IT FEELS FAKE

When someone dies I do not

Offer a note of care, because

The loss is so great that words

On paper feel like an insult.

And there’s the problem of who to

Send it to? Wife, mother or child?

I feel like I should

Send it to me because I care.

Losing someone to another dimension

Leaves me speechless.  “Where  are they,”

The child in me frets, unable to

Send a drop of water to the fire..

When you die you’ll never get a

card from me. Who needs it the most?

And how pitiful the proper

response from me would be?

I know I don’t play by the rules.

Either cruelly I cannot be bothered

Or I care too much.

*

I know, I know: Knowing that someone departed is missed and remembered should make the chief loser feel better, but that’s so miniscule, and depending upon their style of mourning, it may throw them back into despair.  Am I just making excuses or do I doubt my own ability to express what I mean?

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REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY?

New York is considering creating a commission to consider  reparations for the lingering negative effects of slavery.  How could I be against that? Doesn’t reparation for the misdeeds of our ancestors take away time and money from current  injustices to the slaves’ offspring?  But hush….don’t whisper that in front of the children….in public schools, or at universities in some states. My public access television dried up on the vine, but hopefully A.I. hasn’t invaded my Word Press blog yet.

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GUESS WHAT!  GOOD NEWS!

The Supreme Court just ruled  in support of parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 against the State of Alabama.  Guess what!  Clarence Thomas strongly dissented.  Someone needs to clarify the double-think being used today to turn words and meanings inside out.

Centuries of discord or complementarity?  The Yin Yang symbol of Taoist origin is supposedly ideal, but for whom?  A glance down the ages of sexist stereotyping  may be seen in the attributes of the two sexes.  Which do you think is which sex,  embodied in the symbol?:

Cold vs hot; night vs day; black vs white; shadow vs. light; receptive vs. active; concealed vs. open; negative vs. positive; old vs young; water vs. fire; and poor vs rich?   Which sex is black, which is white?  If you have trouble guessing, look it up:  Source is the blog prepscholar.com/yinyang symbol, if you’re not sure.

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VOTING FOR WIDESPREAD PAIN IN THE NAME OF RELIGION

The N.Y. Times column The Ethicist recently responded to a deeply felt conundrum:  Is bringing a baby into the world, given the projected climate crisis, ethical?   Even the question is sorely in contrast to those who insist that all pregnant women must bring unwanted baby foetuses into this world or go to jail.  Which religion is it that endorses this underlying punishment for having had sex, married or not?

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BUDDY DAVIS WAS RIGHT

My former journalism professor at the university of Florida was right about referring to the milk of human kindness.  If he should still be teaching, what would he say?  By Googling  Transgender Women History there’s a bunch of information about the human struggle involved, and examples.  “They’re liars”  is sour milk with poisonous effects for the one in four attempted suicides by transgenders.  Somehow, I thought other women were more empathic than the TERF (Trans Exclusive Radical Feminists) has shown itself to be. (Altho recently lightened by the connection to hair bangs, it is still alive and ranting hatred in my hometown).

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A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE —  News of Oklahoma permitting the Roman Catholic archdiocese to run a charter school (at taxpayer’s expense) may or may not come to fruition.  Late-breaking news on Diane Ravitch’s blog today reports that the vote may have been invalid.

Her blog is an exquisite resource for the unfolding of the charter movement and its results to date.

I JUST CAN’T BE A POLLYANNA, even when she’s preferred in times of stress.   If I write from the gut, I find I’m both idealistic and realistic. I suspect my reader is, too.  I cannot deny some headlines in recent news.  Apologies, I should have known better.

A.I. Poses ‘Risk of Extinction,’ Industry Leaders Warn

Leaders from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic and other A.I. labs warn that future systems could be as deadly as pandemics and nuclear weapons.  NYTimes

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State Farm stops offering new insurance coverage in California – nytimes</span></h2>

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INFO:

Of the roughly 32 million refugees in the world today, the United States’ current cap for resettlement is 125,000. In 2022 the United States came nowhere near meeting it, resettling just 25,000 refugees

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MORE INFO:

Because of the federal actions that rendered usury regulations functionally irrelevant, there is virtually no interest rate cap applicable to credit cards today. Competition among credit card companies and banks remains the only factor keeping interest rates at their present levels.

Today the highest credit card rate goes as high as 36 percent, much higher than the 24 percent cap set by states with tighter usury limits. While the 36 percent rate is considered usurious under many states’ usury laws, that figure is nonetheless legal. So long as the rate is listed on your cardholder agreement and you agree to it, the deal is kosher.

wallethub.com/…

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HOWEVER,  “ME”:

Am I  “me” inside or just input-output?

Is my ken a passle of tales written to make sense?

So say some.

Who is the Me who crafts them?

What expands during meditation?

Just imagination?

“Me and my shadow” feels less lonely

than nothing and nothing.

Warmth personified

An owl’s hoot welcomes the night

A star shoots above.

For ego comfort on a jet

I do now deeply regret

my rash decision to get

an emotional support pet.

The worse of it I now fret

was the choice of my egret.

Big trouble  I was fast beset

An egret pet is a dodgy bet.

This bird often needs a vet.

It gets sick when it gets wet.

So now I’m deeply in debt

and caught up in an awful net.

This egret makes me upset.

It’s an error I won’t forget.

An egret is no great asset.

A worse pet I’ve never met.

Shared with permission of Felix Gagliano

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BIOLOGY LESSON: Worms Do It

Sexual reproduction involves two earthworms. The two earthworms produce a slime tube and grip onto each other using the tubercula pubertatis (located on the saddle). The slime tube provides the right environment for the two earthworms to exchange sperm, with each earthworm storing the sperm of its partner for use later. Because both earthworms are performing the function of both a male and female during sexual reproduction, they are known as simultaneous hermaphrodites.

• Asexual reproduction can also be undertaken by some species of earthworm. This involves a single earthworm producing young from unfertilised eggs and is known as parthenogenesis.
• Flatworms reproduce by a process called fragmentation, and several other species.

I just received an e-mail from a friend in a Pennsylvania nursing home.

She said there were seven new cases of covid there, and she was one of them.

So, though I haven’t had covid yet and have all of my shots, I’m gonna wear the mask when I step out.

Just thought you’d like to know!  Take care.