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 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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North Up

I have a bias that North is up and even that there is an up for world.  This has to do with the magnetic north pole and all the pictures of the world with the north pole at the top - real pictures and pictures we create - maps.  Somehow, intellectually, I realize this might not be the case - that this is our Western World view that continues to be bubblesome. Did you know that the Blue Marble photograph - the famous photograph of the Earth taken from on board Apollo 17 had the south pole at the top - and got turned around to match our familiar view? The Greek astronomer Ptolemy (90-168AD) set this in motion - that north is up.  In between much happened.  It got cemented by the European navigators using the North Star and the magnetic compass. Before that, the top of the map was to the East. It has never been to the West.  The West is traditionally a representation of death, where the sun sets.  Poor Australia, always represented at the bottom.  There are maps with Australia at the top - McArthur's Universal Corrective Map of the World is the great example.  There is a person named the Wizard of New Zealand who has made an imperial British upsidedown map. In the Ancient world, Arabia, put south at the top.  The explanation is that if you wake up and face the sun, south is on the right.  With the sea to the south of them, there was nothing "on top" of the country, so they predominated the map visually. (This is what maps are for - to show 'our position').  By definition, they are political, politicized. Buckminster Fuller created the Dymaxion Map - no compass direction consistently facing the same way - it is an unfolded icosahedron.  Didn't he reveal the global village - look how connected we are in this version! Then there is the Peters Projection:  "one of the most stimulating and controversial images of the world".  It is HERE.  It addresses the challenge:  which is bigger, Greenland or China?  It is described as an 'equal area' map. "When this map was first introduced by historian and cartographer Dr. Arno Peters at a Press Conference in Germany in 1974 it generated a firestorm of debate. The first English-version of the map was published in 1983, and it continues to have passionate fans as well as staunch detractors. " This map is used for world aid by charity organizations such as Oxfam.   The International Society for Global Inversion believes that flipping iconic world maps everywhere would be a symbolic ceremony to help mankind break its old thought patterns, and act in a more ecological way.  We conclude with the Guide to Unusual Maps on the Web HERE.  Flowers and Floyd Elzinga's metal sculpture are our images today.

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Hobby On!

A prelude to my post today is to ask you to contact me if you experienced a gap in receiving the Photo of the Day.  At the  beginning of October, the percentage of opens dropped significantly.  In the last day or two, I've received emails from recipients welcoming me back to Photo of the Day.  I have sent out posts every day, so I've concluded that some of the email systems such as sympatico had problems which have now been fixed. If you find yourself in this situation in the future, the photo of the day is posted on my blogs - blog.marilyncornwell.com and opengardensniagara.blogspot.com Today I decided to explore our interests and past-times.  I didn't need to do much work at all.  Did you know that the following are actually identified as hobbies: Tatooing vehicles - self-evident but still strange Mooing - competition in Wisconsin, recently won by a ten-year-old boy Faking your own death  - known as pseudocide - variations exist and the most famous one is one man whose hobby is acting out murder scenes - calls himself Dead Body Guy Competitive dog grooming - dogs dyed various colours and trimmed weirdly to look like flamingoes, clowns, leopards, parrots, etc making them look like freaks - particularly since the groomers dress the same  Tape art - using old cassette tape, adhesive tape, duct tape, etc to make  to make pictures, particularly street art - has a society and website - this one is worth looking at  Trainspotting - an ordinary hobby - but Train Surfing is extraordinary - jumping on the outside of a passenger train and hitching a ride Navel fluff collecting -the yuk one in the list - again one strange man who has done this for more than 20 years so has evidence of his interest  Extreme ironing - ironing things in strange places - mountains, rivers, skydiving...a yearly competition to prove it exists Hikaru Dorodango - this is polishing dirt - take a ball of mud, draw the moisture out of it while coating it with finer and finer layers of soil after which you start to work the dirt by polishing it by hand into a sphere.  This is a Japanese art and the word means 'mud dumpling'. You can read about it at Wikipedia HERE.  News-Bombing - there is only one person doing this - he is an ugly man in the UK who goes to live news broadcast locations to stand in the background behind the journalist - making a point about allowing ugly people on-screen There are new and amazing things to discover about us humans that I could not have imagined possible. We are both funny and bizarre I found these exposed tree roots with their complex swirling shapes and textures in Minneapolis.

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On Being Cheap

I was in Harvest Barn yesterday - it is a local produce and bakery store in St. Catharines (like the old days of grocery stores in yesterday's daily post).  The cashier asked the lady ahead of me if she wanted to buy a carry bag ($.05) or use one of the small meat/freezer bags as they were free.  The lady had only 2 pounds of butter, and she wanted a bag because the butter was cold.  She accepted the little bag over the bag that cost the five cents.  Then the cashier told me how she uses these little freezer bag for all kinds of things.  And concluded with:  "I'm cheap". So I wondered what "cheap" is and how do we recognize it.  Here are 5 major differences between cheap and frugal from money.usnews.com 1. Cheap and frugal people both love to save money, but frugal people will not do so at the expense of others. 2. Frugality is about assessing the bigger picture and having the patience to cash in on the simple savings strategies. 3. Cheapness uses price as a bottom line; frugality uses value as a bottom line. 4. Cheap people are driven by saving money regardless of the cost; frugal people are driven by maximizing total value, including the value of their time. 5. Being cheap is about spending less; being frugal is about prioritizing your spending so that you can have more of the things you really care about. When I read the full article, I was a bit discouraged.  It points to a lot of rationalization by the 'frugal' author for choosing where and how to spend money:  a lot of one's internal conversations are taken up with mundane decisions.  It is a start, though, and helps to understand this significant topic. And a search for the country with the reputation for being cheap?  Two countries show up: Holland and Scotland!

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.