What Are You Willing to Die for?

A rally during a Covid-19 pandemic with no social distancing or mask wearing?

Nature?

Your country’s flag?

Friendship?

Reblog of an Oxford University Letter on Removing an Historical Statue–FAKE NEWS!

I was taken in by fake news and I’m embarressed.  As several of you have pointed out in your comments , the tone of the alleged letter is snide, whether you agree with what it said or not.

From JeanMarie:

That’s some serious burn there. I did some digging. The first request was made in 2016. But newer requests were made after the death of George Floyd.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-52975687

According to Snopes, which is a pretty reliable fact check source, the letter is not real.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/oxford-letter-to-students/

 

On my own, I also checked and found that The Guardian, a UK newspaper that https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/17/end-of-the-rhodes-cecil-oxford-college-ditches-controversial-statue

Interesting read……………….

The lesson here is that one cannot change history.

Letter from the Chancellor of Oxford University England.

This letter is a response from Oxford to Black Students, attending as Rhodes Scholars, to remove the statue of Oxford Benefactor, Cecil Rhodes.

OXFORD – THE FIGHTBACK HAS BEGUN

Interestingly, Chris Patten (Lord Patten of Barnes), The Chancellor of Oxford University, was on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4 yesterday on precisely the same topic. The Daily Telegraph headline yesterday was “Oxford will not rewrite history”.

Patten commented “Education is not indoctrination. Our history is not a blank page on which we can write our own version of what it should have been according to our contemporary views and prejudice”  Rhodes must fall ????

“Dear Scrotty Students, Cecil Rhodes’s generous bequest has contributed greatly to the comfort and well being of many generations of Oxford students – a good many ofthem, dare we say it, better, brighter and more deserving than you.

This does not necessarily mean we approve of everything Rhodes did in his lifetime – but then we don’t have to. Cecil Rhodes died over a century ago. Autres temps, autres moeurs. If you don’t understand what this means – and it would not remotely surprise us if that were the case – then we really think you should ask yourself the question: “Why am I at Oxford?”

Oxford, let us remind you, is the world’s second oldest extant university. Scholars have been studying here since at least the 11th century. We’ve played a major part in the invention of Western civilisation, from the 12th century intellectual renaissance through the Enlightenment and beyond. Our alumni include William of Ockham,Roger Bacon, William Tyndale, John Donne, Sir Walter Raleigh, Erasmus, Sir Christopher Wren, William Penn, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), Samuel Johnson, Robert Hooke, William Morris, Oscar Wilde, Emily Davison, Cardinal Newman, Julie Cocks. We’re a big deal. And most of the people privileged to come and study here are conscious of what a big deal we are. Oxford is their alma mater – their dear mother – and they respectand revere her accordingly.

And what were your ancestors doing in that period? Living in mud huts, mainly. Sure we’ll concede you the short lived Southern African civilisation of Great Zimbabwe. But let’s be brutally honest here. The contribution of the Bantu tribes to modern civilisation has been as near as damn it to zilch.

You’ll probably say that’s “racist”. But it’s what we here at Oxford prefer to call “true.” Perhaps the rules are different at other universities. In fact, we know things are different at other universities. We’ve watched with horror at what has been happening across the pond from the University of Missouri to the University of Virginia and even to revered institutions like Harvard and Yale: the “safe spaces”; the? #?blacklivesmatter; the creeping cultural relativism; the stifling political correctness; what Allan Bloom rightly called “the closing of the American mind”.

At Oxford however, we will always prefer facts and free, open debate to petty grievance-mongering, identity politics and empty sloganeering. The day we cease to do so is the day we lose the right to call ourselves the world’s greatest university.

Of course, you are perfectly within your rights to squander your time at Oxford on silly, vexatious, single-issue political campaigns. (Though it does make us wonder how stringent the vetting procedure is these days for Rhodes scholarships and even more so, for Mandela Rhodes scholarships)

We are well used to seeing undergraduates – or, in your case – postgraduates, making idiots of themselves. Just don’t expect us to indulge your idiocy, let alone genuflect before it. You may be black – “BME” as the grisly modern terminology has it – but we are colour blind. We have been educating gifted undergraduates from our former colonies, our Empire, our Commonwealth and beyond for many generations. We do not discriminate over sex, race, colour or creed. We do, however, discriminate according to intellect. That means, inter alia, that when our undergrads or postgrads come up with fatuous ideas, we don’t pat them on the back, give them a red rosette and say: “Ooh, you’re black and you come from South Africa.

What a clever chap you are!”  No. We prefer to see the quality of those ideas tested in the crucible of public debate. That’s another key part of the Oxford intellectual tradition you see: you can argue any damn thing you like but you need to be able to justify it with facts and logic – otherwise your idea is worthless.

This ludicrous notion you have that a bronze statue of Cecil Rhodes should be removed from Oriel College, because it’s symbolic of “institutional racism” and “white slavery”. Well even if it is – which we dispute – so bloody what? Any undergraduate so feeble-minded that they can’t pass a bronze statue without having their “safe space” violated really does not deserve to be here. And besides, if we were to remove Rhodes’s statue on the premise that his life wasn’t blemish-free, where would we stop? As one of our alumni Dan Hannan has pointed out, Oriel’s other benefactors include two kings so awful – Edward II and Charles I – that their subjects had them killed.

The college opposite – Christ Church – was built by a murderous, thieving bully who bumped off two of his wives. Thomas Jefferson kept slaves: does that invalidate the US Constitution?* Winston Churchill had unenlightened views about Muslims and India: was he then the wrong man to lead Britain in the war?”

Actually, we’ll go further than that. Your Rhodes Must Fall campaign is not merely fatuous but ugly, vandalistic and dangerous. We agree with Oxford historian RW Johnson that what you are trying to do here is no different from what ISIS and the Al-Qaeda have been doing to artefacts in places like Mali and Syria. You are murdering history.

And who are you, anyway, to be lecturing Oxford University on how it should order its affairs? Your ?#?rhodesmustfall campaign, we understand, originates in South Africa and was initiated by a black activist who told one of his lecturers “whites have to be killed”. One of you – Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh – is the privileged son of a rich politician and a member of a party whose slogan is “Kill the Boer; Kill the Farmer”; another of you, Ntokozo Qwabe, who is only in Oxford as a beneficiary of a Rhodes scholarship, has boasted about the need for “socially conscious black students” to “dominate white universities, and do so ruthlessly and decisively!

Great. That’s just what Oxford University needs. Some cultural enrichment from the land of Winnie Mandela, burning tyre necklaces, an AIDS epidemic almost entirely the result of government indifference and ignorance, one of the world’s highest per capita murder rates, institutionalised corruption, tribal politics, anti-white racism and a collapsing economy.

Please name which of the above items you think will enhance the lives of the 22,000 students studying here at Oxford. And then please explain what it is that makes your attention grabbing campaign to remove a listed statue from an Oxford college more urgent, more deserving than the desire of probably at least 20,000 of those 22,000 students to enjoy their time here unencumbered by the irritation of spoilt, ungrateful little tossers on scholarships they clearly don’t merit using racial politics and cheap guilt-tripping to ruin the life and fabric of our beloved university.

Understand us and understand this clearly: you have everything to learn from us; we have nothing to learn from you.

Yours, Oriel College, Oxford

*Jefferson was the author of the U.S. Declaration, not  the Constitution

Foggy Views

Stillness and reflection
thick enough to feel
permeable to entry
shrouding what lies ahead
like a portal to the future.

Will we recognize it
when we see it?

 

I Will Follow Him

I will follow him, follow him wherever he may go
There isn’t an ocean too deep
A mountain so high it can keep me away

I must follow him (follow him), ever since he touched my hand I knew
That near him I always must be
And nothing can keep him from me
He is my destiny (destiny)

Lyrics from I Will Follow Him by Peggy March

Deadheads may be one of the largest groups of rock devotees in the last century.

A Deadhead or Dead Head is a fan of the American rock band the Grateful Dead.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} In the 1970s, a number of fans began travelling to see the band in as many shows or festival venues as they could. With large numbers of people thus attending strings of shows, a community developed. Deadheads developed their own idioms and slang.

Much Deadhead-related historical material received or collected by the band over the years is housed in the Grateful Dead Archive of UC-Santa Cruz. Archive founding curator Nicholas Meriwether, who has also written extensively about the culture and its impact on society, predicted, “The Grateful Dead archive is going to end up being a critical way for us to approach and understand the 1960s and the counterculture of the era… It’s also going to tell us a lot about the growth and development of modern rock theater, and it’s helping us understand fan culture.”^[6]

I was first taken with the idea of someone giving up their life to follow a celebrity during the Michael Jackson in 2005. The “criminal trial held in Santa Barbara County Superior Court in Santa Maria, California, in which American singer Michael Jackson was charged with molesting Gavin Arvizo, a cancer patient in remission who was thirteen years old at the time of the alleged abuse.” Several ardent fans had given up their jobs and lives to camp out in front of the courthouse to show their support for Michael as he went in and out of court, flashing a victory sign from the sunroof of his SUV when he was acquitted.

 

This past week, one of the cable news channels interviewed a  Trump supporter who was camped in front of the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  He said he was there to show support for Donald Trump.

TULSA –

President Trump’s arrival in Tulsa for a rally at the BOK Center is now just three days away.

People continue to camp out waiting for the president to arrive at the BOK Center.

According to President Trump’s campaign, there has been more than 1 million ticket requests.  https://www.newson6.com/story/5ee9ed1b9fd9c30ab0effb21/people-line-up-at-tulsas-bok-center-days-before-president-trumps-rally

Two thousand years ago, twelve men gave up their lives to follow a rabbi who taught a radical new theology. Several died for Him, one forsake Him, and the group changed history.

I am not equating any of these groups but I do wonder what would make someone give up friends, family, and a livelihood to follow someone they admire.

Live in the Time of Coronavirus: Pt 16, Quarantine Fatique

About four months ago most of the United States began some form of lockdown.  About a month ago, most of those states loosened-up some restrictions.  Some states require face masks in public, others strongly recommend it.  Many politicians refuse to wear a mask for a variety of reasons (vanity among them.)

Most states use a phased approach to re-open.  Many of those states are not adhering to guidelines finally released by the CDC.   There has been a spike in COVID-19 cases in many states that have reopened.

People argue:

• increased numbers are caused by increased testing, not more cases
• hospital bed use is a better reflection of the actual increase in number as opposed to testing results.

Two places to get COVID-19 statistics are

1. CDC- https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/index.html
2. John Hopkins University-https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

1. 1. Look at the Recovered sections if you want to feel a bit more hopeful.

Virginia is one of the states where the daily number of virus cases and deaths are going down.  We are in phase II of the state’s reopening.  People are weary of any limitations, despite an increase in what they can do and where they can go.

On June 17, the local news announced that 25 states had increased cases of COVID-19–three of them had increases greater than 100%

At the Distillery.

We visited it last Monday.  The young woman running the distillery that day, met us at the window before we entered the building.  She asked to see our ID cards (both of us are in our 60s) and said she would put her mask on if we wanted her to wear one.

Approximately eight guests were in the tasting room, including us.  Four of them left about five minutes after we got there.  Social distancing was left to the discretion of each couple.

The young woman made a feeble attempt at wiping the bar top down with a splash of hand sanitizer swirled around with not-quite-clean rag. (She never did put her mask on despite making several mixed beverages for the four customers.)

The bathroom was not as clean as it normally was with a dark ring around the toilet bowl at the waterline.

At the Hardware Store.

At a small, locally run hardware store, neither of the two store employees wore masks.  They came out from behind the wooden counter to help customer find items in the store.  My husband and I were the only two people in the store wearing masks when we went in to purchase a fan and a woodscrew.

At the Grocery Store.

Today at the local Kroegers, the store still had one door listed as the entrance and one door listed as the exit.  As I entered, a young man pushed his cart under the temporary belt line control indicating that people were not to go in that direction and out the entrance door.  As I exited, a woman was pushing her cart into the grocery store.

All the staff and customers I saw were still wearing masks.  Most people seemed to have abandoned wearing the rubber gloves I saw on earlier visits.  They also seemed less concerned with practicing social distancing.

At Protests.

I have not been to a protest march and can only observe what I’ve seen on television.  From Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Washington, DC,  Richmond, and Charlottesville, social distancing is a pipe dream.  I’ve seen more masks proportionally worn by the protesters than I have seen worn in the Senate.

Unlike COVID-19, protesting injustice is something that people can see and participate actively.  With COVID019, they can wash their hands and maintain six feet of separation.

 

 

 

Base Names–Changing is not New

As a military librarian, I was in libraries at Ft Eustis, Ft Story, Ft  Ord, Ft  Myer, and Ft McNair.  All of them have changed names.

Ft Eustis-Fort Eustis, located in Newport News, Virginia, was established in 1918, and has served a number of purposes, including an Army training facility for artillery and artillery observation, a prison, and a work camp. Beginning in the World War II era, the primary mission of Fort Eustis has been Army transportation training, research and development, engineering, and operations, including aviation and marine shipping activities.The 2005 Base Realignment, Allocation and Closure (BRAC) Act resulted in the greatest change in the look of Fort Eustis by relocating the Army Transportation School headquarters to Fort Lee in 2010.  The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Headquarters replaced it in 2011.  The BRAC decision consolidated adjoining bases of different services, referred to as joint basing. Resultantly Fort Eustis and Langley Air Force Base were consolidated under the responsibility of the Air Force 633d Air Base Wing as Joint Base Langley-Eustis in 2010.

Ft Story- Joint Expeditionary Base-Fort Story, commonly called simply Fort Story is a sub-installation of Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, which is operated by the United States Navy. Located in the independent city of Virginia Beach, Virginia at Cape Henry at the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay,^[1] it offers a unique combination of features including dunes, beaches, sand, surf, deep-water anchorage, variable tide conditions, maritime forest, and open land. The base is the prime location and training environment for both Army amphibious operations and Joint Logistics-Over-the-Shore (LOTS) training events.

Ft Ord– Fort Ord is a former United States Army post on Monterey Bay of the Pacific Ocean coast in California, which closed in 1994 due to Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action. Most of the fort’s land now makes up the Fort Ord National Monument, managed by the United States Bureau of Land Management as part of the National Conservation Lands, while a small portion remains an active military installation under Army control designated as the Ord Military Community.

Ft Myer – Joint Base Myer–Henderson Hall is a Joint Base of the United States military that is located around Arlington, Virginia which is made up of Fort Myer (Arl), Fort McNair (SW DC), and Henderson Hall. It is the local residue of the Base Realignment and Closure, 2005 process. It is commanded by the United States Army but has resident commands of Army, Navy, & Marines. Most conspicuous is the Arlington National Cemetery Honor Guard.   As an Army base, Ft Myer was first called Ft Cass, then Ft. Whipple and finally Ft. Myer.  It was formed from the Arlington estate owned by Martha Washington’s great-granddaughter, Mary Custis Lee, wife of Robert E. Lee, who was the custodian of the estate until it passed to his son Custis Parke Lee.

Ft McNair-Fort Lesley J. McNair, on the point of land where the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers join in Washington, D.C., has been an Army post for more than 200 years, third only to West Point and Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, in the length of service. The military reservation was established in 1791 on about 28 acres of what then was called Greenleaf Point. Maj. Pierre C. L’Enfant included it in his plans for “Washington, the Federal City,” as a major site for the defense of the capital. An arsenal first occupied the site in 1801; earthen defenses had been there since 1791.

Land was purchased north of the arsenal in 1826 for the first federal penitentiary where the conspirators accused of assassinating President Abraham Lincoln were imprisoned in 1865; after a trial found them guilty, four were executed there by hanging. Among them was Mary Surratt, the first woman to be executed under federal orders.

The post was renamed in 1948 to honor Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, commander of Army Ground Forces during World War II. McNair, who had been headquartered at the post, was killed in Normandy, France, July 25, 1944.

Attitude is Not a Platitude

On June 12, when I looked at my statistics, I realized I had published my 1,000th blog post.   I started on February 12, 2017 so it only took me three years and four months.

Quip–a witty remark. E-Quips (think e-book or email) is hopefully a witty blog.  Is it?

Since then, I’ve expanded what I write about and feel more comfortable taking a stand on some issues.  As a Libra, I try to look at both sides of an issue before making a final decision.

Blogging (almost) every day is a personal decision.  I am retired and usually have the time to write.  I don’t feel the need to be long-winded in order to get a point across.  I also feel that many people cover a topic with more eloquence or authority than I do and the librarian in me wants to share those writings with you.

So I’d like to share my gratitude
For those who like my attitude
This is real, not platitude
Though it might just be a pat-itude.

Punintendedly yours,

Pat

The Ballast Has Shifted

 

Ballast in the hold

shifted as  waves

beat against the sides,

the vessel listed.

Winds rose

waves pummeling

ever harder.

The vessel groaned

as the ballast shifted further

up the starboard side.

Ceaseless storms broadsided

the vessel which

floundered in the maelstrom.

Without a firm hand

on the wheel,

swirling winds and currents

decided her track.

Sickness stalked the vessel.

Equipment failed.

The crew mutinied.

Winds of change

blew against the sides

recentering

the ballast in the hold.

The vessel groaned

righting itself.

Mr. Christian smiled.

The ship of state sailed on.

5 Things I Learned from Watching My PowerPoint in Zoom

A week ago Friday, I  prepared a 20-minute Powerpoint for the weekly Zoom meeting of USS Midway (CV-41) Library volunteers.  The group established the weekly Zoom meetings as a way to remain in touch while the Midway is closed because of the Coronavirus.

My topic was copying deck logs for the USS Midway from the National Archives in College Park MD.  In a ‘normal’ year I usually go up once a month and copy one or more months of deck logs to a thumb drive.  When I get home I upload the deck logs to an external hard drive.

Other volunteers on the Midway transcribe the deck logs.  It is a good source of what happened on the ship each day and the names of the crew assigned to the Midway.

By looking at the recording of that presentation, I learned:

1. I talk way too fast.  In an effort to get through the presentation, I talked too fast  and stumbled over my own thoughts and words.
2. I use um too often.   This was something I never suspected until I heard myself repeatedly use it.
3. Zoom messes up how PowerPoint advances.  I saw two previous Zoom lectures where PowerPoint functioned normally.  I’m still uncertain why the presentation advanced when I was not touching the keyboard or the mouse.
4. Quirks are magnified.  Whether you are the presenter or in the audience, the viewers can see you twitch, smirk, glance around, eat or drink, nod off, etc.
5. Directions are reversed on Zoom. When you are looking for something, if you use Zoom as your point of reference, it’s not on the side you think it is.

What are your Zoom experiences?

Reblog: Walking from Harvesting Hecate

Andrea Stephenson, a librarian in the UK, has written the blog I wished I had had the eloquence to write.  She loves walking in nature; it grounds her.  She expresses how it might feel if she were not white.

From her post (not the beginning)

I take it for granted that I can walk where I want to walk without needing to have an explanation. I take it for granted that I belong in this space, that I belong in nature and should have a relationship with it. When I walk, I draw on memory, history, past and present to find my place in the world. Very occasionally I’ve felt vulnerable, as a woman alone, but in general I don’t think twice about my safety. Somehow I feel no harm will come to me among nature.

To read more click here.

Kakistocracy

I just learned a new word which seems quite applicable today.

kak·i·sto·cra·cy

/kakəˈstäkrəsē/

noun

noun: kakistocracy

1. government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.

   “the danger is that this will reduce us to kakistocracy”

   • a state or society governed by its least suitable or competent citizens.

     plural noun: kakistocracies

     “the modern regime is at once a plutocracy and a kakistocracy”

Reblog: An OverWhelming Week

A fellow blogger from Australia, Celia of  Fig Jam and Lime Cordial,  eloquently articulates how difficult and complex a year 2020 has been so far.  None of us could have had 20/20 vision on New Year’s Day to see how wretched this year has become.

Click here to read her powerful message.

Some of the crises we’ve faced so far are:

1. Coronavirus
2. Severe racial inequality
3. Climate catastrophes
4. Economic collapse
5. Political extremism
6. Lots of finger-pointing.

 

Days of Outrage and Sorrow

 

 

It’s  been a week
Since they took a knee
and closed their ears
to his dying plea,
“I can’t  breathe.”

It’s been a week
of protests and prayers
and arsonist looters
whose disregard scares
“I can’t breathe.”

It’s been a week
of virus spread
increasing the total
of those lying dead
“They can’t breathe.”

It’s been a week
Of political spin
as headlines aim
for a November win
“We can’t breathe.”

It’s been a week
let’s take two knees
heads bowed in prayer
with heartfelt pleas
“Please help us breathe.”

Reflections in Haiku

Memorial Day
unmasks the real you, not a
reflected version.

Fog of war perhaps
obscures what you let us see.
It does not hide all.

Like a gliding goose,
the teleprompter’s words just
show us the surface

Midnight tweets reveal
Your inner thought and wishes
Underneath the words.

Worthless or Priceless

• Worthless — having no real value or use
• Priceless —  so precious that it’s value can not be determined

Is Donald Trump worthless or priceless as president?  Do you think his personality adds value to the office or  politics?  Is he iconoclastic or bombastic?

How about the news?

• Fox–worthless or priceless
• NBC–worthless or priceless

Republicans ?

• with Trump–worthless or priceless
• without  Trump–worthless or priceless

Democrats?

• with Biden–worthless or priceless
• without  Biden–worthless or priceless

If you do comment, please keep it  civil.

 

 

Sorbet Sky

Raspberry melted into mango

Lemon swirled through the orange

Blueberry striped against  the strawberry puree

As a palm frond sat like an unused spoon handle

In the bowl of the sorbet sky.

 

Denial

Why do you deny what lies in front of you?

Is it the lies you hear?

Or because your mind is closed

Tighter than your eyes?

 

Live in the Time of Coronavirus: pt 15, Dipping a Toe in the Water

As states begin re-opening, governments, businesses, and individuals test what works and what does not.  Everyone and every group have a different opinion and love to share why their point of view is correct.

In Wisconsin, the State Supreme Court struck down the governor’s declaration to stay at home.  In Oregon, the State Supreme Court overruled a lower court’s decision that limiting religious services violated freedom of religion and that the rest of the governor’s Stay At Home orders were null and void.

For many it’s which is more important:

• the economic health of the community or
• the physical health of the community.

Re-opening is a balancing act between jumpstarting the economy while continuing to contain further Covid-19 outbreaks.

Virginia began it’s phased re-opening on Friday–a sunny, gorgeous 80 something day.  My husband and I celebrated by meeting another couple for lunch at  11 when the brewpub opened.  Although we drove to the restaurant in separate cars we did share a spacious table under a cheerful umbrella.

Restaurant experience.

Blue Mountain Brewery had done a wonderful job of spreading out the tables across its spacious patio and front yard with a panoramic view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The wait staff was wearing masks; nobody was allowed inside except to use the bathrooms.  The tape was stretched from the entryway directly to the bathrooms for those who did not know where the bathrooms were or hoping to order from the taped off bar.

The menus were paper but the cutlery and plating were the ones that the restaurant always used.  Water was self serve from a table set up nearby.

 

We split an artichoke and spinach dip before my husband had a turkey wrap and I had a small Ceasar salad with chicken. We each had a side of some delicious baked beans. He drank a Full Nelson, their flagship pale ale and I had a Bold Rock hard cider.  (I am the only one in my family who does not like beer.)

Winery Experience.

On Saturday, we went to one of our favorite wineries, Cardinal Point.  Virginia wineries can only

• serve outside (no wine tasting at  a counter)
• at 50% of their normal capacity.

Many have opened, some require reservations to ensure that these guidelines can be maintained. Some of the appointments are limited to two hours so that the winery staff can sanitize the seating area before the next group arrives.

Many of the wineries limit the initial appointments to wine club members only.  Although Cardinal Point does not charge for a reservation, many are charging between $10 and $25.  One whose name I do not remember and will not patronize anyway is charging $145 for a reservation.  Any wine purchased will be deducted from the reservation price.

Some sell food and all of them encourage guests to bring picnics from home, as well as the utensils.  Some say you have to take out whatever you bring in, except for the wine they would like to sell you.

At Cardinal Point, we split a bottle of Green Wine (very similar to Portuguese Vinho Verde) and a bag of savory snacks.

DMV Experience

The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles opened yesterday.  I needed to renew something and made an appointment online last week for 8:55 this morning.  The DMV limits the number of customers inside.  If you arrive more than 10 minutes early you need to wait outside until they call your number.

I got there at  8:50 as one of the DMV workers came out to look for me.  She lead me inside and looked around for an open window. (Every other window has a plexiglass shield in front it and the in-between stations are empty.).  A single chair is placed in front of each manned window.  (The rows of chairs where you normally wait for 20-60 minutes after standing in line for 20 minutes or longer so you can get a number to go wait in one of the chairs, had been removed.)

I was required to wear a mask and had my temperature taken before I went inside.  It was the most pleasant experience I have ever had at the DMV–in an out in under 10 minutes.

Why the Moon Gave Me a Smiley Face

It’s probably a once in a lifetime event but today I exceeded any expectations that I ever had about views.  It generated over 9,000 views but only 26 likes and 11 comments.

I think people were hoping to actually see where and how they would find the smiley face moon which would have been caused by a crescent moon mouth with eyes by Jupiter and Venus.  Such a phenomenon is called an occultation.

Unfortunately, the planets did not align correctly and were located in different parts of the heavens.

It might have been exactly what we needed to cheer us up during a pandemic.

What do you think?

Reblog: Ripples of Hope

Do you think that the world will be better or worse after the Coronavirus?  Our air pollution has gotten much better.  Our increased use of plastic has created more plastic pollution in landfills and the ocean.  We are forced to address the inequities in our health systems and what it means to be essential.

Will it be the dawn of a new day?

Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial has written a thoughtful blog post on the topic:

My friend Stephen sent me this earlier in the year, and it gave me great hope that, just maybe, our individual actions could make this world a better place. At the time, Australia was in the midst of terrible bushfires, and I was questioning whether our attempts over the previous two years to live more sustainably had really made any difference at all in the grand scheme of things.

To read more click: https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2020/05/11/ripples-of-hope/