The carrot always wins over the stick. Ask your horse. You can lead your horse to water, but you can’t manage him to drink.

If you want to manage somebody, manage yourself. Do that well and you’ll be ready to stop managing — and start leading. The difference will be quite noticeable in very short order.

Various and Sundry Discoveries

• 15 percent of Americans bite their toenails.

• The two longest one-syllable English words are screeched and strengths.

• Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand while drawing with the other.

• The only two English words with all five vowels in order are abstemious and facetious.

• The only English word with all five vowels in reverse order is subcontinental.

• South Dakota is the only state that shares no letters with the name of its capital (Pierre).

• Spain is the world’s leading cork producer.

• Donald Duck’s middle name is Fauntleroy.

• The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses.

• A beheaded cockroach can survive for more than a week before it starves to death.

• 160 cars can drive side-by-side on the Monumental Axis in Brazil, the world’s widest road.

• There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

Getting Ready for March 18

After 5,000 years of drinking alcohol, we still have only one sure way to prevent hangovers, albeit a rather unpopular one — abstinence. With St. Patrick’s Day being on a Saturday this year, cases of overindulgence are more than somewhat likely to occur during this particular event. There’s gonna be a few people talking to Ralph and Earl on the big porcelain phone.

A hangover results from an overdose of alcohol and certain toxins that are associated with alcohol. Your body tries to metabolize and remove the toxins, but the battle is eventually lost and you’re left with an ill-feeling body with no fight left in it.

Dehydration is both a major cause and symptom of a hangover. As you intake alcohol, your body is actually losing fluids. Hence, all of those trips to the bathroom. This dehydration of an already overtaxed system greatly compounds the problem.

Another factor in the I-wish-I-were-dead morning after is the lack of quality sleep you get when too much alcohol reaches your brain. The booze hinders you from getting to the important REM stage of sleep — a critical element to proper rest.

The most important preventive action is to drink lots of water — before, during and especially after drinking alcohol. This helps to flush the toxins and to offset the dehydration process. Eating helps too, and not because the food absorbs the alcohol (an old wives’ tale). Food slows down the absorption of alcohol by diluting it before it hits the stomach lining, giving your body more time to metabolize it. Without sufficient food in your system, the alcohol will enter the small intestine, where it hits the bloodstream faster than it will through the stomach. The food also provides the nourishment you’ll need to put up a good fight in the morning.

That being said, we hope everyone enjoys a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day and does so safely so that March 18 is enjoyable, as well.

Time out for a “Portfolio” staff rant: We need everyone to band together with the unifying and glorious goal of annihilating that St. Patrick’s Day menace known as green beer. Cheap, tasteless watery beer with food coloring in it is nothing short of an embarrassment to the occasion. First, if you’re honoring St. Patrick, we have it on good authority that he preferred whiskey. And if you really wanted to drink beer like a proud Irishman, the color of your beer would be black. Now get out there and spread the word — the sewers will overflow with the blood of the non-believers!

Dia’s muire dhuit!