Strange BUT TRUE

• It was 20th-century German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht who made the following sage observation: “Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.”

• If you’re like 83 percent of American pet owners, you believe that your pet is better at cuddling than your significant other.

• According to Guinness World Records, the world’s largest snowflake measured 15 inches across.

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the government’s principal fact-finding agency in the field of labor economics and statistics, tracks employment trends. Using nationwide employment data, the BLS created projections of which occupations are likely to increase and which are likely on the decline. Unsurprisingly, healthcare and technology jobs are on the rise, while employment in manufacturing and farming is falling. It even identified 15 specific occupations as “fast declining.” At the top of the list of jobs on the way out are locomotive firers — though the surprise for many may be that the job even still exists. Also included in the top 10 are telephone operators, switchboard operators, postal service mail sorters, and sewing- and shoe-machine operators.

• Those who study such things say that the average stalk of celery contains 6 calories. However, since they’re in the form of cellulose, even those few calories aren’t absorbed into the body. Since some minute amount of energy is burned in the process of chewing, eating celery does indeed result in a net caloric loss.

• You might be surprised to learn that Canada has more lakes than all the rest of the world combined.

Thought for the Day:

“I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth — and truth rewarded me.” — Simone de Beauvoir