MY WRITING JOURNAL

Monday, December 13

It’s no secret that untold treasure lies beneath the city of El-Bahnasa, Egypt. An archaeological mission from Spain has now excavated the site for 30 years and found many tombs from different dynasties and papyrus texts that still puzzle experts. And last week, they unearthed two 2,500-year-old mummies with golden tongues.

According to The Times of Israel, the two mummies, a man and a woman, were each laid to rest in a limestone sarcophagus in what was then called Oxyrhynchus. They died around 525 B.C. at the tail-end of the Saite dynasty, which was the last time native Egyptians reigned over their kingdom before the Persian conquest in the 6th century B.C.

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said golden tongues allowed the dead to speak to Osiris, the god of the underworld who judged travelers to the afterlife. While the 402 funerary figurines, amulets, and scarabs found within the tombs were also stunning, the state of the male sarcophagus captivated experts the most.

“This is very important because it’s rare to find a tomb that is totally sealed,” said excavation director Esther Pons Melado on Sunday. READ MORE...

The Glass Slipper

Sunday, December 12

Sunday in the Valley

Even when I was working, on Sundays, I typically did very little physical activity unless there was something that I did not finish on Saturday... otherwise, Sundays were spent, not sleeping late, but on just sitting around relaxing either writing, reading, or watching some movie on the television... sometimes, we would visit friends or they would visit us, and sometimes, we might go shopping and out to eat at a local restaurant... maybe a brunch somewhere... not necessarily a buffet as one always tends to eat more than one should.

After being retired and finding almost everyday is like a Sunday, I have no longer seen Sundays as being something special... however, I am sure I have just pissed off those who go to Church each Sunday... my experience with institutionalized religions (ie: Churches) is that most of the congregation is being hypocritical or is attending just to be seen by their neighbors, and those that are preaching from the pulpit only talk about things that are comfortable and have no controversy attached to them like was Jesus married...

I also find it unsettling how we selected certain books to be in The Bible while leaving others out that did not fit the narrative that they wanted to create and then try to convince us that The Bible was divinely inspired and was written by God through the hands of man...

Those who win the wars write the History Books and slant history as they see it... the same thing holds true of The Bible and the books in The Bible and how they were written... BUT, the main issue that I have with the divinely inspired Bible and the tales contained therein, is that the timeline is ABSOLUTELY WRONG... in that, The Bible says that the universe is only 6,000 years old... 6th grade science proves that to be incorrect.

So... what else is incorrect???

HOWEVER, I do believe that there is a creator or some sort and disregard the scientific concept of spontaneous creation... something cannot just come for nothing... something can only come from something... but again, where did the first something come from and how in the hell did it get here?

So... Sundays are not spent reflecting on religious ideologies... not anymore... but, I am grateful for the life that I have been given and after experiencing that life for 74 years still wonder why I was not given a choice in deciding if I wanted to be born or not... I had no control over that decision... nor did I have any control on being born white or to the parents I was given or to my physical location of birth... the USA rather than Russia or China...

I am glad that I am white.

I am glad that I am an American.

I am glad that I am middle class.

I am glad that I was given a strong body and mind.

BUT WHY ME?

The Woman

Plankton Creates Mountains

A world without the great mountain ranges – the Himalayas, the Alps, the Rockies, the Andes – is unimaginable, but they were not always a part of the Earth’s geography. Mountains didn’t start forming widely until 2 billion years ago, half way through the planet’s history. Now our research has revealed how primitive life played a key role in their introduction to the planet.

While the formation of mountains is usually associated with the collision of tectonic plates causing huge slabs of rock to be thrust skywards, our study has shown that this was triggered by an abundance of nutrients in the oceans 2 billion years ago which caused an explosion of planktonic life.

Timeline for the formation of mountains on Earth. J Johnston/University of Aberdeen, Author provided

Making mountains
Mountains are not just a beautiful backdrop for recreation, they are essential to the way the world works, through their influence on weather, climate, the distribution of fresh water and the erosion of rock to make cultivable soil.

Before there were mountains, the plate movements that reshape the distribution of oceans and continents only occurred on a limited scale. But the movement of these plates are essential to making mountains. The pressure of one plate pushing against another – typically an ocean plate hitting a continental plate – causes slabs of ocean rock to break off and stack up on top of each other as they are pushed from behind. READ MORE...

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons

Nutrient Poor Soil

If you're up to speed on nutrition news, you've probably heard talk that large-scale, industrial agriculture can deplete crops of essential vitamins and minerals that our bodies need to thrive.

But why, exactly, does that happen, and what can be done about it? For such a massive problem, the solution is actually microscopic. How soil microbes contribute to healthy, nutrient-dense food.

In its natural state, soil is full of invisible but indispensable microbes. Like, really full of them. There are more microorganisms in a handful of healthy soil than humans who have ever lived, and the microbes on our planet outnumber the stars in our universe more than a million times over.

In healthy, symbiotic systems, plant roots feed these soil microbes sugars and give them a place to latch onto. In return, the microbes help the plants absorb nutrients in the surrounding soil.

All life on Earth depends on this mutually beneficial relationship—but some agricultural practices can mess with it. READ MORE...

Transition

Eye Drops for Blurred Vision

A newly approved eye drop hitting the market on Thursday could change the lives of millions of Americans with age-related blurred near vision, a condition affecting mostly people 40 and older.

Vuity, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in October, would potentially replace reading glasses for some of the 128 million Americans who have trouble seeing close-up. The new medicine takes effect in about 15 minutes, with one drop on each eye providing sharper vision for six to 10 hours, according to the company.

Toni Wright, one of the 750 participants in a clinical trial to test the drug, said she liked what she saw.

"It's definitely a life changer," Wright told CBS News national correspondent Jericka Duncan.

Before the trial, the only way Wright could see things clearly was by keeping reading glasses everywhere — in her office, bathroom, kitchen and car.

"I was in denial because to me that was a sign of growing older, you know, needing to wear glasses," she said.

It was in 2019 that her doctor told her about a new eye drop with the potential to correct her vision problems, temporarily. The 54-year-old online retail consultant, who works from her farm in western Pennsylvania, instantly noticed a difference.

"I would not need my readers as much, especially on the computer, where I would always need to have them on," she said. READ MORE...

Being Strong

Saturday, December 11

Rainy Day Thoughts

It is raining in the Valley today and quite naturally my thoughts turn to recent events of which we must all by now be aware... Jussie Smolett was convicted on 5 of the 6 charges related to lying to the police about being mugged...

What I found most interesting about this case is that former President Obama, Presidential candidate Biden, and Vice Presidential candidate Harris ALL STATED how horrible it was for something like this to have happened here in America and blamed it all on President Trump for causing all this hatred to flourish.

Two years later and we find our that Jussie Smolett LIED TO LAW ENFORCEMENT, neither Obama, Biden, or Harris are commenting... GO FIGURE???

FIRST THOUGHTS: Should leaders jump to conclusions?

But... what gets to me more than anything else is how EVERYONE has been and continues to blame Trump for everything... now, I did not vote for him mind you, but I think the way he was treated was horrible, especially when one compares Trump to Biden in terms of accomplishments.

Thanks to Biden, we now have:

Highest inflation in 40 years
Highest Illegal Immigration in our history
A Supply Chain Shortage
Increases in urban crime and violence
Influx of illegal drugs from Mexico
Distrust of all our Allies
Repercussions of an Afghanistan withdrawal debacle
CRT being taught in public schools
Highest government spending ever
Potential of tax increases
Highest debt level ever
Judging people on color not character
People leaving law enforcement
A weakened military
A decreasing quality of education
A reduction of STEM students

Did Jussie Smolett cause all of this? HELL NO...

Did Trump cause all of this? HELL NO...

America is being influenced by Liberals, Progressives, and Radical Blacks who apparently do not like America as she presently has developed... Sadly, no matter what anyone does whether it is conservatives, liberals, progressives, or blacks, THE WEALTHY will continue to get WEALTHY... that is just the way that economies aamre set up... The only way to keep the wealthy from getting wealthy is to have our FEDERAL GOVERNMENT own everything...

Can you imagine our Federal Government owning:

Microsoft
Apple
Dell
The Stock Market
ALL Banks
Walmart
Lowes
Hollywood
All music companies
Sam's
Starbucks
Dillards
John Deere
All airlines
All Train companies
All commerical bus companies
All Trucking companies
All grocery stores
All Professional Sports Teams

UNFORTUNATELY, most of us 80%-90% WILL NEVER BE WEALTHY no matter who owns what...

Democrats cannot stop the wealth

Republicans cannot stop the wealth

Progressives cannot stop the wealth

Blacks cannot stop the wealth

Socialism cannot stop the wealth

Insect

Quantum Spin Liquid

A solid is made of atoms that are, more or less, locked in an ordered structure. A liquid, on the other hand, is made of atoms that can flow freely around and past each other. But imagine atoms that stay unfrozen, like those in a liquid–but which are in a constantly changing magnetic mess.

What you have then is a never-before-seen state of matter, a state of quantum weirdness called a quantum spin liquid. Now, by carefully manipulating atoms, researchers have managed to create this state in the laboratory. The researchers published their work in the journal Science on December 2.

Scientists had discussed theories about spin liquids for years. “But we really got very interested in this when these theorists, here at Harvard, finally found a way to actually generate the quantum spin liquids,” says Giulia Semeghini, a physicist and postdoc at Harvard University, who coordinated the research project and was one of the paper authors.

Under extreme conditions not typically found on Earth, the rules of quantum mechanics can twist atoms into all sorts of exotica. Take, for instance, degenerate matter, found in the hearts of dead stars like white dwarfs or neutron stars, where extreme pressures cook atoms into slurries of subatomic particles. Or, for another, the Bose-Einstein condensate, in which multiple atoms at very low temperatures sort of merge together to act as one (its creation won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics). READ MORE...

Washing Toys

$70 Million of Stolen Art Surrendered

Michael Steinhart, a billionaire investor and antiquities collector, agreed on Tuesday to surrender 180 stolen relics worth a combined $70 million, reports CNN.

But that’s not all. Steinhardt, a hedge fund manager who accrued one of the world’s largest collections of ancient art, also agreed to a lifetime ban on acquiring antiquities.

Steinhardt had been under investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit, according to an official press release.

The team looked into over 1,000 items acquired by the collector since 1987 and found him to be in possession of stolen artifacts that had been smuggled out of 11 countries by 12 different criminal networks.

Some of the more noteworthy items (pictured above) include Stag’s Head Rhyton, a ceremonial vessel valued at $3.5 million; the Larnax, a small chest for human remains valued at $1 million, and a trio of death masks dating back to 7000 BCE that are valued at $650,000. The items will now be returned to their rightful owners. READ MORE...

Wake Up

Mood Foods

With the sun showing up late and leaving early these days (seriously, why can't we get away with that), feeling not-so sunny yourself lately isn't an uncommon experience. For some, the dip in mood is minimal, but for others it can be debilitating. (If that's the case for you, it's a good idea to talk to a therapist who can give tips specific to managing seasonal depression.)

If you've looked into ways to boost your mood even a little bit, you've probably heard about serotonin, aka a neurotransmitter in the brain that's linked to better mood and overall satisfaction. Serotonin is a chemical made by nerve cells and communicates with other cells in the body. While it's certainly not the only chemical connected to mood regulation (dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins all do too), it is an important piece of the feel-good puzzle. And get this: There are ways to boost your serotonin naturally through what you eat.

Neuroscientist and Cleaning Uo Your Mental Mess ($17) author Caroline Leaf, PhD, explains that serotonin is made from the amino acid tryptophan. (Yep, the same amino acid that can make you sleepy after eating Thanksgiving turkey.) "Tryptophan is found in many foods and may support the production of serotonin," she says, adding that more research needs to be done to really solidify the connection between diet and mood. (Although the research that does exist is extremely strong.)

With this in mind, there are five serotonin foods that are high in tryptophan that can easily be worked into your meals, according to Dr. Leaf.

5 serotonin foods to eat during winter and always
1. Eggs
Eggs top Dr. Leaf's serotonin foods list not only because they contain tryptophan but also because they're high in choline (a B vitamin) and protein. Choline is directly linked to supporting brain health, including mood, and protein gives the body energy. (Feeling run-down and sad often go hand-in-hand.) READ MORE...