Strange BUT TRUE

• It was 20th-century American author and college professor David Foster Wallace who made the following sage observation: “There is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some diehard’s vote.”

• Those who study such things say that many ancient Greeks carried coins in their mouths — clothing of the time lacked pockets, you see.

• In late 19-century America, parts of New England had a rather unusual Halloween tradition.

Evidently, in many rural communities, boys would celebrate by throwing cabbage, corn and other rotten vegetables.

• If you’re like many wage slaves, as the end of the workweek approaches you might find yourself doing busywork — trying to look as if you’re working when, in fact, you’re just shuffling papers or otherwise avoiding productivity. Well, there’s a word for that: fudgel. Fudgeling may not be an approved workplace activity, but it’s undeniably a part of the American workplace.

• If you look closely at the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s famed masterwork, you might notice that the famously enigmatic subject is entirely lacking in eyebrows.

• It may not come as a surprise

that when scorpions mate, it’s a rather violent affair. When the act is completed, the female stings her partner to death, then eats him.

• In 1993, voters in San Francisco voted on a ballot measure to determine whether police officer Bob Geary would be allowed to walk his neighborhood beat while carrying his ventriloquist’s dummy, known as Brendan O’Smarty. The measure passed, and O’Smarty remained on the job.

• It’s been reported that in the Mexican city of Tehuantepec, women outnumber men by five to one. Thought for the Day: “Life is a four-letter word.” — Lenny Bruce