Saturday Summary #4

The oldest leather shoe ever found was uncovered by an archeologist in Armenia and was about 5500 yeas old, it laced up the front as today's shoes do. Only the right was found.

Biblical manna is a phenomenon that still exists although just what it is doesn't seem to have been proven yet: it may be sap extruded by plants and grasses during the cool of night or the excrement of tiny bugs that eat that sap. [Yuck!] It is still gathered and used as a food additive which gives a sweet-salty flavor to foods.

Millionaires in the US are not as thick on the ground as newspapers make us think they are. In fact they are, comparatively, a much greater percentage of the population other places: In Singapore with population of 4.7 million people, 11.4% of households are millionaires; Hong Kong with a population of 7.1 million has 8.8% millionaires, Switzerland with population 7.6 million has 8.4% millionaires, Kuwait with a population of 2.8 million is 8.2% millionaires, Qatar with only 840,000 people has 7.4% millionaires, and it's downhill from there.

Speaking of rich people in the US: Mayor Michael Bloomberg of NYC is worth about $18 billion [with a B] and is a truly generous guy who not only gives through a private foundation to many causes but is generous to his ex-wife and eve has established a half million dollar trust fund and bought a condo for an ex-girl friend.

A Columbus, Ohio woman had sextuplets, by C-section; the birth was attended by 50 physicians. The babies are so small they'll probably remain in the hospital about 3 months. Sextuples have been born only about 200 times in the history of the US. [How did they crowd 50 doc in one OR, never mind what's happened to privacy]

An article in the NYTimes about why salt is used so liberally in processed foods quoted an unidentified food exec as saying that it's needed to disguise the "wet dog hair" taste of certain foods. It was also noted that the salt, along with generous amounts of sugar and fat in snack foods is known to be an addictive combination that means you can't "eat just one" chip, cookie, nacho, cheese doodle, etc.

Meanwhile Kelloggs which used to say that one of their breakfast foods helped prevent hyperactivity in children was legally stopped from making that claim but then began saying that Rice Krispies boost the "immunity". Now the FDA has nixed that claim. [Maybe they can say that Tony the Tiger will teach your kids to growl louder when they sneak up on their baby sisters and make them cry.]

Since the soccer World Cup games have opened, we can remember a quote from no less a thinker than Jean Paul Sartre [remembering that the rest of the world calls soccer "football"]: "In a football match everything is complicated by the presence of the other team." [Every week I seek a little profundity and I would rather turn to a real philosoopher than to Yogi Berra]