About 90 years ago, a Russian immigrant, Sam Born, started a company out of a Brooklyn, New York storefront. He was a candy maker, and he always touted the freshness of his products. Today, his company makes one particular candy that is still very popular. It’s the candy that every Easter morning, children will run to their easter baskets with all the joy of a child getting a new bike on Christmas. They are a spongy confection made of sugar, corn syrup, and gelatin. People do all sorts of thing with them, but traditionally they are given out on Easter, and if you didn’t get some in your Easter Basket, well, it just wasn’t Easter. I of course am talking about “Peeps”.

Peeps are “the” candy of Easter, and has been for more than 60 years. It’s the candy that you can do anything with from deep frying , to roasting them on a stick. But the best way to eat them I think is just right out of the box. Adults still enjoy the confection because nothing can take you way back memory wise like reaching into a box of Peeps. They come in pink and the well known yellow, and are shaped like “chicks” or “bunnies”. They are so popular that in 2013, they got an ad on television, the first ad in a decade.

Just Born Inc. is located 60 miles north of Philadelphia, and makes about 5 million Peeps a day according to third generation operator Ross Born. He has termed a phrase for people who not only eat the Peeps, but like to play around with them like an edible toy, “peepsonality”. The company is called “Just Born Inc” because his grandfather was proud of the freshness of his candy, and last Easter, they produced 1 billion of the spongy delights for Easter. They had their best year financially in 2012, but since the company is privately held, It does not disclose revenue. When the company moved north to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1953, it acquired the Peeps brand from the Rodda Candy Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania who’s claim to fame had been their jelly beans.

So wherever you are remember Easter is just around the corner, and heaven forbid you don’t get your box of Peeps. You’ll be the only one without a box. Oh, did I mention, they’re big on Christmas also.
Photo courtesy of wikimediacommons.com

DLTPONCH33

If you take a really good look at what’s happening to this planet in recent years, you cannot help but to think we are living on borrowed time. This planet is under siege and it seems like everyday we come up with new and improved ways to destroy it in the name of “progress”. We act as though we have another planet standing-by and all we have to do is just pack up our belongings and hop the next rocket-bus, and head for the new planet. Even though we like to think  about the prospects of a new planet in which to live, the reality is, it’s not going to be anytime soon, so we’re going to have to keep this one for the time being.

A lot of scientist and astronomers are looking out into space waiting on the next comet to hit, but I’ve got news, we are destroying our planet from the inside out. How much oil and gas do we think we can pull out of the earth before the planet strikes back? Well if we look at the signs, she’s striking back right now in the form of earthquakes. Drilling into the earths crust for gas and oil compromises the rock plates deep underground and causes dramatic shifts which in turn moves the plates, and establishes “fault lines”. You can test this theory by building a wall of rocks about 2 feet high with no means of securing all the rocks together. Then slowly, start pulling the rocks out one at a time. You will notice the wall shifts after so many rocks are pulled out, and continue to do so until it gives way and collapses. That same principle is happening underground when we start drilling. The rock we are drilling into develops cracks “faults” which starts to expand. What starts out as a crack a mile long turns into a crack 10 then maybe 50 miles long. Then the cracks move “shift”, and that causes tremors that eventually shake the planet. Oil and gas underground would normally buffer such actions, but if there’s no oil or gas there, then there is nothing to stop the movements. The Richter scales record the degree of these movements on a numerical basis, and are able to tell how violent the movements were.

Earthquakes, which gives no advance warnings, can be devastating. Scientist can only tell you that a certain area is prone to earthquakes by recording tremors and by gathering other available data using a seismograph. Earthquakes underwater, depending how strong they are, can cause tsunami’s which destroy everything in their path, such as the one that hit Tokyo and wrecked the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Thousands died, and the radiation still contaminates the area, and it will be years if ever, that the spot will be cleared for human habitation.

There is no doubt that if we don’t do something about our need to burn fossil fuels, and try harder to use green energy for everything, we will surely be the architects of our own demise. Sinkholes are showing up everywhere which is a sure sign that the Earth is caving in on itself. Let’s hope that we heed the warning signs sooner than later.

DLTPONCH33

Photo courtesy of eschooltoday.com