A Reading Memory

I read a lot when I was a kid and the quality and depth of what I read helped to make me what I am today. This morning, for instance, I fondly recalled the time when Archie told Jughead a joke. It went like this: 

Archie: Hey Jughead, I just heard a good joke. Why did the football coach take his star player out of the game?

Jughead: I don't know Archie, why?

Archie: Because he wanted his quarterback.

Jughead laughed and indeed thought that was a good joke. Then he ran into Veronica (whom I had a crush on).

Jughead: Hi Veronica. Want to hear a good joke?

Veronica: Sure, Jughead.

Jughead: Why did the football coach take his star player out of the game?

Veronica: I don't know. Why, Jughead?

Jughead: Because he wanted his twenty-five cents back.

As Jughead laughes there's a question mark in the bubble over Veronica's head.

My Debate Prep

Right now at 4;00am watching and listening to Anne Waldman on Zoom. She seems to me a poet warrior seeking a sane world. Thanks Anne.

England's top Environmental Warrior

 Sir David Attenborough breaks Jennifer Aniston's Instagram record - for the fastest time to reach a million followers on Instagram. Good idea Sir D.

Fascinating Documentary

 

 Infinite Potential: The Life & Ideas of David Bohm on YouTube - and a notice on it says it's going to be there for a limited time.

Two Mighty Forces Join to Save Us

 

Sir David Attenborough joins Instagram to warn 'the world is in trouble'

Fond Memory

 Once my younger son Clay and I were in a supermarket and I made what I thought was a keen observation. He said, "You know Dad, you don't have to say everything that occurs to you."

Remembering Jack Handy's

Deep Thoughts

Climate Week on BBC

 Prince Charles calls for 'swift' action on climate change 

When Great Trees Fall

 by Maya Angelou

thanks Gregory

Art Is Essential

 Online show at the Uessel Gallery in Oakland, CA. Lots of neat stuff there. I went in there because my bud Bill Schwob has two pieces included. Check his out. 

Here's more at Bill's http://williamschwob.com/ site.

Bill's work shows up in a number of places on cuke.com but there's no main page for him so far. To access them just write "schwob" in the site search box. On shunryusuzuki.com there's a page of Bill's photos of temples in Japan where Shunryu Suzuki lived that's featured on Cuke What's New Blog on the 19th, tomorrow. 

Sir David Attenborough makes stark warning

 

 about species extinction - BBC

Extinction:

 

Urgent change needed to save species, says UN - BBC

Check this one out

 The Social Dilemma - a Netflix documrama "explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations." 

Fondly Remembering

 

The Church of the Subgenius

A brilliant product of Dallas, a suburb of my hometown, Fort Worth 

An Important Announement

 

Happy birthday to my dear wonderful sister Susan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Animals under Attack

 

Humans are decimating wildlife, and the pandemic is a sign

City Serendipity

My boss from the California Conservation Corps, Jack Dugan, the Asst. Director of the program, a retired Army colonel, stayed at the City Center of the SFZC one night when we had an early meeting in the city the next day. I stayed there too. He joined in on the kitchen work and enjoyed it. After breakfast in the flop room he got into a spirited conversation with students about meditation and life in the city. He asked if people in the building had had any trouble in the neighborhood. There were a few stories about scary run-ins and and muggings. I mentioned that there had been some shoot-outs, break-ins, a few deaths. When I'd run the Green Gulch Green Grocer across the street, where the prior owner and two would-be robbers had died before we arrived, I'd gotten to know the kids in the neighborhood and had to deal with some vandalism from them but we got along. I'd developed a realationship with a tall, handome, black policeman named Lloyd Winston. He's played football with OJ and had that same sort of build. And he was helpful. I arranged a meeting with him and me and the mother of a kid who'd broken a picture window in the store - and the kid. Ricky. Boy did I have to deal with Ricky. But it was easy after that. 

Naming the Cat

Whereas our Kat's name is Katrinka, our cat is name Kuci, short for Kucita, her formal name, pronounced kuchi and kuchita. The origin of her name is that Katrinka was calling her kucing. Since kucing means cat in Indonesian, I protested that we shouldn't call a cat, Cat. I suggested something close to kucing - Kucita to usually be called Kuci. Katrinka persisted with kucing and I persisted with Kuci. That worked out fine until a guest would ask what the cat's name was. Katrinka would say kucing. Notice I don't capitolize it as that would be acknowledging that it was a proper noun. When Katrinka told guests that her name was kucing I'd say, "No, she's wrong. Her name is Kuci." This sort of exchange was never accompanied by any arguing but it did confuse guests at times. Sometimes now Kat calls Kuci Kuci - or Kucing.

Explaining the name Bandi from the previous post

 You may already know this depending on what you follow that issues from these dancing fingers, but the origin of our doggette Bandi's name goes back to the same afternoon with Katrinka, me, Made the vet, and Nyoman driver mentioned a couple of posts ago when I made the tasteless suggestion of Airway for our new puppy's name. Katrinka then said Well then what should we name her. Some novel names were tried - Spot, Rover, Fido - no, none of them seemed right. Katrinka said, Well, she's blond, how do you say blonde in Indonesian? and she brushed the side of her head with her hand. Neither of them speak much English at all and I didn't know the word for blond. I started to look it up on my iPhone but the vet seemed to have understood what Katrinka had asked because she said, Bando. Oh - Bando. That sounds nice. So she was Bando. Till a few days later when we discovered to our embarassment that bando meant headband. That's what vet Made had assumed Katrinka meant with the brush of her hand down the side of her head. The vet came by and I told her of the misunderstanding we'd just discovered. I told her we didn't like the name Pirang which is blond in Indonesian and that we'd used bando so much we decided to just change it a little bit to bandi. Oh no she said, that's no good, not a good name. Why, I asked. Because it sounds like bandit and bandits are bad. Bandit! Wonderful. I called Katrinka to come out to the courtyard and we agreed that our doggette was a bandit of sorts but she was small and female so, bringing in a little Spanish we gave her the formal name, Bandita which we do use sometimes though mainly we call her Bandi and almost three years now, she's ansswered to that name.

Explaining yesterday's use of the initials RW

Unknown to tourists “RW” stands for Rintek Wuuk meaning “fine hair” in the Minahasan dialect. Recent reports have uncovered that the Balinese people are brutally killing dogs and serving them to unsuspecting tourists.

I suggested to Katrinka we call our doggy Airway when we got her. RW here are pronounced the same as airway. She didn't understand but the vet and our driver Nyoman did not approve of that name so she got Bandi instead.

Puppy Love

Our friend Alice send Katrinka a What's App with a photo of a sweet little puppy saying we should take it. I went staight to my iPhone and sent Alice a message that said if she happened to have any extra puppies lieing around that I'd be happy to have them to sell for cura and melpas. She wrote back that she supposed that was some sort of food. No, I responded, those aren't doggy dishes - that's called RW. Cura and melpas are animal sacrifice ceremonies here in Bali and puppies are 2nd only to chicks on that menu.  

COVID-19 Has Resurrected Single-Use Plastics and not for good reason

 Read about it in Smithsonian Mag dot com

White Light Missals

 Catholic priest friend Stephen Frost keeps up an admirable river of art and commentary at his White Light Missals blog.

The Meaning of Life again

 Yesterday's post on the meaning of life which mentioned the Monte Python movie of that name, reminded me of the excellent, wonderful song from the flick, the Galaxy Song. That's it from the flick.