Good morning, John.
It's very nearly Thanksgiving here in these United States of America.
According to Green family tradition,
it's now time for me to tell you what I'm thankful for,
which is a wonderful brother who is a brilliant writer,
an awesome bunch of people who watch me make a fool out of myself on YouTube,
an amazing family
and a loving wife,
who will carry my dead weight through all of Super Mario Brothers Wii.
Now that my obligation to my mother,
who I love and am thankful for,
has been fulfilled,
I wanted to provide a service for the Google searching population of the world.
At google, I typed in " Why are [SPACE]"
and I'm going to answer the top most searched-for question
for every single letter
of our alphabet,
right now, starting now.
"Why are asians so smart?"
Well first, even positive stereotypes are stereotypes. So you should be ashamed of yourself.
But actually the theory on this subject, I think, that generally
Asian-American culture values smartness.
And I think that our values as individuals
and as members of broader cultures
have a huge effect on what sort of people we end up becoming.
Now. "Why are barns red?"
When farmers were treating their wood hundreds of years ago,
they were doing it with the materials that they had at hand,
and one of the materials that they had a hand was rust
and rust is a fungicide
and put that in the paint and it would prevent the wood from rotting.
It also turned the wood kind of a rusty red-brown color.
"Why are... Cuban cigars illegal?"
Fifty years ago,
the Communist Cuban government decided that they owned all of the land that Americans owned in Cuba
and so they just took it.
America was all,
"C'mon give it back."
And then Cuba was like,
and then America was like,
"Fine.
Then we're never gonna buy anything from you, ever again."
"Why are Dina and Caroline fighting?"
You know, I have no idea who those people are
but I'm just gonna venture a guess that it's because
they're not imagining each other complexly.
"Why are enzymes important?"
Because every living thing on our planet is basically just a series of chemical reactions
and those chemical reactions are facilitated by,
that's right, you guessed it,
enzymes.
"Why are flamingos pink?"
Because the food that they eat is pink.
"Why are grapes bad for dogs?"
No one knows why grapes are bad for dogs,
but it's important to note that they are.
Do not give your dogs grapes
and if they eat a bunch of grapes,
take them to the vet.
"Why are Jews liberal?"
Really?!
"Why are Kardashians famous?"
Here's the thing about fame,
we decide who's famous.
I've decided that they aren't
so the Kardashians aren't famous,
Cardassians are famous
they're infamous, in fact.
"Why are leaves green?"
Because they're packed full of chlorophyll.
"Why are manhole covers round?"
Well, one.
Because sewers are round.
And two.
So that the manhole covers can't fall into the sewer.
And three.
To give douchebags an annoying and meaningless question to ask in job interviews.
"Why are noble gases unreactive?"
Because their electron orbitals are filled.
Duh.
"Why are oceans salty?"
Fresh water falls on land and then as it runs down rivers,
it picks up tiny amounts of salt
and then it gets to the oceans, where it evaporates up
and the salt stays behind.
Fresh water comes up,
more salt gets washed into the ocean,
over eons and eons,
salt builds up in the ocean.
"Why are plants green?"
Already did that.
"Why are q-tips called q-tips?"
And the q stands for quality.
"Why are republicans stupid?"
Oh, come on, people.
"Why are significant figures important?"
Cause measurement is entirely useless
without knowledge of the precision at which you are measuring.
"Why are they called carpetbaggers?"
That's weird.
Bring back the science.
"Why are unions bad?"
Who told you unions were bad?
"Why are veins blue?"
They aren't blue and neither is deoxygenated blood,
subcutaneous fat in our skin actually blocks red light from escaping,
so you only see the blue light that's coming off of the veins,
huh?
Interesting!
"Why are we here?"
Oh, Lord.
You're asking Google?!
"Why our yawns contagious?"
So no one has any idea actually.
"Why are zombies so popular?"
Well dear googler, in my opinion,
it's because the myth of the zombie
allows us to do metaphorical battle with things that we cannot battle in real life,
such as
disease
and decay
and violence
and the inevitable evacuation of ourselves
from our bodies.
John, I will see you on Monday-
Wednesday-
Friday.