[NOTE: Any resemblance to actual characters, locations, or events are intentional.]
Something's in the air around here, that's the only explanation.
Crazy things just keep happening. There are two dogs in the extended family, Jack and Betsy. Betsy's main habit is she chews on stones and loves to chase them if you will throw them for her. She is not exactly subtle about her desire; if you are sitting outside, she will keep bringing you stones and nudging you until you agree to throw them for her to retrieve.
If you tire of this game, she becomes more aggressive, standing on her hind legs and depositing a stone in your lap.
Jack has a different habit. He eats dirty socks. Normally this would not be much of an issue, because my son and daughter-in-law never leave their socks lying around their house, but these days their two-year-old daughter, Bettina, does so on a regular basis.
So this week, Jack ended up in the emergency room after eating seven socks.
It was one of those kinds of weeks. Another member of the tribe has recently taken to foraging in local parks, seeking edible plants. Why? It must be one of those pandemic things. Anyway this week she mistakenly ate what she assumed was a wild carrot.
In fact it was hemlock, the poison made famous at Socrates' trial. Once she discovered her error she called Poison Control; they said to get herself to the E.R.
Apparently the problem with hemlock is it can take hours to have its way with you, so it's best to make sure you really ingested the stuff, from a time-management perspective. So my son-in-law gallantly went to the park where she had procured the hemlock in order to gather some specimens for the E.R. doctors.
He communicated with the E.R. via Zoom on his cellphone, and his first attempt at a specimen yielded a poison but not the right one. This was poison oak.
Eventually, however, he found a large cluster of hemlock, cut it and put it in a plastic bag he had brought along for that very purpose.
As he exited the park, he passed two park workers who didn't say anything, but when he reached his car, he decided to go back and ask them if what he'd picked was indeed hemlock.
They confirmed that it was and added, "We wondered what you were doing with a bag of poison." Apparently their curiosity wasn't great enough to require any action.
A bit flustered, he said: "My relative eats this stuff," as if that were an adequate explanation. (English is his second language; he's fluent but sometimes he'll make a tiny error in tense or pronunciation.)
The park workers seemed satisfied and he went on his merry way.
The good news is that after 24 hours or so of observation, the hemlock-eater seemed pretty much the same as ever, so everyone could relax and go back to the general state of chaos prevailing around here.
Meanwhile, a 7-year-old boy in the neighborhood expressed his opinion on the affair. "Yesterday, she tried to convince me to eat some wild radishes at the park. I knew then she'd probably end up poisoned."
That would normally be the last word on the matter but I must note that near the end of his life the great I.F. Stone chose to re-investigate the trial of Socrates and the whole hemlock business.
Meanwhiale, an unexploded cannon ball from the Civil War was located in Maryland and scientists believe the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden may have been a melon, not an apple.
If true, the reputation of apples has been slandered since time immemorial.
The rest of the news, alas, is far more boring:
* White House, private firms developing plans for ‘vaccine passports’ -- The effort has gained momentum with a growing number of companies saying they will require proof of vaccination before opening again. (WaPo)
* Covid-19 Shots for Children Hold Key to Herd Immunity -- Health experts warn that vaccinations probably won’t be ready for use in younger children until early 2022. (WSJ)
* Draft of WHO-China report obtained by AP says the coronavirus likely spread from animals to humans, lab leak unlikely. (AP)
* Under Biden, Democrats Are Poised to Raise Taxes on Business and the Rich (NYT)
* What Fauci, Walensky and other experts can’t wait to do: Go out to eat, visit the dentist, host big family holidays (WaPo)
* The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation has incorporated a for-profit subsidiary, Wikimedia LLC in order to make money from Big Tech. (Wikipedia)
* Ship blocking Suez Canal moves slightly, unclear when it will refloat (Reuters)
* Giant vessel now afloat (Bloomberg/Twitter)
* Shipping experts warned a resumption of traffic through the Suez Canal could still be days, if not weeks, away (WSJ)
Biden to unveil major new spending plans as Democrats eye bigger role for government (WaPo)
* Paris doctors warn of catastrophic overload of virus cases (AP)
* Did COVID-19 stress, uncertainty stall anti-smoking push? (AP)
* We can’t prevent tomorrow’s catastrophes unless we imagine them today (WaPo)
* Libraries Are Key Tools For People Getting Out Of Prison, Even During A Pandemic (NPR)
* Under Biden, Diplomacy Is an Attractive Career Again (NYT)
* Bomb squad technicians have safely disposed of a Civil War-era ordnance found in Frederick County, Maryland. (CNN)
* How Native Americans were vaccinated against smallpox, then pushed off their land (WaPo)
* Top-seeded Michigan (23-4) is in the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament after beating Florida State, 76-58. (CBS)
* Was the 'forbidden fruit' in the Garden of Eden really an apple? (LiveScience)
* Dog Feels Like He Always Has To Be ‘On’ Around Family (The Onion)
***
The trial of Socrates (399 BC)[1] was held to determine the philosopher’s guilt of two charges: asebeia (impiety) against the pantheon of Athens, and corruption of the youth of the city-state; the accusers cited two impious acts by Socrates: "failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges" and "introducing new deities".
The death sentence of Socrates was the legal consequence of asking politico-philosophic questions of his students, which resulted in the two accusations of moral corruption and impiety. At trial, the majority of the dikasts(male-citizen jurors chosen by lot) voted to convict him of the two charges; then, consistent with common legal practice voted to determine his punishment and agreed to a sentence of death to be executed by Socrates’s drinking a poisonous beverage of hemlock. -- Wikipedia
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