Food for thought

Even liberals (like me) get uncomfortable with the concept of “government handouts”, but here’s a fact that can’t be denied:

As of March of 2013, the number of Americans relying on “food stamps” increased to a record high of 47.8 million people, or roughly 15% of the population. If you're a regular shopper at Walmart, you may be interested to know that close to 80% of the employees of Walmart nationwide rely on food stamps to survive. The average Walmart store costs U.S. taxpayers $420,000 a year.

Officially, the program is now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

If you do a little further digging, you’ll discover that there are 11 states where the food stamp usage ranges from 16.5 to 20.6% of the population. The states in question are Oregon, New Mexico, Michigan, West Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 7 of the 11 have Republican governors. The exceptions are Oregon, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Although both Kentucky and Tennessee have Democratic governors, Republicans hold the majority in both the House and the Senate.

Although every Republican on the House Agricultural Committee recently voted to cut $20 billion from the program in the next decade, the President who did the most to EXPAND the program was a Republican. This is what Richard Nixon said in 1969:

“That hunger and malnutrition should persist in a land such as ours is embarrassing and intolerable”.

Those words are still true today, and they apply both in our country and throughout the world.

To protest the Republican cuts to the food stamp program, 26 members of Congress (all Democrats) recently tried to live for a week on a food stamp budget. Not surprisingly, they found that it wasn't very easy.

26 Lawmakers Live Off Food Stamps to Protest Republican Cuts | Barbara Lee - Congresswoman for the 12th District of California (house.gov)

The Nixon administration also passed the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Clean Water Act of 1970, established the Environmental Protection Agency, and passed OSHA. From 1970 to 1975, spending on human resource programs exceeded spending for defense for the first time since the Second World War.

Sadly, none of those accomplishments could happen today, and bi-partisan efforts, like the McGovern-Dole Food Program are a lot more difficult to imagine.

There are 19 Bible verses related to the feeding of the hungry, but nearly 3000 verses that deal with poverty in general. As a result, the recent cuts in the SNAP program would seem to violate Biblical mandates.

The most important reason to INCREASE Federal funding for the SNAP program is economic. According to a recent study by Moody’s, the absolute best way to expand the economy and create jobs is through the food stamp program. For every dollar spent on that program, $1.73 is generated throughout the economy. Business incentives, such as tax breaks, provide the LEAST band for the buck, since they generate only 33 cents in the economy for every dollar spent.

You may or may not agree with my opinion, but at least you’ll have some facts to chew on for a while.

The Kennedy assassination, and other fairy tales

Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, I was sitting in my chemistry class at Mary T. Hill High School when “the announcement” came over the P.A. system at the school.

President John F. Kennedy had been struck by the bullets of an assassin in Dallas, and had been rushed to Parkland Hospital, where he was declared dead less than an hour later. A ten month investigation by by the Warren Commission in 1963 and 1964 reached the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in the assassination, and that Jack Ruby also had acted alone when he killed Oswald before he could stand trial. A separate investigation by the KGB reached the same conclusion, but it left he door open for other possibilities.

Although the commission’s report was initially accepted by the American public, polls conducted between 1966 and 2003 found that as many as 80% of Americans have suspected that there was a plot or cover up.

I’ve never been a big believer in conspiracy theories, but I’ve been exposed to a few books in recent years that would lead me to conclude that the conclusions drawn by the Warren Commission may have been fatally flawed.

Just a few days ago, I finished reading a book titled “The Immortals”, written by Michael Korda. Although it IS a work of fiction, it also is based on facts. Included in the “cast of characters” of the book are J. Edgar Hoover, Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Jimmy Hoffa, Marilyn Monroe, and a variety of organized crime figures.



You can probably find a copy of the book at your local library, but it’s also available on Amazon.com for next to nothing.

About a year ago, I read Salvatore Bonanno’s book, “Bound by Honor”, which theorized that JFK was actually killed by Cuban exiles and the Costra Nostra. Adding to the intrigue of the story is the fact that Marilyn Monroe (mistress of both Jack and Bobby Kennedy) passed away under mysterious circumstances shortly before her affair with Bobby Kennedy became public knowledge.

In case you’re wondering, Ms. Monroe’s racy performance at John Kennedy’s birthday party in the spring of 1962 was actually his brother Bobby’s idea:

Although the vast majority of the documents related to the assassination of JFK have been made public, the remaining documents related to the case won’t be released until the fall of 2017. Although the release of the final documents probably won’t change the final conclusions of the Warren Commission, there will ALWAYS be lingering doubts about the answer to this question:

“Who REALLY killed JFK?”

You talk too much !!

Centuries before Frankie Ford recorded “You Talk Too Much” in 1960, the perception has long been that women talked more than men.

A number of studies have shown that the average woman speaks about 20,000 words a day, while the average man speaks about 7000. If you believe that these numbers are accurate, that would mean that over the course of a year, an average woman would speak 4.7 million more words than the average male.

Before we delve into whether women actually ARE more verbal than men, you should be aware of the fact that a group of neuroscientists and psychologists, led be Margaret McCarthy, determined that women had 30% more of a protein called Foxp2 protein in a brain area key to language in humans, which would lead you to conclude that women are more chatty than men.

We all know women who can’t seem to shut up, and the lady below is just one example:



However, there are also men who just can’t seem to stop talking, and the man below is an example of THAT phenomenon:



Politicians, of course, are wordier than most people, so it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that the longest filibuster on record is held by Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who talked for 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Although he wasn’t in favor of the Civil Rights Act (which actually got passed) he liked black people well enough to father an illegitimate black child (named Essie Mae Washington-Williams) in 1925.

The average person speaks 120 words per minute. If you assume that most people are awake for 16 hours a day, a pace of 20,000 words per day (7200 words per hour) would mean a stream of continuous conversation for slightly more than 3 hours per day. In case you’re wondering, the fastest speaker in the world is a British man named Steve Woodmore, who can speak as fast as 637 words per minute.

In 2007, researchers for Science magazine outfitted 396 college students with recording devices to determine how many words per day they spoke. Statistically, there wasn’t much different. On average, women spoke slightly more than 16,000 words per day, and men spoke slightly less than 16,000 words per day. Oddly enough, the most talkative members of the study (speaking up to a staggering 47,000 words per day) were all men. The LEAST talkative (averaging 700 words per day) were also men.

There IS a difference about what the genders talk about, since women focus more on relationships, and men concentrate on “stuff”, but it simply isn’t true that women talk a lot more than men.

And ..

That’s all that I have to say.

If you’d like to hear Frankie Ford’s original tune one more time, just click on the link below:

You Talk Too Much !!

The ironies of life, part 2

As we all know, life is full of ironies.



If you’re a regular follower of this website, you may be interested to know that the article connecting James Dean and Paul Newman is one of the most popular stories that I’ve published to date.

Another story laced with irony surfaced in a local newspaper a few days ago, but the original source was the very familiar Associated Press. The irony comes, in part, from the link between today’s world and some ancient writing, but also includes a link between religion and an author who would be considered a heathen by some members of our society.

Cursive is rapidly becoming a dying art, but there was a time when it was vital to the preservation of history. During the depths of the Dark Ages, Irish monks painstakingly copied manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, thus ensuring their survival to the present day.

After the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in the 15th century, writing by hand became less important, and typewriters and personal computers have made the art form even less popular.

In view of the diminishing importance of handwriting, why in the world would someone copy an entire book entirely by hand? More to the point, why would anyone want to copy the most revered of all books, the Bible, when there are already MILLIONS of printed copies of the book already in existence?

No one knows for sure, but the man who could provide those answers for you is a New York resident named Phillip Patterson, who has spent 4 years copying the King James version of the Bible by hand. His project will be completed in the near future, at which point he plans to donate the completed work to his church.

His inspiration for the project came from his domestic partner, who is a Muslim. Patterson himself does not consider himself to be a religious man, even though he DOES attend church on a reasonably regular basis. The fact that he is a gay man would likely cause consternation among those who are quick to drag out a particular verse from Leviticus, but that fact doesn’t diminish the fact his efforts make him a holier man than most of our society.

Homosexuality has existed in various societies since the time of the ancient Greeks, and likely before then. What did Jesus say about homosexuality?

Absolutely nothing, a fact that's ignored by the members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

There have been countless songs over the years about ironic situations, but only ONE song that was titled “Ironic”, which Alanis Morrissette recorded in 1996, when she was 22 years old:

isn‘t that ironic?

An old man turned ninety-eight

He won the lottery and died the next day

It's a black fly in your Chardonnay

It's a death row pardon two minutes too late

And isn't it ironic... don't you think

It's like rain on your wedding day

It's a free ride when you've already paid

It's the good advice that you just didn't take

Who would've thought... it figures

Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly

He packed his suitcase and kissed his kids goodbye

He waited his whole damn life to take that flight

And as the plane crashed down he thought

"Well isn't this nice..."

And isn't it ironic... don't you think

It's like rain on your wedding day

It's a free ride when you've already paid

It's the good advice that you just didn't take

Who would've thought... it figures

Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you

When you think everything's okay and everything's going right

And life has a funny way of helping you out when

You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up In your face

A traffic jam when you're already late

A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break

It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife

It's meeting the man of my dreams

And then meeting his beautiful wife

And isn't it ironic...don't you think

A little too ironic...and, yeah, I really do think...

It's like rain on your wedding day

It's a free ride when you've already paid

It's the good advice that you just didn't take

Who would've thought... it figures

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you

Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out

Helping you out

Noah's ark - and other fairy tales

If you’re even vaguely familiar with the Bible, you’re probably aware of the fact that the story of Noah and his ark is found in the Book of Genesis. If you’re more knowledgeable about Biblical verses than most people, you’ll recognize that the specific chapters in Genesis related to the ark are 5:32 - 10:1.

Since ancient times, scholars and explorers have searched for the ark, and numerous search parties have reached the conclusion that the final resting place for the ark is somewhere in present day Turkey. To date, though, no one has produced credible evidence that the ark actually existed. One of the more recent search parties posted a 45 minute video on YouTube last December describing their search, which you can view below:

in search of the lost ark

You can also watch a full length story about the ark on UFOTV:

is this the road to Roswell?

The fact that concrete evidence of the ark still hasn’t been found doesn’t mean that the ark never existed. It just means that, at this point in time, the existence of the ark cannot be supported by scientific evidence.

If you’re dying to see what the ark looked like, a born-again Dutchmen named Johan Huibers recently opened a life-sized replica in Holland, and offers tours:

can we go Dutch on this one?

In the near future, another life sized replica will be on display - in America. It will be located on an 800 acre site near the town of Williamstown, Kentucky. Not far from the ark’s new location is the existing Creation Museum, which opened in 2007.

The first phase of the project will cost $73,000,000, and the majority of that amount was raised through a municipal bond by the city of Williamstown. Construction is scheduled to start in May of 2014.

The folks who aren't quite as zealous as Creation Museum founder Ken Ham (pictured below with a dinosaur statue from his museum) might argue that the $73,000,000 could have been put to better use:

1) Kentucky is the 5th poorest state in the country, and child poverty is now 26.5%

2) Kentucky has the highest cancer rate in the country.

3) Kentucky is one of the worst states in the country for school funding.

4) Kentucky has the worst animal protection laws in the country.

5) Kentucky has a major heroin problem.

Since Mr. Ham has "been burdened by God to rebuild a full-size Noah's ark", none of those other uses for that money are likely to happen.

A recent Gallup poll found that roughly 30% of the American population believes that the words of the Bible are literally true, or inerrant. As a result, when Genesis says that Noah fathered three children when he was 500 years old, the “literalists” will believe that his age is factually accurate, and will also believe that he was 600 years old when the floodwaters came to the earth. They’ll also believe that he lived to be 950 years old,

An astonishing 45% of the American population (including the “literalists” mentioned above) also believe that the Earth is 10,000 years old, but only 15% of the population believes that humans evolved from lower forms of life over millions of years, without any divine intervention. Even more astonishing is the fact that 60% of our population believe that the story of Noah and his Ark is literally true.

If you tend to rely on scientific facts instead of Biblical references, you’re probably aware of the fact that the earth is actually 4.54 billion years old, and you’ll also know that dinosaurs and humans did NOT exist at the same time on our planet (in spite of the fact that the Creation Museum has statues of dinosaurs wearing saddles).



The truth is, the dinosaurs never made it aboard the ark. Sadly, neither did the loveliest of all creatures, the unicorn, a creature that is mentioned frequently in the Bible.

God bless the Irish Rovers.

I’ve heard various religious leaders proclaim that the belief in human evolution “takes a lot of faith”, but that the Bible should be taken literally.

Even the 15% of our population who believe ONLY in evolution wouldn’t say that we all evolved from fruits and vegetables, but it’s absolutely true that we share 60% of our DNA with bananas.

It’s also true that we share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees. Even if you discount the work of Charles Darwin entirely, the fact that we share THAT much DNA with chimpanzees should be pretty convincing proof that humans evolved from a lower life form at some point in time.

In America, museums related to human evolution can be found at the Smithsonian Institute, as well as at the University of Pennsylvania. The Natural History Museum, in Charles Darwin’s England, can be found in London, and the museum of Human Evolution can be found in Burgos, Spain.

The discussion in Genesis between Noah and God is well-written and reasonably believable, but my instincts tell me that the conversation was probably a lot more like the one shown below:

what would Bill Cosby say about this?

I’m of the opinion that Noah and his ark probably existed at some point in time, even though there is no scientific evidence (so far) to support that view. I’m also of the opinion that the theory of evolution is true and factual, but it can’t explain the myriad of complex organisms that exist today, which could only be explained by the theory of Intelligent Design. For the atheists among us, that means that the invisible Man in the sky actually DID have a lot to do with how the world looks today, even though it took Him a LOT longer than six days to accomplish what He did.

I’m fairly certain that the son of Lamech would agree with me.

The Great Spaghetti Harvest

On April 1, 1957, BBC broadcast the story of the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland. Due to the magic of YouTube, you can watch the actual broadcast at the link below:

the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland

Since spaghetti wasn’t popular in England at the time, BBC received a number of calls from its viewers asking how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. Decades later, CNN called the spaghetti harvest story “the biggest hoax that any reputable establishment ever pulled”.

The origin of the spaghetti harvest story goes all the way back to 1700, when pranksters in England first popularized the annual tradition of playing practical jokes on each other on April 1, but some elements of the merry making extend back to the times of the Roman Empire.

Virtually no one is immune to April 1 jokes, as evidenced by the Time magazine cover of April 1, 2012:



Although it looks pretty authentic, you need to be aware of the fact that Time magazine didn’t actually PUBLISH an issue on April 1. Their cover of April SECOND looked like this:



If you’d like to see more work by the cover’s creators, just click on the link below:

freaking news.com

Whatever you do, though, be careful tomorrow. After all, you don’t want to get fooled again.

The most trusted man in America, part 2

I graduated from college in 1969, right at the end of one of the most turbulent decades in our country’s history. During a time when authority figures of all kinds were being challenged, one man (above all others) was considered to be the most trusted man in America:



When I last wrote about Mr. Cronkite,the man who was considered to be the most trusted man in American in today’s world was Jon Stewart, whose “news” is broadcast on Comedy Central.

As a society, we’ve become increasingly cynical over time. According to a recent Pew Research Center study, our “believability ratings” of 13 news organizations (national newspapers, cable news outlets, broadcast TV networks, and NPR) has declined dramatically in the last 10 years. Significantly, there’s a marked difference by politically party affiliation, since Republicans are much more cynical about the news they receive than Democrats. By itself, that may help to explain why Congress currently has the lowest approval rating it has held in the last 40 years.

Since fame is fleeting, you may be interested to know that Jon Stewart is no longer the most trusted man in America, even though his wit and insight on current topics is still dead on. In 2013, the title of “the most trusted person in America” is held by the man pictured below:



His speech at the Democratic National Convention last September was viewed favorably by most people (with the exception of die hard Republicans), but there are a number of other factors that have contributed to his enhanced status with the American public:

1) his willingness not to hate those who tried to destroy him, and thus involve former enemies in his causes

2) his ability to mobilize scholars and funders from around the world to tackle serious problems as part of the Clinton Global Initiative

3) his ability to convey complex matters in language people can understand

4) the “halo effect” due to Hillary’s work as Secretary of State

5) the political right has become even more extreme since the days when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House, and has far less credibility than it did 20 years ago

If you’ve got the time, reading Clinton’s 2004 autobiography (“My Life”) will give you a better understanding of the man. However, since even the paperback edition of the book is 969 pages long, it will be a formidable task for most people.

It’s more than a little telling that Ken Starr, in 2004, expressed regret for his politically motivated investigations of Bill and Hillary Clinton. It’s also significant that Clinton’s nemesis in Congress, Newt Gingrich, is now considered to be the most disliked politician in America.

You may or may not agree that Bill Clinton is the most trusted person in America, but his life story confirms the fact that all of us can achieve amazing things in life if we don’t let life’s inevitable setbacks get us down. Somewhere, over the rainbow, our dreams CAN come true.