Bad Year Christmas

 

So you’ve had a crappy year and now is the season of cheer. It is time to buy presents to wrap and hand out to others to show them your appreciation and warm feelings.

Laid off and your unemployment checks have stopped? There is an eviction notice on the door? Your wife is eating Doritos while staring at the wall where the television used to be. Since the food stamps stopped been looking at the dog differently. Sold the kid’s laptops to pay for the electricity that just got turned off. The bong has a hole in it. Gone from craft beer to Rolling Rock. Picking up cardboard from behind the grocery while it is still dry. Dipping into the red kettle while the bell ringer isn’t looking.

This is a perfect time to have a shitty Christmas.

You may have enjoyed all the relatives coming over, sleeping on your couch, drinking all the good liquor, dirtying up the bathroom, eating you out of house and home and expecting some fancy thoughtful expensive gift before leaving you to clean up after them…Or maybe not.

This year is the best excuse to express yourself the way you always wanted to.

Here are some ideas:

Get a small Mason jar and pee in it. Put some food coloring in and wrap it with a big bow. Tell Frank, that alcoholic sot uncle of yours, that this is the perfect addition to his favorite drink mixture. Just pour it in the eggnog, fill up a glass and throw it back like a shot.

Tell you kids they have to walk the dog before Santa gets here. While the sheriff is putting the lock on the door, climb out a window and walk away. Maybe the kids will realize they were naughty after all?

Cook some brownies with Ex-lax and share with everyone. Remember there was no toilet paper at the store.

Take a pile of dog excrement and mold it into the form of a cup. Glaze it and write on it “To The Best Mom Ever”. Tell her the kids made it at school.

Use your imagination.

That and enough Mad Dog 20/20 will give you lots of ideas for gifts you always wanted to give.

Make 2020 a Christmas to remember.

What's Cooking?

 

Here is another piece of history. Some of you may know it.

 

Joy of Cooking, often known as “The Joy of Cooking”, is one of the United States’ most-published cookbooks. It has been in print continuously since 1936 and has sold more than 18 million copies. Irma S. Rombauer (1877–1962), a homemaker in St. Louis, Missouri published privately during 1931.

 

Born to German immigrants in 1877, Irma Starkloff was born and grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. She married Edgar Rombauer, a lawyer, during 1899. Edgar committed suicide after a severe bout of depression during 1930, widowing Irma at age 52, and leaving her with $6,000 in life savings.

 

Rombauer’s children, Marion Rombauer Becker and Edgar Roderick (“Put”) Rombauer, Jr., encouraged her to compile her recipes and thoughts on cooking to help her cope with her loss. Rombauer spent much of the summer of 1930 in Michigan, creating the first drafts that would later become ‘Joy of Cooking’.

With the help of her late husband’s secretary, Mazie Whyte, Rombauer began writing and editing recipes and commentaries while searching for more recipes in St. Louis.

During the autumn of 1930, Rombauer went to the A.C. Clayton Printing Company, a printer for the St. Louis shoe manufacturers. The A.C. Clayton was a company that had printed labels for fancy St. Louis shoe companies and for Listerine mouthwash, but never a book.

She paid them $3,000 to print 3,000 copies of ‘The Joy of Cooking: A Compilation of Reliable Recipes with a Casual Culinary Chat’ in November 1931.

 

Before all the cooking shows, there were cookbooks. Before that were verbal recipes handed down from grandmothers to mothers to daughters. The women would gather over a hot stove to watch and learn how to cook.

As women married, they started to customize the techniques and ingredients for new taste. Kitchens got new appliances making the preparation of a meal an art.

Someone else always prepared food for me.

My mother wasn’t much of a cook. Neither was my first wife, but my second wife got the bug.  The cooking shows on PBS Saturday afternoons presented different cooking styles and national heritages.

And each show had a cookbook, many more than one.

Barnes & Noble became a routine venture to stock up on the latest editions. Specialty shops gave custom cooking classes and offered all the utensils and appliances to prepare 5-Star culinary delights. Cookbooks lined the selves to reference everything from Oriental stir-fry to Tex-Mex grilling.

 

After the chef passed on, I boxed hundreds of cookbooks (some barely opened and others covered in cooking history) and donated them.

All but one.

The “Joy of Cooking” I think was my mother’s. If she ever used it was to refer to times of how long to bake in an oven before the smoke starts. Still it is a hand-me-down heirloom.

For years it has been gathering dust on top of the refrigerator. If I needed help in boiling water, I’d reference the Internet rather than the “Joy of Cooking”.

Today it was donated to the local free library on the corner. Someone else can now enjoy the history or become exposed to the basics.

 

I’ll eat as long as someone else cooks.

Nekkid Truth

 

We all start out buck-nekkid. The first thing the big people do is to wrap our little greasy body in a blue or pink blanket, depending on our plumbing.

From there on we become slaves to the fashion industry. The churches preach against showing your body as a temptation to sin and there are laws prohibiting showing certain parts of you body.

I’ll not get into the morality of hiding your body or the naturalist view of freedom. In the winter we layer piles of clothing on to keep us warm and in the summer we strip down to the skimpiest outfits we can get away with.

 Hands, ears, knees, feet, noses, even tummies are acceptable to be seen so what is the hold up for going nekkid?

Breast! Particularly women’s breast! Keep those puppies covered up. Put them in a slingshot and squeeze them together.

There are calendars and magazines that would show a glimpse of mammalian protrusions in secret. Low cut dresses show as much cleavage as a respectable society could handle. Tight sweaters accentuated the size and shape of the breast and it was acceptable.

The problem wasn’t the sack that feeds the baby, but the nipple. Strippers could shake their ya-ya’s as long as they wear tassels to cover that pesky nipple.

Now the guys have nipples too (God’s little mistake) and no one seems to mind seeing their bare chest at the beach. The bikini flirts the law while showing the boob. Wet t-shirt contest, leaving very little to the imagination, are somehow legal because the thin cotton undergarment is considered a covering.

Beyond that inconsistency, the real problem is down there.

The genitals.

Mister penis and Miss vagina are the deep dark secret hidden away until the most private intimate moment to reveal the truth.

If you attend a movie or better yet, go to a museum where everything can be seen. Artistic rendering is not reality, but you get the idea.

My premise is we get over hiding our dirty little secrets. What we got is the same as our toes, ears and butt (as written about previously). Why wait for your honeymoon to be surprised or disappointed?

It has been a long time dating, but the quest is still the same. You check over the other person and imagine what is beneath the latest fashion. Double-check bending over, crossing legs and the sashay to the powder room.

Why not whip it out when you meet? This is what I got and this is what you got. No questions asked. Everything is up front. Cover them up and continue if you think it is worth it.

This still doesn’t guarantee what each can do together, but there is no question of the possibilities.  

Does it spoil the mystery?

Not saying expose your dingle dangle or pussy or hot rod or cunt (or whatever terminality you wish to name your wee-wee) walking down the street for you will be arrested. It will take hundred of years to get over our inherited modesty.

 

Eating alone

 

Thanksgiving is not the same this year. There are no family gatherings to sit around the table and eat a stuffed bird. There is no rushing to the store after leaving work to get the final ingredients for the pumpkin pie. There is no fighting over who gets the larger frozen carcass or how many cases of booze will be needed to keep the crowd hydrated.

Thanksgiving is the day known for cooking. All the smells and pots and pans and laughter in the kitchen are Thanksgiving. All that grub can still be prepared and placed on the table with all the fine china but there is just seating for one. You can FaceTime or Zoom with others in far away locations but they can’t pass the yams. No one else will wash the dishes.

Maybe this time of quarantines and isolation has taught us how to care for ourselves? Maybe we can start appreciating what we have and what is meaningful except to gorge on the third Thursday of November?

For years, I’ve tried to carry on the tradition of Turkey Day just to have the flavors of the day. The turkey got smaller, the cranberry sauce came out of a can and the potatoes were pre-made. The oven was never touched because every course was microwave.

This year even the Tummy Temple was calm. No long social distant lines. No fights over cornstarch. All the shelves seemed well stocked. The thrill of the day is gone.

Not being a chef or even a cook, this year was turkey slices with Swiss cheese on flax bread with mayo. Served on a paper towel. No muss. No fuss.

Since it was such a beautiful day, my project was to get rid of a grill that has been sitting alone for years. Rather than just tossing it, I gave it a last hurrah. The bag of charcoal I’ve been stepping over for years was lit and I stood watching the smoke fill until there was a flame. Dusting off the aluminum foil to wrap around potatoes, onions, corn and mushrooms. After a couple of hours, I removed all the silver cocooned items. As the briquettes turned to white dust I tossed on four hamburger patties. The smoke billowed around the neighborhood smelling like the Fourth of July.

To share the Thanksgiving feast, the yard family got a treat of walnuts and pecans. They were at first quizzical about the new nuts, but they figured it out and at the end of the day, the yard was empty.

The refrigerator is stuffed. The yard babies are stuffed. My tummy is stuffed.

And there are no dishes to wash.

Gleaning

 

Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. It is a practice described in the Hebrew Bible that became a legally enforced entitlement of the poor in a number of Christian kingdoms.

 

Tzedakah is a Hebrew word meaning “righteousness”, but commonly used to signify charity. This concept of “charity” differs from the modern Western understanding of “charity.” The latter is typically understood as a spontaneous act of goodwill and a marker of generosity; tzedakah is an ethical obligation.

Tzedakah refers to the religious obligation to do what is right and just, which Judaism emphasizes as an important part of living a spiritual life. Unlike voluntary philanthropy, tzedakah is seen as a religious obligation that must be performed regardless of one’s financial standing, and so is mandatory even for those of limited financial means. Tzedakah is considered to be one of the three main acts that can positively influence an unfavorable heavenly decree.

The word tzedakah is related to the Hebrew word Tzadik, meaning righteous as an adjective (or righteous individual as a noun in the form of a substantive). Although the word appears 157 times in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible, typically in relation to “righteousness” per se, its use as a term for “charity” in the above sense is an adaptation of Rabbinic Judaism in Talmudic times.

In the Middle Ages, Maimonides conceived of an eight-level hierarchy of tzedakah, where the highest form is to give a gift, loan, or partnership that will result in the recipient becoming self-sufficient instead of living upon others. In his view, the second highest form of tzedakah is to give donations anonymously to unknown recipients.

 

 

Dumpster diving (also totting, skipping, skip diving or skip salvage,) is salvaging from large commercial, residential, industrial and construction containers for unused items discarded by their owners, but deemed useful to the picker. It is not confined to dumpsters and skips specifically, and may cover standard household waste containers, curbsides, landfills or small dumps.

Different terms are used to refer to different forms of this activity. For picking materials from the curbside trash collection, expressions such as curb shopping, trash picking or street scavenging are sometimes used. When seeking primarily metal to be recycled, one is scrapping. When picking the leftover food from farming left in the fields one is gleaning.

People dumpster dive for items such as clothing, furniture, food, and similar items in good working condition. Some people do this out of necessity due to poverty, while others do so professionally and systematically for profit.

 

 

Food rescue, also called food recovery or food salvage, is the practice of gleaning edible food that would otherwise go to waste from places such as restaurants, grocery stores, produce markets, or dining facilities and distributing it to local emergency food programs.

The recovered food is edible, but often not sellable. Products that are at or past their “sell by” dates or are imperfect in any way such as a bruised apple or day-old bread can be donated by grocery stores, food vendors, restaurants, and farmers markets. Other times, the food is unblemished, but restaurants may have made or ordered too much or may have good pieces of food (such as scraps of fish or meat) that are byproducts of the process of preparing foods to cook and serve. Also, food manufacturers may donate products that marginally fail quality control, or that have become short-dated.

Organizations that encourage food recovery, food rescue, sharing, gleaning and similar waste-avoidance schemes come under the umbrella of food banks, food pantries or soup kitchens.

 

 

Freeganism is an ideology of limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources, particularly through recovering wasted goods like food. The word “freegan” is a portmanteau of “free” and “vegan”. While vegans avoid buying animal products as an act of protest against animal exploitation, freegans—at least in theory—avoid buying anything as an act of protest against the food system in general.

Freeganism is often presented as synonymous with “dumpster diving” for discarded food, although freegans are distinguished by their association with an anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideology and their engagement in a wider range of alternative living strategies, such as voluntary unemployment, squatting in abandoned buildings, and “guerrilla gardening” in unoccupied city parks.

 

 

Usufruct is a limited real right (or in rem right) found in civil law and mixed jurisdictions that unites the two property interests of usus and fructus:

* Usus (use) is the right to use or enjoy a thing possessed, directly and without altering it.

* Fructus (fruit, in a figurative sense) is the right to derive profit from a thing possessed: for instance, by selling crops, leasing immovable or annexed movables, taxing for entry, and so on.

A usufruct is either granted in severally or held in common ownership, as long as the property is not damaged or destroyed. The third civilian property interest is abusus (literally abuse), the right to alienate the thing possessed, either by consuming or destroying it (e.g., for profit), or by transferring it to someone else (e.g., sale, exchange, gift). Someone enjoying all three rights has full ownership.

Generally, a usufruct is a system in which a person or group of persons uses the real property (often land) of another. The “usufructuary” does not own the property, but does have an interest in it, which is sanctioned or contractually allowed by the owner. Two different systems of usufruct exist: perfect and imperfect.

In a perfect usufruct, the usufructuary is entitled the use of the property but cannot substantially change it. For example, an owner of a small business may become ill and grant the right of usufruct to an individual to run their business. The usufructuary thus has the right to operate the business and gain income from it, but does not have the right to, for example, tear down the business and replace it, or to sell it.

The imperfect usufruct system gives the usufructuary some ability to modify the property. For example, if a land owner grants a piece of land to a usufructuary for agricultural use, the usufructuary may have the right to not only grow crops on the land but also make improvements that would help in farming, say by building a barn.

However this can be disadvantageous to the usufructuary: if a usufructuary makes material improvements - such as a building, or fixtures attached to the building, or other fixed structures - to their usufruct, they do not own the improvements, and any money spent on those improvements would belong to the original owner at the end of the usufruct.

In many usufructuary property systems, such as the traditional ejido system in Mexico, individuals or groups may only acquire the usufruct of the property, not legal ownership. A usufruct is directly equitable to a common-law life estate except that a usufruct can be granted for a term shorter than the holder’s lifetime (cestui que vie).

 

A waste picker is a person who salvages reusable or recyclable materials thrown away by others to sell or for personal consumption. There are millions of waste pickers worldwide, predominantly in developing countries, but increasingly in post-industrial countries as well.

Forms of waste picking have been practiced since antiquity, but modern traditions of waste picking took root during industrialization in the nineteenth century. Over the past half-century, waste picking has expanded vastly in the developing world due to urbanization, toxic colonialism and the global waste trade. Many cities only provide solid waste collection.

 

To be wealthy means that you have achieved “a great quantity of money and/or possessions.” Wealth is an end state.

Abundance, on the other hand, is an energy you step into. Webster defines abundance as “generating an ample quantity.” The key word being ample, which means generously sufficient.

 

Tis’ the season for thanksgiving and sharing and giving, but this is a different sort of year. This is the time of year where we show our best side.

Instead of the red bucket or mailing that check before you log into Amazon, take a look around. Can you still wear all those winter coats? How many sweaters do you need? If you are not hoping on a jet to the slopes, do you need those ski boots? Are your kids going to eat those yams just like they didn’t eat them last year? How many rolls of toilet paper do you need?

 

Maybe glean from your abundance to end a bad year and start the New Year off right?

Reference

 

I recently gave away this book. It has been growing dust on the shelf for years. It was purchased after my wife’s first heart attack.

It was a good reference book written in plan English with pictures. Like the Encyclopedia or Dictionary, it was a medical reference for solutions to aches and pains.

Like today’s Google Doctor or any other medical information you seek, there is no cure by reading the pages. You got to go to some professional in a white lab coat to get a shot.

I glanced through it when purchased and found the pictures disturbing and gross. I thought only folks in third world countries got stuff like this.

So while cleaning out some other stuff that was growing mold, I came across this printed doctor and perused the pages again.

Having been to the hospital this year, I checked the diagnosis I got against 10-year old edition. It was about the same, so I looked online and nothing had changed.

My medical theory has always been if it is bleeding, put a band-aid on it.

The reason for not keeping this informative book was age. At my age, there are few variations to what might be ailing now and fewer solutions.

Like scrolling through Netflix trying to find something to entertain you, the aged geezers could search for hours and hours trying to find the fountain of youth.

The other side of not keeping this valuable reference is finding what is wrong with me. Just like listening to Doctor Phil or any medical show, you start to feel like you too have what they are talking about. That pain in your foot might be gangrene rather than when you bumped into the door. Numbness? Bad back? Weird marks or bumps?

Keep reading and you will find something to match your self-diagnosis.

These are intended to be self-help books, but as soon as the ink dries they are out-of-date. Like so many other FIY programs, it looks easy until you try it. How do you take out your kidney?

The next person is more than welcome to play doctor when listening to their friend’s ailments.

A Funny Story

 

Haven’t talked much about the daily adventure to the Tummy Temple just because it has been just that. The few masked faces are searching for their colas and chips while trying to stay the safe distance from one another and get out of the contamination area.

Other than walking the distance from end to end for exercise dodging the poor nurses pushing the elderly as they choose their recipe ingredients to the poor fella who has to call home to read the label of the olive oil before selection, I stop at my regular locations and grab my regular items and put them in my regular cart and head over to the regular scan check-out line.

Without purchasing alcohol I don’t need a blue apron to use their magic card to scan me through the TSA. I still try to mumble some words to them through my cowboy outfit, and then I’m off.

It was a clear day, a bit chilly with a few gust of wind. I pulled up to my regular parking space (the stop sign at the Southside of the Tummy Temple), take off my gloves and helmet, lock to the pole my u-lock, grab my bag and pull up my mask and I’m ready to make a run for grub.

So as I left the door back into the fresh air, my pony (sometimes called a bicycle) was laying on the sidewalk. This happens in the fall and spring when there is a gust of wind over the parking lot and the bike topples. Normally a bike, that is just thin pipes and spoke wheels, wouldn’t catch the breeze, but I carry saddlebags that act like sails. Since the frame is locked up, it just slowly slides down to the sidewalk.

As I push my cart to a stop, a woman walks up and asks if that is my bike? She looks at the fallen pony as if it had died.

“Yes” I reply.

Then I defined the situation without a lengthy description.

“Sometimes he gets tired and lies down.”

She laughed and suggested I had the right attitude for she thought someone had knocked over the bike.

The morale of the story: I didn’t want her to stop and talk. I don’t know where that line came from but it seemed to work. No harm done.

As I packed my bags it bothered me that she immediately thought someone had meant to damage to my unprotected vehicle. It is just the way people view the world.

I rode home, enjoying the sunshine with my load of goodies for the forest family and forgot about the conversation.

Tomorrow will be another day.

What gifts will you buy?

 

It’s not too late to double-check your Christmas list. Since you won’t be going to the mall with your friends or window browsing for they are all boarded up, Google and Amazon have become your favorite websites.

Every retailer has super, special deals on everything in the store, but you can’t get in because of the virus. Add to cart and give your credit card number. It’s quick and easy.

Now wait.

You’ll get lots of ‘verification’ emails and phone calls in hopes that Santa will deliver to the right address before the big day. The anticipation adds to the stress of the day.

Now the algorithms have your likes, you’ll be seeing more ads from them. Consumerism 101.

All the news sites have the “Best of” or “Deals of the Season” to help promote their advertisers. As the season gets closer the prices keep falling. Do you buy now or wait until they are out of stock?

The list appears the same as last year. For the Black Friday bargain hunters there are home products, kitchen cookware, utensils and large and small appliances, audio gear, health and fitness gear (who are you kidding?), televisions (of course), laptops, tools and sporting goods, and mattresses. Don’t remember coming down the stairs to see that Santa had delivered a bed under the tree.

Don’t be buying toys. Retailers up the prices and the most popular run out early. Jewelry seems like a good purchase but it also shows the lack of innovation. The same is true for furs, perfume, and silky nighties. Might as well give an apron and a vacuum cleaner.

The kids are easy to buy for. They like whatever is being advertised as the ‘hot item’ and are swayed until the next one comes along. Remember Beanie Babies, Cabbage Patch dolls and Rubik’s cubes? Might as well settle on a Baby Yoda that will soon be a dog toy.

For the grand parents, the gift should show some care but be remindful of their age. A walker might be as inappropriate as running shoes. Something warm will always be used.

The parents are the most difficult to select. They never used the 8-track player you bought them. They are still fumbling with the remote on the 800-channel television you thought would be the bees knees, but it wasn’t. A goofy sweater will be worn that day with false appreciation and then put back in the closet with the golf clubs and out of fashion jackets. A trip overseas (during other times) may seem like a nice extravagant gift if they like to travel. A new car or a condo at an assisted living community might be worthy of your appreciation that they fed you for all those years or indicate you are ready to put them away.

For you partner, the choice might be simple as a gift card or as complicated as an engagement ring. All year long, every want and need has been purchased, so now what? At the end of the year, this gift should be extra special to show how much you care.

Each of you will have to decide. Good luck.

Which is worse? Finding something you want but don’t have the money to pay for it or having the money and not see anything worth buying?

How Are You Wasting Your Time?

 

It has been quite a year. Schedules and routines have all turned topsy-turvy and deadlines and punctuality demands have changed.

Time spent getting ready for work, getting the kids to school, commuting to the office, attending meetings, taking lunch breaks, getting home in time to make dinner, meeting the team or gang at the local watering hole before watching the nightly news and sleeping for eight hours.

Now working at home, all that time is FREE time.

Give the kids a bowl of cereal and log them on in headphones. No need to change your pajamas until you have a Zoom meeting. Make your coffee a bit stronger than you would have been able to in your cubicle and open your computer.

If you are selling, try to stay connected or the sales and revenue will be dropped. If you are buying, check your spreadsheet twice to make sure the formula numbers are correct. If you are coding, pay attention or crash the project and get a pink slip email.

The constant annoyance of the email flow is a distraction and if you have to hunt and peck to find the right key, you will be pushed further down in the response files and lost forever. Before you can reply and second and then third email will arrive asking where are you?

Don’t forget to open the social media windows to keep up to date with the nonsense that everyone is talking about. It is like working at the water cooler.

If you have to take a break or go to the loo, don’t forget to leave a note or otherwise you boss will want you to turn on your camera to monitor your actions.

Speaking of which, you should make a cozy spot in a corner with nice paintings and decorations on the wall to give a positive atmosphere of your lifestyle. The cat climbing the blinds, your dog dry heaving, the pile of dirty laundry on the floor and your kids running in wild abandon will never get you that raise.

If you discuss the movie you are streaming with another, use your private email instead of the companies. You can be observed as a slacker and disconnected.

There are no complaints about taking work home, because you are already there. No 9 to 5 anymore.

When your computer crashes or you have to take a break to walk the dog, you can catch up with your friend’s tweets. Nothing better than a 2” Tik Tok movie of you’re niece singing while you stumble down the street.

Wasting time is all the excitement you ever wanted.

Don’t forget to wear your mask.

eu·gen·ics

 

 

Would you like your baby to have blonde hair and blue eyes? Would you like to be taller? Would you like to run faster or jump higher? Would you like to look like those people in the magazines?

 

Eugenics is a movement that is aimed at improving the genetic composition of the human race. Historically, eugenicists advocated selective breeding to achieve these goals. Today we have technologies that make it possible to more directly alter the genetic composition of an individual.

It is a “given” in discussions of genetic engineering that no sensible person can be in favour of eugenics. The main reason for this presumption is that so much horror, misery, and mayhem have been carried out in the name of eugenics in the 20th century that no person with any moral sense could think otherwise.

Positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged; for example, the reproduction of the intelligent, the healthy, and the successful. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, in vitro fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning.

Recent advances in genetics and reproductive technology have opened the door to a new form of eugenics, termed “modern eugenics,” or “human genetic engineering,” that is focused on repairing faulty genes associated with disease or other health conditions.

Even though a state does not specifically authorize eugenic sterilization, it does not mean that such a procedure cannot be done legally. However, fewer and fewer eugenic sterilizations are being performed. Medical men more often than by judges make decisions relating to sterilization.

Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population, played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States during the Progressive Era, from the late 19th century until US involvement in World War II.

While ostensibly about improving genetic quality, it has been argued that eugenics was more about preserving the position of the dominant groups in the population. Scholarly research has determined that people who found themselves targets of the eugenics movement were those who were seen as unfit for society—the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, and specific communities of color—and a disproportionate number of those who fell victim to eugenicists' sterilization initiatives were women who identified as African American, Hispanic, or Native American.

As a result, the United States' Progressive-era eugenics movement is now generally associated with racist and nativist elements, as the movement was to some extent a reaction to demographic and population changes, as well as concerns over the economy and social well-being, rather than scientific genetics.

Among other things, eugenics called for restricting the reproduction of those deemed unfit. In practice, forced sterilization efforts largely targeted the least-powerful people: minority women, immigrants, the physically and mentally ill, and the poor.

One of the most notorious decisions of the Supreme Court was its 1927 decision in Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, in which Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes upheld the involuntary sterilization of a woman deemed “feeble-minded” with the chilling justification that “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” With only one dissent (Mr. Justice Butler), the Supreme Court rejected Carrie Bell’s arguments that this practice violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. (The Eighth Amendment protects U.S. citizens from “cruel and unusual punishment.” The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits a state from denying “any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.”) Although Buck v. Bell has never been overturned, state statutes such as the one upheld in Buck v. Bell have been repealed, and its reasoning has been undermined by a subsequent Supreme Court decision striking down a law providing for involuntary sterilization of criminals.

 

 

Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra), also called the CIA mind control program, is the code name given to a program of experiments on human subjects that were designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, some of which were illegal. Experiments on humans were intended to identify and develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations in order to weaken the individual and force confessions through mind control. The project was organized through the Office of Scientific Intelligence of the CIA and coordinated with the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories. Other code names for drug-related experiments were Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke.

The operation was officially sanctioned in 1953, reduced in scope in 1964 and further curtailed in 1967. It was officially halted in 1973. The program also engaged in illegal activities, including the use of U.S. and Canadian citizens as its unwitting test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its legitimacy. MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects’ mental states and brain functions. Techniques included the covert administration of high doses of psychoactive drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, electroshocks, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as other forms of torture.

The scope of Project MKUltra was broad, with research undertaken at more than 80 institutions, including colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies. The CIA operated using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA’s involvement.

Project MKUltra was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the Church Committee of the United States Congress and Gerald Ford's United States President’s Commission on CIA activities within the United States (also known as the Rockefeller Commission).

Investigative efforts were hampered by CIA Director Richard Helms’s order that all MKUltra files be destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the relatively small number of documents that survived Helms’s destruction order. In 1977, a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered a cache of 20,000 documents relating to project MKUltra that led to Senate hearings later that year. Some surviving information regarding MKUltra was declassified in July 2001. In December 2018, declassified documents included a letter to an unidentified doctor discussing work on six dogs made to run, turn and stop via remote control and brain implants.

 

 

 

CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bacteriophages that had previously infected the prokaryote. They are used to detect and destroy DNA from similar bacteriophages during subsequent infections. Hence these sequences play a key role in the antiviral (i.e. anti-phage) defense system of prokaryotes.

Diagram of the CRISPR prokaryotic antiviral defense mechanism

The CRISPR-Cas system is a prokaryotic immune system that confers resistance to foreign genetic elements such as those present within plasmids and phages and provides a form of acquired immunity. RNA harboring the spacer sequence helps Cas (CRISPR-associated) proteins recognize and cut foreign pathogenic DNA. Other RNA-guided Cas proteins cut foreign RNA. CRISPR are found in approximately 50% of sequenced bacterial genomes and nearly 90% of sequenced archaea.

These systems have created CRISPR gene editing that commonly utilizes the cas9 gene. This editing process has a wide variety of applications including basic biological research, development of biotechnology products, and treatment of diseases. The CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technique was a significant contributor to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2020 being awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna.

 

When you go to the doctor, how will you come out? What are they writing on your hospital chart? What happens after you are anesthetized? What is in that pill?

 

What is in your coffee?

 

eu·gen·ics

The study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Developed largely by Sir Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, eugenics was increasingly discredited as unscientific and racially biased during the 20th century, especially after the adoption of its doctrines by the Nazis in order to justify their treatment of Jews, disabled people, and other minority groups.

Season’s Traditions

 

From what I hear, every family has certain holiday traditions. Who carves the turkey? When do you put up the outdoor lights? When does the tree go up? Who makes the eggnog?

But this year is going to be different.

This year we are on uncharted ground with new holiday expectations.

Getting a big bird for the feast can be reduced to a pre-roasted chicken since family gatherings are forbidden. However much you decide to cook for Thanksgiving, you better have room in the refrigerator or plan on eating it all.

This might be a good time to start that diet you’ve been thinking of since all you’ve done for months is eat and watch the screen. Want another slice of pumpkin pie?

After you store enough food to last you the winter, it’s time for the Christmas lights.

Unfortunately, this weird year has taken all the joy out of the season. The motivation to get out and untangle and climb a ladder to make a tacky display just doesn’t seem worth it. Besides the only ones driving back to see them are the delivery drivers or trucks waving Trump flags.

Going out into the woods on a cold winter evening to kill a tree while your kids continue to complain that they can’t get Wi-Fi out here doesn’t have the thrill it used to. Even a store bought, shipped in a cardboard box to hang some tinsel on that the cat will tear off just doesn’t seem worth getting off the couch.

Without friends or family coming by, it hardly seems worth decorating with wreaths, garland, candles, nutcrackers, and nativity scenes, fancy dinner wear or cinnamon wassail to disguise the smell of the litter box. Even the goofy Christmas sweater can remain in storage because everyone has already seen it.

Mailing Christmas cards has turned into emoji emails and to see the family log onto a Zoom meeting. Try giving a hug to your new grandchild on FaceTime. Don’t have to worry about Uncle Harry loud snoring after dinner. Just turn down the volume.

Even on the ‘special day’ you can’t attend a church service. Christmas carol singing doesn’t sound very good with only two voices.

Opening the presents has become a chore because everyone already knows what you had delivered from the specials on Amazon. The verification emails kills the sense of adventure. Be sure to check the recipe to send back and question the gift that wasn’t under the tree delivered to Tina?

This maybe a good year for you to start some new season traditions?

Give a pint of blood while you are getting your Covid-19 test. Take some of that food you cook to the soup kitchen. Adopt a pet to show them the something other than a cage.

Happy Holidays

Science vs Religion

 

In times of searching for answers

Science (from the Latin word scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge by virtue of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

The earliest roots of science can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3500 to 3000 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age. The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived "natural philosophy", which was later transformed by the Scientific Revolution that began in the 16th century as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions. The scientific method soon played a greater role in knowledge creation and it was not until the 19th century that many of the institutional and professional features of science began to take shape; along with the changing of "natural philosophy" to "natural science."

Modern science is typically divided into three major branches that consist of the natural sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, and physics), which study nature in the broadest sense; the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology), which study individuals and societies; and the formal sciences (e.g., logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science), which study abstract concepts. There is disagreement, however, on whether the formal sciences actually constitute a science, as they do not rely on empirical evidence. Disciplines that use existing scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as engineering and medicine, are described as applied sciences.

Science is based on research, which is commonly conducted in academic and research institutions as well as in government agencies and companies. The practical impact of scientific research has led to the emergence of science policies that seek to influence the scientific enterprise by prioritizing the development of commercial products, armaments, health care, and environmental protection.

 

Science is founded on facts, but new discoveries and facts change.

 

 

Religion is a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, which relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements. However, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.

Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacred things, faith, a supernatural being or supernatural beings or "some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life". Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities and/or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture. Religions have sacred histories and narratives, which may be preserved in sacred scriptures, and symbols and holy places, that aim mostly to give a meaning to life. Religions may contain symbolic stories, which are sometimes said by followers to be true, that have the side purpose of explaining the origin of life, the universe, and other things. Traditionally, faith, in addition to reason, has been considered a source of religious beliefs.

There are an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide. About 84% of the world's population is affiliated with Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or some form of folk religion. The religiously unaffiliated demographic includes those who do not identify with any particular religion, atheists, and agnostics. While the religiously unaffiliated have grown globally, many of the religiously unaffiliated still have various religious beliefs.

The study of religion encompasses a wide variety of academic disciplines, including theology, comparative religion and social scientific studies. Theories of religion offer various explanations for the origins and workings of religion, including the ontological foundations of religious being and belief.

 

They both take faith.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

 

The news is out about a vaccine coming. This got everyone excited and out of the doldrums just in time for Turkey Day.

Not so fast, Pilgrim.

While there are confirmed two magic potions so far, they are both different; both require particular handling and have not been manufactured in the numbers to get to your local CVS. There has not been an agreed upon cost or if your insurance plan will cover it. Will your doctor have to prescribe the shots or will a local distribution center provide drive-by needles in the window? How long will that line be?

With only a few vials of this magic potion available to cure the plague, who gets it first?

Unless you are the President or know a guy who knows a guy, you will have to wait your turn.

First of all would be the ‘essential’ workers. Doctors and nurses who are the highest risk while they are caring for the sick and dying of the virus. That makes sense because if there were no doctors and nurses…? What about the ambulance drivers? What about the police and fire? What about those who clean the hallways for the gurneys? What about those who prepare the meals for the doctors and nurses and ambulance drivers and police and fire and those who clean the hallways for the gurneys? What about those who do the laundry for the doctors and nurses and…. well you get the picture.

These are all ‘essential’ due to the virus, but who else is ‘essential’?

Is the ole folks ‘essential’? They maybe the most vulnerable due to age and pre-existing conditions but should they get a shot before you do? Sorry grandma.

The guys who keep the grocery stores open seem pretty ‘essential’. They have to stock the shelves, slice the meat, cut the cheese, take you cash and bag your groceries while rubbing elbows with hundreds of strangers everyday. Not sure the number of people wandering the aisles and bumping carts on Thanksgiving will be under the governors gathering limit? No matter how many mask or gloves or plastic covering these folks wear they are enclosed with possibly contaminated strangers all breathing the same air. Still without these guys and gals dutifully checking your Cheetos, chips and bottles of wine, you’d starve. Besides, where else are you going to get toilet paper and paper towels to hoard?

What about the truck drivers? Without them there would be nothing for the grocers to stock. That makes them pretty ‘essential’. Those big rigs aren’t going to move without diesel and mechanics and warehouse workers and…

Are you starting to see a pattern?

What about the Armed Forces? All those folks who wear the same clothing and carry guys to protect our country from the enemy need shots too. They are ‘essential’.

And all those warriors in the foxholes need bullets and rockets. The folks who manufacture weapons of mass destruction are ‘essential’ for the armed forces to protect us from the enemy.

If your electricity goes off, who could be more ‘essential’ than the power guys? Without power your kids can learn and you can’t be entertained. You think you are bored now; sit in the dark awhile.

Is reality sinking in?

No matter how fast Drezel or Muldonic or Seziman Drinkal can put the magic potion in little bottles then deep freeze them and ship them to your town, you are in the back of the line.

I know you think you are ‘essential’ too. Why are you sitting at home in your week old sweats attending Zoom meetings and replying to emails then refreshing your streaming window because no one is looking over your shoulder if you are so ‘essential’. If you can’t tell a workday from a holiday you are either non-essential or retired.

Raise your pom-poms and cheer the miracle of modern science as others get shots and more shots and be careful and wash your hands until they call your number.

Your number will be up, one way or another.