It's seasonal allergy time

Spring brings seasonal allergies, causing millions of people in the U.S. to experience sneezing, congestion and other symptoms. People who struggle with seasonal allergies, also known as hay fever and allergic rhinitis, are mostly reacting to pollen from plants, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Climate change has made it worse; the allergy season is longer and pollen counts are higher.

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America recently released its 2022 Allergy Capitals report, which lists some of the most challenging cities for spring and fall allergies in the top 100 metropolitan areas in the continental U.S. Here's the list:

1. Scranton, PA 

2. Wichita, KS 

3. McAllen, TX 

4. Richmond, VA 

5. San Antonio, TX 

6. Oklahoma City, OK 

7. Hartford, CT 

8. Buffalo, NY 

9. New Haven, CT 

10. Albany, NY 

11. Bridgeport, CT 

12. Springfield, MA 

13. Dayton OH 

14. Columbia, SC 

15. El Paso, TX 

16. Syracuse, NY

17. Des Moines, IA 

18. Miami, FL 

19. Memphis, TN 

20. Las Vegas NV

Courtesy of a Duncaster resident

Goodbye March

A Hidden Disease

Noise can be dangerous

The European Environmental Agency says that excessive noise is actually killing people. It estimates that long-term exposure causes 12,000 premature deaths per year across the European Union.

The World Health Organization says that noise pollution is an "underestimated threat that can cause a number of short and long-term health problems, such as, for example, sleep disturbance, cardiovascular effects, poorer work and school performance, [and] hearing impairment".

What's more likely?

Climate change or war? It looks like Biden thinks war is, as his proposed military budget ($813.3 billion) is almost 20 times the budget for climate change ($44.9 billion). 

The military budget will set another record this year, as it exceeds the last record-setting budget of $782 billion. William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, noted in a statement that Biden's proposed budget is "substantially more—adjusted for inflation—than spending at the height of the Korean or Vietnam wars, and over $100 billion more than peak spending during the Cold War."

Relieving Stress

Gun permits

 

Should you bifurcate your tongue?

You can learn a variety of things by reading the newspaper. This morning I read The Ethicist column in the NY Times and learned of a medical procedure called “tongue bifurcation.” I had never heard of this. it is a splitting of the tongue down the middle. People do this for a variety of reasons: creating a lizardlike appearance for patients who are interested in body modification, for other aesthetic reasons, to perform oral sex acts, to be able to realize their self-identity, etc.

The American Dental Association advises against tongue splitting, deeming it an invasive procedure “with negative health sequelae” — including severe bleeding, infection and nerve damage — “that outweigh any potential benefit.” 

Humans and the earth

Cherry Blossoms in New York City

The walking fish

Did Russia screw up?

Leaving home

Water is weird

Women have a hard time in Sudan

Ponyhenge

In 2010 a hobby horse appeared in Lincoln, Ma. about 15 miles west of Boston. Since then, a number of horses of all types - hobby horses, rocking horses, and horse figurines — began appearing at the site. They are periodically rearranged, sometimes in a circle, sometimes in rows like race horses. Other times they are simply scattered and knocked around, as if they’ve come back from a long night of carousing.

And no one knows where they come from or who is doing this.

We need more trees

Making gold

Discriminating because of hair

The House of Representatives passed the Crown (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair)Act last week; it seeks to end discrimination against natural hair at work and school.

Black Americans say they are often treated unfairly at work and in schools because of their natural hair textures or protective styles like braids, knots, twists and locks.

Never before

Parts of Antarctica have recently recorded temperatures of more than 70 degrees warmer than average; the Arctic is almost as bad at more than 50 degrees warmer than average.

The Antarctic continent as a whole on Friday was about 8.6 degrees warmer than a baseline temperature between 1979 and 2000, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer. That 8-degree heating over an already warmed-up average is unusual, think of it as if the entire United States was 8 degrees hotter than normal.

At the same time, on Friday the Arctic as a whole was 6 degrees warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average.

By comparison, the world as a whole was only 1.1 degrees above the 1979 to 2000 average. Globally the 1979 to 2000 average is about half a degree warmer than the 20th century average.

Break Dancing in the Olympics?

They like yellow

The above photo shows three Russian cosmonauts at the International Space Station after a three-hour flight from a Russian-owned facility in Kazakhstan. Their space suits, as you can see, have the yellow and blue colors of the Ukraine. 

Some comic books are not cheap

The first-ever Marvel comic book fetched more than $2.4 million in an online auction this week. It was the first ever Marvel Comic. It was the first sale in what became the Marvel universe of comics, movies, TV shows and video games.

The very well-preserved “pay copy” is especially sought-after because it bears the publisher’s handwritten notes recording how much the multiple writers and artists were paid. For example, Frank R. Paul earned $25 for drawing the cover of a book now worth nearly 100,000 times as much.

Celebrating Purim

Making camouflage

The president and his wife

According to Snopes, the singers are not the Zellenskyys

George Carlin on getting old

The U.S. ranks 16th...

... according to the latest World Happiness Report 2022, released Friday for the 10th year in a row by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). The report was based on opinion surveys of people from nearly 150 nations around the globe completed from 2019 to 2021.

The Scandinavian countries do the best. Finland is #1 for the fifth consecutive year. Denmark is #2, while Iceland moved up from fourth place to third. And Switzerland was fourth. The other members of the top ten were the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Israel, and New Zealand.

At the bottom were  Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. 

The pandemic isn't over...

...according to the Head of WHO (World Health Organization). True, reported cases have been declining over the past several weeks, but infections are once again increasing globally—especially in parts of Asia.

He also warned that the rising case numbers are "just the tip of the iceberg," due to the reduction of testing in many countries—making the full scale of infections unknown. Plus, we have the problem of people not getting vaccinated.

His thoughts come as restrictions and public health funding are being rolled back in the U.S., even as infections have risen dramatically in China, South Korea, Hong Kong, and many European nations this week. 

Aachoo

Sneezing and more is going to get worse say climate scientists at the University of Michigan. They just completed a study of 15 different plant pollens in the United States and used computer simulations to calculate how much worse allergy season will likely get by the year 2100. As the world warms, allergy season will start weeks earlier and end many days later — and it’ll be worse while it lasts, with pollen levels that could as much as triple in some places.

When the weather gets warmer, plants start blooming earlier and keep blooming later. Then, you have additional carbon dioxide in the air from burning fuels such as coal, gasoline and natural gas, which also helps plants produce more pollen.

The rise in pollens is not new. A study a year ago from different researchers found that from 1990 to 2018, pollen has increased and allergy season is starting earlier, with much of it because of climate change. Also, the pollen season is starting earlier. Already about 30% of the world and 40% of American children suffer pollen allergies.

The big sufferers from allergies are 25 million Americans with asthma.

Waiting for their parents

Can you afford that new home?

 

Modern houses from around the world

Our Florida correspondent sent us these houses which defy gravity. You'll find them in Australia, Spain, England, New York, Croatia, Canada, Poland and California.

The power of kindness

More ads

Final ads

Ads from the past

Truth in advertising in the 20th century

Courtesy of a childhood friend
More to come

Are witches still here?

Crossing the street

Sisters in Loss

Professional hockey player and Mayor of Mississauga in Canada

That's Hazel McCallion, who just died at 101. She played professional hockey from 1940 to 1942 in a women’s league and continued to skate until about three years ago.

She entered politics in 1966 and was elected mayor in 1978. At that time, Mississauga, a Toronto suburb, was just about a cow pasture. By the time she left office, 36 years later at the age of 93, the fields had been replaced with condo towers, a college campus, a transit hub and shopping centers in what is now Canada’s seventh largest city. Her nickname is “Hurricane Hazel,” an ode to her leadership in a massive hurricane and because of her brash style. She never lost an election, coasting to victory in most subsequent elections by outsize margins.

He likes reptiles

He likes them so much that he had 52 lizards and snakes hidden in his clothing when he tried to cross the border from Mexico. The reptiles were tied up in small bags “which were concealed in the man’s jacket, pants pockets and groin area”, the statement said.

Nine snakes and 43 horned lizards were seized. Some of the species are considered endangered, authorities said.

Odd Tiny Houses

Kristie Wolfe grew up in little houses which her mother was able to make 'bigger'. In Kristie's eyes, her mother “was always trying to make these crummy little houses we could afford fit our big family. It was really interesting to watch how she’d figure things out. She didn’t have internet. There was no Home Depot in our town. She just tried things and learned on her own.” As a kid, she helped with her mother's remodeling projects: finishing a basement, painting walls, designing rooms.

In 2010 she became interested in the tiny house movement and Airbnb. Here are some of the houses she has built:

Courtesy of our Florida correspondent

The Godfather is 50 years old

Going to Slovakia

An 11-year-old Ukrainian boy fled his war-torn country alone; he had a plastic bag, a passport and a telephone number scrawled on his hand. That's all. And he traveled hundreds of miles by train on his own. Once he was safely over the border, customs officials and volunteers used the telephone number written on his hand to contact his relatives in Bratislava, the Slovakian capital, and they were.

America March 2022

 

An oldie

From a childhood friend

Putin - Wanted Dead or Alive

Alex Konanykhin, a Russian entrepreneur currently living in the United States, posted the above on Facebook along with this message:

I promise to pay $1,000,000 to the officer(s) who, complying with their constitutional duty, arrest(s) Putin as a war criminal under Russian and international laws. Putin is not the Russian president as he came to power as the result of a special operation of blowing up apartment buildings in Russia, then violated the Constitution by eliminating free elections and murdering his opponents. As an ethnic Russian and a Russia citizen, I see it as my moral duty to facilitate the denazification of Russia. I will continue my assistance to Ukraine in its heroic efforts to withstand the onslaught of Putin’s Orda.

Konanykhin fled Russia in 1992, after being “hounded by the KGB,” according to the Miami Herald, on embezzlement charges that were later dropped. Both the Russian and American government have tried to deport him back to Russia. He was initially granted political asylum in 1999, but this was revoked in 2003, and Konanykhin was ordered to return to Russia. After a number of appeals, Konanykhin was granted asylum once again in 2007.

Iditarod began on Saturday

Courtesy of our Florida correspondent