No lab-grown meat in Florida

It’s not yet available for consumers, but if it is eventually commercially viable (no need to kill animals, better for the environment), you won’t be able to buy it in Florida.  DeSantis pushed and passed a law to make it illegal to buy lab-grown meat.

This is typical Republican behavior.  Favor free enterprise and limited government, but then decide you will tell people what they can eat.  I’m surprised they haven’t gone after plant-based milk.  About 15% of “milk” sold in the U.S. is now plant-based.  

My take on this is that if people want to drink plant-based milk and eat lab-grown meat, it is their choice.  But I’m a guy who believes in free enterprise and resents big government making my food choices.

Super-Ager

In a recent study of “super-agers,” scientists found out that slightly fewer than 10% of old people have the memory abilities of people 20 to 30 years younger.  These super-agers had more volume in areas of the brain important for memory, especially in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, whatever they are.  

There was little difference between the super-agers and regular old people in terms of diet, exercise, amount of sleep, professional backgrounds, or alcohol consumption.  

The only thing that seemed to set them apart was that they had strong social relationships.  I’m thinking it may be more a matter of will power.  So I’ve decided to be a super-ager.  Go ahead, ask me anything except what I did ten minutes ago.

See Dana G. Smith, “Peering Inside the Brains of “Super-Agers,” New York Times, (7 May 2024), p. D6. 

The Voting Rights Speech

Lyndon Johnson gave his speech on the Voting Rights Act in 1965.  In this time of division and hatred , it is good to be reminded of that speech.  Here is a portion:

There is no constitutional issue here.  The command of the Constitution is plain.  There is no moral issue.  It is wrong–deadly wrong–to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country.  There is no issue of states’ rights or national rights.  There is only the struggle for human rights....

This time, on this issue, there must be no delays or no hesitation or no compromise with our purpose....

But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over.  What happened in Selma is part of a far large movement which reaches in every section and state of America.  It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.

Their cause must be our cause too.  Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.

And–we–shall–overcome.  

I saw that speech on television with two fellow students in a rooming house at Penn State.  We cheered.  We had so much hope.

Protecting the right to vote

In Pennsylvania you may not hand out political material within ten feet of a polling place.  This is barely enforced; I’ve seen polling places where voters must run a gauntlet of partisan activists, sometimes loud and rude, accosting voters.  In Palmerton one of the polling places featured a man yelling at voters while holding the leash of a large and fierce-looking dog.  At the East Penn polling location a crowd of activists was almost blocking the door.  I think one of the reasons more Democrats are voting by mail is that they just don’t want to deal with obnoxious MAGA types acting like bullies.

The latest meeting of the Carbon County Democratic Executive Board passed a resolution asking our state representatives to introduce legislation extending the no solicitation zone to 50 feet.  People can still hold up signs and pass out literature, but they must be at least 50 feet from the front door.  Since some states have a 100 foot zone, 50 feet seems reasonable.  

If the legislature won’t extend the zone by November and you are accosted, remember you can use your outside voice.  And call the cops.  And register a complaint with election authorities.  It is illegal to interfere with voters. 

Poison ivy

Everyone who lives in the northeast learns the little rhyme, “Leaves be three, let it be.”  Poison ivy, which is increasing in potency, is a vine with clusters of three shiny leaves, and if you have ever encountered its effects, you become very wary.  

As a public service announcement, I will tell you that it doesn’t need to have leaves to to cause red swellings and incredible itching.  If you are cleaning up brush in the spring before the leaves appear, you can get it even if the vines have no leaves.  

The good news is that after a steroid shot and something called a Z-Pack of pills, it goes away.  Or at least I hope so.

Everybody counts or nobody counts

That’s the mantra of Detective Harry Bosch in the crime novels by Michael Connelly.  I thought about that when I read about El Fasher, the last city in Darfur in Sudan that is still controlled by the military.  The city is surrounded by the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that is brutal and already responsible for the deaths of thousands.

El Fasher currently has about 1.3 million people, including hundreds of thousands who fled there to escape the violence.  A U.S. envoy to the U.N. said the city was on the precipice of a massacre.

I have yet to hear of a campus protest about this.  I have yet to hear about this on MSNBC or CNN, although I have heard much about a rather meaningless trial in Manhattan.  In fact, I have only read one article about El Fasher, and that was three days ago on page A9 of the New York Times.  

I’ll admit I could have missed something.  Maybe Truth Social or Fox have been reporting on El Fasher.  Maybe there have been posts on Facebook or X.

The Enigma Girls

About a month ago I read a review of a book by Candace Fleming about the young women who helped break the German and Italian military codes during World War II.  They worked at Bletchley Park; the most famous of the code breakers was Alan Turing.  It sounded like a good book, so I asked the Palmerton Library to order it.  

Yesterday they told me it had arrived.  They also told me it was a “young adult” book, and did I want to read it anyway.  I hadn’t known that, but I thought why not.

I finished it last night.  I learned there were far more women than men working on the project, and a majority of the women were 20 and under.  They worked in difficult conditions with bad food and sketchy housing, they were forbidden to talk about their work until the 1980s, and they were instrumental in a number of important victories by allied forces.  An amazing story.