Surviving in a down economy is more important than tackling pollution – or is it?

            

“Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.”
- Cree Indian Prophecy
                                                 
   Americans are dying every day from polluted air, land, rivers, and oceans. Our food chain is polluted with pesticides, steroids, and hormones. Study after study warns us we can’t keep going on like this.

   In a twist of irony, Americans' concerns about environmental problems have decreased with the drop in support for various environmental policies and the higher priority currently assigned to economic growth, according to an April 13th Gallup Study (“Worry about U.S. Water, Air Pollution at Historical lows”).

The economic downturn has forced Americans to focus more on bread-and-butter economic issues than quality-of-life issues, the study concluded. The future is uncertain.

  Over 29 percent of America’s bees (located in California and Florida) have vanished and scientists are concerned. It’s been predicted that if we lose our bees, we will only have a few years of food left.

“One in every three bites of food you eat comes from a plant, or depends on a plant, that was pollinated by an insect, most likely a bee," said Dennis vanEngelsdorp of Penn State University's College of Agricultural Sciences, during a Associated Press interview.

  They found a wide variety of pesticides and other chemicals in the hives, but didn’t think any one chemical was strong enough to be lethal. However, they did feel it was possible that some of the chemicals could combine in harmful ways not yet understood.

  "The 98 pesticides and metabolites detected in mixtures up to 214 ppm parts per million in bee pollen alone represent a remarkably high level for toxicants in the brood and adult food of this primary pollinator," Mullin and his colleagues wrote in the journal Public Library of Science-One.

  The run off from factories and air fallout into the oceans have increased the contaminates in our fish so much that the fish oils we purchase for our omega 3 healthy oils, contain traces of mercury, PCBs and dioxins.

  Our soil is getting heavily polluted by toxic materials and dangerous microorganisms, which enter through air, water and the food chain. These soil pollutants come from;
Agricultural waste, Industrial waste, Urban waste, and Hazardous waste.

  The biggest offender by far is industrial waste discharged from paper and pulp industries, conventional and atomic power plants, mining and smelting operations, etc.

  A recent pollution concern is that components could fail at the nation’s largest radioactive cleanup site, a first-of-its-kind $12 Billion waste treatment plant in at Hanford in Washington State. It’s designed to last 30 years, another shortsighted solution to a huge problem.

   The Department of Energy began looking into potentially serious flaws at the Hanford Site facility in January 2013. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants more tests and analyses to validate the designs for key components of the plant, which is meant to stabilize and contain 56 million gallons of radioactive waste.

  With all this scary information on hand you’d think people would want to be more proactive and cooperative.  We all live on the same planet. Breath the same air. Drink the same water. Common sense would suggest we work together on our common challenges.

   Unfortunately, common sense has taken a back seat to partisan ideologies more concerned with making money by any means possible, than with the public’s safety. No amount of man-made disasters, like the Deep Water Horizon tragedy, seems to stop the money mongers’ pursuit of oil.

   Lobbyists protect our polluters/corporations with massive amounts of money to corrupt politicians who write the laws. There’s no respect for the land. Environmentalists are belittled by right-wing conservatives who serve their money God.

   I’ve heard people compare the fall of the Roman Empire to America’s rapidly crumbling infrastructure, but our downfall will be even more devastating.

No kingdoms will rise in its place, because America will be a polluted wasteland, unfit for animal or human habitation for eons to come.

  Until that time comes, thousands of Americans will continue to die every day, victims of politics that protect the polluters. Bit players in a slowing dying civilization that lost it’s way a long time ago.

  Forgive me for painting such a bleak future. I know there are people fighting to correct our numerous pollution problems, but when I read the daily news it seems the bad guys are winning. 
Our country’s fate reflects the biblical passage from Galatians 6:7 “… whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.”

-Dave Stancliff

This column originally appeared on April 22nd, 2013, in the Times-Standard newspaper, Eureka, California

Selfies Hack: The Good, Bad, & the Ugly

Good Day World!

I’m going to assume you know what a “selfie” is.

If not, then please refer to “selfie” in the Oxford Dictionary.

It was proclaimed the 2013 word of the year by the Oxford Dictionaries and I doubt if you can go a day without hearing the word or witnessing a “selfie.”

“Selfies” are a snapshot of society. A moment of triumph, and of utter defeat. A brief visual insight into someone’s soul. A cry for attention in a world of strangers.

THE GOOD

Taking selfies isn’t hurting anyone.

In fact, looking at images of yourself and your friends and other real life, un-photoshopped people may be good for one’s body image.

What’s wrong with taking a nice picture of yourself to remind yourself that you don’t have to be Kate Moss to look and feel good? Or sharing a silly selfie with your friends to get a laugh? Or even to make a bunch of silly faces when you’re bored and find them in your photo stream a week later?

THE BAD

This “selfie” (left-woman in colored leopard skin dress) got the taker busted. She apparently enjoys five-fingered discounts and got caught.

The 27-year-old Illinois woman was accused of stealing several items from a clothing store and was busted after she posted pictures of herself in a shoplifted dress on Facebook.

Might want to add stupid to this example of a “selfie.”

THE UGLY

Before you snap that “selfie,” check in and ask why you're taking this particular photo, suggests Ellen Kenner, Ph.D., a psychologist in Rhode Island.

"If you love the way you look one day, or are in a playful mood and want to capture it for yourself as a memory, or share it with friends and family, there is fun and self-valuing in that," she says, and your friends and family will enjoy seeing you genuinely happy or excited.

The problem, she explains, occurs when you're waiting for feedback from others. If you spend the next 20 minutes furiously clicking refresh, or wishing specific people commented, then it could be a sign that you're overly dependent on external feedback to determine your inner happiness.

"All the selfies in the world won't replace genuine self-esteem," reminds Kenner.

"A lot of energy goes into a selfie, especially if you're the type of person in the habit of taking them all the time," warns Jaime Kulaga, Ph.D., a psychologist in Tampa. "An occasional selfie is part of being on social media, but more than a few may signify an underlying confidence issue."

Editor’s Note: See more information about “selfies” at top right corner of this page under Visit Dave at Learnist

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

75th Anniversary of Baseball Hall of Fame’s newest exhibit, Babe Ruth

With 2014 being the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Baseball Hall of Fame, the shrine naturally has turned to the game’s greatest star to help mark the occasion with its newest exhibit, “Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend.”

2014 also marks the 100th anniversary of the Babe's debut in the major leagues. But if you you can’t make it to Cooperstown, N.Y., here are some lesser-known facts about the sport’s real-life Paul Bunyan.

1. How he became the Babe

George Herman Ruth acquired the nickname “Babe” while playing for the Baltimore Orioles, a minor league team in 1914, when he was referred to by a team scout as “one of [manager] Jack Dunn’s babes.” Ruth’s big-league career began at midseason that year when the Orioles of the International League sold him and two others players to the Red Sox for $8,000. 

Read the rest here.

Editor’s Note: Check out the Babe’s biography and more at top right corner of this page – Dave at Learnist

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Domestic Terrorists: re-defining gangs in America

Good Day World!

I hear a lot of talk about domestic terrorists but seldom see street gangs included in the conversation. Why is that?

The statutory definition of domestic terrorism in the United States has changed many times over the years; also, it can be argued that acts of domestic terrorism have been occurring since long before any legal definition was set forth.

According to a memo produced by the FBI's Terrorist Research and Analytical Center in 1994, domestic terrorism was defined as "the unlawful use of force or violence, committed by a group(s) of two or more individuals, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."

Under current United States law, set forth in the USA PATRIOT Act, acts of domestic terrorism are those which:

"(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended— (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States."

FACTS TO CONSIDER

Some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with about 1.4 million members are criminally active in the U.S. today.

Many are sophisticated and well organized; all use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include robbery, drug and gun trafficking, fraud, extortion, and prostitution rings.

According to the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report, gangs are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions, and up to 90 percent in others. source/FBI

If you compare the definition of terrorists (and terrorist acts) set down by the Patriot Act and the crimes committed by street gangs, you’ll see very little difference.

Which leads me to ask, which group is responsible for the most violent acts throughout the year? Those who Homeland Security call domestic terrorists, or street gangs? The answer is obvious. The street gangs. 

GANGS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CHILDREN ILLEGALLY COMING TO AMERICA

GANGS RULE COUNTRIES

El Salvador’s capital — and indeed nearly the entire country — is a checkerboard in which gang territories circumscribe the movement of those in the lower economic rungs of society, and especially young men.

The chaos also provides an incentive for Salvadorans to try to flee north for the safety of the United States. Experts trying to explain the huge increase in children and teens who’ve arrived in the United States say anecdotal evidence points at least in part to the hold that criminal gangs have in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

While flight to the United States might be one way people are trying to escape the violence, there’s an ironic symmetry: El Salvador’s gang problem has its genesis in the United States, from the time of the country’s civil war, which also sent tens of thousands of Salvadorans fleeing to the United States.

The gangs began among El Salvadoran refugees — many of them young ex-soldiers — who came to Los Angeles to escape civil war in their home country in the 1980s. Salvadorans congregated in large numbers in L.A.’s Pico-Union neighborhood and the area near MacArthur Park.

For young people, that war — which wracked El Salvador from 1980 to 1992 and left at least 75,000 civilians dead — is ancient history. But by the time peace accords were signed, the gangs were on the rise, formed by gang members who had been deported from Los Angeles.

“Those kids 18 and 20 years old who joined the gangs have now grown up,” said Ilopango Mayor Salvador Ruano. “We’ve now had at least three generations of gang members.” (source)

It’s bad enough that we have over one million gangbangers in the USA terrorizing neighborhoods from coast to coast, but the gangs are taking over other counties now. Where will it stop?

Where All the Madness Began: A Look at Gang History

It’s apparent local authorities are losing the battle against gangs in practically every city in the country.

One example: Summer weekend 2014 worse than St. Valentine's Day Massacre

Until gangs are classified as “domestic terrorists” and the Department of Homeland Security can help fight them, it’s only going to get worse. All out war on gangs needs to happen if we don’t want our entire social structure to collapse amid the chaos they bring.

Gangs are the biggest threat to the general publics safety in the USA today. When are we going to realize that?

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

About Soupy Sales: comedian, radio-personality & jazz aficionado

Good Day World!

Do you remember Soupy Sales?

I grew up with him and always watched his shows. I stayed a fan of his right up until the end.

He was a fascinating man with many talents. Few people probably know that he held a Masters Degree in Journalism.

He was best known for his local and network children's television show, Lunch with Soupy Sales; a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark.

Sales got his nickname from his family. His older brothers had been nicknamed "Hambone" and "Chicken Bone." Milton was dubbed "Soup Bone," which was later shortened to "Soupy". When he became a disc jockey, he began using the stage name Soupy Hines. After he became established, it was decided that "Hines" was too close to the Heinz soup company, so he chose Sales, in part after vaudeville comedian Chic Sale.

He enlisted in the United States Navy and served on the USS Randall (APA-224) in the South Pacific during the latter part of World War II. He sometimes entertained his shipmates by telling jokes and playing crazy characters over the ship's public address system.

One of the characters he created was "White Fang", a large dog that played outrageous practical jokes on the seamen. The sounds for "White Fang" came from a recording of The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Sales enrolled in Marshall College in Huntington, where he earned a Master's Degree in Journalism.

He’s best known for his daily children's television show, Lunch With Soupy. The show was originally called 12 O'Clock Comics, and was later known as The Soupy Sales Show. Improvised and slapstick in nature, Lunch with Soupy Sales was a rapid-fire stream of comedy sketches, gags, and puns, almost all of which resulted in Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark.

Sales developed pie-throwing into an art form: straight to the face, on top of the head, a pie to both ears from behind, moving into a stationary pie, and countless other variations. He claimed that he and his visitors had been hit by more than 20,000 pies during his career.

He recounted a time when a young fan mistakenly threw a frozen pie at his neck and he "dropped like a pile of bricks."

Lunch With Soupy began in 1953 from the studios of WXYZ-TV, Channel 7. Beginning in October 1959, Sales's lunch show was broadcast nationally on the ABC television network.

During the same period that Lunch With Soupy aired in Detroit, Sales also hosted a nighttime show, Soup's On, to compete with 11 O'Clock News programs.

The guest star was always a musician, and frequently a jazz performer, at a time when jazz was popular in Detroit and the city was home to twenty-four jazz clubs. Sales believed that his show helped sustain jazz in Detroit, as artists would regularly sell out their nightclub shows after appearing on Soup's On.

THE PUPPETS NAMES WERE:

• White Fang, "The Biggest and Meanest Dog in the USA", who appeared only as a giant white shaggy paw with black triangular felt "claws", jutting out from the corner of the screen. Fang spoke with unintelligible short grunts and growls, which Soupy repeated back in English, for comic effect. White Fang was often the pie thrower when Soupy's jokes bombed.
• Black Tooth, "The Biggest and Sweetest Dog in the USA", also seen only as a giant black paw with white triangular felt claws, and with more feminine, but similarly unintelligible, dialogue. Black Tooth's trademark was pulling Soupy off-camera to give loud and noisy kisses.
• For a short time there was a third dog character that became White Fang's girlfriend, Marilyn Monwolf. She caused some rivalry of affections between Blacktooth and White Fang, but later jilted them both for Joe Dogmaggio.
• Pookie the Lion, a lion puppet appearing in a large window behind Soupy (1950s), was a hipster with a rapier wit. For example: Soupy: "Do you know why my life is so miserable?" Pookie: "You got me!" Soupy: "That's why!" One of Pookie's favorite lines when greeting Soupy was, "Hey bubby... want a kiss?". In the Detroit shows, Pookie never spoke but communicated in whistles. That puppet also was used to mouth the words while pantomiming novelty records on the show.
• Hippy the Hippo, a minor character who occasionally appeared with Pookie the Lion and never spoke. Frank Nastasi gave Hippy a voice for the New York shows. Clyde Adler also voiced Hippy in the shows done in the late 1970s.

REGULAR LIVE CHARACTERS INCLUDED:

• Peaches, Soupy's girlfriend, visually played by footage of Sales in feminine costume.
• Philo Kvetch, a private detective played by Sales in a long-running comedy skit during the show's New York run (a parody of early 20th century fictional detective Philo Vance).
• The Mask, evil nemesis of Philo Kvetch, revealed in the last episode to be Nikita Khrushchev, who had been deposed about a year earlier.
• "Onions" Oregano, henchman of The Mask, played by Frank Nastasi, who ate loads of onions. Every time Oregano would breathe in Philo's direction, Philo would make all sorts of comic choking faces, pull out a can of air freshener, and say "Get those onions out of here!"
• Hobart and Reba, a husband and wife who lived in the potbelly stove on the New York set.
• Willie the Worm was a 35-cent toy Sales got from Woolworth's, according to WXYZ art director Jack Flechsig. With animated squeezings of his rubber air bulb, the latex accordion worm flexed in and out of a little apple. Willy was "The Sickest Worm in all of Dee-troit" and suffered from a perennial cold and comically explosive sneeze. He helped read birthday greetings to Detroit-area kids while the show was on WXYZ. Willie did not survive the show's move to the Big Apple.

MOST INFAMOUS BROADCAST

On January 1, 1965, miffed at having to work on the holiday, Sales ended his live broadcast by encouraging his young viewers to tiptoe into their still-sleeping parents' bedrooms and remove those "funny green pieces of paper with pictures of U.S. Presidents" from their pants and pocketbooks.

"Put them in an envelope and mail them to me", Soupy instructed the children. "And I'll send you a postcard from Puerto Rico!"

He was then hit with a pie. Several days later, a chagrined Soupy announced that money (mostly Monopoly money was unexpectedly being received in the mail. He explained that he had been joking and announced that the contributions would be donated to charity.

As parents' complaints increased, WNEW's management felt compelled to suspend Sales for two weeks. Young viewers picketed Channel 5. The uproar surrounding Sales' suspension increased his popularity. Sales described the incident in his 2001 autobiography Soupy Sez! My Life and Zany Times

From 1968 to 1975, he was a regular panelist on the syndicated revival of What's My Line? and appeared on several other TV game shows. During the 1980s Sales hosted his own show on WNBC-AM in New York City.

Sales died on October 22, 2009, at Calvary Hospice in the Bronx, New York, aged 83, from cancer.

According to writer/columnist Mark Evanier, comedian Tim Powers reported that a fan left a cream pie on Sales' Hollywood Walk of Fame star. – source Wikipedia

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Tough times ahead for Energy drink, White House staffer & a Romanian princess

Good Day World!

It’s taken two years of investigations, but authorities have finally come to a decision about 5-Hour Energy drinks – they’re a rip-off! 

Oregon, Washington and Vermont have sued the makers of 5-Hour Energy, Living Essentials of Farmington Hills, Michigan, over claims, such as "hours of energy, no crash later" promoted in commercials.

Other states are expected to file suits in the coming weeks. 

EXERCISING HIS RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS?

A staffer for Rep Tom Marino (R-PA) was arrested for allegedly carrying a pistol into the Cannon House Office Building, Capitol Police told NBC News.

Ryan Shucard, who has been a press secretary for Marino since May 2014, was arrested and charged with a felony count of Carrying a Pistol Without a License when he entered the south east door of the Cannon building at around 9:15am and it was discovered he was carrying a Smith and Wesson 9mm handgun and magazine.

ROMANIAN PRINCESS PAYS FOR STAGING COCKFIGHTS

A Romanian princess and her husband pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one charge of running an illegal gambling operation for their involvement in a cockfighting ring in rural Oregon.

Irina Walker, 61, daughter of exiled former Romanian King Michael, and her husband John Walker, 68, appeared in federal court in Portland in connection with cockfights they held in Irrigon, Oregon, in 2012 and 2013.

They had originally denied any wrongdoing, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer said that, under the agreement to change their plea, the couple will sell their ranch and forfeit $200,000 to the government in lieu of incarceration.

Cockfighting is illegal under federal law, and under the laws of every state.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Marvelous times with comic books as new heroes emerge

Good Day World!

The universe is being recreated.

The Marvel Universe that is.

I’ve been immersed in Marvel lore since I started reading comics in 1962.

I got to witness the birth of Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, The Hulk, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange, The Invincible Ironman, The Mighty Thor, The Sub-Mariner, The X-Men, Giant Man, and The Wasp.

Those were heady times.

Later on, I followed Marvel’s NAM Comics that ran from December of 1986 through September of 1993. I still have every issue.

The 'Nam was a war comic book series detailing the U.S. War in Vietnam from the perspective of active-duty soldiers involved in the conflict.

The comic is structured as the narrative of a fictional soldier, Private First Class Edward Marks (but sometimes following other characters), as he experiences real events that occurred during the conflict

It was written by Doug Murray, initially illustrated by Michael Golden, edited by Larry Hama and published by Marvel Comics for seven years beginning in 1986, which was originally intended to roughly parallel the analogous events of the period of major American military involvement in Vietnam from 1966 to 1972.

MARVEL UNIVERSE TODAY

The latest news comes from Marvel's chief creative officer, Joe Quesada, when he revealed on "The Colbert Report" that there will be a NEW Captain America.

He is Cap's friend Sam Wilson, aka The Falcon. (See illustration at the top left corner of the page)

The Captain America announcement comes the same week as other big changes for major Marvel characters.

Tuesday on "The View," it was revealed that Cap's fellow Avenger Thor is now a Goddess of Thunder.

Gee…does that mean Thor has always been a woman and was in drag? What a surprise!

Seriously, taking one of the gods from Norse legends and feminizing him?

I think that’s going too far just to be politically correct. What’s wrong with the current goddesses in cultures around the world? There’s a lot who never got their due. One of them would be a better candidate for a new female superhero.

Marvel has been doing a lot to pump up its female superheroes in the comics, recently re-introducing excellent standalone titles for Captain Marvel (aka Carol Danvers) and Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan, also its first Muslim hero).

Marvel also announced that their colleague Iron Man is getting sleek new silver armor (instead of the gold and red that Robert Downey Jr. has sported in a successful film series) and is moving to San Francisco.

The Marvel Universe continues to turn. Characters die (or go into oblivion) and new ones replace them. In that way, Marvel comics continue to evolve with the real world... reflecting our values.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Patrick Kennedy & cohorts attack pot legalization while in bed with Purdue Pharma

Good Day World!

Today we’re going to look at the hypocrisy facing the marijuana industry.

Chief hypocrite, and de facto leader against pot in America, Patrick Kennedy, son of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, wants pot prohibition to continue forever.

“Last year Kennedy helped found an advocacy group, Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana), which has been barnstorming the country opposing the growing state and federal efforts to legalize pot.”

You remember Patrick Kennedy don’t you?

“He did several stints in rehab after crashing his car into a barricade on Capitol Hill in 2006, a headline-making event that revealed the then–US congressman for Rhode Island had been abusing prescription drugs, including the painkiller OxyContin.”

Sound familiar now? Nothing worse than he reformed drug addict eh? Especially one who gets financial support from drug companies.

“It’s odd that CADCA and the other groups leading the fight against relaxing marijuana laws, including the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids (formerly the Partnership for a Drug-Free America), derive a significant portion of their budget from opioid manufacturers and other pharmaceutical companies.”

There’s been embarrassing moments along the way. 

“After Project SAM began organizing opposition to Alaska's legalization initiative this year, demonstrators in Anchorage paraded a giant check with the figure $9,015—the amount in campaign money that Kennedy received from the liquor and beer lobby while in office.

Critics have also pointed out that Project SAM's board and partners represent many of the interest groups that stand to profit from marijuana's continued prohibition.”

Well, imagine that. There’s financial incentive to demonize weed. Who would of guessed? 

Can’t talk about Kennedy without mentioning the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America (CADCA). The group thinks painkillers/opiates are just fine, but cannabis will ruin your life. Hypocrites of a feather stick together.

“CADCA's website makes it clear that the organization—dedicated to a "world of safe, healthy and drug-free communities"—has adopted marijuana as its primary concern. The group's stated policy priorities are to preserve and expand two federal drug-prevention grant programs and to oppose marijuana-law reform.

CADCA has hosted training seminars to instruct community organizations in the best tactics for opposing efforts to legalize even medical marijuana. The group also offers template letters to the editor, sample opinion columns, talking points and other tips for pushing back against reform efforts.”

One more thing about Patrick Kennedy:

“Though the former congressman received many second chances in his struggle with alcohol and prescription drugs, he has opposed any move toward marijuana decriminalization that would afford similar leniency to others.”

FACTS TO REFLECT ON

“Prescription opioids, a line of pain-relieving medications derived from the opium poppy or produced synthetically, are the most dangerous drugs abused in America.

Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of Oxy-Contin, the highly addictive painkiller that nearly ruined Kennedy's congressional career and has been linked to thousands of overdose deaths nationwide.

Prescription opioids, a line of pain-relieving medications derived from the opium poppy or produced synthetically, are the most dangerous drugs abused in America, with more than 16,000 deaths annually linked to opioid addiction and overdose. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that more Americans now die from painkillers than from heroin and cocaine combined.”

Snippets from, The Real Reason Pot Is Still Illegal – Originally appeared July1st in The Nation

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Tooth Fairy Hack: My granddaughter’s tooth fetched a fair fee

Good Day World!

The Tooth Fairy stopped by last night and took my granddaughter’s front tooth, leaving a five dollar bill behind in it’s place.

That was one generous tooth fairy because researchers at Visa recently found that the tooth fairy is now leaving an average of $3.70 USD per tooth. Not bad.

As you may know, the tooth fairy is a fantasy figure of early childhood. The folklore states that when a child loses a baby tooth, if he or she places it beneath the bed pillow, the tooth fairy will visit while the child sleeps, replacing the lost tooth with a small payment.

Rosemary Wells a professor at Northwestern University Dental School during the 1970s was probably the first person to wonder what the tooth fairy looked like, and where the legend started.

Unlike Santa Claus and, to a lesser extent, the Easter Bunny, there are few details of the tooth fairy's appearance that are consistent in various versions of the myth.

A 1984 study conducted by Rosemary Wells revealed that most, 74 percent of those surveyed, believed the tooth fairy to be female, while 12 percent believed the tooth fairy to be neither male nor female and 8 percent believed the tooth fairy could be either male or female.

THE ORIGIN OF THE TOOTH FAIRY

“Wells wrote a series of magazine articles in which she laid out the first substantive overview of the tooth fairy myth.

Then there was her survey, again the first of its kind, conducted among some 2,000 parents in the United States. A decade later, Wells remained so engrossed in her subject that she opened an entire museum dedicated to it, run out of her home in Deerfield, Ill.

By then she had become the world’s expert on the tooth fairy, giving countless interviews and talks, and even appearing on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Wells’s name became so synonymous with the dental sprite that she had to clarify things to the Chicago Tribune: “I’m not the Tooth Fairy,” she said. “I’m the Tooth Fairy consultant.” It said so on her business card.

A spokesperson for the Chicago Dental Society added, “We have no position on the Tooth Fairy. I refer all inquiries to Ms. Wells.” (source)

The backround behind exchanging teeth for a small payment began in early Europe. It was a tradition to bury baby teeth that fell out. Among the reasons this was done was the fear witches would get ahold of the teeth and ruin the child’s life.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Watch the 'Dawn of the Planet of the Pugs' parody preview

My pug, Molly, wants to keep watching a parody of pugs that went viral on the internet. I don’t blame her. Talk about funny!

Imagine a place where pugnacious pugs rule the world.

The latest big-screen installment of "Planet of the Apes" has garnered good reviews .

But it's also spawned a short blockbuster on the Web from the Pet Collective, the same group that brought us furry and fashionable memes, a "World Pup" series, as well as various four-legged friends chilling to pop rhythms.

In the YouTube video imitating "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," the human race may fall because of pug cuteness overload.

Finding a new, genetically evolved man's best friend leads to all the pugs in the forest coming out to play, or pounce.

(Well, maybe not at first; check out the outtakes.) (source /video)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Fowl Warning: I’m ready to pass on poultry and here’s why

Good Day World!

 I’m not ready to become a vegetarian just yet, but there’s one meat I’m seriously considering crossing off my meal list.

Chicken.

Why you ask?

Because I don’t feel safe consuming it anymore. I’ve gathered some information on chickens that may help you understand my concerns. Over the years, recalls of chickens have doubled – even tripled – and there doesn’t seem to be an answer for this alarming trend.

Ironically, the price of poultry continues to climb – keeping step with other meats like pork and beef. Find out why in the following snippets:

SALMONELLA AND FOSTER FARMS CHICKENS

Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback investigations conducted by local, state, and federal officials indicate that consumption of Foster Farms brand chicken is the likely source of the outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg infections.

On July 4, 2014, the CDC reported a total of 621 individuals infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Heidelberg from 29 states and Puerto Rico. Most of the ill persons (76%) have been reported from California.  36% of ill persons have been hospitalized, an

d no deaths have been reported.  The outbreak began in February 2013 with the last reported illness June 25, 2014. (source)

5 Things You Should Know About The Salmonella Outbreak Linked To Chicken

DON”T KISS THE CHICKENS

Keeping backyard chickens in urban settings may be a growing trend, but federal health officials are warning about a surprising downside: salmonella infections tied to kissing and other close contact with live poultry.

Health officials have warned for years about the popular practice of giving children pet chicks or ducklings at Easter. But home-grown chickens have become far more popular, according to Rob Ludlow, owner of BackYardChickens.com, who says 1 million people a month visit his site and that membership has boomed since he started in 2007.

That’s about when the salmonella outbreaks tied to live poultry started to take off, too, CDC officials noted.

Live poultry may have salmonella germs in their droppings and on their feathers, feet and beaks, even when they look healthy and clean. The germs also get on cages, coops and the environment where the birds live and roam. Salmonella infections can be dangerous to the very young, the very old and those with compromised immune systems. (source)

FAT ROOSTERS NOT GOOD AT MAKING CHICKS

Apparently, fat roosters aren't very good at making chicks. The world's largest chicken breeder has discovered that a key breed of rooster has a genetic issue that is reducing its fertility, and that's raising prices for poultry even as beef and pork prices hit record highs.

The breed, Aviagen Group's standard Ross male, is sire through its offspring to as much as 25 percent of the nation's chickens raised for slaughter, said Aviagen spokeswoman Marla Robinson. Sanderson Farms, the third-largest U.S. poultry producer and one of Aviagen's largest customers, said it and Aviagen systematically ruled out other possible causes for a decline in fertility before determining a genetic issue was at the root of the problem.

The issue is hitting an industry that is already suffering from a short supply of breeder birds. A team of scientists from Aviagen studied the issue and found that the breed's genetics made it sensitive to being overfed, and when the bird got big, he didn't breed as much. (source)

Time for me to walk on down the road…