"The Week" by David Henkin

I am reading “The Week” by David Henkin.  It is about the week, a unit of time that seems to influence my life more than any other unit of time.  As the author points out, a week is an unnatural rhythm, not based on the sun or stars or clocks.  My watch and one clock we have do say what day of the week it is.  We do have calendars around to check the date for its day of the week.

Henkin says among other interesting comments that Puritans frowned on women who gave birth on Sundays since they thought it was a sign that the couple had conceived the child on a Sunday, “improper” behavior for “the Lord’s day”.

The first project we were given in graduate school was to write a computer program that our instructor could use to find how many days happened between any two dates.  We learned that Pope Gregory XIII was told by his astronomers that Easter had slid too far from its appropriate time.  They arranged for the day following Thursday, October 4, 1582 to be Friday, October October 15, 1582.  We learned there were riots in Paris from the Pope “stealing days from their lives!”

content borrowing

I write a blog post most days.  It has nearly 7,000 posts.  Some are well-written, some are just brief notes, on subjects such my personal fatigue or the fine dinner we had at Harry’s. Google provides statistics on each post, including page views and the country of origin of the viewing.  Ever since I met a woman at the local exercise class and then I started getting page views from the country she came from, I have been more interested in ‘content borrowing’.   I looked her up and found she was an “influencer”, a person on YouTube or other broadly-cast medium that has interesting things to say.

People who start an online blog often write on scattered days only and they might want to copy statements of interest on days they can’t find a worthwhile topic.  I have information from every continent except Antarctica that my blog gets page views.

Stacks and stacks

We tend to live longer than people did awhile back.  We accumulate precious and important things: documents, books, recordings, etc.  But it becomes clear that we can make arrangements that will not hold up “forever”.  Grandad wrote some good stuff.  His grandfather wrote some good stuff, too and those pictures he painted!  We meet boundaries: nobody wants it, it is in the way, it costs to warehouse.

CNN Photos of the week

I don’t post many pictures but I know pictures, especially photos, can be interesting and informative.  I recommend CNN Photos of the week: 

https://www.cnn.com/world/photos

Understanding men and women

There are two books that influenced my view of men and of women.  Both are written by the psychologist Robert A. Johnson.  One is “He: Understanding Male Psychology”(1974) and the other is “She: Understanding Female Psychology” (1977).  Johnson was a Jungian and they specialize in using old myths and stories to understand long-time ideas.  The Male book says that it works well to picture the life of a young man as a quest, a search such as a young man looking for adventure, a chance to “prove” himself and be a hero.  The Female book says it helps to picture the life of a young woman who met and charmed a man that she desires to partner with.  They start courting but (there is often a “but”) the man’s mother is not eager to let the questionable girl steal her beloved son.  That determined, honorable and intelligent girl must accomplish some challenging tasks his mother wants done.  In the long run, the fable says the girl impresses his mother and all is good.

She's off!

A high level athlete, a musician, thirsty for knowledge with great grades - the college is lucky to get her.  You know what the purpose of college is?  To find a mate!  He will be lucky to meet her.

I can read!!

I am interested in the spread of reading.  I bet you can read.  I hope so since reading opens many doors, especially on topics that don’t interest tons of people.  

I read about Charlemange learning to read.  A medieval scholar, Alcuin, taught the king, who thought it might help if he slept with a book under his pillow.  Maybe it did!

It wasn’t many centuries back that only specialists, maybe like translators today, could read.

I have had classes in Latin, French and a little German but I am only comfortable in English.

Forest fires and air quality

When I was a kid growing up in Maryland, I had not heard of “air quality”.  I have read that parts of England have had poor air quality because of coal plants and industrial processes.  This summer, we have had several occasions to think about air quality and air pollution from forest fire smoke.  This is a dry summer despite having the Great Lake “Superior” across the top of the state and another of five Great Lakes, “Michigan”, running down the east side.  We live in a region of sandy soil that does not retain moisture well.  We have dry fields.

This summer I have used www.airnow.gov which calls for my ZIP postal code and gives me a government-sponsored air quality reading.  Right now, I get a “58” on a scale from 0 to 400, labeled as mildly cautionary.

"When Memory Fades" by Nathaniel Chin, MD

We are reading “When Memory Fades” by Nathaniel Chin, MD, a specialist in dementia and Alzheimer's. Lynn heard about the book on Wisconsin Public Radio.  It includes very gentle language and is told in a personal experience way. The author’s father developed the problem. The internet says the Alzheimer’s Association reports ⅔ of people over 85 never get the brain problem.  

We had a close relative with dementia.  He lived with it about 2 years and his sister took care of him.   It was not too scary and he never seemed to think his thinking or his first choices were too bad even when they were.

The valuable = sign

Drive.Google.com leads to Google “Drive” which offers free blank pages for typing, and free spreadsheets for money and basic calculation, what we called “arithmetic” in elementary school.  The four basic arithmetic operations are:

Addition  2+2=4         +

Subtraction 6-2=4      -

Multiplication 3*3=9    *

Division 8/2 = 4          /

But in spreadsheets, indicate arithmetic by putting the equal sign first

Addition =2+2

Subtraction =6-2

Multiplication =3*3

Division =8/2

I once heard a college official say that everyone can benefit from using spreadsheets.