BUZZURRO

Was This Study Done By A Man ?

Housework cuts breast cancer risk

Women who exercise by doing the housework can reduce their risk of breast cancer, a study suggests.
(…)
The research on more than 200,000 women from nine European countries found doing household chores was far more cancer protective than playing sport.
(…)
Dusting, mopping and vacuuming was also better than having a physical job.

Read the rest here.
Now a man can tell his wife ” Honey, I really care about your health, so clean the entire house while I sit in front of the TV.”

I have been hearing a lot about global warming since our recent blizzard in New Mexico. Just today I went to the store to hear “This snow is caused by global warming, I’ll tell ya. Bush should have signed the Kyoto Accord, the stupid &^%$#*!”
Well, first of all, in our town we received 30 inches of snow. There is ice and snow all over and the temperature is below freezing. Global WARMING isn’t exactly the words that comes to my mind. How about climate change? I’ve heard that phrase used a lot too, although since in the area frequently the temperatures drop to below freezing and it snows and there is ice there is not really a CHANGE going on. Well, whatever term is correct, I know what those people were referring to.. A large ice shelf in the Arctic has broken off. The oceans are warming and cold water animals are facing a crisis. The earth temperatures are warming. The climate is changing. I believe that. However, the earth’s climate has been changing since the earth was formed.
Does anybody remember hearing about the Ice Age? I remember reading that before temperatures started dropping and ice started forming, all the lands of Greenland were fertile and used for farming. Now a great block of ice covers most of the interior.
When the dinosaurs lived it was warmer, more lush in a tropical way, and even the continents were even attached, not that that last point has anything to do with the weather, it just shows the earth has always been changing.
As anyone living in Southern Utah and vicinity knows, it used to be a lush area. There were lakes and trees and grass and numerous animals to eat them. Then due to climate change or global warming, it got hotter. The lakes dried up. The trees and grass died and the animals went elsewhere.
These happened before the first factory was even built. a Kyoto accord would have changed nothing then, and according to me won’t change anything now. As for Bush being a stupid &^%$#*, that may or may not be true, but global warming certainly has nothing to do with it.
I think it’s rather arrogant of humans to think that their actions can make or break anything in this world. It sounds almost like in the days before Copernicus when people thought that the sun and other planets rotated around Earth because… well because they were human beings, supreme in every matter. as if God, physics and nature have nothing to do with anything.
Global warming or climate changes as been going on for years, years before the arrival of man, during the arrival of early man, the evolvement into current man, and probably will after the demise of man. The belief that we, as humans, can change the course of events is to me, wrong.

As our longtime readers know (yes, all 3 of you), Buzzurro and I moved from Italy to the US in January 2006. For us 2006 has been a great year, and I am very thankful for that.
Buzzurro is very happy to make the move. A “life changing move”. Buzzurro found a job that pays well for U.S. standards which is an amount unheard of in Italy. The salaries there are ridiculously low. In Italy we were poor and spent all our free time at home. In the US we are able to pursue hobbies and go to restaurants if we want. We have also taken several mini-vacations, as well as many day trips.
As for me, an American who resided in the US for more than thirty years, sometimes leaving all the things that you know behind for 4 years allows you to appreciate those things more.
I remember my first job in the US in 2006. At the interview they didn’t ask my age, marital status, desire to have children or place of birth, as they do in Italy. That was pleasant, as being a married woman in my upper 30’s, being born in NY (the US) and wanting children excludes me for 99 percent of Italian jobs. I almost forgot that age, sexual, marital and other discriminations are not legal in the US.
When I got to the actual job site I remember looking all over the fancy “coffee” machine that dispensed everything from cappuccinos to decaf chai tea, for a slot to insert money. I couldn’t find one, and a coworker told me that there was none because the coffee or whatever beverage you chose to drink was free.I remember being overly joyed that bottled water was free too.
In Italy nothing is free. I remember that Buzzurro and other workers in Italy brought their own water to their places of work, or just bought it in the vending machines.
I forgot that in all of jobs that I worked at before the coffee and water were free.
I remember exclaiming to my mother a week after my first work assignment was over “Look, I got paid!!” She just stared at me like I was nuts, because she knew that the agency told me before I took this job that I would be paid one week later. In Italy only one job I had actually paid me on time, when they said they would. The others paid days and even months late, and usually not without a few verbal fights and emails from me. I forgot that getting paid on-time in the US was rather normal.
Daily life in the US is much easier in the US too.
1. Cars stay in their lanes and motorcycles follow the rules too. They don’t all weave in among cars and rush to run the traffic lights.
2. Stores are open late and on Sunday. It is such a pleasure to go to the grocery store at 8PM so that we can leave our 2 weekend days free to do whatever we want.
3. Customer service is much better ! You can return something to the store 30 days after purchasing it and with a receipt get a full refund. For a while I suspect that Buzzurro was buying things in stores only because he was able to return them and get cash back instead of a lousy one-time only store credit !
4. Gas and electricity are much cheaper here, and our bills aren’t that high even after we use the air conditioner non-stop in hot weather.
Well, I could make a list forever why I think life is easier in the US, and why I prefer it to life in italy, but I won’t do that. Just suffice it to say that I’m very happy to live here, to be able to work and contribute to my family and society as whole.

I do hope though that 2007 is even better. Happy 2007 everyone !