These Times

Random thoughts for a day in October

Kirk Ericson | Oct 03, 20240

We are not necessarily born to our people.

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Friend of column Arthur Rohlik of Shelton shared a wonderful example of an English language oddity that popped up during a recent conversation: The words “extra ordinary” are an antonym of “extraordinary.”

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You often hear about people dying while doing something stupid. The Darwin Awards website is dedicated to such stories. But you can’t find a website dedicated to people dying while doing something smart. Here’s a possible example of such a thing: Let’s say a theoretical physicist is standing on a stool at a tall blackboard, calculating a formula designed to exploit the lack of local reality for particles to access long-distance communication. And she falls off the stool and breaks her neck.

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The maximum output of a horse at any one time is 15 horsepower, according to energyeducation.ca, a website run by scientists at the University of Calgary. I always figured it was one horse, one horsepower.

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I was at a restaurant last weekend for a family get-together when one of my sisters-in-law sprinkled pepper on her french fries. I’d never seen nor heard of that. And you know what? It does add a boost to the fries.

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Do you know people who consistently and abruptly switch topics during a conversation, without a considerate segue, to matters of their own self-interest? These people, let’s call them Abrupt Conversation Switchers, are irritating, and I know this because I’m working on not being one of them.

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I had this thought last week: “Geez. I’m behind on my crosswords.”

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I learned of a new human disorder: “Emotional dysregulation.” It’s defined by webmd.com as “a term used to describe an emotional response that is poorly regulated and does not fall within the traditionally accepted range of emotional reaction.” “Emotional dysregulation” seems a condition all humans have, by varying degrees, except for maybe Fred Rogers of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

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In 2016, some of my favorite performers died, including Prince, David Bowie, Muhammad Ali and Garry Shandling. The musician George Michael, formerly of the 1980s pop group Wham!, also died in 2016. That same year, I was talking to a friend about which of those deaths saddened him the most and he immediately said, “George Michael,” which made me recalculate our relationship.

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How long did it take after scientists discovered the existence of germs for germaphobes to emerge?

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The presence of the antidepressant Prozac in waterways is changing the behavior of fish, according to a study out of Australia that was reported by the Guardian newspaper. Interestingly, a changed behavior not found in the fish was them becoming happier.

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Karen, the reader-greeter at the Journal’s front desk, recently told me she didn’t give “a tinker’s toot” about something. I had never heard that phrase. “Tinker’s damn,” yes, but not “tinker’s toot.” Karen said she got the saying from her parents.

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About a certain former president saying that Haitians living in Springfield, Ohio, were “eating the dogs”: For argument’s sake, let’s say one Haitian in Springfield really did kill and eat someone’s pet dog. But just because one Haitian ate one pet dog doesn’t mean a lot of Haitians in Springfield were eating a lot of pets, which seemed to be some people’s take on this matter. Applying one person’s act to define an entire group is a hazardous way to craft one’s view of the world. Just imagine if the white community was subjected to the same standard of grouping that the Haitians of Springfield were. You might have Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Harvey Weinstein, Ted Bundy, Stephen Paddock, Bernie Madoff, Henry Kissinger, John Wayne Gacy and Adam Lanza serving as representatives of everyone in the white, male, native-born community.