He Won’t January 11, 2012March 26, 2017 NOAH’S EARTHWORM PROBLEM Bible meets biology in under three minutes – here – by Isabella Rossellini. WHAT IF OBAMA LOSES? He won’t, thanks to you (see below). But the new Washington Monthly devotes an entire issue to imagining the future if he did – here. Executive summary: If you liked the Bush years, you’ll love a rightwing House, Senate, White House, and Supreme Court. (If we fail to fund the massive effort required to register millions of new voters . . . and re-register millions of existing voters the Republicans are working systematically to disenfranchise . . . we won’t get the turn-out to hold the White House or to hold the Senate.) HE WON’T Pick the state you want to help win and see – roughly – what your contribution will pay for. Yes, it’s a little gimmicky; but the effort itself, and the outcome that hangs in the balance, are dead serious. See, for example: Not What You Would Expect Me To Say About Golden Retrievers.) PEACH FRESCA Mark Centuori: “I went to two Safeways today to find that peach Fresca, and is it ever very good! And a lovely bouquet as well. It’s been around since 2005?! I need to get out of the Grocery Outlet more.” Virginia Downs: “Fresca contains brominated vegetable oil, which is patented as a flame retardant and banned in food in Europe and Japan.” ☞ Great with jalapenos and fiery Mexican food. But thanks to Virginia – and a little Googling on the subject – I’ll not go overboard. Bill Spencer: “According to the diet drink review you linked to, diet Fresca Peach Citrus contains concentrated grapefruit juice. And according to this from the Mayo Clinic, grapefruit juice can cause an interaction with several common medications, possibly with serious consequences. Statins, for example, which many people take for high cholesterol, have a strong interaction. I’m not a medical professional (nor do I play one on TV), but I take medicines on the interaction list, and I do not eat grapefruit. I thought you might want to know.” ☞ Who can live without grapefruit? (Communists, that’s who.) I have to think a diet Fresca contains just a tiny nibble of grapefruit. Still, I eat a lot of grapefruit and will have to check this out. The second best medical advice of all time, I guess, is simply, “everything in moderation.” (The best medical advice of all time I read half a century ago in an early edition of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. It seems that a book was put up for auction promising “the secret to good health” and – for obvious reasons – bidders were not allowed to inspect its contents prior to bidding. Well, the bidding got spirited, according to Ripley – you have nothing if you don’t have your health – and the book, if memory serves, ultimately went for 1,000 pounds. For a book! In the Nineteenth Century! I can hardly believe it. And when the winning bidder grabbed his prize and opened it, he found all the pages blank save the first, on which was written, simply: “Keep your feet warm and your head cool and you shall” something or other on the order of “live a long and healthy life.” Words to live by when shopping for socks.)