The Party of No

The following was part of Heather Cox Richardson’s most recent newsletter in which she discussed the Senate vote to establish a bipartisan independent commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection. As expected, Republicans voted “No.”

I don’t feel I need to add any additional words to her observation:

Indeed, by refusing to investigate what is arguably the most dangerous attack on our democracy in our history, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has brought out into the open just how radical the Republican Party has become.

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The View From Above

Have you ever flown in a commercial airplane? If so, did you notice that once you were “in the air” — far above the highways and byways —  it was impossible to look out the window and see people on the ground? In fact, when that plane is cruising at an average altitude of 36,000 feet (that’s nearly 7 miles up in the air), even a person standing on the highest mountain peak on earth would be invisible.

Come to think about it, even if you are standing on good old terra firma, the chances of detecting an individual seven miles away are nil.

Yet many of us see ourselves as GIANTS — and we constantly strive to convince others of not only our visibility, but our importance as well. We are convinced that our thoughts and our actions are worthy of undivided attention. We dismiss the fact that under the circumstances mentioned above, we could not even prove we exist!

I happen to be a fan of apocalyptic movies. In many of them, the starring individual is one of the last human beings on earth and his/her survival is the primary goal. Occasionally, in some movies, another survivor shows up. Of course, depending on the script, this can turn out to be good or bad. However, one thing that has never happened — the last survivors don’t spend their time discussing political and/or religious views. Their “focus” is far beyond personal persuasions.

Yet in REAL life, because so many of us live in comparative comfort, we argue and bicker and FIGHT over skin color, religious beliefs, political ideals, climate change, and/or whatever other topic we feel strongly about. We consider ourselves the authority on innumerable subjects and strive to convince others of our superiority.

Perhaps it would be well if we occasionally considered/recognized how insignificant we are in the big scheme of things — and took note of the fact that, from seven miles up, we don’t even exist!

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Photo by Leon Macapagal from Pexels

A Visual Post

This is what I do in my “spare time.” These are just a few of the color-by-number pics that I’ve done recently using an app called “Happy Color©“

Of course, no picture collection would be complete without wine grapes. 😍

Remembering

There are a lot of weird people/events/things in this world – and it seems you don’t have to look very far to find them. Case in point is this article. It totally fits the criteria.

It’s about a women (Rebecca Sharrock) who says she can remember every single day of her entire life. Yes, you read that right. In fact, she even claims she can remember her life in the womb before she was born. And she describes the experience in the article!

She also “reminisces” about various childhood events and, at one point, complains about the many “annoying little memories” that she can’t get rid of … calling them “useless clutter.”

Apparently, Rebecca is one of just 60 people in the world with hyperthymesia, or “Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory” (H-SAM). And, according to this website, it’s a viable condition.

(I have my doubts.)

So, if you’re bored –or perhaps tired of reading about the current state of the political world– take a break and enjoy a touch of the bizarre.

Domain Names

Over the past few days, at his request, I’ve been helping Scottie (ScottiesToyBox.com) move his paid WordPress-hosted blog to a “regular” hosting company. He explains why this became necessary in his initial post (https://scottiestoybox.com/?p=20) at his “new” blog.

Unfortunately, the move has not been without hiccups. Some actions fell right into place. Others? Not so much. And some are still “pending.” (I think we both learned a lot about blog transfers!)

Anyway, while all this was going on, I gave some thought to moving my own blog to a regular hosting company as well. HOWEVER, I very quickly changed my mind!

When you have a free blog with WP (as I do), your domain name includes “wordpress.com” in the URL. In other words, to access my blog, you must type in “sayitnow.wordpress.com” (without quotes).

Now, if/when a person ever decides to move her/his blog to a “regular” webhost, the “wordpress” part is removed and the domain name becomes “Mysite.com.”

Anyway, just out of curiosity, I decided to see if “sayitnow.com” was available as a stand-alone domain name.

Imagine my SHOCK when I discovered that yes, it’s available — for $20,000!! Plus a yearly domain registration fee of $18.99 (which is considerably higher than the average)!

It’s been suggested that the reason for this high cost is I have “established” the name since my blog has been online since 2008.

In any case, I think it goes without saying, I’m most definitely keeping things the way they are.

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Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay