WEAR MASKS

Beacon School in Athens, Ohio is closed for a week, with 30% of its staff and 30% of its students out sick.  My daughter is still isolated from family for another day at least, in her room, well hydrated.

But what about pets running in an out of the isolation ward?

Smiling. I understand the recommendation is to wear masks, which I’m doing, and eating in my office with the door closed.  I’m not wearing my hearing aids for at least another day!

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OF NOTE from Ohio Capital Journal by Nick Evans 1/22/24  — Debate between 3 Republican contenders:

Immigration

“The debate kicked off with a discussion of immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border. It’s been a perennial issue for Republicans and one that all three candidates have made a centerpiece of their campaigns. But the rhetoric has grown sharper since Ohio’s last U.S. Senate campaign in 2022.

“During the last cycle, now-U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-OH, argued cartels should be designated terrorist organizations. Now, all three Republican candidates embrace the idea.”

Does LaRose agree the U.S. should use drone strikes against them? “100%,” he said, adding, “we must define these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and use the full force of the U.S. military and the U.S. federal government to kill them so that they can’t kill our fellow Americans.”

LaRose has also proposed deploying three military divisions to the border.

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Music of the Spheres:  (The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas)

“If, as I believe, the urge to make a kind of music is as much a characteristic of biology as our other fundamental functions, there ought to be an explanation for it…If there were sounds to represent this process, they would have the arrangement of the Brandenburg Concertos for my ear, but I am open to wonder whether the same events are recalled by  the rhythm of insects, the long, pulsing runs of birdsong, the descants of whales, the modulated vibrations of a million locusts in migration, the tympani of gorilla breasts, termite heads, drumfish bladders.”

….I can use something like AA’s Serenity Prayer:  ” Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other.”

I had to erase the mythical additional words to make the prayer feel real for me.  Prayer?   From whom to whom?

I remind myself of a poem I wrote in Time Wrinkles:

REALITY?

I’m going down fast with no soft landing.

No longer do I know what I knew, really KNEW!

Embryos and corpses  collide as parachute

jumpers drown

in puddles amid hills of salt  from which rises

the fabled Atlantis.

I’m present at the blow-out, but for naught.

No breath-taking poetry or inspired works of art;

no love, no troth, no arias, no green glades filled

with singing birds, no selfless devotion to exalted

visions or search for the truth.  Was there ever

any truth?  Who am I asking?

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MY ADVICE FOR THE DAY:   Pour a little humor in our tea.

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TO THE BABES OF THE FUTURE

Besides, I’ll be long gone into “A better land I Know…”  or  the happy hunting grounds…just hope it’s not an afterlife reincarnation during the crispin’ of Earth.

We’re almost halfway to 2050  and we still don’t know how to produce what Altman counts on saving us: nuclear fusion.  Planning on being rescued  by something that doesn’t yet exist is tomfoolery and not at all reassuring.

The fact is that the United States is still  the largest producer of fossil fuels in the world (Wikipedia). Next is Russia.  What’s that line about “Don’t do as I do; do as I say?”

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I’VE CHANGED MY MIND – Last post I said I was going to talk about not being friendlier and more outgoing/welcoming to blog visitors.  Well, (Surprise Surprise Surprise, as Gomer Pyle would say),  I changed my mind.  Is being flexible not a sign of maturity?  Maybe not;  a trait typical of females? That’s a lie! …Untrustworthiness?  I think so. Sorry.

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METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING –  The daughter who lives with me came down with Covid this week, just as my other daughter in Atlanta visited for 2 1/2 days.  That has little to do with anything, but I thought you’d like to know.  There were so many cases of Covid in her classroom that her level one class is closed for a week.  Anyway, I found a couple of things on metaphors to share:  The first is from an old journal of mine I just came across on metaphors:  (NOTE: I still say “Couple of,” which apparently has been changed to the preferred solitary “couple.”  Just another way I’m out of sync with the times. [Well, who would want to be in sync with them?]

(1) ” The old woman (for at 14 she was already  old)  stood before her mirror and beheld an angel.  Since she was no angel, she knew it was no mirror, but a metaphor.”

(2)  My source for this second sample is from Metaphor by Warren A. Shibbles, 1971, unfortunately outdated due to the fact that Metaphor was compiled before sterling evidence of the existence of the unconscious was established.  (He pooh poohs the notion).    The quotes on metaphors themselves are clear, however (that’s what the book is primarily composed of, quotes and references on metaphors).  : Christie Jeffries is cited from the July 1948 article “Metaphor in Sons and Lovers” in the Personalist  of July 1948″:

D. H. Lawrence’s imagery is said here to reveal himself as a tormented man with warring personalities, preoccupied with daily life, showing strong regression to infancy and dominated by emotional and sadistic tendencies.”

Ouch! Wow! OMG,  WHAT DO MINE REVEAL?!  Maybe I’ll share in another post, maybe not…depending on what I find…

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:  “A horse is a horse of course of course…”

Yesterday I subscribed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a media organization, publishing a free-access website and a bimonthly magazine. Topics include nuclear risk, climate change, and disruptive technologies, including developments in biotechnology. They still believe that “because humans created them, we can control them.”  It will be nice if they also concern themselves with “unwise decisions”, or “If I had to do it over again.”

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UNEDUCATED – Several posts ago I was surprised at my lack of knowledge of world religions.  Today I am surprised that I never knew most if not all bull dogs have to be born caesarian due to their large heads.  I asked, and my daughter knew it.  Where have I been all my life!  At least I can read cursive handwriting.

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NOT ALL DARK AND DREARY – I guess I qualify as a dark alarmist blogger.  I’m working on that. For example, after reading Lois Eisden’s post on early memories, I do remember sitting at the head of the table at the farm with scads of unfamiliar children wishing me a happy two-year old birthday.  I think I remember the occasion because of how embarrassed I was.  Not a good feeling.  Recently I came across a photo which must have been the occasion.  (I’m the youngest one to the right on the front row.)  I recognize less than half the faces–the others I just wonder where they came from.  Thankfully I don’t remember the spanking I got at age one in Martinsville, Va. for wandering from my front yard into traffic.  I’ve been told I was so angry I went into the other room, slammed the door and held my breath until I fainted.  Not having luck with posting photos today, so just imagine it.

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P.S. When feeling down, just say “Be-Bop-a-LuLu…”  (?)

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THANKS FOR STOPPING BY –  It’s my fault for not being chummier.  My next post will be about that.

QUOTE OF THE DAY –  Lewis Thomas on Death:  “….there is still that permanent vanishing of consciousness to be accounted for. Are we to be stuck forever with this problem?  Where on earth does it go?  Is it simply stopped dead in its tracks, lost in humus, wasted?  Considering the tendency of nature to find uses for complex and  intricate mechanisms, this seems to me unnatural.  I prefer to think of it as somehow separated off at the filaments of its attachment, and then drawn like an easy breath back into the membrane of its origin,  a fresh memory for a biospherical nervous system, but I have no data on the matter.”   –Thomas, The Lives of a Cell–Notes of a Biology Watcher

I hope this is a single-sided photo of the satellites currently filling the skies above us.  When I first Googled satellites I kept getting weather pictures from satellites.  Then, in my current purview some dots were red, and all were moving, although you can’t see that from my picture. You can go there yourself, however:  (Sorry, I couldn’t find it again, but I did find one of low-orbit satellites moving PLUS DEBRIS: https://platform.leolabs.space/visualization   Google is HEAVY with boodles of posts on the topic  For this one, be aware that Leolabs owns it but it can be shared for educational purposes.

The second image with the low orbiting satellites and debris shows 20,087 satellites.  I read earlier that dark night was disappearing, and I guess this is why.  I hate being so old-fashioned about my opinions, but darn, things are changing so fast, and without a tiller at the helm.

While woolgathering I came across a https://platform.leolabs.space/visualizations/leo video smidge of a Timelapse of a glacier’s shrinkage from 1984-2022, on Google.

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DARK HUMOR –  The very idea that the United States’ Conservative Party would/should champion our former president.  Unbelievable, as is so much these days as we chug-a-lug toward 2050.

WHEN I first read  that phrase I froze.  Were they herding cats to extinction?  Ya gotta remember that in my youth I have been known to shepherd a dog through the woods with me when the dog catcher was in the neighborhood (that’s Charlotte, North Carolina about 1946), so I immediately flashed on hunters in search of extinguishing cats.  WRONG, at least in my current neck of the woods, at least last week.

An article in the free Athens News spotlights the efforts of a local group of “Cat Herders” who endeavor to capture cats, have them neutered by a vet, and then release them, ultimately lessening the current cat  overpopulation. [A drop in a bucket is better than no drop]

A week later there’s an opinion in the same paper saying that cats should not be released back to the cruel possibilities awaiting them in freedom there (here).  [At times like these I get to feeling snarky, like asking how many cats she is boarding.]

Meaning:  To attempt to control the uncontrollable.

SOURCE OF SAYINGS:  Wikipedia and other sites suggest the “cat herding” saying may be from the  opening scene of Monty Python‘s Life of Brian (1979). Shepherds are discussing sheep and the topic strays to cats: Can you imagine herds of cats waiting to be sheared? Meow! Meow! Woo hoo hoo.

Sorry, I can’t get happy about our rich folks running away to the moon.  Have they graduated to this reward or are they running away from an unsolvable mess? Details of the heralded event is in an Opinion Piece in the New York Times by Rebecca Boyle. Hint: Whoever talked about following the money?

Photo Credit:  Yossi Zeliger/Reuters

It matters not who or where or when…

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QUOTE:  “Human beings aren’t well adapted to reacting to long-term changes,” Gluski said. “Our brains are basically the same as a Paleolithic hunter. It’s like, ‘Throw spear, run from tiger.’ We’re not good at thinking, ‘Three years from now my cave might collapse.’”      –NYTimes Climate Forward by David Gelles 1/18/24