• As I was trimming dead leaves out of a houseplant, I absently snipped into my fingertip with the scissors.  It was a small but deep cut.  It has almost healed now but the rest of my finger was unhappy for a good while.  The red and swollen part was saying to me, what the hell were you thinking when you did this?  I apologized to my finger and made an empty promise that I would never be so careless with it again.

• George Harrison’s estate just released a $399 16 vinyl-disc box set of his solo work and announced a $499 Harrison-branded turntable to play them on.  George lives on in the Material World.

• The label on the can says “Cream of Mushroom” soup.  Now we all know that one cannot get cream from a mushroom, no matter how finely one tries to chop it.  I suggest we soup-eaters and casserole-makers have been complicit in perpetuating an improper preposition here.  At best, the label should say “Cream and Mushroom” soup.  And that’s being generous with the notion of what “cream” means.

• This is the 75th anniversary of the use of penicillin to treat infections.  Antibiotics such as penicillin are losing their effectiveness as bacteria evolve and become resistant to them.  Perhaps an even greater worry is when bacteria, parasites and other organisms develop resistance to bleach and chlorine, the chemicals that keep our surfaces and water supplies free of pathogens without causing much harm to people.  Our war on bacteria began only 200 years ago, but bacteria have fighting the survival battle for four billion years.  I think they have a head start on us.

• Sometimes I wonder whether there are so many good causes to become involved in and/or contribute to that they suffer together from the dilution of our attention.  Would it be better if the world were to focus on malaria one year, HIV the next, hunger and famine the year after that?  Or is our current practice better, practically-speaking, of mounting low-level but sustainable efforts on all these countless fronts and reluctantly accept that it takes years to achieve results in any one of them?  Injustices test one’s patience.

• I am researching new toilets to replace our old noisy ones.  To be sure, this is an unglamorous task.  It got me thinking that someone (like me) could make a living as a toilet-whisperer to the stars and other highly-moneyed folks, people who don’t mind flushing several hundred dollars down the drain for the perfect toilet recommendation.  But inevitably, I would attract competitors and this kind of advice would become — yes — a commodity.

• Rick Lanier is founder of the 15-year-old U.S. Motto Action Committee. The purpose of this “committee” is to lobby county commissioners to put the words “In God We Trust” on the entrances to courthouses.  A Facebook post by Ken Lynn quotes Lanier as telling the Christian Action League, “We feel compelled to move forward aggressively in the hope of maintaining a remnant of our godly American heritage. Because of the apostasy of our nation and the evil forces of political correctness our religious freedoms are quickly dissipating.”  Lanier’s not-even-thinly-veiled religious action committee just convinced our neighbor Hendersonville, North Carolina, to place these words prominently above the entrances of its two courthouses.  So it seems that courthouses now join foxholes as places with a special power to convert atheists.

• The box says “Seedless Raisins.”  Imagine your surprise if you bit into one that wasn’t.

• There is something annoying about watching the evening news and hearing the anchor express his gratitude to the reporter at the conclusion of her story.  It seems self-serving. Isn’t the reporter just doing her job?  It’s not like she went out and bought the anchor a birthday gift.

• It’s interesting that one is likely to find Salade Niçoise in every big city in America, but I do not recall seeing a Caesar Salad on any menu in any restaurant in France.  If there is a joke here, it’s probably on us.