Aug 16 2022 - Words Starting with Trump

 

There are lots of words that start with Trump, as in capital T.  Donald Trump gave rise to a very creative press.     Would the first one be Trumpism?  And along with it Trumpist and Trumpian?  These are terms used to refer to those exhibiting characteristics of Trumpism.  Supporters of Trump are known as Trumpers.  While Trumpism is a well-known phrase, it is considered complex and contentious by wikipedia.   "Trumpism is a term for the political ideologies, social emotions, style of governance, political movement, and set of mechanisms for acquiring and keeping control of power associated with Donald Trump and his political base." Alternately Trumpism describes Donald Trump's made-up words.  This gives rise to articles on how to talk like Trump. The big one for me is the Trumpometer.  This is a seemingly never-ending scrolling list of Donald Trump's lies.  However, it isn't being tracked much anymore.    Next is Trumpocracy - this one is the title of a book written by David From on the corruption the American Republic. From there we have Trumponomics.  This is a high-frequency headline  that reviews Trumps 7 biggest failures.    Trumpocalypse - this is another book by David From.  This time it is about restoring American Democracy and how to rebuild the nation after Trump.  Have I found all the Trump words today?  One would go on to the signature words of Donald Trump.  Perhaps another time.

This is Port Dalhousie's beach on Lake Ontario.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

July 26 2021 - Stay up late or get up early for Olympics Live!

 

What is the latest Olympics news?  There's 9 minutes ago, 31 minutes ago, 8 hours ago, and the NBC coverage is 23 hours ago.   It is 9:44pm in Japan now so there must be a lot of news overnight.  What a complicated thing this is - take COVID together with the time difference, and the Olympics is not able to be the live experience that was so spectacular in the past. Do you stay up late, or get up early? Here's the timing for Great Britain coverage of favoured events: Monday 26 July – Adam Peaty, 100m breaststroke final, 3am Tuesday 3 August – Laura Kenny, team pursuit final, 8am Wednesday 4 August – Sky Brown, skateboard park final, 1am For Canada, the CBC website has a headline that says the time difference story: "While you were sleeping:  Canada's 1st Olympic champion in Tokyo".  There's a feature box  on the site - While you were sleeping - All the news from Tokyo 2020 that happened while you slept. I guess this will be repeated when the winter Olympics are hosted by China.  Will it be COVID in the past?  That's the question on our minds. Isn't this such a pretty hand-painted "postcard" on one of the Painted Ladies' fences in Grimsby Beach.  Millie and I were there this morning.

April 14 2021 - Feet of Art - the Art of Foot

 

So many ways to make art these days.  But then Simon Beck has been creating outdoor art in the snow since 2004.  Vast patterns in the snow in various mountainous areas - he lives in the French Alps.The article I read had him in the U.S. Rocky Mountains creating winter art for the town of Silverthorne.   "Days into his Silverthorne stint, Beck has only finished a couple of “drawings,” as he calls them. The wind has thus far wiped away everything he started, and on some days has even prevented him from going out altogether. But that’s the nature of the job, and he’s used to it."  That article is HERE - with its wonderful pictures of is work.  Another kind of art by foot is made by Stan Herd.  He is an American crop artist whose work is carved on the landscape as well as on fine art prints.  He received a lot of press last year with a crop portrait of Kama Harris.  His work is made from native plants and other natural materials.  His Young Woman of China contained marble, granite and the province’s natural stone. It also incorporates dirt, plants, rice paddies and other materials native to the region.  I wonder how long these last.   And then there are corn maze designers.  Dan Frantz is one of these.  The Amazing Maize Maze 2019 locations are listed with pictures HERE.  There don't seem to be any updates anywhere since then - there are many in the eastern U.S., and mostly New York state. And then there is sand art - the "most famous" is Sudarsan Pattnaik - he has received dozens of awards for his sea shore sand art.  He has his own sand art institute.  Many of his sculptures are three-dimensional.  Simon Beck, of snow fame above, has entered this realm as well.  Andres Amador, based in San Francisco is another sand artis who draws large-scale patterns in the ocean sand.  As you can imagine, these are temporary. Pictures of his work are HERE.  We started this journey with Nico Laan back in November.  His work is created in the sand at the sea shore. His website says:  "An anamorphosis is a representation that you have to look at from a specific point of view. With 3D objects this gives a spatial effect and with flat subjects a certain 'friction'. Later on I started to focus more on 'ordinary' drawings, which do not require a special point of view. The challenge lies in finding a camera position in which landscape and drawing reinforce each other." Our Niagara Blossom Trail has started.  The first two pictures are on Stewart Road - that's on the NOTL side of the Welland Canal just south of the Lakeshore Road.  I wonder if this orchard is Apricots as I have seen only a few early ornamental cherries in bloom in front gardens. Yesterday's sky was excellent - beautiful blue sky to the north and dark grey to the south.  I drove on Church Road, and found this uprooted orchard.  It looks like a horrible natural disaster to see these scenes.  But as the many transport trucks drive along Stewart Road, it is a reminder of the industrialization of all things.  Maybe that's what got me looking into the foot artists today - those who work in the landscape itself. Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Feb 1 2020 - On to the Chocolate Month

How about 650 not sure synonyms.  That's a lot of expressions for being vague.  In the same thesaurus - The Power Thesaurus, there are 5,475 synonyms for sure.  But if we go to Thesaurus.com there are about 30 synonyms for not sure, and then about 45 for sure.  Perhaps the difference has to do with the many meanings of sure. Here we are at the first day of February and the things to do in this month divide drastically between embracing our landscape of snow and escaping the same landscape; Party in Quebec City for the Winter Festival or Go South to the beach.  The beach option includes the family favourite: go to a Disney Theme Park.  I am intrigued with the Pandora Park based on the Avatar movie.  It is in the Animal Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando.  This is interesting because Disney prides itself on its landscapes and plant material.  We went a few years ago just to see the landscaping, and I was impressed.  The promotional pictures look like they've succeed again. "What we’re trying to do on Pandora is transport our guests to another planet,” says Zsolt Hormay, Vice President of Creative at Walt Disney Imagineering. “We had to find species that looked like Pandoran plants,” he says. The creative team traveled to Hawaii’s Oahu island to research rainforest plants as well as China’s Zhangjiajie National Forest Park to research the mountains that inspired Avatar’s floating Hallelujah Mountains." So let's go back to sure vs not sure.  What percentage of Canadians take a winter vs a beach vacation in the winter months?  Expedia says that over 50% of Canadians take a beach vacation in the winter.   Seems like the two pictures below tell the story:  An invitation to stroll through paradise vs a snow-filled yard viewed from inside. I guess that's where the chocolate comes in this month.  Even if you take a beach vacation, there's the return to the winter landscape, where chocolate is on tap.

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Eugene and Delilah

The name Eugene and the the field of eugenics trace from the same origin - Greek - to be 'well-born'.  This seems like a vintage name to me. Baby-naming trends remain somewhat stable: Liam and Emma continue to be the most popular names.  Noah, William, James and Oliver and then Olivia, Ava, Isabella and Sophia. But "vintage" names are moving up. Arthur has jumped back into popular names after almost 100 years since it was last listed.  There's Calvin,  Emerson, Amos, Edgar, Chester, Tucker for boys. What about Ada?  It started a comeback in 2018. Then there's Delilah, Ayla, Zoe, Margot and Felicity. Supposedly researchers had found that names influence the choice of profession, where we live, whom we marry, grades achieved, and so on.  The original study took place in 1948 and was widely repeated, always finding that unusual names were more likely to have 'flunked' out of Harvard or to have exhibited signs of psychological neurosis, and so on.   But the link between names and longevity, career choice and success, geographic and marriage preferences, and academic achievement has been questioned and disproven.  What has been proven is that names 'signal' things - like ethnicity, wealth, and country of origin and give a sense of economic status.  And then the receiver treats the person as such.   So the likely question parents should ask is:  What signals does this name send and what does it imply?    That would be useful for parents who name their daughter Delilah. Today's images are of driftwood on the beach in Salt Spring Island.

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Why are Tattoos so Popular?

I ask the question from the point of view of motivation and not history.  Why are people getting tattooed so much today?  I stood in line at the local coffee shop and the young man ahead of me had tattoos on his head, down his neck, and on his arms.   The articles tell me that millennials appear to be obsessed with tattoos.  The United States Navy has had to change its body art policies.  In 2010 about 40 per cent of millennials had at least one tattoo.  In 2017 one in five Canadians had a tattoo. That explains the coffee shop line up.  There were 4 people ahead of me. It doesn't explain the waterfall effect of the tattoos, though.  They seemed to flower from him more like lava than a refreshing spring. The entrance of tattoos into mainstream media shows and on mainstream celebrities has speeded the significant shift towards acceptance.  The theory goes that tattoos are 'an expression of oneself' and they stand for the entirety of that identity.  And when I ask a person about their tattoo, they describe  what the tattoo expresses of themselves.  Tattoos aren't 'accepted'.  They are 'embraced'. The alignment of person with workplace norms is the only remaining question.  The suitability of tattoos is now a past discussion.  The negative views are prevalent for healthcare professionals, police officers, lawyers, financial institutions, and school teachers.  But that's just lead and lag timing question.  When will I see a doctor with a tattoo on a wrist?  That's a prediction to make. I didn't watch the Oscars last night. They have drifted into the past for me - it is a long time ago when they were fun and important - when Bob Hope and Johnny Carson  were the hosts in the golden age of television and movies. I think there should be an article on this topic:  What do the Olympics and Oscars have in common?  That's because the headlines on the Oscars seem to point to the similarities:   Do the Oscars Even Matter Anymore?   The Uncomfortable Truth About the Oscar If the Oscars No Longer Care About the Public, Why Should the Public... The Oscars' Dirty Secret:  Corruption, Bribery, Mafia-style Hit Job Oscar Films:  75 years of bribes, lies and overkill Oscars:  were you always so political? Oscar Record Low Audience But there is a brilliant moment at the Oscars 2019 -  Billy Porter's outfit - it has been named a gown-cedo. He wore an outfit with a tuxedo on top and a black floor length ball gown skirt on the bottom.  It is remarkable.   Toronto Island garden images today.

Baxter My Cat as Post Master

Google's doodle today celebrates Moliere as being widely considered the world's foremost comic dramatist and perhaps the greatest artist in the history of French theatre.  I would guess that William Shakespeare is the world's greatest dramatist of all genres.   Which guide book will we look to as the authority on things like this?  There are so many online guide books to everything now.  Bestlifeonline.com says this:   "One of the downsides of living in the Information Age? It feels impossible to keep up! We’re awash in information all day, every day. The good news, of course, is that some things are worth knowing a lot more than others. The name of the second baseman for the ’92 Mets? Probably not important. But tips for living a better life? Well worth committing to memory. (Note: Apologies to baseball buffs.)"  You can read their tips HERE.   Despite this wonderful introduction promising us the 'guide-book of all time' most of these articles - whether sharing  10, 50, or 88 must-know things - turn out to be frivolous, trivia-ridden articles. And they are entertaining and fun. The entry on mail delivery is my favourite: "Over the years, humans have used many types of animals to deliver mail. Delivery by dogsled was once a thing in Alaska and Canada; Alaska also gave reindeer a try. Horses powered the Pony Express, of course, and pigeons have been used to deliver messages since ancient Greece. In the 1870s, a Belgian village attempted to train a fleet of 37 official mail cats to deliver letters.  Safety? Maybe. Rapidity? Definitely not. Though one enterprising cat made it to his destination in less than five hours, the others took up to a day to deliver the mail to their own homes—it would seem the cats were not terribly interested in relaying messages in a timely fashion. It should come as no surprise that the service was extremely short-lived." As proof there looks to be a 1876/03/04 article from the New York Times extracted  HERE.  Would Baxter our cat, come hurling out of the bushes to deliver me letters?  More likely, Dezi our dog, will bring us some mail. We see Dezi on the beach in Florida in 2016.

Convert to Canadian!

I found this yesterday as I was researching British and American sports humour. We Canadians look so tough that it makes me want to 'convert' everyone to being Canadian.  Enjoy this comparative story. Canadian Hockey Conversion Table 50° Fahrenheit (10° C)  New Yorkers try to turn on the heat  Canadians plant gardens 40° Fahrenheit (4.4° C)  Californians shiver uncontrollably  Canadians sunbathe 35° Fahrenheit (1.6° C)  Italian Cars won't start  Canadians drive with the windows down 32° Fahrenheit (0 ° C)  Distilled water freezes  Canadian water gets thicker 0° Fahrenheit (-17.9° C)  New York City landlords finally turn on the heat  Canadians have the last cookout of the season -40° Fahrenheit (-40° C)  Hollywood disintegrates  Canadians rent some videos -60° Fahrenheit (-51° C)  Mt. St. Helens freezes  Canadian Girl Guides sell cookies door-to-door -10° Fahrenheit (-73° C)  Santa Claus abandons the North Pole  Canadians pull down their ear flaps -173° Fahrenheit (-114° C)  Ethyl alcohol freezes  Canadians get frustrated when they can't thaw the keg -460° Fahrenheit (-273° C)  Absolute zero; all atomic motion stops  Canadians start saying "cold, eh?" -500° Fahrenheit (-295°C)  Hell freezes over  The Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup source: http://www.jokes4us.com/sportsjokes/hockeyjokes.html Our pictures today glow with the Topaz Filter Restyle intensifying the sunset colours of Florida's Lido Beach.

Fifty Years a Ruler

Black Friday sales reports violence across the U.S.  It seems regrettable that this shopping day has an association with the Black Friday label.  Black Friday 'days' commemorate catastrophic events such as scandals, stock exchange crashes, fire devastation, military operations, and so on. There's an entry for Black Friday 2016 for the United Kingdom - the day after the Brexit vote - when the financial markets lost 2 trillion dollars in the worst single day drop in history.  Fidel Castro has died at 90 so today's photos show scenes from Cuba.  Here is his most famous quote: "Condemn me.  It does not matter. History will absolve me" And an historical fact I'd forgotten: "Castro’s speeches, lasting up to six hours, became the soundtrack of Cuban life and his 269-minute speech to the UN General Assembly in 1960 set the world body’s record for length that still stood more than five decades later."

So Many Footprints in the Sand

These footprints are bigger than bird tracks in the sand.  We got to see repair work on stairs that go down to the shore. This was on the unit a few doors down.  How does something this large get onto the beach? Lucky for this house there is an empty lot a few doors down for access.  You can see the tracks up the incline.   While we face the sunrise, the sunset colours also show in the sky and water, and the last two pictures are from yesterday's sunset.

Bungalow The Origins

Dezi has enjoyed the beach with running, a mistaken swim, and deciding shells were something to chase. As one drives along the coast, the original houses were the long Florida bungalow, and we wondered the origin of the word.  This was a surprise: 1670-80; < Hindi banglā literally, of Bengal The word bungalow was originally used to describe the temporary houses set up by English sailors traveling to India to work for the East India Company. These little houses were often just one story high with a thatched roof. Nowadays, the word bungalow can be used to describe any one story house. Think of the little cabin you slept in at summer camp — that’s a kind of bungalow. What words rhyme with bungalow?  Here are a few from Merriam-Webster Rhymes with bungalow acid snow, afterglow, aikido, alpenglow, apropos, art deco, art nouveau, audio, Baguio, Bamako, barrio, bay window, Bergamo, bibelot, Bilbao, black widow, blow-by-blow, body blow, bone marrow, bordereau, Borneo, bow window, buffalo, Buffalo, Bushido, buteo, calico, cameo, cachalot, cembalo, centimo, CEO, chassepot, cheerio, Clemenceau, cogito, comedo, comme il faut, counterflow, Cupid's bow, curaçao, Curaçao, curassow, curio, daimyo,