DID YOU KNOW THAT . . .

Did you know that . . .

. . . the Dow or Dow Jones, as people call it, is actually the Dow Jones Industrial Averages.  They take 30 selected stocks from the New York Stock Exchange and add together their average value to put a value on the overall market and to get a sense of what it is doing - going higher or lower.  The individual stocks have changed over the years.  It's not really a great indicator because of the small sample - thirty stocks vs over 1000 companies stocks being sold on that market and because the companies selected are all large cap stocks.  Nevertheless, it's very popular to use.  Here's the history not adjusted for inflation:  when I was born (1945) those stocks were worth $165; when I was married (1966) they were worth about $850; now they are worth over $20,200.  WOW!

. . . if you want to learn to speak a second language, you might try www.duolingo.com   Parlez vous Francais ?  And speaking of languages . . .

. . . I received a document from Medicare this week.  Attached were three pages that said, in essence, if we are discriminating against you in any way, give us a call.  Then it said, in essence, if you need this document in another language, give us a call,   Here are the languages besides English you could get the notice in; Spanish, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Bassa, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese, Dinka, Dutch, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian, Hindi, Hmong, Igbo, Ilokano, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Khmer, Kirundi, Korean, Lao, Nepali, Oromo, Pennsylvania Dutch, Polish, Portuguese-Europe, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Serbian, Swahili, Tagalog, Thai, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, Yiddish, Yoruba. !46 languages!  They repeated the message 46 times. Someone needs to work on this language business.  Just think how much better at science we would be if we never had to learn another language.

. . . the Zika virus is still around?  There have been, as of this week, 220 reported cases in the U.S. which were contracted here and 4,780 in the U.S. which were travel-related.  When I gave blood last month, they didn't ask the Zika virus questions because they now have a method of detecting it.

. . . my Spring bulbs are popping through the mulch.  Winter is about half over - and no appreciable snow so far in southwest Ohio.  Amazing.

. . . the Cincinnati Zoo is making another splash?  Hopefully, Fiona, born January 24,  is making people forget about Harambe.  Fiona is a Great Northern or Nile Hippopotamus.  This type hails from Tanzania or Mozambique.  Fiona was born 6 weeks premature but is doing quite well.  She has become a celebrity.  Fiona is the calf of Bibi and Henry.  If Fiona makes it, she'll some day weigh almost 3,000 lbs.


MAMA BIBI

BABY FIONA