The poet Emily Dickinson wrote, “I like March. Her shoes are purple.” And so we celebrate the coming of Spring again with thoughts on a wide variety of subjects. Enjoy this smorgasbord of thoughts and ideas in bits and pieces.
Bits: Most of the country has quit smoking, which saves millions of lives and leads to massive reduction in cancer. The national smoking rate has fallen to historic lows with just 15% of adults still smoking. Rural residents are diagnosed with lung cancer at rates 18% to 20% above those of city residents. Wealthier and more-educated Americans are now largely spared the cost and deadly effects of this vice.
Pieces: In November 2017 the International Olympic Committee stripped 10 medals from athletes who were found to have cheated in the 2008 Olympics.
Bits: The zoo animals today are not from their natural habitats, but 90% are the offspring of other zoo animals.
Pieces: Chaucer liked the onomatopoeic “haha” as a textual representation of laughter. Shakespeare preferred a more staccato “ha ha he.”
Bits: A cool word is barouch. During the 19th Century, this horse-drawn carriage became fashionable. Derived from the German word barutsche for two-wheeled, it was mis-named because the barouch had four wheels!
Pieces: What historical figure has been the subject of five ballets, seven films, 45 operas, 77 plays and hundreds of paintings? It is Queen Cleopatra. Plutarch described her as “the sort that would astound those who saw her. Interaction with her was captivating and her appearance along with her persuasiveness in discussion and her character that accompanied every interchange, was stimulating.” There is no known artistic depiction of her actual face.
Bits: The poet Robert Louis Stevenson wrote that “When the day returns, call us up with morning faces and with morning hearts, eager to labor, happy if happiness be our portion, and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong to endure.”
Pieces: Did you know that construction of Mount Rushmore took 14 years of hammering? The original design had called for Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt to be carved to the waist. But when Congress cut off funding in 1941 and problems with the rock face arose, construction ceased.
Bits: Ninety women convicts were released from the jails of Paris in 1718 and, accompanied by nuns to protect them, were shipped to the settlement of New Orleans. The swamp area was infested with mosquitoes and surrounded by hostile Indian tribes. As soon as possible the young women were married off to the young men who were settling the New Orleans area. No further documentation of what happened to the nuns survives. One can only speculate! The city was named after the Duke of Orleans who served as Regent for Louis XV, 1715-1723. It was called La Nouvelle-Orleans in 1718 or New Orleans.
Pieces: London’s Big Ben, the clock bell of the British Parliament, is having a four-year restoration and its clock mechanism will be dismantled piece by piece and its four dials will be cleaned and repaired. The 15.1 ton bell will be checked for cracks. The project will cost an estimated $38 Million pounds. The bells first sounded in 1859 and Parliament officials say the bell will sound on New Year’s Eve and on Remembrance Sunday until 2021.