May 15 2025 - Get the Clean up Crew over here

 

Get in the experts.  Just over two weeks ago a tractor-trailer hauling $800,000 in dimes rolled over in an accident.  Its contents spilled over the highway.  This was northwest of Dallas, Texas.  It was part of a fleet of trucks that moves cargo for the government.  Some cargo. I wondered how you pick up those 8,000,000 dimes.  Were they just loose?  Were they in rolls in boxes?  They definitely came out of the truck loose.  Check out the picture of them everywhere.    So was there now a fleet of people with metal detectors picking up dimes?  There were crews who used shovels, brooms, industrial vacuums, street sweepers, as well as picking them up by hand.  That was 14 hours of closed highway.  I wonder how long the recovery went on for? And what was the truck doing carrying "loose dimes" - doesn't that sound like they were just dumped into the truck?  Seems like that was the case.  I looked up how the Canadian Mint transports coins and I got the answer for the US:   How does the Mint distribute coins? The coins fall through a counting machine before they are dumped into bulk storage bags. All the bags are weighed and then stored until they travel to Federal Reserve Banks for distribution around the country. So we know that's a story rather than a fact.  I wondered how they decided to stop picking up the lost coins?  It is unlikely that they collected all the dimes as it rained earlier in the day with a minor flood in the town. That could become a tourist treasure hunt site.

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May 14 2025 - More "Ocracies"

 

The Globe and Mail had an article that used the term kleptocrat in relation to the U.S. president.  And the New York Times has an article on the Trump's family increased wealth since he's taken office - $3 billion in three months.   The definition of a kleptocrat is a ruler who uses political power to steal his or her country's wealth.  One can also use the spelling kleptocrat and that definition says a government official who is a thief or exploiter.  The synonyms for kleptarchy, kleptocracy, kleptocrat are thiefdom, corruption and graft.  Also a corrupt and dishonest government characterized by greed. So a kleptocracy is where the ruling elite steals national resources.  "Klepto" has a lot of variations, it seems.  If we look at kleptomaniac there are hundreds of synonyms.   Wikipedia tells me that kleptocracy is different from plutocracy - that's rule by the richest.  It is different than oligarchy - that's rule by a small elite.  The defining characteristic of kleptocracy is that corrupt politicians enrich themselves secretly outside the rule of law, through kickbacks, bribes and special favours from lobbyists and corporations.   What is notable here is that everyone knows about this -  the New Republic described the Trump family as becoming $3 billion wealthier in the first three months of the Trump presidency.  And that's just kleptocracy.  What about all the other 'ocracies'? I found an article in the Daily Kos which lists what it terms as Trumpocracy words.  So many variations of ocracy are possible - This is an ambitious article - HERE.  Here's one I've not seen in the news articles so far and this time I am predicting it will turn up: pathocracy - government by people with personality disorders.   More tulips from the TASC Tulip Farm.

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May 13 2025 - :Tulips in Niagara

 

I went to the TASC Tulip Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake yesterday.  It was vast with more than 3 million blooms of 175 varieties on 55 acres.  It is a "farm" rather than a "festival".  Watch where you step in the clay paths as they are bumpy.  Their farm previously was in Fenwick so you can imagine that they are likely doubling the number of visitors being in Niagara-on-the-Lake. There were likely a thousand people there yesterday - and that was on a Monday.   What distinguishes a tourist destination like this is that it is full of families - quite often 3 generations together.  Everyone is smiling. Flower events are perfect for our difficult political and social times.   I'll get to the Seventh and Fourth Avenue field this week - and then the tulips will all be over.  Fleeting, don't you think?

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May 8 2025 - Wrong Turn Exit to Canada

There's a Kafkaesque story where a woman from Guatemala and her two U.S.-born children made a wrong turn in Detroit to go to the nearest Costco. They ended up on the international bridge connecting them to Windsor. Of course they were detained as she is not a U.S. citizen without legal status.The woman's mistaken-GPS story is not uncommon.  More than 200 people have been detained at the same location since January with more than 90 percent mistakenly driving onto the bridge's toll plaza.  It doesn't say so but I wonder if they were all looking for the nearest Costco - which turns out to be on the Canadian side of the bridge.   There are some "epic failures" of GPS failures. The article points to human failure in continuing to follow the instructions despite what they are seeing.  Salon magazine covered them in 2014 HERE.  GPS sends elderly German man into sand pile. Girls drive down boat launch into lake. Japanese tourists drive rental car into Pacific Ocean.  GPS nearly sends drivers off a cliff. Buzzed driver follows directions onto railroad tracks.  Limo driver follows GPS down flight of steps. There hasn't been similar stories or coverage since.  It looks like the wrong turn Exit to Canada is this decade's variation.

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Apr 26 2025 - Floriade

 

The fertility rituals of spring really took a beating with the rise of formal religions.  We still have a faint version at the beginning of May. We can be thankful that we still have spring flower celebrations.  The Keukenhof festival features over 7 million flowers starting in March and concluding in May.  Holland is the great flower trade capital of the world, so you can imagine their show-off festival.  The Dutch don't spend very much time on garden plants.  The industry focuses on pot plants and cut flowers.  And aren't Lilies a great demonstration of that focus.  From the 1980s through to now, many hybrids have been developed - all and every to put into a pot or a bouquet.  But we can be very thankful for their focus, getting those gorgeous oriental lilies like Casablanca (every white oriental lily seems to attract that name) and Stargazer (every pink oriental lily seems to get that name).  Once you've seen a tulip festival, it becomes infectious.  That's how I explain the tulip festivals around the world now.  The Ottawa Tulip Festival, the Canberra Festival, Skagit Valley, Istanbul, Tesselaar Festival in Australia, Albany, N.Y. , Srinagar in Kashmir, India, Tonami Tulip Fair in Japan.   Wikipedia says that the largest tulip festival is Ottawa's.  Maybe they are don't like the expansiveness of Keukenhof - too many types of bulbs and plants in that festival.  Tulips, like many bulbs, have 3 seasons of bloom - the early, the mid and the late bloomers.  Early tulips, like Fostering, can handle the cold and even frost and a bit of snow, but fade out as soon as there's heat.  Compare that to late varieties, like Lily-flowered tulips which can bloom into mid-June in warm temperatures.   If it weren't for the squirrels, voles, rabbits, and chipmunks, I would have a tulip festival each year.  Only daffodils so far this year, despite all that planting of tulips in the past. I'll get to see thousands of tulips soon as Niagara has taken on the tourist challenge and we have a few festivals now.  They start in the next week or so. Remember this picture?  Last year's festival at Seventh and Fourth Streets St. Catharines.  That's right around the corner from 13th Street Winery.  Go pick up an espresso and a butter tart, and then roam the fields of tulips!

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Apr 14 2025 - The Ultra Wealthy

 

According to the New York Times, the new wardrobe colour for the "ultra wealthy" is beige.  It is a lovely picture - a person in a beautiful creamy-beige linen-sort-of pant suit, something to be worn once and then cleaned.  Not sure if it is male or female, given the current models.  But that's not where I was going.  I lit on the phrase ultra wealthy!   Here's something I don't know about.  Ultra-high-net-worth-individuals - UHNW.  The floor is $30 million in investable assets.  Then very high net worth is $5 million and high net worth is $1 million.  These are terms from the financial services industry.  "This financial status not only impacts investment strategies but also entails unique considerations in wealth management, tax planning, and estate structuring.  How many are there?  220,000 in 2023 in the US and 626,600 around the world.  But if we look at how man people in the U.S. have over $1 million, that's 22 million people.   So that's the ultra wealthy set.  But what about the "super rich".  Fortune Magazine is the source we can go to.  They quote that it is now $100 million that is the "new yardstick for anyone who wants to keep their head held high at private equity parties."  But then the article falls flat and ends. Isn't that a big gap between 30 million and a billion?  There are 748 billionaires in the U.S. in 2023.   My thinking is that the  numbers for the $30 million group is off.  Out of 8 billion people, there are only half a million who have over $30 million?  And in the US, out of 340 million people, only a quarter million have over $30 million?  I am still trying to figure out who the market is for all those luxury brands who pander to the New York Times about the latest colour for the rich.  I've lost the logic in there somewhere.

Only a few weeks and this will be our scenery.

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Apr 4 2025 - Roll Over Rover

 

I wonder what makes dogs do things so well. Things like catch, roll over, shake a paw, and sit.  Do dogs learn faster than humans?   AI compares a dog to a 2-year-old child in terms of intelligence.  Then skip to Quora. Quora can be counted on for hilarious responses to questions.   How do dogs think so quickly compared to humans?  Short answer:  Dogs appear to think faster than humans because they have less to think about.  Back do dogs learning so fast.  There is a puppy socialization guideline called the rule of sevens.  By the time a puppy is 7 weeks old, it should have: Been in at least 7 different locations (backyard, garage, kitchen, neighbor’s yard, etc.) Eaten from at least 7 different containers Been held and petted by at least 7 different people Taken at least 7 one-mile car rides Been in a crate at least 7 times Played with at least 7 different kinds of toys Walked on at least 7 different substrates (grass, gravel, concrete, etc.) Been taken somewhere alone, without mom or littermates, at least 7 times Been exposed to at least 7 challenges (climbed on a box, gone through a tunnel, climbed up steps, etc.) And then what?  You will socialize them and they will learn more about the world around them.   I assume they will learn faster, too. It is proposed that this rule of sevens approach is as crucial as kindergarten is for a human child. I wonder if we have a rule of 7 for 2-year-old children.  Is there a 7-7-7 rule?  Yes, there is.  It goes like this:  Play with them for the first seven years, teach them for the next seven, and then advise them for the next seven and beyond.  I vote for the dog rule of 7 - more fun in a shorter time.

Tulip time is starting in a few weeks - towards the end of April and then finishes the middle of May.  We have Tulip Festival Fields now in Niagara.  Little did I guess that the display last year would be so pertinent this year.  This is at Seventh and Fourth Avenue in St. Catharines.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

March 11 2025 - High Heels Dangerous

 

This is the anniversary of the start of COVID lockdowns.  There are a few articles on the lessons learned.  Of course, my attention goes to this fascinating report in the New York Times - COVID proved that high heels are dangerous for women.   Did we know this before COVID?  What was COVID's part in this that changed things?   Psychology Today has the answer: "During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospital visits caused by high heel-related injuries substantially decreased." "For the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (beginning in mid-March of 2020), U.S. residents experienced substantially reduced geographic mobility, either due to policy restrictions, job loss, or the choice to limit contact with others in order to reduce the risk of infection. Additionally, nearly 25% of the adult population reported regularly working from home. Researchers wondered whether this notable change in mobility combined with fewer opportunities for social contact would lead to fewer high heel-related injuries." "...The researchers estimated that from 2016 to 2020, there were over 70,000 heel-related injuries treated in emergency departments — about 14,000 per year. For 2020, this number dropped to approximately 6,300. The shoe-injury drop occurred after March 15; for January through March 15 of 2020, the rate of heel-related injury visits looked similar to previous years." The article is HERE.    Here's a happy Spring poster.

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May 9 2024 - Cracking the Code

 

I was looking up information about poached eggs and got to wondering if cracking the code comes from something related to egg cracking.   The 'crack' part of the phrase does refer to breaking so 'breaking the code'.  There are lots of definitions online.  But who knows the rest, given all the crazy retrievals on google.  And the only article with some sense of origin is from usdictionary.com so is dumbed down - for example where does the expression come from?  It has its roots in cryptography, with no dates or first references.  So we'll leave the eggs and crack the code and visit the tulip field.    Definitely a Dutch connection in this growing field.

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May 8 2024 - Apron Belly

 

Bing keeps showing a headline on how to eliminate "Apron Belly" - so here are more:   beer belly breadbasket gutbucket love handles middle-age spread paunch spare tire pot belly muffin top pot gut corporation bay window beer gut That's a lot of variations to account for.     More of the tulip field.  This tulip display has half a million tulips.

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May 7 2024 - Generation Naming

 

Have we always named generations?  When did we start?  Thoughtco.com tells me that it is generally agreed to have started in the 20th century.  It also tells me that generational theorists Neil Howe and William Strauss wrote the1991 book on this titled Generations" and get credit for the names.  I found these sources along the way: Gertrude Stein named the Lost Generation 1883 - 1900.  Tom Brokaw named The Greatest Generation 1901 - 1924.   Time Magazine named the Silent Generation in 1951 in an article.  The first recorded use of "baby boomer" is in a January 1963 Daily Press article by Leslie J. Nason describing a massive surge of college enrollments approaching as the oldest boomers were coming of age. The term Generation X was popularized by Douglas Coupland in an article for Vancouver Magazine in 1987. He later said that he had adopted the term from Paul Fussell's book Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, published in 1983. "The easy solution was Gen Y, because, of course, Y comes after X. Just like baby busters, though, Gen Y didn't stick. Neil Howe and William Strauss' 2000 book Millennials Rising named the generation born in the years following 1980 after the new century, and millennials was the label that endured." Xennial: Jed Oelbaum credits Sarah Stankorb with the term. The earliest traced usage comes from the 2014 Good article, which Stankorb pitched including the term Xennial. Gen Z: The 'Z' in the anemia means "zoomer' - but no one is given credit for its name.  Maybe it goes back to Douglas Coupland who is credited with Gen X. Gen Alpha: Social researcher Mark McCrindle coined the term for the most recent generation to denote a “new start” after Gen Z. McCrindle theorizes that they will be characterized by more diverse family dynamics, higher racial diversity and higher economic inequality than previous generations.     Tourist Tulip Fields are popping up everywhere in Niagara.  There was one in Fenwick last year - TASC.  Now there's another nearby.  And this one is on Seventh Avenue just north of Fourth Avenue.  Drop into 13th Street Winery for your butter tarts and then walk the fields - they are just around the corner.

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Apr 1 2024 - April Fool's All Year

 

It makes me wonder why April Fool's is only one day.  It could be a surprise all year long with some special trigger.  Because big brands and companies would love to have such great publicity all year long.  I am surprised they haven't figured out a way to do this.  Or maybe once a year is expensive enough for the tricks that they invent. Here are the examples from USA Today:  7-Eleven has hinted at a possible prank product: In addition to new Lemon Lime, Green Apple and Sweet Orange flavored 7-Select sparkling waters, out now with partner Miracle Seltzer, there's a fourth flavor coming April 1: Big Bite Hot Dog. Will Big Bite Hot Dog sparkling water be sold? Its availability will be announced April 1. However, some reporters were sent a can of the drink. USA TODAY can confirm that it definitely smells like hot dog water and has a smoky aftertaste. Krispy Kreme:A special doughnut deal for April Fools' Day - you have to click on the link so we'll leave this one for another time. Da da decoder - Infant equipment site BabyQuip has its own language-bridging lark: the “Baby Translator” app, to decode your baby's secret language. An AI-powered plush doll - Custom stuffed animal maker Budsies already makes selfie plush dolls with a built-in voice recorder. It's April Fools' spoof: Artificial intelligence-enabled dolls that "come programmed to learn everything about you and to become your new best friend." There's a lot of these at the site HERE.   I  enjoyed today's picture ion the day n the Globe and Mail.  It showed reporters who joked Jack Layton and his white moustache by all wearing white paper moustaches.  These little species tulips were at the Royal Botanical Gardens rock garden back when it was primarily a tulip festival, and then dormant all summer.  Now it is an all-year garden of delight.  I do miss the tulip festival.

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