Aug 2 2024 - That's Just Weird

 

This is a new oft-repeated phrase.  It is so often repeated that I compare it to when they started keeping tabs and began a formal list of Trump's lies,  false or misleading statements. And you can go to Wikipedia and see them all. Is there a similar site that is now tracking "That's Just Weird" by the Republicans, along with Trump, Vance and Fox News?   I expect it to get into place soon.  It may be harder to fact-check weird things., or maybe not.  Here's one:  A Fox News commentator was reported by the Globe to claim that no man should vote for a woman and when they did, they would transition into a woman.   "And to be a man and then vote for a woman just because she’s a woman is either childish — that person has mommy issues — or they are just trying to be accepted by other women,” Watters said. “I heard the scientists say the other day that when a man votes for a woman, he actually transitions into a woman.” And then could a person "happen to turn a colour"? Donald Trump recently said that Kamala Harris "happened to turn Black" a few years ago.  There are things that aren't fact-checkable, but are odd ideas.  JD Vance says Americans without children should “face the consequences and the reality” and not get “nearly the same voice” in democracy Vance: “Let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children.” Here are some quotes of weird things that have been said by Republicans - some can be fact-checked and others would be logic-checked: “Is there some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rainforests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases?” — Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (Calif.) "If businesses are forced to pay women the same as male earnings, that means they will have to reduce the pay for the men they employ...simple economics. If that happens, then men will have an even more difficult time earning enough to support their families, which will mean more Mothers will be forced to leave the home (where they may prefer to be) to join the workforce to make up the difference." Utah Republican James C. Green ''The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them.'' —Rush Limbaugh Here's a list highlighting weird things of the past.  This article calls them "craziest Republican quotes of the 21st century" - it seems surreal when one looks through it  I had no idea they have claimed so many illogical and false things for so long.  Here's to whoever starts the "weird" list. Here's a gnarled tree trunk.

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Jan 25 2024 - We Didn't Start the Fire

 

That song - We Didn't Start the Fire - is one of the songs we hear in Aquafit each week.  The acoustics in the high-ceiling pool resemble a church's.  Everyone sings along to their favourite songs, particularly the choruses and the backup vocals.  This is one of the songs that gets a lot of attention, along with Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline.  The Cool Down song is Hallelujah, which seems odd to me.  Everyone singing Hallelujah,  like a church moment.  It seems unusual to me that Billy Joel wrote We Didn't Start the Fire.  The story of the song is listed as this:  "Billy Joel wrote the song 'We Didn't Start the Fire' as a response to a comment about how much harder it was growing up in the 1980s as opposed to the 1950s. He wrote the lyrics before the music and included the song on his 1989 album Storm Front." What did Joel say about the melody of his song?  "It's really not much of a song ... If you take the melody by itself, terrible. Like a dentist drill." And it likely is the cover by Fall Out Boy released in 2023 that we hear in the class.  Wikipedia says it received negative critical reception.The song was once again brought to the forefront, and modern critics panned even the original song as one of Joel's worst in his entire catalog. All those old folks doing exercises in the YMCA pool just don't seem to agree.   And maybe opinion will change as we experience more fires around the globe with climate change.  It seems like the climate change anthem chorus now.

Here's another of the Arbutus bark close-ups.  Now that I've lost Topaz filters, I have to create special colour effects myself.  It seems to be going well.  I was able to really intensify the two colours on the left - the blue and green-yellow.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Jan 17 2024 - Crown for a Day

 

A king's hat is a crown and a symbol of supremacy and dominance.  There is a precursor to the crown - a broadband called a diadem.  Dominance comes in the form of authority and legitimacy.  Whatever the King says, goes.   But what about the rest of the hats of the world?  Go way back in the time machine to find out that they were religious or ceremonial head coverings.  Like the King's crown, they conveyed social status and military rank.  So hats have always represented authority and power.   Then there are all kinds of customs of submission - the Christian tradition of men removing hats and women must keep their heads covered - both signs of submission and respect.  And what about the U.S. military custom of removing all military hats during the National Anthem?  That's the U.S. Flag Code - not a law, but a custom.  Then there's when everything changed - the baseball cap.  Complex structures have been replaced entirely.  I can't think of the last time I saw a man with a structured felt hat. There's the wonderful hat store in Jordan with them, but not on anyone's head. I expect my generation is the cause of this.  One article is titled:  A sadly brief history of hat wearing in 20th Century Britain.  Another is:  Why Did Men Stop Wearing Hats?   There likely isn't much of a history of hats after 1990 other than the snapback hat.   It seems to be here for a long time.  Like t-shirts, isn't it?

Here's another Arbutus trunk picture.  That colour is so amazing.

Jan 14 2024 - Illiberally

 

What is it to be conservative?  averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values.  (in a political context) favouring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially traditional ideas. What is it to be illiberal?   opposed to liberal principles; restricting freedom of thought or behaviour.  narrow-minded; prejudiced; bigoted; intolerant. not generous; mean. How does one distinguish between holding socially traditional ideas and restricting freedom of thought or behaviour?  The notion of tradition means that there is a dominant group: based on a way of thinking, behaving, or doing something that has been used by the people in a particular group, family, society, etc., for a long time.  I got to wondering whether there is a slide into political illiberalism from conservatism? And the answer from Wikipedia on the topic of illiberal democracy is this:   According to a 2020 study by the V-Dem Institute, the Republican Party has become more illiberal and populist in the last decade with a large increase under the leadership of Donald Trump.   I guess I am a few years behind in this trend:  the Guardian headline from 2021 is The Republican party is now an explicitly illiberal party. The Economist says that at the Republican party has lurched towards populism and illiberalism.  That was in 2020. There are many headlines and opinion pieces on this topic starting in 2020.  Time Magazine says:  First, we need to understand the urgency of the problem. By international standards, the current Republican Party is an illiberal anti-democratic nativist global outlier, with positions more extreme than France’s National Rally, and in line with the Germany’s AfD, Hungary’s Fidesz, Turkey’s AKP and Poland’s PiS, according to the widely respected V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute.  That was in 2021. That's my brief politics 101 seminar for a January Sunday morning.

This is Arbutus tree bark.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Oct 13 2023 - Bakers Dozen Day

 

The tradition of giving an extra item when selling things by the dozen is what is known as the Baker's Dozen.  So why isn't this day Baker's Dozen Day?  Shouldn't one Friday the 13th be reserved for this?  Well, Friday the 13th isn't consistent every year so maybe that's the reason.  The Baker's Dozen was started in the13th century England where bakers skimped on the size of their baked goods. The King made a declaration of the requirement of 13 to make up the gap.  I guess things were sold by weight/size as well as in numbers.  So this would have been the original version of shrinkflation.  But alas!  There is no Baker's Dozen Day celebrated on a Friday the 13trh.   National Donut Day mentions 13 donuts, but no one has taken up the cause of a Baker's Dozen Celebration.   There are lots of references to Baker's Dozen - and there are Bakers Dozen Holiday Festivals - here's one: "For the second consecutive year, The Norris will present a “Baker’s Dozen Holiday Festival,” featuring 13 daily online episodes, starting December 1 and concluding December 13. As established in last year’s inaugural Baker’s Dozen festival, this year’s edition will feature a variety of local singers, instrumentalists, dancers and actors in brief performances of holiday-themed music, dance and spoken word."   Tree roots are the subject of today's picture.  Typically roots at ground level get gnarled like this due to grounds crew lawn mowers and whipper snippers.

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Nov 17 2022 - Dog Barking

 

When I see dogs in other people's cars I bark at them.    I want to say hello. The experts don't encourage this: "One thing you have to bear in mind is that there is no such thing as an official dog language. When dogs communicate with one another it is through body language and tone. So, when you hear dogs barking at one another the key thing that they are listening to is the type and tone of the bark." And yet there so many videos on how to bark like a dog and have conversations with your pet.  Are we learning to distinguish the types and the tones of barking?  I haven't investigated this.  I go with this approach:  "if he starts wagging his tail, jumping up excitedly, and is clearly happy, the chances are he likes what you are ‘barking’ to him." And usually dogs getting a bark greeting in cars get excited so seem to like it. Sometimes Millie sits there with her head to one side - which is dog language for what is this supposed to mean?  - I do the same.  The would likely lead to double confusion.  But it seems fun at the time.  And Baxter? The experts say that cats do not meow at each other.  They meow at humans.  Here's the meow interpretation: The m- or mrr-sound is a pleasant sound that the cat uses for people it likes. If the e of the meow is stressed, it can signal physical discomfort, such as that the cat is hungry or cold. The meow that cats use most with humans has a long ah-sound. If the person doesn’t respond, the cat becomes frustrated and the ow-sound becomes more pronounced, almost like a howl. I remember that Baxter learned the last one when he was boarding at the vets one time.  He came back with a loud and prolonged set of meows that he now prefers. Another grunge abstract with numbers.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Aug 10 2022 - From Zero to Nothing

 

Did you know that the Egyptians counted in base 12 and not our base 10?  If I knew this, it has been lost until yesterday when I found out how our day became 24 hours. They counted their knuckles on their fingers and used their thumbs as placeholders.  That's how we got to our units of time - the Egyptians divided the day into smaller parts based on the interval between sunrise and sunset.  Using their duodecimal (base 12) and sexagesimal (base 60) systems, here we are. Wikipedia says that historically units of time in many civilizations are duodecimal.   We know how common twelve is - 12 inches in an imperial foot, 12 troy ounces in a troy pound, 12 items in a dozen.  It says that the number twelve is a superior highly composite number and superior to base-10.   So how did we come to using base-10? It comes down to writing down large numbers. Early number systems have one thing in common. They require someone to write down many symbols to record a single number and create new symbols for each larger number. The Ancient Egyptians represented 300 with three coiled ropes.  Positional systems allow for the reuse of the same symbols.  It was Indian mathematicians in the 7th Century who perfected the decimal positional system.  The big breakthrough was the number 0.   That started with the Sumerian culture 5,000 years ago, moved on to the Babylonian empire, and then to India via the Greeks.   Zero and nothingness became a big deal in the 20th century even though the philosophical notion of nothingness was developed very early in Indian thought and in cosmogonical myths - "And the earth was without form, and void."   The 19th and 20th century explored nothingness at great length. On the one hand, zero is a bona fide cardinal number, yet on the other it is linked to ideas of nothingness and non-being.  How curious this seems that the philosophical aspect arises: our understanding of zero is tied to questions concerning the status of non-being.  Where would we be philosophically if we'd continued in the duodecimal system?  The Egyptians believed in everlasting joy rather than death.  So I don't think they worried about nothingness. In fact their gods imbued every day with meaning and were considered one's close friends and benefactors.  No existentialism for them. I seem to have endless pictures of tree bark.  Here's a sample collage.

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Feb 1 2022 - Red Tape and Valentines

 

February is the month where the colour red is dominant.  We distract ourselves from winter with Valentine's Day - the contrast of red for Valentines with the white of winter.   There's a headline in the New York Times about red states having red tape with regards to COVID regulations.  What is red tape? Wikipedia comes to the front of the line, as usual:  "It is generally believed that the term originated with the Spanish administration of Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, in the early 16th century, who started to use red tape in an effort to modernize the administration that was running his vast empire. The red tape was used to bind the most important administrative dossiers that required immediate discussion by the Council of State, and separate them from issues that were treated in an ordinary administrative way, which were bound with ordinary string." Red tape has become known as excessive, rigid, redundant rules or standards, usually implemented by governments, corporations and other large organizations.  A bureaucracy is needed to administer these - paper work, licenses, multiple people or committees approving a decision, and so on.   Cutting red tape is the expression for reducing the burden of regulations.  This seems like an "opening up" of processes and ways of doing things. We've missed it slightly as it was celebrated from January 25th to January 29th in Canada.   There is far less concern in the U.S. on red tape.  No red tape week or reduction initiatives.  The U.S. ranks # 6 on ease of doing business, whereas Canada ranks #23.  Both are classified as "very easy", but the U.S. is right near the top. Wikipedia has the survey HERE.  Where is it easiest?  New Zealand. What the N.Y. Times briefing this morning says is interesting:  that the coronavirus vaccine mandate has red tape consequences in states like Florida and Texas where there are low taxes and light regulation.  These companies are now dealing with lots of red tape when it comes to COVID policies and are not able to implement any mandates. How curious things seem to be in reverse of what one would think. Here's our February calendar - this is a macro of tree bark.  To me it looks like an Arctic abstract without actually having snow in the picture.

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Jan 22 2022 - Snowflakes vs Raindrops

 

Snowflakes vs raindrops. Snow is gusting past our front garden in little clouds.  Rain doesn't do that very often.  It makes me think how light snow is compared to rain.  I found a wonderful article Raindrops and Snowflakes by Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins - these are excerpts: "The observed behaviour of rain as it falls fits the event referred to by the common verb "fall."  Rather than rain drops "dropping," we actually say rain falls.  Since the "drops" are discrete bits of falling water, we call them rain drops, but we still say the rain falls.  "Raindrops keep falling on my head."  We don't say raindrops are dropping on my head. Likewise, I believe you'll hear the same usage for frozen bits like sleet or freezing rain (which is a mix of frozen and unfrozen bits of H2O).  As the snow "falls" it is a fluffy, irregularly shaped particle.  The noun "drop" applies only to liquids. Thus the action pictured by "dropping" is not appropriate for snow.  The infinitely variable shape is referred to as a flake, due to the generally flat shape and individuality of the particles.  Like a "flake" of something sliced off the larger part, like a flake of soap. Upon arrival, each snowflake just nestles in among its mates, while waiting the arrival of more falling flakes.  The snowflake, likewise, is caught by drafts of air, and thus gravity acts differently than upon a solid compact bit of water or frozen water.  Think of a snowflake as a wind surfer that gradually comes to ground to rest. We don't say rain drops from the sky, but it falls. Note also that in the same way we do not say snow flakes from the sky, but the snow also falls. Thus the nouns for the physical form of the water in these cases, is not the same word as for the verb used in the action." from Raindrops and Snowflakes by Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins I went in search of some funny snowflake jokes, and instead found many insulting political American jokes in which snowflake is a derogatory metaphor for a liberal.  They are easily distinguished by their hatefulness.      I find that GQ.com gives us the recent origin of this - a derisive term used in the movie Fight Club (You are not special.  You are not beautiful and unique snowflakes...).  The article indicates that the actual origins are the 1860s as a person who was opposed to the abolition of slavery.  Today the meaning has swapped and been taken on by the far right:  From cartoonist Ben Garrison:  "The special snowflake is a whining millennial who protests instead of getting a “real job” and cries sexism because she’s upset men don’t find her attractive enough. She believed the liberal arts teacher who told her being unique is a good thing. Have I mentioned that she’s unattractive?" And GQ's conclusion:  “snowflake” has become the go-to for enemies on the left. There is not a single political point a liberal can make on the Internet for which “You triggered, snowflake?” cannot be the comeback. It’s purpose is dismissing liberalism as something effeminate, and also infantile, an outgrowth of the lessons you were taught in kindergarten. “Sharing is caring”? Communism. “Feelings are good”? Facts over feelings. “Everyone is special and unique”? Shut up, snowflake. When I first looked through the snowflake jokes, I found one rebuttal joke: Republicans are the true snowflakes...they're white, they're cold, and if you put enough of them together they'll shut down public schools   Here are some birch bark macros I revisited yesterday.

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June 5 2021 - Truffles from Chocopologie

 

Perigord Truffles have a distinctive smell - somewhere in the skunk, cannabis, mushroom, funky, and musky aroma range for me.  The formal entry says Perigord truffles "bear a pungent, musky aroma that is likened to a combination of garlic, forest floor, nuts, and cocoa. The truffle's flesh contains a robust, subtly sweet, savoury, and earthy flavour with notes of pepper, mushrooms, mint, and hazelnut." Now we know why hazelnut is in the mix.  That's how I got to thinking about chocolate truffles - they came up frequently yesterday on searches for Perigord Truffles.   There is a chocolate truffle that incorporates a French Perigord truffle.  La Madeline au Truffle, created by Danish chocolatier Fritz Knipschildt is acknowledged as the world’s most expensive chocolate truffle at $250 per piece.  It is $2700 a pound.  What a gorgeous website - called chocopologie.com.  "Fritz immigrated to the US in 1996, produces this lavish chocolate in Norwalk, Connecticut under the brand name Knipschildt Chocolatier. This chocolate is made of 70% Valrhona dark chocolate, heavy cream, sugar, truffle oil and vanilla as the base for this rich mouthful. A rare French Perigord truffle is then surrounded by this rich ganache, and then rolled in dark chocolate and fine cocoa powder. The result is absolutely divine and sinful." The chef makes this recommendation on how to eat it:  "I would suggest you serve it on a silver platter, cut it with the best knife you have in the house and eat it with a wonderful bottle of red wine. "The flavors are just so amazing, the ingredients so special that it deserves to have a ceremony made of it." This doesn't sound divine to me - how do you possibly eat a truffle within chocolate.  You will need an extremely sharp knife and I expect you will have to cut it into slivers.  And then won't everything separate.  I don't relish putting more than a sliver of funky, mushroom, garlic, forest floor in my mouth.   But you can order it online from chocopologie if you are more adventurous. Doesn't this bark look flaky and crispy?  The top looks like caramel bark and the bottom chocolate layers.

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