News Factoids for Fourth Quarter 2024

The International Energy Agency estimates that to meet climate targets, the world will need to add or replace around 80 million kilometres of the electric power grid by 2040, an amount equivalent to all that exists today.

Emerging science suggests that rapid intensification of storms is getting more common as climate change worsens.
~~ Boston Globe newsletter Starting Point

Bananas are the most popular fruit in the U.S.

The world is pumping out 57 million tons of plastic pollution each year.

A person is considered as having high blood pressure or hypertension if they have consistent readings of 130/80 or higher.

Between 2018 and 2022, the number of ghost guns - untraceable firearms from 3-D printers or at-home kits - that were recovered at crime scenes jumped from 3,960 to 25,785.

Listeriosis is the third leading cause of death from foodborne illness in the U.S.

The US economy is doing better than that of any other member of the rich countries club (aka the Group of Seven), the International Monetary Fund said. The global economy watcher upgraded its prediction for U.S. GDP growth to 2.8% this year, compared to the 0.9% average for all G7 countries.

A study completed by the US Geological Survey (USGS) using predictive modeling and AI found between 5 million and 19 million tons of lithium in the limestone Smackover Formation in southern Arkansas - enough to supply nine times the amount of lithium needed to meet the 2030 expected world demand for EV batteries.

In the Pakistani city of Lahore, roughly 15 miles from the Indian border, air quality in October surpassed a 'hazardous' 500 (p.p.m.) - almost 65 times the World Health Organization’s guidelines for healthy air — making it the most polluted city in the world.

In 1977, the USDA recommended that Americans eat less red meat and more poultry to reduce the risk of heart disease; by the 1980s, beef consumption was down 20%.

The Defense Department employs 1.4 million active-duty service personnel, more than 778,000 National Guard and reservists, and more than 747,000 civilians - that's about 2.91 million employees.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans are overweight or obese; the obesity rate for adults doubled between 1990 and 2021, to 40 percent; it has tripled for girls and women aged 15 to 24, to 29 percent.

Humanity will need 70% more food by 2050, when the world population hits 10 billion, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation trade group.

Circana BookScan found that sales of the Judeo-Xian Bible are up by 22% for the year through the end of October compared to the same period in 2023. Total US book sales were up by just 1% in the same period.

Coffee futures hit their highest level since 1977. The most popular kind of bean, arabica, has jumped ~70% this year to reach $3.18 per pound, while prices for cheaper robusta beans rose 7.7% to nearly double the price from the start of the year. Your (actual) morning brew will likely cost more as a result: Nestle, the world’s largest coffee company, said last month it will raise prices and shrink its packs. What’s going on? Poor growing weather in Brazil and Vietnam, the leading suppliers of arabica and robusta beans, respectively, has caused supply jitters.

More people are using Amtrak than ever before — 32.8 million riders this fiscal year, to be exact. The company says passengers can look forward to upgraded trains and better service in 2025 thanks to billions of dollars in investments.

This year is the hottest on record in Phoenix, Arizona, which saw temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for 113 days in a row between May and September.

Japan is going on its 16th straight year of population decline.

Falls are the top cause of injury-related death among people over 64.

Washington State's Department of Agriculture announced that invasive 'murder hornets' have been eradicated in the U.S. Known for their dangerous sting, northern giant hornets gained attention in 2013, when they killed dozens of people in China and seriously injured more than 1,600 others.

December 2024 Quotations (55)

"Democracy is for adults."
~~ philosopher G.E. Nordell

"There's No Such Thing As Artificial 'Intelligence'" lecture [1:09:54]
~~ visionary Jaron Lanier:

"When you expect things to happen - strangely enough - they do happen."
~~ banker John Pierpont 'J.P.' Morgan [1837-1913]

"As we watch several of Caligula’s horses get nominated . . . I go in and out of madness."
~~ Anonymous, in November 2024

"Conquer yourself rather than the world."
~~ French/Dutch philosopher René Descartes [1596-1650]

"Science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance."
~~ astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

"The only barrier to human development is ignorance, and this is not insurmountable."
~~ rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard [1882-1945]

"What most expirimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead."
~~ mathematician & philosopher Norbert Wiener [1894-1964]

"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone."
~~ Harriet Beecher Stowe [1811-96]

"Courage is grace under pressure."
~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."
~~ Woody Allen

"Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"I think that science fiction, even the corniest of it, even the most outlandish of it, no matter how badly written, has a distinct therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate: that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea."
~~ author Robert A. Heinlein [1907-88]

"In science fiction, you can also test out your own realities."
~~ author Theodore Sturgeon [1918-85]

"A dream deferred is a dream denied."
~~ writer & activist (James Mercer) Langston Hughes [1901-67]

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."
~~ Chinese philosopher Confucius / Kong Qiu [551-479 BCE]

"Beware of being too rational. In the country of the insane, the integrated man doesn't become king. He gets lynched."
~~ Aldous Huxley [1894-1963]

"Four more years, it'll be fixed, it'll be fine, you won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. In four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not going to have to vote."
~~ Donald Trump in speech to Christian voters at Turning Point Action's 'The Believers' summit in West Palm Beach, Florida on Friday 26 July 2024

"Hate is a place where a man who can't stand sadness goes."
~~ Japanese manga artist Kentaro Miura [1966-2021]

"Conceived as the foundation for liberty, modern democracy paves the way for tyranny. Born for the purpose of standing as a bulwark against power, it ends by providing power with the finest soil it has ever had in which to spread itself over the social field."
~~ French philosopher Bertrand de Jouvenel [1903-87]

"The creed of the street is, Old Age is not disgraceful, but immensely disadvantageous."
~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-82], in 1862

"Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power."
~~ American philosopher & psychologist William James [1842-1910]

"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties."
~~ John Milton [1608-74]

"Natural law is superior to, and precedes, political and governmental institutions."
~~ Mark R. Levin
"This is a very sick man, this Obama."
~~ Mark R. Levin

"Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth."
~~ Pema Chödrön

"The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love."
~~ writer Henry Miller [1891-1980]

"In Wildness [often misquoted as ‘wilderness’] is the preservation of the World." {his most famous quote}
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]

"Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States."
~~ W.E.B. DuBois [1868-1963]

"If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die."
~~ American capitalist Warren Buffett

"Coffee is the beverage that makes life tolerable."
~~ comedian Gary Gulman

"Sometimes when I reflect on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. I think, 'It is better to drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver'."
~~ Jack Handey

"Remember, if you don't sin, then Jesus died for nothing."
~~ Richard Dawkins

"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."
~~ stand-up comic Henny Youngman [1906-98]

"Politics is the art of identifying and neutralizing the enemy."
~~ Ivan Ilyin [1883-1954], in 1948

"The poor and the middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them."
~~ Robert T. Kiyosaki

"He who has no haters has no fans."
~~ Chinese philosopher Confucius / Kong Qiu [551-479 BCE]

"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."
~~ W.C. Fields [1880-1946]

"Nothing is accomplished without imagination and bravery."
~~ Sue Monk Kidd, author of "The Secret Life of Bees" [2001 novel]

"I need the kind of generals that Hitler had."
~~ Donald J. Trump, while inside the White House
"Hitler did some good things."
~~ Donald J. Trump, while inside the White House

"[Donald Trump] is a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country . . . A fascist to the core."
~~ former Army General Mark Milley (appointed by Trump as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, served 2019-2023)

"It [is] so important for me to stand with a candidate who understands that we, as America - we are a quilt. And I could never stand with a candidate who wants America to be a sheet."
~~ movie studio mogul Tyler Perry

"I always arrive late at the office. But I make up for it by leaving early."
~~ Charles Lamb [1775-1834]

"Giving up is unforgivable." - on 7 Nov 2024
~~ President Joe Biden

"At my age, the only thing [that] I do that is athletic is jogging my memory and wrestling with my conscience!"
~~ Ziggy cartoon panel drawn by Tom Wilson & Tom II, 11/2024

"Authoritarian rule always entails corruption. With Donald Trump in office, watch your wallet."
~~ TV news anchor Rachel Maddow

"Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God."
~~ Lenny Bruce [1925-66]

"Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost."
~~ German choreographer Pina Bausch [1940-2009]

"If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong."
~~ the last words of Russian activist Alexei Navalny [1976-2024]

"Two of the hallmarks of the psychotic are egotism and the need to destroy." { oblivious to the irony of describing himself }
~~ Michael Savage

"When the whole world is globalized, you’re going to be able to set fire to the whole thing with a single match."
~~ French theorist René Girard [1923-2015]

"Societal privilege is not a right, except under aristocracy - which ended in the U.S.A. in 1776. However, our democratic republic was declared to be a fascist state in January 2010 and may become a full fascist dictatorship in January 2025." ~~~ philosopher G.E. Nordell

"The main cause of poverty or financial struggle is fear and ignorance, not the economy or the government or the rich. It’s self-inflicted fear and ignorance that keeps people trapped."
~~ Robert T. Kiyosaki

"No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking."
~~ banker John Pierpont 'J.P.' Morgan [1837-1913]

"The quieter we become, the more [that] we can hear."
~~ Persian poet & mystic Rumi [1207-73]

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

how to prepare for fascism in January

"Societal privilege is not a right, except under aristocracy - which was ended in the U.S.A. in 1776. However, our democratic republic was declared to be a fascist state in January 2010 and may become a full fascist dictatorship in January 2025."
~~~ G.E. Nordell

"Fasten your seatbelts . . . It's going to be a bumpy night!"
—  Bette Davis as Margo Channing in "All About Eve" [Fox Oct 1950]
watch short clip [6/2016 upload; 0:14] online at YouTube

fascist oligarchs won!

Copyright 2024 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

FASCIST REPUBLICAN PLAN

Simple progression - GOP destroys Social Security & Medicare/Obamacare, seniors protest, police response produces riots, states call in National Guard, seniors are imprisoned at those camps built by Halliburton, dictator Trump declares martial law - and DJT and his minions get to act like Hitl*r from that point forward Copyright 2024 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

"Democracy is for adults."
~~~ G.E. Nordell

News Factoids for Third Quarter 2024 (16)

People in Baltimore are dying of overdoses at a rate never before seen in a major American city. The city’s number of overdose fatalities has quadrupled since 2013, and its fatal overdose rate between 2018 and 2022 was more than double that of any other large city.

the number of U.S. companies going bankrupt has hit a 14-year high, a surge expected in a recession, not an expansion

New Mexico is the only state that has both Hate Crimes and Human Rights legislation that includes sexual orientation and gender identity.

July 2024: GOP panics as election will now be fought over policy - that’s a war they can’t win

The number of cities where the price tag of an average entry-level home is $1 million or more has nearly tripled in the past five years.

A combined blood test for cognitive decline has a 90% accuracy rate in determining whether memory loss is due to Alzheimer’s disease,

California has the largest homeless population in the USA, with more than 180,000 of the estimated 653,000 people experiencing homelessness nationwide residing in the Golden State, federal data shows.

late July ground temperatures in East Antarctica have soared more than 50 degrees above normal in the region’s second major heat wave in the past two years.

Federal Reserve data shows that the richest 10% of Americans held 93% of stocks last year.

consumer spending drives 70% of the U.S. economy

economist Thomas Piketty of France found that inequality has spiked during the pandemic, with the world's richest 10 percent now claiming 52 percent of global income

Over the last two decades, the NFL’s total value has gone from $23.46 billion to $190 billion, according to Sportico.

The average American now eats ~42 pounds of cheese a year, an amount that exceeds butter, ice cream, and yogurt combined, according to Bloomberg. It’s also more than double the amount of cheese Americans were chowing down on when the government began keeping track in 1975.

The Economist analyzed data from 7.5 million two-vehicle crashes and found that getting hit by an extra 1,000 pounds of car - about the difference between an SUV and a compact car - increases the likelihood of death by 66%.

Camp Humphreys in South Korea is the U.S. military’s largest overseas base; it is home to 41,000 people and covers more than 3,500 acres.

the median American household income was $80,610 last year, the first statistically significant annual increase since 2019.

Copyright 2024 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

July 2024 Quotations (55)

"I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term."
~~ President Joe Biden, on Sunday 21 July 2024

"I find the public passion for justice quite boring and artificial, for neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done."
~~ author Patricia Highsmith [1921-95]

"What part soever you take upon you, play that as well as you can and make the best of it."
~~ Sir Thomas More [1478-1535]

"If you think there's a solution you're part of the problem."
~~ comedian George Carlin [1937-2008]

"Happiness is a function of accepting what is."
~~ philosopher Werner Erhard [b. 1935]

"If the first half of the XXth Century was the era of the technical engineers, the second half may well be the era of the social engineers — and the XXIst Century, I suppose, will be the era of World Controllers, the scientific caste system, and 'Brave New World'. The prophecies made in 1931 are coming true much sooner than I thought they would . . . The nightmare of total organization has emerged from the safe, remote future and is now awaiting us, just around the next corner."
~~ Aldous Huxley [1894-1963], in "Brave New World Revisited" (1958)

"The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite."
~~ A.J. Liebling [1904-63]

t-shirt message for short or skinny people: MADE WITH LESS MATERIAL

"The best portion of a good man’s life is his little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love."
~~ William Wordsworth [1750-1850]

"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."
~~ French/Dutch philosopher René Descartes [1596-1650]

"History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910] probably never said it, the quote’s attribution is apocryphal

"There are some conservatives who are trying to make this claim that somehow Biden is a bigger risk than Trump. My view is: I disagree with a lot of Joe Biden’s policies. We can survive bad policies. We cannot survive torching the Constitution."
~~ former Cong. Liz Cheney [GOP WY-01]

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]

"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity."
~~ Carl Jung [1875-1961]

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]

"An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day."
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]

"You can't smell the roses from a galloping horse."
~~ Chairman Mao Tse-tung [1893-1976]

"[D]ating can be tedious. Sometimes you have to crush a lot of rocks to find a gem."
~~ Rob Henderson, on substack

"Unions have been the only powerful and effective voice [that] working people have ever had in the history of this country."
~~ music legend Bruce Springsteen, in 2024

"Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, has gone out of fashion with conservatives."
~~ writer P.J. (Patrick Jake) O'Rourke [1947-2022]

"But I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is . . . to tell the truth."
~~ activist-historian Howard Zinn [1922-2010], in “Marx In Soho: A Play On History” (1999)

"[Republicans are] an extremist party trying to pass as a normal one."
~~ Daily Kos newsletter, 5/2024

"Democracy is in crisis mode and things like fundamental human rights, war and peace, and an unencumbered free press are on the line this November."
~~ Monika Bauerlein, CEO at Mother Jones Magazine

"I thought gravity was a law, which meant it could be broken."
~~ Ocean Vuong, in the poem “Theology”

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
~~ South African statesman Nelson Mandela [1918-2013]

"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success."
~~ business tycoon Henry Ford [1863-1947]

"There is but one thing of real value - to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men."
~~ Marcus Aurelius Antoninus [121-180 C.E.]

"The moment [that] you feel that you don't have a choice, in anything, you should rebel."
~~ visionary Jaron Lanier

"A [second] Trump presidency will end American democracy."
~~ Prof. Heather Cox Richardson

"All of us are deeply involved with politics whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not."
~~ Malcolm Ferguson, assistant editor at The Atlantic Magazine [est. 1857]

"Every man has a tale of woe; unfortunately, there's more woe than tail."
~~ stand-up comedian Rodney Dangerfield [1921-2004]

"Distrust and verify"
~~ computer programmer Simon Willison

"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage." ~~ Seneca the Younger [4 B.C.E. - 65 A.D.]
"One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being."
~~ American poet May Sarton [1912-95]
"In times such as these, it may be an act of courage to be a merely decent human being." ~~ Brian Regnier [1943-2021]

"Elvis impersonation is a dying profession."
~~ journalist Meg Bernhard

"Contradictions are what make writers interesting; consistency is for cooking."
~~ James Wood, book critic at The New Yorker Magazine [est. 1925]

"There is no greater joy than happening across a little bookshop, completely by chance, on a random side street."
~~ M.E. Rothwell, on substack

"There is a difference between being poor and being broke. Broke is temporary, and poor is eternal."
~~ Robert T. Kiyosaki

"The fact of the matter is that fascism is a redemptive excess of patriotic arbitrariness."
~~ Russian political philosopher Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin [1883-1954], in 1927

"It’s too late to stop World War III."
~~ esteemed British historian Richard Overy, in June 2024

"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."
~~ Herman Melville [1819-91]

"Values are like fingerprints. Nobody's are the same, but you leave 'em all over everything you do."
~~ rock music legend Elvis Presley [1935-77]

"It is impossible to work in information technology without also engaging in social engineering."
~~ virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier

"America is Europe’s finest invention."
~~ British travel writer A.A. Gill [1954-2016], in his spectacular essay “America The Marvelous”

t-shirt = Limited Time Deal

"Animal Farm is not a book about how pigs - [as] animals - when bestowed with power start to behave like men. It is a book about how men, when given power over other men, start to behave like pigs."
~~ George Orwell [1903-50]

"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."
~~ astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

"We must have Christian ethics for our children, good and strong, but we must make them attractive, too, and it can be done."
~~ British children's author Enid Blyton [1897-1968]

"Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see farther."
~~ banker John Pierpont 'J.P.' Morgan [1837-1913]

"When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace becomes a circus."
~~ Türkish proverb

"Some folks need killing! It's time for somebody to say it. It's not a matter of vengeance. It's not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It's a matter of necessity!"
~~ North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, 2024 Republican nominee for governor

"Be sure you are right, then go ahead."
~~ American frontiersman David 'Davy' Crockett [1786-1836], inscribed on the Crockett statue in Ozona, Texas

"Let’s face the facts: Voters aren’t facing the facts."
~~ headline by Daily Kos staff

"This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want."
~~ German historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt [1906-75]

"We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless - if the left allows it to be."
~~ Heritage Foundation president and 'Project 2025' leader Kevin Roberts, speaking on the MAGA propaganda outlet Real America's Voice [est. 2020]

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

News Factoids for Second Quarter 2024

The postal service plans to raise the price of “forever” stamps to 73¢ in July, so you may want to get yours now.

There are more golf courses than McDonald’s locations in the U.S.

62% of New Mexicans in Congressional District 2 identify as Hispanic or Latino.

May 2024: 1,133 people have been fatally shot by police in the past 12 months, according to the Washington Post.

++++ TECH SECTION ++++

Only about a quarter of American households have a landline phone.

54% of American adults read below a sixth-grade level

++++ HEALTH SECTION ++++

March 24th: The number of U.S. measles cases this year has already surpassed 2023’s total.
At least 64 cases had been recorded nationwide by late last week, according to the C.D.C. A total of 58 cases were reported last year. What’s driving this? The U.S. rate of vaccinations against measles has fallen since 2019. The C.D.C. has urged parents to ensure their kids are up to date on their shots.

3.6 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2023 — the lowest fertility rate in more than a century — according to provisional data from the C.D.C.; the birth rate was highest among women ages 30 to 34, while the teen birth rate reached a record low.

Extreme heat is the number 1 weather-related cause of death in the U.S.

Japan has 4 percent obesity. America has 42.5 percent obesity.

++++ ECONOMY SECTION ++++

America's commercial casinos won $66.5B in 2023, their best year ever - per ABC News

2022 Census Bureau survey says that about 50% of people in the U.S. between 55 and 65 reported that they didn’t have any money saved for retirement.

The U.S. economy has seen 38 consecutive months of job growth through February (the fifth-longest period of employment expansion on record), and the nation’s unemployment rate has been below 4% for 25 straight months — the longest stretch in more than 50 years.

Since 1949, evidence indicates that when Democrats are in the White House, key economic indicators have performed better. — josh bivens, Economic Policy Institute chief economist
http://www.epi.org/publication/econ-performance-pres-admin/

"Every billionaire under the age of 30 inherited their fortune" - per Fortune Magazine

Global military spending reached an all-time high in 2023 at $2.4 trillion.

++++ ENERGY / CLIMATE SECTION ++++

There are currently 94 nuclear reactors operating in the US that together generate 20% of the nation’s electricity

HEADLINE "Natural Gas Is a Climate Scam — and Consumers Are Paying for It"
Despite the fracking boom, the price of natural gas for U.S. households has skyrocketed by 52 percent since 2016.

A record-breaking 30% of the world’s electricity was produced by renewables last year as wind and solar power got more popular.

India accounts for 83 of the 100 most polluted cities in the world, according to a new report.

Copyright 2024 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

April 2024 Quotations (56)

"Does anybody else think it's significant that 49 percent of the Republican voters who attended the Iowa caucuses voted for someone other than Trump?"
~~ Teresa Hanafin, Boston Globe staff writer

"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of a child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm."
~~ Aldous Huxley [1894-1963]

"Without fear there cannot be courage."
~~ Montana author Christopher Paolini

"There are two types of people; those who want to know and those who want to believe."
~~ Friedrich Nietzsche [1844-1900]

"I've found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances, be more active, show up more often."
~~ motivational speaker Brian Tracy

"To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself."
~~ Thich Nhat Hanh [1926-2022]

"You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger."
~~ Gautama Buddha [5th Century BCE]

"People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does."
~~ Michel Foucault [1926-84]

"The highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgment."
~~ Jiddu Krishnamurti [1895-1986]

"People are always complaining that life's not fair, but that simply isn't true. Life is extraordinarily fair. It's just not centered on you."
~~ Lynn Marie Sager - in "A River Worth Riding" [2011]

"We are born innocent. We are polluted by advice."
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]

"The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time."
~~ Dante Alighieri [1265-1321]

"Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence."
~~ Eleanor Roosevelt [1884-1962]

"Conceit spoils the finest genius."
~~ Louisa May Alcott [1832-88] - in "Little Women" [1868]

"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them."
~~ pioneer radio evangelist J. Harold Smith [1910-2001]

"All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience."
~~ {Johann Wolfgang von} Goethe [1749-1832]

"A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal."
~~ cowboy artist Jack Sorenson

"If a book is well written, I always find it too short."
~~ Jane Austen [1775-1817]

"A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
~~ George Washington [1732-99]

"I believe that the Laws of Karma do not apply to show business, where good things happens to bad people on a fairly regular basis."
~~ TV producer Chuck Lorre

"At the end of the day, the questions we ask of ourselves determine the type of people that we will become."
~~ Leo Babauta

"Life is the best gift ... the rest is extra."
~~ African proverb

"Great art has always gone to the masses, to their hopes and dreams, for that spark that kindled their souls. The rest, 'the many, all too many' as Nietzsche called mediocrity, have been mere commodities that can be bought with money, cheap glory, or social position."
~~ anarchist Emma Goldman [1869-1940]

"It doesn't matter if the water is cold or warm if you're going to have to wade through it anyway."
~~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin [1881-1955]

"Love is a better master than duty."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"Each time we don't say what we wanna say, we're dying."
~~ Yoko Ono

"Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything."
~~ boxing great Muhammad Ali [1942-2016]

"In life there are squares and there are circles, sometimes it's best to be an oblong."
~~ Benny Bellamacina

"Some days I can't get an idea, and I think, 'Man, I'm just washed up,' but it's just a mood."
~~ artist Jean-Michel Basquiat [1960-88]

"If lightning is the anger of the gods, then the gods are concerned mostly about trees."
~~ Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu [IVth Century BCE]

"[Christmas] is the day when we remind ourselves that [men] can and must live in peace with [their] neighbors and that it is the peacemakers who are truly blessed."
~~ John F. Kennedy [1917-63] - Remarks on Christmas, 17 December 1962

"The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep."
~~ writer E.W. (Edgar Watson) Howe [1853-1937]

"He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the direction of wisdom."
~~ author & critic James Gibbons Huneker [1857-1921]

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
~~ Robert Frost [1874-1963]

"I look at politicians the same way [that] I look at C.B.D. gummies. I know a lot of people believe in them, but I'm not sure they're actually doing anything."
~~ comedian Mark Normand

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"The deeper you hate the longer you hurt."
~~ Benny Bellamacina

"Let's try to talk intelligent."
~~ character Archie Bunker - on the "All In The Family" CBS-TV show

"Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody. Risky. You don't get nothing for it."
~~ Toni Morrison [1931-2019] - in "Sula" [1973 novel]

"Other people’s definitions of you, sometimes they’re more about making themselves feel better. You gotta define yourself."
~~ character Christopher Moltisanti - on "The Sopranos" H.B.O. TV show

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."
~~ beat poet Jack Kerouac [1922-69] - in "On The Road" [1957 novel]

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."
~~ Edith Wharton [1862-1937]

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."
~~ Brasilian author Paulo Coelho - in "The Alchemist" [1988]

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself."
~~ Robert Frost [1874-1963]

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."
~~ Danish existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard [1813-55]

"If these chatbots are supposed to be magical, why are so many of them dumb as rocks?"
~~ reporter Shira Ovide, Washington Post 'Tech Friend' newsletter, 3/2024

"Hollywood is easy to hate, easy to sneer at, easy to lampoon."
~~ Raymond Chandler [1888-1959] - in The Atlantic Magazine in 1945

"The Biden boom is real."
~~ Daily Kos news site [est. 2002], 3/18/2024

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will."
~~ British author Charlotte Brontë [1816-55]

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
~~ British poet Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy [1844-81]

"The true essence of intellect lies not merely in its possession, but in its judicious application."
~~ Martin Tobias Lithner

"Tell all the truth but tell it slant."
~~ Emily Dickinson [1830-86]

"April hath put a spirit of youth in everything."
~~ William Shakespeare [1564-1616]

"Leaders live by choice, not by accident."
~~ Pastor Mark Gorman of Metairie, Louisiana

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one."
~~ French philosopher Voltaire [1694-1778]

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

News Factoids for Fourth Quarter 2023

Danish Road Safety Council video "The helmet has always been a good idea"
watch full 6/2021 safety video [2:20] online at YouTube

The International Energy Agency expects global electricity generated via renewables to increase to 35 percent in 2025.

Haymarket Books Will Provide Free Black History E-Books to Florida Students
Books are "dangerous to those in power ... that's why we publish them," Haymarket Books said in a press release.

In January 2023, six times more work was happening remotely than in January 2019, according to WFH (work from home) Research, a data-collection project.

Merriam-Webster announced in November 2023 that it has chosen 'authentic' as its 2023 word of the year, a sign of the influence of artificial intelligence and 'celebrity culture, identity, and social media' on the English language. "The rise of AI helped drive interest in the word," said the dictionary's editor at large, Peter Sokolowski. "The line between 'real' and 'fake' has become increasingly blurred. As a result, in social media and marketing, authentic has become the gold standard for building trust — and authenticity, ironically, has become a performance." Merriam-Webster also highlighted other words that were in the spotlight this year, including 'deepfake' and 'dystopian'.

The hottest job in the U.S. pays $80,000 a year, no college degree needed — it’s wind turbine technician. (per Businessweek)

U.S. life expectancy is struggling to rebound from the pandemic. Life expectancy in 2022 rose more than a full year, to 77.5 years, per new C.D.C. data. This is mostly because of a drop in covid-19 deaths. But life expectancy progress remains slow because drug overdoses, homicides, and chronic illnesses such as heart disease are continuing to drive a mortality crisis in the U.S. compared to similar countries.

Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that a balanced qi (life energy, pronounced 'chee') is the path to health.
• Americans spend $3.5 billion each year on acupuncture.
• 1.5% of Americans have tried acupuncture to date.
• There are 38,000 licensed acupuncturists in the US.

INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY: Because seaweed is so effective at carbon capture, climate research - and funding - is examining whether more of it could mitigate global warming. Enter seaweed farming, where macroalgae is grown as a marine crop. Traditionally, seaweed has come from Asian nations: last year, Asia produced 98% of the globe’s farmed seaweed. Now seaweed farms are cropping up around the world. They’re off the coasts of Maine, around Australia, and in the seas of Scandinavia; in the last decade, the world’s production has grown nearly 75%.

Retail prices for sugar and sweets increased because of drought by 8.9% in 2023 and are set to rise 5.6% in 2024. Coffee and olive oil prices also rose in 2023 due to drought.

Copyright 2024 by G.E. Nordell, all rights reserved

Martin Heinrich and Dr. King

"The work before us is not easy, but as Dr. King taught us,
the time is always ripe to do what is right."
U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich, Dem-NM
www.MartinHeinrich.com