Earth Day Begets Universe Day: The Inevitable Embrace of Martians by American Politicans

I love the idea of each year on April 22 celebrating Earth Day promoting revitalization of our global environment. However, it does occur to me that when life on another planet is discovered, this will inevitably generate lots of political pressure to also celebrate a "Universe Day" once per year. And that, in turn, will burden many of us with yet another commitment to attend another major civic event---a figurative holding-of-hands ceremony with outer-spacers who are, in fact, quite invisible to us here on this planet.

"We should never ignore or neglect or fail in any way to adequately praise these noble and peace-loving inhabitants of other planets," as an elective official in the United States of America might someday declare during a Universe Day ceremony in Washington, D.C. "Those kindly extraterrestrial characters, as I like to call them, for they surely have exhibited remarkable character in building their own outer-space civilization, deserve the greatest of respect and appreciation on this special day of the year. To me, Universe Day is Alien Appreciation Day---and I'm not taking about illegal immigrants from Mexico, I can assure you!" (laughter from audience).

"Now, I realize that many of you are wondering why we even bother to honor these living and breathing contributors to the Universe who dwell so nobly on other planets. These inhuman inhabitants of the Universe don't vote in our USA elections and they don't pay taxes to our USA government, many of you are no doubt saying.

"Let me offer this for a response, and it is a response I offer with the greatest of humility. All of us human beings should feel honorbound to exhibit our own humanity toward the millions or billions of non-human --- and by non-human, I definitely am not implying 'sub-human' in any sense of that word (laughter from audience) --- inhabitors of other planets. We help to make our HUMAN race all the greater and more magnificent if we prove to other civilizations that we as enlightened homo sapiens do not exhibit any form of RACIAL arrogance toward these peacefully inhuman inhabitants of other planets. They may not be members of our own truly great HUMAN race, but they, like ourselves, are very honorable and fully legitimate members of this also-great race of all living and breathing inhabitants of our beloved Universe."

"Finally, let us all take this opportunity to express gratitude that these outer-spacers with great decency to them have chosen to coexist with us in a nobly peace-loving manner. These inhabitants of other planets are clearly not savages. Never once have any of those kindly outerspacers ever once attempted to invade this planet using military force of any type.

"It seems to me that preservation of Universal Peace is very dependent on there being good will by all inhabitors of each and every planet; and the very existence of Universal Peace today serves as convincing proof that something as remarkable as the Pax Romana from ancient history has in fact been forged for all of human and inhuman civilization on each and every planet of our entire Universe! Let us joyously celebrate this very special moment---not just in world history, but in the history of the entire galaxy and Universe!"

Your Civic Duty to Promote Greater Excellence in Our Nation's Economy

I believe that each and every American citizen has a civic responsibility to help promote greater excellence and healthfulness in all aspects of our nation's economy.

We can each do that in part through our role as consumers.

Those of us who maintain an online blog of our own can each write an online blog from time to time that publicizes and praises the consumer goods or services we have purchased that we believe to be excellent and salutary and beneficial.

To promote that type of proposed civic tradition by as many American citizens as possible, I would like to offer some product endorsements of my own. The following are products I purchase at my nearby H.E.B. supermarket in Austin, Texas, that I particularly enjoy:

--Low-fat frozen Yogurt from Breyer's that does not contain any high-fructose corn syrup as an ingredient. The Frozen Yogurt product from Breyer's that I like the best, and I have only tried two varieties of frozen yogurt from Breyer's so far, is the low-fat Caramel-flavored frozen yogurt featuring almonds as an ingredient. I purchased that particular product at a Wal-Mart store near Lakeline Mall in the Austin area, and I was very pleased with the flavor of that low-fat frozen yogurt from that Oakland, California-based company.
I am particularly delighted by the Breyer's frozen yogurt products I've tried because they offer a healthful frozen yogurt that tastes good enough for me to completely abstain from purchasing ice cream. Why purchase ice cream anymore, when I can purchase a "probiotic" frozen yogurt that is much better for my health, lower in saturated fat, and just as delicious as ice cream?

---Athenos-brand Spicy Three-Pepper Hummus from Churny Company, Inc., of Weyauwega, Wisconsin. Not only do I love spicy foods, but I particularly delight in hummus that is spicy and healthful. This product contains red peppers among its ingredients, and ingestion of red peppers is believed to help prevent cancer. I'm also delighted to note that this product contains no saturated fat, and only 50 calories per 27-gram serving. Chickpeas are among the "miracle" foods that are very beneficial to your health, and chickpeas are the cited leading ingredient in this commercial food product. This product also features olive oil as an ingredient, and many people of today assume that ingesting some olive oil on a year-round basis will help them to prevent heart disease. This healthful product has been officially endorsed by the "Smart Choices Program," as the product container clearly states.

----H.E.B. "Central Market"-brand "All Natural Bruschetta-Flavored Veggie Chips." I love the spicy tomatoey taste of this snack food, which is "made with real natural potatoes, tomatoes and basil," as the front of the package states. This snack food contains zero saturated fat, which is rare in a snack food item. Also, one serving of these veggie chips, or about 16 chips, contains 10 percent of my daily minimum requirements for iron. This product being sold at H.E.B. supermarkets in Austin, Texas, is distributed by H.E.B. Central Market in Austin. This product is particularly remarkable because I myself don't know of any potato chip brand (not even from the Plano-based Frito-Lay Inc., which offers dozens of potato-chip options) that offers as much of a spicy-tomatoey flavor as these veggie chips from H.E.B. supermarkets that are headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Perhaps it's the craving for the spicy tomato-centered cuisine of Southern Italy that motivates me to seek out veggie chips that satisfy my "spicy-tomato craving." It's not that I have ever visited Southern Italy; it's just that I feel sure I would have delighted in its spicy-tomatoey cuisine, had I won a contest in which first prize is an all-expenses-paid trip to Rome. I like to imagine the fish dishes of Southern Italy that submerge or marinade the fish in a spicy tomato sauce.

---Smart Balance-brand "Omega" vegetable oil, consisting of a "natural blend of canola, soy, and olive oils," as the display label on the front side of this product states. This product contains only 1.5 grams of saturated fat per 14-gram (one tablespoon) serving, and 120 calories per 14-gram serving. I have occasionally debated whether I should instead purchase pure canola oil, instead of canola oil blended with other healthful vegetable oils. However, it seems likely to me that a combination of canola, soy, and olive oils may well be as good for the health as canola oil by itself. I plan to do more research on this, but it seems to me plausible that the heavy consumption of soybean oil by Japanese people and the heavy consumption of olive oil by Italians, respectively, each play a role in the incidence of heart disease in those two nations being low. So a vegetable oil blend combining soybean oil and olive oil with canola oil has a lot of appeal to me.
This Smart Balance Omega vegetable oil blend product is distributed by GFA Brands, Inc., of Paramus, New Jersey.

----"Emmi"-brand Swiss Premium Lowfat Apricot Yogurt. What I love about this product is that it gives me an excuse for eating one of those miracle-food fruits, Apricots, in a product that tastes delicious. This yogurt product contains two grams of saturated fat per 170-gram (six-ounce) serving, with only 170 calories per 170-gram serving. This product, which I purchased at my nearby H.E.B. supermarket, was produced "for Emmi (USA) Inc.," which is itself apparently based in "Valley Cottage, NY (New York)." This product is apparently from a company headquartered in Switzerland, and I note this partly because the Swiss flag is displayed next to the brand name. However, I have not yet done any research on the Emmi company. This felicitous product is definitely grounds for yodeling, if only I knew how to yodel and if only there were mountains nearby.


---Welch's-brand "Blueberrry, Pomegranate, (and) Concord Grape" 100 percent juice. The front display label for this fat-free product from Welch's in Concord, Massachusetts, states that this beverage blend contains twice the antioxidant power of orange juice. This rich-tasting and healthful beverage product is surprisingly delicious, when every previous beverage blend I've purchased that contained pomegranate juice as an ingredient had an unpleasant aftertaste to it. "Must I suffer in order to enhance my health from ingesting pomegranate juice," I used to note to myself. Today, though, with help from this Welch's product, I have no such doubts about drinking a beverage featuring pomegranate juice as an ingredient. I am also very confident that this type of elegant beverage product will help to persuade many current wine drinkers to switch to an alcohol-free lifestyle that is more healthful for them---and much safer for them when they decide to get into a motor vehicle and drive it somewhere or anywhere.

---H.E.B.-brand "Sweet Potato Fries," featuring "Sliced, Battered Sweet Potatoes" from H.E.B. supermarkets of San Antonio, Texas. Sweet potatoes are among the "miracle foods" that are very good for the health. This particular food product from H.E.B. features "zero" grams of saturated fat per serving, and each serving fulfills 65 percent of one's daily Vitamin A requirements. I am baking my sweet potato fries in the oven, with myself pouring a bit of the Smart Balance-brand blend of canola, soy, and olive oils on the pan I use for baking those sweet potato fries. These sweet potato fries are tasty, and I never find myself wondering afterward whether these particular types of french fries were somehow junk food: the vitamin statistics on this sweet potato fries product are compellingly eloquent.

---Frozen 100 percent grape juice from Welch's of Concord, Massachusetts. During my youth, I disliked and dreaded the insipid taste of grape juice produced by adding water to Welch's frozen grape juice inside the kitchen of my childhood home in Texas. Today, though, the flavor of Welch's frozen grape juice is much better than it was in the 1960s and 1970s. I'm very hopeful, in fact, that as more and more American consumers give this frozen grape juice product a try, millions of wine drinkers in our country will "convert" to being grape-juice drinkers instead. And that, of course, is a nice tribute to Welch's and the Bay State.

--Silk-brand All Natural Chocolate Soymilk, Distributed by WhiteWave Foods of Broomfield, Colorado. This delicious chocolate-flavored soymilk makes it easy to drink soymilk as a beverage. This cholesterol-free product contains only 0.5 gram of saturated fat per 240 mL (1 cup) serving, and 3 total grams of fat per serving. This product also contains 350 mg of potassium per serving, and fulfills 10 percent of one's minimum daily Vitamin A requirements, 50 percent of one's minimum daily Vitamin B-12 requirements, 30 percent of one's minimum daily Vitamin D requirements, and 30 percent of one's minimum daily Riboflavin requirements.

---The Larabar all-natural snack bar or food bar, distributed by Small Planet Foods of Denver, Colorado, is not only delicious and very low in saturated fat, but also rich in vitamins and minerals. My favorites are the Larabar Ginger Snap food bar, the Larabar Cinnamon Roll food bar, and the Larabar Cherry Pie food bar.

---H.E.B.-brand "Rio Red" 100 percent Pasteurized Grapefruit Juice, by H.E.B. Supermarkets of San Antonio, Texas. This grapefruit juice from the refrigerated juices section of H.E.B. comes from Texas's own Rio Red Grapefruit, and is the most delicious juice being produced commercially in Texas that I myself am aware of. It is also the most delicious grapefruit juice from anywhere in the world that I myself can find at the supermarket. I'm reminded when I drink this Rio Red Grapefruit juice from Texas that I hope our Texas Legislature will find the wisdom to approve a resolution designating Rio Red Grapefruit Juice and Iced Tea, respectively, as our two official "State Beverages of Texas." I also hope that our Texas Legislature and State Government of Texas will assign higher priority than they have so far to helping to protect and strengthen the grapefruit-growing and grapefruit juice industry in Texas. At present, rapid urbanization and accompanying urban sprawl occurring in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas is significantly depleting the amount of cropland available for growing grapefruits in our Lone Star State. I have not obtained any factual statistics on this, but I wish that our Texas Department of Agriculture would make a point of compiling those statistics and then publicizing that type of very helpful --and very sobering -- factual information through our state's news media.

---Cargill Meat Solutions Corp.-brand Premium Quality Honeysuckle White and Lean "Hot Italian Turkey Sausage." This is the most deliciously spicy of the turkey sausages I have eaten so far, with paprika being one of the spices used. Unfortunately, most of the other turkey sausages are too bland to be delicious. This commercially-distributed food product comes from Cargill Meat Solutions Corporation of Wichita, Kansas, with a cited website of www.honeysucklewhite.com.
Incidentally, consumers should be warned in advance that while this food product bears the label "Honeysuckle White," the leading ingredient in this is actually "dark turkey." Also, while the saturated fat level is low---only 2 grams of saturated fat in each of these very large sausage links after they are cooked---this item does contain 55 mg of cholesterol per cooked sausage link. Each pre-cooked sausage link in this package weighs 112 grams. One particularly impressive statistic: each cooked sausage link contains 15 grams of protein! Excellent, from that standpoint!

The Year-Round Mystery Posed by Christianity

I recently heard someone mention in my presence that a "Palm Sunday" occurs this time of the year.

The only image that came to mind for me was the idea of spending a spring Sunday in Miami, Florida, amid palm trees.

"It sounds relaxing, this idea of donning a bathing suit and sipping guava juice outdoors while relaxing under a palm tree in South Florida," I note to myself.

Another theory has since come to mind for me. Perhaps Palm Sunday is a day of the year when many Americans like to have the palm of their hand read or interpreted by a self-described psychic and professional palm-reader.

I myself am not superstitious, so I have no desire of my own to have the lines on the palm of my hand read or interpreted by anyone.

I have to keep in mind, in any event, that to millions of Christian Americans, Palm Sunday has nothing to do with sipping guava juice in Miami, Florida, or having the palm of one's hand read by a professional palm reader.

Some Christians might even regard me as heretical if I ever mention that Palm Sunday sounds like a day dedicated to savoring palm trees in Miami, Florida.

Because I fully respect and honor the Freedom of Religion legal and Constitutional rights of all Americans, I am very hopeful that some English-language book-publishing company will soon publish an alphabetically organized "Layman's Guide to Religious Terminology."

If I then purchase a factual-information book of that type and turn to the "P" section to find the term "Palm Sunday," I will be all the more polite in my reply when a Christian friend of mine asks me if I have any plans for Palm Sunday?

Need for American Recyclable Products Inventory Website

Efforts at significantly increasing the total amount of recycling occurring in the United States will be significantly boosted if a non-profit organization establishes an authoritative "recyclable-products nationwide inventory" website.

I am referring to a website on the Internet that lists thousands of products or packages being used by American consumers after they purchased products in retail stores or from retail businesses, such as pizza-delivery chain restaurants, somewhere in the United States.

For each of the cited products, the proposed new online website would state whether that product or package or container or bag or sack can be recycled, and if so, what the specific cited recyclable material or materials of that consumer good are.

The proposed new website might answer questions such as:

---Can staples be recycled, and if so, into which category of recyclables bin would I place discarded staples that I wish to have recycled?

---Can a used tin of breath mints manufactured by a cited company be recycled, and if so, into which type of recycling bin should I place that tin of breath mints after I have finished using that container.

---Can a specified bag of potato chips manufactured by a certain company---Frito-Lay Inc. of Plano, Texas, for instance----be recycled? If so, which type of material used for producing that bag would I seek to recycle? Would that material be aluminum or plastic or some other material that I'd seek to recycle?

---Can a styrofoam cup provided to me by a cited convenience store be recycled? If so, after using that cup would I seek to it into a styrofoam-recyclables bin?

I also like the idea of being able to simply state my own residential zip code----78759----at a data-base website in order to myself then immediately learn from that same computer website online data base the closest locations for public recyclables bins in each category (plastics, mixed paper products, glass, aluminum, styrofoam, if applicable, etc.) where members of the general public can dispose of those items on a year-round basis in an environmentally-conscientious manner.

That type of computerized data base on the Internet would help to save recyclable materials as well as fossil fuels. I mention the latter benefit because Americans would be provided with factual information on how to drive or walk as short a distance as possible in order to properly dispose of recyclable products they have used.

28 Reasons to Avoid Using Foul or Profane or Obscene Language, or: 28 Reasons for Using Clean Language in Your Conversations with Other Human Beings

(1) You are less likely to get into a fist fight with another human being if you use clean language in your conversations with others.

(2) You are less likely to be physically assaulted by another human being if you use clean language in your conversations with that individual.

(3) You are more likely to be law-abiding and honorable and kind if you use clean language in your conversations with others.

(4) You are more likely to be level-headed and reasonable if you use clean language in your conversations with others.

(5) You are more likely to be calm and patient, and to be perceived by others as being calm and patient, if you consistently use clean language in your communications with others.

(6) You are more likely to feel cheerful and optimistic on a year-round basis if you use clean language in your conversations with others.

(7) You are less likely to be accused of "sexually harassing" another person if you consistently use clean language in your conversations with others.

(8) You are less likely to be victimized by sexual assault from another person if you consistently use clean language in your own in-person comments to that individual.

(9) You are more likely to develop strictly-platonic personal friendships with members of the opposite sex if you consistently use clean language, including clean body language, in your communications with persons of the opposite sex.

(10) You are less likely to intimidate or frighten or offend another person if you use clean language in your conversations with others.

(11) You are more likely to hone your analytical skills and speaking skills if you consistently use clean language in your conversations with others.

(12) You are more likely to be creative, and to be perceived by others as creative, if you consistently use clean language in your conversations and communications with others.

(13) You are more likely to develop a large vocabulary if you consistently use clean language in your communications with others. This is true partly because those who habitually use profane speech tend to repeat the same profane word, such as the infamous "F" word, over and over and over again.

(14) You are more likely to be regarded by others as a "gentleman" or "lady" if you consistently use clean language in your conversations with others.

(15) You are less likely to ever commit a crime or get convicted of any crime if you consistently use clean language in your conversations with others.

(16) You are less likely to be subjected to pressure by members of the Mafia to "join our organized crime family," so to speak, if you yourself consistently use clean language on a consistent and year-round basis.

(17) You are more likely to have personal friends and associates who are honorable and civil and law-abiding if you yourself consistently use clean language in your communications with others.

(18) You are less likely to be rejected by a current personal friend of yours or a current roommate of yours if you consistently use clean language in your communications with that individual.

(18) You are less likely to get fired from your position of employment if you consistently use clean language in your communications with coworkers and work supervisors.

(19) You are less likely to experience a life-threatening crisis or other major crisis if you yourself consistently use clean language in your communications with others.

(20) You are more likely to enjoy a full medical lifespan or full medical longevity if you consistently use clean language in your communications with others.

(21) You are less likely to ever face a lawsuit against yourself if you consistently use clean language in your communications with others.

(22) You are less likely to ever be accused of telling a lie to another person if you consistently use clean language in your conversations with others.

(23) You are more likely to get elected to a political office if during your campaign you consistently use clean language, including during periods when you sense that the microphone situated in front of you has been turned off.

(24) You are more likely to be perceived by others as being wholesome and fatherly or motherly or avuncular or brotherly or sisterly if you consistently use clean language in the presence of any and all persons younger than yourself in age.

(25) You are more likely to be trusted by others if you consistently use clean language in your communications with others.

(26) When you drive a motor vehicle, you are far less likely to have a car accident with another motorist, or with a pedestrian or bicyclist, if you consistently use clean language during periods when you are behind the wheel and briefly talking to yourself or talking with a passenger.

(27) You are far less likely to ever be asked for a marital divorce by your current spouse if you consistently use clean language in your communications with himself or herself.

(28) You are more likely to be mentally healthy, and to be perceived by others as mentally healthy, if you consistently use clean language in your communications with others.

Need for a New English Course in Texan Colleges and Universities: "Popular Lyrics by Texan Songwriters as Poetry"

I recently landed upon a strategy for promoting excellence in the lyrics being written by Texan-born songwriters and by songwriters residing in Texas.

The English Department of some enlightened college in the Lone Star State should offer a new academic course with a title such as, "Popular Lyrics by Texan Songwriters as Poetry."

It will be a course in which college students and professors in our state thoroughly scrutinize and then write papers evaluating and critiquing numerous published lyrics from a wide variety of Texan songwriters and musicians. The resulting dialogue will be both healthy and very sobering for our entire state and nation.

It will be a beneficial dialogue led by Texan academia that, over time, helps to elevate the caliber and moral value and philosophical depth of the lyrics being written by songwriters in and from our state.

At present, it's painfully apparent that if Texans were asked in a survey to cite the 10 most poetically profound and beautiful popular songs they can recall that were written by a Texan musician or songwriter, the vast majority of those Texans would be stumped by the question.

"I can't recall any such song," as one Texan respondent to that survey might confess in writing. "I do recall having once found it profound that some famous Texan musician once sang, 'It's up against the wall, Redneck Mother.' There seemed to be some deeper meaning to it all, at the time. However, today with the benefit of hindsight, I wonder if that song wasn't a bit misogynistic.
"Is it really the mother's fault that her 'redneck' son turned out to be the coarse and reckless and misanthropic and recklessly alcohol-crazed and tobacco-addicted and physically violent and profanity-spewing one-man blight on society that he is?"

Urgent Need for Environmental-Protection Super-Heroes in Comic Books and Cartoons

The extreme urgency of the environmental mandate that all of human civilization is facing suggests the great need for a new series of comic book and television cartoon super-heroes.

I am referring to fictional superheroes for children, very inspirational superheroes who will each courageously:
---combat the global warming effect;
---contribute mightily toward global reforestation of this entire planet.
---help to save endangered species.
---clean up each of the polluted rivers and lakes throughout the world.
---promote, and participate in, recycling of items such as plastic products, glass products, aluminum products, and paper products.
---promote world peace, including through friendships that those superheroes forge with a wide variety of animals and botanical plants around the world.
---help to put a stop to injurious forms of noise pollution that victimize human beings.

I'm also hopeful that some creative and idealistic PhD candidate or Master's Degree candidate at some university in the United States will soon pursue a dissertation or research project examining and profiling any of the previous environmental-protection-minded comic-book figures or cartoon heroes of the last 100-year period.

Those comic-book figures might be viewed as helpful forerunners to the ultra-benevolent and world-saving environmental-protection crusaders of comic books and cartoons of the 21st Century. And it makes sense for research projects to explore those great comic book heroes of the past who "paved the way" for the globe-saving comic-book superheroes of the 21st Century.

Eventually, a new museum and accompanying archives library will be established that's exclusively devoted to exploring the role of environmental-protection crusaders in modern American fiction, including in fictional works that were primarily written for children.