Leggo My Wall!

I received this add in my Email the other day from a website known as keepandbear.com…perhaps you’ve heard of it? Apparently their newest “toy” has been removed from their website by what they call a “large overseas toy company with deep pockets and lawyers” (Could it be Lego?)

And they have been threatened with a “devastating lawsuit”  (could it be because their toy is a rip off of Lego?) and finally even Facebook terminated their advertising account! (is that because Lego has a copyright on its blocks?)

And of course it is all a leftist, liberal conspiracy (trying to keep the toy wall from being built since the real wall has been terminated?) and an attempt to prevent maga children everywhere from building a miniature wall of their own while fantasizing no doubt about keeping fiendish immigrants away from themselves.

But don’t despair because they have set up a temporary on-line store for you to find and where you can purchase the “Build the Wall” play-set. It’s on sale for 30 bucks ($29.95) if you act now! And don’t just buy 1 buy 2 or 3! It’s certain to become a collector’s item. (I have no doubt about that!) They even have a GoFundMe page!

There are 101 pieces! Looks like it comes with 1 black base, 1 miniature President Trump, and 99 gray pieces of wall! (No illegal aliens included…miniatures, that is) So hurry! While supplies last! (I included the link if you’d like to check it out for yourself) It looks like a great imaginative toy for the inquisitive child who “just wants to build a big gray wall” and nothing else…

https://magafun.com/product/pre-order-build-the-wall-maga-building-blocks-toy/

I also included this T-shirt that’s also on sale (they have lots of Tees for you to peruse) because it just seems so apropos of the Trump supporter. Heaven has strict immigration policies? And a wall? (where is that written?) So I can’t even sneak in? Damn it!

Why is it that I have no doubt that all Trump voters believe that they already have their ticket to Heaven punched because they voted for the man that they believe is the Second coming of Christ? (BTW I recently saw the Reverend Franklin Graham being interviewed on MSNBC and he stated that he had absolutely no knowledge of President Trump ever telling a lie!…I kid you not) Their Heaven just sounds too easy to me. How about you?

Who’s A Liberal?

I don’t know if I can stay on Facebook much longer. Originally for me it was a great way to stay in contact with friends and former students to find out what they were doing, how they were doing, sharing memories, remembering birthdays and giving a shout out once in a while too.

Now it’s a seemingly endless wasteland of dysfunction and hatred…not always of course and not for all people who are members there, but it is getting awfully hard to scroll through the posts without developing agita from the toxicity of many of the comments and memes posted there.

Especially if you’re a liberal. As a liberal I like to see and listen to what others are thinking and then I like to offer up a different idea or present what I know to be facts or sometimes challenge ideas and statements that are presented there. I try to be polite but I do admit to sometimes being a bit sarcastic and probably too much so for my own good on occasion.

But do so called “Conservatives” really have to post things like, “All Liberals want to do is kill babies!” or ask “Why do Liberals hate America?” or post memes like “Liberals and Luciferism! The same thing!” And must they always try to equate being a liberal with being stupid or ugly or anti-American? Who died and made Conservatives boss and what in the hell is Luciferism and why do they know about it and I’ve never heard of it???

Anyway, my point is, has someone who considers themselves a “conservative” ever once wondered where they’d be without Liberals?!

They certainly wouldn’t be in the United States of America now would they? What is more liberal than Liberty?! And the concept of freedom? Being able to do as you please? Come and go when you want to. Not having to bow down to the whims of a king or queen or religious zealot or dictator? The Tories were the conservatives who didn’t want change so what did that make the Patriots? Liberals!

The Statue of Liberty??? Is she a Liberal??? “Come and get it. Mama’s here!” Does that sound like a “Conservative” to you?

Would Conservatives even be Christians without Liberals? Christianity was a pretty liberal idea wasn’t it? Love thy neighbor? The Golden Rule? Forgiveness of sins? Sharing? If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about Conservatives it’s that they are not very big on forgiveness, unless there’s a punishment first,  nor sharing…which they consider evil socialism. And yet they always like to post about how people and the world need to be more Christian just like they, “conservatives”, are…

Jesus chastised the rich, suggested reform for the clergy, fed the poor, healed the sick, comforted the weary, lonely and down trodden… Did he ever present a bill? Talk about Obamacare? Conservatives would really hate JesusCare wouldn’t they?

I went to a very Conservative Christian wedding once. No singing, no dancing, no alcohol…just marrying. That’s fine with me if that’s what you like and everyone there was happy and polite and enjoying themselves (except me 😦 … but let’s face it…Liberals invented fun!

Did you ever have a Liberal tell you to stop having fun because you were annoying him or her or because it was unseemly or because you were just having too much of a damn good time or you were playing the wrong kind of music or were not dressed properly enough?

Here are the antonyms of fun according to Merriam-Webster: boring, drab, dreary, dull, flat, heavy, humdrum, jading, leaden, monotonous, pedestrian, pleasure-less, ponderous, stodgy, stuffy, tedious, tiresome, tiring, wearisome, wearying… you get the picture. Does it sound like a conservative you know? Who do you invite to a party if you want to enjoy yourself? A Liberal that’s who! If you want an earful about what’s wrong with everything and why it can’t be yesterday… then you invite a Conservative.

How about the Superbowl? Do you love to watch the Superbowl? Well, you can thank Liberals for that too! The old NFL wanted no part of the AFL and a combined championship and league until the AFL with their passing game and new offensive approach blew the NFL away in 2 consecutive championships! Now we are about to have Superbowl 53 (or LIII for you Conservatives) the greatest sports spectacle and moneymaker for Conservative fat cat owners in the history of sports!

Without Liberals there’d be no Tom Brady and certainly no Tom Anybody throwing for 505 passing yards in a single game or the 1,151 total yards of combined yardage we saw between last years Superbowl teams. There’d be no 3 point shot in basketball. No Jackie Robinson ever in baseball! No women’s sports! Would we even be watching sports today if “conservative” rules hadn’t been liberalized?

And how about fire? Do you like light and warmth? If it were up to Conservatives we’d still be hanging out in the cave waiting for lightning to strike somewhere so we could have heat and warmth the way the Almighty intended us to.  Without a Liberal around to declare that we could take two rocks and smack them together whenever we wanted fire or what some conservative probably once proclaimed  to be “satanic sunshine”  where would we be today??? We’d be walking around saying things like, “don’t drop that ember you idiot, it’s all the creator left us to keep ourselves warm!” and/or Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.

And how about creation itself? Are you a fan of that? In the beginning there was dark and void and nothingness and what did the Creator say? Let there be light! And He said that before anyone had ever seen anything before including himself? (Herself? I am a liberal you know! Whereas a conservative would say: Ha! No way God could have been a woman) Light? What a Liberal idea? Change? Exploration? Difference? A Conservative God would have said “Turn off the light! You’re wasting electricity! Where’s my glasses?!”

And then God goes on to create the heavens and the Earth and all living creatures with such great care and intelligent design and then he adds us and watches for 6 millennia (conservative math)  as we humans set about to destroy, defile, pollute, dig up and use just about everything he’s created…and he doesn’t even stop us! Why? Free will!!!! He gave us Free Will… and we can settle up with him later?!!!!!

Talk about being a Liberal!?… Thank God! So if you “conservatives” out there want to rule the world all by yourself, just remember it will be a cold, dark and lonely place without any liberals around to keep you moving in the… “left”… direction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing Really Matters. Anyone Can See…

This man is United States Commerce Secretary, Mr. Wilbur Ross.

“The United States Department of Commerce is the Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. … This organization’s main purpose is to create jobs, promote economic growth, encourage sustainable development and improve standards of living for all Americans.”

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said recently that he doesn’t “understand” why federal workers who haven’t been paid in weeks are going to food banks during the ongoing shutdown and that he doesn’t see why thousands of unpaid federal workers have been relying on food banks when they could just take out loans from, you know, money banks.

Now Mr. Ross has a net worth of about $700 million dollars so he should know a lot about having money but probably doesn’t know a lot about how easy it is, or hard, to go to your local bank and take out a loan, when say, you only make 15 dollars an hour…and are quite probably 699, 999, 000 dollars short of 700 million!

But be that as it may Mr. Ross also added this “I know they are (going to food banks) and I don’t really quite understand why. So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out, there’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan against it, and we’ve seen a number of ads of financial institutions doing that. These are basically government-guaranteed loans because the government has committed, these folks will get back pay once this whole thing gets settled down. So there is really not a good excuse why there really should be a liquidity crisis now. Now true, the people might have to pay a little bit of interest, but the idea that it’s paycheck or zero is not a really valid idea.”

So once again he seems a bit confused as to why a government employee wouldn’t get a loan or why he/she might be hungry but did you notice what he said at the end there?…In The part I highlighted?

He said that they are going to get paid eventually and everything they are owed. As in the US Government is not saving any money with this shutdown. The government is just screwing with their workers! Why? Because! That’s why!…Remember when you were a kid and you played that game because you really had no argument to make?

Well, apparently the rich bastards who run our country think they are playing a game too. And the people who work for them are just pawns, peons, serfs or whatever. And can’t they just get a loan and eat cake for chrissakes?! Why do they have to get so pissy about missing a paycheck or two? It’s only money and We’ve got important governing to do!

But Mr. Ross isn’t even finished. He then ends his answer with this:

“You’re talking about 800,000 workers and while I feel sorry for the individuals that have hardship cases, 800,000 workers, if they never got their pay — which is not the case, they will eventually get it – but if they never got it, you’re talking about a third of a percent on GDP so it’s not like it’s a gigantic number overall.”

They don’t count anyway! If we’re talking money here, we’re just talking about 1/3% of the GDP so who cares? 800,000 workers not getting paid? We have millions and millions and millions of workers in this country, most of whom get shitty pay anyway so, I mean like, Hey! Can I get a piece of that cake here too please?!
And if we are really talking just numbers, according to US Customs and Border Protection, apprehensions on our nation’s southwest border totaled 396,579 for all of 2018. So if 800,000 is an insignificant number of people to Commerce Secretary Ross, the original Mr. Money-pants, then how insignificant is a number less than half that amount?  How much of an impact can fewer than 400,000 immigrants crossing our southern border have on our GDP? 1/2 of 1/3 of a percent?! Even I know how insignificant that is because that’s the interest I get on my money at…the money bank!

To wit: We need a wall to protect us from the insignificant demon hoards at our border? Really?? It might as well be made out of little children’s building blocks for all the good it will do and for all the relief it will provide to those gullible, angry, hateful, naive and childish enough to believe that their great white fathers care about protecting them… from their own imaginations!

The joke is on you, me, everyone. There will never be a wall. It’s all an imaginary game being played by infantile old white men who live in an alternate fantasy world where for them…all is in abundance. And for we frightened peons, “Are there no benevolent bankers? Are there no dollar menus?”

Now let me get back to my counting! Do you know how long it takes to count to 700 million or 3 billion or 10 billion even?! Oh wait! Ha! Ha! Hee! Hee! I’ve forgotten who I’m talking to…now run along like good little children and go find that cake!

Mr. Gorbachev, How Do You Build a Wall?

“It is indeed an honor to be in this city, which stands as a symbol of the divisions of men on the face of the earth. For here on either side of the wall are God’s children and no man-made barrier can obliterate that fact. Whether it be East or West, men and women search for meaning, hope for fulfillment, yearn for faith in something beyond themselves, and cry desperately for love and community to support them in this pilgrim journey.”

-Martin Luther King (West Berlin, 1964)

And yet here in the USA, the greatest country in the history of countries, The richest country in the history of countries, perhaps the most diverse country in the history of countries, the country that beckons the world with give us your “tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free”, and despite all that, the country that yearns to somehow make itself great again…

Fears people who desperately want to come to America to be free and to try to make a better life for their families and children.

Now we want to make America great again by building a wall to keep people out? People we don’t want? People we don’t like? People who are poor, hungry, starving, alone…because we are afraid that they might take what we have, or want to share what we have, or for some reason that we can’t quite explain, want to come here to destroy what we have just for shits and giggles…?

Now we are separating thousands of children from their parents in the hopes of what? Making America a place where no one would want to come?

Now we are shutting down the Government and holding hundreds of thousands of working American Citizens financially hostage for what? Making America a place where everyone would like to leave?

Now we are spending 1 billion dollars each week to pretend that we are arguing over a wall that Republicans could have built already if they had really wanted it,  so they can now blame those who never wanted it when we already owe 22 trillion dollars as a nation for what? Making America a place where we can only pretend to be wealthy while thousands of our citizens go without food, clean water, homes, educations and health care?

“Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome;”

It is the “Mother of Exiles” who stands at the entrance to our great country and All of us who live here have in our past an exiled, banished, evicted, escaping, displaced, ostracized, fleeing, hopeful, dream-filled,  wandering or wondering immigrant member(s) of our ancestral family…who hoped to find a better place for their children and future ancestors to come.

Have we all forgotten that? Do our standards of excellence and honor and goodness here in America no longer apply? Is it just too crowded for us to share, or help anyone else anymore? Are we afraid that our melting pot has melted too much? Are there too many colors blending together to make America pretty anymore?

So our only alternative is to be Mean? Tough? Unrelentingly stubborn? cruel? Indifferent? Petty?…Maybe we should just dismantle the Statue of Liberty and every other monument to and symbol of our great republic and dump them all in great heaps along our borders with signs affixed that say “keep out!” and “go away!”

Or are we all God’s children? Really? Are we? Or do you think some other, lesser god made all of those folks that we don’t like? Like the devil perhaps? He’s a lesser god isn’t he? It’s tough being great isn’t it…because you have so few peers…and when you spend so much time among the other great ones, there really isn’t any other place to go, except…

So here we are; The greatest Country on Earth…now just the greatest Show on Earth? And The rest of the world is watching… but sadly,  I don’t think that most of us are seeing what they are seeing… And isn’t that the real tragedy?

 

Bugs Too!

While Scientists around the world have been studying the decline of flying bugs and insects in our environment, Medical doctors say that they are encountering an increasing number of patients who bring home drug-resistant bugs or rather bacteria from abroad and that many of those new bacteria can potentially lead to harmful infections that are increasingly harder to cure…

Because these highly resistant bacteria are becoming more and more resistant to the point where antibiotics are no longer effective against them! The World Health Organization has identified these drug-resistant bugs as one of the most acute threats facing global health and about 700,000 people around the world die each year from infections against which medicines have no effect.

One of the bigger problems is  that about 80 to 90 percent of all antibiotics are now produced in China and India by giant pharmaceutical companies who not only make these drugs but also illegally dump significant quantities of antibiotics through their wastewater and into surrounding streams, rivers and lakes. Scientists who have been studying this practice have found concentrations of antibiotics in some of the bodies of water that were at times several thousand times, higher than the levels predicted to select for resistance!

And when exposed to a high concentration of antibiotics these microscopic bugs, like most living things, begin to develop defense mechanisms to protect themselves from those substances which are harmful to them…and so new “super bugs” begin to develop and grow and spread.

As a result Antibiotics are losing their effectiveness at an increasing rate and this loss of effectiveness is being accelerated by their misuse in humans, animals, crops and by Pharmaceutical company practices. So much so that the problem is now seen by many leaders at the highest political levels as a most dire and urgent one.

So while the world is losing insects…bugs, worldwide at a rate so accelerated that we are now just beginning to notice their absence…at the same time the world is gaining bugs…bacteria, at an accelerated rate that we don’t notice… until we can feel their presence.

I know this is rather chilling and macabre to say or think about but… remember when the other kind of bugs were eating us alive? And that wasn’t so bad?! We humans need to start thinking about how we can undo what we’ve already done before we’re done in!

It’s a problem that is going to take 21st Century technology and medicine and our most advanced thinkers and scientists and political institutions to solve if the human race has any intentions of continuing to advance and thrive! And this is just another reason why fighting over a wall is such nonsense. For one, a wall won’t work at all… and B: It certainly won’t stop… BUGS!

 

Bugs!

If you’re old like I am (63) then you probably remember going for a drive on a highway and having to clean your car’s windshield every time you stopped for gas because your windshield would be splattered with the carcasses of squashed bugs. Remember that?…Now think about when the last time was when that happened to you.

Well, according to recent scientific studies conducted around the globe, not just here in once buggy New Jersey, flying insects are disappearing! In these studies researchers have evaluated 27 years of insect collection data and have found that the biomass of flying insects has fallen by a seasonal average of 76%. That’s a lot of bugs! 3 out of every 4 bugs aren’t around any more.

This is good news, right? Who needs bugs? But, unfortunately they are a very important part of the Earth’s ecosystem, providing food for animals, birds, (their numbers are declining too)… and bugs are also a very important part of agriculture!

Seen any bees lately either? And Remember fireflies? We used to chase those guys around all summer long and fill jars full just for fun. I saw a firefly last summer and remember thinking, “Fireflies! Whatever happened to them???”

Scientists say that Climate change seems an unlikely culprit for the decline in bug populations since the increase in temperatures should have helped bugs to thrive rather than have harmed the insect population, so what’s bugging the bugs?

Could it be something that humans are doing besides warming the planet? Like making it more toxic? Or radioactive? Or plastic and polluted? If only the bugs could tell us! But seriously… what would the world be like without any bugs at all?… Will we even notice when they are gone?… Or will it be impossible to not?

It’s All About That Base

I don’t see what all the fuss is about. President Trump wants to build a wall along the entirety of our southern border and says that he can do it for about 20 billion dollars…give or take a few billion.

We already owe as a country almost 22 trillion dollars! (what time is it?) And I really don’t think we have any intention of paying all of that money back anyhow so what’s another 20 billion for a wall that will never be constructed anyway?

Last year the United States of America cut taxes by 1.5 trillion dollars so that the wealthiest Americans could have more money to trickle down on the rest of us and I really don’t think there will be any trickling down…do you? So that was a waste of 1.5 trillion dollars…why not waste some more?

Back during the President Bush (The 2nd) Presidency we gave away 700 billion dollars in tax breaks to the wealthy and all that did was wreck the economy which cost another 1 trillion dollars to fix. Remember that?

And we’ve been at war in the Middle East for the past 18 years, non-stop, and that has cost trillions more dollars…so many trillions in fact that no one seems to even bother to be counting how much it has cost. Do you know?

So we have been spending upwards of 10 trillion dollars over the last 2 decades for absolutely nothing in return and now we have to shut down the government for 20 billion dollars more? That’s like buying a restaurant on credit and then saying that you don’t have the money to eat there!

Besides all of that… if the 63 million voters who so enthusiastically voted for President Trump in 2016, and who danced and sang and cavorted and practically achieved orgasm to his most popular call and response of his Presidential campaign are so gung-ho about building this wall…why don’t they just pay for the damn thing!

Call:”What are we gonna build?” Response: “A Wall!” 

Call: “Who’s Gonna build that wall?” Response: “Mexico!” 

Which was Followed by this Cult-like chant:

“Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall! “Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall!”

To which I say: Since Mexico won’t pay for it and since you can’t make them pay for it then rather than make those of us (more than you by the way) who don’t want to pay for it: For only 317 dollars and 45 cents each you can build that wall! Yes, that’s right! If you voted for President Trump and you support the building of a solid 30 foot wall of concrete and steel along the 1 thousand, 9 hundred and 54 miles of the Mexican border with the United States then for the small price of 317 dollars and 45 cents, that wall can be yours.

And I do mean yours, because your money will go towards your own personalized brick, stone, steel rod, chunk or whatever, of wall, with your name on it in bright bold letters commemorating your donation to the security of the United Sates of America! And you can name it after yourselves too!

You don’t even have to include “United States” in it’s name. Just call it whatever you want! Take all of the credit…after all, it will be yours so have fun. Call it The Great Wall of___________________. (Fill in the blank)

Is that too much to ask? After all, you wanted it! You voted for it! You chanted it! You sang for it! You cheered, clapped, stomped, waved, laughed and danced for it! And now, since Mexico has declined to pay for any of it (we asked)… for only $317.45 it can be yours….and with all of your names on it!

And if you don’t have the money? Don’t worry! All credit cards will be accepted because just like the USA we don’t pay, so why should you?! So call now! And build that wall!

Disclaimer: There will be no wall. Most of the southern border with Mexico is already lined with various fences, walls, wire, re-barb and what have you and the hundreds of miles that are not fenced are mountainous, a giant river or land that we don’t own and aren’t likely to be able to purchase or confiscate without years and years of legislation, litigation,  law suits and court hearings (we do live in a democracy after all) So send your money at your own risk and don’t send it directly to President Trump because he will most likely use the money to pay his own bills (that is what he does…just sayin’ because he does that all the time) If you don’t have the cash or a valid credit card then just send a check for the full amount of $317.45 to the United States treasury and let it bounce. (just sayin’ because that is what you-know- who would do, because well, he has done that before too) We would ask the billionaires and giant corporations who benefited greatly from the last 2 Republican tax breaks to pay for this wall (wink, wink, there will be no wall) but they did not get to be billionaires and giant corporations by spending their own money on crap like this, now did they? Should you decide not to contribute to this wall or any other wall after you have sent in your money because you realize that you can’t afford it we recommend that you simply declare bankruptcy because…well, you know, yada, yada, he, you know who, does it all the time…and if you really want every American taxpayer to pay for this wall because you believe it is for the greater good whether everyone agrees or not and that everyone should share in paying for what you know to be best for the country then remember your stance on healthcare in America and how you opposed it because it was Socialism… so send in your check or not because it’s all going on the tab anyway and by the time you’ve finished reading this disclaimer another 20 billion has been added to the national debt anyhow for crap that Halliburton, Raytheon, ExxonMobil, Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon have just ordered, so chillax. (yes, it’s in the dictionary)…(now are you chillaxing?)…(that’s in the dictionary too)

The Oldest Words

The other day I was watching a documentary about the Apollo 8 mission to the moon. It was the first time that Earthlings had ever left the orbit of Earth to journey out into the space beyond and When the command module reached the moon on Christmas Eve the astronauts were asked by NASA to address the people of the Earth with a Christmas greeting from the moon. After having carefully considered what they might say the astronauts decided to read from the Book of Genesis rather than attempt to write their own words… and that got me thinking about what the oldest words ever remembered or uttered by humans might be.

So I did a little research and some Googling and discovered that a British Research team from the University of Cambridge had already embarked upon and completed such a study way back in 2012! Lucky me! All I had to do was research their research and here is what I found:

The research team was able to put together a list of what they called “ultra-conserved words,” or words that they found have remained basically unchanged for 15,000 years.

and that originate from the same ancient mother tongue — a language used toward the end of the last ice age. That language eventually became the basis for seven major language families in human history and the 700 modern languages today descend from those seven original families.

The Researchers scanned them for words that sound and mean the same things in different languages which are called cognates.  words like “father” — padre, pere, pater, pitar, etc. From those, they put together what they call proto-words, or what they believed were the cognates’ ancestral form.

Ultimately, they found 23 words that were shared by at least four of the seven language families, making them the most common and oldest and longest-lasting words in English… and throughout the history of words… and here they are…

1. Thou

Interestingly enough, Thou is the only word that all seven language families share in one form or another. If you’re going to speak then I suppose it’s important to know whom you are talking to. “Hey you!”…excuse me, Thou. Get over here!

2. I

Makes sense. If you’re not you then you must be me, or I. I think therefore I am not you. So in the beginning before Adam and Eve there were Thou and I.

3. Mother

Everyone has a mother and is first birthed, nurtured and loved by a female and when you finish this list you might notice that the word “father” does not appear as one of the earliest or universal words, which is quite interesting since according to our Judeo-Christian culture everything begins with The Father or the Son or His Holy Spirit and they are all men! women are relegated to a subservient class which has persisted into our modern era. Whatever happened to mom?! and why have we decided to give men all of the credit for creation, love and protection!? Imagine a world with men as the chief life givers…God couldn’t…nor could early humans.

4. Give

It’s all about teamwork and cooperation isn’t it? The earliest humans had to help one another in order to survive and thrive and Human survival has always been predicated on our ability to cooperate. Egads! The earliest humans were Socialists?! But thanks to evolution we now say “Build a wall! Build a wall! And make someone else pay for it!” It would be nice if everyone realized that “Give” is one of our oldest words…and it’s a verb!…as in doing something.

5. Bark

Woof?… No, but rather as in tree. Anthropologists believe this was a particularly important element of early civilizations because it was used to make fire, baskets, rope, and just about everything else until fairly recently…and it can even be used as medicine when boiled in water. In fact, aspirin was originally willow bark tea. Today, sadly, it’s all about plastic!

6. Black

Most likely the experts say because in its original form, it helped early humans distinguish the light of day from the black of night. Here in the civilized world of the future and thanks to electricity we don’t have nights like we used to but once upon a time the “black” of night was not someplace you wanted to go…ever! Note: “white” does not make the list…and why would it?

7. Fire

Fire provided light, warmth, security, safety, a way to cook, or to keep the wolves away. For a long time fire was the greatest tool for survival. and It was also the best way (only?) to keep the “black” away. And have you ever sat and watched a fire? Was it the first TV? And how about fire’s flame? What is that anyway? Solid? Gas? Liquid? Pure enchantment? It’s pure entertainment that’s what.

I think I now have the worlds first sentence:

Mother! Black!!! Give I Thou Bark! Fire!

8. Ashes

They made a lot of Fire! Ashes must have been the first plastic?! It was everywhere!!!

9. Spit

This is interesting. But I guess that back in the early days of mankind spit came in handy for almost everything.

10. Man/Male

So the word “Man” makes the First Words list but not “Father” and the word “Mother” is on the list but not “Woman”… Is this a reflection of male dominance throughout modern history? I have always been curious about how most men want to defend their mothers to the death but have little respect for women in general even though all women are someone elses mother, sister, wife or daughter…Go figure!

11. Hand

Our most important body part/tool? Thank you thumbs!

12. Hear

Hearing is important for many things we can’t or don’t see… but did we take our eyes for granted? Do we still?

13. Flow

An interesting word to make the list? Unless that was the word for water or all things wet.

14. Old

Is this about having respect for the elderly because they had knowledge or knew how to survive? Or more about expiration dates and usage? Knowing how long something would last or was still good to eat? Or that time was essential and limited for I and Thou from birth to death?

15. This

As in which one is which?

16. That

No not this one! That one is mine!

17. Pull

Pull but not push? Hmmmmmm pushing may have come along after the invention of the wheel? Plus with pull this, or pull that, you could make a joke!

18. Worm

???????? Any thoughts?

19. Ye

This would now be “your” in modern English. This is mine and that is ye!

20. Not

or the other way around! (see 19)

21. We

Hey pal! Now that Thou and I are We…who are those guys??? Ye????

22. Who

Well, Ye isn’t me… so?

23. What

Because when you don’t know what’s goin’ on it’s the most logical question… Huh?

So those are our oldest shared words according to the research and as far back as anyone can remember. What was your first word? I’m sure you can’t remember but someone had to have told you…

A list of Today’s most commonly used words, according to The Oxford University Press, shows that ‘function’ words, like prepositions and connectives (the, to, in, of, and) are more common than ‘content’ words, like  nouns, verbs and adjectives but for comparison here are the most ancient words again and their place among today’s top 100 words.

1.Thou: Now you #18                                                                                                                              2.I: #10                                                                                                                                                     4.Give: #97                                                                                                                                  15.This: #21                                                                                                                                        16.That: #8                                                                                                                                      19.Ye: Now your #64                                                                                                                  20.Not: #13                                                                                                                                    21.We: #27                                                                                                                                  22.Who: #46                                                                                                                              23.What: #40

Mother, Bark, Black, Fire, Ashes, Spit, Man, Hand, Hear, Flow, Old, Pull, and Worm did not make the modern top 100 list although he, his, him, her, she and person did.

Today humans like to communicate as quickly as possible with acronyms like LOL, OMG, BTW and pictographs like smiley faces and egg plants or we like to text with letters instead of full words: u, b, r etc…Who has time or space or the money for words anymore?!

Perhaps someday a great grandchild of ours, after months of listening to their parents conversing with one another from above their basinette, day after day,  week after week, month after month, may look up from his/her crib and out into their brave new world and exclaim…

“WTF?”

 

I Forgot To Count!

Happy New Year everyone! And thank you for visiting my blog once again this year…that’s if you have been visiting… because I have stopped writing… or at least haven’t written since last June! And so it seems have forgotten my annual New Year’s post…but today I just remembered that I am still alive! (And hopefully you are too 🙂 And so…here it is…

There are 525,600 minutes in a year and in 2012, (when I started blogging) I crossed the 30 million mark in minutes spent on Earth!

…So that means that as of midnight of the 31st of December this year I will arrive at 33,373,440!…(that’s 23,176 days!) but again, who’s counting? Still over 33 million minutes alive!? Is that an accomplishment or just something that breathing and waking up every day took care of for me? And why does it seem to have flown by so quickly…and keep accelerating all the time? Life in the fourth dimension took forever to move through when I was a child…but now it seems like I am definitely on the fast track to old age!

So fast that this year it took me until January 3rd to realize that I missed January 1st!

Anyway, thanks for continuing to slow yourself down every once in a while by taking the time to visit and read my blog…and please keep reading if you will, unless you can thing of a better way to spend your minutes.

In any case, do your best to Spend your time wisely …it may be a crazy and unpredictable world but it still is the only world in town.

I’ll be approaching the 34 million minute threshold at the end of  2019 and I will do my best to keep enjoying every minute of those minutes!

Do your best to enjoy each and every one of your minutes too.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!