Tidbits 3-17-08

-Wear head protection! A bolt that would easily penetrate a person's skull and destroy enough gray matter to ruin a personality will often only cause no more than a small mark on a properly worn hard hat.
-Lift properly! 8 out of 10 Americans will suffer a back injury at some point in their lives. To avoid an injury follow safe lifting procedures and use those leg muscles.
-Wear a face shield! Every time you pick up a grinder you should have a face shield on (in addition to your safety glasses).

Do what you can
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” -Edmund Burke

Seeing Green
St. Patrick's Day marks the Roman Catholic feast day for Ireland's patron saint. St. Patrick was not born in Ireland, but in Britain.
• Irish brigands kidnapped St. Patrick at 16 and brought him to Ireland. He was sold as a slave in the county of Antrim and served in bondage for six years until he escaped to Gaul, in present-day France. He later returned to his parents' home in Britain, where he had a vision that he would preach to the Irish. After 14 years of study, Patrick returned to Ireland, where he built churches and spread the Christian faith for some 30 years.
• Many myths surround St. Patrick. One of the best known—and most inaccurate—is that Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland into the Irish Sea, where the serpents drowned. (Some still say that is why the sea is so rough.) But snakes have never been native to the Emerald Isle. The serpents were likely a metaphor for druidic religions, which steadily disappeared from Ireland in the centuries after St. Patrick planted the seeds of Christianity on the island.
• In the United States, it's customary to wear green on St. Patrick's Day. But in Ireland the color was long considered to be unlucky. Irish folklore holds that green is the favorite color of the Good People (the proper name for faeries). They are likely to steal people, especially children, who wear too much of the color.
• Colonial New York City hosted the first official St. Patrick's Day parade in 1762. Today New York's St. Patrick's Day parade is the longest running civilian parade in the world. This year nearly three million spectators are expected to watch the spectacle and some 150,000 participants plan to march.

Share the light
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it. -Margaret Fuller

Fruit and Vegetable Intake Reduces Cardiovascular Risks
Researchers from the National Center for Health Statistics examined the relationship between fruit and vegetable intake in 11,000 individuals aged 24-74 who had never had a heart attack or stroke. Participants reported their food intake and were studied for an average of 19 yrs. Experts wanted to know if fruit and vegetable consumption reduced the risk of dying from heart attack or stroke. The results: people who ate fruits and vegetables three or more times daily had a 26 % lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than individuals who ate fruits and vegetables less than once a day.

Quote of the Week
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” -Dale Carnegie