Category: Local / Living

Some Random Facts

Over the past decade, California has added a little over three times as many people as housing units, driving its median home price over $800,000, which is more than twice the national figure.

Legislators Find Way to Let U.C. Berkeley Increase Its Enrollment

The richest 20 percent of people worldwide take 80 percent of all flights, according to estimates by the International Council on Clean Transportation.

Nations Agree to Curb Emissions From Flying by 2050

Since there is only one active official cemetery in Manhattan, the borough’s most popular final resting place may be Central Park — a legal site for the scattering of human ashes.

Where the Bodies Are Buried

Nearly half of all millennials have tattoos, compared with 13 percent of the baby boomer generation, according to a 2015 survey by the Harris Poll.

A 10-Year-Old Got a Tattoo. His Mother Was Arrested.

71 of Our Favorite Facts of 2022
Each day, Times Insider editors scour the newspaper for the most interesting facts to appear in articles. Here are facts that surprised, enlightened or entertained us this year.

RIP – Russell Banks

Russell Banks, Novelist Steeped in the Working Class, Dies at 82
He brought his own sometimes painful blue-collar experiences to bear in acclaimed stories exploring issues of race, class and power in American life.
NYTIMES

A couple books of his I’d recommend:
Rule of the Bone
When we first meet him, Chappie is a punked-out teenager living with his mother and abusive stepfather in an upstate New York trailer park. During this time, he slips into drugs and petty crime. Rejected by his parents, out of school and in trouble with the police, he claims for himself a new identity as a permanent outsider; he gets a crossed-bones tattoo on his arm, and takes the name “Bone.”

The Sweet Hereafter
In The Sweet Hereafter, Russell Banks tells a story that begins with a school bus accident. Using four different narrators, Banks creates a small-town morality play that addresses one of life’s most agonizing questions: when the worst thing happens, who do you blame?

The Sweet Hereafter was made into a movie, which I also thought was great, check out it’s IMDB page.

Simple and Basic Honey Whole Wheat Bread

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey
3 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

DIRECTIONS:
Knead the dough until it’s smooth and just slightly tacky, about 8 to 10 minutes. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let it rise until doubled in volume, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Deflate the dough and shape it to fit a greased 8 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ loaf pan. Let it rise, covered, until doubled, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Bake the bread in a preheated 375°F oven for 35 minutes.

via King Arthur Flour

DIY Abortion, One Person’s Story

This must never happen again. At age 14 in the late 1950s I was seduced by a man of 32. A doctor told me “You’ve made your bed, now lie on it.” Pregnant and parentless, I went to a drug store and bought multiple medications labeled “Not to be taken by pregnant women” and took them in large quantities. The minuscule fetus was aborted. I was fortunate that I neither died nor had a deformed child, and that 12 years later I could bear within a happy marriage a wanted and loved child who would not otherwise have been born.

From comments section of NYTIMES.

Elise Stefanik, Gumby, and Groucho Marx – Letter to Editor, NYTIMES

To the Editor:

Elise Stefanik’s Gumby-like transformation from moderate Republican to ultra-MAGA Trumpster is emblematic of today’s G.O.P., which has now given us George Santos. Malleability and dissembling have replaced honesty and conviction.

Groucho Marx famously said, “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them … well, I have others.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/opinion/letters/elise-stefanik-trump.html