Cancer-Causing Sunscreen Sold In America

Summer just doesn’t get any better, does it?

First, the COVID-19, and then, just when you think it’s safe to go in the water… delta variant emerges.

Back to square one.

And now, as if sunburn wasn’t enough, there’s cancer-causing sunscreen.

It’s almost like the bizarre reducēs in the 1993 Bill Murray movie “Groundhog Day.” By the way, the word “reducēs” (pronounced ree – doo – sees), is the nominative, accusative, and vocative masculine and feminine plural cases of “redux.” So now, you know.

Surely, by now, you’ve heard, or read, the news:

Carcinogenic substances, including benzene – a highly flammable industrial chemical – have been found in independent laboratory analyses performed upon 294 unique batches of sun care products from 69 different companies by Valisure a privately held New Haven, CT-based pharmaceutical analytical services company.

On May 25, 2021, Valisure published the laboratory findings that 78 sun screen and after-sun skin care products in which they found benzene, and in part, wrote that,

“Valisure LLC has tested and detected high levels of benzene, a known human carcinogen, in several brands and batches of sunscreen, which are

Homemade Tomato Sandwich

I’ve never been much of a ‘mater sammich kind of guy.

But I had to do something with the 2 HUGE ones which I purchased a few days ago.

So, I made one.

…which I’m eating w/a fork and knife.

Seriously.

I’ve always hated having dirty hands, and eating w my hands.

In fact, I have long known how to eat fried chicken w/a fork.

But that’s beside the point.

What’s on it?

Between two sourdough heels, there’s fresh basil (sweet & chocolate), tomatoes, Vidalia onions, garlic powder, coarse kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper, Duke’s mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, with sambal oelek, and a sweet pepper.

Bloom Where You Are Planted

The Vocation of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, c.1650, by Guercino (1591–1666)

Today marks the summer solstice. It’s an appropriate moment to honor Saint Aloysius Gonzaga (1568-91), who barely reached the summer of his life. Aloysius was born into a noble family and thereby was entitled to many great things. He chose

Beat the Heat with Buttermilk Popsicles?

A good and longtime friend shared recently about making buttermilk popsicles at home with family, using a recipe presumably which came from Steel City Pops, a trendy nouveau foodery in Birmingham, AL. And giving credit where credit is due, Alabama has some mighty fine eateries, and an amazing wealth in it’s diversity of food. As evidence of that fact, Chef Frank Stitt, owner of Birmingham restaurants Highlands Bar and Grill, Bottega Restaurant, and Chez Fonfon has been on the James Beard Foundation Award‘s radar for quite some time, and most recently, NPR recognized the excellent oysters produced by Murder Point Oysters using farming methods in that Bayou La Batre, Alabama Gulf Coast town, which were also feted by Chef Emeril Lagasse. Alabama food is a literal treasure of gastronomic proportion. And it’s not just limited to the holiest of holies… barbecue.
(👉Get your Alabama Barbecue Trail app here!👈😋)

Now, I confess an aversion to buttermilk except in cooking. And the reason, of course, is that I’ve tried it. And not just once. In fact, I recollect as a youth visiting with relatives in

If Alabama Was A Loaf Of Bread

If Alabama was a loaf of bread, candy canes and root beer floats.

Pineapple ice cream cotton candy, pecan pies, Festhalle chicken, eggs ample, cinco de mother may I?

Johnny Monkeyshines, Goat Hill Hamburger Helper, largely poor, uneducated and easy to barbecue.

W.C. Keller, Bellingrath Handyman, Werner von

The Not Too Tall Tale of the Tail -or- The Shortened Tail’s Tale

I don’t much write about myself on this blog, and there are several reasons for that, not the least of which is that, in some way, I don’t think many people care… either about me, my life, or anything else other than what is beyond the end of their noses. And yet, I may be wrong.

Call it skeptical, if you will, or perhaps even cynical, but to my way of thinking, there are many more things which are far more interesting in life. And of those things which are interesting, I am probably least among them. For those primary reasons, I do not write about myself, or my experiences. Further, I suppose that what I think, and how I feel is adequately expressed in the thoughts that do proliferate on this blog. Besides, I don’t have to be talking about myself all the time. I think that’s a rather healthy self-perspective – to not be self-consumed, but to be more concerned with others, than with self. The word for the antithesis of that characteristic is narcissism. And I am definitely not that.

Be it right, wrong, or indifferent, it’s what I’ve done. And for the greatest part, I probably won’t change that – though I perhaps could, to some extent. We’ll see.

However, this time, I’d like to take a brief respite, or departure from that approach, and share something that, for one reason or another, continues to touch my heart. So for a moment, please indulge me.

Today, I was