Several remarkable discoveries shared.
What Is Your Seat 13?
At 5:45 a.m. on Route 12, Hank Carter noticed something that changed everything: wet footprints trailing from seat thirteen.
The 57-year-old bus driver had just returned from winter break when a boy climbed aboard late, hoodie up, backpack sagging. The smell hit Hank immediately—yesterday’s shirt, unwashed. He knew it from his own childhood. When the boy stood at school, his socks had bled snowmelt through broken sneakers, leaving a dark stain on the vinyl.
The next morning, Hank arrived early with a brown paper bag: granola bar, milk box, hand warmers, dollar-store socks. He taped a note to it—”For whoever needs it. No questions”—and left it on seat thirteen.
By the final stop, the bag was gone. Folded neat under the seat.
That January morning became a daily ritual. Some days the bag sat untouched. Other days it vanished by the third stop, replaced with notes pressed so hard the pencil nearly tore through: “You saved my morning.” “These socks hug my feet.”
Then something unexpected happened. A girl with perfect hair left chapstick in the bag. A quiet kid added colored pencils. The depot custodian started bringing Ziplocs of cereal. “I remember being fifteen and hungry enough to eat paper,” he told Hank.
In March, fifth-grader Jayden boarded with red eyes, reached for the bag, then stopped. At the last stop, he grabbed it and tapped a smaller kid wearing a cast and a coat two sizes too thin.
“Here,” Jayden said. “It’s for you.”
Hank’s knuckles went white on the steering wheel.
By April, the offerings multiplied. Hot cocoa packets. A bus pass. One note in cursive read: “My son used this seat last month. He’s sleeping better now. Thank you for seeing him.”
On the last day of school, Hank stood and faced the rowdy bus. “Seat thirteen belongs to all of us,” he said, voice shaking. “In the fall, if you need it, it’s yours. If you don’t, help me keep it full.”
They nodded like they understood the rules.
Every August since, Hank packs that bag before dawn. New faces board. The same seat waits. At 6:12 a.m., small hands pass brown paper bags without words. A seat no one owns becomes a promise everyone keeps.
When asked why he does it, Hank shrugs. “You don’t need a program to change a life. You just need a place, a habit, and courage to leave something behind.”
Seat thirteen stays full. So do the kids who need it.
Tylenol/Panadol: From Painkiller to Empathy Killer
(Tom:
1. Paracetamol and acetaminophen are the same medication: Known as paracetamol in Australia and acetaminophen overseas.
2. In Australia the equivalent to Tylenol is Panadol.)
Last week’s historic announcement from HHS and President Trump connecting Tylenol use with the autism epidemic reignited longstanding concerns over Tylenol’s toxicity. For decades, the focus has been on liver damage and accidental overdoses. But the deeper story—the one still hiding in plain sight—is more disturbing: even a single dose of acetaminophen (Tylenol’s active ingredient) measurably blunts human empathy, dulls positive emotions, and increases risk-taking behavior.
This isn’t just a matter of personal health. It’s a social and spiritual crisis. If one-quarter of U.S. adults are taking Tylenol weekly, we may be medicating away our collective capacity for compassion.
Tylenol Blunts Emotions—Good and Bad
In a landmark 2015 Psychological Science study, titled “Over-the-Counter Relief From Pains and Pleasures Alike,” researchers at Ohio State University gave healthy adults a single standard 1,000 mg dose of acetaminophen (Tylenol) and then exposed them to emotionally charged images—ranging from disturbing to uplifting.
The outcome was unambiguous:
- Disturbing images were rated less negatively.
- Uplifting images were rated less positively.
- Across the board, participants reported feeling less emotional arousal, even when viewing the most extreme stimuli.
Brain research helps explain why: acetaminophen dampens activity in the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex—regions responsible for processing both physical pain and emotional resonance. These are the same circuits that allow us to feel empathy and to be moved by joy, awe, or sorrownihms703262.
The authors concluded:
“Acetaminophen attenuates individuals’ evaluations and emotional reactions to negative and positive stimuli alike… Rather than being labeled merely a pain reliever, acetaminophen might be better described as an all-purpose emotion reliever.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/sayerji/p/tylenol-from-painkiller-to-empathy
(Tom: I can personally attest to the emotion numbing effects of common medications. In 1995 I was prescribed asthma medication and thereafter felt a noticeably reduced ability to experience emotions. It wasn’t until I did a detox in 2010 that I felt the lid had been lifted off my universe.)
It’s Your Life- How Will You Use It Well?
In the summer of 1958, a young photographer named Art Kane had an idea that seemed almost impossible: gather the greatest jazz musicians in the world for one picture. Somehow, he did it.
Fifty-seven legends—Count Basie, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, and so many more—stood together on a Harlem sidewalk. They weren’t posing stiffly. They were laughing, chatting, leaning on each other. It was just a morning, just a photograph. But it became known as A Great Day in Harlem.
Decades later, in 1996, a handful of survivors gathered again on that same block. The brownstone was still there. The spirit was still there. But most of the faces were missing—gone to time, remembered only in music and memory.
When you see those two photographs side by side, it’s more than history. It’s a reminder. Life moves fast. People slip away. But the love we give, the art we create, the joy we share—those echoes last far longer than we do.
Fifty years from now, most of us won’t be here. But today, we are.
So let’s use it well. Let’s forgive. Let’s laugh. Let’s love—before the moment fades.
Impressive Collection Of Dogs Being Heroes
Pfizer’s Birth Control Shot Used by 25% of U.S Women Linked to Disabling Brain Tumors
For decades, Pfizer has marketed its injectable birth control Depo-Provera as a convenient, long-acting option for women. What few were told — and what new research now confirms — is that this hormone shot doubles the risk of developing brain tumors.
The latest study, published in JAMA Neurology by researchers from the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University, examined over 61 million U.S. medical records spanning two decades. Among these, women who used Depo-Provera — formally known as depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) — were found to have a 2.4-fold higher risk of developing meningioma, a slow-growing but potentially disabling brain tumor.
Depo-Provera has been used by roughly 1 in 4 sexually active women in the United States — a staggering figure given the now-documented neurological danger. The study found the highest tumor risk in women who started injections after age 31 or continued for more than four years.
Though meningiomas are often labeled “benign,” their growth can compress vital brain structures, leading to vision loss, cognitive decline, seizures, and paralysis.
https://open.substack.com/pub/petermcculloughmd/p/new-study-pfizers-birth-control-shot
Living History Day
The first thing I told my grandson’s class was that I helped a man die before I was old enough to buy a beer.
The whole room just… stopped. Not that loud, shocked quiet. The other kind. The one where you can suddenly hear the hum of the cheap fluorescent lights.
I’m seventy-six. My left knee clicks like a typewriter when I stand up, and my voice has more gravel than a country road. But that day, in my grandson Alex’s stuffy high school classroom, I saw something on those kids’ faces I hadn’t seen in a long time.
It wasn’t just curiosity. It was focus.
The teacher had invited me for “Living History Day.” A nice idea. My grandson Alex said last year they had a woman who’d marched with Dr. King. This year, they got me. Alex said they usually get software coders or someone who went “viral” on TikTok. They don’t usually get a guy with a piece of shrapnel still floating in his hip.
So there I was, standing in an old field jacket that’s been too tight since the Clinton administration, feeling a lump in my throat the size of a ration biscuit.
I didn’t bring any notes. You don’t need notes to talk about hell.
I told them about boot camp at Parris Island in ’68. How they shaved our heads until we were all just scared, angry ghosts in the same green uniform. How the South Carolina humidity felt like a hot, wet towel you could never take off, and the Drill Instructor peeled the civilian right off your bones.
I told them about the flight to Da Nang. The smell of jet fuel and stale sweat, and the feeling in your gut when the wheels hit the tarmac. I told them the first time I saw a man killed, he didn’t scream like in the movies. He just made a soft sound, like a sigh, and was gone.
I didn’t give them the gore. But I didn’t sugarcoat it, either.
Then I told them what mattered.
I told them I didn’t go to Vietnam because I understood the politics. I went because the draft board sent me a letter. I stayed because of the kid next to me. Because we made a pact to get each other home, even if only one of us was walking.
I told them about “Ski.” His real name was Mike Petrowski, from the South Side of Chicago. Always talking about the Cubs. He was supposed to go to college, but his dad lost his job at the steel mill. He took a piece of shrapnel from an IED that was meant for the trail in front of us. One minute he was complaining about the heat and his new boots, and the next… I was grabbing for a field dressing that I knew wouldn’t do any good.
I saw a girl in the back, one with bright blue hair, pull her sleeve over her eyes.
Then, I told them about coming home.
About landing in San Francisco and a college girl, not much older than them, spitting on my uniform. About how my own mom cried, but my dad just grabbed my duffel bag and said, “Well, that’s done. Best not to talk about it, Frank. People are… divided.“
I told them how the silence back home was deafening. How I couldn’t sleep in a soft bed for months because the quiet felt more dangerous than the jungle. How I drank a bit too much whiskey and yelled a bit too loud.
But I also told them this:
The Marine Corps didn’t just teach me how to clean a rifle. It taught me how to show up. It taught me how to carry my own pack, and someone else’s when they were stumbling. It taught me humility—that you’re not special, but what you do can be. I learned that life isn’t fair, and you don’t get to quit just because you’re tired or scared.
A boy in the back with his hood up asked the question. “Was it worth it? Would you… do it again?“
I looked at him. “I’d never wish for a war,” I said. “But I’m not sorry for who it made me. It made me a man. A flawed one, sure. But one who learned what it means to care about something more than just yourself.”
The bell rang, but nobody moved. It was so quiet, the teacher had to clear his throat and remind them to get to their next class.
As they filed out, one of the kids, the quiet one who always sat in the corner, slipped a folded piece of notebook paper into my hand.
I opened it in the car. Five words, scrawled in blue ink:
“Thank you for being real.”
That night, Alex gave me a hug that nearly cracked a rib. He said, “Grandpa, nobody even looked at their phone. Not once.”
I sat on my porch for a long time after that, watching the cars go by. For forty years, I kept my mouth shut. Thought no one wanted to hear it. Thought they’d just see a broken old relic.
But maybe I was wrong. Maybe this country, with all its shouting and all its noise, is finally ready to just… listen.
Because some stories don’t need a filter or a hashtag. They just need someone old enough to remember the truth, and someone young enough to finally hear it.
The Opposite Is True This is a snapshot. To see the full story: https://howtolivethehealthiestlife.com/
This is a snapshot. To see the full story: https://howtolivethehealthiestlife.com/
One Treatment For Autism
I want to share something wild…
So, after that press conference when Trump was going off about autism and Tylenol, there was one really overlooked moment that caught my attention. Bobby mentioned Leucovorin as a possible treatment for certain autism symptoms, especially speech delay.
Of course, I reached out to our pedi, and the response was exactly what I expected: “Oh, I don’t know enough about it. There haven’t been big enough studies. I’ve never prescribed it before,” yada yada. Okay, fine.
So, I go into Mama research mode. I wanted to understand what Leucovorin actually does, and if I could find something similar OTC. Leucovorin helps convert folate into 5-MTHF, which is the usable form of folate that can actually make its way to the brain. Some kids with the MTHFR gene mutation can’t make that conversion on their own. So I found a 5-MTHF supplement online and decided to try it.
48hrs after his 1st dose, we were in the car at a stoplight, and out of nowhere he said, “Go please!” I was in total shock. He’s basically nonverbal, aside from echoing what I ask him to say. There’s no real functional language, just a few memorized phrases from me repeating them 40k times. But spontaneous speech didn’t exist.
Later that day, I picked all 3 kids up from school. As I was about to pull out of the parking lot, Alston said, very slowly and deliberately, “Let’s go home now.” Asher yelled, MOM! Alston talked!!
About an hour after getting home, his ABA tech said he was talking more. My heart EXPLODED that another person noticed it and it wasn’t just me being overly hopeful 
The next day I was driving him to feeding therapy, and he read a book out loud. A whole book. By himself. I was sitting there thinking OMG, what’s happening? I knew people wouldn’t believe me so I took a video of him and sent it to a million people, lol.
THIS is why I fight so damn hard for RFK. People give me SO MUCH crap for it, but he’s literally one of the only people asking the hard questions and looking for answers for kids like Alston.
Bottom line? LISTEN TO THE MOMS. And DON’T be afraid to question the science 
A Genetic predisposition + environmental trigger
= Alston’s Autism
= Alston’s Autism