Cancal Culture & the 4th of July

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While we struggle with the proper way to socialize around Fourth of July celebrations because of COVID-19, there are questions about what it is that we celebrate. Statues are dismantled, torn down, or moved and there is a reassessment of once-venerated and heroic figures.

So what is it, exactly, that is being celebrated with fireworks and hamburgers? In part, it is the declaration of independence from Great Britain. But the holiday is also meant to honor the document to which people put their signatures and therefore their fortunes and their lives on the line.

The first sentence of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is arguably as well-known as any sentence in the world. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It has served as the clarion call for those seeking freedom and it holds up an ideal that touches the core of what it means to be human.

Shouldn’t every American take pride on this American holiday? Not everyone does today and not everyone has in the past.

In fact, celebrating the colonies’ revolt against the mother country has been contested by blacks in America since the founding of this country. One gap in America’s consciousness is that approximately 3,000 Black Loyalists left on British ships for Canada at the end of the Revolutionary War, mainly formerly enslaved people who chose the British side because it was they who gave them freedom, not the patriots, many of whom were slaveholders.

A similar picture emerged during the second war with Great Britain. Here is an excerpt from my novel, Where We Started, which is based on real events in 1812.

“Frank preached on Freedom Day. The yearly occasion, on the 1st of January, marked the anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade five years earlier. Since blacks were excluded from participating in the Independence Day commemorations, slaves and free men and women from Delaware to New England shunned Fourth of July as a white man’s holiday.”

While Freedom Day had dropped from importance as a celebration in the African American community, July Fourth remained problematic for many before the Civil War, as this passage by Black abolitionist William Whipper makes clear. “Though the right to be free has been deemed inalienable by this nation, from a period antecedent to the Declaration of Independence, yet a mental fog hovered over this nation on the subject of slavery that had well-nigh sealed her doom, were it not that in the Providence of God a few noble spirits arose in the might of moral power to her rescue.”  READ MORE...

4th of July

The Fourth of July—also known as Independence Day or July 4th—has been a federal holiday in the United States since 1941, but the tradition of Independence Day celebrations goes back to the 18th century and the American Revolution. 

On July 2nd, 1776, the Continental Congress voted in favor of independence, and two days later delegates from the 13 colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence, a historic document drafted by Thomas Jefferson. From 1776 to the present day, July 4th has been celebrated as the birth of American independence, with festivities ranging from fireworks, parades and concerts to more casual family gatherings and barbecues. 

The Fourth of July 2022 is on Monday, July 4, 2022.

Quality of Life - Part I

Quality of life is defined by the World Health
Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns". Wikipedia

There are several key terms in the above description...

1. Position in life
2. context of culture
3. context of value systems
4. goals
5. expectations
6. standards
7. concerns

Also, quality of life changes as we grow older as well from adolescence to young adult to middle-aged adult to mature adult to retired adult.

Although it is not directly mentioned, money is a factor in our quality of life as well as our health.

The fact that we seek out education, athletic event, musical concerts, restaurants, vacations, movies, and the theater is an indication, at least indirectly, that we are seeking out more.  Trying to identify and understand the purpose of our quality of life.

For those who can accept their quality of life, they need nothing from the above paragraph...  they are in harmony with their surroundings and with their lives...  they are at peace, they are fulfilled, and they have exactly what they perceive that they need.

All the rest of us are nomads and travelers seeking what we don't have or seeking more of what we do have...  never satisfied, never fulfilled, never content with our quality of life even though we try to enjoy that which we have but do so unsuccessfully.

We mock those who appear content...  saying they are lazy and unmotivated and deserve what they have...  looking down on them as inferior and less intelligent.

Island

 

Bourbon Whiskey

There’s a ton of bourbon out there, folks. So many bottles line shelves that a trip to a liquor store can feel pretty overwhelming. Even pros like me struggle to navigate it and I taste a lot (and I mean a lot) of bourbons every week.

Today, to help you sort the corn from the husk, I’m blind tasting 45 bourbons released over the past 12 months to find the best bourbon EVER…among this bunch. (Sorry, that’s all any test or contest or tasting can try to pin down — the “best taste among the bottles sampled.”) But with so many bottles, this blind test needs structure. 

Here’s how things will go:There are 15 pours per round over three rounds with three categories: straight bourbons (anything average up to and including bottled in bond and wheat or four-grain bourbons), cask strength/barrel proof bourbons, and special cask finished bourbons.

• The top five from each round will move onto the “Finalist” round, creating a new 15-pour set to be tasted blind.
• From the finalists’ round, the top five will move onto the “Championship” round for a final blind tasting.
• Then, I will crown a winner. Shouts to my mother, who poured all of these and kept track of everything.

For clarity’s sake, I did choose the 45 bottles but I did not know which bottles moved forward besides their number in the blind tasting (though I had inklings of what was what after tasting some two or three times). A quick note before we dive in: I’m nosing and tasting through each dram in the first three rounds and going with what jumps out. 

If more than five pours do that, I’ll go back and eliminate pours until five are left by re-nosing and re-tasting (I will not be ranking these pours). In the “finalist” round, I’ll proceed in the same fashion until I’ve whittled it down to a final five (I will not be ranking these pours, either). Finally, in the last round, I’ll be working by a process of elimination by nosing and tasting over and over until a winner is picked. In that elimination run, I’ll rank the bottles.

TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons

 

Sea Corals An Anti-Cancer Compound

 

Researchers find that sea corals are a source of a sought-after “anti-cancer” compound

The ocean floor is riddled with mysteries, but scientists have just discovered one of its best-kept secrets. For the last 25 years, researchers have been looking for the source of a natural chemical that has shown promise in preliminary studies for treating cancer. Now, researchers at the University of Utah Health report that easy-to-find soft corals—flexible corals that resemble underwater plants—make the elusive compound.

After determining the source, the researchers went on to discover the animal’s DNA code for synthesizing the chemical. They were able to carry out the initial stages of re-creating the soft coral chemical in the laboratory by following those directions.

“This is the first time we have been able to do this with any drug lead on Earth,” says Eric Schmidt, Ph.D., professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Utah Health. He led the study with Paul Scesa, Ph.D., postdoctoral scientist and first author, and Zhenjian Lin, Ph.D., assistant research professor.

The breakthrough opens the door to generating the compound in big enough quantities for rigorous testing, which could one day result in a new cancer-fighting tool.  READ MORE...

Car Crunching

 

Head of Hercules

An archaeologist assesses the possible Hercules head. (photo by Nikos Giannoulakis, 

courtesy the Return to Antikythera Project)

On Monday, marine archaeologists and researchers at the site of the famed Antikythera shipwreck announced the discovery of a number of ancient artifacts recovered from the seafloor. These included a colossal marble head of a statue, a marble plinth for a statue along with remaining portions of its lower legs, nails, a lead collar for an anchor, and two human teeth. The findings reveal that there are many archaeological treasures yet to be discovered off the coast of Greece — and at dozens of other underwater sites across the Mediterranean.

Especially noteworthy among the artifacts is the massive marble head, not the bust of just any mythological hero but likely that of the headless statue of Hercules housed at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, also made of Parian marble.

The new excavations are part of a multi-year (2021–2025) project led by the Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece, the Ephorate of Antiquities of Euboea, and the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities under the direction of Angeliki Simosi and Lorenz Baumer. The site of the Antikythera wreck is off the coast of the eponymous island, which sits between the Peloponnese of mainland Greece and the island of Crete and in antiquity was often referred to as Aigila.

Dating to around 60 BCE (roughly the same time Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus created the First Triumvirate in Rome), the Antikythera wreck is perhaps the most famous Mediterranean shipwreck known today. This is due in large part to the discovery of a Hellenistic-era astronomical machine known as the Antikythera Mechanism, often referred to as the world’s first analog computer in terms of its use of numerous bronze gears to track the Sun, Moon, Zodiac, and many other astronomical and astrological features.  READ MORE...

Curious Fish

 

Muscle Girl

 

Billionaires and Their Private Jets

HAILEY, Idaho — Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, flies in a Gulfstream G650. So do Jeff Bezos and Dan Schulman, PayPal’s chief executive. The jets, roughly 470 of which are in operation, retail for about $75 million each.

Most days, those planes are spread out, ferrying captains of industry to meetings around the globe. But for one week in July, some of them converge on a single 100-foot-wide asphalt runway beside the jagged hills of Idaho’s Wood River Valley.

The occasion is the annual Sun Valley conference, a shoulder-rubbing bonanza organized by the secretive investment bank Allen & Company. Known as “summer camp for billionaires,” the conference kicks off this year on Tuesday, and it draws industry titans and their families — some of whom are watched over by local babysitters bound by nondisclosure agreements. In between organized hikes and fly-fishing at past gatherings, there have been sessions on creativity, climate change and immigration reform.

For decades at these secluded gatherings, chief executives and board chairmen have made deals that have shaped the TV we watch, the news we consume and the products we buy. It is where, near the ninth hole of the golf course, the head of General Electric expressed interest in selling NBC to Comcast. It is where Mr. Bezos met with the owner of The Washington Post before agreeing to buy the paper, and where Disney pursued a plan to purchase ABC — with Warren Buffett at the center of the discussions.

It is also the biggest week of the year for Chris Pomeroy, the director of Friedman Memorial Airport and the man responsible for making sure all the moguls come and go smoothly.

In the months before the conference starts, Mr. Pomeroy prepares to play a high-stakes, three-dimensionsional game of Tetris with multimillion-dollar private jets as attendees travel to Sun Valley, a resort town with a year-round population of 1,800.

During a 24-hour period last year as the conference began, more than 300 flights passed through Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey, a small town near Sun Valley, according to data from Flightradar24, an industry data firm. They ranged from tiny propeller planes to long-wing commercial jets. By comparison, two weeks ago, when Mr. Pomeroy gave me a brief tour of the airport, just 44 flights took off or landed there over 24 hours, according to the data firm.  READ MORE...

Babbling Brook

 

Alcohol in Your Body

The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention says two-thirds of adults in 2018 drank alcohol. How much obviously varies, but no one wants to end the day with a DUI because they mistakenly believed they were sober when that was not the case.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), an abundance of factors contributes to how long alcohol stays in your system. Misunderstanding these factors makes it difficult to tell whether you’re legally safe to be behind the wheel and can lead to tragic consequences.

How long does alcohol stay in your system?

Healthline.com says how long alcohol stays in your system is dependent upon age, weight, whether you’ve eaten food recently, medications, liver disease and the time between drinks. One cup of beer may stay in one person’s system longer than it will for someone else with a different weight.

The ability to metabolize alcohol slows as you age, health.clevelandclinic.org says. Alcohol will have heightened effects on those with lower weights and smaller body sizes. If you’re drinking on an empty stomach, then the effects of alcohol may be enhanced. Different medications can have dangerous side effects when paired with alcohol. Any present liver conditions can harm your ability to handle alcohol and process it. Binge drinking in a short period will also increase the effects of alcohol, all according to health.clevelandclinic.org and healthline.com.

A shot of liquor is estimated to metabolize in an hour, a pint of beer in two, a glass of wine in three, and several drinks could take multiple hours, according to healthline.com.

The NIAAA estimates that one drink would be metabolized and out of your system after three hours, two drinks after slightly over four hours, three drinks by six hours and four drinks by seven. The NIAAA goes on to state that this is, again, dependent on the factors above.

As for driving, healthline.com advises: "The safest thing you can do is not get behind the wheel after you’ve been drinking."  READ MORE...

Acrobats

 

How Emotionally Intelligent People Rewire their Minds

Emily's a passionate entrepreneur who's doing a lot of things right. But she's also a workaholic.

Emily has every intention of closing shop on Friday and spending the weekend with her family. But a potential client asked for a meeting this Saturday, and she couldn't say no. Sunday won't be a day off either, since she's trying to meet a deadline on a major project.

A similar scene repeats itself week after week, month after month.

Emily's always exhausted. She knows overwork causes here to get irritated easily. And she feels terrible every time she misses her son's soccer games.

Still, she can't unplug from her business. She finds it impossible to say no. No matter how hard she tries, she can't seem to break that bad habit.

Whether or not you face a similar situation, you can likely relate to Emily's struggle. You might feel like you're a victim of your brain's emotional programming, and there's nothing you can do to change it.

But is that true?

If you feel like Emily, you might benefit from a technique I learned from a psychologist some years ago. It's based on principles of emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage your emotions.

I like to call it the rule of rewiring.

What is the rule of rewiring, and how can it help you rewire your brain and exchange bad habits for better ones?

Before we answer that question, let's learn a little about how habits work.

Change the way you think--using neuroscience
It's a common misconception that the adult brain is static or otherwise fixed in form and function. But as scientists have discovered in recent years, the brain has a remarkable property called neuroplasticity.

This plasticity means that you have some amount of control over your brain's programming. Through a combination of concentrated thoughts and purposeful actions, you can rewire your brain and exert greater control over your emotional reactions and tendencies.  READ MORE...

Racers

 

Intrusion of Robots and Artificial Inelligence

 Only 39% of Americans are PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN...

Why?

Americans have problems but this country is still the best country in the world to live...

Why?

• We have freedom of speech
• We have religious freedom
• We have economic freedom
• We have educational freedom
• We have employment freedom
• We have purchasing freedom
• We have travel freedom

Problems:

1. Wealthy Control issues
2. Racism
3. Crime & Violence
4. A Divided Country Politically
5. Inflation & possible recession
6. Government intrusion into our lives
7. A faltering economy
8. A weakened military

Why?

There is a perfect revolution in the USA between Liberals and Conservatives as our population is divided perfectly 50/50... This division will continue until one side gains substantial control over the other.

As more and more people immigrate to the USA from Central and South America, there is a strong belief that a majority of these people are not just very religious. Still, they bring strong work values that will favor the conservative side of the equation.

But, there is an even greater problem looming over Americans that will be revealed over the next 5 years and that is the huge intrusion of technology into our society and personal lives and that is the growth of robots with artificial intelligence...

Robots with AI will replace jobs...  this replacement will be gradual but also will gradually intensify...  and, there will be layoffs with no chance of returning... so, workers will need retraining to pursue new opportunities.

These jobs will be replaced by 2030:

                1. Customer service executives
                2. Bookkeeping and data entry
                3. Receptionists
                4. Proofreading
                5. Manufacturing and pharmaceutical work
                6. Retail services
                7. Courier services
                8. Doctors
                9. Soldiers
                10. Taxi and bus drivers
                11. Market research analysts
                12. Security guards

Source:  Saviom.com

Survivng 2022

Once a month, I have an infusion of a substance referred to in the medical community as IVIG...  it is supposed to boost my immune system and assist my body with eliminating my anemia that has resulted from over 12 years of chemo treatments.

Unfortunately, every month I forget that prior to my IVIG infusion I am given a steroid which typically prevents me from sleeping unless I take 2 Benedryl...  and each month I forget to take these pills, so at midnight I am up waiting for the two pills I just took to kick in.

This week I had to fill up the Venza with gasoline and the bill was $60 which is twice what I was paying at the time Biden was elected to the Presidency...  I blame him and he assumes no blame as he points the finger in all sorts of other directions...  a typical politician.

While it may not seem like much, I now drive the speed limit which saves gas and when accelerating from a dead stop, I do so gradually to save gasoline as well.  

Sounds silly?

Maybe so...  but over a 12-month period of time, I am saving hundreds of dollars.

Food prices have increased as well, especially red meats...  some have doubled in price while others have more than doubled in price...  so, I now I substitute other food items for meat like:  fish, chicken, turkey, and beans... 

And, as far as beans are concerned, it is cheaper to buy dried beans rather than can beans...

I also have an outside garden where I grow: cucumbers, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes...  

I built myself a planter using 2X6 lumber to create a 3-foot by 3-foot frame...  laid it on the ground and filled it with planting soil.  Each food item has its own frame and will yield enough food to eat all summer, including having the ability to freeze several bags.

Again, it ain't much but it also might save a couple hundred bucks each year.

I am sure that there are many other ways to save money  like:

• taking stay-at-home vacations
• going to local parks and lakes
• not going out to a restaurant for meals
• not buying all the clothes you thought you needed
• substituting less expensive items for expensive ones

If you are clever, you can enjoy life around you just as before, with higher prices, by making a few changes and choices...

It also may be a good time to quit smoking...  and, with that said, it might be a good idea not to drink so much alcohol...  especially this FOURTH OF JULY.

Increasing one's debt is not that smart either as our economy is heading for a recession and many will be out of work...   Plus, on the near horizon, many labor-intensive jobs will be replaced by robots.

Also, the Democrats are pushing for the end of gasoline vehicles...  so, there is a good possibility that you will be purchasing an electric vehicle soon...  and, that is debt that you will have to create.

DON'T WORK HARDER...  

WORK SMARTER...

Facts About PRISON BREAK