ANSWERS

I think I've mentioned before that I gave up watching news programs on TV from any network.  I do turn on the local news when I first get out of bed and turn to business news to see how the stock market is doing.  Other than that:  nada!  zilch!

So, have I mentioned how I do keep up with current events?  My main source is news I recieve in my e-mail each day.  I read from a source called "1440".  It's a free digest.  It's real easy once you get the hang of it.  They have only three main stories each day, they are fairly short and as unbiased as you can find.  They have connectors to other sources if you want those stories in greater depth.  Then they have a list of stories in which they only give one line of explanation but again offer a connection if you are interested.  I've really learned to like it.  

I heard an add this week for a new news service in which they explained how the news services from which we get information shape our thinking.  It's impossible to avoid it.  After you follow a particular news service for any period of time, you think they way they do.  Give "1440" a try.  Yes, you will have to read instead of listen; but it's short.  By the way, 1440 is the year the printing press started the knowledge revolution and the number of minutes in a day.  

Concerning Languages from the last Monday's QUIZ:   

1.  Kinyawanda is spoken in Rwanda

2.  Tagalog is spoken in Philippines

3.  Amharic is spoken in Ethiopia

4.  Gujarati is spoken in parts of India

5.  Telugu is spoken in parts of India

6.  Dari is spoken in Afghanistan

7.  Pashto is spoken in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran

It's Friday the 13th!  What could go wrong?  Whatever, I still love you.  

 

AGING

I'm back on "aging" again.  I saw this on a video by a doctor.  These are five tests that this doctor gives to find out if you are doing well with the aging process.  Most of these have to do with the problem of falling.  Falls are often the first step on a steep and final decline for the elderly.

I know you are not all elderly but this would be a good check at any time of your life to see how you stack up.  These five tasks are not all easy, by any means.  Test yourself.  If you fall short, practice.  Do them over and over until you can measure up.  Good luck.

1.  From a seated position on a chair, stand up with your hands crossed over your chest.  Sounds easy enough but it takes some leg muscles.  I didn't have much trouble with it.  

2.  Walk backwards straight for 10 steps.  Keep your head forward.  Sounds like a DUI test, doesn't it?  I found it easy. 

3.  Stand on one foot for 30 seconds - no helping hands.  This was the hardest one for me.  30 seconds is a long time.  I'm going to keep practicing.

4.  Touch your toes without bending your knees.  There is no time in my life that I can remember being able to do this and now my belly makes it impossible.  I gave myself a pass on this one but I'm going to keep trying anyway.  

5.  Get up from lying down on the floor without help.  No using hands on other objects.  This takes a little work and thought but you can do it - I did.

That's it.  If you can do all these, you're not that old and you stand a good chance of avoiding falls. 

MIDWEEK PRAYER

There is a quote from the blessed lady, Saint Mother Teresa, that goes something like:  "We do not need to do great things, just little things with great love."  I think that's beautiful.  

Great love is more than an emotion, it is the state in which one would do anything good that needs to be done for another person.  One would put that person's well-being above their own.  That is love.  That is the test that proves their is love.  There is no greater example of love than when one person gives up his life for another.

Let us pray:  

Almighty Father,

I believe in you; 

You are my God and I am your child.

Like a good father, 

You have given me all that I have that is good.

Even more, You gave me and the world your Son.

Your Son gave us himself; his own human life

as an example and finally as a sacrifice; 

like a lamb which humanity slaughtered.  

He left us the "way"; the way to life after death in His church.

And rejoice, He left us the Spirit of God to guide us.

Let me always follow your "way" I pray.  

Amen

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES

 It's almost universal in the animal world that the males of the species are more beautiful than the female.  According to Darwin, it has to do with the need to be attractive to females, to ensure finding a suitable partner, to fulfill the need to produce offspring and increase the population.  The ability and need to reproduce is built into every living thing.  

What about the human animal?  Females seem to be the ones with the need to be attractive to the males.  They spend at least 10 times as much time and money on the endeavor as men.  What happened to the great plan?  The really strange part is they never overcome the need to make themselves more attractive even when they are beyond the age to reproduce and have preselected a suitable partner.  Maybe, there is something else going on in their minds.  

It must be that women do not make themselves attractive for men only but for other women.  If so, what could the reason be?  It could have nothing to do with reproducing.  Didn't Darwin look at the human animal?  It seems there is a fallacy in his theorem.  

As for me:  I don't know the answer. All I can say is "Vive la difference"     

QUIZ

This quiz is based on my blog of 3/5/26, last Thursday.  I mused that no one would know who spoke some of the languages included in the entry.  I'm sure no one looked them up out of curiousity.  Now, if you want to be the big prize winner, you must be a good guesser or a user of AI or studious enough to search.

Here are the languages with the strange names:

1.  Kinyawanda

2.  Tagalog

3.  Amharic

4.  Gujarati

5.  Telugu

6.  Dari

7.  Pashto

 I have almost no clue who writes or speaks the above languages.  I did look them up and here are the answers:  Match them if you can.

A.  30.6 million people speak this language in Afghanistan

B.  Over 90 million people speak this language mostly in the Philippines

C.  63.8 million people speak this language in India

D.  35 to 55 million people speak this language in Afghanistan and Pakistan

E.  96 million people speak this language mostly in India (fastest growing language in the USA)

F.  38 million people speak this language as their first language in Ethiopia

G.  Over 20 million people speak this language mostly in Rowanda

SON DAY

 If you set your clocks an hour forward today, I promise to save that hour for you and give it back in the Fall when you might be able to make better use of it.   

Nice guy, aren't I?  

At least, say a prayer today.  I'm sure you know one.  If not, make one up - they're better that way - anyway.

BONUS QUIZ

The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is holding a tournament this weekend at the Blue Bay Golf Club.  After the second day of competition, the following are the names of the top twenty-two contestants in order by scores. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to pick out the American players.  Good Luck.

1.   M. Lee

2.   Y. Liu

3.   A. Kim

4.   W. Zhang

4.   A. Furue

4.   A. Kim

7.   P. Phatlum. 

7.   M. Liu

7.   Y. Hwang

7.   A. Ashok

11. E. Henseleit

11. H. Choi

11. R. Yin

14. A. Pano

14. M. He

16. F. Kinhult

16. R. Choi 

16. J. Shin

16. R. Takeda

16. J. Bae

16. S. Zhou

16. C. Lopez-Chacarra Coto

Hint:  there are three.  🏌

NEW START

Are you ready for a new start.  N E W  S T A R T

This is what you need for good health.  These eight are important and can't be overlooked.  Test yourself to see if you are doing what is right for your mind and body.

1.  Nutrition       Are you eating properly?  the right variety, the right amount?

2.  Exercise        Are you getting the right amount of exercise?

3.  Water            Are you keeping your body well hydrated?

4.  Sunlight        Are you getting suficient sunlight on your skin?

5.  Temperance  Are you limiting your consumption of food, drink and drugs?

6.  Air                Are you getting outside to breath in the fresh air; doing deep breathing?

7.  Rest              Are you sleeping properly?  enough sleep?  restful sleep?

8.  Trust            Are you trusting yourself, your friends, your surroudings?  

NO?     Fix it!

LANGUAGES

 I receive in the mail a monthly statement about my Anthem health insurance accounting.  It's usually short, two pages  - - -  but, they send three additional pages of warnings.  Well, it's really just one warning.  It says "Attention, if you speak (insert a language), free language assistance services are available to you..."  than it gives instructions to get this assistance by calling the number on your health card.  You wouldn't think it would take three pages, typed on both sides, to get this note across.  It does because they repeat the note 29 times in 29 different written languages.  TWENTY-NINE

Here is the way I break them down:  besides English, the ones which use our alphabet are Spanish, Dutch, French, German, Hatian Creole, Italian, Kinyarwanda, Somali, Swahili, Tagalog, Turkish, Uzbek and Vietnamese.  Three use the extended alphabet including the Russians, Serbians and the Ukraine.  Four languages that use the little pictures that mean something; a letter, a word or a group of words:  Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Japanese, and Korean.  Then we have the languages that use something that, well,  I have no Idea what to call it.  Let's say they use little squiggles:  Amharic, Gujarati, and Telugu.  Now we have two with little squiggles underneath a line:  Nepali and Hindi.  Last but not least, we have little squiggles read backwards (right to left):  Arabic, Dari and Pashto.  

I'm amazed that Anthem has customers that read all those languages.  I'm amazed they have employees who speak all these languages.  I'm amazed there exists so many languages.  Who even knows where they speak these languages?

I'm thinking this world is not close to ending because I've always pictured everyone speaking the same language in the end.   

MIDWEEK PRAYER

 

LORD,

AS WE HAVE REACHED 

THE SECOND WEEK OF LENT

HELP US TO RELY ON YOU 

IN MOMENTS OF WEAKNESS,

TO REJECT WHAT PULLS US AWAY FROM YOU,

AND TO TRUST THAT YOU ARE ENOUGH. 

AGING

 At my age, it's not uncommon to receive in my e-mail box a plethora of jokes and cartoons about aging.  Most of them, sadly, really hit home.  They are obviously written and designed by people who have been there - done that.

I had a revelation similar to these jokes while walking as fast as I can on the running machine at the gym.  First, the evil interior designers put those contraptions on the second floor so I have to catch my breath and check my pulse before I ever start.  That's a different issue. 

I can see all around the gym from up there.  Last week, I noticed that almost every sweating body was  adorned with headphones or a headset of some kind.  They have some strange names that I never heard of printed on them.  Not sure if they are listening to something or just noise-canceling.

Looking closer, all the rest of the people had cute little white or black earphones or earbuds stuck in their ears.  Wow!  I didn't feel so bad now.  I had my earbuds in place listening to a "current event" podcast on my phone.  I'm one of them!

Then it hit me; the age thing struck me:  I was the only one in the whole place that had wires attached to my ears!  Yikes!   It's like having a dial telephone mounted on the wall. So oooooold.  I covet being taken for a younger person.  Now, that could be out at the gym.  

Yankee ingenuity to the rescue.  No more listening to podcasts on my outdated ear devices.  I'm ripping the wires off of my Apple earplugs so I can be part of the crowd, be one in solidarity with the guys with 32" waists and Popeye forearms;  be one with the chicks in the yoga pants and bare-midriff tank tops.  They'll never know that I'm connected to nothing.  

Pity me ... and my ego.  

RELIEF FROM DIFFICULT QUIZZES

We could all use a pep talk once in a while - here is a hotline you can use: 707-873-7862  or 707-8PEPTOC  It is sponsered by a school and all the pep talks come from elementary aged children.  You will be given these choices (you can try them all) for the pep talk you want to hear, dial:

1.  when you're frustrated or nervous or sad or angry

2.  when you need life advice

3.  to hear pep talks from kindergarteners

4.  to hear "children laughing with delight"

5.  to hear pep tralks in Spanish

6.  to hear "how awesome you look"

7.  for bonus advice on what to do when you're feeling "down", "hurt" or "deflated"

I've tried it.  It's been running for over three years.   Cute

ANSWERS

My millions of readers not only don't know the answers but, alas, they don't even know the questions.

It is a sad reflection of our educational systems in this country and around the world.

I don't know what to say.  I don't know what to do.

I hate to leave you on a down note, today, but what can I say or do?  I make my stab at educating the country and the world and I come up empty.  It's a disaster.  I've failed in my quest.  So much great information and all I get is crickets.  Deaf ears and silent tongues. 

Hide the knives!  Lock up the meds.  Put me on suicide watch.  

Someone please look at last Monday's entry and offer a question.  Someone!  Just one someone.  

Do it for me.  

Or, ...... buy me an ice cream cone.  That might do it.  

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW

 So much great information, all in one spot.

1.  Mickey Mouse was first seen in a moving picture show released in 1928.  It was a short called "Steamboat Willie".

2.  The Panama Canal opened in 1914.  The expansion of the canal opened in 2016.

3.  The distance from LA to NYC is only half as far as from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea.  This is the path of the Nile River.

4.  In 1792, 24 stockbrokers and merchants signed the Buttonwood Tree Agreement creating the NY Stock Exchange.  It is the most important financial document in U.S. history.  

5.  Baalbek is an ancient city in eastern Lebanon (currently a stronghold of the militant group Hezbollah). It is a world heritage site that includes the Roman-built  temple of Jupiter (their pricipal god), another temple for Baachus (their god of wine and merrymaking) and another for the Phoenician sky god Baal. The site includes 1,000 ton+ stone blocks placed one on another. (No one knows how this was done.)

Surely this little dab of information is worth the price you paid to visit my blog.