US license plates can have 7 characters. Drivers can either be assigned random letters and numbers or they can pay a small fee to choose their own license message. There are a lot of great 7-character possibilities other than misspelled names and other expressions of vanity. Here are some suggestions:

Inspiring Choices:

Honesty

Freedom

Liberty

Justice

Empathy

Equally

Success

Achieve

Ageless

Reality

Liberal

Inspire

SnowDay

Sisters

Brother

Forgive

Insight

Lovable

Amazing

Magical

Healthy

Healing

Win-Win

NiceDay

StandUp

Helping

Charity

Patient

Dreamer

Jetaime

Journey

Destiny

Forward

Courage

Present

Breathe

Engaged

Observe

Imagine

Believe

Musical Choices:

RAMONES

Beatles

IggyPop

Blondie

Bangles

AlGreen

TheCars

TheCure

Puccini

Luciano

Santana

Nirvana

NoDoubt

LouReed

Pantera

Madonna

Beyonce

Rihanna

BonJovi

Journey

Genesis

BeeGees

Chicago

Regional Choices:

Indiana

Arizona

Florida

Georgia

Montana

Vermont

Wyoming

MidWest

America

England

Ireland

Senegal

Hungary

Iceland

African

Iranian

Chinese

Persian

Liberia

Jamaica

Finland

Equador

Belgium

Vietnam

Ukraine

Romania

Germany

Denmark

Algeria

Houston

Phoenix

Madison

Atlanta

Seattle

Buffalo

Chicago

Ill-Advised Choices:

NoHands

CantSee

Baboons

Banshee

Crazies

Idiotic

ThrowUp

Boogers

Penises

Wrecker

Crasher

Wipeout

Extinct

Convict

Suspend

License

CopKill

MeCrash

Mispell

Star Trek:

NCC1701

CapKirk

MrSpock

DrMcCoy (or DrBones)

LtUhura

MrScott (or Scotty!)

Lt.Sulu

Romulan

Klingon

Phasers

JeanLuc

LaForge

Crusher

Voyager

TheBorg

Shatner

Other:

Atheism

Gnostic

Praying

Judaism

Jainism

Taoism

Sikhism

Adonism

Erotica 

Planets

Spiders

Amoebas

Theater

Theatre (British)

British

Confuse

Treason

Commute

Roaming

OffRoad

Carpool

If you use any of these or have any other suggestions, please post a comment!

Words are a little slow in keeping up with the culture. I’m here to help them along….

Lackadaisical should be “Slackadaisical”.

Enemy should be “Unfriend”.

Election should be “Purchection” (Purchase + Election).

Democracy has become “Demockery”.

Sexting should be “Phonicating,” which would allow for variants like “Phonicate,” and “Phonication”.

Big Brother should be “Facebook”.

Debates now “Debase,” thanks to the Republican primary.

Education should be “Testification”.

A Sweatshirt Hoodie should be a “Sweatie”.

www.daisybrian.wordpress.com should be, and is, “www.daisybrain.com”.

—

Here are Six Mind Boggling Suggestions.

As previously discussed, I am in the midst of a brain experiment. I have been at a creative impasse in my blogging. And so, starting last night, I have been using all standard and alternative methods I can think of to hone my cognitive powers, in order to produce an ingeniously clever blog post. As I type, it is 12:47 pm and I have thus far accomplished the following brain-enhancing behaviors:

• Last night, I played a round of brain exercising games on Lumosity.
• I got more sleep – well over eight hours – than I normally get in two nights.
  • (Note: I have to admit that I drank a cup, not a glass but a cup, of red wine and ate about a pound of chocolate, which may have heart benefits but might have interfered with sleep a bit.)
• This morning, I drank some unsweetened ginger-flavored kombucha tea, which is probably the healthiest thing you can consume outside of the blood of virgins.
• I moderately exercised, and while on a treadmill I read, rather than watching TV as usual, since I believe that TV sucks intelligence directly our of your cerebral cortex. Furthermore, I was reading a physics book. OK, well, it was actually How the Hippies Saved Physics, but still, it was intellectually stimulating.
• While in the shower, I did cross-meridian finger exercises meant to utilize both sides of my brain. First, I touched my thumb to each finger – pinky, ring, middle & pointer and back again, with both hands, with one hand ahead of the other by one, two, or three fingers. I also fingered a B-flat concert scale from a baritone horn with both hands, arms crossed, with left and right hand out of sync with one another. I’ve been practicing this for some time, so it wasn’t hard. You could substitute any scale and any instrument’s fingerings.
• While typing the paragraphs above, I ate breakfast:
  • a tiny quantity of liquid CoQ10 with flax oil, followed by an apple-cinnamon flavored mix of chia seeds, flax seeds and hemp seeds in warm, filtered water. Sprinkled on top was some unpleasant-tasting lecithin, which is a traditional memory enhancing food.
  • I also ate my daily multivitamin pill, a vitamin D pill (thanks to the recent partially discredited craze surrounding vitamin D), and, in order to live forever, two “Resveritrol” (a super-antioxidant) capsules.
• I will now brew some concentrated ginkgo biloba tea and use it to gulp down an array of natural brain supplements.

This just in: My stepson wants me to take him out to see the movie Tin Tin. Will a Hollywood 3-d children’s adventure film ruin my experiment? Stay tuned for the exciting conclusing of the Great (Daisy) Brain Experiment!

Is the internet definition of Santorum subconsciously affecting news editors? Take a look at these actual headlines:

• Santorum Surges (just about every news source leading up to the Iowa caucus)
• Santorum unloads on the stump  (Washington Post)
• Santorum Runs Hard and Long (Demoines Register)

But as I searched the internet, I soon realized that others have already noticed the humor in these Santorum headlines and it feels a somewhat pointless to continue. So, I’m a bit stuck.

That beings us to my brain experiment. What if I did everything I could think of to enhance  my cognitive abilities – the proper amount of sleep, no sweets (they seem to make me spacey), and various drugs. I’m not talking about illegal & dangerous drugs, because they’re, well, illegal & dangerous. I’m talking about traditional herbs & potions that are supposed to help your brain function. If I super-dosed on natural brain enhancing treatments, would a brilliant post emerge from the heretofore untapped creative recesses of my mind? Let’s find out. Here is the regimen:

Tonight:

• Play a round of brain-exercising games from the site Lumosity
• Drink ginko biloba tea and consume the following supplements which I found whilst rummaging about through my kitchen cabinets:

• “Brain & Memory Tonic” extract (again, ginko, plus gotu kola, rosemary & sage)
• “Mind Force,” made from mushrooms that are supposed to be good for your brain
• “Will Power” pills made of herbs I’ve never heard of, like polygala root and asparaus root
• Something called “Diamond Mind” extract, whose label is too worn and the words too tiny for me to read
• ginko biloba extract both in capsule and tablet form
• Get plenty of sleep

Now, I can just hear the comments from my medically-inclined readers warning people not to consume everything they find in health food stores that have the word “brain” in their labels. But this is an experiment and, in any case, these supplements all have really tiny amounts of actual herbs in them. If nothing else, I may get a good placebo kick out of taking them all.

The idea is that my subconscious will work on a blog post while I sleep. Then, tomorrow, I shall exercise in the morning, eat a light, obnoxiously nutritious breakfast, take all of these supplements again, with more ginko tea, and commence to write the greatest prose ever to emerge from my mind or for the collective unconscious of all of humanity.

So that’s the plan. Tune in tomorrow night (Sunday, January 8th) or later to see the results, if any.

1. Making Fun of Politicians’ Names!

• Is Sarah Palin a secret Muslim? Why else would the letters of her name rearrange to spell Sharia Plan??? Quick – somebody tell the Tea Partiers! READ FULL POST
• Trumpelstiltskin: An evil imp who commands much attention until he is called out for his lies and falls deep into a media chasm, never to be heard from again. READ FULL POST
• A lot has been made of the internet joke by which presidential candidate Rick Santorum‘s last name has been defined as a repugnant substance involving discharge from the hinder regions. I thought that this was unfair to Mr. Santorum, so I decided to write a note to Rick expressing my condolences. I figured that he wouldn’t mind if I started the note by rearranging the letters in “Santorum” to spell To Mr. Anus. Of course, I then had to express further condolences for the fact that his name spells “To Mr. Anus,” which must be upsetting in light of the internet definition of his name. I’m sure that after the election his ass will be quickly forgotten. READ FULL POST

2. Making Fun of Popular Culture!

• The existence of super-powered mutants in a X-Men universe implies that there would also be minor mutants with somewhat less useful powers. Here are some possibilities: The Shedder: Can instantly shed all of his body hair. The Hand Shaker: Has a really great hand shake – I mean REALLYgreat! READ FULL POST
• Relive with me my day at the fair eating a batter-dipped deep fat fried Twinkie on a stick. READ FULL POST
• Halloween is a time when you can see which groups the majority culture still thinks it’s OK to make fun of. READ FULL POST
• If you ever find yourself in a movie, especially a thriller of any kind, here are some things you may wish to avoid:

1. Never say, “You guys go ahead; I’ll catch up with you later.” Something baaaaad will happen to you.
2. Don’t cough. It means you are going to die of a disease by the end of the film.
3. Don’t be a loyal Black friend. It doesn’t end well. READ FULL POST

3. Making Fun of Language!

• Pretend word origin of the day: The word farther, made up of fart and her,was shortened from the Meso-American “Fart at her,” which is how conflicts were resolved in that setting. Later, more sophisticated weapons were developed, such as swords (s-words), which were a shortened version of swear words. Farting and shouting turned out to be fairly inaccurate weapons which can stink up and/or embarrass members of one’s own group. That is why the nun-chuck was created. However, the nuns, especially those who were chucked at the enemy, complained bitterly, leading to the development of the catapult. Cats were chosen for this weapon because they do not generally complain. When it was discovered that cats, though great at flying through the air, were ineffectual weapons once they landed and ran off, the modern assault rifle, originally spelled a salt rifle, was used to spray the enemy with more salt than needed for optimum flavor. The hope was that high blood pressure would would become an annoying health concern for the enemy. This proved a slow method of combat, which is why modern warfare relies on slaughter. Of course, slaughter comes from s-laughter, which stands for slay by laughter. Thus, the expression, “You slay me,” which soldiers use to surrender when overwhelmed by the enemy’s jokes. READ FULL POST
• Ten Things That Bug Me About English: I can’t say, “I are going to the store,” but I can say, “Aren’t I going to the store?” READ FULL POST 
• Words WIthin Words: Even though they are odd numbers, seven and eleven are both mostly even. READ FULL POST
• Sandwich: A practitioner or Wikken, on a beach. READ FULL POST
• Flamboyant: What people think it means: exuberant manner or dress. What it really means: the superpower ability to float on water while engulfed in flames READ FULL POST
• Fallacy means a false belief. If you try spelling it phallicy, you would have a false penis. READ FULL POST
• Some funny words, like Boogyman: A make believe evil entity evoked to scare children, not a man with a excess of nose mucus and Vagile: It’s the ability of a species to move about or disperse itself, not an agile vagina. READ FULL POST
• Violence in language: We tell kids that hitting is wrong, yet singers want hits. In fact, smash hits are best; webmasters want as many hits as possible – they actually desire unique hits.  Baseball players want hits, even grand slams. You want a cute person to hit on you… after all, that could be a real kick. Maybe it’s a person with a really ripped body who has a crush on you. READ FULL POST
• Words Within Words:

• “Democrats” contains scared, tame, coma, dream, soar, roam, star, stream, cream, ascot, care, dote, comrades, credos, mores, E.R.A., eros, Macs (Republicans use PCs), modest, rose, sacred, and Ted (as in Kennedy).
• “Republicans” is full of words like: rules, race, run, princes, sire, sure, user, cruel, spar, nail, inure, snap, slice, slap, bruise, pain, rape, abuser, slain, sniper, crab, pincer, saber, lance, spear, pliers,carbine, burin, cleanup, ban, sue, ruin, snub, ire, snarl, rail, sneap,snip, snipe, rasp, spiel, unclear, lies, liars, slur, rubes, saps, scab, rase, brisance, lucre, pale, aliens, bile, brucine, urinal, renal, penis, urine, anus, arse, crap, panic, peril, relic, club, lair, insular, snare, arsine, lues, rabies, arsenic, burns, burial, R.I.P., penal, nuclear, supernal, sin, risen, praise and, just to freak you out: Israel. READ FULL POST
• By far, the U.S. has invaded more countries than any other nation in history. At first, some of our targets may seem arbitrary (Grenada?). But if you take the first letters of the countries the U.S. has bombed or sent combat troops to in the last 20 years, they spell out this important message: Liberia (1990, 1997, 2003); Saudi Arabia (1990-91); Iraq (1990-1991, 1991-1993, 1998, 2003-?); Kuwait (1991); Los Angeles (Army & Marines deployed against an anti-police uprising, 1992); Somalia (1992-94, 2006-?); Yugoslavia (1992-94, 1999); Bosnia (1993-?); Haiti (1994, 2004-2005); Zaire (1996-97); Albania (1997); Sudan (1998); Afghanistan (1998, 2001-?); Yemen (2000, 2002, 2009); Macedonia (2001);Philippines (2002-?); Colombia (2003-?); Pakistan (2005-?); Syria (2008): Sally Z. is Skab Happy Clam. READ FULL POST 
• Consider the differences in meaning between these phrases that sound the same but are spelled differently:

• “You’re in danger!” vs. “Urine danger!” Of course, maybe you’re in danger because of urine danger, I don’t know. READ FULL POST
• The Ministree uf Unesesaree Leterz haz ishued the folowing proklamashon:“The leterz C, Q, and X ar on temporaree hi-atus, during wich time new and yooneeke sownds will be konseeved uv and asined to them. In the interim, pleez yooz fonetik spelingz to eckspres the sownds redundantlee asoseated with theez leterz, i.e., “kween,” “zilofone,” and “kukumber.” READ FULL POST

4. Making Fun of Customer Service!

• Welmel > Please click on this link, https://login.comcast.net/login?s=portal&ts=840b2b32&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fredir.comcast.net% 2Fredirect%2Fwebmail%3Fr%3D1259020931195%26redirectUrl%3D http%3A%2F%2Fwww.comcast.net%2F
• Eric_ > That is one long web address. Unfortunately, the Comcast Chat Window does not allow me to either click on that link, or highlight it to copy it. So, I will have to type all of those 50 or 75 characters into a new web browser by hand. Please bear with me while I do this. It may take a few tries to type it correctly.
• Welmel > No. All you have to do is just to click on the link I gave you.
• Eric_ > Funny you should say that, since the link is non-clickable. READ FULL POST

5. Making Fun of the Internet!

• Virgin Googlisms are phrases that have never before appeared on line, like ““That’s my cheese, damnit!” and “Who has the best nostrils?” READ FULL POST
• The phrase, “The moon is not crashing to Earth,” does not appear on line. Apparently no scientist is willing to make that claim. No one has even typed, “The moon poses no danger,” or “The moon will not kill you.” Therefore it will. READ FULL POST

6. Making Fun or Our Educational System!

• The catastrophe of Providence’s alleged public school system has systemic roots in the structural violence of poverty and institutional racism. READ FULL POST
• Goodbye Summer Vacation. Come on – we all know that the school calendar in the United States is antiquated. We spend 180 days of the year learning and the entire summer trying our best to forget everything we just learned. When school starts up in fall, we play catch-up to make up for all the backsliding that’s occurred over the summer. School calendars should be year-round and have their vacations timed to meet the local climate demands. READ FULL POST
• Standardized tests assume that children come standardized, which they don’t. Not only is there a huge developmental span between children in the same grade, but it’s normal and healthy for there to be a span. READ FULL POST
• How Differentiated Instruction Misses the Point: Our educational system is predicated on a false belief that the individuality of students is a problem to work with to bring them to an identical grade level. In fact, every student is where she or he should be in order to grow to her or his next level of understanding. It’s not like trying to construct identical bicycles out of parts that differ, in some sort of assembly line with a rigid time frame delineated by grade levels. READ FULL POST

7. Making Fun Poetry!

• Haiku

• My blog statistics
• Do not tell the whole story
• Of how you love me READ FULL POST
• A free subscription to Daisbrain for whoever can correctly tell me whom this poem is about:

The old poet

was edgy and sincere in his youth

was a vegetarian wanderer

Now complains about kids these days

His generation already opposed a war

This new crop of protesters bore him

He already said ABC, man

So why bother with DEF?

Kids these days….

READ FULL POST

8. Bug Fun!

• Fact #1: Ants have a larger brain to body ratio than humans. READ  FULL POST
• Mysteries of Insects Revealed! I had always been told that somehow the little hairs on insect feet allow them to stick to smooth vertical surfaces. It’s interesting that this is still being told to children since it is based on an understanding of insects that is about 400 years out of date. We now know that insects secrete a sticky fluid as they walk so that they can adhere to smooth surfaces, even upside down. Spiders also use sticky fluids to adhere to smooth surfaces. READ FULL POST

9. Fun Making Much Unsought After Advice for Democrats!

• How is it that a Republican party that appeared to be eating itself into oblivion has so quickly re-emerged to threaten the ever-so-brief Democratic majority in national government? READ  FULL POST
• One of the most striking imbalances in modern U.S. politics is that between the more extreme wings of the two major parties. While Republicans will fight with each other over who is the stronger and purer conservative, Democrats will generally play to the middle. READ FULL POST
• Droning on About Drones…. It is my assertion, therefore, that the policy of killing people around the world by remote control is dangerous and immoral. It is dangerous because it invites retaliation, blurs the law, and presents us with a vision of a state using its technology to kill anyone anywhere for whatever reason it sees fit. It is immoral because it devalues life and uses evil means to attempt to reach just ends. READ FULL POST

10. Philosophical Phun!

• Time & space do not exist. To define time, one must refer to time. The same is true of space.  If a concept can not be defined without referring back to itself, it has no objective reality. And because everything – all matter and energy – exists in time and space, it follows that nothing exists. READ  FULL POST
• Have you ever thought about the process of replacing bits of your body with mechanical devices until there is nothing left that is organic? After replacing all the major organs of my torso with artificial versions, I could slowly replace parts of my brain with more efficient computer components until there was no grey matter left. At what point would I die? Would I notice? Do I have a soul that would fly off while the mechanical me kept on living? READ FULL POST
• Against the backdrop of near-universal acceptance and celebration of competition, I will share my deep concerns about all forms of competition. READ FULL POST
• I suspect that I am missing a deeper way of knowing. I want to become one with the beauty; I want to be the streaks of light that look like God is communicating with the mountains. But my thoughts get in the way. All my worries, all my mental distractions keep me from fully experiencing the everyday majestic beauty of nature. READ FULL POST

12. Making Fun of Sexism!

• In a list of 208 of the world’s top orchestra conductors, guess how many are women? If you guessed 2, you are right! Fewer than 1% are women. Is there something inherently male about conducting an orchestra? READ FULL POST
• My friend asked why I only wear things made by women and not by men. That’s when I realized that he didn’t understand that “woman” is a generic term for human being. I had to explain to him that I’m not sexist. I had taken a cab over to meet my friend that day and I had a man cab driver, and I was fine with that. I don’t think that all men are bad drivers. In fact, I have a man doctor. I even have a man dentist, which is pretty rare. READ FULL POST

13. Making Fun of Politics!

• As for Iran and nuclear weapons, let’s have some of moral clarity: We shouldn’t tell anyone to get rid of their nuclear weapons until we get rid of our own nuclear weapons.

14. Making Fun of African E-Mail Scammers!

Dear Miss Kevlin,

I would be happy to assist you in your dread hour of God Bless need. Because I, too, am the daughter of a wealthy chief (aren’t we all these days?) I have need of transferring the sum of 24 million thirty thirteen thousand dollars (US$45,9267,001.6) from my rightful earnings as the heiress to my late father’s ping pong estate. READ FULL POST

11. Suggestions to Improve the World!

• Pockets should have zippers down the front, so that if you keep your wallet in your front pocket, you could unzip to get it out without tearing up your hands, even when sitting in your car at the drive-up ATM. READ FULL POST
• Advice for better living:

• Pet your dog or cat for a few more minutes than usual today.
• Volunteer to do community service.
• Take a child to experience something new.
• Try picturing an adult who drives you crazy as the sweet little child s/he was, whom you would love despite his or her flaws. READ FULL POST

* also known as a temporary reprieve from blogger’s block

The classic Christmas song, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,”

vs. the cannibal song, “Chest, nuts, roasting on an open fire.”

• Here’s something you hear from kids in the 21st century that you never used to hear:

“Just let me finish this level.”

• Someone should invent fake vegetarian products for meat eaters who miss being vegetarians. For instance, there should be a fake tofu made from pork. Or a fake fake hotdog – we already have “Smart Dogs,” which look and act pretty much like hot dogs. We could have “Dumb dogs,” which look & taste like fake hot dogs but actually are made of real hotdogs with bean curd flavoring added. Or, fake fake bacon made from real bacon but disguised to look like artificial bacon. The possibilities are as endless as they are pointless.

• Tired of English? Or, at least, tired of annoying expressions in English like, Baby Bump, Man Cave, and The New Normal? You’re not alone. Lake Superior State University is on a mission to banish annoying words & expressions. You can even suggest your own on their Facebook page. My number one word to banish: “absolutely,” when a simple “yes” would do.

• Here are some interesting palindromes involving dogs, poop & God:

Dog lived as a devil god.

Dog, no poop on God!

Lap poop, pal!

• Why is it that the more expensive a hotel is, the more they charge for stuff that cheap hotels give away for free, like internet service and breakfast? Are you paying more in order to pay more?

• And finally, a lot has been made of the internet joke by which presidential candidate Rick Santorum‘s last name has been defined as a repugnant substance involving discharge from the hinder regions. I thought that this was unfair to Mr. Santorum, so I decided to write a note to Rick expressing my condolences. I figured that he wouldn’t mind if I started the note by rearranging the letters in “Santorum” to spell To Mr. Anus. Of course, I then had to express further condolences for the fact that his name spells “To Mr. Anus,” which must be upsetting in light of the internet definition of his name. I’m sure that after the election his ass will be quickly forgotten.

—

More word weirdness

]]> http://daisybrain.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/curious-thoughts-and-observations/feed/ 0 EricIndiana 4597CHBURGERWATER http://daisybrain.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/more-home-a-phones/ http://daisybrain.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/more-home-a-phones/#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2011 03:45:40 +0000 EricIndiana http://daisybrain.wordpress.com/?p=3804 ]]>

• “Home: a phone,” a homophone for homophone, is something a person very fond of their cell phone might be thinking. She or he might prefer that identification to “cell phone,” which could be confused with, “sell phone,” which you would never want to do if you thought of your phone as your home.
• Tofu, a white block of fermented soybeans, would be much less exciting to watch than “toe-fu,” a form of Kung-fu performed with toes.
• Which is stranger?

1. Horse says, “ride me.”
2. Horses ride me.

• Fermilab, the US accelerator was so useful in breaking apart matter that one could say, “Fermi conquered mass.” But, For me, Concord, Mass is just a nice town.*

1. An attempt to barter: “Forgetting the money, I’ll give you some honey.”
2. An appreciative prostitute: “For getting the money, I’ll give you some, honey.”

• A square dance move: Do-si-do. A reason not to leave your uncooked pastry out in the woods: Does eat dough. (That’s the female deer, not to be confused with its homograph, pronounced “duz.”)

Bonus**: Odd Sentences

Dew dues are due, dude, if you do do dues. (I don’t know what dew dues might be, but I prefer them to doo-doo dues.)

I edited it. (Say that one outloud 5x fast.)

I tried to tie-dye my Thai tie but the dye died when the ti-dye dried… and I cried. (I think that would make a good song.)

She’s so chi-chi with her sushi, see, she’s sure she shares Sue’s sheep’s shears.

* That pun was so painfully bad that I feel a need to apologize in writing.

** Not, “bone us”

—

More fun with words

Suggestions for People Who Make Things

Bathroom Sink & Faucet Makers:

Eliminate that annoyingly hard to clean gap between the back of the faucet and the wall behind the sink

Toyota:

Design or source the visor and rear view mirror in the Corolla so that the visor can be opened or closed without knocking the mirror out of whack.

Microwave Oven Manufacturers:

Get rid of the unnecessary beeps, or at least have the option to turn off the beeping that tells us that our popcorn is done.

Furniture Makers:

Rounded corners on bed frames to cut down on shin injuries.

House Builders:

1. All houses should come with solar panels pre-installed.

2. Houses should come standard with exercise bikes built in to the electric grid to encourage exercising & generate electricity for the house.

Car Companies:

Cars should also come with solar panels on top to charge the batteries.

Movie Producers:

Make an original work of art, instead of just playing it safe by re-hashing previously successful films, TV shows and books.

Keyboard Makers:

Give us a cent key and get rid of the ~ or the |, or maybe the { and }.

Makers of Stairs:

The landing at the bottom should be undergirded by a foam layer to reduce the seriousness of injuries that result from falling down the stairs.

Bathtub Designers:

Same as stairs – lots of people slip in the tub. The tub should be kind of spongey and soft.

Bed Makers and Astrophysicists:

Zero-Gravity Beds. No more smooshing one side of your face. No more cutting off the circulation to your arm. Just imagine the comfort or really drifting off to sleep.

—

Are you an inventor? Here’s something that needs inventing: Free Idea #1

Consider the differences in meaning between these phrases that sound the same but are spelled differently:

• “You’re in danger!” vs. “Urine danger!” Of course, maybe you’re in danger because of urine danger, I don’t know.
• “Scientists have discovered rings around Uranus,” vs., well, you can guess that one.
• “But, what do you want from me?” something I might ask my wife, vs. “Butt, what do you want from me?” something I might ask my butt, depending on what I ate in the previous 24 hours.
• “Believe me, Honey!” vs,   “Bee, leave me honey!”
• “I ain’t got nobody,” a century-old American song, vs. “Eye ain’t got no body,” which could have been a song from the movie, “The Crawling Eye.”
• “He knows,” vs. “He-Nose,” a particularly masculine and heroic schnoz.
• “This bad pirating has sunk sails,”  a complaint of the Royal Navy, vs. “This bad pie rating has sunk sales,” the pie industry’s complaint about www.pieratings.com.
• “Toy, let me play with you,” sounds pretty innocent, vs. “Toilet, me play with you.”
• “Ten tickles will get you!” something you might say while playing with a child, vs. “Tentacles will get you!” something you might say to warn a sailor not to venture into giant squid infested waters.
• And, of course, the joyful, “Ice cream sandwiches are here!” vs. the ominous, “I scream: Sand witches are here!”

Here are some challenges for readers: Come up with identically pronounced sentences that include:

• “innocent” vs. “in a cent”
• “realize” vs. “real eyes”
• “raise your hand” vs. “razor-hand”*
• or come up with your own & share in the comments section

*That one is thanks to the Dancing Cigarettes

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More Homophonia: My Specialty is Special Tea

Skippable, glib introductory paragraph:

I finally removed my name from the Obama campaign email list. It took a few tries, which was fine with me because it gave me several chances to fill in the box about why I wanted to be removed from their mailing list. I explained that much as I respect and, in broad terms, support the President, his policy of killing people by remote control drone aircraft is so abhorrent to me that I found it difficult to maintain enthusiasm for his re-election.

Unnecessarily wordy instructions on how to read the five main points:

I would like to lay out for you five reasons that we should not be continuing the U.S. drone assassination program. In reverse order of Lawrence Kohlberg’s Moral Development Theory, I have listed the points starting with universal moral principles that transcend human law and ending with strictly legal reasoning. From listening to discussions on the news about war over the years, I have come to realize that most people do not consider values-based arguments when deciding whether state violence is an appropriate course of action. Nor are legals considerations generally taken seriously in matters of war and peace. Practical and tactical considerations, which reflect Level Two of Kohlberg’s moral development schema, are almost universally aired in place of thinking about laws or thinking in terms of right and wrong. If like me, you are one of the few people in the world who considers broad principles of right and wrong to be of the utmost value, then you should read the following points from top to bottom. If, however, you consider practical, concrete, and immediate points to be more salient, you should read the list from bottom to top.

The five main points of this article:

1. It is wrong to kill people. More specifically, it is wrong for the State to kill people. This argument does not hold much sway for most people in the United States. After all, this is a country in which a majority of the adult population supports the death penalty. Perhaps some of those people, however, might make a distinction between judicial and extra-judicial executions.
2. The image of the most powerful nation on Earth hiring a dude in an office in Ohio to press some buttons in order to assassinate people around the planet by remote control, thus avoiding any risk to its own people, is rightfully seen as cowardly.
3. Drone attacks inexorably kill people other than the intended targets. Estimates of how many civilian men, women and children have been killed vary widely, but the practice has engendered huge resentment in much of the world. This has greatly exasperated our failure to win hearts and minds in regions of the world where we are fighting wars of ideology.
4. Inevitably, other countries will follow our lead and develop and use drone technology. Every time we send a drone around the planet to assassinate a perceived enemy, we are saying that the state is justified in doing so. Stop for a minute to see the future we are creating, when, say, Pakistan deems it necessary to drop a bomb on an apartment complex in Chicago where they have “actionable intelligence” that an anti-Pakistan terrorist is hiding.
5. Drone assassinations are illegal. 200 years after our nation was founded, we in the United States decided that we wanted to live in a civilized nation that did not engage in assassinations. So, in 1976, President Ford outlawed assassinations: “No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination.”

I would like to close with two quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Some of these come from my cousin Judi.

• When it comes to sugar, we have both sugar-free and sugarless. So why do we say fat-free, but never fatless, and speechless but never speech-free? Further observations of -free vs. -less:
  • Soy-free, not soyless
  • Dairy-free, not dairyless
  • Gluten-free, not glutenless
  • GMO-free, not GMO-less
  • Salt-free, not saltless
    • But then we have:
  • Flourless, not flour-free
  • bottomless, not bottom-free
  • feckless, but not feck-free
  • brainless, but not (often) brain-free
  • Topless, but not top-free
  • Humorless, but not humor-free
  • Fearless, but not fear-free
• Isn’t it ironic that “phonetic” is not phonetic – it’s spelled with a “ph”,  and “monosyllabic” is not monosyllabic, it’s polysyllabic?
• I don’t know if this is telling in the sexual harassment scandal, but “Herman Cain” is an anagram for “He can ram in.”

Like all teachers and parents of teenagers, I spend a lot of time lamenting the fact that “kids these days” don’t go out and play; they spend all their spare time playing video games. Even on overnights at friends’ houses, the kids appear to be playing more in the parallel play style that you would expect from toddlers – they enjoy one another’s company, but they are just sitting next to each other pressing buttons. All I have hoped for is that perhaps they are developing good fine motor skills, fast typing abilities, and really strong forefingers.

But recently, I have been wondering if I am missing the true picture. Perhaps, the social skills that I think are so very important t success in life are changing. Perhaps, abilities such as recognizing emotional responses in facial expressions will be irrelevant in the near future as more and more people live their entire lives through digital avatars. My particular teaching job focuses largely on helping children to develop their social-emotional intelligence, so this revelation comes at the possible expense of relevancy of my life’s work.

Outside of mating (for the foreseeable future), people might need a whole different set of social cues and behaviors than the ones I have been teaching. Even conflict resolution may have to be rethought, as people can effortlessly disappear from relationships in conflict and find a entirely new social groups to be part of, all without leaving the living room couch.

I don’t think it is up to me to judge that the pro-social skills of previous generations, things like eye contact, smiling and active listening, are more useful than the myriad of emerging social skills needed to successfully navigate a multi-player universe. Trying to get kids to learn socially acceptable body language might be like insisting that they learn how to address envelopes in the email age (something that I learned the other day that most of my 7th graders don’t have a clue about). The old fashioned communication skills that I teach might be doomed to the realm of cursive writing in the keyboard age, something that most schools have already abandoned teaching.

So, I think that maybe we should step back from the fear that by not learning our skills that our children will suffer, and pay more attention to the skills that they may actually be using in their virtual friendships, rivalries and love affairs.

I suspect that I am missing a deeper way of knowing. I want to become one with the beauty; I want to be the streaks of light that look like God is communicating with the mountains. But my thoughts get in the way. All my worries, all my mental distractions keep me from fully experiencing the everyday majestic beauty of nature.

I think that we always want to consume or merge with beauty. It’s why older adults will pinch the cheeks of cute children – they want grab on, to connect. But it’s never satisfying. At least with beautiful food, you can eat it. I think with adults, when we find someone beautiful whom we want to consume that sex is the best we can do. That is, unless we allow ourselves to be cannibals. But then, we would destroy a thing of beauty that we want to hold on to. So, nothing is completely satisfying. If you have the time and ability to paint a beautiful landscape, perhaps that would come close to the feeling of bringing that beauty into your heart. I suppose it would be nice to be able to just let beauty be, and not feel a need to appreciate it on a profound level. But I don’t seem to be wired that way. Perhaps that’s a relic of a culture that insists on controlling nature, on growing flowers in patterns and deciding which plants are weeds. I can’t fence in scenes of great beauty, and I can’t just let them be. When I am confronted with them, the only coping technique I have come up with is to breath it all in deeply. Deep breathing also has the advantage of putting me in a calmer mood, which can help to still the mind a bit to allow me to more fully notice beauty. But it is inadequate, and I wonder if I will ever find a way to more fully appreciate beauty in my lifetime.

Why are there “mom & pop” stores but not “pop & mom” stores? In fact, Google reveals that “pop & mom” appears fewer than 19,000 times on line while “mom & pop” has 1.38 million iterations. We are very specific about the order in which couples find themselves. Like “mom & pop,” “mom & dad” (over 13 million hits) far outnumbers “dad & mom” (fewer than 1 million appearances online). Likewise, we talk about “grandma & grandpa” (1 million 700 thousand occurrences) but ignore poor old “grandpa & grandma” (549,000), and “aunts & uncles” make 868,000 more appearances than “uncles & aunts.” But, cheer up male partners: “Mr. & Mrs.” overshadows “Mrs. and Mr.” by a nearly seven to one margin. And, “boys & girls” outnumber “girls & boys” by about the same ratio. On the other hand, “ladies & gentlemen” still beats “gentlemen & ladies” by well over ten to one.

Need more reflections on common phrases that normally pass through our lips unchallenged? Why “this and that,” but never “that and this”? How come “sooner or later,” but never “later or sooner”? Did anyone ever say, “Cher and Sonny“? “Yarnell and sheilds“? “Marie and Donny“? “Robin and Batman“? “Bean Sprout and the Jolly Green Giant“?

Finally, we tend to ask if people want to hear, “the good news or the bad news,” instead of vice-versa, and, “comedy and and tragedy” appears twice as often in a Google search than, “tragedy and comedy.” However, we say, ”in sickness and in health” instead of, “in health and in sickness.” So, sometimes we like the bad to come first.

What have we learned from all of this? For one thing, it’s that people aren’t very inventive in the way they communicate. Perhaps, just perhaps, we have also learned how to fill up a blog post with pointless observations.

I also think that it’s fun to be mindful of our speech and to mix things up a bit, if only to confuse people.

Here are some more word questions

The zone of Proximal Development is going to be at different places in different subjects for different students at different times in their lives. This presents an insurmountable challenge for our entire educational system, which is predicated on a false belief that the individuality of students is a problem to work with to bring them to an identical grade level. In fact, every student is where she or he should be in order to grow to her or his next level of understanding. It’s not like trying to construct identical bicycles out of parts that differ, in some sort of assembly line with a rigid time frame delineated by grade levels.

Beyond the conceit of developmentally ignorant grade-level standards, the whole idea of the classroom is fatally flawed. Classroom groups are great for practicing cooperation and learning teamwork. But the classroom unit of 12 to 30 students does not serve the individual students well outside of those activities. The teacher is tasked with the impossible mission of standardized learning outcomes for all students in an unnatural institutional setting antithetical to developmental needs of children. This results in a continuous tension between freedom and compliance which is stifling to many students and stressful to teachers and students alike. It is ultimately dehumanizing to everyone involved.

The compliance is only necessary because we are trying to teach a group of individuals as if they were one person. The hoped for learning outcome is designed as if they were all the same person, even if we try different methods to “deal with ” their innate differences.

Is school that respects the individual even possible? It might exist in a small setting with multi-age groupings. There, students could develop in their zone of proximal learning for every subject without the harmful concept of “grade level” defining success and failure. Until we abolish schools as they currently exist and replace them with compassionate learning communities respectful of everyone’s different needs, we are doing violence to our children in the name of education.

Institutional Racism, Poverty, and American Education