It's not much of a post, I'll admit.  But I'm one short of my goal of writing at least ten posts per month, and this month ends in three minutes.  See previous post for why I'm writing at this hour.  No, I'm not a slave to that goal, but if I can do it, why not?  It's the perfect excuse to offer one of my favorite poems, by John Masefield

Laugh and Be Merry

Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world with a song,
Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong.
Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span.
Laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man.

Laugh and be merry:  remember, in olden time,
God made Heaven and Earth for joy He took in a rime,
Made them, and filled them full with the strong red wine of His mirth,
The splendid joy of the stars:  the joy of the earth.

So we must laugh and drink from the deep blue cup of the sky,
Join the jubilant song of the great stars sweeping by,
Laugh, and battle, and work, and drink of the wine outpoured
In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord.

Laugh and be merry together, like brothers akin,
Guesting awhile in the rooms of a beautiful inn,
Glad till the dancing stops, and the lilt of the music ends.
Laugh till the game is played; and be you merry, my friends.

Posted by sursumcorda on Monday, August 31, 2015 at 11:57 pm | Edit
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A short (three-minute) video, just for fun.  Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale.  Enjoy.

Posted by sursumcorda on Thursday, May 28, 2015 at 9:12 am | Edit
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If this video has you scratching your head, just ignore it.  It's a little tidbit for a few of my readers while I work on my next book review.  But the few ("the happy few") will smile, I think.

Posted by sursumcorda on Friday, May 22, 2015 at 3:49 pm | Edit
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The latest product update e-mail just arrived from Twitter.  What am I do make of this?

We've launched Periscope, a live, interactive video app that lets you teleport anywhere with a tap.

Should I cancel my plane tickets to Switzerland?  I've been waiting for someone to develop teleportation, though I am surprised it comes with so little hype.

Posted by sursumcorda on Friday, April 17, 2015 at 4:31 pm | Edit
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Daylight Saving Time.  DST.  In Europe, it's called by the more logical name of "Summer Time," but we in the United States need a different terminology, since we now begin DST well before winter is over.  Is that wishful thinking on someone's part?  "Spring ahead?  Just how far ahead did you move it???" ask our Northern friends.

Our Spring Ahead for 2015 is now history.  But for our European connections (and for the record) I'm posting my two favorite time change commentaries.  (H/T Tim H. and Laurie D.)  You've seen the first before, but the second is new.  It's not completely grandchild-friendly, and somewhat rude, but it's funny and nails the point.  What's odd to me is how many people think that DST is for the sake of farmers, whereas I remember from early childhood that the farmers hated it and resented it being forced on them by the "city folks."

alt (click to enlarge)

 

(link for those whose feedreaders strip off the video)

Posted by sursumcorda on Wednesday, March 11, 2015 at 1:09 pm | Edit
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Mother Goose & Grimm isn't one of my favorite comics, but every once in a while they do something I really like.  Maybe this is only impressive to a select few, but my nephew is one of them, so....

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Posted by sursumcorda on Monday, February 9, 2015 at 9:45 pm | Edit
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Are Grossmutti and Grossvater ready for guests from Florida?  Who knew there was a secret passage from Diagon Alley, Orlando to Basel-Land?

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Posted by sursumcorda on Wednesday, January 21, 2015 at 6:22 pm | Edit
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It takes a rich, greedy capitalist to grind the poor into the dust, right?  Certainly over the years many have done a very good job of that.  Our recent viewing of the documentary, Queen Victoria's Empire, drove home the disastrous consequences of both imperialism in Africa and the Industrial Revolution back home in Britain.

However, the same video also revealed the devastation that can be wrought by someone with good intentions, even against his will (e.g. David Livingstone), and especially when combined with the above-mentioned greed (e.g. Cecil Rhodes).

Which brings me to the point.  I cannot count the hours and hours of struggle Porter has put into getting us health insurance in these post-retirement times.  Without a doubt, I am personally grateful for the choices the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) offers us, as much as I philosophically fear its negative consequences.  Some of those negative consequences are personal, too: e.g. the colonoscopies that had been covered by our insurance in the past no longer qualify for coverage because of new rules instituted by the ACA.  And we can't afford to get sick until after the end of January, because the "helpful" phone contact assigned us the wrong Primary Care Provider, and the fix won't go into effect till February 1.  However, I admit to no longer hoping for repeal of the ACA, because the damage has been done.  Too many people, including us, are now dependent on it.  I doubt we can put the genie back in the bottle.

While I freely acknowledge that the passage of the ACA had at its heart noble ideals and good intentions, I'm not convinced it's really helping the poor, or at least not as much as it's helping people who get rich off the needs of the poor.  Porter, being retired, has the time to put into navigating the complex and exceedingly frustrating waters.  He also has a degree in economics and a mind well-suited to financial calculations.  Which convinces me that the truly impoverished will (1) throw up their hands and settle for a much less than optimal health care plan, or (2) fall prey to those who would profit from doing the paperwork for them, while charging inordinate fees and still coming up with a less than optimal plan.

Nonetheless, the purpose of this post is neither to start a political discussion nor to depress you.  It's to honor my husband, for whom Sunday's Animal Crackers comic could have been created:

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No doubt about it:  I married the right man.

Posted by sursumcorda on Monday, January 19, 2015 at 7:56 am | Edit
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Thanks to Katie of Peace on Birth, I bring a simple smile to your day.  This is especially for those dear to us who are expecting their fourth child and live in a two-bedroom apartment, and for those who passed the family-of-six point quite a while ago.  :)  He's a little too hard on fathers, but you can tell he doesn't really mean it, just poking fun at himself to make a point.  I'd never heard of Jim Gaffigan, but that's a name I'll be alert to from now on.  There are some things he gets that few commedians do.  I do wish he'd stop with the singular use of "they," however.  I mean, he's talking about mothers.  I think he could use "she" without excluding anyone.

Posted by sursumcorda on Friday, January 9, 2015 at 9:25 am | Edit
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You'd be shocked at the number of people who think our daughter and her family live in Sweden.  Just as homeschoolers know that they will inevitably and repeatedly be asked the S Question ("But what about socialization?"), the Swiss know that much of the world will always think they live in the land of IKEA, ABBA, and free health care.  Thus I was not surprised to see the following in an article on the Cooking Light website.

First Up: You'll love this Rösti Casserole with Baked Eggs. We have whittled down the calories in this traditional Swedish dish and added our own spin with Greek yogurt and artisan spices. This dish embodies the alluring qualities you'd expect from rösti—shredded potatoes that are cooked until browned and crisp on the edges. Serve with a colorful mixed greens salad.

At least the Swiss won't have to be annoyed at the alterations to their traditional dish—they can blame it on the Swedes.

Posted by sursumcorda on Tuesday, January 6, 2015 at 8:30 am | Edit
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Forget Area 51, the NSA's invasive civilian spying, and anything else you may think the U.S. government has tried to keep up its sleeves.  Edward Snowden has nothing on me.  I will now reveal to you the government's greatest secret:

The United States Post Office has discovered instantaneous transport!

Here at Lift Up Your Hearts! we have obtained a copy of the official government record of a small package sent between the United States and Switzerland.  (Not to CERN, but to what our sources indicate may be the home laboratory of one of its top up-and-coming scientists.)

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There it is, ladies and gentlemen:  the Secret of the Century is out.  And you thought only quantum particles could be in two places at the same time.

Next up for our intrepid investigative reporters?  Digging into the dirty secret of why it still takes four days to travel the 250 miles from Altamonte Springs to Miami.

Posted by sursumcorda on Wednesday, September 17, 2014 at 3:17 pm | Edit
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"Great goddess Athena, great god Apollo, we ask that you impart wisdom in these proceedings today," Jennifer Zarpentine, a Wiccan priestess, prayed at the town board meeting of Greece, New York, in April 2008.

"Help the board to make the right, informed decisions that will benefit the greater good of this community. This we ask of you." As board members contin­ued to bow their heads in prayer, several other meeting attendees responded with the pagan version of amen, "So mote it be."

Thus begins a Christianity Today editorial from a couple of months ago (subtitled "Why we pray before public meetings—and let pagans do the same").  It's a serious article, which is no doubt why the location of this town meeting passes without further comment.  To the writer, I suppose, it might as well have been Chili, or Brighton, or any of the other suburbs of Rochester, New York.  Being from that part of the state, however, and under no compulsion to be serious, my own first reaction was that nothing could be more appropriate in Greece than prayers to Athena and Apollo.

Posted by sursumcorda on Monday, September 15, 2014 at 8:02 pm | Edit
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Nothing profound today, just something to make you smile.  She's 150% of my age.

Posted by sursumcorda on Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 2:48 pm | Edit
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From a Facebook friend, a facinating article on the schwa, which leads to this video on English as a stress-timed language.  They mention Spanish and French as syllable-timed.  I wonder about other languages, such as German and Swiss German, but do not have time at the moment to investigate.  And I thought we were just being lazy.

Posted by sursumcorda on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 at 7:37 am | Edit
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Fifty years makes no difference in the susceptibility to parody of elementary mathematics education in America.

Elementary school mathematics, 1964:

Elementary school mathematics, 2014:

My apologies:  I can't get the embedding to work on this Stephen Colbert video, but you can click on the link above.

Posted by sursumcorda on Friday, April 18, 2014 at 8:49 am | Edit
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