Around the World

Ten years ago, only 500 people in China could ski. This year, an estimated 5,000,000 Chinese will visit ski resorts.

In Bahrain, a male gynecologist can only examine a woman's private parts through a mirror.

There is a bar in London that sells vaporized vodka, which is inhaled instead of sipped.

More than a third of the time, Icelanders don’t show up for work.

Conewago Chapel

The oldest Roman Catholic church in the United States, east of the Mississippi River

Dog Days

Yesterday’s heat index in Washington D.C. reached 110 degrees, and today we'll probably see the same. Hot and incredibly humid, these are the kind of summer days Washington is known for. The dog days are here.

"Dog days" originated in Roman times as an astronomical expression, “days of the dog,” referring to the dog star Sirius , or possibly Procyon. The Romans linked the rising of the dog star, the most brilliant star in the constellation, Canis Major, with the sultry summer heat, believing that the star added to the exreme heat of the sun.

This suggests that the Romans could be as misguided as the rest of us and that a catchy expression, though based on ignorance, has staying power.

Energy Sources

At the Zoo

A young cheetah

VATICAN TIGHTENS NOCTURAL EMISSIONS STANDARDS

~ Fake news headline from The Onion

Oil Rich Countries

2003 proved reserves (billion barrels)

1. Saudi Arabia (261.7)
2. Iraq (115.0)
3. Iran (100.1)
4. Kuwait (98.9)
5. United Arab Emirates (63.0)
6. Russia (58.8)
7. Venezuela (53.1)
8. Nigeria (32.0)
9. Libya (30.0)
10. China (23.7)

Women

“Never try to impress a woman, because if you do she’ll expect you to keep up to the standard for the rest of your life.”

~ W.C. Fields


“Women should be obscene and not heard.”

~ Groucho Marx


“A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.”

~Gloria Steinem


“Women give us solace, but if it were not for women we should never need solace.”

~ Don Herold


“Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult.”

~ Charlotte Whitton

Simple Pleasures

If you live near the Chesapeake Bay, this time of year offers up a tasty treat - steamed hardshell crabs, the kind Melvin Udall, Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good As It Gets, mentions during his time in Baltimore.

Here’s a mid-summer picture of pleasure: You’re among family and friends gathered around a table covered with old newspapers. You have a few dozen hardshell crabs in front of you and plenty of beer iced up in a cooler nearby, and for the next hour or so in the most leisurely way possible, you pick crabs, drink beer, and shoot the breeze.

The mildly sweet crabmeat combined with the spicy hot seasoning is sooo delicious, and the beer and conversation become the perfect complement. For me, it’s as good as it gets.

Apple Tree

Marines on the Mall

Fells Point, MD

Naming names

Roland G. Fryer is a black economist and Harvard professor whose mission is the study of black underachievement. Part of his study involved an analysis of names black parents give their children and how that choice affected the children's lives.

“While discussing his names research on a radio show, he took a call from a black woman who was upset with the name just given to her baby niece. It was pronounced shuh-TEED but was in fact spelled “Shithead.” Or consider the twin boys Orangejello and Lemonjello, also black, whose parents further defined their choice by instituting the pronunciations a-RON—zhello and le-MON-zhello.

Orangejello, Lemonjello, and Shithead have yet to catch on among the masses….”

~ From the best-selling Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Madam's Organ in Adams Morgan

Now this...

To all the news people who feel the need to rush to the eye of the storm to provide live news coverage for us… please stop!

Geraldo, Brian, Anderson, all of you….it would be perfectly OK with me if you stayed at your news desks in New York to report on the hurricanes. There’s no real reason for you to be down there being blown and battered around by the storm unless it’s to satisfy your insanely huge egos.

It doesn’t make any sense for you to tell everyone to evacuate the area while you’re holding on to lampposts to show us how brave you are and how brutal things will be after the eye passes. You look silly, and you’re probably causing a problem just being there.

Let the people who are dealing with the disaster in meaningful ways do their jobs, and YOU -- please STAY AWAY!

Lotus

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

Nouns of Assemblage

A descent of woodpeckers
A pod of walrus
A run of salmon
A rhumba of rattlesnakes
A covey (bevy) of quail
A pandemonium of parrots
An exaltation of larks
A hedge of herons
An army of frogs
A charm of finches
A pace of donkeys
A clowder (clutter) of cats
A herd (pace) of asses

a rift of farts
a nichel of dimes
a jam of tarts
a rub of priests
a spin (scum) of politicians
a prattle of cable news anchors

Local Traffic

I was stopped at a red light in the right lane of two-lane Bradley Blvd. In my rear view mirror, I caught a glimpse of a woman in a black Mercedes traveling fast and darting from lane to lane.

About a quarter of a mile ahead, the two lanes would narrow to one, and the locals have a bad habit of racing to get to that point ahead of the driver in the other lane. I could sense the Mercedes was ready to sprint.

Another car was in the left lane beside me. The Mercedes stopped behind me. The light changed. We moved out.

The Mercedes stayed behind me at first but then swung behind the car in the left lane. The woman was looking for a way to get around both of us, but couldn’t find an opening. She swung behind me again, but then quickly moved to the other lane. No luck. The car ahead of her slowed slightly to make a left turn, and I hit the point where the road narrows – ahead of the Mercedes.

For the next three miles, the Mercedes followed close on my rear end. That's always pleasant.

Finally, the road divided into two lanes as we approached a stop light: I was making a left turn, and the woman in the Mercedes eased over to the right lane to make a right turn.

As she pulled along beside me, I was ready to give her, at the very least, a look of scorn. I looked over, and a lady in her seventies with a wicked little smirk on her face was giving ME the finger.

I burst out laughing. Getting the finger from a seventy-year old woman can really make your day.

Wristbands

On display at the Hanover Area Arts Guild, Hanover, PA

Independence

June 28, 1776 – In Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson presents the first draft of the Declaration of Independence to congress.

July 4, 1776 -- After various changes to Jefferson's original draft, a vote was taken late in the afternoon of July 4th. Of the 13 colonies, 9 voted in favor of the Declaration; 2, Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted No; Delaware was undecided and New York abstained.

John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence. It is said that he signed his name "with a great flourish" so "King George can read that without spectacles!"

July 8, 1776 -- The first public reading of the declaration takes place in Philadelphia's Independence Square. The bell in Independence Hall, then known as the "Province Bell" would later be renamed the "Liberty Bell" after its inscription - "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants Thereof."

August 1776 - The task begun on July 4, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was not actually completed until August. Nonetheless, the 4th of July has been accepted as the official anniversary of United States independence from Britain.

July 4, 1777 -- The first Independence Day celebration takes place. It's interesting to speculate what those first 4th festivities were like. By the early 1800s the traditions of parades, picnics, and fireworks were firmly established as part of American Independence Day culture.