From  Worldometer  (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):          DAY    USA    WORLD     Brazil      India      South Africa June     9    1093     4732         1185        246       82 July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572 Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130 Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82 Oct     21  ...

I keep referring to Ray Bradbury's 1953  Sound of Thunder , for merely stepping on a butterfly in his short story significantly altered the future of humanity.  Of course, this also means that every breath you take, every move you make, would likewise do so.  But purposeful action can particularly make that crucial difference. From this tale came the term  butterfly effect , a concept of chaos theory not made popular until a decade later.  While any accidental act can drastically alter the future, a more specific decision can most surely affect the future regarding that topic.  Incidentally, the movie,  The Butterfly Effect , a 2005 film starring Ashton Kutcher, garnered 33/81 ratings from  Rotten Tomatoes , which attracted my interest because I usually side with the viewers. While Senator Joe Manchin will sign off on the Democratic wish-list bill, which has dropped in value from $3.5 trillion to less than half that value, gaining a last gasp life...

I had an unusual Sunday.  Nothing interested me on television, not even the NFL.  Nothing happening in Honolulu worthy of my time.  Nothing being offered at 15 Craigside, but this day usually is reverential, and I'm not much of a churchgoing resident. I thus went through my subscription magazines, and, in particular, the latest issue of  Time , where I ran across the  Future of Money,  which I will summarize after an initial segue into a film. After dinner, I watched  Hiroshima Mon Amour ,  ( click on that and watch the entire hour and a half production, directed by Alain Resnais ) a movie that I vaguely remembered from my college days, but yet, perhaps never had seen.  Released in 1959, it is about the life of two two-day lovers in Hiroshima a few years after the drop of the Atomic Bomb when the city had to some degree recovered.  A French actress ( Emmanuel Riva ) in town for a film, starts a relationship with a Japanese architect...

Can't complain much about today.  Humanity and Planet Earth seem safe from any kind of world war or imminent disaster.  Only 68 days left in 2021.  Back in history, October 24 in 1929 was a Black Thursday, when the American stock market crashed.   By 1932 the market had dropped by 73% .  The equivalent would be the Dow Jones, currently at 35,677, falling to 9,833. My fantasy baseball season is over, for I primarily had players from the Los Angeles Dodgers playing the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.  Instead, the Atlanta Braves will go to the Houston Astros for Game 1 on Tuesday.  My fantasy regular teams did okay in 8-team leagues:  first, two seconds and a third.  Fantasy NFL not doing well.  Not playing fantasy NBA.  NCAA basketball begins on November 9.  Remember, Saturday night of November 6 is when daylight savings time ends. When I lived in DC, the Sunday  Washington Post  was an event.  Now and th...

If you keep up with nutrition, a high fiber diet is generally recommended for a healthy life.  However, there are some who are advised to stick to a LOW-fiber diet.  These individuals usually have medical problems related to their bowels or following certain types of cancer treatment. What particularly confuses me is that  list to the left .  I thought asparagus, corn grits, lettuce and tomatoes had a lot fiber. But most of us are reasonably normal and are advised to maximize ( but see my comment on this term towards the end ) fiber input, for that diet will help you: Normalize bowel movements. Lower cholesterol levels. Control blood sugar levels. Aid in achieving a healthy weight. Increase longevity. There are two kinds of fibers--soluble and insoluble--and they both are good for you.  Simply, fiber is the indigestible part of plants and carbohydrates.  Men ( 38 grams/day ), because they are heavier, need more fiber than women ( 25 ounces/day ), and the am...