carrots. They harvest the vegetables before they are fully matured and trim them into smaller sizes. They will usually wash the carrots with chlorine before rinsing them in water and packaging them for sale. Farms say the chlorine is necessary to kill bacteria like E. coli. However, people have protested against the use of chlorine in food.

All I can say about this article is that I love the size and taste of these carrots. Just right for using in stews and soups, even though they are misleading about the source.

Coffee in the kitchen again. I made cookies last night, though.

The " Eat Anything" Professor...!

We all have one or two little quirks that we don't like to mention...I know I do. However, some folks go overboard with these quirks from time to time. Here is an example from Listverse.

William Buckland

Photo credit: Museum of the History of Science, Oxford

William Buckland was the first trained geology professor at Oxford and avid fan of eating anything. While teaching at Oxford, he dropped a large hyena skull onto the lap of a student and asked, “What rules the world?” When the student didn’t answer, Buckland cried, “The stomach, sir! [It’s the stomach that] rules the world. The great ones eat the less, the less the lesser still . . . “

Guests at Buckland’s house would be treated to this philosophy to the fullest extent. Typical dinners at the table included strange delicacies: Crisp mice in golden batter. Panther chops. Rhino pie. Trunk of elephant. Crocodile for breakfast. Sliced porpoise head. Horse’s tongue. Kangaroo ham. And all of this while a live hyena and monkey roamed freely about the house. There is even a likely apocryphal story of Buckland eating King Louis XIV’s heart, in which Buckland says, “I have eaten many strange things, but have never eaten the heart of a king before,” and promptly shoves the heart in his mouth. Delightful.

Professor or not, it sounds to me that this guy wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, ya know?

Coffee in the kitchen again today. Sorry about that.

Seal, Go Blow Your Nose...!

Now here is something that you don't see every day. Another one of nature's critters (a seal) with an eel up it's nose! Here is the story from Listverse.

The Mysterious Seal-Eel Connection

Photo credit: Brittany Dolan/NOAA Fisheries

There’s a new fad out there which has baffled scientists and poses a serious health risk: sticking eels up your nose. There’s just one catch, though. It’s not teenagers who are doing it but rather juvenile Hawaiian monk seals.

The story got picked up after the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) posted a picture of a seal with a dead spotted eel stuck up its nose on its Facebook page. The image puzzled animal experts, who’d never seen the bizarre phenomenon before. According to NOAA, the organization has been monitoring the endangered species for almost 40 years and had only noticed the odd incident on a few occasions, and they all happened in the last three years.

Charles Littnan, head of NOAA’s Hawaiian monk seal research program, said the first instance occurred in 2016.[2] He received an e-mail from a field researcher which, basically, said, “Found seal with eel stuck in nose. What do we do?” There was no protocol set in place back then, but now, standard procedure is to capture the animal and pull the eel through the nostril. So far, all the eels have died, but none of the Hawaiian monk seals seemed affected by the incident.

There’s still the question of why is this happening, and so far, there is no satisfying answer. NOAA has ruled out the work of a deranged person with a vendetta against seals. Littnan said it could be that the seal is regurgitating the eel, or the fish purposely swam inside the nose while the seal was hunting it, but doesn’t consider either hypothesis plausible.

I seem to remember that when we were kids, one of my sisters (I don't remember which one) got something stuck up her nose and had to go to the doctor's office to have it removed. If memory serves, it was a bean, and had started to sprout!

Coffee in the kitchen again this morning.

A Viking Invention...?

Who would have ever guessed that the Vikings were almost obsessed with their appearance. Here is an invention of the Vikings that seems nearly out of character for them.

Comb

Photo credit: york.ac.uk

Most Viking inventions and innovations were related to the hit-and-run military campaigns conducted during their raids and involved shipbuilding, camping, combat, and other related practical enterprises. Despite their penchant for waging guerrilla warfare, it seems that the Vikings were vain about their appearance. When they sailed off in search of plunder, they took with them the combs they created from deer antlers.

“You might expect these to be throwaway objects, but in some cases, they were superbly decorated, and all were massively over engineered,” archaeologist Steve Ashby said. He added that the combs were made of the same material as specialized tools like polishers, saws, and rasps.

For Vikings, appearance was an important aspect of their identity. “They took a great deal of care with their grooming and often carried combs with their swords and knives on their belts. They frequently even took combs to the grave,” Ashby explained.

After the Norman Conquest in the 11th century, comb-making died out in England. This may have been the result of the Forest Law, or perhaps antlers became prohibitively expensive. But, in Sweden, combs imported from Norway continued to be purchased and used.

I guess when you are running all around the known world raping and pillaging, you might be wanting to look your best. Gotta try and look your best, I reckon.

Guess we better have coffee in the kitchen this morning. The weather seems suspect.

Feeling Nostalgic...?

Here is a little fact about the feeling of nostalgia that you may find interesting. It probably applies more to those of us a bit older in years that it does to the young folks out there.

There are two different types of nostalgia. Restorative nostalgia is when you feel like things used to be better and you long to relive the past, and reflective nostalgia is when you feel wistful about how different things used to be, but you maintain a sense of amused acceptance.

Now I guess we need to ask ourselves which type we fall under...and if even really matters.

Coffee out on the patio again this morning!