Marilyn's Photos - Apr 10 2026 - Mother Jones

 

News media in the U.S. is considered to be dominated by the television broadcasters, and the legacy newspapers.  And then the Associated Press - AP - a major independent, nonpartisan source for journalism.   Where does Mother Jones - MoJo - fit in?   It is a nonprofit, progressive (or left-leaning) American multimedia news organization established in 1976. It focuses on investigative journalism and accountability reporting - politics, environment, human rights and culture.  It is named after Mother Jones, a 19th - early 20th century organizer for workers' rights.  The original Mother Jones was a person - known as the Miners' Angel and as the most dangerous woman in America - championing rights of the working class in the early 20th century.  Born in Ireland, she lost her husband and four children to yellow fever.  In America, she lost all her belongings to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.  Her most often quoted sayings?   "I am not a humanitarian, I am a hell-raiser".  "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living". The news organization is also described as "fearless" frequently analyzing topics such as racial justice and voting rights.  it is considered left-leaning because?  The topics of climate change, gun control, reproductive, rights, voting rights and income inequality are "left-leaning" in the U.S. when combined with an activist approach. At the same time it is regarded as a trusted and reliable source for investigative journalism.   Sounds like the original Mother Jones.   Artemis II returns tonight at 8:00 ET.  Here's another  picture in the Moon Series.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 9 2026 - Longest Views

 

My theory is that the "best views" are of landscapes - that humans love the natural world of mountains, lakes, oceans and earth.  The Miriam Dictionary knows how to explain a word's meaning, and there are a lot of synonyms for view.  I am thinking of the first one about the extent of sight of range or vision.  So what are the places on earth with the most extensive range of sight? The calgaryvisioncentre.com has an article titled The Longest Sightline on Earth and it is HERE.   The author describes the sightline of a prairie road that is straight, flat and without any mountains, trees or other blockades as being 4.7 km away.  The author says if you were to run a 5 km running race, you'd be able to just see the finish line from the start line.  The article goes on to say which are the longest sightlines on earth:  Mt. Dankova, Krygystan to Hindu Tagh, China 538km (green), Pic de Finestrelles, Spain to Pic Gaspard, France 443km (red) and Mt. Sanford to Denali/McKinley, USA 318km (pink). If you go to the revolving earth in the article you can them all and here's two of them below.  The components of these sightlines? There's a tall vantage point, a tall target, proper air temperature and a clear line of sight.  Those are the requirements for maximum visibility viewing distance.  That's how Mt. Dankova in Kyrgyzstan to Hindu Tagh in China turns out to be the longest sightline on earth - at 538 km. I took a look at pictures of the longest sightlines and if you ask me, they show little squits on the horizon.  But that is the point, isn't it?  And someone likely has the record for the picture of the longest view in the world.  Here's the first picture in the Moon Series - this one an original watercolour.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 8 2026 - Instant Savings

 

Generally the payback in savings is not "instant" for business cases, and they have a time period of 5 years at the most.  Instant savings are for the individual retail shopper. It is more about how to motivate and create urgency to purchase to get an immediate discount.  Costco and Sam's Club uses this method frequently, and Costco uses the opposite strategy of never pay retail.  That's a long-term consumer strategy of waiting for optimal timing  and outlet stores.  People buy a lot of stuff at Costco.  And not just because of Costco.  Look at how much stuff is in the average home:  The average American home contains over 300,000 items, with people purchasing roughly 5-15 nonessential items monthly.  And I can assume this applies to Canadians.   Here is what we have: Household Clutter: One-quarter of Americans with two-car garages do not use them for cars due to excess items. Unused Goods: The average Canadian has roughly $571 in unused, sellable goods sitting in their home. Toys: British research indicates the average 10-year-old owns 238 toys, but plays with only 12 daily. (And North Americans at only 4% of the population own almost 50% of toys and books worldwide). Shopping Frequency: Many people average around 5 to 15 new nonessential items a month, which increases during holidays. Storage Trends: 1 in 10 Americans rents offsite storage to house their excess items. Clothing Habits: The average woman owns 30 outfits, one for every day of the month, and between 17 and 27 pairs of shoes, but wear 3 to 4 pairs on a regular basis. Isn't that a lot of stuff!  How much time does the average person spend looking for misplaced items?  Over a lifetime  153 days is spent hunting for them.  Can you imagine how many days Imelda Marcos might have spent looking for a favourite pair of shoes amongst her 3,000 pairs.  Those shoes are in a museum now.  It demonstrates excess. Here's another picture in the moon series.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 7 2026 - Most Jokes

 

The most "readily available jokes"  turn out to be elephant in the fridge/animal logic jokes.  Then comes the Why did the chicken cross the road? then Dad jokes/knock-knock/pun jokes, then math/science, and then French military/cowardice.   I've never heard of French military/cowardice jokes.  I went and found a few and they aren't funny.  The series of jokes started because of their WWII defeat. They were revitalized in the U.S after France refused to join the Iraq invasion.  It seems to me that AI has gone askew on this. A bad moment for AI.  And we are in pursuit of laughter, so let's try the elephant in the fridge jokes.  I see a site that has combined them with mathematician/science etc jokes: MATHEMATICIANS hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left. EXPERIENCED MATHEMATICIANS will attempt to prove the existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate exercise. PROFESSORS OF MATHEMATICS will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students. COMPUTER SCIENTISTS hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A: Go to Africa. Start at the Cape of Good Hope. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent alternately east and west. During each traverse pass, Catch each animal seen. Compare each animal caught to a known elephant. Stop when a match is detected. EXPERIENCED COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate. ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMERS prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands and knees. HARDWARE ENGINEERS hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within plus or minus 15 percent of any previously observed elephant. ECONOMISTS don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves. STATISTICIANS hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant. CONSULTANTS don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do. OPERATIONS RESEARCH CONSULTANTS can also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will only identify the elephants. Many more HERE.   Here's a saltwater moon and fern forest. Celebrating the lunar trip around the moon.

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Marilyn's Photos - Apr 6 2026 After Easter Swearing

 

This morning's Globe and Mail front page headline today says that on Easter:  Trump issues profane threat to Iran over blocked strait.    The New York Times say this:  In an expletive-filled social media post, Mr. Trump said Iran should open the Strait of Hormuz or he will bomb bridges and power plants.   What about the Washington Post?  Trump threatens Iran with "Hell" over Strait of Hormuz in profane post.  Another quote says:  "open the Fuckin/Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH". NPR says:  Trump unleashes curse-filled social media rant at Iran. Yahoo says this:  Trump drops F-bomb, threatens 'hell' on Easter.  It's ugly. I then went over to the BBC PIDGIN English site - but also no news of the profanity there. BBC Normal has several YouTube articles on it.   We Canadians haven't grown as used to profanity and hyperbole from leaders. There are articles that have gone on for years about Trumpian profanities and Americans in the crowds cheer it on.  It must be our British heritage, as we don't seem to be going down that path.  I guess it has been around a while as there are a lot of jAmerican-style jokes on the subject of profanity itself: A pastor’s wife walks into a butcher shop. She sees the most perfect looking cut of meat in the display case and asks the butcher what kind of meat it is. “That’s Dam Ham,” he replies “I bet your PARDON?!” the lady says, “I am a good Christian woman, and I would kindly ask you not to use that kind of language.” The butcher explains, “Oh no ma’am, I’m not using profanity. Dam Ham is what we call the especially delicious filets we get from the big trout caught down by the dam.” The woman apologizes for the misunderstanding, buys the filet, and goes home.  Later that evening, her husband comes home from work and asks, “What is that Heavenly smell?” “Thats Dam Ham,” she replies. “Honey! What would the congregation think if they knew their pastor’s wife was speaking in such a way?” “Oh no honey, I would never!” She responds “They call it Dam Ham because it’s a special filet from one of the big trout caught down by the dam.” She finishes dinner and they sit down at the table with their two beautiful children. They join hands and say grace. The husband carves the meat, takes some for himself, then passes the plate to his son. After taking his first bite, the husband says, “Honey, you’ve really outdone yourself. This Dam Ham is delicious!  “Right on, Dad!” The son says “Now could you pass the fucking potatoes?” More happy lilies - with a watercolour treatment.

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