Facebook is an illusion. It is a commercial venture owned by Mark Zuckerberg, who has renounced his US citizenship to avoid paying taxes. It violates equal opportunity laws by targeting employment ads to only certain age groups. God only knows how much personal data has been mined and sold to advertisers and other commercial enterprises--or how much has been given to the government.

And remember this quote from Sherlock: "Only unimportant people ignore you."

"Well, I'm a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona and such a fine sight to see. It's a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford slowin' down to take a look at me."

So THAT's why you moved!

A good respirator mask that SEALS well can keep out dust and other particulate matter, but will NOT filter out carbon monoxide and other pollutant gases. Painters' masks do not seal all that well.

The New York Times wrote: "A 2014 report issued by the New York City Health Department said that particulates in the air cause more than 2,000 premature deaths and 6,000 emergency room visits and hospitalizations each year. And while the city has rapidly expanded its bike lanes and other bike-friendly infrastructure during the past decade, most of the planning to date has focused on traffic safety concerns, not pollution."

And: "But just as important as the level of pollution in an area is the effort exerted by a bicyclist to pedal through it. “We know that just walking we are breathing in two to three times the air as we are when we are sitting,” Dr. Chillrud explained. Cycling and other strenuous activities like jogging and playing basketball boost the volume of air — and therefore the particulates — that we are inhaling. Dr. Jack, for example, breathes in roughly eight liters of air per minute when he is resting; when he cycles that volume soars to 70 liters. Biking hard, uphill or fast increases one’s pollution intake still further." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/06/well/move/on...

Personally, I would NOT cycle in heavy traffic, such as that in Toronto. I would find a place, like a park, in which to cycle. Better yet--use your car to transport your bicycle to some country lanes where traffic and pollution is at a minimum.

So, yes, use a good, well-sealing mask like Big Willy recommended--but try to find a better place to cycle and run!

Now for the icing on the cake--the owner of the pit bulls who killed the woman in Kentucky is a jailbird. He most likely has no assets, so is more or less "judgment proof" where a wrongful death lawsuit is concerned. The best that can be hoped for is a prison term for the miscreant who was keeping these dogs.

Of course, slapping the guy in prison won't bring back the woman who was killed, or assuage the grief of her husband. Pit bull owners will continue to deny that their dogs can suddenly and viciously attack people--and the toll of maimings and killings will climb.

[‌quote Anonymous]

In Germany I lived in Heilbronn, Landstuhl and Ramstein Air Base. Yes, it was with the military . . . and now it seems like a long time ago!

Christmas is hard on a lot of people. It's supposed to be a season of love and giving. But a lot of people are left out in the cold, literally.
I was reading about narcissistic parents on another blog, and how there would be one sibling who was treated completely different from the others--and that sibling's children would be treated differently than all the other sibling's children, i.e., one grandchild would get two presents and the others would get 20 - 30. One grown woman got a present of something like 20 empty paper rolls from her mother, while the other grown children received gifts of real value. Strange, indeed.

Cats can teach us a lot about living. Cats understand the difference between loneliness and solitude. And they know the importance of getting enough rest!

And it is better to be without a "partner" for a while than to be with the wrong partner. I would deduce that approximately 70% of people are not good "partner material," being either too selfish, too immature or possessed of some fatal character flaws, e.g., disloyalty, dishonesty, addiction, etc.

Again, the 50% divorce rate says a lot!

You could always set up a "revolving couch" like the "Demon Barber of Fleet Street," who was known as Sweeney Todd. If you had a recalcitrant patient, you could push a button, and the couch would revolve through the floor and dump the recalcitrant patient into the sewer below!

Turning the recalcitrant patients into meat pies would, of course, be optional.

Don't forget to check out "Forbidden Planet" for a wonderful cinematic depiction of "monsters from the id"!

About 20 years ago, I was reading a newspaper article about a Southern Baptist church in Georgia. A woman began attending that church with her daughter. The poor child died. The mother asked that her child be buried in the church cemetery.

Now the husband had not attended church with the wife before the child's death. After that traumatic event, he came to church with his wife.

The wife was white. The husband was black. Some of the church members saw him at the funeral service--but thought he was one of the gravediggers.

Well, afterwards a delegation of deacons from the church approached the grieving mother, and said, "We didn't know that your child was of mixed race when she was interred in our church cemetery. There are some folks who are somewhat upset that a 'black' child would be buried there. We would like to have your permission to exhume your daughter's body and have her re-interred in a black cemetery. We would pay all the expenses."

I had been a member of Southern Baptist churches until that time. After reading the article, I no longer considered myself a member of that denomination.

Now, I am absolutely not saying that all members of that denomination are bigoted or prejudiced. There are many fine Southern Baptists. But there is no real church hierarchy in that denomination--each church is free to chart its own course. There is no bishop or archbishop who can remove a misbehaving pastor from a Southern Baptist church.

Today I am Anglican, or what is known as Episcopal in the USA. It's not a perfect church by any means, but it is inclusive. It doesn't matter if you are black, white, divorced or gay--you are welcome. You will not be denied communion if you are divorced and remarried, nor will you be denied the opportunity to serve in a church office if you are divorced or divorced and remarried.

Jesus never excluded anyone. He didn't tell the Syro-Phoenician women, who had had five husbands, to get lost. He didn't exclude tax collectors or foreigners from meals. I think Jesus would have some real issues with the current doctrines of the Catholic Church and some Southern Baptist churches.

You did, indeed, and now you are acquiring the skill sets to help others!

When I am in the Middle East or Africa, I can go to a pharmacy and buy antibiotics without a prescription. And though it may seem hard to believe, I have a better track record of diagnosing illnesses than the doctors I've seen. One silly doctor thought I had a migraine, when it was a respiratory illness from all the dust.

Anyway, after I was injured in an attack in Afghanistan, I sometimes needed pain pills in what is an ongoing recovery. Now, I am firmly convinced that I could never, ever become addicted to those pain pills. In the last several years, I have not taken more than one or two a MONTH, if even that. In fact, a British study showed that with terminally ill patients who were in pain, that if the opiate dose did not exceed what would put the patient in a state of euphoria, the patient would NOT become addicted.

In the USA, because of the idiotic "war on drugs," patients are chronically under-medicated for pain.

I look forward to the day when I will be 100%, and won't even think about needing a pain pill--or that famous "seven percent solution"!