Mar 8 2021 - Choose to Challenge

 

The theme this year is "Choose to Challenge".    There is a colour for Women's Day:  purple, green and white - well, three colours.  They symbolize justice and dignity, hope and purity.  They originated in 1908. The sense of an International day for women is consistent with all international days for and against something.  These are days to recognize achievements, raise awareness about equality, lobby for parity and raise money for charities.   As for International Women's Day - it is the sheer number of people seeking autonomy and human rights.  The pictures around the world are compelling.   Who is the Manif Pour Tous group? They are shown marching through the Eiffel Tower in Paris and their "uniform" is eerie, even creepy.  So I looked them up. This information comes from Here Originally created to oppose the French bill on same-sex marriage, La Manif Pour Tous (LMPT) has broadened its claims to the defense of the “traditional family” and the opposition to a fictional “gender theory”. Links with other organisations: Many links with anti-choice organisations (Alliance Vita, Fondation Jérome Lejeune) and with far-right organisations. Key statement: “La Manif pour tous defends mariage and filiation in line with the gendered reality of mankind, which consequence is at the same time sexual difference and complementarity that are inescapable to conceive a child and to assume the mother-father and the motherhood-fatherhood differences”  The picture has made the cover likely because it looks similar to the   uniform in The Handmaid's Tale.  Here it is.    This diptych is one of the montage series.  It is a curved palm leaf overlayed with textures.  Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

The Gold Fish Myth

he CBC interview on human attention span yesterday identified the 12 seconds and 8 seconds (and then the goldfish at 9 seconds)  attention span statistics as unfounded, unprovable, and as a result, unlikely and probably false.  The neuroscientist being interviewed says that there is research available that shows human attention span is unlimited when the person is focused and enjoying the activity they are involved in.  The 'flow' state and the 'zone' are the terms for this.  There are countless articles on attention span quoting the 12-8-9 numbers.  This means that journalists are unconsciously spreading fake news by not properly checking facts and scientific references. And not just a few journalists: Time magazine, the Telegraph, the Guardian, USA Today, the New York Times and the National Post. And then there are the repetitions in numerous blogs and websites.  Poor TIME Magazine - it comes up right at the topi of the list. There are articles addressing the attention span statistic fallacy/myth.  The PolicyViz article is HERE.  It was written in 2016.  The author says: "I’ve written about other bad statistics in the past (here and here), and this one is no exception. It’s not correct! Look, it’s not that I don’t believe we have shorter attention spans in the past because I’m sure we do, it’s just that I don’t have a reliable number to put on it. And, by the way, I like John Medina’s (from Brain Rules fame) advice to break up instruction/presentation into 10-minute chunks, which is based on actual research on instruction." And to compare attention span to goldfish is a second false idea. Scientists have debunked the short attention span of goldfish myth.  The BBC.com  writer spoke to a professor who studies fish and she says there are many studies on fish memory (as early as 1908), and fish perform the same kinds of learning as mammals and birds.   And we're only looking at the quality of journalism reporting.  The Grievance Studies affair was a project to highlight poor scholarship in several academic fields.  The team submitted bogus academic papers to academic journals to determine if they would pass through peer review, and several were accepted and published.  You can read about it in Wikipedia which says:  "These published articles included an argument that dogs engage in rape culture, that men could reduce their transphobia by anally penetrating themselves with sex toys, and a rewrite of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf in feminist language." I compare these two for poor methods, although there is a distinction between "active" hoaxes and poor fact checking. Two more images of the Sago Palm today.  A little more green as our landscape quickly goes gold, orange, red and brown.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

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Biodigester Done

Grimsby's distinction of having a biodigester is concluded.  Its difficult operations and financial losses have also come to a conclusion - the facility  has been sold. It is a story of mis-steps, poor steps, set-backs, failure to carry out the needed activities, and more.  It took seven years to get it up and running mid-December 2016.  The hope was annual revenue from power generated ito be $1.4 million. It was to pay for itself in eight years. Here's a sample quote: "I would hope to see several hundred thousand (dollars) going back to the town" on an annual basis, he said. "This project should double the revenue stream coming to the town from hydro assets." Fast forward to 2018 municipal elections, and a new town council and mayor swept into power. They made the biodigester the main subject.  The past mayor and town council had refused to reveal the costs of the biodigestor.  The debt in January 2019 was determined to be $15 million.  It costs $100,000 a month to operate it. It isn't surprising that there is a lawsuit against the three major players, and that includes the past mayor.  The lawsuit claims that the two players, with the mayor's support, appointed themselves as contractors and project managers and received substantial money while serving as company directors.  It also claims they suppressed information that the project was not producing profit, along with the losses from the biodigester. There was irregular accounting practices and missing information as well. The resolution of the biodigester was difficult but it got accomplished.  Grimsby is a little town - almost 30,000.  It can look forward to a being town focused on town services again. And the new owner, White Owl, is in the waste diversion and processing facility business, so can expect to see a profitable operation.  These Sago Palm leaves were beside yesterday's pool in Sacramento.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com

On the Surface of Things

Whenever I go to conservatories and to Florida, I seem to take many pictures of the surface of palm branches, trunks, and other tropical plants.  They are unfamiliar and interesting.  They have so many patterns and designs.  Their textures are often in a horizontal pattern, compared to our northern trees which have more in the way of vertical patterns. Today we look at Palm patterns, with a Eucalyptus at the bottom.

Bonsai, A Garden in the Palm of My Hand

Marilyn's Photo of the Day  Bonsai, A Garden in My Palm

Bonsai Today's image is a tree trunk close-up of a bonsai in the Marie Selby Garden in Florida.  I am always on the look-out for bonsai. They are such works of art.  With the small size, one can see details that aren't apparent in the full-size specimen, and the details on the bark demonstrate this wonderfully. This bonsai is fulfilling its purpose:  for the viewer it is contemplation and the grower it is the pleasant exercise of effort and ingenuity. The Beauty of Bonsai Gallery, on redbubble, is the second set of images.

Bonsai Art - A Garden in the Palm of My Hand

This is a beautiful Pomegranate tree at Longwood Gardens, May 2014.  You can see the little orange blossoms.  Its label says that it has been in training since 1910.  What a marvel.  I've taken the original image and show 2 interpretations, with French Kiss textures.  Let me know which one you prefer.