Some colors are just naturally more likely to produce feelings of calmness. The two best colors? Glad you asked! I’ve been told that they are blue and green. If you are a believer in God, that would makes sense…that the sky and ocean are blue and the trees, grass, etc., are green…sorta like He wanted us to have some peace and calm in the midst of our lives of craziness!
Have you ever dreamed of your perfect place? For some it may be heaven, for others a place they visited or would like to visit. I know that dogs dream because you can watch them “run” in their sleep and they bark and their eyes and noses twitch…and they even growl. Surely they are dreaming! I wonder, though, if horses and cows dream, too? I suspect that they do as they are sentient beings. And perhaps, when they dream of their ideal place, it is like the scene in today’s photo that I took last Saturday. Spring has burst out all over Georgia. The dogwoods are blooming, daffodils are up, other trees are covered with blossoms…it is lovely! The grass which turns brownish in winter is now green and lush and the cows and horses just must be dreaming of chewin’ it up! And even the small shed in the pasture got into the green spirit!
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: in 1979, the world’s first anthrax epidemic began in Ekaterinburg, Russia (now Sverdlosk). By the time it ended six weeks later, 62 people were dead. Another 32 survived serious illness. Ekaterinburg, as the town was known in Soviet times, also suffered livestock losses from the epidemic.
As people in Ekaterinburg first began reporting their illnesses, the Soviet government announced that the cause was tainted meat that the victims had eaten. Since the town was known in intelligence circles for its biological-weapons plant, much of the rest of the world was immediately skeptical of the Soviet explanation.
It was not until 13 years later, in 1992, that the epidemic was finally explained: workers at the Ekaterinburg weapons plant failed to replace a crucial filter, causing a release of anthrax spores into the outside air. The wind carried the spores to a farming area and infected people and livestock in the area. Had the town been downwind from the plant at the time of the release, the death toll might have been considerably higher.
Anthrax is a bacterium that can enter the body through multiple routes. It is most deadly when it is inhaled. It prompts the production of toxic molecules that destroy essential proteins in the body’s cells, usually in the lymph nodes.
In 2001, anthrax spores were used as a weapon of terror in the United States. Spores were mailed to media organizations and members of the U.S. Senate. Five people died and another 13 were infected, but survived. The investigation into who was responsible is ongoing.
TRIVIA FOR TODAY: After criticizing Rome’s transition from a republic to an empire, the famous philosopher/rhetorician Cicero was murdered and had his head and hands displayed on the Rostra in the Forum Romanum. It is rumoured that Fulvia, the wife of the influential Roman politician, Antony, pulled out Cicero’s tongue and stabbed it repeatedly with her hairpin.
