Category Archives: Fun Facts

Words of Wisdom From “The Morning”

If you’re not tired of articles giving advice on how to approach the new year, I’ve found something that has caught my eye. I receive an email from The New York Times entitled “The Morning”. On Saturday, December 30, it published “the best advice that readers of “The Morning” received this year,” with the logic

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Are We Making Progress?

How often do you travel? This is a marvelous age; we can be almost anywhere in the world (outside the Arctic and Antarctic Circles) in under 24 hours. And yet… I travel internationally about once a year, and in three of my last six overseas trips I’ve been delayed by the airlines; twice I’ve lost

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The 30×30 Way To Cut Crime

What would you think of police officers who use less force, are named in fewer complaints and lawsuits, are thought of as being more honest and compassionate, and can reach better outcomes for crime victims, especially in sexual assault cases? All good qualities? Yes, there are many such officers now, but one category excels in

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Navigating Barbie’s Monochromatic World

The dictionary definition of color is “the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light.” Color is important in our lives because it helps our brains digest information and it also facilitates memory. But it isn’t easy; comprehending an entire scene requires seeing an object’s

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What is the World’s Oldest Color?

It’s probably pink. The success of the new movie Barbie has created a wave interest in the color most associated with girls (and yes, Barbie Pink is a Pantone color), but like so much in life, its complicated. According to a 2018 research article, bright-pink pigments have been found in 1.1 billion-year-old rocks, the result of

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Why Can’t We Find Atlantis?

It’s been in mythology for millennia — There was once an advanced ancient civilization that catastrophically vanished thousands of years ago. The “Lost Continent of Atlantis” has been the subject of countless books, articles, movies and general speculation throughout much of recorded history. But if this civilization was that advanced and powerful, why haven’t we

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What Happens to Used Hotel Soaps?

If you travel a lot, you may have noticed hotels are cutting back on their amenities, like those little bottles of shampoo. But one amenity is still popular enough to be continued despite the cost — little bars of soap. Fine, but think for a second — they’re small, but not small enough to be

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If You Are Really Into April Fool’s

What is the greatest April Fool’s prank of all time? There have been some really good ones, but if you’re looking to compare, the National Geographic website has an article “Explore 6 of History’s Most Infamous Scams and Hoaxes” by Ronan O’Connell at https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/most-infamous-scams-hoaxes?. Personally, I’m not the prankster type, so I’m spending the day

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Helping Government Spend Your Money

When paying property taxes, how many property owners have wondered “I wish I could tell the city/county/township how I want this money spent”?   Now there is a way — participatory budgeting. First tried in 1989 in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, with participatory budgeting ordinary citizens have a say in how public money

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