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 |   A Journal to impart knowledge and facts |
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July 22, 2015 I'm going to start today to record on a daily basis whatever happens to strike my fancy. So, it is a very cool breezy day. I just posted 5 short book reviews to The Monthly Reading Challenge. I'm suppose to put away some winter wood today from the woodpile outside but I'm playing hookey from work to write so starting this blog will get done. I'm having a daily fight with a flock of English Sparrows that are trying to take over my barn. They are making a terrible mess so they have to go. I have destroyed several nests so far they don't leave but they get out of the barn when I am around. I'm just starting the fight so I guess I don't know how far I have to go to discourage them. I'm trying not to spread myself to thin on WDC because I find so many things that are interesting here and I am trying to work on a new story. I really enjoy sitting at my desk with a cup of tea and reading blogs on WDC. |
| For BCoF: January 28 and January 30, 2023 Circulmstellar: THIS PROMPT ENCOMPASSSES JANUARY 30TH AND JANUARY 28.  Circumstellar definition: Something that surrounds or moves around a star. Earlier in the year it would have been impossible to catch a cab at this time of the evening. Since the Colony Govenors made a ruling that a platform for taxis would be built and a law that a taxi would be waiting there for passengers no matter what time of starlight was available. I was running fast, taking high leaps in the thin atmosphere and coming down 8 or 10 stride lengths instead of the normal one I would have taken if there had been more gravity. Georgia was still way ahead of me. As she hit the taxi platform a waiting car door flew open, and Georgia sailed inside. I was still too far away to hear the directions she gave as the car jumped into gear and sailed quickly away from the platform. Not to worry, another taxi slid into the empty space beside the platform, as the passenger door swung invitingly open. I leapt in and shouted, "Follow That Car." The pint-sized pink bunny turned in his seat and gave me a big, toothed grin. "Yes sir. it said." and taped the counter beside his steering wheel. "If you don't have a badge, I will have to charge extra for a follow that car command," the bunny stated as it's clawed paws gripped the wheel and made a sharp turn to follow the car ahead of us. I dug my badge out of my pocket and pushed it forward into his vision clipping one of his whiskers. "Hey! Watch it or I'll report you to the drivers union." The car lurched to the right as the bunny driver took a paw off the steering wheel and smoothed out his whiskers. "Sorry. I think we are losing the car I'm following." "Naw. We can't lose it. That's car 0040, I programed it into my navigation system. Now wherever it goes, we go with it." "I didn't know you could do that." "It's a new system. Came with the new laws for taxi's and the new platforms for entering and exiting. Kind of spiffy if you ask me." Just then the Taxi ahead of us lifted off and aimed upward toward an anchored starship. Bunny giggled. "Hope you're ready to exit quickly, looks like they are headed for the platform where Starship Magnolia is anchored. Do you have a ticket to board?" In dismay I uttered, "No. Didn't know I would need one." "It's O.K". bunny assured me. "I can sell you one just wipe your credit card across the bottom of the pay spot." As I performed the action for pay a musical note played. I plugged my ears to keep from hearing the song because it was intended to soothe the passenger into accepting whatever outrageous price the Taxi charged for the taxi ride and starship ticket. Up ahead the taxi had already lurched to a stop and Georgia had jumped across the platform into the doorway of the starship. We were not far behind. I was soon out of the taxi into the starships hold. A cute alien girl wearing the uniform of a starship greeter pushed me to the right toward a seat and slammed the door shut. "Buckle Up! We are on our way." "Do you know where the girl that entered just before me is sitting?" "She is in the viewing port. That way." She pointed down the aisle to the right. "Please stay seated until we reach our destination. This is a circumstellar flight. We will soon be revolving around Epsilon Eridani. Epsilon is located in the constellation Eridanus. The star is 10.52 light years from earth. It is the closest star visible to the naked eye and there is a dust disk around it. The planet Vulcan may be one of the planets rotating in its orbit. You have viewing googles in the arm of your chair. I will be serving refreshments shortly." I buckled into my seat. Where I found a menu of the scheduled refreshment and goggles that would protect my eyesight from any energetic sights out the port beside my seat. I settled in for the flight. Lots of time to enjoy the views and the refreshments. After all Georgia wasn't going anywhere for a while and how often do I get to follow a shop lifter into the interstellar world. THE END All word count on WDC: 743 |
| For Blog City: Have you ever locked yourself out of the house? What did it feel like? If you haven't, do you know anyone who has and what do you think could be their feelings? The last time I locked myself out it was, because the lock on the back door was turned to lock position and I did not have my keys on me. I Immediately, started to look for ways to get back in the house because no-one else with a key was going to be around for about eight hours. I found a window to the basement that was made of plexiglass. I removed the Plexiglas window by bending it inward enough to remove it from the edges of the frame. Then, it was an eight-foot drop into the basement. There was a chair near the window, so I hooked it with a rake and drew it over to the window. Still too far to enter safely and drop, so I got the large ice chest off the back porch and set it on the chair. I went through the window feet first with my back facing inward. I very carefully let myself down onto the ice chest, then onto the edge of the chair then onto the floor. I was really not too concerned except I was wondering if I was trying to tempt fate the whole time, I was inching myself in through the window. This would no longer work because the windows are all sealed into the frames now. My feeling were all," How am I going to get back in?" I have a rule about the door lock too. I always check the lock to see if it is turned to unlock position and I make myself remember the key rule. "Always carry your keys out the door with you. Even if it is just to stand on the porch and watch the dogs in the dog pen or deer in the yard. Later my daughter in law asked me why I did not call her? Alas, my phone was inside the house.  Never a dull moment. |
Andre the Blog Monkey's Banana Bar  Category 4 prompt: "What is the most important social problem in society today and how would you recommend toimprove or completely fix it?" If you surf the internet, you will find twenty to thirty different social problems that are a concern to the public in the USA. Here is a short list: Terrorist attacks, animal abuse, hate speech, weapons of mass destruction, gun violence, economic inequality, affordable energy (electricity, heating fuels, Wi-Fi, telephone service), race relations, political relations, church relations, unusual weather, there are a lot more. People are being pulled apart with the number of concerns. I have to say the public has a lot of concern about many problems assailing the country. I'm not aware how many problems are working on the minds of people from countries other than the USA. I believe if I looked up problems in other countries, I would find similar concerns all over the earth. My answer to the prompt would have to be the mental health of ordinary people who may not know how to prepare or have the money to prepare for the kinds of emergencies that could strike a population at any time. Nine eleven, pandemic, unusual weather strikes, and shootings of schools and places where people gather, have made the country aware of the possibility of disaster striking anywhere at any time. There is also a deep resistance in the minds of people. They believe the authority figures would be more willing to lie than give aide. I think it is time for public assurance that they will be able to find help, if it's needed, regardless of monetary situations or other social issues. More people need to pull together or at least see that people are helping each other. Media need to stop trying to scare the public. Media seems to love to play on the superstitious part of society. The ones who were targeted in schools and not given proper education. Now they feel like slaves to their jobs. I see the movement to pay money out for student loans as one of those types of help. There is 1.75 trillion dollars owed among 48 million borrowers. It is about $412 billion more than auto loan debt. Citizens want to learn. They want their children to learn. If a disaster strikes it will be the knowledge these people learn that will help the country. Pay scales are another problem. How do you pay volunteer firemen, police who are in danger from gun fire every day, doctors and nurses who now, because of pandemic, know how difficult it is to find help and safety for patients and their own families. A congress that fights all the time seems strange to some. If you look at history, you will find that the congress is used to fighting for different ideals and ideas. It is easier for the public to know more about the congress on a daily basis, because we have updated news every moment delivered to TV, phones, computers, and tablets. I expect in any real emergency a local media would be put into place to bring news to whoever is in need. I have no idea how to tell anyone to help others. I think that's part of the problem. Who knows? All word count on WDC: 551 |
Andre the Blog Monkey's Banana Bar / Week 4 Category 3 prompts: Is there truly a way to keep separate church and state (i.e. religion and government) especially in law/rule making for society? Explain and how would you recommend that be done or not done? CHURCH AND STATE Separation of Church and State came about at the end of the eighteenth century. Implemented in France to guarantee the freedom of the church. As it exists in the USA it is a process of having no official religion,and no religious test for office, now people who hold office are of various belief systems. There is a slight reference to this type of rule in the first amendment. To strengthen the statements in the first amendment a law was passed in 1962 prohibiting group prayer in schools. There are some benefits to this understanding of Separation of Church and State. People can choose their own religion, people can choose religion or not because of their experience and given knowledge, it takes the church out of governing, and puts a distance between politics and religion. No child can be forced to pray in a school system or follow a religion their parents or the child appose. A recent example of the way a church may try to influence government occurred when President Biden took office. He upheld the right to abortion by rolling back some of the previous administrations stops, that were applied by law to abortion. Since President Biden was the second Catholic to be elected as a USA President; some members of the Catholic church opposed his open statements in the favor of legal abortion. This follows the USA policies governing the right to choose. The way churches will have to respond will be to put enough people into the governing body, so votes on laws actually go the way a specific group of people wish to make it happen. It makes voting in elections in order to uphold freedoms a very important part of USA life. If you dive deep into the political history of the USA, you will find that the fight for individual freedoms has always been a part of the country. You really can never be sure the rights of a country are not going to be abolished by a church. Many churches choose to enter politics to try and gain their own ideas of what a society should be like. Many people came to this country to flee church rule in different countries. Catholic and protestant spiritual wars reigned in different places. Muslims and Jewish people have come to the USA in order to run a business or just live a daily life without fear of violence because of their belief systems. Individual rights are important so that if you attend some church, and you don't follow all their rules, you have rights to back up the way you believe and prefer to live as long as you don't think criminal behavior should spread to others. Personal comments: I've read in the Bible that the soul does not enter the body until the birth process. I think Luke 4 helps us understand there should be a place for people to rest. The truth I can see is that many people are fighting for that rest. We call it freedom. Right freedom fights all the evil that rests in the human form at times. We have science that is trying to find ways to stop terrorists without harming the terrorist. We have people who fed the whole country if they needed food during pandemic. The USA gave the citizens money to pay their bills during pandemic. Don't knock on our door with handcuffs for the innocent. The USA society is a complicated one. It takes dedicated people who understand a society that needs some freedom of belief, without trading on each other's spirituality. People to make the rules needed to live free from violence and mayhem. To find the God that Jesus presented and through the apostles to the whole world. How do we do it? Vote, research candidates, and pray for the right people in society to answer the call. Reference: www.britannica.com www.wikipedia.com www.Thefederalist.com All word count on WDC:696 |
Andre the Blog Monkey's Banana Bar / Week 4 Category 2 Prompt: What do you think of using blog prompts to get entries for creating a psychological profile of the blogger? This is a definition I found on Microsoft Edge with Bing: "A psychological profile is a tool that can help crime investigators by telling them the kind of perpetrator they are seeking. The development of psychological profiling began in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Behavioral Science Unit during the 1960s in an attempt to understand violent criminal behavior." Exactly what kind of violent criminal behavior have the bloggers committed? Research turned up this new word, psychographic. It is the study of personality, values, interests and lifestyles, focusing on interests, activities and opinions. In one descriptive word it equals people mapping. Are we writing a new mystery story? I don't watch Criminal Minds, too scary. I just found a new TV show I did not know about called Mindhunter. I bet that's an interesting show. We don't have cable, only antenna free TV. If this is a serious question, I guess it would be a good idea if it was about an investigative agency that was trying to find out about the habits and personality of a suspect. I also think they would have to have a very good reason for their suspicions about the blogger. Maybe they would have to have systematic evidence that the blogger was involved in criminal activities. Is this similar to the way countries like the USA, UK, France, Canada, Russia, etc. keep track of the ordinary habits of ordinary citizens for no apparent reason? As for using blog prompts to gain information how would that work? I've read some pretty wild blogs. If you are like me, you don't believe everything you read. I don't even believe everything, I think. Isn't it the Bible that says actions are stronger than words. I don't always believe the weather forecast until I get confirmation. So, prompts to gain information may or may not alert the perpetrator or cause a riot by not getting truthful answers. Even truth can take a beating for not being accurate. Guess the profiler better be really smart. I never met up with this particular subject before. It isn't just about psychological profiling. It consists of a lot of other words and their definitions. Other words like Behavior Analyst, Applied Behavior Analysis, Persuasion profiling, and geographic profiling. These are all part of profiling for different types of reasons. Dipping into other people's minds is something the USA will be making laws against sooner or later. Maybe they already have? As a journalist I should not attempt in one article to explain or get into Indepth reporting about such a large subject. And, as far as ABA I don't believe in Human or Animal experimentation, so the profiler better have a very good reason for attempting to get into someone else's mind without their permission. all word count on WDC: 493 |
Andre the Blog Monkey's Banana Bar / Week 4 Category 1 prompt: What is more important to teach children and teenagers and why: life skills such as healthy lifestyle and finance, or history/civics/politics and sciences/maths? Who should determine what they get taught (teachers, school system, government, parents. etc.)? All of these subjects matter. Parents should take steps to begin teaching children life skills at an early age. If parents don't do this or can't do this, than whatever child care is envolved should be doing it. Healthy lifestyles, life skills, and finance are a basic in life. I read that the first 30 years of any new century are critical involving new technological and lifestyle changes. Reading has made a lot of difference in my life. When I was not taught life skills, I learned them reading books. Even though my mom died I could already read at the age of 5. I knew things from observing people. What are children learning when they observe people and situations in lifestyles? History is one of the most important things to learn. It encompasses the way people over the years have acted in different situations. Historical happenings repeat over and over. Even church history should be taught in Sunday school and sermons. Math should be taught as part of finance. A college Algebra teacher told me in a class, that Math should be one of the easiest things to learn because numbers never change. I was interested to find that math needs a math dictionary to go along with all the rules as you study. It isn't really that difficult a subject so, why is it considered difficult? Politics and Science both need to be taught. If people really want to have free choices in their government political knowledge is part of history. What will people do to control masses of people? Do you want life choices or to be controlled by someone who values put a crown on his head? Why do so many people think that the earth is not going through some basic weather changes? Because a certain age of people did not get to study environment in science in High School. I'm told that isn't true now. Children in some High Schools are getting a good dose of environmental studies. I'm for introducing geobiology, geography and biology to all students. Who should determine curriculum? How would I know? The ones who are concerned that it would be done properly, I guess. I'm giving my opinions from the view of someone who fought to get an education. People without a higher education cannot fight back or they fight an undervalued response to inadequate political overrule. We need leaders who value the people not the political system. And I mean value every single person no matter the standing within the community. We need to understand the situations presented to people within their lifestyles. Read, read, read, the answers to many questions have already been written by authors, who want to inform. All words counted on WDC:501 |
| For Blogging Circle of friends What does the word adventure mean to you? I read all kinds of books. The best ones are adventures that I can stay in for a while. I read two different true stories last month and this month. One was "The immortal life of Henrietta Laikes " by Rebecca Skloot. The other was "What the ears can hear and can't" by Richard Mainwaring. I also watched an Amazon movie, "Wildcat." As far as today. It was an adventure to get bundled into winter wear and walk 30 feet in the snowstorm to fill the bird feeder. I had other kinds of adventures early in life when I was a lot younger. I rode and owned thoroughbreds. I trained horses, and taught people horsemanship. That was an adventure. Two separate adventures are I traveled to the Panama Canal Zone and gave birth to 4 children. All adventures. Now, it is sometimes an adventure to make it to WDC on a daily basis or get through a winter season. ![Merit Badge in Every Moment Matters
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| For BCoF WHILE WAITING FOR SPRING by Apondia The deer walk daintily into the yard. Their legs slip gracefully along in a one, two, three, four, movement. They pause to graze on tall grasses sticking out of the snow or look around for danger. As they test the air for scent and move their heads one way or another their fuzzy rounded ears are moving to and fro listening. We have experienced some days of quiet grey skies. Six inches of cold wet snow become sloppy with temperatures that keep the snow slightly thawing. The deer have not come to the bird feeder for several days. Today there are seven ringing the bird feeder. Two of them are small yearlings that show up often. When I look out the window they startle and run as a group toward the safety of the gully and the willows. One yearling stays put. He is too short to reach his muzzle into the bird feeder. He grazes up some left-over corn from the ground and wanders slowly away. The sun comes out in the afternoon. With bright sunshine, comes hope that winter weather advisories for our area are wrong. The small herd of deer visiting the bird feeder this early in the day prove the advisory should be heeded. The deer are filling up so they can find deep shelter to weather out the coming storm. I'm sure they will return in the night when they feel safer. Next morning the feeder is empty cleaned to the bottom. I replenish it for the birds that flit back and forth from a close apple tree. The birds will eat their share all day as the wind driven snow flings itself at us. This is the wildlife and us while waiting for Spring. |
| “Put your thoughts to sleep, do not let them cast a shadow over the moon of your heart. Let go of thinking.” Rumi What do you think of the above quote? And do you sleep well at night or so worries keeps you awake? Are your worries realistic? What can be done about such worries?  Some years ago, I took a free online course in mindfulness. I like the quote. Although I'm not sure if what I do is putting thoughts to sleep. It's more like kicking them out into space. I sleep well most nights. Except, I have some psychics who, try to bother my dreams. Mindfulness actually works. If you practice you can actually push thoughts out or make them, go away. Especially if you know they are not relevant to your life. The thing to be careful of is when you are too busy and don't stop to relax once in a while. I have had some sleep issues lately, then one day I found an email from an acquaintance who simplified my problem by reminding me to stop when mental crazy was hitting me and breathe several breaths. Just remembering to think about the breaths as I was doing it. This also works because it will focus your mind on breathing instead of other thoughts. I don't believe you can ever not have thought problems but, you can learn when they are most likely to assail you. I am a Christian. I believe in Jesus and the help of the Holy Spirit. Prayer and mindfulness are powerful problem solvers. ![Merit Badge in Blogging
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| For Andre the Blog Monkeys Banana Bar / Week 3 Category 3: "What living politician, scientist, or world figure do you think is most important as a role model? The key here is the word living. Since I consider Christ as a living individual my main answer to this has to be the One Living God. Never-the-less I do not intend to continue with this answer or make this a controversial answer to the question. Basically, role model means using someone else's life, example, or philosophy, as an example for your own actions. Dealing with this as a human question I quess I can't really say I have a role model within our present society. At least not a specific movie star, scientist, politician, or other more media prone person. Yet I do applaud persons who are doing research or working to establish laws to advance the living ability of free loving societies. I tried looking up various individuals I could be interested in who are doing things I admire; but don't necessarily want to copy. Judy Sheindlin on Judge Judy has an admirable record as a lawyer. There are lawyers working within our government, (the USA), that have a heart for the people they serve, that I admire. Also, found some other lawyers working worldwide to help people by meddling in governmental issues, that favor freedom, within societies in other countries. I cite human rights lawyer Amal Clooney here. I'm reading a book called "What the Ear Hears and Doesn't" by Richard Mainwaring which deals with the science of sound frequency. Mainwaring is a musician. He builds musical arrangements for various media situations. I haven't finished reading the book, but it reveals some interesting facts about sound. Doing some research about this subject I found two other people. Doing a study of the Neuroscience of Music are Daniel J. Levitin, PHD and Mona Lisa Chandra, PHD, at McGill University in Montreal. Levitin authored the book, "This is Your Brain on Music", which I have not read yet. I am more interested in knowledge put forth by scientists, politicians, and philosophers, than in the specific way they always live their life. In any event, I'm supposed to be personally involved in making sure I live my own life in a proper way. One Reference: Science Watch / Music as Medicine by Amy Novotney, Vol.44, No. 10. Word Count: 396 |
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