There... There.... No need to worry....

 

The other day I watched President Biden get all huffy about the current trend of discovering Top Secret documents appearing in dribs and drabs all over the place, and he said that there was no “there there”.  Now I usually consider myself to be sort of "up on" current phrases, but I was clueless.  Then, to my growing annoyance,  almost immediately newscasters on every channel were “there thereing” all over the place and my head was swimming.

"There... There...". Here I thought  "There... There..." was something people said when patting the head of a crying child – you know – trying to comfort them.  Sometimes the phrase was extended a bit as in – “There..., There..., now”.   No – I googled it .  "There There" is  idiomatic.  It means there is nothing there.  Duh.  Who knew?  As far as I am concerned though…  President Biden’s use of this phrase ranks right up there with his “No Joke!”, whisper…whisper… and his cringe worthy “C'mon man” – all of which I think are sort of pitiful really. I wish he would stop trying to be so cool. It doesn't wear well on a man of his age and position. A President is not a "regular guy"... a Joe cool.

I guess the translation is that we should not be concerned that he and a whole bunch of people illegally have and have had Top Secret documents. All of a sudden lawyers and these docs are rising from the muck all over the place. There There now – no need to worry.  There is no there there. President Biden has spoken.  Hmmm.. That does not inspire confidence.

Personally, I have had enough of all of it. Truth will out...

Wait! What?

 

For some time now I have felt, off and on, like the world is upside down or – perhaps spinning so fast that I feel like I have to hang on, but I can’t find any handles - sort of like slipping in the shower and flailing about until you find something solid to lean against ... or ... fall on. In an attempt to find some balance, I make every effort to be positive in spite of what I sometimes feel are looming crazies. 

Anyway ... I was all set to write a short piece entitled “Who Knew?” and began to look for "fun" new ideas.  This week's blog was going to be something light...  and then… drum roll… I ran across an article that changed the direction to something more like  “Oh, how is wish I had not seen this!” – not so light and fun and maybe a bit looming crazy.  It depends on how you feel about it, I guess. This post will be brief – because, for one thing, I can’t stand to write about it for very long.  I decided to write about it in an attempt to sort it all out in my head. It didn't work. I have postponed posting this blog more than once.

Here it is. Today I am going to share with you few tidbits about a process developed in Washington state in 2017 and launched as a environmentally friendly funeral option in 2020… an option that is now legal in six states.  This option is human composting.  Can you guess the states in which it is now legal?  Washington (2019), Colorado and Oregon (2021), California and Vermont (2022) and most recently… New York state (at the very end of December in 2022).

The details of the process are readily available online if you really want to know how this works. Basically, a human body undergoes a microbial transformation into "soil" in a month or two.  In an unfortunate photo posted on one site, the compost looks much like clumps of damp deer droppings. Once you see it, you can’t "unsee" it. Further -- and I am having a hard time with this next aspect of this process ... apparently one can also buy human compost online through various websites. Think about it -- that means that someone is selling it like bags of mulch. In fairness I should mention that it can also be donated to conservation landfills.

Now – I totally understand the concept of ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  I also understand that people are rightfully concerned about the environment.  I do not understand the use of human remains as compost. Am thinking that probably I never will. Maybe if it were called something else …. ??? ....  Nope ... that would not do it for me either.  

I promise I will never write about this again, and the writing process this time wasn't really much help in sorting it all out either. Guess this new process is simply not for me. It just doesn't feel right to me somehow.

Thoughts on Winter...

 

Inhabitants of Northwest Pennsylvania tend to think of winter as a normal part of it all.  We rarely shut down anything for snow- although ice is at times a bit of an issue. Only on rare occasions would we allow either to interfere with our plans. We move about our lives thankful that we do not have to deal with hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes or pineapple cyclones, but, I confess, we do snort laugh when TV weather people report 6 inches of the white stuff as paralyzing. We sympathize but ... that is a just past a mere dusting here. Actually we have a lot of different words to describe snow - probably because there is usually so much so often. We know it well. We make jokes about it and plod on.

When talking about snow, it is, in fairness, important to consider point of view. The headquarters for the National Weather Service is in Silver Springs, Maryland. The average snowfall there is about a foot spread out over an entire winter season. The headquarters for The Weather Channel is in Atlanta, Georgia. They had snow there on January 23, 1940. Both the NWS and the WC tend to foam and twitch at the mere thought of a couple of inches of snow and try to get people all wound up about it. Seriously what do they know about snow? They probably close schools in either of those places if there is one single snow flake in the air that melts before it hits the ground.  We laugh at them too … as they know basically nothing about "real" snow.  Talk to people in places like Buffalo, NY if you want to lean about real snow. Must mention at this point that my small town at times has the highest annual snowfall in the Commonwealth of PA – one year it was 115” above the national average.  Many years there is much more snow than that. Erie, Pa (about 35 miles away) had five feet in 36 hours a couple of years ago, and we still out snowed them that year. That was the year when Erie ran out of places to put the snow and people found themselves still digging out in April.  Seriously… (Well – that might be a slight exaggeration….)

Anyway -- we in Northwest Pennsylvania understand that not everyone is as used to dealing with snow as we are and – they don’t do it as well – lack of practice and proper equipment. We forget that there are people who do not know that studded snow tires or chains, long underwear, or boots with cleats even exist. I suppose we take a bit of pride in our knowledge of the ways of snow country and in the digging out of the "big coats" and trudging on. We always feel sorry for people who get dumped on who are not set up for it. Then again -- sometimes we make fun of people -- especially of snow birds… even though we know they do better in milder climes and are basically happy for them. (It’s okay to be wimpy. I get sick of mittens and boots too. By the way -- snow birds are people who escape the snow belt and head south for the warmth of sunshine ... aka wimps. I love them anyway.) My simple truth is that I hate hot weather.  I can always get warmer, but cannot always find a way to get cooler. Plus – I detest light weight clothes.  I am at my best when I layer and… I love thick socks. I have a lot of them. I pad around in them on a daily basis. I sometimes sleep in them on cold nights.  I buy boots in a bigger size so that my feet will slip in no matter how thick my socks are.  It’s that simple really. I am a cold weather person. That is one reason why I live here on purpose.  That and I like the people here -- also winter people for the most part, and the rest have most admirable gumption.

Even though it has been feebly snowing for a few days now as I write this, winter doesn’t really seem to have settled in yet. It is past due. We have had a couple of good storms with a few feet of snow each, but nothing is lasting very long.  It is like a broken promise really.  Winter is taking its time – sort of galumphing in and tripping along the way. We haven’t even had more than a few hours of  the blinding, yet beautiful winter whiteness of light reflecting off the snow. My Grandson has only been snowboarding maybe a dozen times, and it’s already the 2^nd week of January.  We feel cheated somehow in a rather twisted way and ... we keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. We live off the Great lakes -- in the Snow Belt.  We are ready and waiting.

The days are already getting longer.  It stays daylight now until around 5 PM and is inching toward later. Kids are now waiting for early morning school buses only about 15 - 30 minutes before the sun is actually up. My Granddaughter is just now beginning to walk to school in daylight. Soon we will be anticipating those aching yellow-greens of spring. Now those are greens -- so vivid that they hurt your eyes.  They shimmer.  Not sure if you have to live here to know what I mean, or perhaps we just appreciate it more after months of white, gray, black and the muddy brown of in betweens.  Perhaps it takes a while for our eyes to adjust to color. We sometimes go days without it. We take photographs and they look like they were taken in black and white mode ... but were not. Dreary always begins with a capital D here.

Ah, snow country in Northwest Pennsylvania.  Did I tell you that it is also cold and windy here?  We are on a first name basis with the wild chill factor if that tells you anything, and we sometimes have the kind of winds that make windows rattle in a most impressive way. I wish I owned stock in ChapStick. NWPA Winter...  It's not for the faint of heart. Bring it on. Let the fun begin.

Let's call a spade a spade....

 

Words are powerful and knowing how to use them is a good thing. Obviously....  Personally, I love working with words and carefully select the ones I use because I want them to carry a certain feeling along with meaning.  Sometimes I make up words .. but when I do, I try to couch them within a certain context so that you will know what I mean. What I do not do is take it upon myself to assign new meanings to words that already exist and then expect you to know what I mean. I am not a word thug. I figure that my interest in the power of language is why I found the list of "offensive and harmful words to avoid" published by the Stanford University IT Department so “interesting”….  

Apparently this list generated so much controversy and offense that, in a seemingly desperate attempt to curb some of the backlash, Stanford University almost immediately did a major “walk back” of their IT Department's  list of naughty words --   I take it that the University does not like to look stupid. Reports indicate that there was particularly critical reaction to the inclusion of the word "American" as harmful or offensive. Personally, I also had my concerns about their listing of the word "grandfather", among many others, as well as of the phrase "no can do" - a phrase which I have found to be handy in some situations. Anyway  -- it was impressive backtracking of the highest order. 

Needless to say, I wanted to take a closer look at what was causing all the kerfuffle, so I went online. One thing I found was that after the initial wave of mocking criticism,  Stanford University  “locked”  said list behind a password. But... apparently that was like “shutting the barn door after the cows got out”.  I easily located the list, printed all thirteen pages on my best white paper, and set about reading with yellow magic marker in hand.  I was on a mission.  I immediately discovered that the Stanford University IT Department takes itself very seriously. I suspect also that it doesn't have much of a sense of humor. Sad, really. Case in point -- the list even has the following printed on the first page (in impressive bold type screaming out to potential readers):  Content Warning: “This website contains language that is offensive or harmful. Please engage with this website at your own risk.”   hmmm...  I decided to risk it. Sparing you many of the details, this is what I determined:

Apparently the Stanford University IT Department is “into” replacing common words and simple phrases with several awkward and complicated ones. And quite frankly, it appears to be partial to taking offense easily.  Further, it definitely has an issue with words that are related to balls and to colors.  Important to note that I do understand that some words carry baggage, but there is a point of taking things to a ridiculous level.  I have used several of its “naughty” words in these paragraphs. I even used a few that I figure it would have included if the people working on this had thought of them. Can you find them? No offense intended. 

If I may offer a polite and gentle suggestion to those members of the Stanford University IT Department....  Not to totally demean your "multi-phase", "multi-year" effort, just concerned .... Take a walk, breathe in some fresh air, relax a bit, smile once in a while, tell jokes, laugh, eat some chocolate, and perhaps most of all – see if you can find some common sense.  It might even be helpful to consider the fine olde adage that “… silence is golden”  or  “Look before you leap”.  Words are important, but sometimes it is better to say nothing. (I wonder who paid for this "multi-phase", "multi-year" project?) BTW -- the origin of the phrase used as a title for this post is ancient Greece. The word spade refers to a garden tool. So, like I said... relax.

I am seeing signs that the world is getting sick of “woke” in their tendency to humorlessly beat a dead horse with their constant drivel... always looking for a righteous cause. (Not surprising to me  -- I did not see the word "woke" on the naughty list. To me that is a word that has earned its way into the offensive or harmful rank...very naughty.  I would put it in the categories of condescending, controlling, elitist, racist, narrow minded, intolerant, and anti free speech.)  I think it is time for common folk, who like to think of themselves as normal people, to circle the wagons, refuse to submit, and to take a stand against stupidity. Just sayin’. Anyone with me on this?

(Note:  The words listed in Labels below this post all appear on the naughty word list of the Stanford University IT Department -- just in case you were curious about that.)