3420 Grumpy

Saturday, December 17, 2011

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived
and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
-- John F. Kennedy --

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So suddenly everybody's all excited about arsenic in apple juice:

(http://abcnews.go.com/Health/orange-juice-moms-secret-ingredient-worries/story?id=15154617#.Tuym5laOyAi)

The folks on the video argue about how much, but nobody actually asks where the arsenic is coming from. Yeah, it occurs naturally in soil, but that's a minor source for fruit. The main pollutant is automobile exhaust, which is loaded with arsenic. Next time you drive past an orchard, rather than think "Oh, how pretty", you should wonder if you'll be drinking the juice from those apples, grown in soil loaded with settled exhaust arsenic, and bathed in arsenic-laden air.

There are lots of apple and peach orchards along the NYS Thruway. I'd heard once that fruit grown within x distance from major highways could not be used for human consumption. Fruit growing is not cheap. People don't tend orchards for fun. So the fruit goes somewhere. Where? Once it's picked, crated, sold, and shipped out, who knows where it was grown?

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I've been sleeping well the past few weeks, get up at about 3 am every night to piddle, but that's because I drink a lot of water before bed on purpose to keep it moving through the kidneys - I still have that stone and don't want any more, so I gotta keep a flow going. Not a problem. I do maybe three more words in the crossword puzzle, and fall asleep again.

The problem is that I've been waking every morning for the past two months with a killer headache. Sometimes it's the headache that wakes me. Mostly in the back of my head, but sometimes wrapping all around. I take some aspirin after I get up, and in a few hours it goes away.

It was scaring me badly, because I learned during Jay's battle with the tumor that a severe morning headache that goes away once you're upright can be a sign of swelling or edema in the brain, a buildup from being horizontal all night. Jay couldn't lie at less than a 30 degree angle because of that. Pressure from a tumor can cause it.

Ack. Scary thoughts.

I think I've figured it out.

I had bought a timer for the bedside lamp, which was nice, turns the light on at nightfall so the room is lighted when I go upstairs, and turns it off a bit after midnight, by which time I am always sound asleep. But I had to get rid of the damn thing because it was LOUD! It buzzed constantly. Very annoying.

Without a timer, I often (heck, almost always) fall asleep with the light on, doing puzzles or reading.

At the old house I had a tiny high intensity light that shown only on the page. I often slept with it on, no problems. Here I have a lamp on the table, with a tiny 25 watt bulb. There should be no problem. (The mere fact of light isn't a problem because I mostly sleep buried under the blanket where it's dark, anyway, so melatonin levels are likely close to normal.)

BUT, it's one of those new bulbs, the twisty ones.

I replaced it a few days ago with a small old-style incandescent bulb, and have awakened every morning since with no headache.

I think it's the twisty bulb!

Jay always had difficulty concentrating under florescent lights. He was one of those rare people who was aware of the strobe effect of florescents, even when they were working to specs. Is it possible that those curly bulbs strobe? Or something? And that's what was causing my headaches?

Are those twisty bulbs hurting us? Has anyone tested how they might make us ... something or other?

I REALLY want a timer that doesn't make noise!

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Candidates on the campaign trail often pay themselves a salary from the campaign funds. That's fine. Campaigning takes time away from one's prior occupation, and the mortgage still has to be paid.

But I heard something on the news a few days ago that annoyed me. I wrote it down on a slip of paper when I heard it (complete with source) and now naturally I can't find it, but it went something like this:

Newt Gingrich has taken paying himself a salary a step farther. He has rented his personal rolodex of contacts, potential contributors, to his campaign for $45,000 (Later- I found my note. It was $42,000).

What?!

I call that opportunistic raiding.

Sheesh. Go ahead, contribute.

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Speaking of raiding, we keep hearing that the US postal service is going broke, so they're going to have to close many rural post offices and stop Saturday deliveries.

Bull poopy.

The postal service runs at a profit every year. The problem is that Congress has been raiding the postal service, especially the retirement funds, which are classified as general funds, and hasn't been paying that money back. Now they're in a panic because they didn't leave enough there.

They did the same thing with Social Security. "Borrowed" with no intention of paying it back.

The state of New York has done the same thing with education funds. Back when they wanted a state lottery, it was sold to the voters with the promise that ALL proceeds would go to education.

Bull poopy.

That money goes into general funds, and is used for everything, including possibly education if they happen to think of it, but it's not exactly at the top of the priority list. They excuse it by saying that by increasing general funds, they increase the proportion that goes to education.

Yeah.

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Maybe this is one reason I haven't been blogging regularly lately. There's not much happening in my personal life, and everything I notice outside my life makes me angry.

Who needs that.
.