Keep in mind

 

Hayter for March 10, 2024

“Things worth keeping in mind”

          If you will, pretend you remember last week’s article about how our brains tend to hold onto too many thoughts from yesteryear. You know, like “a long, long, long time ago when that music used to make me smile.” That’s from “American Pie” by Don McLean.

          This week I shall impress you with my first attempt to clear out my current mental storage facility to make room for more pertinent info. If all goes well, I will soon forget about Don McLean’s “American Pie”.  

Toward that end, I thought we’d start with learning some facts about plankton.  --- No! Get back here. We’re in this together!

          Three days ago I read that 80% of all the oxygen on this planet is created by plankton. That doesn’t mean that our atmosphere is made up of 80 percent oxygen. Only 21 percent of our atmosphere contains oxygen.

I had to take biology in high school and college where I learned the whole plankton, photosynthesis process. I remembered it just long enough to pass each of my biography courses. Unfortunately, my brain decided that lyrics to Bob Dylan songs like “Once upon a time, you looked so fine, you threw the bums a dime, in your prime, didn’t yooou”, were much more important than the process of photosynthesis.  

A few of you know that 78 percent of our atmosphere is made up of nitrogen. If I did my math right, 99 percent of all our air is made up of only two gases. The one percent left contains a bunch of other stuff. The third most prevalent gas is the one we use in light bulbs and our double-pane windows - argon. Then there’s helium, hydrogen, methane, water vapor, and about a dozen other gases, one of which is Krypton. When solidified it turns into Kryptonite and becomes the only substance that can kill Superman. That’s why it’s probably against the law to mess with the stuff.

To further my study of the more pertinent I learned that women have a higher tolerance for pain than men. I didn’t know that. However, I do know that on average men don’t scream as loud as women.

Moving right along, when I was a child, I wish I had known that the constant chewing of ice is a sign of iron deficiency. Likely even in cats. My mom munched on ice while ironing, watching TV, or playing hide-'n-seek. Only a few of us will remember the game. – The important thing is that if you have an ice fetish you need to start taking iron tablets. Or eat a lot of black-eyed peas and lima beans. Lima beans may take a while to get used to.

One thing that might help save your life or that of another is to chew on aspirin when you fear a heart attack. The aspirin will take longer to get to your heart than if swallowed with a glass of water. The only problem I have with that is how long it will take me to locate aspirin around this house. I don’t know the last time we bought any Bayer.

I refuse to share my knowledge about all of the minuscule creatures that are crawling over your body right now. Finding out about the near-invisible mites, microbes, and worm-like creatures that are crawling all over us, could make you freak your freak. Jill used to say that she was going to freak her freak. She never did though. Let’s hope she doesn’t read this.

Speaking of voting, I didn’t realize that if you’re still in line to vote when the time comes to close the polls. you will still get to vote; even if you’re at the end of a line that’s wrapped around the building. If you have to get out of line to find a restroom, I don’t know if they’ll let you back in line or not.

I decided to share that information as a way of transitioning into November's Presidential election. --  No, stay with me! I am merely asking you that before voting, you become more familiar with the U.S. Constitution. It has lasted longer than any other Constitution in the world. The reason being -- IT WORKS!

In this election year, we need to pay close attention to the numerous comments made by both Presidential candidates. You may approve of your candidate's proposals, yet, the ideas may go against the Constitution itself. So, please read a simple interpretation of the Constitution so you’ll know if the candidate’s promises are legal.

There is an online site titled “The Constitution Explained”. You can open Google, Firefox, or whatever else is out there, and key in the above title, and it will send you where you wanna go.  If it’s still over your head, key in “The U.S. Constitution for Dummies Cheat Sheet.” It is also helpful in understanding what our founding fathers agreed to. I have learned a bunch from Dummy Sites.

Keep in mind that Congress makes the laws, the President enforces the laws, and the Supreme Court determines whether or not a particular action abides by the rules protected by our Constitution. So many men and women have given their lives to maintain the powers granted each of us by our Constitution. I was never in the military, but I have often heard that soldiers fight more for one another than for their country, yet their sacrifice has continued to give us each promises, some of which were established almost two and half centuries ago.                   

I am sure many of you were not anticipating a lesson on the Constitution when you started reading. Neither did I. However, I do understand there is nothing in the Constitution to guarantee my job as a newspaper columnist. Our founding fathers never had that in mind. Rightly so, I might add.

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