The Bird of Happiness Returns – and Is On the Feed.
Words to Occupy Your Mind
- SUMPTUARY LAWS: Whereby the use of certain things were limited solely to the Aristocracy. (Only they could wear gold and hunt the deer). It appears these laws, though unwritten today apply in spirit to a fragment of our own society. I am not against theses laws, I would just like to be on the right side of them.
- PREPOSITIONS: (When I was in Middle School, we took up the dreadful subject of Prepositions. Mr Hines would place the book “On the table” ,”Under the table”, “At the side of the table” and on and on….and we all learned. The following sentences are a refresher of these things we learned long ago.
- 1) “…EVERYTHING IS ON THE TABLE”: This is used when some politician or leader wants to say what it is he is willing or not willing to consider for negotiating purposes. i.e, weapons, trade, war, bribes even. Correction; Bribes would actually be: “UNDER THE TABLE”.
- 2) “NOTHING IS OFF THE TABLE”. This is used when some politician wants to say the same thing he said when he said “Everything is on the table”.
- 3) Please note: If you are not:AT THE TABLE during negotiations, you are most likely “ON THE MENU”. Is that clear?
Away from the prepositions.
- SANDBOX: (NEW USAGE) A safe place to allow digital entrepreneurs to test products without regulators interfering…in hopes these start-ups will lead to new jobs. This is a “Hot” trend in de-regulation in: China, Singapore, Canada, Arizona and a few other U.S. States. Are you playing in a digital sandbox – and you don’t even know it? How can you answer that question?
- PERIPATETICS: Followers of Aristotle who conducted their philosophical inquiries while strolling about the Lyceum. My thought here is we should all take a stroll and think a bit before we go TO THE TABLE, and before we play IN THE SANDBOX.
- SOCIAL CONTRACT: “To rise ABOVE our Brutal nature” (-Rousseau, 1760.)
This Land is Your Land. This Land is My Land.
Below, you will find notes I have not known what to do with. Perhaps some of them will be of meaning to you.
- The average American produces 130 pounds of trash a month. (…And the Chinese are no longer receiving it. Soon we will, I hope, blast all our trash into space – and that will be the end of that.)
- Utah-ians eat more Jello per-capita than do the people in any other State. I always suspected that was the case. ( Did someone get paid to do this study?
- Studies show that if you use GPS…and you depend on it…you will turn off parts of your brain…this deals with the hypo-campus, wherever that is, and the ‘shift-off” may slide to permanence. (In my case this has already happened and I no longer no where I am or how I got there.)
- I read, and then heard on the radio, as well, that watching movies is a good way to stave off Alzheimer’s. (I can handle that. I have watched so many movies I have probably staved off the disease for another lifetime. But, sometimes, I cannot remember which ones I’ve seen. Is that a problem?) I have also read that the Young Ones are watching screens at least nine hours a day. (Is that a good thing? I wonder. My generation did not watch that many hours of screen-time – and we sort of made a mess of things. So maybe more screen-time is a good thing. Maybe everybody should be watching twelve, fourteen hours a day. No Alzheimer’s, no nothing. And we’d be producing less trash, just sitting around all day.)
- Sitting around all day can lead to Belly-Fat. And studies show Belly-Fat is not only unattractive, it is unhealthy. It is more fatal than is the regular fat mortality rate. Studies showed that more people died with Belly-Fat distortions than did just regular obese people. Who does these studies? Sit-ups? Should I be doing more sit-ups? (More studies are needed).
- Stool softeners are making a surge in TV ad air-time. (Are we a nation of Hard Stool folk? And if so: Why is that?)
- I have read where in America, you are more likely to get hurt by a piece of furniture falling down from above than getting hurt by a terrorist. (Now, I have something else to worry about.)
- Have you noticed apples are getting so big you could almost bowl with them? An apple a day could really wear and tear on your jaws. They are so big they will not fit in the standard apple core-er. What is it with that? And they are so juicy you have to eat them over the sink. This is not a complaint, just an observation.
- Here is an old note from 2015. Apparently, it was reported in the papers that it was hotter in Boston on December 15, 2015, than it was on July 4th of that year. (Hint of the oncoming Global Warming issue, I suppose). But the Headline on that day, the Lead Right, was: “Pete Rose Denied Re-entry Into Baseball”. (That was when we had our priorities straight, before we developed the hard stool problems.)
Three quotes to carry you along for a few days:
“To change the world, start by making your bed.” -Admiral W.H. McRaven, at the U. of Texas commencement ceremony.
“Among democratic nations, each new generation is new people” -Alexis Charles Henri Maurice Clerel De Tocqueville (1805-1859) (You know that’s right)
“Goodnight sweet Princesses and Princes. Fear Not!” (-As the Doctor said to his wards in “Cider House Rules”)
Until next time…
