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To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day
It was the mid 1960s. My father, a technical representative for an aerospace company, had been assigned to work with the US Navy in Naples, Italy. Because it was to be a long stint the whole family moved with him to Naples.
The first year we lived in the actual city of Naples. However, four rambunctious American boys living in a city of apartment dwellers was not working out well. At the time of this story I was the eldest at 13 years old, Paul was 11, Mike was 10, and Jeff the youngest at 6 years old. My parents would soon have a fifth son, Mark, born while we were there.
My father found a villa to rent several Continue reading “Angels Sometimes Wear Bathing Suits”
yeah I know you did not ask!
Every look at a baby picture, a childhood picture of some adult you know? The pictures, frequently, reveal a cute, engaging person with bright, shiny eyes full of hope.
Then you think of these folks as adults and their lives as adults, and think what the hell happened.
Life should come with warning labels.
Danger Will Robinson Danger… I fell down the YouTube rabbit hole on this one. Just a word to the wise.
Okay, I am a Johnny-come-lately to this global phenomena, but here I am. This really put a smile on my face, and a gladness in my heart. It became meditative after a while. For me it was a reminder that we are all just one people… perhaps it is time we started acting that way.
If you have some time, put “jerusalema dance challenge” into your YouTube search box. While I didn’t understand the language they were singing, the music is beautiful. The original language is isiZulu, a language out of South Africa. As my dive into the rabbit hole deepened, I found versions in a couple of other languages.
Here is a link to the English translation of Jerusalema from isiZulu
What really interested me was the dance challenges from around the world. I am including a video that compiled many of these dances. However, if you do the YouTube search, the results will have you scrolling for pages… which I did.
Before you watch the mix of dance challenges from around the world here is a link to the official music video of the song: Master KG – Jerusalema [Feat. Nomcebo] (Official Music Video) As I re-watched this video it strikes me it has a subtle anti-drug message.
How South Africa’s ‘Jerusalema’ Became a Global Hit Without Ever Having to Be Translated
I apologize if you too get lost in this technological rabbit warren, I just really enjoyed it.
And so it goes.
yeah I know you did not ask!
I am currently watching a Great Courses series (we have a streaming subscription) called: Maya to Aztec: Ancient Mesoamerica Revealed. I was utterly fascinated by the unit on Mayan math. They used a based 20 system and only needed 3 symbols to represent all the possible numbers. It was a positional system like our decimal system and unlike Roman numerals. The professor said the joke was that they counted on their fingers and their toes. He then reinforced that it was a joke and went on to say that no one was quite sure why they came up with a base 20 system.
Obviously we all work with base 10, more or less daily. As a programmer I worked extensively with a base 16 system of math and symbology. I occasionally also worked directly in base 8 and base 2.
All which started me thinking about an Okie I once knew who invented a base 21 system. Of course, he was skinny dipping at the time he had this brain storm.
To state the obvious, race continues to be fractious subject in this country and worldwide. It has all too often in history, including recent history, morphed into a reason for genocide. In my conversations with folks in Central and South America, I find interesting their perplexity with how racist a country the United States is. They tend not see skin color as a reason to exclude, minimize or even hate another person… then I think of the history of many of these countries and how they have mistreated their indigenous populations and continue to mistreat them. And racism becomes a story without end.
I forget what I was reading or listening to, but whatever it was, it claimed that Jews and Italians were not considered “white” until very recently. So to Google I went to research that statement a bit. I stumbled across this Pew Research article listing the race question on all census forms since 1790. I found it interesting.
We just celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day this third Monday of January , the 17th, which started me thinking about an anecdote I have been telling for years.
In the fall of 1983, much against the desires and better judgment of my now ex-spouse, I weaseled – and weasel is the operative word – my way back into her abode after a very long separation. I don’t remember exactly how long this particular separation had been, probably somewhere around 18 months. While we stayed together, more or less, for another dozen years, the marriage had been a tumultuous relationship nearly from day one. At one point in my life I spent a lot of time ruminating Continue reading “Strange Bedfellows”
“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” ~~ Elie Wiesel
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Lagniappe: Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day
yeah I know you did not ask!
Señora and I were together in my pick-em-up truck this chilly morning, running errands. I’m not sure how it got started, but we got into a playful contest trying to out “smart-ass” each other. After a few minutes of this Señora threw her hands in the air towards the headliner of my vehicle mirthfully conceding, “you win, you are king of smart-asses.”
All of which got me to wondering, does that make me the better smart-ass or the worse smart-ass?
Inquiring minds want to know, and me too.