UNMENTIONABLE

Published May 1, 2024 by Nan Mykel

HAVE YOU WONDERED ABOUT THE BOOK MARKET RECENTLY?

I’m not privy to the entire story, only my part. There must be several different things going on. I can talk about what I know. Bookstores are happy to publish news stories on self-published books because it’s good for their business; because the local library refuses to add them to their collecttion.

I can empathize with the flood of local authors’ donations (much of it admitted crap) and their (our) expectations for sharing with the public via our local library. When I donated my book Fallout, A Survivor talks to Incest Offenders to a library staff member she said thank you and I discovered it went directly into our Saturday Library Sale. Thinking that I had not made myself clear, I submitted another copy for the library stacks to another library staff member. I never checked into it further, believing it had been made available in the stacks.

Later I discovered that Picking Fleas, Writers Grooming Writers, a 299-page book by the library’s writing group in 2002 and whose proceeds went to Friends of the Library itself, was not available in the stacks. When I asked, first it was that books without flat bindings carrying title and author info could not easily be displayed. Over the years (since at least 20 years ago), self-published books are assumed to be inferior.

I think I understand the problem. Local “authors” of self-published books include some doozies that would diminish respect for the library’s holdings. So a broad spectrum of the public might be alienated, while a much smaller untamed slice of self-published authors might be gratified. Drawing up guidelines for what’s acceptable would be setting such a big fracas in the face of the world’s other causes so as not to be worth it.

So why did I happen to blab about it here? Because I’m a stickler for hidden truth, I guess.

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After decades of efforts to change a provision of state law shielding people who rape their spouses from prosecution, the Ohio Senate has voted unanimously to remove that loophole. Sen. Stephanie Kunze (R-Hilliard) said the gap in the law has suggested that either spousal rape isn’t taken as seriously as other sexual violence or that it doesn’t ever happen. “This is especially concerning, as a spouse should be the most trusted person in a marriage,” Kunze said on the Senate floor. “And it is even more egregious to think that in our state in 2024, it is lawful to to rape your spouse.” The only “no” vote was from Rep. Bill Dean (R-Xenia). https://www.statenews.org/people/karen-kasler.

According to Google, Dean is married.

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UNITED METHODIST CHURCH REVERSES BAN ON GAY CLERGY

In a meeting on Wednesday, church leaders also voted to allow L.G.B.T.Q. weddings. __n.y.times

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Quote for the Day:

As Robert Morgenthau, a former Manhattan district attorney, liked to say, “You cannot prosecute crime in the streets

without prosecuting crime in the suites.”

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REFLECTIONS

Inside, nestled into a corner of the brain, lies a chapel tucked away just in case we need it. Tear ducts have been installed for weeping. We have fingers for painting and sometimes pointing. When ecstasy or glee overtakes us, we are provided outlets for dancing or singing. On those long dark days of need, there is our inner chapel, the God gene. “You wish!”

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SERENDIPITY AND SYNCHRONICITY

Since I was alerted to something by Word Press (Maybe my pages were all going Private), I read through to see what we would be missing, and was reminded of my first recorded:

My daughter Lili was curious about the IChing so I threw one for her. Of all the possibilities of syllable pairing, it came up with LiLi, so I threw one again and it, too, came up with LiLi….

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DOESN’T SEEM FAIR…

Published April 29, 2024 by Nan Mykel

IT DOESN’T SEEM FAIR…

that the word black has so many negative meanings. They could/should push “Black is beautiful” more, I guess, but then that’s such a divisive topic, like turning over a rock to see if is covers a black widow spider.

I can remember my beloved dixiecrat grandfather saying of the maid, “The only thing black about Charlotte is her skin.” “Black humor” isn’t funny, and now I have “black mold” in my condo, which is much less funny than green. I shant include a photo of it so as not to add to the unfortunate pairing of the word with bad. I thought of calling the shades of black “rainbow”–so it would be a “rainbow man.” Then I thought of the link between “rainbow” and “homosexual,” so I went to Google for more info and found it: “Sexuality, or sexual orientation, has to do with who a person is or is not attracted to either sexually or romantically. There are many ways of identifying sexually, and a person may identify more with one sexuality than another at different points during their life” The Medical News Today article discusses what sexuality is and provides some definitions. To date, I guess there’s LGBTQIA+…

They could/should push “Black is beautiful” more, I guess.

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SPIDERS ON MARS?

Not really

Seasonal, spider-like features have been spotted sprouting through cracks in Mars’ surface. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter captured new images of small, dark features that resemble spiders scuttling across the Martian region known as Inca City near the Red Planet‘s south pole. This phenomenon appears when spring sunlight warms layers of carbon dioxide deposited during the dark Martian winter. In turn, carbon dioxide ice in the bottom layer turns into gas, which builds up and eventually breaks through overlying ice up to 3.3 feet (1 meter) thick, according to a statement from ESA.

IF THESE were really spiders on Mars, would we not have already sent Orkin aloft to make room for humans with souls? What is the policy if and when we come across another life form in outer space? (I would add a photo of the suspected spiders if my helper wasn’t sick nor I so lazy).

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WHAT I DO FOR FUN

I read in bed but I write at my computer because not even I can read my handwriting. Anyway, I guess this is a tricky way to get into my first entry. I was taken by the writing this week (in bed at night) of parts of

Dean Koontz’s Odd Hours, and I wanted to share a couple of paragraphs with you. They occur at the opening of Chapter Twelve, and had an effect on me in the middle of the night:

“Paw after paw silent on wet blacktop, the fog crept along the alleyway behind Hutch’s house, rubbing its furry flanks against the garages on both sides, slipping through fence pickets, climbing walls, licking into every niche and corner where mouse or lizard might have taken shelter.

“These earthbound clouds swathed nearby things in mystery, made objects half a block away appear to be distant, dissolved the world entirely past the one-block mark, and raised in the mind a primitive conviction that the edge of the earth lay near at hand, a precipice from which I would fall forever into eternal emptiness.” p. 86, Bantam Books. Then he ate a chocolate-Pumpkin cookie he had made.

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TYING UP ENDS

I once wrote a poem

called Tying Up Ends,

but never acted

on my Muse’s hint.

Now there’s so much more

to be confessed–yes,

flaws and selfish genes,

weaknesses galore.

I’ve so much unsaid,

and thoughts unproclaimed

if I started now

it would never end. Nan 12-12-22

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YES, I’LL SAY YAY BUT…

Published April 26, 2024 by Nan Mykel

How can this be? A search of Google for Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives includes an Intelligencer story titled “26 Things You’d Rather Not Know about Mike Johnson.” I read it and although the title may have a fault (I couldn’t re-visit without money), the items were the most offensive positions he has taken in the past (Trump Won, Anti-Gay, etc._.)

“I never expected the music to swell and the credits to roll with Mike Johnson’s face in the center of the frame,” wrote Frank Bruni in a New York Times opinion piece.

Johnson, the House speaker, reversed a position that he’d previously held, banded with Democrats and infuriated some of the loudest members of his party — that’s Marjorie Taylor Greene you hear wailing in the wings — to pass a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan last weekend.

“…In an era this intensely and corrosively partisan, it’s especially important that we give warranted praise and appropriate thanks to people with whom we usually disagree. Tribalism discourages that, but a healthy democracy demands it.” Guess I’ll say thanks and wait to see what happens next.

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MIND BLOWING

Conjoined at the head, living a life as a transgender man with spina bifida, and facing the other direction an able-bodied sibling, Lori, who had musical talent and and pushed George on a stool that had wheels. A blanket over one of them provided privacy during intimacy. The Schappell twins, who died recently at 62, said that they never wanted to be surgically separated, and that they did not wish they had been born apart. Read more about these and other conjoined siblings via Google.

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HICKORY DICKORY DOC

It feels strange to read that the ACLU is on the other side in the Tik Toc issue. I’m unclear about which high road to favor. In the end I guess it’s follow survival.

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WHEN I WAS IN PHYSICAL REHAB a year or so ago, the occupational therapist stopped by my bed and asked if could walk. No, my foot was broken. Which foot? The right foot. The left? No, the right, whereupon she checked my veracity by looking herself. The day before when I reported to a nurse look alike that my heart was pounding, she asked me what did I want her to do about it.

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. According to the internet, 10% of Americans believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

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“ADL tracked 8,873 antisemitic incidents across the United States in 2023, the highest level recorded since ADL started tracking this data in 1979.” — U.S. Antisemitic Incidents Soared 140% percent in 2023, Thanks to Dr. John Persico Jr. for that tid bit.

MY INTERPRETATION

For some reason, I don’t see the unexpected widespread antisemitic sentiment, especially on college campuses, as being rooted in anti Jewishness, but the empathic horror and sympathy for those continuing to suffer in Hamas. Of course, contributing to a war on one side while offering aid to the other at the same time does seem a little crazy to me. And I still continue to secretly (or not so secretly) tend to suspect that both 9-11 and the “surprise” invasion of Israel were permitted to justify the resultant wars.

ON READING FALKOWSKI

Published April 22, 2024 by Nan Mykel

The first science best seller was in 1665, and kept Samuel Pepys up until 2 a.m. reading “the most ingenius book that I have ever read in my life”. (Falkowski 2015, 27). Falkowski describes the author of the book Micrographia (still in print) as “Roert Hooke, then a 30-year old hunchbacked, contankerous, neurotic hypochondriac who was also a brilliant natural scientist, polymath, and an original Fellow of the society.”

Falkowski’s research is impeccable. “Darwin indeed took a microscope with him on the Beagle. Along with his Bible and natural history books, he took two pistols, 12 shirts and two books to help him learn Spanish and a coin purse.” [And pants?]

He quotes Carl Woese and George Fox who state that all extant life on Earth is derived from a single, extinct microbial organism. “There could have been only one common ancestor from bacteria to us…a microbe.”

“Indeed, microbes are not mentioned in the Bible….They certainly weren’t taken deliberately by Noah on the ark, nor are they woven into the Turkish tapestries depicting the Great Flood.”

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BOOKS WITH HUMAN SKIN COVERS?

No thank you. I won’t bother you with that one today…

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OUCH

Environmental Group Asks RFK Jr to End Presidential Bid

I’m glad, but that must hurt!

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HOME SWEET HOME

The median home-sale price as of February 2024 was $384,500, up 5.7 percent from one year ago, according to NAR data. The nation had a 2.9-month supply of housing inventory as of February, which is low enough to be considered a seller’s market.

Mom, you would not

recognize your boy today.

Without a home or job

he is lost to the world.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

The Freedom Caucus, where many of these extreme conservatives call home, has long cared more about upsetting apple carts than using them to deliver apples. …Keith Wilson

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THE END?

We came, we tried, we fought

and ate each other up.

We lived and died by our own hands.

If two survived and met on a plain,

would we hug one another

or kill again? Nan 4-24

HOW NOW, BROWN COW?

Published April 19, 2024 by Nan Mykel

Wikimedia commons

A Google find:

I’m 58 years old and I can count how many times I’ve heard that expression on one hand. It’s not, and hasn’t been a common expression since about 1780. A brown cow was a nickname for a barrel of beer, specifically in the early 18th century in Scotland. “” was a way of asking for another pint.

Another wrote that the sentence is used in elocution lessons.

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WHICH EAR?

Van Gogh

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Re Life Elsewhere —

If we are alone, we need to understand our inadequacies. If we are not alone, we need to be humbler.

–Paul G. Falkowski, Life’s Engines

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INTROSPECTION

Has the well run dry?

Is nothing left inside?

A vacuum with fading memories.

Be here now!

That’s the catchword.

Climb up, jungle girl!

Peek over the top.

What can you see, hear,

feel? Ah, locked inside with my

my feelings, my song.

Adrift in my bath, the sea!

The third eye blinks

and I am here with you

once more.

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BYE BYE…

BAD POOR PERSON!?

Published April 19, 2024 by Nan Mykel

Opinion Today: The push to criminalize homelessness

The New York Times nytdirect@nytimes.com

Read it. No comment.

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Experts estimate that at least $1 trillion a year is needed to help developing countries adapt to hotter temperatures and rising seas, build out clean energy projects and cope with climate disasters. (I forget why we didn’t raise income taxes on the wealthy?)

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I THINK

Going deep inside to lick

my paws, I wonder whether

the core of my unconscious

knows the truth of existence.

I don’t, that’s for sure, but if

I didn’t have some pillar to

hold onto beyond my ken–

poof! I wouldn’t, couldn’t, be.

Nan 4/19/24

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OH MY GOD….

Published April 17, 2024 by Nan Mykel

Thanks to Ned Hanson for calling attention to the following:

“They’re going to come after us with everything. That’s why the next six months is going to be intense. And we need to strap on our … ”

Lake briefly paused before deciding on the item her supporters should strap on. After suggesting a “seatbelt”, a “helmet” and “the armor of God”, she said: “And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case…”

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Nan says: She must want to be his running mate?

She’s a U.S. Senate Candidate? Piffledinger!

Is it the media coverage that draws this kind of woman? I’m willing to go back to the old kind of news if it would clean up this appalling kind of situation.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

How far must you travel away

to reach your old home place?

How far down must you climb to

reach the life you’ve always known?

ANGRY LUST?

Published April 17, 2024 by Nan Mykel

OH NO!

The mass shooting in Australia on a recent Saturday raises the suspicion of more woman-hating. Incel again? All but three of the 18 people killed or injured were women. While the attacker’s motive may never be known, many said the episode spoke to a larger problem.

Monday was a national day of mourning in Australia, flags flying at half-staff throughout the country. The attacker was identified by the authorities as Joel Cauchi, 40, a man who was known to the authorities but had never been arrested.“The gender breakdown is, of course, concerning,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a radio interview Monday morning, saying the police were looking into whether the attacker deliberately targeted women.

“The ideology of the attacker was crystal clear — a hatred of women,” Josh Burns, a member of Parliament, wrote on the social media site X on Monday. “We must call it out for what it is.”

The older Mr. Cauchi said it could have been out of frustration from his inability to date women.

“He wanted a girlfriend, and he’s got no social skills, and he was frustrated out of his brains,” the older Mr. Cauchi told local news media.

Nan says: This kind of situation relates in part to my feeling critical of women who like to present themselves as sexy in public. It detracts from being seen as a member of a cogent human race. Not that the murdered females were presenting themselves coyly at the shopping center… Sad, sad, sad.

Some time ago I read of rapists who felt that sexily dressed women were taunting them with their attractiveness.

“Incel” stands for The term “involuntary celibate” (shortened to “incel”) and refers to self-identifying members of an online subculture based around the inability to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, a state they describe as “inceldom” or “incelibacy”, according to Wikipedia.

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SAFEST CITY IN THE WORLD- Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates named world’s safest city — Online database Numbeo ranked Abu Dhabi as the safest city in the world in 2024.

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POEM?

Published April 16, 2024 by Nan Mykel

THINKING’S ENGLISH

Stand up for your rights!

Raise the roof!

It’s a hard life, so

Pay Peter to Pay Paul

and shake up the crowd!

Don’t tiptoe through the tulips.

You’re such a crybaby.

Lend a hand, scaredy cat.

Long gone, I figure, but

you take the cake, mate.

Don’t be down in the dumps.

Chill out. High as a kite?

Shake a leg, hit the road.

He’s a nut on a blind date

and a bear before coffee.

That’s a hard one to swallow,

I swan! Give me a hand here,

Get the lead out. You’re the cat’s

pajamas, knuckle head. Too hot to trot.

Nan 2024

FOLLOW THE MONEY…

Published April 16, 2024 by Nan Mykel

Where you might just see gray rocks, soil and craters on the moon, entrepreneurs see profit. And whatever happens during Thursday’s landing attempt, expect more companies to race toward the moon in the years ahead.

NASA is looking to send astronauts to the moon in the coming years, and robotic spacecraft will go there first. The space agency is financing a number of commercial missions through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS. The program is modeled on NASA’s successful effort to rely on private companies for trips to and from the International Space Station.

For NASA, buying rides on private spacecraft to take instruments and equipment to the moon is cheaper than building its own vehicles. NASA also hopes to spur a new commercial industry around the moon.

So far, however, NASA has little to show for its efforts. Some of the companies that NASA had selected to bid for CLPS missions have already gone out of business. And Astrobotic of Pittsburgh’s first CLPS flight failed on its way to the moon last month.

The dream of a delivery service to the moon is not a new one.

In 2007, the X Prize Foundation announced a competition offering a $20 million grand prize to the first nongovernment-funded business or organization that could get a spacecraft to the surface of the moon and have it successfully perform a few tasks: moving 500 meters, or 1,640 feet, to a second location, and beaming data and video back to Earth.

Eleven years later, the competition ended without any of the teams even attempting a launch. Some of the X Prize teams like Astrobotic and Ispace, the parent company of the Japanese Hakuto team, continued, believing that they could develop a profitable business without the prize money.

Among other ambitious business ideas: mining the moon for helium-3 for future fusion power plants on Earth. Rare earth metals used in electronics could also potentially be extracted from lunar soil and rocks.

From <https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/22/science/nasa-moon-landing-odysseus?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20240222&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta&regi_id=92821497&segment_id=158901&user_id=808aa8374858aa0bb61eef25d704e6b0>

The longtime rivalry between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos spans over 15 years. Publicly butting heads since 2004, the billionaires have taken part in unfriendly discourse over the years. While the two have competed in having the highest net worth, they’ve most notably engaged in a years-long space race with their respective reusable rocket companies. Read more here: https://people.com Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk’s Feud Timeline

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UNMENTIONABLE

My daughter Lili was curious about the IChing so I threw one for her. Of all the possibilities of syllable pairing, it came up with LiLi, so I threw one again and it, too, came up with LiLi….

DOESN’T SEEM FAIR…

YES, I’LL SAY YAY BUT…

. According to the internet, 10% of Americans believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

ON READING FALKOWSKI

HOW NOW, BROWN COW?

BAD POOR PERSON!?

Opinion Today: The push to criminalize homelessness

The New York Times nytdirect@nytimes.com

Read it. No comment.

OH MY GOD….

ANGRY LUST?

POEM?

FOLLOW THE MONEY…

My daughter Lili was curious about the IChing so I threw one for her. Of all the possibilities of syllable pairing, it came up with LiLi, so I threw one again and it, too, came up with LiLi….

Share this: Reblog, Like

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. According to the internet, 10% of Americans believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

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Opinion Today: The push to criminalize homelessness

The New York Times <nytdirect@nytimes.com>

Read it. No comment.

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The New York Times nytdirect@nytimes.com