Cleanliness ...

... is not necessarily next to Godliness. We are living in an age of Purell ... that omnipresent liquid that the Felix Ungers of the world slather on their hands at the drop of a doily. (There are even grocery stores that now offer an equivalent way of sanitizing your shopping cart.) Now in Switzerland it has been discovered why the holes in Swiss cheese have been disappearing ... things have gotten too clean in the dairy barns there. It was the tiny specks of hay dust that were causing those characteristic vacuoles in Gruyere cheese ...  see: ENews Story ... and modern sanitation methods had eliminated this good contaminant.

Along these same lines, many years ago, on a swing through Napa valley, a few of us stopped at the Grgich Hills winery (the cru of the first American white wine to win a gold medal at a French wine fair.) Luckily, old man Grgich was there and gave us a personal tour ... during which he spilled the secret of making superior wine ... "Don't keep things too clean," he whispered.

It is also believed that exposing children to many of the microbes of life builds up their immunities ... rater than the opposite effect. So, you helicopter parents who never knowingly expose your chillins to any germs ... you may be causing them more harm than good ...