Byline: Stephen Goode, INSIGHT

Arachnids, Geckos And New Perils of Going to the Dentist

A roundup of recent revelations from Reuters might include these rich (and sometimes risible) reports, each of which reflects in some way on how we live today.

The reputation of Germans as fearless warriors every one a courageous Siegfried or stalwart Brunhilde may have to undergo re-evaluation. This spring in the southern German city of Heilbronn, a town of 112,000 on the Neckar River in the state of Baden-W'rttemberg, a group of preschool teachers stood quaking before what they thought was a huge spider making its way across the school's sandbox.

"They were all highly agitated and trembling with fear," a police spokesman said later. He also reported that police had approached the critter gingerly, closing off and surrounding the sandbox before discovering that the huge, fear-inspiring arachnid was in fact a rubber toy.

From Germany, too, comes another story, this time about a new kind of fine. The amount was $117 seemingly exorbitant considering the infraction, which was nothing more dangerous to the welfare of the community than a mother's failure to get her daughter to open her mouth at the dentist's office! The incident transpired in the town of Wernigerode (12,000 souls) in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The dentist demanded the 8-year-old girl open her mouth for a routine checkup, but the frightened child refused. Local authorities imposed the fine, which was upheld by local courts. Mom agreed to pay up, which for the people thinks sets bad precedent. If you can fine a child for keeping a closed mouth, what's left that can't be penalized?

Meanwhile, there was news of a new adhesive from Britain that might prove liberating. It's based on the tiny hairs called setae on the feet of geckos. For a long time scientists thought that it was some kind of glue that allowed the famous lizards to scramble up glass walls and stay attached to ceilings for hours.

Not so. It's these tiny hairs, millions of them. Last year, Americans identified the setae as the means the gecko used to do its acrobatics. Now Andre Geim of the University of Manchester has come up with tape that makes use of the tiny hairs.

Rigged with that tape, what's the limit? We'll all be spidermen and women oops, gecko guys and gals walking up the outsides of tall buildings without a blink of an eye. No wall will keep us out of anything. Everyone will climb Mount Everest! Well maybe. For the people wonders what fake setae can do if the user doesn't have a gecko's amazing natural agility, which most people don't.

The Talmud Teaches About Life and Law

The Talmud dates from the fifth century A.D. and is an invaluable collection of Jewish law and legend. There's much in it that's food for thought, much that's wise and useful. Here are a few Talmud quotations from The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

* "By three things is the world sustained: by the Law, by the [Temple] service and by deeds of loving-kindness."

* "Let the property of thy fellow be dear to thee as thine own."

* "The tradition is a fence around the Law."

* "As to every man who becomes angry, if he is a sage, his wisdom departs from him; if he is a prophet, his prophecy departs from him."

* "Repentance is so great that premeditated sins are accounted as though they were merits."

* "A man's prayer is only answered if he takes his heart into his hand."

* "A man ... loves his wife as himself ... honors her more than himself."

* "Great is labor, for it honors the worker."

* "He who does not teach his son a craft, teaches him brigandage."

* "A man who gives charity in secret is greater than Moses."

* "It is the penalty of a liar, that should he even tell the truth, he is not listened to."

* "The Holy Spirit rests only on someone whose heart is happy."

Stephen Goode is a senior writer for Insight magazine.

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