Beware of the madness as you broadcast the hatter
It’s time to call out the worn pitter patter
The labels aren’t lazy it’s truth that they tatter
This goes beyond smirks and innocent chatter
For it divides towns and homes often shatter
Ideas become narrow and minds become flatter
than pancakes poured out from dried up brain batter
Wonder not when you preach if these syllables matter.
It’s all because the Sizzle and the Buzz
Every now and again it’s interesting to take a gander at the “National Day” calendar to see what’s being featured and/or “celebrated. Today’s entries somehow seem fitting in a world climate that tends toward duality and polarity. It is truly tempting to choose one of the topics and let that focus taint the whole day, however in the seeking Peace and Joy Universe, well, it frequently seems allowing for multiple perspectives and letting the balance or the meaning to develop where it might. So that leaves us with a buzz and a sizzle on our canvas—here goes.
“You’re Killin’ me “Smalls!”
Ask most any kid to tell you what the. Most deadly animal on the planet is and even. When the kid is somewhere between 2 and 92 you’re likely to be told “you’re. Gonna need a bigger boat” because those sharks are hungry and swimmers make a tasty snack or of course there’s lions and tigers and bears—oh my! Oh and there are deadly snakes and those poison frogs. Well like inflation and migrants we might need to fear those. Critters, however, the deadliest assassin swarms in at about 1.5 miles per hound does it work with just. A little buzz and a little sting or bite. We’re talking mosquito madness here. To make it even more interesting, of course not all mosquitos carry deadly diseases and deposit them in your blood stream. In fact, unless there are trans-mosquitos that dress up like butterflies and such it’s always ladies night at the blood bank as males live on nectar not A negative. Not only do males miss. out on going vampire.. they miss out on a lot of life as they only live an average of 10 days while their female counterparts live a couple months or so unless you watch them gorge themself with your good and then clinch your fist pumping them to overflow and watch them explode as they exceed the three times their body weight that they can usually handle. So life would be safer if you could identify the females easier, alas, with around 3,500 varieties and around 200 in the U.S. it’s hard to make. A solid ID So some poor boys are going to have to die even if they aren’t guilty.
If you have lived in various parts of the country you will get to know that there are many mosquitos that are just tiny annoyances and leave little bumps and then in “river towns and swampy places” there are creatures that when mature might qualify as a “state bird.” Unfortunately they are hard to avoid no matter where you live and many products a person might use to deter them are fairly toxic. If you want a natural defender citrus (lemon) eucaliptus is probably your best shot according the AI generator consulted today. But enough about being poisoned to death let’s see the opposite side of the calendar….
Also if you want to get rid of a few mosquitos by using Mother Nature invite in a few bats. They feast on about 3000 of them in a good night and speaking of feasts.. here’s the other. Item on the ledger. To balance the day…
It’s “bacon lover’s day!!!”
Now here’s proof that AI will never outsmart humans. TheAI generator asked if we needed suggestions on how to celebrate bacon? Are you freakin’ kidding me? Well you don’t dress it up in a tux or a flowing silk gown and take it to the prom or storm out on the field or dump Gatorade on the coach. You don’t go out and buy a Hallmark card and slip a fiver in. It. You don’t light. Candles on a cake for 6 preschoolers to spit at as they “make a wish.” It’s simple… It’s bacon… you cook it to whatever level of of crisp you want it and you eat it, you put it on other things you’re going to eat and eat it. You figure out how much might be the right amount to eat and well of course add just a little more… it’s bacon!
So just like. A lot of things in the universe we have to understand. There is a balance of things. You know I time to reap and a time to sew. Time to play disco and a time to play real music… a time to kill (mosquitos) and a time to live in pure joy—eat some bacon and then some more bacon.
Okay.. it. Is time to go see. What the fridge has with bacon on it so let’s wrap this up (in bacon) and experience a tasty little limerick.
Hear that sizzle man senses awaken
Comes a joy that none have mistaken
Oven baked— campfire fried
Just can’t be denied
Every day’s better with bacon
Well… the previous entry suggested some new perspectives on the athletic gala we have come to know as the Olympics. Every four years we bring a herd of the world’s strongest, fastest, and most strategic people together to compete for a little piece of metal made of bronze, silver, and silver with some gold plating. Every time they light the big torch there are some epic stories born or continued. For the U.S. there were some remarkable performances by individuals and by team athletes. Simone Biles “comeback” triumph reminds us that we all get a little freaked out sometimes and yet we can reach deep inside and find the spirit needed to let us soar again. Sure.. even though you have a carpeted floor we’re not encouraging you to do that reverse double back flip with a twist no matter how many shots of tequila you’ve mixed with Red Bull. Oh and for the fourth straight Olympics Katie Ledecky got flagged by the DNR for violating the no wake signs and brought home multiple medals. The US Women’s Soccer team and hooptsters were impressive in the clutch and well the US men’s basketball. Team passed the ball to the quickest three-point scorer of all time and said “hey Mr. Golden State-offer up the golden rainbow and bring us home the gold,” and he did.
The point is… when the flame was burning a lot of people brought their best to share under the five rings and for two weeks we saw great sportsmanship, human effort, and the results of people trying to be just a little better at their purpose.
Now… the flag gets passed to the next host and in a few short years we will see the torch come to life again and get passed. Well… what if?
What if the flame could stay lit eternally? What if we could all strive to find the triumphant spirit within us or within each other? What if we understood the idea of keeping our torch lit and passing the light within and outside us onto the next person in the line and finally this light would be used to keep the flame in the big marshmallow pit above the stadium glowing.
Do we really need to let the torch go dark or can we treat it like a candle? You know when you use your candle to light someone else’s candle they both burn brightly and yours doesn’t burn any less bright.
In the next few days we will see countless highlights of the Paris games and rightfully so, however imagine the peace and joy that could be spread if we decide to let the games end for now and yet keep our torch glowing and keep sharing it?
Or Do We Have the Courage to Keep it glowing?
So we are nearing the closing ceremony of the 2024 summer Olympics from Paris…well mostly the surfing couldn’t be staged in the foreground of that erector set otherwise known as the Eiffel Tower. As always there have been some extraordinary achievements like the swimming of Katie Ledecky and the tumbling of the U.S. women gymnasts. In a couple days this blog will expand on some of this, however for now let’s take a “big picture” look at the games and ponder on what these humans and the things they do bring into our awareness if only for a couple weeks every four years.
Maybe the first thing to note about the Olympics is that there were a couple of “new” events as is often the case. It is unfortunate that the IOC did not include javelin catching again this time around. It is one thing to throw a cannon ball and use a fiberglass stick to leap high enough to get a frisbee off your two story house. It would be something altogether more dramatic to watch guys in tights not only throwing the spears but also catching them and throwing them to each other. Maybe we’d learn that throwing weapons around at each other doesn’t add much to bringing the people of the earth together. It is difficult not to offer the question of what would war look like if throwing these heavy metal balls (called shot puts?) was the only weaponry allowed when armed combat couldn’t be avoided? It should be noted, however, that live pigeon shooting (1900 Olympics) was also left off the medal menu so hope grows slowly.
Both break-dancing and ballroom dancing were events and while these activities are an art form and take athletic skills, it would seem judging a Waltz and somebody throwing down a sheet of cardboard and cranking up a boombox might offer a challenge. Perhaps like the gymnastic all around competition maybe these dancing events along with synchronized swimming could be combined? In fact, perhaps it might be time to really push the global envelope and do away with “judged” events altogether. It would seem that the world is pretty much saturated with people willing to judge each other even when we might lack the internal and external skills we are observing so that we can compare people we don’t know.
Determining the winner in many of the events is far easier and yet somewhat more brutal. Take for instance, hundreds of sprinters trained collectively hundreds of years and then less than ten of them knelt in the starting blocks and bolted out with blazing speed. Less than 10 seconds later one of the racers broke the tape 5 one thousandths of a second faster than the rest. So what if you finished second? Could we all possibly finally get the message that
COMPARISON IS THE THIEF OF JOY?
Anyway, since the games last two weeks it seems appropriate that this blog give it at least two entries and that means we’ll pass the baton on for now. Thanks for navigating the hurdles on this topic so far.
Here in one place well you’’re just setting
You may be grinning spinning and sweating
Those knees keep pumping
So the numbers start jumping
Exercise bike so it’s nowhere you’re getting
The statistics on what Americans spend on “health and fitness” each year are impressive if not staggering. We pay out over $1,800 a year so over the course of a fairly active 40 years let’s say,,, that’s 70 grand easy. This household just put down 80 dollars for what was once a $600 exercise bike and it has lots of miles left in it. Oh and it is one of those pieces of equipment that you can program to act like you are on a certain path or kind of trail so it simulates hills etc.
Well that led to some interesting thoughts. Is life like an exercise bike. Do we sit there staring. At a screen wondering why we aren’t going anywhere and even when we see numbers on a screen telling us we have. Made progress does it really feel like we’ve moved from one spot in life to another?
It does seem certain that we have put forth an effort and it. Takes a lot of determination and like most bike seats the world can be a pain in the backside. Oh and there is sweat… we sweat the big stuff. We sweat the sort of important stuff and many times we sweat the small stuff too.
It may seem like. We aren’t going anywhere because no matter the effort we make there’s a good chance we might end up in the same place we started. On the other hand if we use some of the riding time to think about good friends, good memories, and ways to help each other when the next chance happens well then maybe we aren’t just going no place now are we? Maybe we are clearing our minds and helping our body get better now and ready for choices that are likely to come when tomorrow becomes today?
So maybe.. when we ride the bike. Of life it allows us to reflect and solidify the meaning of things which means turning mistakes into lessons etc. So in the endow may be the only person who can tell if you are just sitting and spinning or actually going somewhere.
Seek the status ever higher
Be a seller or a buyer
How much gold can you acquire
do you think yourself a sire?
Can you count all who admire
The titans be they saints or liar?
Well go ahead and walk the wire
Just ignore the lake of fire
When constant gloom becomes my style
I stack my woes up in a pile
The line moves slow it’s single file
Every step seems like a mile
And each request gets a denial
So then I choose a different aisle
Simply toss my friends a smile
And Life improves for quite awhile
Ignore and shun those selfish swine
Who sell us “what is yours is mine”
Seven friends did not eat nine
In life expect a crooked line
Do things that send chills down your spine
Replace your tea cups with a Stein
Sing loud your song dismiss the whine
I’ve got enough take some of mine
 |
For some to swim must others sink?
Are views the clearest from the brink?
Perhaps it’s time to pause and think
Let our righteous egos shrink
Write words in chalk and not red ink
Change darker hearts again to pink
Who will have the grace to blink
And cast aside this poison drink?
Now wait just a minute you say? Are you kidding me? Don’t you think seeking peace and joy might line up on the side of freedom of ideas? Isn’t it important to express ourselves if we aren’t going to get all tangled up and disturbed? Doesn’t this seem to contradict the notion of encouraging folks to attempt to limit what’s available in the libraries in our schools? Well…..
Let’s throw some facts and ideas around shall we?
To start with the American Library Association (they know a thing or two about books and libraries and such)
Does a survey regularly and what real data show them about people in the U.S. is that in any given year each of us may start reading around 13 books a year. However, we only finish 5 of them. Now in any given year in the modern era there are 150 million books in print. So if any given person is only reading 5 out of 150 million goess what there is only a 1 in 30 million chance that a person reads any given book from cover to cover including the offensive parts. Wait you say we only mean these “new books that have that strange stuff in them”.. Well alright in any given year about 4 million new books get published so the chance a given book gets scanned before it’s banned is 1 in 800,000. Now if our school libraries had more math books perhaps we would all already know these odds, however, there doesn’t seem to be a public outcry for more math books…just saying. In fact down below there are some other “outcry” suggestions… but not quite yet.
Most “books to be Banned” lists contain more than 5 titles so odds are that the folks who want them banned haven’t read them, their families haven’t read them, their kids have never heard of them, and since most school libraries have pitiful budgets once these books are known as controversial they are likely to be stolen and then they won’t be replaced.
Now let’s stick with people being concerned about what’s in the school library for a minute. Before recent days parent’s didn’t seem to care and most parents were far more more likely to know where the football/soccer fields and the basketball floor was than where the library is let alone what’s in the library. So maybe finding out where the library is could be a good first step? Let’s keep moving shall we? Now.. how many parents out there would like to demand that all controversial books be pulled just so students don’t stumble upon one? Well that sounds okay… until… until we have a bunch of books that don’t have recent interpretations of the universe in them. Do we recall that Galileo was tossed out of the church with his book supporting the crazy notion that the Earth and the planets revolve around the sun? He and his book could have been burned for such craziness. Okay you say we don’t mean that kind of book. You mean book full of violence, sex, wars, disasters, demons, people who wentarainst societal norms you know that kind of book? How many copies of the Bible would you like us to pop into the dumpster?
Now…let’s not get all snarky… okay.. we absolutely should focus upon what all children and youth need to learn to be successful contributors to society. Does that include how some people should have sex with some other people or that kids need to worry about whether or not they have the right body parts? Well this might come as a bit of surprise to some folks, however, it seems like human beings have been able to learn about sex without any books at all and the evidence seems pretty clear on that. There wasn’t a gigantic population explosion right after the printing press was invented. Also it wouldn’t seem that teachers have so much time that they need to explore whether Billy should have curvy hips because Francine would honor his feminine side if s/he did.
If we want to expand what schools are going to teach let’s do that. How about beginning with changing a tire? Oh and. If public transit ever gets efficient we might not need to teach that so let’s teach kids how to fix a toilet or unclog a drain in other places because you might not ever use algebra to figure out when the train coming from Chicago is going to pass the farmer. Driving his tractor while listening to willie nelson somewhere in Indiana, but the first time your old college friend and his sister comes to visit your toilet is going to act up for certain.
Oh and while it’s okay to learn how to play kickball or dodgeball because there’s not enough scary stuff coming at us outside of school
Maybe our physical education could include learning how to brush our teeth, eat, drink and wipe ourselves with both or either hand. You see most. Of us are going to break a wrist, burn our hand, dislocate a shoulder etc at some point and these are very handy life skills to know before getting out there among the masses.
Well let’s summarize a bit before this becomes the sequel to War and Peace—we would have said “The Grapes of Wrath” but it’s been banned in some places—
The attempt to ban particular books may point some needed attention at school libraries. On the other hand banning a few books in the total population of available books when people only read a thimble full off books in the bath tub of available books seems pretty inefficient. Oh and if we throw in the 3.75 million YouTube videos added as an information source banning books seems like we are placing a postage stamp sized “caution sign” on a dirt road that sits right next to a wide open superhighway where cars are going80 miles per hour.
There are ideas that are better discussed in homes and other places than in schools not because kids aren’t going to have ideas about things, however, most of these ideas have been shared throughout history way before the printed book and by people who didn’t have to grade papers and have lunchroom duty already. Well and in terms of handling body parts that don’t seem quite right with school curriculums… well I have this small bump about two inches left of center on my chest—should I find the shop teacher and ask if I like Billy or Barbie better will I feel okay ablout the bump? And I have other body parts that I’d like to change…but oh well… I don’t need a library book about that.
So how about we compromise…. If we are going to form committees to ban books then let’s form some to expand knowledge. If you want to ban a book you have to read it in from of someone who wrote the book and ask if you are getting the point and if you are.. then you can ban the book if and only if you write a book to replace it.
Maybe in the end we could all just understand that schools are a learning resource, books are some ideas we shared but won’t demand everyone to agree upon, and that we work hard to find purposes that we can agree upon and then determine what information, analysis , and learning might be needed to address these purposes regardless of what type of people have what types of bodies are involved. Oh and when push comes to shove let’s accept the ideas of Marx—Groucho not Karl… who tells us
Outside of a dog the book is a man’s best friend—inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”
