Random Notes from a Crank

I'm trying this concoction called oxymel. It's apparently a health that dates back to Ancient Greece, back to Hippocrates. 

At base, it is equals parts honey and equal parts apple cider vinegar. I got the recipe from this blog post I found on the InterWebs: "Herbal Oxymel Recipes & Benefits." I'm doing the one for cold and flu, so I some used dried thyme, rosemary, oregano, and ginger. 

We'll see whether if it's worth my time. At the very least it has polyphenols that create antioxidants. I wonder about the taste though. 

I'm leaving Facebook. I've already deleted my Instagram account, and I'm abandoning FB on Feb. 1. 

I'm not sure if I'm going to delete my account or just not interact with people on FB with a dim hope that the platform will reform its ways. I may just delete it, and if I rejoin FB at some time, I'll befriend the good people who are my "friends" and not befriend the President Adolf supporters I have accumulated over the years. 

Regardless, I just cannot be on a platform that has given up fact-checking/moderation because Zuckerberg is genuflecting and licking President Adolf's asshole while that autocrat, the GOP, and his oligarchic cronies further game the system for the rich and the 1%, destroy the social safety net, foment lies and disinformation, deport hard-working people, deregulate all kinds of things that should be strictly regulated, stack agencies with pro-business  lackeys, pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, and spread anti-science and anti-intellectual hokum while the poor, working class, and middle class lose out. 

Yet poor, working class, and middle class dipshits voted for President Adolf. 

I just have to remind myself that 54% of Americans read below a sixth-grade level. 

I can see why my daughter is looking at graduate schools in Europe. 

One of the books I'm reading right now is biography of Napoleon, Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts. I have some gaps in knowledge of European history, so it's an interesting read for me. The author's premise is that Napoleon is misunderstood for a number of reasons, one of which is because of British propaganda and Hitler being compared to Napoleon by Churchill during WWII. 

Napoleon was a brilliant military mind, and as I have found out, he was an intellectual. Here's a quotation from him that struck me as quite wonderful: "The true conquests, the only ones that cause no regret, are those made over ignorance." 

The world would be a much better place if people followed that statement.