Browsing: Lifestyle

A Brief History On May 7, 2018, while the latest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Infinity War, is breaking box office records, we stop to ask about the main premise of the film, the arch villain Thanos and his plan to reduce life in the Universe by half in order to prevent an overpopulation catastrophe. Our question is, “Has anyone tried this plan in real life?”  In 1968, Paul and Anne Ehrlich published a book titled, The Population Bomb, a dire warning about the catastrophic consequences of overpopulation of people on Earth.  So far, those predictions have not…

A Brief History On May 5, 1862, the Mexican Army defeated the French Army at the Battle of the Puebla (Puebla City) during the Second French Intervention in Mexico, a marvelous victory for the Mexicans over a superior French force, a victory celebrated each year on May 5th, or in Español, Cinco de Mayo. Oddly enough, the Mexican celebration has been appropriated by Americans in the United States where it has become a bigger holiday for us Gringos than for Mexicans! Digging Deeper Mexico had been torn by one of their seemingly eternal civil wars which impoverished the country and…

A Brief History On May 1, 2018, we celebrate another Save the Rhino Day by telling you a little about the “Holiday” and a little about Rhinoceroses. (If people asked me, can you speak rhinoceros, I’d say, “Of courserous, can’t you?” from the song, “If I Could Talk to the Animals” an Academy Award winning tune from the 1967 movie, Dr. Dolittle,  music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse.) Digging Deeper Of the 5 species of Rhinoceros alive today, 3 are listed as critically endangered. The Northern sub-species of the White Rhino of Africa may already be extinct in the wild,…

A Brief History On April 17, 2018, the Nation and the media were abuzz with the story of Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, a Boeing 737 (the most popular jetliner in the world) that suffered a catastrophic engine failure resulting in a piece of the Port side engine breaking a window and causing a hapless female passenger to get sucked halfway out of the plane. Although other passengers pulled the lady back into the cabin, she later died of her injuries. It has happened before! Digging Deeper The passenger sucked out of her seat on Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 (the aircraft…

A Brief History On April 2, 1911, the Australian Bureau of Statistics conducted their first ever national census. Most countries conduct some sort of periodic census, and we here in the United States do so every 10 years, a critical process that results in how many representatives to Congress each state gets (and electoral votes) and how Federal funds are distributed. In 2018, the Trump Administration announced the 2020 Census questionnaire would include a question asking if the respondent was a citizen or not, a volatile and contentious issue being debated at this time. Digging Deeper That first Australian census…