Category Archives: Muddled Musings

Riding Steerage

 

If the UN’s report on global warming didn’t send you into apoplectic shock, you may want to buy a blood pressure monitor. That way you can tell if you have a pulse.

In short, the report said, global warming will kick into lethal high gear in 12 years. So you’ll likely be around for it. Your children, however, may not; given the U.S.’ recent rejection of science, there’s no indication we have any interest in slowing the train to oblivion.

Which leads to the question: Given our president’s disdain for science and the UN, why don’t they punch back and recognize America for what it really is: an intellectual third-world nation.

For instance, I’d be fascinated to see a UN climate study that excludes the U.S. Just assume Trumpanzees will continue to worship coal and hairspray. What if much larger nations — India, China, Indonesia, for starters — took  the problem seriously and acted on it?  What if, instead of simply measuring worldwide economies (which the U.S. dominates), the UN measured stupidity in taking countries into account?

Turns out they did. In 2015, the UN defined 17 goals for any country claiming to desire complete, sustainable development. The goals range from ending poverty, to gender equality, to environmental preservation. The next year, a worldwide study was released.

And the U.S. report card from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ain’t pretty.

USA! USA!

Poverty

Food security and nutrition

Health

Education

Gender equality

The US is also, with Lesotho, one of only two countries in the world that do not mandate paid maternity leave.

Energy

Employment

Infrastructure

Inequality

Housing and urban development

Peaceful living

Traitor Joe Blow

 

A wise soul suggested I try Trader Joe‘s for the kind of wine I prefer: Something that tastes as sweet as Kool-Aid, without the mass suicides.

So for the first time in my life, I entered Trader Joe‘s alone (Because I’m a food fraud, I have always accompanied grocery experts who know the difference between, say, rhubarb  and butter.)Image result for rhubarb

Joe’s food must be as good as his wine, because the line just to get into the parking lot spilled onto Burbank Blvd. Motorists were lined up as if entering the Hollywood Bowl, and about as patient. Someone actually honked at a guy walking across the parking lot entrance in a walker. In his/her defense,  the car was two back in the line and couldn’t have realized the pedestrian was in a walker — until stroller guy got back to us and uttered something inaudible and surely profane at the driver in front of me.

When I finally got into the store, I was struck by the smell of sweat and douche baggery: Track suits and Louis Vittons; ravaged sandals; unbathed vegans asking if the cheese was artisinal.

But damn the advice was good. In addition to Kool-Aid booze, they had the greatest chip selection I’d ever seen, including one that was more ball than chip: an infarction-inducing clump of butter, caramel and cinnamon that I hope to be eating when I die.

But oh the douche baggery! The woman in front of me was delightful. Perhaps because she was buying eight bottles of wine and the patient cashier was double bagging every one.

The guys behind me, though, must have gone to school with Brett Kavanaugh. Douche 1 was telling Douche 2 he couldn’t make time with a girl, despite always being at his gentlemanly best. “It’s not like I’m one of those guys who walking around talking in the first person.”

I resisted snarking “You just did, dumbass.” Instead, I chickened out and left. Maybe there’d be a good motorist/senior stroller brawl outside.

Now for some non-person Factslaps:

  • Until three million years ago, whales were less than 30 feet long. Image result for small whales
  • 420,000 people die annually from tainted food.
  • Cuba bans statues of  living Cubans. Image result for fidel castro statue
  • 85% of Vakkaru Island in the Maldives is made up of fish feces.Image result for Vakkaru Island
  • 50% of US territory is under the sea.
  • England is smaller than New York state.
  • 1 in 8 young Britons have never seen a cow in real life.
  • After Korean soccer player Ahn Jung-hwan scored the goal to eliminate Italy from the 2002 World Cup, his contract was cancelled by the Italian for whom he played for ‘ruining Italian soccer.’Image result for Ahn Jung-hwan

 

Can’t Escape from the Common Rule

I was recently reminded of a phrase I hadn’t heard in a while: To have one’s cake and eat it too.

I’ve never understood that term. What else would you do with a cake you have? Wear it? Rent it bowling shoes? And while we’re at it, why do we still use “selling like hotcakes?” Were they once as socially hot as, say, the Furby?

Less questions. More answers:

  • 90% of Chinese teenagers and young adults suffer from myopia (short-sightedness). Image result for chinese kid in glasses
  • The highest race horse speed ever recorded was 43.97 mph. Image result for fast running horse
  • 3 out of 4 teenage girls feel depressed after looking at a fashion magazine for only 3 minutes, according to a Cambridge study.
  • 75% of all suicide attempts are by self-poisoning with drugs, and 97% of those cases survive.
  • The average person pees six times a day. Image result for funny toilet pic pee
  • Intel employs a “futurist” whose job is to determine what life will be like 10-15 years in the future.
  • More than $80 of every $100 of wealth created in 2017 went to the richest 1%.
  • According to the Washington Post, Trump made 4,299 false or misleading claims in his first 558 days. Image result for trump lie funny