Banter Bites

Tornadoes Tear Apart. Americans Come Together.

We may have our differences, but when it comes to a disaster, we come together.

BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: When Red’s daughter, a freshman at Belmont University in Nashville, let us know that tornadoes were forecast for later that day, we never could’ve imagined the magnitude of the event; and we felt helpless when in the middle of the night Sawyer let us know all the dorms had gone into “sheltering” (thank you, Belmont, for your preparedness!) as a tornado’s path was forecast to pass through campus.

But while Sawyer was lucky in that she and her classmates were ultimately safe, the next morning, no one could quite believe the utter devastation, extraordinary destruction, and countless lives that had been lost due to tornadoes that tore through six states, hitting Kentucky especially hard. The stories of heartbreak, of loss, and of heroes, will continue and it will take years to recover.

There really isn’t much more we can say except that it’s times like this is when we all want to do something, anything, to help … so we’re going to repeat what Axios editor Laurin-Whitney Gottbrath, who's based in Louisville, Kentucky, suggests:

Donate

Give blood

Be smart: Before donating to any organization you're not familiar with, check out their profiles and rankings on sites like GuideStar and Charity Navigator.

This is one of Red’s favorite Banter Bites in large part because of Black’s “corny” puns, but also because fresh corn is a summer staple – whether cooked on the grill or in the microwave, whether eaten on its own or as a primary ingredient in refreshing summer salads


This may be one of the corniest things you’ll ever read.

BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: It’s just a vegetable, so how can it possibly elicit such a strong reaction from Red, while, for Black, it’s more a source of amusement and even, it turns out, admiration?

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Think you can avoid artificial intelligence? Think again …

BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: Red already fights technology at every turn, preferring to keep her ostrich head in the sand, plus, she finds Artificial Intelligence (AI) scary; whereas Black knows ignoring reality merely postpones the inevitable, so she’s started playing with AI to understand it better …

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A man better known for his death than his life, although Red, the straight-A student and history lover, immediately thinks of the costly and controversial movie of his life. (Well, technically, it was the life of Cleopatra.) Black, of course, focuses on business – leadership lessons, including the power of words, although she surprises Red with some food trivia. But the fact July’s named after him is the perfect excuse to rerun one of Red’s favorite Banter Bites …

Quick! If someone says "Julius Caesar," what comes to mind?

BANTER BITE BACKSTORY: Almost everyone has heard of Julius Caesar, but how many of us really know much about him, or at least that's what Red starts to wonder when she receives the usual flippant, but still accurate, reply from her sister, after feeling very proud that she knew that July was named after the famous Roman.

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