I have been experiencing some strange jaw pains lately.. stress induced TMJ is the prognosis. The dentist even agreed after a series of X rays were conducted late this evening. I don’t know yet if I will choose the mouth guard for sleep–seems unlikely–but I will surely attempt something. Maybe just yoga for stress relief, I don’t know yet. I would love to hear what YOU do if you have this condition..
Nonetheless, I had a little bit of a panic attack during the appointment.. I guess this is why my stress level is high and grinding of teeth is often.
Anyway, while sitting in the chair, I looked over at the X ray of my mouth before the dentist walked in to study it..
Here is A MOUTH, stock image.. Google. It’s not mine, but I guess it looks familiar besides those wisdom teeth. Mine are out.
The reason for the photo freakout: The skeletal view of my face.. I sat there in a motionless stare at the X ray.. thinking to myself: That is how my mouth will look long after I die. After I perish. After my mortal existence has extinguished and flesh and bones become just bones..
And it will happen to me.
And you.
And all of us.
Mortal thought is so often depressive, especially if you feel you have much more to accomplish. I feel like I do. I want to see more of the world, branch out and enjoy life. Watch my son play and learn and live to an old age with my wife…
…but the angel of mortality is lurking. Always.
That X ray, for all its miracle science, is a reminder of what lurks beneath the surface. What is under the skin.. what is deep beneath the muscle. The soul may be the final thing that cannot be measured—some say we have them. But the bones are there… within the bag containing them.
A slight reminder, in a dentist chair, of the fleeting moments of time. Enjoy them all and smile often. Your teeth are beautiful as are you.
Just when you lost hope in finding life out there somewhere! There are 1284 more new exoplanets to study!
The big announcement came from NASA today — they are doubling down on earlier projections of planets that could contain life.
“One of the great questions of all time, and one of NASA’s objective’s, is whether we are alone in the universe,” said Paul Hertz, director of astrophysics at NASA, at a conference. “We live in time where we can scientifically answer that question.”
But that was the old way. Part of today’s announcement was trumpeting a new technique, developed by Princeton astrophysicist Timothy Morton. His method uses paired simulations, comparing values from previous exoplanet observations to current measurements. The first compares the flicker in question to other confirmed signatures of both exoplanets and imposters. The second simulation determines whether—given what scientists know about the total distribution of exoplanets in the Milky Way—the flicker in question makes sense as an exoplanet. Combined, the two simulations assign each flicker a statistical probability of being an exoplanet.
Don’t you think we will find life out there?
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BUT DIDN’T WE FIND THE LIFE ALREADY!?I
know, I know.. Life is already been found, some of you would say. Others actually argue that the life came here to abduct people to experiment on them.. free range over cows and look for the meat? … all of those Linda Moulten Howe types of things. Hardcore UFO after midnight radio stuff..
There are even some who may claim that if life DID exist it surely does not now! That it has come and gone.. died away..
Remember, even this ‘structure’ that we have seen 1500 lights years away is 1500 years in the past—if the life was there could it have extinguished since?
By the time life finds earth will WE be gone?
All of these amazing questions! No answers, either. Which is why they are so much fun to ask.
The newest piece of information to make things more exciting: 1284 possible new planets that can harbor life .. in a zone where life could work, be real.. and exist.
…..I wonder if one of those planets is having an election this year?
My local mall (so as long as the mall exists, more on that later) has a drive in.. with spring nearing summer *weather still not feeling like it* a drive in will open there.. Which is a throwback, isn’t it?
If you look at the one image close enough, you can see “I love Sandy” .. While growing up I always wondered to myself if that person ever stayed with Sandy … and now when I see the picture 20 years after it was knocked down, I wonder again…
I actually drove though a double rainbow on my way to work today.. He sun was rising and the bright amazing rainbow was forming ahead of me. Little did I expect to drive directly through it but I did just that …
Amazing ..
So amazing I didn’t get the chance to get a good photo.
Inspiration for a rainy day… You never know when you’ll have the brightness of God shine down on you.
This post is not meant to scare you away from your reservations today at your restaurant.. or your plans for the park.. or your moment to visit mom in whatever location she rests. Mother’s Day is a fine time meant to conjure love and spirit, connect together child and parent..be loving and beautiful.
That said, as is true with most major holidays, there are often times dark and weird histories connected with the celebrations of present day. And as someone who has been dubbed the ‘great ruiner’ by friends and family, I often enjoy pointing those out to you so you can be either aware of history or smile at how we evolve to forget..
Mother’s Day.. Nothing overly awful.. but some eyebrow raising pieces of history to consider.
First the woman who championed the entire idea of mother’s day to begin with; Anna Jarvis ..
It all started in the 1850s, when West Virginia women’s organizer Ann Reeves Jarvis—Anna’s mother—held Mother’s Day work clubs to improve sanitary conditions and try to lower infant mortality by fighting disease and curbing milk contamination, according to historian Katharine Antolini of West Virginia Wesleyan College. The groups also tended wounded soldiers from both sides during the U.S. Civil War from 1861 to 1865.
After the war, Jarvis kept working to organize events.
When Woodrow Wilson gave the recognition to Mother’s Day, companies began to highly profit from the commercialization of things. Jarvis boycotted! She was angry.. In 1923 she even crashed a convention to protest.. She died at 84 after a long battle AGAINST MOTHER’S DAY in Philadelphia’s Marshall Square Sanitarium..
Where the myth of Anna Jarvis ends and the truth begins is hard to determine. Rumors circulate that Miss Jarvis started the day to assuage the guilt of fighting with her mother, something Mrs. Crow-Dadisman debunks.
“People who supposedly lived next door to her said they heard her screaming at her mother,” said Mrs. Crow-Dadisman. “But they were not old enough to remember her.”
Anna Jarvis was born in the two-story wooden house in Webster on May 1, 1864, before her family moved to Grafton. The 10th of the 13 children of Ann Marie and Granville Jarvis, she was one of only four of the Jarvis children who survived, Mrs. Crow-Dadisman said.
Devastated by the high infant mortality rate, Ann Marie Jarvis turned to her brother, Dr. James Reeves. He educated her on how unsanitary conditions — polluted wells, outdoor toilets, dirty diapers — were leading to outbreaks of dysentery, cholera and measles.
Some people say Jarvis went ‘insane’ fighting modern Mother’s Day. But as we learn more about mental illness, it was most likely not that simple. But history does not teach that the woman who was responsible for what we celebrate today died in most likely not the best conditions..
Olive Ricketts, the museum’s executive director who with her husband restored the home, told The Huffington Post that when they first moved in, their two dogs would spend hours staring blankly at the master closet. But it wasn’t until a 2-year-old taking a regular tour ran into the master closet and could be heard talking up a storm that Ricketts learned about the presence of “Alonzo,” Jarvis’ older brother who died as a young child. Ricketts said that paranormal specialists — think ghost busters — have “confirmed the presence” of two or three additional dead children, a man believed to be a dead soldier who was helped by Jarvis’ mother, and Jarvis’ mother herself. The house is being featured by PBS’ paranormal series, Ricketts said.
Jarvis was childless.
She also apparently hated men. Hence not having a child?
All of this seems so depressing. Perhaps I should stop.
Depressing perhaps, but fascinating as well.. History is not always easy to understand or simple to grasp.. concepts of today are fit perfectly well into the pegs we expect.. Mother’s Day? Advertisements to sell you mom’s gifts and …restaurants especially packed. (Do yourself a favor and make dinner at home today for mom.)
But before ending, I wanted to share a piece of history that actually exists in my hometown: The Ashland Pennsylvania Mother’s Memorial. It may not draw thousands or even hundreds of people per year, but it is something to be proud of..
The A.B.A. was formed in the early 20th century in response to the widespread job loss and dispersion of coal miners as mines began to fail. It was a homecoming organization that welcomed former Ashland residents back to their hometown. Men from all parts of Pennsylvania, as well as several other states, participated in these annual celebrations. The A.B.A. was the archetype of a poignant Pennsylvania story: how successive waves of industrialization and economic development create then destroy industries and communities, leaving large groups of people longing for the associations and comforts of family, friends and home. The Mother’s Memorial stands as a symbol of this sentiment.
At an A.B.A. reunion in 1933, it was proposed to honor all Ashland mothers by erecting a monument or memorial. Members felt that such a memorial would represent the very foundation of the organization, because their motto was, “Come on home” and home evoked thoughts of one’s mother. A committee was formed in 1936 to investigate and plan the memorial. Some A.B.A. members, as well as many residents of the town, advocated the establishment of a library instead, but the memorial was decided upon and eventually gained the full support of the organization and the town.
The idea of commissioning a sculpture based on the painting known as “Whistler’s Mother” was a unique one. The A.B.A. responded enthusiastically and raised over $6000.00 for the project. The seven foot high three-dimensional sculpture was designed by Emil Siebern and sculpted by Julius Loester. Both artists were sculptors from New York who specialized in public art – funerary decoration, memorials, park statuary, etc. Although they did not routinely work together, both participated in several projects overseen by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The completed Ashland monument was made of bronze and placed atop an impressive stonework terrace built by the WPA in 1938.
There you have it.. The convoluted and interesting history of the day today.. Carnations in hand! Gifts galore.. Mother’s Day again, but what is it for?
Jarvis is gone.. her idea is not.
Corporations came and against them she fought..
Flowers and food, Mother’s and son,
The TIMES OF INDIA published an article last week.. I just cannot get the notion out of my mind about the subject matter: A village hit hard by suicides.. Mothers and brothers killing themselves.. people thinking en masse that there is some sort of demonic entity to blame.. others think pesticides. Some argue it’s crop failure.. a few blame alcohol…
It’s all detailed in the TIMES story about the Badi village in the Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh..
Get this: 381 suicides in just one year..
Sisodiya, the village sarpanch also believes that the cause of deaths is a “demonic presence” in the village, but psychiatrists said that the reason behind high rate of suicide cases is rational causes…
Dr Srikanth Reddy told the suicides are related to depression and schizophrenic episodes among villagers, possibly due to excessive use of pesticides, apart from financial stress..
Khargone is officially one of India’s 250 most impoverished and backward districts and many such areas are extremely superstitious. Earlier this year a seven-year-old boy in a village in the Indian state of Jharkand was forced to marry a dog because his horoscopes foretold his first wife would die young.
Still following this disaster in Canada.. I saw one quote from an official in the New York Times speaking about how to stop the wildfire in Fort Mcmurray Alberta.. He said it was akin to stopping a hurricane from hitting the east coast. It’s just going to happen. No stopping it. And with that said the only thing left to do is watch and hope it stops spreading, fight where you see options, and evacuate as many people as you can..
It’s traumatic and dramatic. My full thoughts and prayers are with the people there.. It’s just horrendous.
There is one site have been following with updated live info as it develops from Canada.. Bookmark it for the near future as this disaster continues..
A dark night.. a window cracked open with a breeze blowing in.. a quiet corner in the confines of your home, safely lit with a lamp. Just enough to see around you.. not quite enough to get a good glance into the distance. That, my friends, is the way to read a book.
But as so often happens in life, my place to read a book is in a bathroom, a lunchroom cafeteria, or at my desk if I’m early enough to work that I can secure time to read a chapter or two..
While the book may not be new to me, a great read I recently finished was THE PHANTOM KILLER:UNLOCKING THE MYSTERY OF THE TEXARKANA SERIAL MURDERS. It’s the story of a town in terror..
Written by PH.D author James Presley from Texas, the book travels into the past and recounts the before and after effects of the multiple murders that rocked the post World War II landscape of Texarkana..
I have written about the ‘phantom killer’ before. It remains an unsolved case—though so many by this time in history have theories as to the ‘whodunit’ of the story. Multiple killings happening at lovers lane led to an intense national buzz. It was not the first time global media descended on a small time—but given the time and state of America, it is amazing to see and analyze not only the true crime story but the pop culture and journalistic changes that happened because of the series of crimes at the hands of a masked perpetrator.
As far as the crime itself, Presley details and documents the follies and attempts at investigating during the early stages of some of the crime scenes. Police mistakes, not accounting for an inventory of evidence.. the lack of DNA.. the fact that small town crimes were the normal calling for a police force. And these big headline murders were too much, at times..
Journalism… headline writers had a field day. And once they captured the public’s imagination with the ‘phantom killer,’ all hell broke loose. Literally. More murders and with it fear—people locking windows, staring at neighbors a little more closely.. looking for killers underneath the shrubs. It is a small town mid-20th century vision of the fear that nationally would hit America in the post 9/11 landscape..
Pop culture.. perhaps you did, or did not know, that there was a movie called THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN made in the 70s.. it wasn’t a ‘true’ account but ‘inspired’ by such. Court cases attempted to stop the film. They did not work. Free form of art won.. and with it, a cult classic horror movie that had little to do with facts. Then came a remake in the 2000s—and the weirdest part? The town shows the original film every Halloween in a field near where the actual real life murders took place decades prior.. Talk about creepy..
Presley’s book is a must read for those who really into true crime. And even those into psychology and the ultimate state of terror so often people can find themselves in. It sets the stage perfectly well.. the writing style, along with frequent descriptive accounts of the weather on any given day, offers a glimpse into the past. And sort of makes you feel like you’re there.. While you’re not reading the headlines in a newspaper, Presley’s ability to work those true headlines into print gives you the same chills it would have the people of Texarkana so many years ago.
And … the truth the killer was not caught. At least not for the crimes of murder.. perhaps another crime or crimes. Read the book for more on that.
A dark night.. a window cracked open with a breeze blowing in.. a quiet corner in the confines of your home, safely lit with a lamp. Just enough to see around you.. not quite enough to get a good glance into the distance. That, my friends, is the way to read a book. But as so often happens in life, my place to read a book is in a bathroom, a lunchroom cafeteria, or at my desk if I’m early enough to work that I can secure time to read a chapter or two..
While the book may not be new to me, a great read I recently finished was THE PHANTOM KILLER:UNLOCKING THE MYSTERY OF THE TEXARKANA SERIAL MURDERS. It’s the story of a town in terror.. Written by PH.D author James Presley from Texas, the book travels into the past and recounts the before and after effects of the multiple murders that rocked the post World War II landscape of Texarkana..
I have written about the ‘phantom killer’ before. It remains an unsolved case—though so many by this time in history have theories as to the ‘whodunit’ of the story. Multiple killings happening at lovers lane led to an intense national buzz. It was not the first time global media descended on a small time—but given the time and state of America, it is amazing to see and analyze not only the true crime story but the pop culture and journalistic changes that happened because of the series of crimes at the hands of a masked perpetrator.
As far as the crime itself, Presley details and documents the follies and attempts at investigating during the early stages of some of the crime scenes. Police mistakes, not accounting for an inventory of evidence.. the lack of DNA.. the fact that small town crimes were the normal calling for a police force. And these big headline murders were too much, at times..
Journalism… headline writers had a field day. And once they captured the public’s imagination with the ‘phantom killer,’ all hell broke loose. Literally. More murders and with it fear—people locking windows, staring at neighbors a little more closely.. looking for killers underneath the shrubs. It is a small town mid-20th century vision of the fear that nationally would hit America in the post 9/11 landscape.. Pop culture.. perhaps you did, or did not know, that there was a movie called THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN made in the 70s.. it wasn’t a ‘true’ account but ‘inspired’ by such. Court cases attempted to stop the film. They did not work. Free form of art won.. and with it, a cult classic horror movie that had little to do with facts. Then came a remake in the 2000s—and the weirdest part? The town shows the original film every Halloween in a field near where the actual real life murders took place decades prior.. Talk about creepy.. Presley’s book is a must read for those who really into true crime. And even those into psychology and the ultimate state of terror so often people can find themselves in. It sets the stage perfectly well.. the writing style, along with frequent descriptive accounts of the weather on any given day, offers a glimpse into the past. And sort of makes you feel like you’re there.. While you’re not reading the headlines in a newspaper, Presley’s ability to work those true headlines into print gives you the same chills it would have the people of Texarkana so many years ago. And … the truth the killer was not caught. At least not for the crimes of murder.. perhaps another crime or crimes. Read the book for more on that.
Like many of you I am shocked looking at footage from Canada.. the massive forest with no end, out of control.. The evacuations are enormous and the work being done to try to stop the fire impressive but often fleeting.
The fire is in Alberta’s Fort McMurray.. A wall of smoke and fire is rampaging the landscape.. Even parts of a Canadian City were overtaken by flames.
Get this: Authorities ordered the evacuation of about 88,000 people, including the entire city of Fort McMurray, the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo said. 80,000..
The blaze has already destroyed 80% of Fort McMurray’s Beacon Hill community.
24,000 + acres have been scorched at the last press briefing. 1600 structures have been completely destroyed.
This quote from CNN:
High winds, warm weather and dry conditions were expected to create “explosive conditions” for fire growth and make it difficult for firefighters to keep up, Alberta forestry manager Bernie Schmitte said.
