Table of contents for September 2013 in Reader's Digest

I’m as sure-footed as they come. That’s why I was so surprised when I stumbled on a subway grate on the morning of December 5, 2004. As a crowd gathered to help, blood trickled out of a three-inch gash on my knee. Unable to stop the flow, I hailed a cab. “To the nearest emergency room, please,” I said. I e-mailed my boss to say that I’d be an hour late. At the ER, I explained my need for stitches to the admitting nurse. She stared at me and said, “You’re going straight to the maternity wing.” “No, no, you don’t understand,” I said, patting my enormous baby bump. “I didn’t fall on my belly. There was no trauma. I feel fine.” She would have none of it. I was…

A man walks into a rooftop bar and takes a seat next to another guy. “What are you drinking?” he asks the guy. “Magic beer,” he says. “Oh, yeah? What’s so magical about it?” “Oh, yeah? What’s so magical about it?” The guy proceeds to show him: He drinks some beer, jumps off the roof, flies around the building, and returns to his seat. “Amazing! Lemme try some of that,” the man says. He grabs the beer, downs it, leaps off the roof, and falls 30 feet to the ground. The bartender shakes his head and says to the first guy, “You know, you’re a real jerk when you’re drunk, Superman.” Stephen Colbert to students at the University of Virginia: “Your generation needs everything to be about you, and that’s…

FROM THE New York Times One night while eating dinner with my extended family, I noticed my nephew texting under the table. I asked him to stop. Ka-boom! My sister snapped at me to not discipline her child. My dad pointed out that my girls were the ones balancing spoons on their noses. My mom said none of the grandchildren had manners. Within minutes, everyone had fled to separate corners. Later, my dad called me to his bedroom. “Our family’s falling apart,” he said. I disagreed with Dad at the time, but soon I began to wonder, What are the ingredients that make some families resilient and happy? It turns out to be a great time to ask that question. Researchers have recently revealed stunning insights into how to make…

New science: Feasting on low-cal meals twice a week power-burns fat. For folks with diabetes, weight loss is a natural form of “medication.” Reams of research prove that losing even just a few pounds is an effective way to control blood sugar or reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the first place. But in an ironic twist, losing weight may be more difficult if you have type 2 diabetes. And the reason isn’t just a lack of willpower. Too often, diet plans don’t work for people with diabetes because the metabolism changes associated with blood sugar problems may increase appetite, slow down fat burning, and encourage fat storage. Now breakthrough research has revealed a better way for people to lose weight and reduce insulin resistance. The secret…

For 2,400 years, patients have believed that doctors were doing good; for 2,300 years, they were wrong, according to historian David Wootton, in Strange Medicine: A Shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Ages. Here, the recently published book reveals some wacky treatments once considered cutting-edge. • TOOTHACHES In ancient Egypt, a dead mouse was placed on the tooth of a person in dental distress. In ancient Rome, toothaches were treated by rubbing one’s mouth with a hippopotamus’s left tooth and eating the ashes of a wolf’s head, wrote Pliny the Elder. • LICE One remedy from 13thcentury surgeon Jehan Yperman: Smear the person with a paste of mercury, ashes, the spit of a child, and lard. • CANCER In 1880, the medical journal the Lancet published a letter…

Have you ever looked into the sky and seen a cloud that vaguely resembled your mom? Or gazed at the twisted trunk of a tree only to see an old man staring back at you? Then you have experienced pareidolia, the human mind’s tendency to read significance into random stimuli. You have also intuited what children and poets have long held true: that anything can be a canvas for a human face. Computers are learning the same lesson, with the help of some ingenious humans. Earlier this year, Berlin-based design studio Onformative combined facial-recognition software with Google Earth images to scan the planet’s surface for terrain that forms human-like expressions. The resulting project, Google Faces, “hovers over the world to spot all the faces that are hidden on earth,” say…

1 Reality TV is actually not, well … real. True, there’s no script, but we have writers who craft plot lines, twisting and tweaking footage to create conflict and shape a story. Oh, and we redo things all the time. On Biggest Loser, the contestants have to walk up to the scale about five times so the producer can capture all the angles on camera. 2 We’re always trying to get as much talent as possible while spending as little money as possible. Ninety-nine percent of the people on reality TV get their expenses covered and maybe a daily stipend of $20 or $30, but that’s it. 3 Yes, we often take different clips and edit them together to sound like one conversation, sometimes drastically changing the meaning. We can…

My neighbor, a police officer, pulled someone over for texting while driving, a big nono in our state. The driver was having none of it. “I was not texting!” she insisted indignantly. “I was on Facebook.” Brenda Morales, crown Point, indiana Tome Deaf Bookstore owners share their customers’ oddest requests. • “Where’s your true fiction section?” • Holding an autographed book: “I want to buy this book but not this copy because someone’s written in it.” • “Do you have Pride and Produce?” Source: dailymail.co.uk Two women came to my photo studio to have their portrait taken. My very young and very naïve assistant asked, “Are you two sisters?” “No,” said one of the women. “We’re partners.” “Ohhhh …,” said my assistant. “So how long have you ladies been cops?”…

FROM the New York Times On october 5, 1973, four-year-old Josh Miele was playing in the backyard of his family’s house on President Street in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, as his mother, Isabella, cooked in the kitchen. When the doorbell rang, Josh sprinted to answer it. He opened the door and saw Basilio Bousa, 24, one of his next-door neighbors, standing on the other side of the vestibule’s heavy iron gate. Josh unlocked the gate. Then he slipped his two feet into its lowest rung and grabbed hold of each side with his hands so that his weight would pull open the gate. Basilio didn’t move or speak. Josh stepped out from behind the gate, into the open. And then, he couldn’t see. He didn’t know why. He…

Not only is baseball the greatest sport in America, it’s our national pastime! Other than watching cat videos, what else has pastime status? Nothing, and here’s why: The game is slow. And that’s a good thing. We’re an ambling nation; we take our time and make sure things get done right, and here’s a sport that lets its players get on base by walking. Baseball is timeless because there is no artificial timepiece dictating its pace. No one shamefully sits on the ball to run out the clock (as they do in other sports that shall go nameless), because there is no clock. Both teams get 27 outs to do with what they can. And if they need a few more, no problem. It’s fair. It’s, dare I say ……

Carey Neesley considered her younger brother, Peter, her best friend, and as a single mom, she relied on him as a father figure to her nine-year-old son, Patrick. From his Army base in Iraq, Peter called and e-mailed as often as he could. He’d befriended a stray dog and her puppy, he said, and named them Mama and Boris, the latter for a friend who’d been killed. Because no dogs were allowed inside the base, he built a house for them outside its walls, and he was determined to find a way to bring them back to Michigan when his tour ended. But on Christmas Day, 2007, Neesley answered the world’s most dreaded knock on the door: “We regret to inform you ...” Here’s what happened in the days that…

Doctor Drama I’ve been a longtime patient of Dr. A, but when she wasn’t available for my recent routine checkup, I made an appointment with her colleague, Dr. B. Dr. A is competent and thorough, but I felt more comfortable with Dr. B. Would I be betraying Dr. A if I switched physicians? Sensitive Type Dear Sensitive, It’s kind of you to be concerned, but you’re missing the point. A good doctor-patient relationship is important—especially for the patient. Both Dr. A and Dr. B are responsible for taking care of you, not the other way around. Make your appointment according to what’s best for you, and let the docs deal with any hurt feelings. There may be none; they’re busy saving lives! Modern Family Our son and daughter, both college…

I’m not the easiest guy in the world to get along with. So when our anniversary rolled around, I wanted my wife to know how much I appreciated her tolerating me for the past 20 years. I ordered flowers and told the florist to enclose a card that read, “Thanks for putting up with me so long.” When my wife got the delivery, she called me at work. “Where are you going?” she asked. “What do you mean?” I said. She read the card aloud as the florist had written it: “Thanks for putting up with me. So long.” George Arnold, Melbourne, Florida On a trip to Sweden, I asked a few people where I could find some good local cuisine. “This is a pretty cosmopolitan city, so you can…

Natural Bummer I was shocked when I saw two apparent discharge pipes in the upper left-hand side of the picture of Ausable Chasm (“50 Surprising Reasons We Love America”). I can’t understand how they could have been placed there! Richard Reeks, Virginia Beach, Virginia Editor’s Note: While Ausable Chasm is a natural wonder, the pipes were installed in the 19th century as part of an elaborate process for moving passenger boats upriver. Though visitors now tour the chasm on rafts, the pipes remain a historical visual reminder. Red, White, and Confused Your IQ test was a lot of fun (“What’s Your American IQ?”); however, I guess I’m a Yankee Doodle Dunce. In the future, can you make it easier? Harold Rinder, Plainview, New York Close to Home My dad, Mel,…

Nothing says celebration like a decadent layer cake—and home cooks have been perfecting theirs for generations, according to the new book Recipes Across America by Taste of Home. We asked our social-media fans to choose between two of the book’s sweet siblings—German Black Forest (handed down to a Nevada baking maven from her great-grandma) and German Chocolate cake (which traces its roots to American baker Samuel German). After nearly 7,000 votes, the coconut-crazy goodness of German Chocolate beat its cherry-spiked rival. Enjoy! For more than 700 delicious recipes gathered from home cooks, spotlighting America’s rich culinary history, go to tasteofhomebooks.com/raa. German Chocolate Cake “It’s so special, most people ask for a second slice,” says Joyce Platfoot of Wapakoneta, Ohio, about her winning cake. Prep: 30 min. Bake: 30 min. +…

• Mamihlapinatapai (’mah-mih-lah-pee-nahtah-pay) n.—A look between two people in love that expresses unspoken but mutual desire. (Fuegian language of Tierra del Fuego) • Onsra (uhns-’rah) n.—A bittersweet feeling that occurs in those who know their love won’t last. (Boro language of India) • Koi No Yokan (’koy-noh-yo-kin) n.—Upon meeting someone, a feeling that the two of you may soon fall in love. (Japanese) • Retrouvailles (’rhoo-trooh-vahy) n.—The joy of reuniting with someone after a long separation. Literally “rediscovery.” (French) • Tuqburni (’tooq-bur-nah) n.—A love so deep, you can’t imagine life without your partner. The English translation is “you bury me.” (Arabic) • Saudade (saw-’dah-djee) n.—A strong feeling of missing someone you love. (Portuguese)…

Anticipating too little sleep, say, during a business trip or while meeting a big work deadline? Recent data suggests you can bank sleep in advance to offset the deleterious effects of sleep deprivation, says Christopher Winter, MD. Go to bed one to two hours earlier than you normally would for a few days before your expected lack of sleep, says to the sleep-medicine physician. Even small shortfalls can throw off levels of key hormones that affect appetite, stress, and the immune system. “If you head into a sleep-deprivation situation when you’re well rested, those hormone levels will start out in a healthier place, so you’ll have more energy than you would if you hadn’t been sleeping as well beforehand,” Dr. Winter says.…

FROM dailycamera.com On November 20, 2003, a fire burned Vivienne Palmer’s house to the ground and turned her possessions to ash. At the time, she was devastated—but later, a surprising state of euphoria set in. “After getting over the shock, I would remember a certain thing and think, It’s gone, and let go of it. It felt amazingly freeing,” Palmer says. Now, ten years later, she looks around her cluttered house and wants to reclaim that freedom. Her plan: Project 3650, a commitment to let go of at least ten things every day for a year (culminating in a total of 3,650 donated or sold items). A friend warned her: Don’t set yourself up for failure; that’s a lot of stuff. But Palmer is reveling in the challenge. Everything is…

Fooled by Find My iPhone When a shop clerk in New York City was robbed at gunpoint for her iPhone early last year, a nearby officer knew to spring into action with his own phone. Using the Find My iPhone app, he entered the victim’s Apple ID and located the missing mobile in seconds. Wasting no time, he drove over and immediately caught the perp—who’d stashed the pricey device in his sock. Snagged by Selfies Shortly after a victim noticed her iPad had been lifted while she was shopping at a Southern California Costco, she spent some time scrolling through photos on her phone. Lo and behold, snapshots of the alleged thieves were popping up on her iCloud account thanks to the iPad’s auto-upload feature. Police released the self-styled mug…

FROM sportsonearth.com In a column about Josh Hamilton, the once universally beloved All-Star who had a rough go of it during his first month as an Anaheim Angel, Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers asks Hamilton a snide question. Hamilton, who became a born-again Christian after his well-publicized struggle with substance abuse, tells Simers that, when fans are booing him, he turns to the Bible for strength. Simers responds: “Does it mention anywhere in the Bible what it takes to hit more home runs?” Hamilton showed more restraint than I might in a similar situation. Rather than bonk Simers on the head with his bat, he says, “That would go to prayer.” Of all the things my non-sports-fan friends dislike about sports, the biggest one is how athletes are always…

Mash-Ups From brunch (breakfast + lunch) to WiFi (wireless + fidelity), today’s English language is full of mash-up words. Other examples include smog, sitcom, and Muppet, as well as the hybrids below. Enjoy the edutainment—or turn to the next page for the answers. 1. motorcade (’moh-terkaid) n.—A: breakdown. B: automatic response. C: procession of vehicles. 2. radome (’ray-dohm) n.—A: salad vegetable. B: antenna housing. C: all-night party. 3. digerati (di-juh-’rahtee) n.—A: archaeologist. B: computer whizzes. C: screen pixels. 4. slurve (’slurv) n.—A: ice-cream drink. B: automobile stunt. C: baseball pitch. 5. telegenic (’te-li-je-nik) adj.—A: suitable manner and appearance for TV. B: having ESP. C: born on foreign soil. 6. meld (’meld) v.—A: liquefy. B: combine. C: harden with age. 7. bodacious (boh-’deyshus) adj.—A: remarkable. B: interfering. C: part human, part…

Adozen years after he set out to sail around the world, Max Young was entering the homestretch—an 850-mile haul from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, to San Diego, then a 500-mile hop to San Francisco. On a moonless night in June 2012, his 50-foot cutter, Reflections, cruised northward, propelled by a steady breeze, its rudder guided by autopilot. Young, 67, sat in the pilothouse, gazing out at a magnificent conflagration of stars. The retired schoolteacher wished that his wife, who’d skipped this leg of the trip, were there to share the beauty. A yawn escaped him. Usually, Young slept all day when he was sailing solo so he’d be fully alert to meet the challenges of nighttime navigation. Today, however, he had only catnapped: The ocean had been full of whales—grays,…

FROM Psychology Today How to: Get an Honest Answer You’re buying a used car, moving into a new apartment, or determining which doctor should treat your cancer. These are times when you need to get directly to the core of an issue. Asking general questions elicits little valuable information and may even yield deceptive responses, says Julia Minson, a visiting scholar in decision sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. The best bet, says Minson, is to ask probing questions that presume there are problems. Let’s say someone is selling a used iPod. An example of a general question is “What can you tell me about it?” A positive-assumption question is “There aren’t any problems with it, right?” But a negativeassumption question such as “What problems have you had with it?”…

July It’s dusk, and my barefoot children and I are chasing fireflies where they rise from the grass beneath the pecan trees in our backyard in rural North Carolina. Wielding cheap butterfly nets, we zero in on one insect and track it against the backdrop of cattle browsing in an adjacent pasture. The lightning bug sinks and drifts like a dust mote in a sunbeam, and when its light goes out, we crouch to follow its silhouette against the purpling sky. Passing a fire fly off to my children takes on a sudden and poignant weight. I capture the firefly and hand it off to my two-year-old daughter, Zoe, who cups her hands around it and forms a slot to put her eye up to. When the lightning bug flashes…

RECENTBITSFROMRD.COM Learn something new every day! Get the full stories at rd.com/dailydigest. Most popular on Facebook 1 DOES RED MEAT BEAT THE BLUES? A 2012 Australian study found that women who ate between two and four ounces of grass-fed beef or lamb a few times a week were twice as likely to be free of depression or anxiety as those who ate less or more; researchers think it’s the omega-3s in the animal’s diet. 2 WEIRD REASONS YOU’RE TIPSY SO QUICKLY Unrelated studies show that mixing liquor with diet soda, drinking from a curvy glass, and liking the way a cocktail tastes can all raise bloodalcohol levels. 3 HOW TO PROLONG SMARTPHONE BATTERY LIFE If you find yourself constantly recharging your device, experts advise closing unused apps, deactivating location services…

Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. From Long Walk to Freedom, 1995 Nelson Mandela A collection of inspiring words to celebrate the extraordinary life of the South African politician and champion of anti-apartheid When there is danger, a good leader takes the front line; but when there is celebration, a good leader stays in the back of the room. From O Magazine, 2001 If 27 years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are. From an address at the 13th International AIDS Conference, 2000 The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but rising every time we fall. From Mandela: The Authorized Biography,…

They’d just finished lunch at a café in Orange County—Chuck Rees, his wife, Laurie, and her mother, Ann Marie Effert. Then Rees, 51, spotted smoke rising from a hill a few blocks away. “Let’s get up there!” he cried. Keeping the dark plumes in sight, the trio drove through winding, unfamiliar streets and eventually came upon a white two-story house with black smoke billowing from the back. Rees pulled his car alongside a couple standing on the curb in front of the house. “Anybody in there?” he asked them. “I knocked, but nobody answered,” the man said. “We’ve called 911.” To watch Rees tell his story, download the Reader’s Digest app. “I couldn’t allow a fire to potentially take a life,” Rees says. Rees threw his car into park. “Chuck,…

The “Rules of Dinner” say, It’s not chaos. It’s richness. Close your eyes and picture what makes you happiest. For me, it’s food overflowing from wooden bowls; a loaf of warm, crusty bread peeking out of an old red hand cloth; and the sound of laughter muddled with clinking glasses. Simply put: family dinner. Whether with the family I was born into or the ones I’ve made, I can think of no other daily ritual that brings me more happiness. That’s why when I stumbled upon Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach, I was completely enamored by her and hubby Andy’s “Rules of Dinner.” Their prose not only gently coached me on how to atone for the kitchen sins I’ve been committing for decades (more vinegar, less oil) but…

Each January, Google invites kindergarten through 12thgrade students to redesign the company logo based on a provided theme. This year, the Doodle 4 Google directions were simple: Illustrate your best day ever. Out of 130,000 submissions, a panel of nine guest judges—including TV host Katie Couric and the Roots drummer Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson—chose a poignant six-part design by Sabrina Brady, 18, a high school senior in Sparta, Wisconsin. In it, a little girl carrying a small American flag runs toward a soldier. In the last panel, the soldier kneels down to envelop the girl in a hug. Brady’s caption reads, “When I was 10 years old, my dad came home from war. This was my best day ever.” For her winning design, which graced the Google home page on May…

Don’t shrug off sloppy messages from a loved one—“dystextia” (an inability to text coherently) may soon become a vital tool in diagnosing stroke. A report presented at a scientific conference described the case of a 40-year-old man who sent nonsensical texts to his wife while on a business trip. When doctors evaluated him at a hospital the next day, he didn’t seem to have any of the usual language problems associated with stroke—until they gave him a smartphone and asked him to type “the doctor needs a new BlackBerry.” What he wrote: “Tjhe Doctor nddds a new bb.” Worse, the man didn’t notice any spelling errors. Doctors determined that he’d had an acute ischemic stroke, in which a clot blocks blood flow to the brain. Because text messages are time-stamped,…

Get Off My Lot! To prevent people from using the alley next to his house, an irritable resident filled the space with this seven-foot-wide abode in Alexandria, Virginia. Oh, Brother What if you and your brother had inherited a big plot of land—and he built a huge house on it while you were away serving in the military? That’s exactly what happened in Boston in 1874. Left with only a sliver of property, the resourceful soldier constructed a small wooden house abutting his brother’s, blocking the sunlight and destroying his sibling’s view. No, Move the Highway Elderly homeowners Luo Baogen and his wife wouldn’t give in to the government when city representatives demanded to buy their home in Wenling, China, so they could demolish it and build a highway. When…

Have you ever run out of cell phone juice in the middle of the day—only to realize you don’t have the time to charge it, much less look for an outlet? Enter Eesha Kare, an 18-year-old high school student in Saratoga, California. Earlier this year, she presented a device at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair that will allow cell phones to charge in less than 30 seconds. She became one of three winning students in the competition, placing ahead of more than 1,600 others from around the world. Clearly removed from a generation raised on Duracell AAs, Kare described her invention simply to CBS News: “I developed a new supercapacitor, which is basically an energy-storage device that can hold a lot of energy in a small amount of…

• I Was a Sports Star A young Hilary Swank competed at the Junior Olympics as a swimmer. • I Wrote Songs for Johnny Cash Whimsical children’s author Shel Silverstein wrote The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends … and the lyrics for Cash’s hit “A Boy Named Sue.” • I Did My Book on a Dare Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham when an editor challenged him to pen a book using no more than 50 words. • I Destroyed Art to Live When he was young and poor, Pablo Picasso burned his own paintings to keep warm in the winter. • I Wrote the Catchy Jingles Barry Manilow wrote State Farm’s “Like a Good Neighbor” jingle—even though he didn’t write his own hit “I Write the Songs.”…

Highways of blood. A burly bodyguard of an immune system. Bones constantly rebuilding. You won’t believe how brilliantly designed you are. Turn the page for two parallel stories: 1) the extraordinary things your body accomplishes every day and 2) the health advances that will keep it humming for years. 20 Mind-Blowing Medical BREAKTHROUGHS The latest news you can use to protect your heart, keep your brain sharp, wake up happier, and more BY HALLIE LEVINE SKLAR 1 Better Stroke Detector Imagine you’re experiencing severe dizziness and suspect you’re having a stroke. Precious lifesaving minutes tick by before you finally decide to go to the hospital and while you wait to have a CT or MRI to diagnose the cause. Now a new test may quickly determine whether the dizziness is…

FROM explodingunicorn.blogspot.com Baseball Is a Bore Baseball is not a sport. I classify it as a lowimpact recreational activity like Pilates or yoga. It takes more athletic ability to work at the post office than it does to start for the Mets. I’m not saying everyone can make it in the big leagues. It takes a set of highly specialized skills to play baseball. The same could be said of being an accountant. Neither deserves to be televised. There’s a simple test to determine if an activity rises to the level of a sport: Can you do it while chewing tobacco? By this objective measurement, baseball fails, but cheerleading passes. Everyone remembers that girl on the high school spirit squad who choked on Skoal and was subsequently crushed to death…

THE FAMILY ON THE BRIDGE Last January, Kelli Groves, 36, settled in to drive the final stretch of a four-hour road trip from her home in San Juan Capistrano, California, to Mission San Luis Obispo. In the backseat, her daughter Sage, ten, huddled under a blanket to watch a movie on her mom’s laptop; infant daughter, Mylo, dozed in a car seat. Suddenly, as Groves was crossing a bridge on Highway 101, a semitruck attempted to cut in front of her BMW but slammed into its passenger side, instantly pinning the sedan to the guardrail. The truck careened off the bridge and exploded in a ravine 100 feet below, killing the driver. Groves’s BMW dangled halfway off the bridge. “I thought that within a few seconds, we were going over,”…

It was early in the spring about 15 years ago—a day of pale sunlight and trees just beginning to bud. I was a young police reporter, driving to a scene I didn’t want to see. A man, the police dispatcher’s broadcast said, had accidentally backed his pickup truck over his baby granddaughter in the driveway of the family home. It was a fatality. As I parked among police cars and TV news cruisers, I saw a stocky, white-haired man in cotton work clothes standing near a pickup. Cameras were trained on him, and reporters were sticking microphones in his face. Looking totally bewildered, he was trying to answer their questions. Mostly he was only moving his lips, blinking, and choking up. After a while, the reporters gave up and followed…

“Well, well. Look who just flew in under the radar.” You’ll Be Tested ⒒ Combat rules soldiers should know: ⒒ Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you. ⒒ Never look important; the enemy may be low on ammo. ⒒ Never draw fire; it irritates everyone around you. ⒒ Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder. A Classic We Love Few civilians know what a quartermaster does. So during my aircraft carrier’s Family Day, I demonstrated a procedure called semaphore—I grabbed my flags and signaled an imaginary ship. Then I asked a little girl, “Now do you know what I do?” She said, “You’re a cheerleader.” Danny Sullivan Get Paid $100 for a Laugh! The best burst-out-loud funnies come from readers like you. Send us…