Oct 13 2021 - Woke and Anti-Woke

What about the word "Woke"? Like pivot, it seems to be everywhere.   Wikipedia says the phrase stay woke had emerged in African-American Vernacular English by the 1930s, referring to awareness of the social and political issues affecting African Americans. The Black Lives Matter movement brought this expression into the foreground.  It has since been seized by politicians.  It seems now that its most frequent usage is as an accusation, as irony,  a pejorative or  a derogatory label.  That's the position of the political right in how Republicans attack Democrats, centrist Democrats attack more liberal ones and supporters of the British monarchy use the term to criticize people more sympathetic to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. I wondered if there is a "woke List".  Yes, there are lots of these - a 2019 Woke 100 list from Essence.com that shows people serving society.  There's the Anti-woke list from the crisis magazine.com - this is a conservative Catholic website that is against these organizations.   There are lots of Woke Lists - we like to create lists..   It has gotten around everywhere: Why are India's Young Going Woke?  The Woke Chinese Community Party.  In Germany there's Woke and Voke.   That means there must be Woke Jokes? I found the anti-woke jokes as this is the prevalent view these days. These come from Keeplaughingforever.com: "A woke joke or more correctly an anti-woke joke is a joke that makes fun of how sensitive and overly politically correct society has become. Many people are keen to have anything that may be deemed slightly offensive to someone cancelled immediately and this has provided us with some hilarious jokes! Enjoy.​" At the rate we are travelling, shampoo is going to be cancelled soon so that bald people do not get offended. What do you call a woke droid from star wars?  R2-Me2 An amazing new movie was released about a disabled seagull with a broken wing that learned to fly. Unfortunately the woke public ensured that it was immediately cancelled. They were upset that a movie about a right wing extremist was in the public eye. Here's one joke on the 'for-side' of Woke: I was walking down the street and when I punched a white guy I was arrested for assault. The next day I got out, I punched a black guy and I was arrested for impersonating a police officer. This California coast tree trunk image brought to mind the Honsberger Road tree.  Tere are a lot of images of the Honsberger Road tree - and maybe worth doing a series.

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May 13 2021 - Restful

 

A 18,000 participate survey on rest.  Rest and restful seem elusive to me to some extent.  The definition is: having a quiet and soothing quality.  Repose is another word used in the definition.  A position of contentment and security.  It was a world-wide study that has great interest now that we are isolating and have lots of time alone. What is rest?  Claudia Hammond's book The Art of Rest:  How to Find Respite in the Modern Age is on this topic and covers the research.  She is an authority on rest, having worked on the research study - it had responses from 18,000 people in 135 different countries.  Her website is HERE. I point to it because I hadn't found the research website - it seems to have disappeared, being part of a grant from the Wellcome Collection. The study found that two-thirds of people said they wanted more rest - regardless of income.  And then the top activities that were found to be restful in the study?  I consider them predictable: Number 1:  reading, 2: being in a natural environment, 3: being along, 4: listening to music, 5: doing nothing in particular.  The top ten items turn out to be mostly alone activities.  I've included the chart. Claudia Hammond is worth looking into. She investigates such interesting areas.  What about The Touch Test - the topic of interpersonal touch in which 40,000 people participated in 2020, the the BBC Loneliness Experiment in which 55,000 people participated in 2018, and the earliest is the Rest Test, conducted in 2016.   So many things to investigate in our times. Here's the chart of the top ten restful interests.   Here's our Honsberger and 15th Street tree overlooking the orchard - I took this on Tuesday so there are still orchards in bloom.  Such a Niagara spring sky - those brooding clouds delivering a little rain to the scene, while off in the distance blue shines through.  Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Jan 13 2021 - Grumpy Old People

 

One of "those ads" at the bottom of an article I was reading had a picture of an old man behind the wheel of a car being 'grumpy' - he looked like he was pounding his fists on the steering wheel.  It was funny because he was  little and looked like the grandfather in Hard Day's Night with the Beatles.  It was an ad for car insurance in Grimsby. He was definitely British so I think they (the algorithm) got confused and gave me a Grimsby U.K. ad. It's happened before.  I though there must be lots of pictures of grumpy old British men: they seem to be archetypal.  In fact, Getty images delivered search results of 94,523 Old British Man Photos.   Now compare that to the same search term with the addition of American - for old American men - that's a different headline - 3,280 handsome 50 year old men photos and premium... from Getty.  American old isn't very old, is it?  I guess Getty has the pulse on societal norms in advertising and what gets our attention. There are a lot of articles on being old and grumpy. They seem to be opinion articles and explanatory pieces - what makes people grumpy at an older age and how to fix oneself. Everyone weighs in on this - AARP,  Psychology Today, news organizations, newspapers.  It seems to be a popular topic with differing data and views on whether old people are grumpier or happier than younger people.   And what is the magic age that turns an older person grumpy? There is some consensus on this, or else everyone references the same source.  It is the age of 70 - the marker where "life - or at least the perception of happiness - begins to go downhill".  I wonder if my Dad read that study, as that's what he told me.  And consider this:  that was all written before the Pandemic.  We are seeing a rise in  grumpiness across the entire population.   These articles come from medical and government sites as well as top magazines.  Forbes heads the list with Is It Just Me or Is Everyone Grumpy?  And that was written in July so consider the state now.  Those articles talk about the coronavirus pandemic making everything seem uncertain, casing stress, short tempers, sadness and tension. And so we are justified in being grumpy. Will there be a generation of curmudgeon children? That's a scary movie, isn't it?    Here is the "Maple tree" at Honsberger Street - the first photo the spring and the second winter.  Can you spot the difference of the season in the sky, or the trees in the background?  Or is it the dandelions in the grass of the first photo?   Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

May 18 2020 - Fireworks over the Falls?

Fireworks?  No public fireworks this year in Toronto.  Home celebrations are allowed. How about Niagara Falls?  Their website says that they are open for fireworks and schedules are published with phone numbers to call.  But they aren't open.  All the public-facing venues are closed.  No familiar fireworks on this weekend of this year. We and Scotland are the only two countries that celebrate Victoria Day. We've had celebrations since 1845.  May 24th has a long history in Canada.  It became such a big deal that by Confederation in 1867, all-day celebrations were held.  Even after Victoria died in 1901, May 24th kept going - honouring her as the "Mother of Confederation".  Not worrying about the current Monarch and celebrating their birthday with the same scale of festivities. There's a nice alignment weather-wise to have this as the summer marker.  I think ahead of the festivals, getaways, cottage visits and similar events that are not to be this summer. Even if we do participate in something, it will be tinged with concerns and caution.  We'll be distance dancing our way through the summer of 2020. Driving in Niagara is still accessible. This amazing tree is at the corner of Honsberger Ave and Fifteen Streets in Jordan. This is an old-fashioned gravel sort of road, reminding one of the roads in rural Niagara in the early 1950s, before the wave of asphalt took over. If you go to google maps, the tree is alive in July 2012.  It would be great to find out how old it was - you can see how massive the trunk is.  To get this picture? This was photographed as a 5 picture panorama and put together in photoshop.

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