Trans is Trans

 

I have no problems with males wanting to be females and/or females wanting to be males...  that is their choice, not mine...  and, why they made their choice is their decision as well and they have no reason to share...   but, I do not think that trans males should be allowed to physically compete in sports with females...  

...  those who feel that trans males do not have an unfair advantage are simply trying to justify their own beliefs...

Maybe we should allow trans females to play college football...  or ice hockey...  or rugby...

Obviously, this is a rhetorical question.

Cowboy America

As a Vietnam Veteran, one might think that I should be pro SECOND AMENDMENT and while I do support the rights underlined in this amendment, I am NOT a proponent of owning firearms.

• I understand the self protection concept...
• I understand the entertainment of hunting...
• I understand the challenge of shooting on a target range
• I understand the collector's mentality as well

BUT I WOULD NEVER OWN A FIREARM PERSONALLY...

I would not have a problem if a majority of Americans and States wanted to take the 2nd amendment out of the US Constitution...  as I do not think it is needed...

In 1776, we were a new country without a standing army except those who fought in the war against Great Britain.  We did not have a law enforcement agency, nor did we have the FBI, the CIA, or Homeland Security.

We needed our residents and citizens to be armed in case we were attacked or invaded...  the SECOND AMENDMENT made perfect sense.

Criminals and other bad people are going to find a way to acquire guns and firearms regardless of how many laws we pass and enforce...  that is just human nature...

While the NRA is a powerful organization and lobby, it can be defeated.

EDUCATION and PSYCHOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING & COUNSELING will not stop violence...  And, if you think that it will, you got your head firmly implanted up your tail section...

Survival of the fittest and just plain survival is embedded in our DNA.  Power and Control is also embedded in our DNA.  Having what others have is the soul of our DNA.  THEREFORE, we will always have crime and violence...

Victims of crimes and violence, never get payback...  or if they do, it is very seldom...  in some ways those that commit crime and violence are seen as folk heroes until they kill one of our family members...

The families of the victims never get satisfaction or payback...  especially when the shooter is killed by law enforcement.  Killing the shooter removes the element of revenge...  so these families have to live with the fact that they will never get revenge...

The freedoms that Americans perceive that they have negates the fact that we are mature enough to control ourselves...  consequently, we will always need to be controlled.

Only in a Democracy do we have these freedoms...

 

There would be no second amendment in most all other countries in the world...  The USA is the only country in the world to have the second amendment....

What do these other countries know that we do not?

Living in the Valley

I have lived in the East Tennessee valley since 1990 or roughly 32 years at the end of 2022, relocating in January.  I have lived in Greeneville for several years, then Morristown, then Chattanooga, then Dandridge, and finally Jefferson city for the last 20 years.  Our home is located in a rural community just a few miles outside of the city proper and I have two large lakes on either side of me (10 miles away from the house), Douglas and Cherokee.  Both of these lakes are suitable for boating and fishing; and, there are numerous areas where families can camp, hike, and/or picnic.

There is a Walmart Super Center 2 miles away from the house and across the street is a fitness center that I can use for free because of my health insurance company.  There are half a dozen gasoline stations less than 2 miles away from my house.  Morristown is 10 miles northeast of my location and offers several restaurant chains like Texas Roadhouse.  Knoxville is about 35 miles southwest of my location and offers dozens of restaurants and movie theaters for entertainment.

UT Medical Center is 31 miles from the house and we have two other large hospitals, Tennova and Ft. Sanders all of which have teams of physicians educated and trained at some of the best hospitals in the country who have chosen to live in East Tennessee.  Vanderbilt in Nashville is only 3 hours away in case someone prefers that name, although Vanderbilt-trained physicians work and live in Knoxville as well.

The first two years of college is free to any resident of Tennessee and we have numerous community college, small colleges, and universities along with the University of Tennessee, and the association of universities house at Oak Ridge National Laboratories.  Knoxville airport connects with all the major hubs and has several direct flights to New York City each day.  It is a 30 minutes flight to Atlanta.

The State of Tennessee collects no state income tax but has a 7/8% sales tax and the cost of living as a result of moderate wages is or was 10-15% less on average than anywhere else in the US.  Like all states, COVID has taken its toll on the cost of living in the East Tennessee area.  But, the quality of life which is laid back and void of a lot of crime, violence, and traffic is an ideal place to live if that is your mentality.

Before 1990, I lived in the Piedmont area of North Carolina between Greensboro and Durham and while the area was beautiful, it does not compare to the beauty of the Tennessee Valley and the Smoky Mountains.  Not only is the traffic in that area terrible and the volume of people cause long lines to develop in stores, but the opportunities for employment are also better in East Tennessee.  One of the reasons why I left North Carolina was that my skills put me into a "dime a dozen" category whereas in Tennessee, I was unique or in a category with only 1-2 others...  making employment and wages very easy to attain.  The downside was that wages after entering a company did not grow as fast as they did in North Carolina but our prices did not grow as fast either.

Being retired is idea in this area, at least for my wife and I.  We have easy access to everything we need or want.

I remember living in Alexandria, Virginia until high school and my parents lived there afterward so I would visit.  Alexandria is only 8 miles from Washington, DC but because of the traffic, it would take me twice as long to drive into Washington as it does for me to drive from my house to Knoxville 35 miles away.

My community is very quiet and provides a lot of interconnecting roads, inclines, and declines making it an ideal environment in which to walk anytime during the day or night, although I have never seen any reason to walk after dark.

I have an above-ground pool in my backyard with a deck built around it, a gazebo, and a hot tub so that if gas prices get too high, we can vacation in our own backyard.  The pool depth is just below my shoulders which is perfect for an older person to just get in and cool off or exercise.  We have had the pool for 12 years and never had to replace the liner.  We've replaced the pump motor twice.  The hot tub seats 6 and is also 12 years old and we have replaced the pump motor once and 2-3 of the heating elements.  The key to a long-lasting hot tub is use only liquid cleaners....  NO POWDERS...  as they ruin the motor and other parts.

We have an acre of land, so there is plenty of room for us to have a vegetable garden each summer with lettuce, carrots, potatoes, bell peppers, corn, squash, zucchini, watermelons, cucumbers, and tomatoes along with several spices.

I don't miss North Carolina nor do I miss larger cities like Washington, DC or New York City, but I can fly to both for a long weekend anytime I want just to remind myself how much I don't want to live there...

Please don't come to East Tennessee and make it crowded!!!

Older Music Fans

Religious and Spiritual Beliefs

SUFFERING (and pain) seems to be a pretty consistent theme among religions and most spiritual beliefs...

In Christianity, our suffering (and pain) was done by Jesus so that we would not have to suffer, but then entry into the kingdom of God could only take place in you believed in Jesus.

Still, there was suffering...

In Buddhism, suffering is also a key component that revolves around life's 4 truths:

1. all of life is based upon pain, suffering, and sorrow
2. the cause of suffering are our illusive desires
3. the cure to suffering in to overcome desires
4. we overcome desire by following a 8-fold path

In Hindu, suffering is again present...

• an essential life (Karma) revolves around good and suffering
• religious duties can help you acquire merit for the next life

In Christianity, one seeks to enter the kingdom of God after death but it Hindu and Buddhism, one seeks to become unified with the universe.  In essence, all three of these are the same.

These three spiritual beliefs are different and yet they all reach the same conclusion after death...  So, death is the ultimate similarity and is actually what happens to all of us regardless of what we believe.  It seems that becoming one with the universe is our justification for death.

Regardless of what kind of life we live, we all die...  Death is certain and absolute...  but, if one has spiritual faith, then death becomes more than being in a state of nothingness...  or as some call it a void.

Are we just rationalizing our FATE?

Loogically, there has to be a creator...  and, while that seems logically true...  who is the creator's creator?  At this point, our logic, like death, cease to exist and we are left with a question that cannot be answered except through spiritual faith...  or, is this what they call circular logic?

Nonetheless, it is mental quicksand.

Circling Dog

 

Neolithic Settlements in Turkey

Archaeology professer and director of the Göbeklitepe Culture and Karahantepe Research Project

in front of Karahantepe excavation site.

(photo credit: JUDITH SUDILOVSKY)

Istanbul archaeology professor Necmi Karul picks his way as nimbly as a gazelle along the hilly back slope of Karahantepe. A monumental Neolithic site near the Syrian-Turkish border, Karahantepe has turned what archaeologists until now believed about the evolution of human sedentism on its head.


It, along with the nearby Gobeklitepe Stone Hill site, is considered one of the first permanent settlements. They have brought into question the process of organized human society, suggesting that it was established before the emergence of agriculture, and included some kind of cultic or communal rituals.


Karul points out spots where some 11,000 years ago Neolithic humans carved out huge blocks of limestone and somehow brought the heavy pillars to the other side of the mound. After being carved with images of animals and humans, these blocks were placed in concentric circles in what he calls “special buildings.”


Walking along the sloping hillside Karul also points at stones jutting out from the earth in a circular pattern. Underneath, he said casually, there are the same thousands-year-old monumental pillars that have been excavated just on the other side of the mound.


He said 250 such pillars visible on the surface have been identified, and some 60 pillars have been found in the excavations.  READ MORE...

Baby Bear

 

Ancient Settlements Discovered

134 ancient settlements have been found during a survey of the region north of Hadrian’s Wall in the United Kingdom.

These locations belong to Indigenous communities that date to the Roman occupation. The findings were published in the journal Antiquity on Tuesday.

Following Hadrian’s ascension to the throne in AD 117, he built a wall unlike any other in the Roman world, a wall that was a tangible representation of Rome’s might, solidifying the Roman defense strategy and indicating the Empire’s most northern limit.

Hadrian’s Wall (Vallum Aulium) was a Roman defensive structure that extended 73 miles (116 kilometers) from Mais (Solway Firth) to Segedunum (Tyne River) (Wallsend).

In AD 142, Emperor Antoninus Pius extended the frontier further north and constructed the Antonine Wall (Vallum Antonini). This wall ran 39 miles (62.7 km) and annexed lands formerly ruled by the Damnonii, Otadini, Novantae, and the Selgovae tribes.

Earthworks can be seen at the Woden Law hill fort in southern Scotland, close to a Roman road, with the remains of Roman camps less than a mile away. Antiquity

Most research into the area has focused on the Roman side of history to learn more about the roads, forts, camps, and iconic walls they used in their attempts to control northern Britain.

Manuel Fernández-Götz, head of the Department of Archaeology at the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, is interested in uncovering the other side of the story: how Roman rule affected the lives of Iron Age Indigenous communities in Britain.  READ MORE...

Free Ride

 

Treasures Found in Curious Places

From a tyrannical Roman emperor’s pleasure boat to a Manhattan apartment coffee table, 

this mosaic has gone on quite the adventure. 

ERNESTO RUSCIO/GETTY IMAGES

In 2018, at a Goodwill store in Austin, Texas, a marble bust of a dour-looking man caught antique dealer Laura Young’s eye. She liked the look of him and bought the bust for $34.99, dubbing it “Dennis” after the self-obsessed character Dennis Reynolds in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Young guessed the statue was old, but never imagined it was a 2,000-year-old original. A Greek sculpture expert ​​at Sotheby’s deduced that Dennis was actually a Roman bust of Germanicus, father of infamous madman Caligula. 

But that wasn’t all: Young learned the bust had been stolen during World War II. Most likely a G.I. looted the bust in Germany and brought it back to the United States, where it eventually ended up at Goodwill. Young was determined to return it to Germany, but sorting everything out would take years. Now, after a brief stint at the San Antonio Museum of Art, Dennis is finally set to return home in 2023.

It’s quite the story, but finding hidden treasures in surprising places isn’t as rare as you might imagine. Here at Atlas Obscura we love these kinds of stories. So in honor of the return of Dennis, we went digging through the archives to uncover some other stories of priceless artifacts discovered in unusual places.

A Mosaic From Caligula’s Ceremonial Ship, Turned Into a Coffee Table  (image above)
The striking piece sat in a Manhattan apartment for decades, until the Italian military police’s Art Recovery Unit showed up.

Antique dealer Helen Fioratti had no idea the mosaic that sat in her Upper East Side apartment had been dredged up from a mysterious Roman barge in Lake Nemi, Italy. After buying the red-and-green mosaic in Europe, Fioratti spent thousands of dollars shipping it home to New York and converting it into a coffee table. For 45 years, the table sat as a beloved accent piece, garnering many compliments from visitors, Fioratti told The Associated Press. 

That is until the Italian military police’s Art Recovery Unit and New York’s district attorney’s office caught wind of it. The mosaic, since returned to Italy, had been stolen from the opulent “pleasure boats” of Rome’s tyrannical emperor, Caligula (yes, as in the son of Germanicus, aka Dennis). Caligula’s pleasure boats boasted lush gardens, baths, and even hot water. Unfortunately for Fioratti, Caligula’s mosaic landed her in some hot water of her own.  READ MORE...

Jump for Water

 

America's Questionable Judicial System

 

Is America's Judicial System Fair?  This is a legitimate question...  especially inside the black communities and especially when a majority of the jurors are white...

However, what about for a white man when the jurors are mostly black?

In the first instance, the whites believe the outcome was fair and balanced and in the second instance, the blacks think the outcome was fair and balanced...  Doesn't this prove some kind of point?

Let's look at another situation...  what if the jury was mostly liberal and the one on trial was liberal and the prosecutor was conservative...  it is highly unlikely that the liberal jury would convict and find the liberal guilty...  odds are the verdict would be non guilty...

Perhaps twenty years ago our legal system was unbiased but so much racial shit has taken place on both sides, that we have put ourselves in a position to protect the group with which we are associated over learning the TRUTH...

Once this type of unbalanced judicial system starts it is very difficult to stop...  and it is worse, the higher up it goes...  For instance, our Supreme court is now biased to the right...  and is seriously considering dramatically altering our abortion laws...  they did not even toy with going this route when only one vote hung in the balance to create a majority opinion.

Politics and race have no business influencing our legal system and yet that is exactly what it has done...  and, in so doing overturns the concept that justice is blind.

It is doubtful that we will ever get this trust back...

Spend Your Money Wisely

Every day, I watch FOX News on HULU (reason: we finally got rid of cable) and every morning, I watch and listen to the following commercials:

• My Pillow
• Sleep Pills
• Pain Pills
• Veteran borrowing money
• Fruits & Vege tablets

My Concerns:

This inundation of commercial advertising trying to get me to spend my money, for me, works just the opposite...  I will not buy any of these products simply because they are trying to get me to buy these products...  

I realize that advertising does work and that sales are, in fact, made, but anyone who advertises this much, convinces me of two issues:

1. they desperately trying to sell me something
2. they are trying to persuade me to buy something I don't really need

These advertising pushes remind me of a used car salesperson who is trying to sell a lemon to an unsuspecting, innocent buyer.

...

Again, the key here is TRUST...

Do you trust these advertising campaigns?

Do you trust when the government says that gas prices here in the US are because Russian invaded Ukraine...   That shit just does not make sense...  especially under the Trump administration, we were energy independent...

WHAT CHANGED?

These advertisers are trying to FOOL the general public just like the government...

Eat a balanced diet, exercise and sleep and you don't need sleeping pills or fruit and vege pills.

If you have pain, see a doctor...  there may be an underlying cause...  don't just take pills.

If you don't need to buy a house, don't buy a house.

If you don't need to borrow money, don't borrow money because you can...  all these companies want is to trick you into paying interest...

THINK SMART...  

Commercials are specifically designed to get you to spend your money...  If and when you do, you can only blame yourself...

What is American Truth?

 

I did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016 nor did I vote for him in 2020...  I did not vote for him because I did not vote for anyone...  I did not vote because politicians whether Democrat or Republican, have had over 40 years to fix our problems and yet we still have the same problems in 2010 that we had in the decade of the 1960s...

Simply put, our politicians don't really give a shit...

Trump's economic policies were working (at least before COVID) and our economy was healthy and growing better and stronger than it had been in decades...  data is around to support that statement...

BUT, the Democrats, under the leadership of Hillary Clinton created a Russian/Trump Collusion Hoax that plagued his presidency for all of the four years that he was in office...  including the Mueller Investigation and the Impeachment proceedings by the House and Nancy Pelosi...

THIS WAS A LIE...  and the American public fell for this lie and made it worse...

If Trump was guilty then he should have been impeached but the Russian Hoax was a LIE...  a LIE perpetuated by Hillary Clinton and the Democrats along with the mainstream media...

How can Americans stand being LIED TO by the Democrats and the mainstream media?  

How does this LIE improve our country and our economy?

I don't really care if Hillary Clinton and her comrades go to jail or not...  but, what I do care about is how do I ever believe in the Democrats again?

This is the TRUTH that we, as Americans, must live with for the rest of our lives...

Who Do You Believe?

 

 

Demand Destruction of Gasoline

Basic economics revolves around supply and demand and the relationship between the two.  The concept is very simple...  if the supply increases and the demand stays the same, prices drop.  If the demand increases and the supply stays the same, the price increases.  This second situation is what we currently have regarding gasoline.  Now, if the supply of gasoline continues to be restricted and the price continues to increase, it will reach a point where the actual demand for gasoline will begin to decrease.  This demand reduction could be temporary or could be permanent.

As far as gasoline is concerned, the Democratic Party wants it to be permanent so that Americans completely stop their use of fossil fuels...

Unfortunately, in November, we will experience the mid-term elections, and more than likely, the Republican Party will win so many State elections that the control of the House and Senate will fall into their hands.

If the Republicans gain back control of the House and Senate, then they will immediately pass legislation that returns to the use of fossil fuels...  and gasoline prices will again begin the reduce and may return to the price they were before all this nonsense began.

However, the pain of a year of high gasoline prices will be sufficient to cause many Americans to begin the gradual process of switching from gasoline vehicles to electric vehicles...  and, when this happens, you will have sustainable demand destruction of gasoline.

Before all of this happened...  that is to say...  before Biden was elected our President, it was being predicted that EV would replace gasoline vehicles by 2030...  and, this prediction is still valid and our present gasoline situation could accelerate this transition.

But regardless, 2030 is only about 8.5 years away which is less than a decade and will pass before you realize it...  especially if you are over 40 years of age.

Ninja

 

Things From The Middle Ages

A blacksmith uses an anvil as he works on a helmet, from this 14th-century manuscript 

Bibliothèque nationale de France MS Français 24364 fol. 61r

If you lived during the Middle Ages, what kind of things would you have? Here is a guide to some of the everyday items that a medieval person would have used or had.

Anvils – one of the instruments typically used by blacksmiths, anvils are heavy blocks of metal. When working with iron or types of metal, the blacksmith would put those pieces on an anvil and use a hammer to hit the piece into shape, creating things like armour, weapons or tools.

Beds – medieval beds would not be as soft as those we use today. It would have a wooden frame, and then a few layers of mattresses – the one on the bottom would be stuffed with straw, the next one filled with wool, and then others with slightly better material like goose feathers. You could also find feather-filled pillows and blankets made of linen or wool.

Books – Most medieval people would not have had books. Those that did would include priests and monks, the nobility, and other wealthy people. In the Middle East and China (where printing was invented) books would be more widely used. Within medieval Europe, books were typically created using animal skins that could be turned into vellum, which was then sewn together into leather bindings.

Brooches – Before the days of zippers (and even buttons, as they only started to be used in the 13th century), people would use brooches to fasten clothing together. Often made of metal, brooches were often elegantly designed and decorated, looking very much like jewellery. We have many examples of medieval brooches, including those made in Viking Scandinavia to Renaissance Italy.  

READ MORE...

Wiggles