March/April link love

by Jackie Patti

The biggest news in my world over the March-April time period was that Deductive Seasoning was on hiatus in April. This was due to my daughter's illness, which began in December as a diverticulitis flare and ended in April with surgery, with a detour through antibiotic-induced delirium that was extremely unnerving for everyone involved.

Several trips to Texas resulted with very little time for blogging what with hanging out at a hospital all day and night. During the blog's hiatus, Google recorded nearly as many hits as when I have a new post up every 3 days, causing me to wonder if I really need to write or not!

In non-blog news, we lost a plane. We keep mistaking trash in the ocean for debris as apparently there's a lot of trash in the ocean. The plane is just completely missing.

Russia took a bite out of the Ukraine, which is apparently not as good as taking a bite out of crime-a. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth seems to have occurred, but no actual consequences. A bunch of nuns were heard singing, 'How do you solve a problem like Crimea?'

February Favorites - 2014

by Jackie Patti

February was darned cold here, with another stupid amount of snow falling, but given this is the third month of this ridiculous snow and cold, I guess it's not news anymore, but olds. I, for one, am damned sick of this.

Apparently, at least 22 people have died in the storms in February. :(

Also in February, something called the Superbowl happened; I had to Google to find out the Seahawks won for this post as I had ignored the whole thing. I am aware of it at all because the grocery ads push lots of snacky foods, as do many of the blogs I follow. Apparently, 111 million people watched it.

There was an Olympics in Russia, who won both the most overall medals and the most gold medals. The interesting bit to me were the protests against Russia's law forbidding talking about gay issues, objectionable both due to free speech issues and gay rights issues.

January 2014 link love

by Jackie Patti

Weather was the main news this month. Hubby claims the words "polar vortex" didn't exist before this month. If anyone runs across an earlier usage, let me know!

All I know for sure is everyone nearly froze their nipples off this month. Here in central PA, the cold has continued, with very few days hitting above freezing. I have no hope of pulling a leek out of my garden! And my chickens, now five months old, haven't free-ranged in weeks. (By the way, the roosters LOOK like roosters now, though no crowing has yet occurred. Keeping fingers crossed for eggs soon!)

The cold was EVERYWHERE; early in the month, a Nor'easter killed 13 folks in the eastern US; mid-month the Kỳ Sơn district in Vietnam had it's first recorded snowfall EVAH; and at the end of the month the Carolinas through Texas were bracing for ridiculous cold and snowfall, perhaps we can call this a Sou'easter.

The cold wasn't quite everywhere; Australia had a record-breaking heatwave; it would've hit 110 if they used sensible degrees, but due to metric it was only 44.

Other notable events in January 2014:

December 2013 links

by Jackie Patti

Before we get to the links, I'd like to remind you that the following occurred in December 2013:

• Nelson Mandela died on Dec 5th; the official state memorial service was held on Dec 10th and his funeral on Dec 15th.
• Queen Elizabeth pardoned Alan Turing posthumously. Turing invented computer science before there were computers and his code-breaking was pivotal in the defeat of Hitler, saving thousands of Allied lives. In 1952, the British government prosecuted him for being gay, stripped him of his security clearance and chemically castrated him, leading to his suicide. He is forgiven 101 years later, but the other 50,000 men convicted under the same statute are not yet.
• Bad month for trains: a train derailed in Bangladesh killing 3; a train in the Bronx derailed killing 4; a train in India caught fire, killing 23.
• China landed a probe on the moon, becoming the third nation to do so. It's robotic rover is walking about and sending back pictures. Go China!

November 2013 links

I'm thinking of this post as a time capsule, so trying to add an introduction that reminds you what was going on in the world at the time.

In November, both Somalia and Sardinia got hit with cyclones, but their disasters were dwarfed by the typhoon that devastated the Philippines.

Hawaii passed legislation against new GMO crops and legalized gay marriage. I somehow doubt those two topics are related, presumably GMOs cannot marry.

The 50th anniversary of JFK's death occurred. Apparently, people older than me all remember where they were when they first heard of it, but I was a year old, so don't remember squat. For people my age, I think the moments seared into our memories are John Lennon's death, the Challenger disaster, 911 and the Columbia disaster. I will also never forget the day my daughter was born and the day I met my husband in person (we met online first), but likely the rest of you don't share memories of the poignancy of THOSE dates with me. ;)

In November 2013, the first day of Hanukkah occurred on Thanksgiving. Apparently, this hardly ever happens and was a big hairy deal. Some news media tried to make a meme of calling it "Thanksgivukkah," but it never really caught on. Apparently, it will not occur again for another 80,000 years; maybe they'll have a better name for it by then.

In contrast, the exact moment you are reading this has NEVER happened before and will NEVER happen again, so THIS moment is much more unique than that! And here you are in this unique moment spending it with me.

I have some very kewl stuff to share with you...

best of October 2013

Some of the things we are officially supposed to be aware of in October 2013, because it was blank Awareness Month):
ADHD, Audiology, AIDS, Blindness, Breast Cancer, Bullying Prevention, Celiac Disease, Co-op, Diversity, Domestic Violence, Down Syndrome Awareness, Dyslexia, Emotional Intelligence, Head Start, Critical Illness, Cyber Security, Depression, Disability Employment, Liver, Pregnancy and Infant Loss, Respiratory syncytial virus, Sarcastic, Spina Bifida, SIDS, Rett Syndrome, Squirrel, Workplace Politic

October also contained several awareness weeks, such as Mental Illness, Food & Drug Interactions and Prescription Errors. The really sad things that only had a day for people to be aware of them include Cephalopod, African Penguin, Latino AIDS, Reptile and Stuttering days.

Having read the previous paragraphs, you are now caught up on everything you were supposed to be aware of in October, but missed due to distraction about the government shutdown, which is all anyone was talking about all month.

When we were all just about fedup with hearing about it, a Facebook friend complained about the USDA nutritional database being down. Leave it to a Real Foodie to put things in perspective!

More interesting Real Food things that happened in October...