There is nothing in the world, whether entirely known or unknown, that is not in one way or another disputed; the Palestinian cause, in this regard, is an ample example. For instance, I had thought that the global financial crisis started after the fall of the Lehman Brothers bank on 15/8/2008. However, a program on BBC-International insisted that the crisis began in July 2007, when BNP Paribas announced the suspension of three real estate investment funds owing to the bank's inability to know their real worth. Also, there are those who attributed the crisis to the early eighties, and to the financial deregulation by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher because “the market knows best”; it turned out however, that the market knows nothing but greed. Meanwhile, some place the start of the crisis at the moment when the British “Northern Rock” bank collapsed, while others set it at the fall of mortgage institutions, such as “Freddie Mac” and “Fannie Mae”. Does the reader have yet another start date of this crisis? Until I get his answer, I heard about a poor man affected by the crisis, although he is completely outside the cycle of the entire world economy: he was walking on the sidewalk when a stock broker jumped out of his office window to kill himself; only he fell on the man, killing him and surviving himself. When I read again about tanning, the fair colour and the sun between them, I thought of the never ending disagreements about the financial crisis. When I was young, there was a belief that tanning by taking sun baths is not only beautiful, but also a sign of health and well-being. Then years went by, before several studies were published, and mentioned that sunrays may affect tanning aficionados and cause them skin cancer, and that health and well-being lie in having a fair skin. Another decade went by or so, and other studies were published, claiming again that tanning is better because the sun rays stimulate the skin to synthesize vitamin D, which is essential for the health. In fact, I have the names of scientists, universities and labs involved in these studies, but there is no need to inflict these upon the reader. I just want to say that this information shows that people can get vitamin D from milk, tuna or sardines. As such, it is up to the reader to choose between a bathing suit worn by the sea, or a table full of food. Staying with health issues, when we were young, we were given fish oil tablets because they are healthy. However, I heard nothing about their effect in prolonging life until this month, when I read a new study in this sense. Yet, I expect to read soon another study that contradicts it and highlights the negative side effects of fish oil. What's even stranger than the above is what I read about marriage and work increasing longevity. While I understand that age passes by very slowly to those who are married, and thus appears to be long, how can work prolong life - when it breaks the back- and how can this be consistent with the idea that sleep, the absence of stress to the mind and body, and unemployment are all beneficial to one's health? Personally, I think that my health would be in its best shape if I worked eight hours, slept eight hours and played for 16 hours a day. Now I know that the sum of the hours above is longer than a day and a night, but I meant that my times of work and sleep should be both of eight hours, so I can completely free myself for other matters, during the remaining 16 hours. But if I had to work anyway, I would abandon the press and work in drilling wells (I wish they were oil wells in the garden of my house) because I discovered that drilling is the only job where one would start at the top, and would thus need no hard work and diligence to climb up. In all cases, the important thing is not the long or short life, but rather the its quality, or the happiness inherent in it. Here, I want to tell women that happiness is better than cosmetics, and men that should they search around more, they would discover that there are more reasons for happiness than watching a football match on television. We have learned that money and children both embellish life. The financial crisis, however, ruined money but spared the children, who are the jewels of each home. Then we hear about a child who found a picture of a handsome young man in the family photo album and asked his mother who that man was. She said: this is your father. The boy, confused, then asked: So, who is the fat bald man who lives with us? Naturally, contradictory studies cancel each other, but then I read a study that cannot be contradicted by anyone, because it is of the obvious kind such as that being healthy is better than being sick. Also, the most recent study I read shows that women weep more than men, and that women spend 16 months of their lives crying. There, there, my dear. We all know that women cry more than men, and it is enough to look at any woman's husband to wonder why she does not cry even more and more. Finally, I read in the “New York Times”, quoting the Journal of the American Dental Association, which in turn quoted scientists in the laboratories (everything that is published today is of this kind), that the pain of being a redhead is bigger than the pain of being a blonde or a brunette. In fact, a gene that has been isolated proved that redheads do not respond to the Novocain drug, and that they need up to a 20 percent larger dose to escape the pain of visiting a dentist. The above is expected: The blonde hears a joke today and laughs three days later, and when she goes to the dentist she hurts a week after. As for the brunette, she is probably Arab, and tooth pain is the easiest thing to deal with.
