What is the first prize in a competition to lose muscle mass? A trophy.
Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.In our lab, theory and practice are combined,nothing works and no one knows why.
If Watson isn’t the most famous doctor, then Who is.
How to cook crack and clean a crab.Step one: Use commas.
Back in my day, we didn’t have cup holders in our cars.We had to hold our beer between our legs to drive.
I haven’t shoveled the driveway once this year, since I got the flame thrower.
A pastor was giving a children’s sermon and asked: Why do you think I wear this collar?One kid answered: Because it kills ticks and fleas for up to 30 days?
I don’t want to brag or make anyone jealous, but I can still fit into the socks I wore in high school.
One day Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook will join and be called Youtwitface.
It’s sad that even your very best homework efforts gets your kid detention.
I need a new friend. The last one escaped.
Her: Ohhhh…. undress me with your words.Him: There’s a spider in your bra.
If you’re being chased by a pack of taxidermists, do not play dead.
Other than if I slowed my breathing and stopped blinking, I’m not sure if it would be possible for me to be any lazier than I’ve been today.
I accidentally called Alexa “Siri”. Now the thermostat is set to 90 degrees and I can’t unlock my doors or open my windows.
The first rule of the Condescending Club is really kind of complex and I don’t think you’d understand it even if I explained it to you.
Why it takes me so long to do this every morning…
I didn’t find any good birthday’s today, so here’s another song from the sixties….
I was reading that there is yet another Bond film due to be released later this year and apparently the title song is by Billie Eilish. I like some of her stuff but I’m not particularly impressed with this one. So, I thought this would be a good opportunity to revisit my list of my top five favorite Bond songs. I know I did this once before on Facebook, but this platform provides a better opportunity to really show the music.
Number One.
My eldest daughter has persuaded me that this one should really be Number One! Who does not know this song? Shirley Bassey just blasted this one out and into our memories.
Number Two.
I know most won’t agree with me, but I think this song just fits the theme of the Bond series so well and it’s more musical than many besides being one of the best odes to Bond’s sexual prowess. Carly’s voice sounds a little thin coming right after Shirley Bassey, but that would happen to anyone. Carly Simon does have the chops for this, though.
Number Three.
Paul McCartney and Wings did this little ditty and it’s pretty impressive, I think. Frequent tempo and volume changes keep us listening and I like it.
Number Four.
For this one, they brought Shirley Bassey back and she does a good job, I think. She definitely puts one in the mood for a Bond film.
Number Five.
I like this one. Nancy Sinatra does a fine job of fitting the song to the movie. It’s a nice, breezy melody. My understanding is they wanted her father but couldn’t get him.
Number Six.
I know I said five, but once I got started I thought a few more would be good. Gladys Knight (no pips) did a good job of getting us in the mood on this one.
Number Seven.
I thought Pierce Brosnan was a mediocre Bond, but he had some great musical introductions. Tina Turner does another great job of setting the mood here.
Number Eight.
Adele certainly has the talent to do a great Bond song, but I don’t think this worked as well as it could. The music and chords don’t seem to change a lot during the long song and she doesn’t really get into it. But here it is.
Number Nine.
Sheena Easton has a nice voice and she does a good job on this one. I think it’s kind of plain though.
Number Ten.
As some one pointed out, there are two kinds of Bond songs – very loud ones that are belted out and quieter, more sensitive ones. This one, by Sheryl Crow, seems to try to fit between the two with some quiet vocalizing and a loud chorus.
There are my ten. I have no doubt that most of you will have different opinions. Feel free to comment and tell me where you think I went wrong!
This past week saw the birthday of Pierre Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841), one of my favorite artists. He had a very long career and was a prolific artist with thousands of works. While there is no way I can do him justice in this little blog, I’ll try to show some of his work that I admire.
Renoir was born in Limoges but, when he was very young his father, a tailor, moved the family to Paris. Tellingly, the location of their new home, in proximity to the Louvre, would have a major impact on Renoir’s future.
He had a talent both for drawing and singing but, at age 13, the family’s financial circumstances forced him to withdraw from school and work in a porcelain factory. He was good at his work but found it boring and often wandered away to the galleries of the Louvre. The owner of the porcelain factory recognized is talent and Renoir started taking lessons. While studying he met Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille and Claude Monet. At time he didn’t have enough money to buy paint. Nevertheless, he began showing paintings at the Paris Salon.
One of his first successful paintings was of Lise Tréhot, his lover at the time.
Renoir’s early work was influenced by the colorism of Delacroix and the realism of Courbet and Manet as well as their use of black as a color. Another example of Renoir’s early work is this painting of Diana, which shows the influence of Courbet’s realism. Lise Tréhot is again the model.
Diana – Pierre Auguste Renoir 1867
The bright green colors and red accents are considered to reflect the impressionism that Renoir would become associated with a few years later.
In the late 1860s, he and his friend Claude Monet, through painting light and water en plein air, discovered that the color of shadow is not black or brown but reflects the color of the objects around them. The worked side-by side frequently and often painted the same scene. I like the contrast and similarity in their styles as shown in these two paintings.
La Grenouillère, Claude Monet 1869La Grenouillère, Pierre Auguste Renoir 1869
His impressionist period was prolific. One of his most famous impressionist paintings is Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette which depicts an open-air dance garden close to where he lived. It’s full of action, color and light.
Bal du moulin de la Galette, Pierre Auguste Renoir 1876
In 1881 he took a trip to Italy and saw works by Raphael and other Renaissance painters which convinced him he was on the wrong path. He began painting in a more severe style trying to return to classicism. He painted works such as ‘The Large Bathers” which emphasized line and form.
The Large Bathers – Pierre Auguste Renoir 1887
Notably (to me at least) two of the models for this painting were his lovers at one time or another. Suzanne Valadon on the left was a long time model for him who became a noted painter in her own right and Aline Charigot on the right who modeled for many of his paintings and became his wife.
After 1890, he changed direction again and his work showed dissolved outlines and thinly brushed work. You can see the contrast of styles between The Large Bathers above and ‘Girls at the Piano’ below which he painted in 1892.
Girls at the Piano – Pierre Auguste Renoir 1892
In the mid-1890s, Renoir developed rheumatoid arthritis. in 1907 he moved his family to the south of France to take advantage of the warmer climate. He continued painting during the last 20 years of his life even as the arthritis severely limited his mobility. Renoir died at Cagnes-sur-Mer on 3 December 1919.
The love of his life was Aline Victorine Charigot who was a dressmaker. She met Renoir when she was twenty and he was nearly forty and started modeling for him. She gave birth to his first son, Pierre, in 1885, and married Renoir in 1890. They had two other sons, Jean born in 1894 and Claude in 1901.
She modeled for Renoir over a long period, 1880 to 1915. She cared for her husband as his arthritis became severe. After Claude’s birth she developed diabetes but hid this from her husband. Pierre and Jean were drafted into the army during World War I and both were injured, Jean seriously. Aline died of a heart attack in Nice after a visit to Jean in the hospital in 1915.
Charigot appears in many of Renoir’s paintings. In ‘Luncheon of the Boating Party’ at the top of this post, she is the woman playing with the dog on the far left. Here are some more of his paintings that include her.
Madame Renoir with a Dog 1880Boating Couple (also known as Aline and Renoir) 1891Blonde Bather – 1881In the Garden, 1885
Aline and her Pierre 1886
Madame Renoir and Bob – 1910
Renoir was, to me, an amazing artist. The largest collection of his work is at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Go and see it.
Walt showed up late for the card party at the senior center. He blamed it on his poor memory, which seemed to be growing worse with age.
“You know, I used to have that problem too,” said his friend Stan. “But then I went to a memory clinic, and they taught us some really great techniques, like visualization and association, and I haven’t had a problem since.”
“That sounds like just what I need,” said Walt. “What was the name of the clinic?”
Stan’s mind went blank. He thought and thought, and finally he said, “What do you call that flower with the long thorny stem?”
“You mean a rose?” said Walt.
“That’s it!” said Stan. Then he turned to his wife and said, “Hey Rose, what was the name of that memory clinic?”
It’s cold out and I’m thinking of warm, maybe tropical music.
One of the critical issues the Biden administration needs to deal with is Climate Change. Sea level rise is one of the effects of climate change. The image shows tidal flooding in Norfolk, Virginia. Since the 1970s, the number of flooding events in Norfolk has tripled. Sea level in Norfolk is projected to rise another six inches in the next 9 years and this kind of flooding will be at least a monthly event. Let’s go back to the cause of sea level rise.
Greenhouse Effect. Earth receives radiation from the sun in the form of ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared radiation. Some of this is reflected back into space, some is absorbed by the atmosphere and some by the earth itself. Because the earth is much colder than the sun, it radiates at much longer wavelengths and these longer wavelengths can be absorbed by certain gases in the atmosphere heating the atmosphere and radiating the heat right back at the surface. These gases are called ‘Greenhouse Gases’.
In order to maintain the Earth at a stable temperature range, it is critical that the energy being absorbed by Earth from the sun and the energy being radiated back into space be in balance. If too much energy is radiated back into space, the Earth will cool and if too little is radiated back, the Earth will warm.
Greenhouse Gases. The Greenhouse Effect is caused by ‘greenhouse gases’ in the atmosphere. Chief among these are carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere has increased dramatically and, as a consequence, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased.
This has thrown off the balance between the amount of energy absorbed by the Earth and the amount radiated back into space thus warming the planet and everything on it. The average global temperature in 2020 was approximately 1.84 degrees Fahrenheit above the 1951 – 1980 average. Further, the rate of increase is growing.
Global Warming has a number of effects:
Sea Level Rise is caused both by the melting of glaciers and other water locked up as ice such as the Greenland ice cap and the Antarctic ice cap and the thermal expansion of water as the temperature of the oceans increases. Roughly 750 million tons of ice is melting every year due to global warming. The seas have been rising for some time and the rise is accelerating. Here are graphs of the recorded sea level at Lewes Delaware and Baltimore Maryland. I chose these because they have a relatively long history. The trend is unmistakable.
Many of our coastal cities and towns are already seeing increased levels of flooding and it will get worse.
More Severe Weather. The Atlantic basin had a record number of hurricanes this past year likely due to warmer water and changed wind patterns. Severe flooding events are also increasing both in the U.S. and around the world. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water and thus an increase in flooding rains. A series of sudden thunderstorms caused this flood in the Washington DC area.
Weather-related disasters have been increasing and will continue to increase as global warming continues.
Disease. Global warming has increased the spread and occurrence of vector-based diseases. Malaria, Dengue, Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases are spreading to the United States. Yellow Fever is on the horizon and various forms of encephalitis are spread more easily as there are more frost-free months for mosquitos to feed and breed. Tick-borne diseases have more than doubled in the last 13 years including lyme, spotted fevers and babesiosis.
Wildfires. Warmer and drier summers lead to an increase in wildfires as we have seen both in California and Australia in the past year.
Increased Extinction Rates. As climate changes, species will have to adapt. Some will make it and some won’t. While animals can move to cooler climates, trees cannot. And animals that are already at the highest latitudes, such as Polar Bears which depend on sea ice, will disappear.
Ocean Acidification. So far about 30% of the excess carbon dioxide generated by human activity has been absorbed by the oceans. This is a good thing for the atmosphere but a bad thing for the oceans. As carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans it forms a weak acid called carbonic acid. This makes the oceans slightly more acidic and the process is continuing. This is very bad news for creatures that rely on carbonate to make their shells. These creatures include some of my favorites – mussels, crabs, oysters, clams and others such as coral that are critical to the bio-diversity of the ocean.
There are many other effects but let’s go on to what we can do about it.
Accelerate the switch to renewable energy for electricity production. Roughly 30 percent of US carbon-dioxide emissions come from electricity production, mostly from natural gas and coal. As a bonus, reducing the use of natural gas will also reduce the emission of methane through leaks – a potent greenhouse gas. A carbon tax will make a big difference here.
Accelerate the switch to electric vehicles. Roughly 28% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US come from transportation – primarily from the burning of petroleum products. A carbon tax along with a buyback of older, more polluting vehicles will have a strong impact.
Reduce industrial emissions. Roughly 22% of US greenhouse gas emissions are from industrial activities, primarily burning of fossil fuels but also through leaks in production equipment. A carbon tax along with a return to stronger rules on leaks and bans on certain activities such as flaring gas will make a big difference. More and better recycling will also reduce the amount of energy required to produce many items.
Eat less meat. Cattle are responsible for some 35% of methane emissions in this country. More efficient production will help as will a reduction in consumption.
The President has proposed a large investment in renewable energy and ‘green’ jobs and these are certainly needed, but I don’t think they go far enough. A significant carbon tax is going to be required to incentivize industry to take steps and make investments that will reduce carbon dioxide generation. The tax should focus not just on direct emissions but also on downstream emissions over the lifespan of the product. The government also needs to support efforts to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, primarily by reforestation efforts and perhaps taking some land out of agriculture and returning it to forested land. Regulations governing petroleum and natural gas exploration and production need to be strengthened. There’s really no time to waste.
I’ll have more on this soon, but I welcome your thoughts. Our grandchildren are depending on us.
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