Taking Breaks

In a study of healthy volunteers, National Institutes of Health researchers have mapped out the brain activity that flows when we learn a new skill, such as playing a new song on the piano, and discovered why taking short breaks from practice is a key to learning.

The researchers found that during rest the volunteers’ brains rapidly and repeatedly replayed faster versions of the activity seen while they practiced typing a code. The more a volunteer replayed the activity the better they performed during subsequent practice sessions, suggesting rest strengthened memories.

“Our results support the idea that wakeful rest plays just as important a role as practice in learning a new skill. It appears to be the period when our brains compress and consolidate memories of what we just practiced,” said Leonardo G. Cohen, M.D., senior investigator at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the senior author of the study published in Cell Reports.

“Understanding this role of neural replay may not only help shape how we learn new skills but also how we help patients recover skills lost after neurological injury like stroke.”

The study was conducted at the NIH Clinical Center. Dr. Cohen’s team used a highly sensitive scanning technique, called magnetoencephalography, to record the brain waves of 33 healthy, right-handed volunteers as they learned to type a five-digit test code with their left hands. The subjects sat in a chair and under the scanner’s long, cone-shaped cap.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Sunday Sermon

Sermons do not always fall into the category of a religious talk based upon some passage from the Bible...  sermons can also be nothing but a lecture on a variety of topics with the understanding that lecturing is not criticizing someone or something but more like an opinion based upon whatever:  knowledge, fact, experience.

My lecture today is on STUPIDITY or what one might refer to as the absence of COMMON SENSE...  however, I have discovered over the years that common sense is relative to the individual, the situation, and the location.  Therefore, one could easily say that what is common sense to one is stupidity to another...  even though that statement does not make that much sense either when reflected upon intellectually.

People who like to drive fast in vehicles, just like I used to do, in my opinion are relatively STUPID creatures for a variety of reasons:

1. they are burning more gas than they need to
2. they are causing more unconscious internal stress
3. they are spending more money on gasoline
4. they are endangering themselves and their passengers
5. they are setting bad examples to other drivers
6. they are endangering other motorists
7. they are increasing health care costs if injured
8. they are using valuable medical resources if injured

What is more or less funny and really stupid is when these motorists need to drive fast in towns with stop lights because they may zoom past me but then at the stop light we are together again...  and, I have burned far less fuel.

But, the speeders are not the real issue here as are the tailgaters...  that is to say those that drive right up to your car with only a foot or two in between both vehicles.  When this happens, I tend to reduce my speed and piss the other driver off even more...  odds are that if he does not pull out a firearm and try to shoot my ass, he slams his car into a lower gear and power steers around me, flipping me off in the process.

However, if we are in the city limits somewhere, I catch up to him again at the traffic light and usually look over at him or her and smile.

As I mention at the outset, STUPIDITY is relative and I have discovered that my actions are just as stupid as their actions.

Relax and Renew

 

Sleepy Joe

 

Back Porch Written Reflections

Americans are different from the rest of the world because we live in a Democratic Society with a Democratic Republic form of governments that values FREEDOMS above all else except for maybe GREED and MONEY.

Many people on the LEFT SIDE of our freedom fence are saying that ALL WHITES are bad, evil, and OPPRESS all other races and ethnic groups, especially BLACKS and that this practice MUST STOP,

Many people on the RIGHT SIDE of our freedom fence are saying that we value of freedom, especially our freedom of speech that allows the LEFT to say whatever it is that they want to say.

These two views are so different that we are tearing ourselves apart because of our DIVISION; and, while that concerns me a little, what concerns me more is that our global enemies will take advantage of that divide.

While there are BAD PLAYERS in America on both sides of our Freedom Fence, we should be more concerned about the following:

1. Our quality of education or the lack thereof
2. The care we give our disabled veterans
3. A growing economy with less than 3% inflation
4. An economy that has close to FULL EMPLOYMENT
5. A strong global military presence
6. An open immigration program
7. Equalizing the salary/wage scales
8. Keeping all taxes as low as possible
9. Reducing to the point of eliminating debt
10. Ending our dependence on illegal drugs
11. Becoming and maintaining energy independence
12. Having politicians everyone can trust again
13. Having leaders everyone can trust again 
14. Having managers everyone can trust again
15. Having supervisors everyone can trust again

Released: Jim Morrison's Writings

FROM THE ROLLING STONE...

At some point before his death in July 1971, Jim Morrison handwrote a list, titled “Plan for Book,” that laid out his thoughts on a collection of his poetry, lyrics, and other work. Now, 50 years after his passing and the release of his last album with the Doors, that blueprint is coming to fruition in what promises to be the most exhaustive collection of his writing to date.

To be published June 8th by HarperCollins, The Collected Works of Jim Morrison: Poetry, Journals, Transcripts and Lyrics promises to be something of a Morrison motherlode. At nearly 600 pages long, the book — compiled with the cooperation of his estate — pulls together most of his previously published work, from song lyrics to poetry (“Horse Latitudes,” “The Celebration of the Lizard”), as well as the entirety of the posthumously published writing collections Wilderness and The American Night.

But roughly half the book consists of previously unpublished material, including unrecorded lyrics, handwritten excerpts from 28 recently discovered notebooks, and 160 photos and drawings (including rarely seen family photos). Among the excerpts from Morrison’s notebooks will be his thoughts on his trial in Miami in 1970 (he was found guilty of indecent exposure and open profanity), as well as what are believed to be Morrison’s final writings — the contents of a Paris notebook from shortly before his death, “reproduced in full reading size,” according to the publisher.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Back Porch Reflections

Good Morning America...

It "B" a rainy day here in East Tennessee this morning and my 3 cats are somewhat irritated that I slept in as long as I did this morning.  However, I am up now, they have been given a treat and fed, at least a little, and I am sitting on our back screen-in porch listening to the rain and the bird...

BEST DAY EVER

The bluebird house I built with old deck boards that I sanded down is the home to a couple of unknown birds, as it seems that the bluebirds I saw visiting decided to live somewhere else.

Yesterday, after mowing the yard and showering, I drove the mile and a half down to Weigle's to purchase 2 large French Vanilla Cappuccino coffees in their largest cup possible that I was planning to drink today...  which I am...  and, I got these drinks as refills, so I only had to pay $.98 which included taxes instead of the original $1.50 each.  I put clear boxing tape around the cup so that it will last longer.

BEST DAY EVER

What is great about living in this area, or at least where I live, is the fact that it is INCREDIBLY QUIET all the time.

This morning, there are NO SOUNDS from:

• unmuffled vehicles
• ambulance/police sirens
• lawn mowers, blowers, weed eaters, chainsaws
• loud music from neighbors
• barking dogs or cows
• yelling and angry neighbors

Once in a while I will see a white tailed rabbit scurrying around looking for whatever it is looking for.  The rabbit is lean and not the little fat bundle of joy that you might see at home as pets or at County Fairs.

My Magnolia trees are at least 30 feet tall and blooming but not as voraciously as I had hoped when I planted them 20 years ago as transplants from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  My rather large deck that surrounds my 26 foot round above ground pool was stained two years ago and is still holding up.

The cool morning air is refreshing and a nice break from the high humidity that we have had this previous week, but according to those weather forecasters who are seldom wrong (lol), our rainy days will be ending today and temps returning to normal...  although, no one really knows what normal is anymore.

IT DON"T GIT NO BETTER THAN THIS...

Critical Race Theory

 FROM THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION...  Part 2 of 2

Principles of the CRT Practice

While recognizing the evolving and malleable nature of CRT, scholar Khiara Bridges outlines a few key tenets of CRT, including:

• Recognition that race is not biologically real but is socially constructed and socially significant. It recognizes that science (as demonstrated in the Human Genome Project) refutes the idea of biological racial differences. According to scholars Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, race is the product of social thought and is not connected to biological reality.
• Acknowledgement that racism is a normal feature of society and is embedded within systems and institutions, like the legal system, that replicate racial inequality. This dismisses the idea that racist incidents are aberrations but instead are manifestations of structural and systemic racism.
• Rejection of popular understandings about racism, such as arguments that confine racism to a few “bad apples.” CRT recognizes that racism is codified in law, embedded in structures, and woven into public policy. CRT rejects claims of meritocracy or “colorblindness.” CRT recognizes that it is the systemic nature of racism that bears primary responsibility for reproducing racial inequality.
• Recognition of the relevance of people’s everyday lives to scholarship. This includes embracing the lived experiences of people of color, including those preserved through storytelling, and rejecting deficit-informed research that excludes the epistemologies of people of color.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Jim Morrison... the Poet

From the official website of Jim Morrison...

“Nothing else can survive a holocaust, but poetry and songs. No one can remember an entire novel. No one can describe a film, a piece of sculpture, a painting. But so long as there are human beings, songs and poetry can continue.” – Jim Morrison

I think the self-interview is the essence of creativity. Asking yourself questions and trying to find answers. The writer is just answering a series of unuttered questions.

I guess I see myself as a conscious artist plugging away from day to day, assimilating information.

I think around the fifth or sixth grade I wrote a poem called “The Pony Express.” That was the first I can remember. It was one of those ballad type poems. I never could get it together, though. I always wanted to write, but I always figured it’d be no good unless somehow the hand just took the pen and started moving without me really having anything to do with it. Like, automatic writing. But it just never happened. I wrote a few poems, of course.

Like, “Horse Latitudes” I wrote when I was in high school. I kept a lot of note books through high school and college and then when I left school for some dumb reason — maybe it was wise — I threw them all away. There’s nothing I can think of I’d rather have in my possession right now than those two or three lost notebooks. I was thinking of being hypnotized or taking sodium pentathol to try to remember, because I wrote in those books night after night. But maybe if I’d never thrown them away, I’d never have written anything original — because they were mainly accumulations of things that I’d read or heard, like quotes from books. I think if I’d never gotten rid of them I’d never been free.

The WOKE Left

 I joined the us military so that I could protect the freedoms of the united states so that the woke mob could operate freely and with prejudice or discrimination...

And, I would do it again if asked or if needed...  because I believe in freedom that much...

In other words:

• If the US wants to become Socialistic...  that's fine
• If the US wants to become Marxist...  that's fine
• If the US wants to destroy competition...  that's fine
• If the US wants make the wealthy pay...  that's fine

What freedom means is that we have the freedom to become whatever it is that we want to become as long as a majority of the people in this country feel that way...  and, that is also the one FLAW associated with any DEMOCRACY and that is the fact that a DEMOCRACY can VOTE itself out of being a DEMOCRACY any time it wants to...

The other issues here are, at least for me, I am 73 years old, and will probably only live another 20 years or so.  I am not going to have anymore children nor will I have any grandchildren...  so whatever the WOKE mob wants to do, will not impact me or my family.

And, I am too old to give a shit about other families or the children of other family or their children...

My only real concern and I actually have most of that financially covered is INFLATION...

All I really have to worry about financially, economically, educationally, philosophically, or militarily is my wife and I...  SO...  if our government turns socialistic, all that means to me is that they will take more money away from the wealthy and redistribute it to the poor or people like me...  

My healthcare services may suffer a little because everyone's healthcare is going to be free so the ERs in the hospitals are going to be SLAMMED all the time and no doubt people will die in the hallways while they wait for attention.

IS YOU WOKE MUTHER???

Critical Race Theory

 FROM THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION...  Part 1 of 2

In September 2020, President Trump issued an executive order excluding from federal contracts any diversity and inclusion training interpreted as containing “Divisive Concepts,” “Race or Sex Stereotyping,” and “Race or Sex Scapegoating.” Among the content considered “divisive” is Critical Race Theory (CRT). In response, the African American Policy Forum, led by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, launched the #TruthBeTold campaign to expose the harm that the order poses. Reports indicate that over 300 diversity and inclusion trainings have been canceled as a result of the order. And over 120 civil rights organizations and allies signed a letter condemning the executive order. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the National Urban League (NUL), and the National Fair Housing Alliance filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the executive order violates the guarantees of free speech, equal protection, and due process. So, exactly what is CRT, why is it under attack, and what does it mean for the civil rights lawyer?

CRT is not a diversity and inclusion “training” but a practice of interrogating the role of race and racism in society that emerged in the legal academy and spread to other fields of scholarship. Crenshaw—who coined the term “CRT”—notes that CRT is not a noun, but a verb. It cannot be confined to a static and narrow definition but is considered to be an evolving and malleable practice. It critiques how the social construction of race and institutionalized racism perpetuate a racial caste system that relegates people of color to the bottom tiers. CRT also recognizes that race intersects with other identities, including sexuality, gender identity, and others. CRT recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past. Instead, it acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second-class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color continue to permeate the social fabric of this nation.

Gravitational Waves

You wouldn’t know it, but right now, as you read this article, your body is being squeezed and stretched. You don’t feel it because the amplitude of this flexing is only about 1/10,000th the diameter of a proton, but it is happening.

What’s causing it is not anything local, nor anything to do with your body itself. In fact, the entire Earth is being squeezed and stretched in the same manner. Instead, the source origin of these forces acting on you is located millions or even billions of light-years away.

Whilst we can be thankful that we don’t experience these effects on the macro scale, we are reminded that there are extreme forces at play in the Universe – powerful enough to distort the very rigid fabric of space-time itself.

The cause of this effect is gravitational waves, and the sources that are generating them, are massive compact objects in binary systems – like neutron stars or black holes – in inspiral orbits, drawing closer and closer together and emitting gravitational radiation in the form of these waves.

These waves were a predicted outcome of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and for the most part of 100 years, they were just that, theory. Then in the ’70s, indirect evidence was published that showcased a binary pulsar-neutron star system whose orbit was decaying with the exact predicted value that Einstein had determined – and the only explanation was that the system was emitting gravitational radiation. This exciting discovery went on to earn a Nobel Prize.

Then in 2015, it finally happened. With technology and instruments advancing to the threshold needed to make a discovery, two kilometre-sized laser interferometers based in the US (designed as a giant version of the Michelson-Morely experiment) confirmed the first-ever chirp from a system of massive compact objects as they merged. TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

The Eyes Have It

It has been said that “the eyes are the window to the soul,” but new research suggests that they may be a window to the brain as well.

Our pupils respond to more than just the light. They indicate arousal, interest or mental exhaustion. Pupil dilation is even used by the FBI to detect deception. Now work conducted in our laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests that baseline pupil size is closely related to individual differences in intelligence. The larger the pupils, the higher the intelligence, as measured by tests of reasoning, attention and memory. In fact, across three studies, we found that the difference in baseline pupil size between people who scored the highest on the cognitive tests and those who scored the lowest was large enough to be detected by the unaided eye.

We first uncovered this surprising relationship while studying differences in the amount of mental effort people used to complete memory tasks. We used pupil dilations as an indicator of effort, a technique psychologist Daniel Kahneman popularized in the 1960s and 1970s. When we discovered a relationship between baseline pupil size and intelligence, we weren’t sure if it was real or what it meant.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

I Haven't Been To Europe Either...

Listening to FOX News this morning as I always do, the hosts played a segment of VP Kamala Harris being interviewed...  the segment started off with the reported saying that the VP had not been to the border.

The VP responded, "we have been to the border."

The reporter clarified, "you have not been there."

The VP responded, "I haven't been to Europe either..." and laughed it off in a dismissive way.

The VP of the United States must maintain a professional image that is one of integrity as well...  and, to hear her answer the question the way she did, reminds of the bullshit that former President Trump used to do...  but, the press never let him get away with it.

Is the press letting here get away with this because:

• She is BLACK
• She is DEMOCRAT
• She is FEMALE
• She is WOKE

One issue is for TRUE TRUE and that is that the USA is changing and while 50% of the public think the change is GOOD...  another 50% think the change is BAD...

Guess what folks...

AMERICA is DIVIDED right down the middle...

What does this mean?

Nothing will ever get done unless one side gives in...

Divided America FALLS...

America FALLS globally which is much worse that failing with the contiguous states...  plus Alaska and Hawaii...

Is that what you want?

Which side are you on???

 

Downside of Writing

For those of us who have the gift of free flowing thoughts and do not have to struggle to find the right words, one could either congratulate you for your unusual gift or accuse you of being mentally lazy...  that only the true writer searches for just the right word to go in the right place in the right sentence.

And while everyone has their own opinion on a variety of subjects, it is clear to me that everything we do revolves around being a chef.

You can cook the same way and serve it to 10 different people at 10 different times in 10 different locations and each of those 10 eaters will have different sensation regarding the food that they just ate.

The same holds true of writing...  Yes, you can search for that right word, but once you do, the person to whom you submit the writing may not like your choice of words...  then what do you do?  Make the claim that this publisher obviously has their head up their ass?  That may be exactly what s/he is thinking about you.

The real problem with writing is not so much selecting the right word for the right audience but making sure that what you have written:

• Makes Sense
• Flows

So, what the hell does that mean?

Well, when I was a contract instructor, the course writing company would assemble all of us and give us the course they had designed to teach it touch a group of assembled students at different locations.

What we ALL DISCOVERED is that the greatest designed course with superb graphics and excellent examples and exercises MAY NOT HAVE teachability...  in other words, it did not flow smoothly...  transition from on topic to the next...  and it was our job to discover that and correct it for them.

The same holds true for writing, especially the novel...  so, writers MUST DEVELOP the ability to go back and reread their manuscript as if it had been writing by someone else to check for making sense and flowing...

Oftentimes, writers do not have that ability because in their minds they are replacing what is missing or what needs to make sense, which is incredibly natural.

Rainy Days Forecasted

My morning, like every other morning, started off with me giving a treat to our 3 cats, taking my thyroid pill,  filling up the cat's food bowls, getting my laptop and notebook and taking them both into the living room, making coffee, and sitting down on the couch recliner to watch FOX News for a few minutes.

For some reason, I decided to check the weather forecast for my zip code and discovered that it was going to rain everyday for the next seven days and that each of the days had a probability of rain at over 70%...

Not much can be done outside if it is going to rain like that all week...  and, while this does not really bother me because I stay inside mostly, it does bother my wife because she stays outside mostly...  which means...  and if, you have been married for 10 years or more, you know exactly where I am going with this...

This morning I had some cake mini muffins that my wife had prepared the day before because the ingredients were going to expire and we don't like to throw away food.  Then, I prepared a rice, pepper, green onion, vege sausage, mushrooms, and garlic whatever...  which I had to cook the rice twice because there was too much in the pot...  and, once I started eating it, paid absolutely no attention at all to the fact that it did not taste good because I like rice so much.

That does not happen often, but when it does, my meals taste horrible...  I could blame it on the rain but I don't think anyone would believe me.

My problem is that I am trying to incorporate what I think are healthy food items into everything I eat and while that concepts works ok most of the time, it does not work ok all of the time.

• Garlic
• Onions
• Green Peppers
• Mushrooms
• Olive Oil/pepper

I am not a chef nor am I a cook, I am just someone who likes to put a lot of different shit into a pot and see what happens...  although, I am sure there might have been a better way to explain that.

Don't Give A Damn No Mo'

Livin' off the government and lovin' it... 

I retired during the Presidential administration of Donald Trump and only began to LIVE LARGE under the new Presidential administration of Joe Biden...

...excerpt for the Harry Belafonte song ZOMBIE JAMBOREE

Already talking
Back to back, belly to belly
I don't give a damn, I done dead already
Oho back to back, belly to belly

It would appear that America is DONE DEAD ALREADY... and, we don't give a damn...

Sometimes...  when I not sitting at home doing nothing...  I wish that I were working...  so I could be laid off and collect unemployment in the amount of more than what I would be earning working, so I can stay at home doing nothing...

I really like DEMOCRATS who take money from the WEALTHY and redistribute it to the NOT SO WEALTHY...  because every time they do that, my wife and I benefit...  and, I really don't give a damn if this approach hurts our country or not because, being retired, allows me to SIT BACK and just look at those who want to work, spend 60+ hours at work, leaving them only a little time at home with their families, unable to really enjoy what their money is buying them...

GO DEMOCRATS GO...

Uniting America

One of the KEY POINTS of the 2020 Presidential Election was the FACT that BIDEN wanted to UNITE AMERICA because TRUMP had divided America...

One of the basic foundations of the concept of UNITING AMERICA is to bring ALL Americans together...  but, Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, the WOKE Mob, and the new Cancel Culture are not concepts that are specifically designed to UNITE ANYTHING...  as they are specifically designed to HIGHLIGHT OUR DIFFERENCES...

If you are that STUPID not to see the difference, then you do not need to be in a position of leadership that tries to influence the general public.

We are not black Americans or white Americans or red Americans or brown Americans...  if you really want to know the real truth, then you must only see us as AMERICANS...

AMERICANS have hurt and continue to hurt other Americans but we are still Americans and those bad apples should be punished...  but, that is it...

To tell me that my whiteness has screwed AMERICA then my first thought is KISS MY ASS then my second thought is GFY...

• My whiteness is GOD GIVEN...
• Your blackness is GOD GIVEN...
• Your brownness is GOD GIVEN...

Americans did not set the colors of people into motion and for the most part does not see one color as better or worse than the other...  and, was fine until you tried to bring it to our attention that Americans had different skin colors...  NO SHIT MORON...

Do Ya Wanna Write?

The best way that I know how to answer the question:  Do Ya Wanna Write? is to answer the question by letting the reader know what I did in my life...  when I answered that question with, "yes, I do wanna write."

For me, the question was answered in 1972, 48 years ago, when I started writing poetry in the mornings so that I would have something to do while drinking coffee at McDonald's every morning before attending my college classes.

In addition to writing poetry, I joined a local Writers Club and began writing Short Stories and a couple of plays, as I recall.

I also remember taking creative writing classes at our local community college because the cost of each course was only $10.

My degree in college was English, so we were always asked to write out debates, essays, critiques, term papers, etc., and whenever we had a writing assignment, I would write more than was required unless the Professor indicated that writing more would lower the grade.

My term/research paper required a 20 page length and I would typically write a 40-50 page length.

One of my first jobs was writing package inserts for a microbiological media manufacturer which again allowed me to practice my writing.  When I directed a local non-profit, I would love to write press releases because again it allowed me to practice.

After several years, I joined LinkedIn and spent the next few years writing 1,000 word opinion articles that I posted as often as I could write them.  When I stopped that social media account, I had posted over 1,200 articles.

Next, I started writing novels and while writing those novels, maintained 4 blogs on a daily basis which also required writing and posting articles.

IN SHORT, I wrote something all the frigging time and the more I wrote the better I got or that is what others said who read what I had to write.

TO DATE, I have completed 2 - 350 page novels, and have started 2 other novels and complete a chapter outline of a third.  Before the end of 2021, I will finish all 3 in-progress novels while continuing to maintain my 4 blogs and write poetry, along with whatever other letter writing I can manage to fit in.

IF YOU WANT TO WRITE YOU MUST DISCIPLINE YOURSELF TO WRITE ALL THE TIME...

Komic Korner Kartoons