Marilyn's Photos - Sep 2 2025 - When does Autumn Start in Placebo land?

 

Somehow we generally agree that Autumn starts September 1st.  My theory is the school year where we live which always starts the day after Labour Day.  Do we think the same thing about Winter?  I switch over to the solstice start - it goes with Christmas somehow.   I think I get confused with Spring and have a double celebration - both March 1st and then the equinox.  And the start of summer?  It's the astronomical system and  the solstice.  Then as Fall approaches what happens? I think of "back to school' and it is Autumn on September 1st.  I am validated by the drop in temperatures. So my seasons follow a path of a self-fulling prophecy.  Maybe that seems like a relatively good thing, if you think of the placebo effect - where one's medical circumstances improve without receiving the real medication, but an inactive one, aptly named a sugar pill.  Sstudies show over and over that even when we're told it is a placebo pill, we improve. there is also the nocebo effect where a negative outcome occurs due to a belief that the intervention will cause harm - again with no active ingredient involved, it happens.  There are hundreds of articles on the placebo effect.  That must mean there are hundreds of jokes:   What idiot decided to call it “randomized clinical trial with placebo” And not “trick or treatment” I’m addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn’t matter. I went to see The Cure in concert last weekend. Halfway through the show, a cover band called Placebo took their place on stage. I enjoyed both performances equally. This joke includes placebos, and seems outstanding to me. Reasons the idiot couldn't kill himself. He couldn't find the tailpipe on his Tesla. He jumped in front of a model train. The bullets wouldn't fit in the squirt gun. He overdosed on placebo pills. He jumped off a low bridge. He stuck a plastic fork in an outlet. He doused himself in diesel and tried to light it. He leaped into an animal cage at the petting zoo. Jumping in front of this model train ...how would that work?

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

How High is the Sky

I looked up today and there were dozens of cormorants flying over.  How High is the Sky? This is a philosophical question asked in Irving Berlin's song:  How Deep is the Ocean (How high is the sky).   I don't know the answer for how low or how high is the sky.  So I checked out some sky facts: The Earth's atmosphere is divided into six layers. The closest one to the surface is called the “Troposphere”, It varies in height from 8 km (5 miles/26,400 feet) at the poles to 17 km (11 miles/58,080 feet) at the equator. The sky starts where the ground ends. So we're walking 'in the sky'.  But airplanes don't fly at our feet or even 100 feet from the ground.  Here's an excerpt from an article discussing whether a drone camera plane can be prosecuted under the FAA regulations. "[O]perated the above-described aircraft at altitudes of approximately 10 feet to approximately 400 feet over the University of Virginia in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another The trial itself will determine whether or not Pirker's flying was reckless. There's a chance, however, that it will instead determine the limitation of FAA standing. The counter-motion filed by Pirker's defense counsel raises the question of jurisdiction. Recklessly operating a vehicle is certainly a public safety concern, but rather than being a matter of aviation security it might fall instead to local police, who have taken the lead in other cases where unmanned vehicles have caused injury or death. This includes a recent and infamous incident where a young man in New York died after a remote control helicopter struck him. NYPD, not the FAA, investigated the case, even though a flying vehicle was involved." There's a question of whether the FAA has domain over all flying things or over the regulated sky which starts at 700 feet? And it is answered in part:  "If there is any area where jurisdiction of the sky intersects with that o the ground, it's at the point of takeoff". I don't think this aircraft will take off from the Hamilton Airport.