Eat, Bug, Bother...

     One has to ask, what on Earth do those title words have in common?  Turns out that only 2% of the world's population is considered "smart" enough to join Mensa by passing their qualifying test (sample question to start you out: what does "mensa" even mean?).  But anyone can join (for a fee).  Instead of AI consider it AI-Q.  But how many of us really know our IQ?  As with age, it may be just a number, something assigned to you by a series of tests or whatever, but something assigned to you by someone or something else.  No matter, the question of "smarts" can only be answered by yourself.  And there are many ways to be smart.  Take street smarts, a field which I would fare poorly at.  Some people simply have it, an ability to adapt quickly to a situation, a quick comeback or an immediate reaction; such people seem to have a different way of looking at things, a common sense and one that comes without panic or hesitation.  It just happens naturally.  But not for me.  Once an unexpected situation ends, perhaps an insulting confrontation or one which causes me to back down, my head only later comes up with numerous "this is what I should/could have done" scenarios.  And it continues to do that for awhile as if pleased with how I "would" have handled it if given another chance.  This doesn't happen to those with street smarts.  There is only a reaction, right or wrong, and the problem or confrontation is over, done and dealt with and often not thought about again.  I think on one end, gangs and patriarchs and bullies with low self-esteem work this way, a burst of dopamine power or language (or bullets) and suffer the consequences later.  But there are others who simply and quickly think such things through in an effort to de-escalate a situation, who react with precision and authority in an effort to avoid increasing the tension...and it is those I would label as having true street "smarts," not the bullies.  Long ago my martial arts friend taught me this (full disclosure, I know zero martial arts): in a dream where an intruder with a gun was in my home, I hid behind the door in a room, thinking that if he entered the room I could grab him by the hair, crack his arm against the door Jason Bourne style, and successfully grab the gun and pin him down.  I had it all thought out.  He looked at me with a puzzled look.  That was the problem, he told me...I was thinking.  What if the burglar was wearing a wig or a mask, he asked.  What if his gun was in his opposite hand?  What if he expected you to be behind the door and simply pushed it against you?  I hadn't thought of any of those possibilities.  Street smarts...

AI image: Adobe Stock

     So back to Mensa and that smart 2% of the population (which until recently, was a higher percentage than the number of Epstein files the DOJ promised to release).  Just how did they think?  And did they really think differently or did they just have an amazing ability to memorize things (ala Ken Jennings)?  There was only one way to find out and that was to read the Brilliant Bathroom Reader.  Wait, what??  As it turns out, I am always tempted by any book that is meant to be read in the peace and quiet of a bathroom* (it's a male thing); but really, such a book coming from the folks at Mensa?  Yes, Mensa put together a book meant to be read in a bathroom!  What on earth could this top 2% of smart folk be packing into a book destined for the sanctity of a bathroom?  And as expected, it was filled with such trivia as pointing out that the top of Mt. Everest contained sedimentary rocks that were once on the floor of an ancient ocean.  Also included were the usual celeb stuff such as Anderson Cooper being the son of the late fashion designer, Gloria Vanderbilt; and that Robert Allen Zimmerman considered the names Elston Gunnn (yes, 3 n's), Dedham Porter, Robert Miilkwood Thomas, Boo Wilbury, Jack Frost, and Blind Boy Grunt before settling on the name of Bob Dylan.  That sort of thing.  It also dealt with sports in general (Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball in 1947, but the Boston Red Sox wouldn't allow any black or Latino players on their roster until 1959, becoming the last team to do so), animals (armadillos are the only nonhuman animals that can spread leprosy), food (the peach and nectarine are nearly identical genetically -- if the dominant gene takes over it's a peach; if the recessive gene takes control it becomes a nectarine; and that 85% of the world's plant life lives in the ocean), Presidents (the Monroe Doctrine wouldn't be so named until 25 years after Monroe's death; and that Abe Lincoln was 6' 5" tall), music (Leo Fender, creator of the famous Fender electric guitar, couldn't play guitar; neither could Laurens Hammon play the famous organ he created); numbers (the numbers on a roulette wheel add up to 666), and even topics such as Google being a misspelling of googol, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeros -- the founders of Google wanted the name to represent their large search engines, so much so that they named their corporate headquarters Googolplex; and Mensa did ask the age-old question of whether Microsoft's Bing search engine actually stood for Because It's Not Google?).  There were other topics and trivia, those usually featured in quiz shows and games (one of my faves: the Denmark Strait cataract, an underwater waterfall at 11,499 feet, is nearly 4 times higher than the highest waterfall on land which is Angel Falls in Trumpezuela).  But while reading that batch of 5000 tidbits was fine for a little while, what stood out for me were pretty much just two things: calendars and cockroaches.  Ahem, let me explain...

     To begin, we all sort of knew that Romans are credited with the standard calendar form we use today, and that the early months through August were named for their emperors, gods, or events (Februalia: the Roman god of purification, Mars: the god of war, Maiesta: the goddess of honor and reverence, Juno: the queen of the gods).  But while July was named for Julius Caesar (born in that month), and August for Augustus, another emperor, the original names for the months were "quintillis" and "sextilis."  Then came the months septem, octo, novem, and decem.  If you're beginning to pick up numbers here (think octagon or decimal), you're likely also wondering why were July and August originally the fifth and sixth months instead of the seventh and eighth --octo-- months, as we now know them?  Back then, early Romans felt that March began the new year (basically Spring), which seems logical since winter has ended and spring begins anew; and indeed after the fall of the Roman Empire, some of those old rules remained as reflected in the Iranian calendar, or in government and corporate calendars that utilize a "fiscal year."  But it was Pope Gregory XIII (the Gregorian calendar is pretty much what we see today) who took the additional 2 months Julius Caesar tacked onto the previous 10-month Roman calendar, and changed the start of the new year to January.  Confusing history?  I'll say...

American cockroach: Yard Life

     And cockroaches?  Who doesn't remember their first encounter with those large, seemingly unstompable creatures that ran out of dark corners with antennae waving like ray guns that could zap you if you didn't scatter (they can squeeze their bodies as flat as the thickness of a dime, if needed to get under tight spaces).  As a child, I still remember these harmless but scary-looking crawlies scampering out from under the open stairwell in the closet (the fear of cockroaches is called katsaridaphobia).  But leave it to Mensa to set me straight, so said because I would not have otherwise considered looking deeper into the biology of cockroaches if not for them.  Would you?  Turns out, they are quite fascinating.  For one thing, cockroaches (la cucaracha) have 2 brains, one in their abdomen, both of which can learn independently; cockroaches have no lungs so can go for hours without oxygen; and modern cockroaches can also go 45 days without food.  They can also survive 10x the level of radiation that would kill a human (unless it's Keith Richards, to quote one comedian).  If humans ran as fast as cockroaches we'd be running nearly 210 mph (sprinter Usain Bolt barely reached 24 mph in his record-breaking sprint).  When a cockroach touches a human it quickly runs away to clean itself.  Their blood is clear, and some cockroach Fossils predate dinosaurs by 150 million years.  One species of cockroach produces milk for its young, a milk so perfectly balanced with protein, carbs, fat and all 9 amino acids that scientists consider it a "superfood" for humans.  And it is here that I digress...

     That "superfood" idea caused me to look in to other mammals, including humans, and to the elements of breast milk in general.  Surprisingly (to me, at least), a mother's milk is its own superfood.  Here are just a few edited notes from John Hopkins Medicine: Studies of breastfed babies have found that they do better on intelligence tests when they grow older -- A breastfed baby's eyes also work better...mostly because of certain types of fat in breastmilk -- Breastfed babies have far fewer digestive, lung, and ear infections --  they have a lower risk for SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), a lower risk of getting asthma and skin problems related to allergies, a lower risk of developing leukemia, and have less diarrhea.  Along with a lowered chance of getting some digestive conditions, they have fewer long-term health problems as they grow up including diabetes and obesity.  The article goes on to note that the benefits are not for the babies alone, but also added this for new mothers: If you breastfeed, you are more likely to lose the weight you gained during pregnancy.  You are also less likely to get breast and ovarian cancer and diabetes later in life.  Who knew?  So much for my Mensa exam...

    What to make of all this?  Consider Hans Rosling who co-founded GapFinder in an effort to check our "intelligence" on ordinary issues: poverty, population, income, climate, natural disasters, education, and more.  In his 2018 book, Factfulness, he noted that those of us in the US answered only 5% of the questions correctly, a bit lower than the rest of the world, a percentage that he notes, chimpanzees picking randomly would top (sample question: In all low-income countries across the world today, how many girls finish primary school?  20%.  40%.  60%...if you chose the last figure, you'd be correct).  As Rosling wrote: Perhaps you think that better-educated people would do better?  Or people who are more interested in issues?  I certainly thought that once, but I was wrong.  I have tested audiences from all around the world and from all walks of life: medical students, teachers, university lecturers, eminent scientists, investment bankers, executives in multinational companies, journalists, activists, and even senior political decision makers.  These are highly educated people who take an interest in the world.  But most of them --a stunning majority of them-- get most of the answers wrong.  Some of these groups even score worse than the general public; some of the most appalling results came from a group of Nobel laureates and medical researchers.  It is not a question of intelligence.  Everyone seems to get the world devastatingly wrong.  Not only devastatingly, but systematically wrong.  But which I mean that these test results are not random.  They are worse than random: they are worse than the results I would get if the people answering my questions had no knowledge at all... So how could policy makers and politicians solve global problems if they were operating on the wrong facts?  How could business people make sensible decisions for their organizations if their worldview were upside down?  And how could each person going about their life know which issues they should be stressed and worried about?

The poisonous Trumpapillar.  Photo: Jeff Cremer

     The co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (and now the Secretary of Education, although in interviews she has often confused AI with A1, the steak sauce), has now ruled that under the new rules by Trump, nursing is now not considered a professional degree and is thus only eligible for the lower student loan of $20,500.  On the other hand, a chiropractic or theology degree is considered a "professional" occupation and thus both are eligible for the higher $50,000 loan under Trump's new tax law for 2026.  Hmm, it's enough to make your blood boil.  Oh wait, that's caused by the new "energy" weapon under development (and allegedly used by Special Forces when capturing Maduro in Venezuela).  Wait what??  Just watch out for the Trumpapillar, the nicknamed flannel moth caterpillar with bright orange hair found in the Amazon.  One touch on those poisonous hairs and it will more than likely will prove fatal, wrote Mensa, causing WIRED to write: Never touch anything that looks like Donald Trump's hair.   But as long as we're back on the subject of bugs (added Mensa: All bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs), check out the chigger-like tick called the lone star tick which is also proving fatal, and spreading across the US.  Their bite may make all of us itch; but if you are one of those who also react to its meat-allergy alpha-gal syndrome, it can cause anaphylaxis and then, adios.  In a 2023 survey by the CDC, 42% of doctors had never heard of the alpha-gel condition or the reaction to the bug bite.  BTW, caterpillars can eat 25,000 times their weight...even the Trumpapillar (no comment on the human version in the White House).  And then there's Andrew Taake, that still-convicted sex offender who bear-sprayed and attacked a Capitol police officer "with a ship-like weapon" during the January 6th riots (he was sentenced to 6 years in federal prison but pardoned by Trump)?  He's now suing the government for $2.5 million.  How does one make sense of this topsy-turvy world of today?  To quote a portion of Dante's Inferno: We have all made mistakes but divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on different scales.  Better the occasional faults of a party living in the spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a party frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

     Getting back to Mensa (which the organization defines as meaning "table"), the connection of those words in the title is that by adding an "ing" to the end of each word, you have phrases of being concerned, as in what's bugging, eating, or bothering you?  Well here's one thing that's bothering me, what the heck is happening in Minnesota?  Wrote The Independent on the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by ICE (their 2nd fatal shooting of a US citizen in Minnesota in as many weeks): ...Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti attacked officers, and U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said he [Pretti] wanted to “massacre law enforcement.”...Stephen Miller called Pretti “a would-be assassin."   37-year old Alex Pretti was a US citizen and an intensive care nurse at the VA hospital, one who was filming ICE and stepped in when he saw ICE push a woman to the ground.  He had one hand up in the air and the other holding his phone when between 5 and 7 bulky ICE members tackled him to the ground, found a licensed and permitted gun in his back belt, removed the gun and had him pinned on the ground, then shot him 10 times in the back in a matter of seconds.  The DOJ, in an unprecedented move, has blocked any outside investigation and will have Homeland Security investigate itself, a first.  Explained one site: The legal argument appears to be that because the shooting involved a federal officer performing federal duties, it’s exclusively federal jurisdiction.  But this interpretation conflicts with longstanding Supreme Court precedent.  States have concurrent jurisdiction over crimes committed within their territory, even by federal officers.  The Supremacy Clause provides immunity only if officers can demonstrate their actions were “necessary and proper” to carrying out federal duties—a determination that requires case-by-case assessment, not blanket exemption.  Replied the relatives of Pretti in a written statement: “The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting.  Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs.  He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed.  Please get the truth out about our son.”  Perhaps we should all take to heart the words of Albert Einstein: Force always attracts men of low morality. 

     As most readers are aware, the irony is that despite Trump and the GOP members of Congress campaigning on state's rights and government overreach, Trump continues to block any state or other investigation into either fatality.  Giving someone a badge, a mask, a gun, and (so far) immunity from prosecution, one has to wonder if this near-octogenarian in Washington is himself street smart?  With 10 people shot since January (and 4 killed) by ICE or CBP, are you --as a white, brown, yellow, red or black US citizen feeling safer?   Even conservative GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski, told a group in Alaska back in April: We are all afraid...retaliation is real.  Garrison Keillor may have summed it up best when he once described this as "wild menopausal men who equate dissent with treason."  But have the actions of a few (including those in Washington who seemingly and willingly contradict video footage) sullied the overall job and actions of the many?  A piece in The New Yorker mentioned that Congressional members  receive about 10,000 threats a year (Congress approved monies for its own private protection).  Even the late multi-millionaire Charlie Kirk had his own security detail.  So what to do with what US citizens are being asked to accept as "normal," these actions taken by federal enforcement folk being sent only to those blue states that Trump doesn't care for, even if it kills us in more ways than one?   In a time of fear, wrote Keillor in his book way back in 2004: You can appoint the worse bullet-brained judges to the courts, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate the federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich, and your approval numbers will stay high...What a mean-spirited betrayal of the common life of this country and our people. 

    If that sounds a bit extreme, one has to ask...isn't what is happening extreme?  Who would have thought that after a fatal shooting by an "enforcement" officer, that almost no names or badge numbers would be released (it was also in Minnesota nearly 5 years ago where police officer Derek Chauvin admitted to using excessive force when he choked to death George Floyd; Chauvin was sentenced to 22.5 years in federal prison but has sought a pardon from Trump).  Thanks to the GOP-led Congress, ICE is now the most heavily-funded law enforcement agency, and is now using military surveillance technology (often in defiance of court orders not to, according to The Washington Post) to monitor people, and to decrypt any passwords, contacts, or deleted messages on their phones or computers...including those of US citizens!  As the article noted: ...administration officials have asserted the authority to use all available tools to monitor and investigate anti-ICE protester networks, including U.S. citizens.  David Brooks summed up his final column with this for the NY Times (he's leaving after 22 years there): The post-Cold War world has been a disappointment.  The Iraq war shattered America’s confidence in its own power.  The financial crisis shattered Americans’ faith that capitalism when left alone would produce broad and stable prosperity.  The internet did not usher in an era of deep connection but rather an era of growing depression, enmity and loneliness.  Collapsing levels of social trust revealed a comprehensive loss of faith in our neighbors.  The rise of China and everything about Donald Trump shattered our serene assumptions about America’s role in the world.  We have become a sadder, meaner and more pessimistic country.  So maybe all this pent-up frustration has been building up to a point where US citizens now fear that they might also be shot and killed by patrolling federal troops.  But if we've reached that point, one has to ask where is our Congress?  Or our courts?  Or our citizens? (recent polls still show that 41% of the population continue to feel that all that has happened was both necessary and normal; and according to the recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 63% of Republicans continue to agree with the cuts to health care subsidies).   It all makes me think of the words of the actress Shirley Maclaine: Someday perhaps change will occur when times are ready for it instead of always when it is too late.

Stones of Stenness.  Photo: Jim Richardson/New Yorker

     Okay, I'm stepping off of my high horse now (phew, and apologies), since it is far too easy to lay blame.  Time to step outside for a breath of fresh air, even if our city recently had --again-- the worst air in the nation.  Stepping outside, even for a quick pause, is just one of the suggestions to help pull yourself back from some of these highly emotional issues and to possibly help tone things down a bit.  Such an approach came from psychologist Holli-Anne Passmore who proffered that just noticing nature (her actual program is called Noticing Nature Intervention) was something concurrent with the thoughts of the late biologist, E. O. Wilson who theorized that we tend to feel more whole in nature because it partially triggers our Neanderthal-like ancestry, taking us back to a time when we had to notice nature if only to learn when the seasons were ready to change and when the time was coming to plant or to harvest.  Early cultures built pillars of stone and monuments to perfectly align with the equinox, from the pyramids to ancient temples, from Stonehenge to Machu Picchu.  Passmore wrote that just by taking the time to listen to a bird singing in a tree or to notice a bright star in the night sky, those in her study were 77% "more likely to report above-average levels of elevation."  The author writing about Passmore's study in The Washington Post noted that one reader had commented: "The country is burning and you continue to navel gaze."  But the author wrote back: ...I'm asking you to gaze at birds and sunsets --what you do with your navel is your business-- because there's so much anger and despair right now.  It can paralyze us.  We need to build up our stores of hope because hope motivates us to make things better.

     The picture below is that of people watching another side of nature, that of Kilauea erupting on the Big Island of Hawaii.  In my early 20s I remember having the chance to see this, then a few years later having my aunt take me hiking across the crater itself (park rangers decide which areas are safe, if any); I was still in my 20s but she wanted me to feel and smell the sulfuric steam that emerged from the lava cracks, this natural sauna from the Earth still sizzling with meeting the nearby ocean, the ferns undaunted in surging through those same cracks.  It was primitive life, an up close look and one that so impressed me that I tried to hike the crater almost annually, even having my wife join me as part of our "honeymoon."  Even now I admit that I sensed something more there, something almost peaceful in being among the raw house-sized chunks of ʻaʻā lava upturned and still cooling, and the smoother pāhoehoe lava that wrapped around your foot path like a frozen river (many areas are strictly marked with cairns, piles of loose lava stones guiding you along this shifting pathway).  Growing up as a child on a neighboring island, I would occasionally hear stories about Pele, the Hawaiian goddess who legend says created all of these islands.  There were even reports of people seeing her walking along the back roads hitchhiking, sometimes as an old woman, sometimes as a beautiful young lady.  Below in the crater, mixed among it's flows and overflows sat almost-petrified footprints of ancient Hawaiians who had crossed the nearby Ka'u Desert (although only a few miles from the main Halemaumau crater, I have never ventured to the remote area).  But along with those tales of an angry and vengeful goddess, there were also many tales of appeasement, of people today still trying to keep in Pele's good graces by throwing bottles of gin into remote parts of the crater (again, I've never noticed any of this in all of my hikes, but such stories are well known).  As I walked along the edges of the trail that connects Halemaumau with Kilauea Iki, I myself would feel the pull of sacrificing myself to Pele, as if understanding for a moment that ancient peoples could believe so strongly in a created diety that they would give up everything, even their lives.  There was no fear, no depression, but only a feeling of calm at that point.  Which is when a piece in Orion appeared that told of elves and other ancient spirits still inhabiting Iceland.  Wrote the author of the piece: "Just open up," urges a grandmother, for whom "sometimes the veil lifts."  Her grandson drives me to an intersection, telling me how he saw "luminous beings" when he was young, until his father died and he needed to take the reins at home.  "I think you can't see them if you're too focused on something." ...There have always been mystical mediators of the seen and unseen, human and more than human, here and beyond.  Not just Icelandic huldufólk but patupaiarehe in Aotearoa's misty forests.  Cree memgwesi between rapids and rocks, Japanese kami where awe is felt in nature, shape-shifting Arabic jinn.  Maybe it's time to once again acknowledge that ours is not the only world.  And to think, all one has to do is look outside...the window, the politics, ourselves.  What really matters in the end, or even now?  Looking inward may be the key to looking outward, for as the Zen saying asks, how can you see what is outside if you can't see what is inside?  As the author of the Iceland piece in Orion wrote: Maybe the elves can help...

Kilauea erupting May 2025.  Photo: Janice Wei/National Parks 

*Lest you think I'm alone in this feeling, consider that there is an annual National Bathroom Reading Week.  As columnist Robin Garrison Leach noted, 40% of Americans read in the bathroom.  And whether you're a statistician or not, the average person will spend 7 years of his or her life in the bathroom.  YEARS!  So from the Bathroom Sports Quote Book, here are two of my faves: 1) from former All-Star baseball player Richie Allen, as he neared the end of his career: Your body is just like a bar of soap.  It gradually wears down from repeated use.  From tennis great Jimmy Connors: The problem is that when you get it, you're too damn old to do anything about it.  And finally this from baseball legend Mookie Wilson on why he decided to get married in a baseball stadium: My wife wanted a big diamond.  And before you feel that this was all trivia, might I recommend a more serious book (of sorts), Help Your Kids With Geography.  So those rocks: remember igneous (magma -- it becomes lava only after it emerges from the ground), metamorphic and sedimentary, the basics (I got 2 out of 3, but then I'm older).  If that lava cools quickly enough to not produce crystals, it becomes obsidian.  Give it a few weeks to cool and crystals help turn that lava into rhyolite.  Keep it trapped underground to cool, say for thousands of years, and those crystals continue to grow larger, harden, and become granite.  Want more igneous terms?  Try batholith, sill, dike or chamber...and remember that if those igneous rocks have a lot of iron and magnesium, they're called "basic" rocks (vs. acid), sort of like us humans.  Got that?  Dare I tell you that all that comes from only 2 pages of that book for "kids?"  Now, think about tsunamis...