Cureth post-Thanksgiving!

One of the time-honored traditions of Thanksgiving is the "food coma." People eat enough to get sleepy and then doze away the afternoon watching football or placeholder soap opera episodes. Or, of late, they prepare to talk with their family members who think differently about how wrong those members are, knowing that the ties of blood will prevent their being sat outside on the porch with the smallest possible slice of pumpkin pie.

Nicholas Culpeper offers a solution for the former; the solution for the latter is better candidates so we can discuss them instead of howling about them. Ask the Past brings us his Culpeper's Last Legacy from1655, where he writes that there are various cures for this "lethargie." Among them are burning brimstone under the nose, frequent provocations to sneeze with "white Helleborne," shaving the head and pouring "Vinegar of Roses" upon it, preferably letting it "drop down from some high place upon the crown of his Head." Ladies either never suffered from lethargie, or had different cures such as shaving their husbands' heads while they slept and pouring rose vinegar on it from the balcony.

For my money, the most likely method to work is "burning assa foetida to wake him." The name alone awakens my inner middle schooler to tell me a thousand jokes and explain the origin of the phrase, "that smells like ass." Given that it's nicknamed "devil's dung," I can't imagine anyone could sleep through the stench.

A Voice About Nothing

I’m somewhat concerned to still be posting about one of my favorite football players and the world’s biggest pop star, but interesting things still crop up. For example, on Thursday The View’s resident sage, Joy Behar, opined that she doesn’t want to see Taylor Swift end up with Travis Kelce. The reason? Some tweets Kelce made in his early 20’s, back when Twitter was just a place people sometimes tossed out random thoughts.

It seems the young Kelce spelt not well, and, moreover, made judgmental statements about women’s appearance. Such tweets offend the author of SheetzuCacaPoopoo: My Kind of Dog and SheetzuCacaPoopoo: Max Goes to the Dogs. Said she, “He’s illiterate is more to the point. He’s obsessed with the girls looking good, that was his thing.”

Now, evidence suggests Ms. Behar was never a young man. Her only child is a daughter, but she does have a grandson nearing the teenage years. The number of young men “obsessed with the girls looking good” is sizable, and if she was previously unaware of that he may demonstrate it to her soon.

But all of this is moot, because these are the tweets from a dozen years ago. Had that young man come calling at a concert a dozen years ago, I suspect Scott and Andrea Swift might have shown him the door too. In Joy Behar’s world, though, dozen-year-old tweets define who you are forever. Even if you learn to spell.

It’s in memes all over social media, but it’s true: Thank goodness I didn’t have an online youth.

Rider on the Storm

Several science-related websites noted the long, fast and high flight of a male shearwater bird caught up in Typhoon Faxai back in 2019. Shearwaters generally fly just over 300 feet around the ocean, while during this particular daredevil made it up to around 16,000 feet higher than usual. And it traded in its usual speed of between 3 and 37 miles per hour to almost 125 miles per hour as it made five circles with the typhoon. During the period the eye of the storm was over ocean, the bird landed and rested on the waves.

And stoners with their gummies think they get high...

All Hallows' Eve

As we come to Halloween, I rejoice in the end of the foul slurry of the entertainment industry, horror movies, shall slow for a few blessed months. But Friar, you say, is not slurry merely a mixture of water and particulate matter that accumulates when the unwanted material is cleaned away from the desired material? And I say it is, and you have spoken wisely. 

Collateral Damage

I've seen some posts about one of the many stories that explain why we shouldn't make fun of or annoy old people. As this is a status I shall attain sooner rather than later, I'm interested in the subject matter. But this story is basically ugly through and through.

As it goes, the elderly person is in the drive-through line at McDonald's. The person in the next vehicle behind starts laying on the horn when the older person isn't as quick through the line as she wishes (the story is almost always told with the rude youngster being female). The old person then pays for his order at the payment window and for the rude woman in the following car. The clerk tells her that the older person has paid for her order, which is said to motivate her with gratitude, which she attempts to show. And then the punchline is that the older person shows both receipts, takes both orders, and leaves the woman with nothing when she gets to the food window.  Now -- chuckle -- she'll be forced to go to the back of the line and start all over again! Kneeslap, kneeslap, what a witty response!

My gut says the story's not true, but it either event it sucks. If it is real, think about it. This is a woman who honked to get someone to move faster in the drive-thru line. Does that action suggests she would be the kind of person to accept the prank with a self-deprecating chuckle and a good natured, "Got me! Guess I'll go around again!" Of course not! She's going to berate the clerk and the manager she'll ask to see. She'll hold up the line for everyone else and not really care about people behind her. She'll wind up with her food and she'll probably bully them into giving it to her free even if only to get rid of her.

Paying for her food would have done exactly what needed to be done. Show kindness in the face of rudeness and maybe change some of her habits. Who knows why she's honking? Long day at the office? Dinner's late for the kids and this is all she can pick up? Going back into the office and this is her only chance to grab food? I don't know, and neither does the story. She's just a tool to help all of the snowtops and those of us not far away show how we're still clever! And we're sure smarter than all of those brash, rude young people who honk the horn!

So I guess there is a moral to the story. Some old folks will demonstrate their cleverness instead of the courtesy they say ran rampant back in their day. And they're sure they'll get one over on that rude whipper-snapper, no matter who else has to have a lousy day because of it. Just collateral damage , an unavoidable consequence of us getting what we want.

Why am I thinking of November 2024 all of a sudden?

Cool…if You’re Not the Owner

For the first time in the history of spacecraft, a satellite owner has gotten a fine for “failure to de-orbit.” as David Shepardson writes at the link, the Dish network had a satellite that was no longer useful. They’re supposed to put it into a certain disposal orbit by using the satellite’s onboard motors, Dish claimed that because of the limited fuel, they couldn’t reach the disposal orbit and their Echo-7 satellite is considerably lower than it should be.

In the lower orbit, the satellite could become an obstacle to satellites that still work or other space missions. So the FCC, which covers this matter because the satellites involved are communications tools, fined Dish $150,000.

When space travel has gotten to the point that we’re writing tickets, it has become a truly mature industry.

Biiiiig Show

There’s not much of Las Vegas’ usual entertainment that interests me, so I don’t know that I’ll ever visit. But I’ve been watching videos of U2’s show at The Sphere, a Vegas domed venue covered with video screens inside and out, and if I had the bucks…