News and views to inform or amuse
Some routes are mapped out or are they now GPSed? Who determines our path: us or the wind or fate? Is the path of least resistence really the easiest? Set a course harness the wind, tack as necessary, hand on the tiller. Be the master of your own fate!
The benevolent sun and the meandering breeze bathed us in a soft afternoon allowing us to continue to bask in wine's afterglow languidly lifting lighthearted laughter aloft where it drifted with lamb's wool clouds.
When was the last time you opened a map the paper kind that sat on your lap Used your finger or magic marker to trace the route before you parked her? Some marked the stops for gas or food no mention if either was cheap or good, maybe updated once a year no indication if the route was clear. Nowadays we use our phone a voice that seldom leaves us alone a gentle correction if you miss a turn some of us take longer to learn.
Saturday seemed to be drive your big pick-up truck around Front Royal, Virginia and share your political points of view.
On 55 east, heading out of Front Royal, we sat at a red light behind a large, black and white Chevrolet pick-up with the owner exercising his first and second amendment rights in white lettering on the window at the back of his cab. The top line had a silhouette of an assault rifle pointing at an Impeach Northam (Virginia’s Democratic governor). Underneath that was a white Trump Pence sign.
Later in the day, we saw two different F-151 Ford pickups flying large F**K Biden flags . The second one had the added line of “F**k you too if you voted for him.”
The next morning along the Interstate outside Front Royal, we saw three large crosses on a hillside. The largest one in the middle had an American flag hanging from either side of the horizontal portion of the cross. This was the first time I have ever seen a cross used as a flag pole.
Trumpets silently proclaim that peace prevails if we stop to listen. Mankind's noise triumphs not while spring returns each year with hopeful promise.
National Vietnam War Veterans Day is observed every year on March 29 and is a way to thank and honor our nation’s Vietnam veterans and their families for their service and sacrifice. There are 5 objectives with Vietnam Commemoration and the other four are:
National Vietnam War Veterans Day will be observed on Monday, March 29, 2021.
Read more: https://militarybenefits.info/national-vietnam-war-veterans-day/#ixzz6q3k1qOWu
The last conscripted soldiers returned home to a country that often turned its back on them Fortunate Son Eve of Destruction Heard It Through the Grapevine The Fish Cheer Give Peace a Chance
Yesterday, I tried to buy a a few things at a local grocery store. The total was $22.60. I thought I gave the young cashier a single $20 bill and three $1 bills. The change should be 40 cents. After several long seconds he had not given me the change, despite holding the cash in his hands with the register open.
By now, the register should have told him what the change was, even if he was not doing the arithmetic in his head.
Looking at the bills, half hidden by his fist, I thought I saw 2-twenty dollar bills and 2-one dollar bills. He started to place the twenties into the drawer when I asked him to pause. He had the two-twenties and and the two-singles.
I apologized for giving him the second $20 by mistake and offered to give him a third $1 bill instead. He asked me if I had 60 cents.
I said I’d check and pulled a quarter out of my wallet, setting it on the counter. I found two more quarters and was searching for the dime when he picked up the first quarter and reached for the other two quarters. He seemed perplexed by getting $.75 rather than $.60. I found the dime and took one of the quarters back.
If the teenager had asked if I had given him the second $20 by mistake, instead of $1 or if he had returned the two ones and made change from the $40, this exchange could have been shorter. Even with the assistance of the cash register, he seemed unable to figure out what the correct change should have been.
I know they no longer teach cursive, but they surely teach addition and subtraction or how to read the numbers on the cash register.
Last year's barbs meet buds of hope that this year will be kinder to us all.
According to Slashdot, “70% of Americans hate Daylight Savings Time.”
According to a Money magazine article reasons include:
I hate it because I lose an hour after waiting 5 months for sunrise between 6-6:30 am. As a morning person , when the sun rises after 7 am, I feel like an infant offered a lollipop only have it snatched away right before I shove it into my mouth.
We already have the last remnants of twilight lasting until almost 7 pm, which is enough time to take out the trash, bring in the mail or walk around the block without it being totally dark. At this time of the year, I’d rather have the extra light in the morning than the evening.
When Daylight savings times began in April, the early dawn had already advanced enough that I did not notice it’s disappearance when Daylight savings time began. Now I feel like it is one more thing stolen by politicians.
I have friends who hate Daylight savings time and swear they just ignore it. From a practical point of view, if you have appointments and still work, I can not conceive how you can ignore it.
The beguiler charmed the humans from their homes and then their winter clothes the unfurling ferns from the muddy banks of the winding dirt road the leaf buds from the trees and the pointed leaves from buried bulbs the sleepy groundhog from his underground burrow and the chirpy birds from the south the green back into the blighted grasses and rapids tumbling along roadside creeks the spirits of the COVID weary and hope into the future.
Healthy Masculinity Week is an opportunity for the UVA community to engage in conversations and programs that promote healthy masculinity and authenticity. Through workshops, panels, outreach initiatives, and other events, Healthy Masculinity Week programming will promote self-efficacy, authenticity, and shared social responsibility to create a culture of care at UVA. This week will challenge harmful norms of masculinity and promote positive role models that allow men and masculine people to be themselves and live healthy, well-rounded lives.
MONDAY, MARCH 8th (International Women’s Day):
Am I the only one who thinks this is an odd coincidence for the Student Health and Wellness group to pick this week for this event? Am I reading too much into this to wonder if the men feel threatened?
CampusSpeak held this October 18-24 in 2020
The origin of women’s day goes back to 1908 when 15,000 women held a rally in New York demanding reasonable working hours, better pay and the right to vote, BBC News reported. The women’s day date, March 8 became significant only in 1917 after women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia. The first international women’s day gathering was held in 1911. Since then this day has been celebrated for well over a century. In 1975, the United Nations recognised the day as the symbol of decades of women’s struggle to gain equality and adopted it as the International Women’s Day
The campaign theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is ‘Choose To Challenge’. A challenged world is an alert world. And from challenge comes change.
https://news.careers360.com/womens-day-2021-quiz-how-much-do-you-know
I tried taking the Quiz and it was too hard for me. (Once in a while being humbled is good for the psyche.)
What will you choose raise a hand to challenge today?
From Doctor Seuss to Hollywood movies to toys like Mr. Potato Head, this week has brought the idea of cancel culture to a head. Should the movies, books, toys, music, or even school names be an opportunity to right perceived wrongs or an opportunity to engage in meaningful conversation?
Cultural humility is “the ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is other oriented in relation to aspects of cultural identity that are most important to the other person, the ability to recognize the context in which interactions occur, and a commitment to redress power imbalances and other structural issues to benefit all parties.” (Hurley et al, 2019) Cultural humility therefore offers a way of navigating the spontaneous interpersonal interactions in libraries, whether between our patrons and our staff or staff members with one another, with an awareness of and commitment to challenging inequitable structures of power.
Is cancel culture an important tool of social justice or a new form of merciless mob intimidation? If canceling someone doesn’t work, does cancel culture even exist ? Or does the very idea of being canceled work to deter potentially bad behavior?
These questions have received more and more mainstream consideration of the past few years,as the idea of cancel culture itself has evolved from its humorous origins into a broader and more serious conversation about how to hold public figures accountable for bad behavior .
Vox
What do you think?
What seemed real just yesterday This morning's already flown away Politically correct from times now past Was probably never meant to last Nature's rules seem more eternal Mankind's logic sublimely infernal Lies repeated morph into facts Fodder for more vile attacks Commonsense is out of style while the grifters charm and beguile with honeyed words hiding poison within the stories they always seem to spin For better times we often yearn while good advice we like to spurn if it doesn't fit into our reality of today's notions of morality
Someone does not have to be snoring to drive me crazy. The sound of someone’s breathing at night can be enough to set my nerves on edge.
There is a name for that irritation.
The technical term for that noise-triggered irritation and rage is misophonia (“hatred of sound”). People who have it experience uncontrollable and intense negative emotions after hearing certain repetitive noises like chewing, lip-smacking, pen-clicking, and foot-tapping.
Do Certain Sounds Enrage You? Neurologists May Know Why
What sounds drive you crazy?
Nothing sweet about bird beak spikes that cling and trip unwary humans Decorative balls ornamental but painful when you trip and fall Corona like spikes that protect the gumball seeds from dangers like us
I have become fascinated by the gumballs that continue to swing from the branches in the brisk winter breezes long after the sweet gum leaves have called it a season. They are green and pliant early in the season becoming hardened and brown as they weather on the tree. I have seen them decorate the azaleas, boxwood, dogwoods, and hollies that catch the gum balls that fall from the trees overhead. Once upon the ground, especially if it is frozen, the tenacious little balls will roll your ankle or send you ass-bound in a New York second.
Click here to find out what you can do with these beauties, including:
1. Lay the seed pods around young plants to deter snails and slugs who would rather not tangle with them
2. Put them around plants that you also want to protect from rabbits (press the spikes in the ground a bit so they don’t blow away)
Vanishing, elusive Downright exclusive Almost within reach From highway or beach The closer you get It recedes you can bet You start realizin' You can't touch the horizon.
Seoul Sister captured the essence of realization in a few words.
Stood on tiptoes unable to reach the sky so it came down to me Cold air bracketed my face chill mist caressed my lips icy drops anointed my face. Next time I'll stand on a ladder.
Gently falling snow muffles sound; shortens distance Magnifies details. Flakes limn the branches. Black and white outlines sharpen while contours soften. Tracks abound in snow tires, squirrel, human, bird, dog. Each path visible. Snow still coming down coating trees, grass and rooftops. Melting on pavement. How can tree roots drink up snow so quickly that it leaves behind bare ground? Snowman on fire pit Do wet logs hide underneath smoldering in pique?
