By Bob Gaydos    

The amazing watermelon.

   I’ve noticed that my creative juices tend to evaporate a bit in the heat of August, especially since there has been essentially just one major story to write about for some seven years.

    When that happens, I look for inspiration for stories in everyday life, which can often produce amazing results.

    For example, you know what’s amazing? Watermelon. Watermelon’s amazing.

       Think about it. It is sweet, juicy, virtually free of calories and is loaded with nutrients, including Vitamin C and lycopene, a combination which, the science suggests, may fight off cancer, heart problems, macular degeneration, inflammation and cell damage, while protecting your skin and hair. Also, being mostly water with a little fiber, it’s good for digestive health. You can eat it or drink it, it grows anywhere that it’s not too frigid and if you binge on it, it’s a terrific diuretic. Yum today, gone tomorrow.

        Amazing. Who thought of this?

        Well, we don’t really know. It was just kind of here, like a lot of other stuff, just waiting to be discovered, apparently in West Africa, from which it spread to Egypt, India and by the 10th Century, China, which is today’s largest producer of watermelon. Europeans brought it to the New World in the 16th Century and the Japanese, to the dismay of seed-spitters, developed a seedless variety in 1939. Today, there’s a watermelon variety for every palate or picnic.

        One more bit of watermelon trivia: In 2007, the Oklahoma State Senate declared watermelon the official state vegetable, although the rest of the world considers it to be a fruit. Oh, Oklahoma.

         But the point here is that this fruit grows abundantly, is both delicious and healthful and has virtually no significant risks associated with it. It’s like someone left us a gift and hoped we would find and appreciate it: You’re going to need and enjoy this, earthlings. Until recently, I hardly gave it a thought. But no more. Go ahead, the season’s about over, go find one and take a bite.

       Amazing, right?

       You know what else is amazing? Benford’s Law. In fact, it is mind-numbingly amazing, in my humble opinion. It’s also called the Newcomb–Benford law, the law of anomalous numbers, or the first-digit law. By any name, it’s, well, you know.

        As simply as I can explain for the non-mathematicians or non-accountants (like me) out there, the law states that in naturally occurring sizable groups of numbers, be it dollars in a budget, acres, heights of mountains, populations, street addresses or stock prices, the first number of each entry is likely to be 1 about 30 percent of the time, while 9 is the leading number only about 5 percent of the time. And, the frequency moves downward from 1 to 9 in a predictable curve. This happens all the time, unless the sample is too small or there are restrictions in the collection, such as the height of basketball players (5 to 7 being the range).

         In practical terms, this means it’s possible to determine if someone is cooking the books, since the natural tendency of humans is to distribute numbers randomly, with each number having an equal chance of lead status. The law has been admitted in criminal fraud cases at local, state and federal levels. The IRS must use it because it won’t even comment on it. A  study of reported Covid-19 cases indicated that results from Italy, Portugal, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Denmark, Belgium and Chile were suspicious because the numbers didn’t match the Benford Curve.

    I learned about this amazing law from the Netflix series, “Connected,” which I recommend for those who like their science approachable and with a little humor. It turns out the law had a leading role in another Netflix series, “Ozark,” in which it was used to detect fraud in a cartel financial statement. And in the 2016 movie, “The Accountant,” Ben Affleck uses It to expose the theft of funds from a robotics company.

    So I’m really late to the game on this one. But that doesn’t make it any less amazing that, in the seemingly randomness of our numbers-crazy society, someone/thing/power has provided order, if we only know where to look for it. Physicist Frank Benford knew where to look in 1938 when he did an extensive test of the phenomenon first noted by astronomer/mathematician Simon Newcomb in 1838. Newcomb noted that the early pages in a book of algorithms were used much more often than the later pages. Benford took Newcomb’s observation and gave it meaning.

       Here’s one more amazing thing I recently learned after years of taking it for granted — horses can jump fences even though they don’t really see them the way humans do. It’s not as simple as see the fence, jump the fence.

See the fence; jump the fence.

    For starters, horses’ eyes (the largest of any land mammal) are not in the front of their heads like ours are. Horses have one eye on each side of their face. Just take a look. Never gave it much thought because, well, it looks right and normal, which it is. But it also means horses have to turn and raise their heads a lot more than we do to see the full picture of things in front of them, including fences they have to jump.

         Briefly, according to British Eventing Life, horses have two kinds of vision. One, monocular vision, means they see each side separately with either eye. This gives them a remarkably wide field of vision, except for what’s right in front of them. So they can see both sides of the fence as they approach it, but they can’t tell how close they are until they’re within about six feet. That’s when their binocular vision kicks in. They raise their heads to see directly in front of them to judge distance and height. Not much time when you’re cantering.

        This feat also requires considerable teamwork from the rider, whose job is to give the horse every chance to succeed. That means providing a good approach and verbal, hand, leg and seat prompts, if necessary. Well-trained horses make it look easy, but here’s another amazing thing: Horses’ brains have a left side and a right side, which act as two separate brains, meaning horses have to be trained from both sides. Their amazing double brain quickly computes the data received from both visions as the horse approaches the jump. Up and over. I don’t know who thought of this. By the way, if I messed up any of this explanation, I hope horse people will forgive me. I just find this animal to be amazing.

        Finally, I guess my point here is that, at a time when amazingly evil and stupid things are happening in the world, it is still possible to find some amazingly positive things in everyday life. As a friend told me some 40 years ago, I just need to be present in my own life and keep looking for them.

     Thanks, Victor.

                                   ***

(Full disclosure: Loyal readers will recognize this as a slightly edited version of a column I wrote two years ago. But the amazing facts are still the same. Horses still jump fences the same way, numbers still show up predictably, one through nine, and watermelon is still delicious, although I have managed to prove that they don’t necessarily grow “anywhere.” But the kale came through.)

rjgaydos@gmail.com

By Bob Gaydos

Kefir and kamut, new breakfast entries for real people.
Bob Gaydos photo

      Move over, kale and quinoa. Make room for kefir and kamut.

      Warning! The following is a bit of “advocacy” journalism written by a long-serving member of the news fraternity that was recently described by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida as having “a worldview where you eat nothing but kale and quinoa, where those of us who cling to our Bibles and our guns and our fried foods and real America are looked down upon.”

       Mr. Gaetz, as one can deduce from the things he “clings to,” is a Republican. He is engaging in what passes for statesmanship in his party these days. That is, celebrate your “victimhood,” mock any suggestion of interest in good health, inclusiveness and a willingness to learn new things and vilify the press.

        It is a running battle between Gaetz and Louie Gohmert (he was actually a judge) for the title of dumbest member of the House. But I digress.

        Before Gaetz launched his broadside at the media — just more of the effort to divert attention from the impeachment proceedings against Gaetz’s hero, Donald Trump — I had already planned to write about two new additions to my breakfast menu: Kefir and kamut.

        As with many of my recent dietary choices, kefir was introduced to me by someone who pays much more attention to these things than I do and who also is concerned about my health. I have learned to pay attention most of the time.

        Kefir is a cultured, fermented, probiotic beverage that tastes somewhat like yogurt but is creamier and, I think, tastier. Grains (the kefir) are added to a beverage, usually but not necessarily, dairy milk, then allowed to ferment. The grains are then removed, providing the drink.

       Kefir has been gaining in popularity since it is beneficial to digestion and, since it is fermented, can be consumed by those who are lactose intolerant.  But it’s not just stomach health. It also boosts the immune system, is loaded with protein, B vitamins, potassium, and calcium. So it helps build muscle, strong bones and bolsters heart health and may even lower cholesterol, all, by the way, especially important to septuagenarians like me. It’s also tasty, coming in peach, strawberry and, my favorite, blueberry.

       And yes, I plead guilty to Gaetz’s charge of advocacy journalism. It’s not a sin. I have written frequently about food and health issues I think are important, especially since the facts tells us that many Americans have a weight issue and diabetes and heart problems are commonplace. I think reporting about healthful food choices is a good thing for the media to do, whether some choose to ignore the reporting or not.

       Kamut kind of snuck up on me. I like cereal in the morning from time to time and in my search for a healthful, tasty alternative to the sugar-loaded brand names, I picked up a box of Heritage Flakes. It’s an organic cereal from Nature’s Path, comprising kamut, oats, spelt, barley, millet and quinoa, unadulterated ancient grains all. I wondered, what is kamut?

        I learned that kamut is also called Khorasan wheat or Pharaoh grain since grains were discovered in ancient Egyptian tombs. It lost out to conventional wheat in America, becoming cattle feed. But, like kefir and quinoa, as the result of an increasing interest (aided by reporting) among Americans in more healthful, tasty foods, kamut and spelt and buckwheat are trending now on supermarket shelves. Real people are buying them.

        Kamut’s benefit is that it has significantly more protein than wheat and more fatty acids. It’s also loaded with zinc and magnesium and is an excellent source of fiber.  And, yes, it’s tasty. Plus, some people who are allergic to wheat can actually eat kamut without bad side effects. Add a banana or some berries, a splash of almond milk and dig in.

        Getting back to Gaetz (you knew I would), his adolescent rantings and behavior (crashing a closed House hearing and sitting down to eat pizza), have become all too typical of today’s Republican Party. I don’t care if he clings to his Bible, only that he not insist that others do the same or that those who do not share his beliefs are somehow enemies. As for his guns, yes, I would like stricter controls on who can own them and a ban on automatic weapons. So would a majority of Americans. That’s a fact. Nothing fake about it.

       For the record, I do occasionally eat kale and quinoa and I avoid fried foods for the most part because I have learned there are plenty of appetizing foods I can eat to my heart’s content without worrying about heart disease. I don’t think that’s elitist, just smart. And there’s nothing wrong with being smart, although Republicans have been doing their best to make it seem otherwise for some time now. It’s a bully’s weapon learned in grade school.

       The latest example of the GOP war on education and information comes in Gaetz’s home state of Florida where a five-man board of commissioners denied a library request for a digital subscription to The New York Times because “it’s fake news” and they “don’t need a New York paper” in their county.

       This is America, people. The library already has a print subscription that costs $3,000. The digital subscription would cost $2,700 and give all library users access to the newspaper. But, well, Gaetz’s “real people” apparently don’t need it as long as they have their Bibles, guns and fried foods. After all, we can’t have them stumbling across stories about kefir or kamut or kale or quinoa, now, can we?

(Full disclosure: I am not an influencer paid by either Lifeway or Nature’s Path.)

rjgaydos@gmail.com