Card-carrying Dumpster Diver

(Photo by Raysonho)

As the flurry of holiday cards subsides, have you ever wondered where the ones that didn’t sell ended up?  If Dollar Tree stores are any indication, there may be dumpsters filled with unsent greetings.  Not to mention the home-based bins filled with those received…

MSN reports, “In the United States alone, 1.6 billion greeting cards are sent annually, which generates carbon pollution equivalent to powering more than 22,000 homes… requiring tons of water, trees and energy.”

Are there better ways of expressing holiday cheer than this?  Thankbox suggests plenty, including customized videos, handmade items, plantable cards with seeds in them, digital artwork, and even the good old message in a bottle.  These not only consider the environment, but also show more care than popping a post in the mail.

Resources

www.thankbox.com/blog/20-unique-alternatives-to-traditional-birthday-cards

Dumpster diver sparks backlash with photo of massive discovery in Dollar Tree dumpster: 'So senseless' 

Horns and Hooves

Fall of Lucifer
(Illustration by Gustave Dore)

A newfound bee with “horns” was named Megachile lucifer, supposedly because the Devil also has horny protrusions.

Why is Satan often portrayed with horns and accompanying hooves?  Live Science takes a look at the history of devilish depictions in order to figure this out.  After all, it’s about time that science enlivens religion.

There’s a popular theory which states that such images were modeled after the Ancient Greek god Pan, yet Pan was not widely linked with Lucifer until the 19^th century.  It seems instead possible that “the devil with horns and hooves originated in early Jewish literature,” as implied within “The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch.”

This text was written “between the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and the third century.”  It describes a “satyr-like” demonic race that allegedly “constructed the lowest levels of the Tower of Babel.”  Early Christians might have been strongly influenced by this vivid version of what demonic could look like.

Resources

https://www.iheart.com/content/2025-11-11-new-bee-species-named-lucifer-bee-discovered-in-australia/

https://www.livescience.com/why-does-the-devil-have-horns-and-hooves

What AI Can't Easily Replace

You rang, Madam?
(Photo by Gnsin)

Spiritual teachers have long warned against falling into robotic-like ruts of thinking and behaving.  They’ve recommended mindfulness as an alternative to such habits.

AI will soon be able to out-robot humans in pretty much all rote tasks.  And yet there is one aspect of humanity that can’t, by its very nature, be easily mechanized.  That mysterious force within humans is commonly called creativity.

Creativity seems as unfathomable as Creation itself.  It might therefore be the twelfth of never before AI can replicate humanity’s inventiveness. Jeff Bezos recently explained that “people capable of generating original ideas, not just executing established tasks” will be the workers who robots cannot easily replace.

Resources

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/jeff-bezos-says-only-one-kind-of-worker-will-remain-irreplaceable-in-the-age-of-ai/

Smile, you're on what?

(Public Domain)

Before shutterbugs became ubiquitous, there was a TV show called “Candid Camera.”  Unsuspecting  folks who were the target of rigged pranks would suddenly be told, “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!”

Although those targets are long gone, one big-box Target remains.  And this Target is now telling its employees to wipe a silly grin onto their faces, camera or no camera.

Its rationale for insisting that workers resemble the cover of Mad Magazine is this: Upturned lips lure people into buying more and more.  Yet even when enforced hand-waving is added to the mix, customers have been heading out the door.

Why?  Because Target recently ended their DEI policy and replaced it with chirpy cheerfulness.  But  hypocrisy is no substitute for empathy.  The corporation could therefore miss moving sales targets as they quickly head downhill.

Resources

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/target-s-new-smile-policy-disrespects-its-employees-and-the-shoppers-who-left/