pHact or pHiction

So, actual health tips: Though it does contain more arsenic, brown rice is in many ways actually better for you than white rice, however brown sugar is nutritionally identical to white sugar. Then there’s a thing where you’re supposed to drink alkaline water for your health, to improve “bone health, cancer, acid reflux, and blood pressure” while the health claims for apple cider vinegar include “regulating blood sugar levels, boosting weight loss, and improving gut health.” I’m just here to say don’t try them both at once so you don’t foam up and erupt like a science fair papier-mâché volcano.

Except "the." I made that one up.

I get asked from time to time (actually, never) if I ever use ghost writers or assistants to relieve the awesome burden of responsibility that goes with being the creator of these little weekly essays and the answer is no except at times when I lift direct quotes from my sources and then they are always attributed. I admit however that like everyone else I utilize individual preexisting words I have read or heard in the past, arranging them so as to convey my thoughts in a form that is comprehensible to my readers. We are all plagiarists.

Little Free Library

There are several very good reasons why you have never heard of the author Robert Moore Williams. Let’s begin with this verbatim lift from a book called Zanthar at Trip’s End: “Pop clumped over to where the boy lay on the floor. An instant later he was yelling for Mom to call the cops. ‘This kid’s dead, Mom!’ he yelled. ‘Call the cops!’” (Pop and Mom appear only in this scene and do nothing to advance the plot.) Robert Moore Williams wrote four books about Zanthar but just to show the breadth of his talent he also wrote three about Jongor.

making bicycling problematic

Let me begin by reaffirming that deep down inside I am 9 years old. There is no other explanation for what you are about to read. You could skip it but then you might never learn about the northern giant mouse lemur. First off, it’s a small giant, weighing about 300 grams. According to scientists who study such things, they are nocturnal, frugivorous, and absolutely adorable. Then there’s this: Their testicles make up around 5% of their body weight, the largest testes-to-body ratio of any primate. If humans had a similar ratio, their testicles would be the size of grapefruits.

It's Breathable

It is said that when asked to define the Golden Age of Science Fiction somebody said, “Twelve.” That’s how old I was when the original Star Trek show made its debut, and I loved everything about it. (Even the Cuban-heeled boots, perfect for space exploration.) Now it mostly looks sort of embarrassing. Even Man from U.N.C.L.E. has aged better. But it won’t die. There have been around a dozen different Star Trek TV series and about the same number of movies. I think they should to stop now, having exhausted every possible shape you can adhere to an actor’s forehead.

Let me clarify.

While reading about Nikodem Poplawski (as one does) I came across the hilariously-named Jagiellonian University which sidetracked me because I have the attention span of a goldfish in a bowlful of benzedrine. Anyway, Poplawski has this hypothesis that the flip side of a black hole is a big bang that creates a whole new universe which in due time expands and produces black holes of its own and that our own universe is the spawn of a black hole in another universe and so on ad infinitum. What if it turns out to really be turtles all the way down?

I am easily tickled

Jagiellonian University is what I’m writing about because the word Jagiellonian looks so dang funny to me although certainly not to Polish people nor actually to any educated person whose sense of humor has evolved beyond the 7th grade level. It (Jagiellonian University) was founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, 600 years before the Beatles made their American television debut on the Ed Sullivan show. That means that by the time John, Paul, George, and Ringo showed up in our living rooms, Jagiellonian University was already one of the world’s oldest continuously operating institutions of higher learning.