Category: current events

  • Scouts Food Drive Pickup Today

    Scouts Food Drive Pickup Today

    Today is the bag pickup day for the Scouts food drive. Bags were distributed October 1-5. They’ll be picked up between 9:00 AM to noon. According to the Scouting for Food website, On average, the Scouting for Food Drive typically collects over 93,387+ pounds of food from Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and its neighboring areas. This translates…

  • Maybe We Need a Dose of Humor

    Maybe We Need a Dose of Humor

    Sena and I were listening to the Mike Waters morning radio show (KOKZ 105.7) this morning and his invitation to listeners was to call in and quote their favorite dumb question. One of the callers recited something which was actually a George Carlin joke. Neither one of us thought we heard it right, but it’s…

  • Look on the Bright Side

    Look on the Bright Side

    Yesterday was the first day of Autumn. Happy Autumn! Was that too cheerful? You know, I used to watch the show Monty Python’s Flying Circus years ago. I thought it was outrageously funny. What reminded me of the show was Sena telling me that on Wednesday night, a member of the Flying Circus cast, Eric…

  • ‘ay, this here be international talk like a gentleman o’ fortune day

    ‘ay, this here be international talk like a gentleman o’ fortune day

    The title of this post is a translation of “Hey, This is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.” I used a Pirate Speak translator to generate it. Sena reminded me about this holiday, which got started back in 1995 by a couple of guys from Albany, Oregon. She says she heard about it on the…

  • Ever See Bigfoot Splooting?

    Ever See Bigfoot Splooting?

    I wonder if anyone ever got a picture of Bigfoot splooting? Why not? It’s a large furry animal which has no way of cooling off other than by panting or lying on its belly with its limbs splayed out, which is the definition of “splooting.” I found a news item about splooting squirrels and quickly…

  • Thoughts on Doctors Going On Strike

    Thoughts on Doctors Going On Strike

    I read Dr. H. Steven Moffic’s two articles in Psychiatric Times about the strike by mental health workers at Northern California Kaiser Permanente (August 16 and 26, 2022). So far, no psychiatrists have joined the strike. However, this piqued my interest in whether psychiatrists or general physicians have ever gone on strike. I have a…

  • 59th Anniversary of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” Speech on August 28, 1963

    59th Anniversary of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” Speech on August 28, 1963

    Sena reminded me that today is the 59th Anniversary of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C. After she reminded me about it, I found this anniversary mentioned in only a few headlines on the web. But that’s no excuse. It doesn’t matter that I was just a small…

  • FDA Removes N95 Respirators from Shortage List

    FDA Removes N95 Respirators from Shortage List

    I think it’s ironic that about the same time a PLOs One study and news articles came out announcing a new method using 8-inch rubber bands for improving the fit of the surgical mask to approximate that of the N95 respirator, the FDA removed the N95 respirator from the medical device shortage list. This is…

  • Iowa State Fair Rubber Chicken Show!

    Iowa State Fair Rubber Chicken Show!

    I got a big kick out the Rubber Chicken Show at the Iowa State Fair, broadcast by Iowa PBS. I don’t need another reason to post it other than to make you laugh.

  • Iowa State Fair Musings

    Iowa State Fair Musings

    We’ve never actually been to the Iowa State Fair, but we really like listening to the Iowa Public Broadcasting TV shows about it. The first show covered a lot of activities. Food at the Fair is always intriguing.  We know there are a lot of foods on a stick, but we didn’t know you could…