Health & Fitness
The Contemplative Alternatives to Smoking Edition of the de Vere’s Irish Pub Pub Quiz Newsletter
Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Happy Martin Luther King Day! I’ve previously written in this space about my family’s connections to and admiration of Dr. King. In recent years, Dr. King Dr. King’s birthday has become a National Day of Service. A visit to the Davis Wiki Events Board reveals that as I write this two different local community spirit and beautification groups are planting native plants in Winters and North Davis. Elsewhere across the country people are painting murals at schools, boarding up abandoned homes, and picking up trash and cigarette butts in public parks. I hope that this has been a fruitful “day on” rather than just a day off for you.
Find out what's happening in Daviswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Speaking of cigarette butts, thanks to our friends at Breathe Free UC Davis for providing the swag (six T-shirts!) and a reason to remind everyone about the well-established dangers of smoking cigarettes. According to a recent CNN story, the acting Surgeon General has new findings on smoking: “For the first time, the report found that smoking can cause diabetes, erectile dysfunction, rheumatoid arthritis, macular degeneration, ectopic pregnancies and impaired immune function. Smokers have a 30% to 40% increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes compared with nonsmokers.”
Find out what's happening in Daviswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Smoking seems like a great way to try out old age before you are due. That said, some of my smoker friends have told me that their addiction to death-sticks has made them more contemplative, for their addictions have forced them outside to take a break from work and consider sunshine and the view. In large organizations, smokers often know the best gossip, and more people from different departments, because they make friends while huddled outside as they administer nicotine and the hundreds of other chemical pollutants infused in their cigarettes. Of course, one could also turn to poetry – reading or writing – to encourage deep thinking. The side effects are far less dangerous.
Business and social media marketing guru Chris Brogan has said that smartphones have replaced cigarettes. Fans of Mad Men and people who remember Elvis before he was fat know well how it used to be: immediately after a dinner out with friends everyone would light up a cigarette and begin conversing (and coughing). Today people turn on their smartphones to see what important messages and events they had missed during the previous hour. Some people don’t even wait for the meal to end. Just yesterday I saw two sisters in their 20s enjoying burritos, but not each other’s company or conversation, for they both spent the entire meal silently staring into the small screens of their phones.
As the host of a weekly trivia contest, perhaps I should encourage your obsession with the transitory and the trivial, and thus smile when I see teams submit their scorecards without looking them over one last time, if only to be reunited with their smartphones, and thus alleviate the pain of separation. Instead I sometimes think of how Henry David Thoreau responded to a friend who insisted on walking into Concord once a week to read a copy of the New York Times. Thoreau said, “Read not The Times; read the eternities.” What are you reading?
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Expect also questions about monadnocks, the San Francisco 49ers, people who have been nominated for five Oscars, 2013 films, fairy tales, trivia questions found in back-copies of the Christian Science Monitor, distilled spirits, countries that are not Indonesia, aliens, minimalist absurdity, cinematic debuts, American cities, breaches, living authors of substance, silly film anagrams, The Journal of Pain, milk, the potential of wine, key Irish people who you should not snub, dogs, problems, unusual verbs, fliers, people who are not Gay, stars, dance, light wits, marches, films online, east Carolina, Navajos, and Shakespeare.
See you tonight! I will be the one dressed in black.
Your Quizmaster
1. Science. Some casual students of the Periodic Table of the Elements believe that, when arranged alphabetically, ZINC is the last element. Which element with an atomic number of 40 proves them wrong?
2. Unusual Words. What J verb means “to drop (someone, such as a lover) capriciously or unfeelingly”?
3. Actors. What actor in recent years played both Johnny Storm and Captain America?
4. Pop Culture – Television. Andy Samberg won a Golden Globe last night for what action comedy television series that airs on Fox?
5. Another Music Question. What singer/songwriter is responsible for the repeated refrain “This place about to blow”?
