Alleys, Allies, ? Marbles

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I don't beilieve I ever knew how to spell 'alleys'/'allies' by which I mean marbles.

As a kid, a grade schooler, all I ever called them or the pastime  was alleys.

Know what I mean? The small ,spherical (less than 1cm diameter), variously coloured glass objects.
Some seem quite delicate, but boy can they take abuse. They operate just fine from 200 degreesC to minus 50C. Drop them on concrete - no problems. Take a bunch of them, put them in a regulation purple Crown Royal flannel bag, and smack 'em together vigourously - no problems. Throw them up against a brick wall - no damage.

All the boys I knew, best I recall, had marbles at one time or t'other.
For a stretch a boy's alleys were the most obvious signal of wealth or status.
It was how many you had, how unique some were ('beauts' we called them), how good/lucky they were in games, and what their pedigree was (perhaps claimed in a game from the bully down the street).
Guys sought them out, usually buying them or getting them as gifts, or trading them at fluctuating values, and they learned the arts of collecting.

Teachers didn't much care for them.
Invariably they caused a commotion or at least a distraction.
On the other hand they also operated as a placator - sort of like TV - at  their best transfixing whoever was within range.
And of course there were Rules about Marbles near or in the School.

I recall playing two types of games.
Each boy played with his own alleys. This was no team pursuit.

In one game players gently tossed a marble towards a brick wall, close to the ground.
The alley would bounce off the wall with a pleasing sound, jump forward and roll on the ground.
The ground in front would have been smooth and level, but for a hole (depression) tennis ball size or so, carved from the ground a pace or two from the wall.

Now that ground could have been sand or gravel in the warm season, or packed snow in the cool season.
The object was to get all your alleys in the hole first - each player taking turns, one marble toss at a time.

January Twenty Twenty two - a COVID tipping point?

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 Quick note for something that ought to be much fuller.

I think we are at an inflection point - on a number of societal dimensions - a key one being how our societies have been responding to the Covid phenomena.

Consider this. Covid arrived roughly Jan 2020. The western media got the memo around March, a couple of months later. The media frenzy grew, and kept growing - outpacing the case counts even, which counts were front page, above the fold, news day after insufferable day - for near two years. 

(nota bene: case counts as a thing are on the down slide in the media consciousness these last couple of weeks, a byproduct of the Health Wizards declaration that they will stop counting cases - if I understand correctly. How prescient, I say (perfect timing with skyrocketing case numbers which counts/numbers are of no apparent significance .) This factoid may be considered a data point for timing.

Now, a full year into the hysteria, my recollection is that I did not know, personally, anyone who had died from Covid. Heck among people I would consider acquaintances - measured in hundreds, I did not even know of someone who had the virus - symptoms or none.

Eventually I did come to know of some  cases personally. But if memory serves, without exception the symptoms were mild or modest.

Things have changed, recent like.

I can not put a precise date on it. But after a chuggy start, the last 2 or 3 weeks (or could it be 5 or 6?) has seen a big uptick in the number of people I know have gotten the viral infection. Son Jay. Then twin Maureen. Then Jay's missus Michele. This is a small sample to be sure. It is also highly relevant. Mark my prediction.

The end is at hand.

Apps - It's a New World

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 I figure you can safely say: It's a new world out there.

For clarity I write on Saturday eve, Sept. 18, 2021 at 277 Elm.

Just saw a pitch onscreen for a new 'app'. It deals with astronomy and stars.
It has info in its database of some 100,000,000 stars - that's a hundred million - or a hundred thousand of thousands.

This number blows me away - metaphorically of course. Wowsie.
All this in a single app that is readily accommodated in the memory of most phones I see these days.

Fuggetabout the memory thing and just reflect on the knowledge base.
I gotta figure that when I first took a computer course - 1970 - there were not 100,00,000 identified sky objects in our known universe. So not only have we, as a species, discovered and observed these objects, we have given them names and trajectories, and put it all in an app, which you carry on your phone in your pants pocket. Amazing.

Schmatte - Yiddish for Rag

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Should I get into the rag trade?

Nice Yiddish word applies to this. Schmatte.

This  question emerged one Sunday morn, (today) while tackling a suoer-long overdue chore of organizing my fabrics.

I've got enough clothes and other fabrics to give the appearance of a trader.

Chilis & Life Goals - Alternative Paths

 Imagine you are a chili. A plant folks harvest for spice.

Imagine at a certain point in your life cycle you reflect about the reason for your existence.
And it comes to you in a flash. "Promote the species". Encourage reproduction. Prepare for succession. Just like all other life forms.

But how?
Pesky little animals have taken to feasting on the chili seeds. They are tasty and nutritious.
But those ingested seeds get all chewed up, and never amount to anything but waste. A lost reproduction opportunity.

And then another flash.
Why not bump up the production of the spice (capesin). Those little seed eating critters won't care for the hot spices. Capsaisin does indeed trick the brain into thinking it has encountered something hot - as in temperature, and that is not pleasant.

And so it came to pass.
Some peppers/chilis boosted their capsaisin quotient to the point little animals learned to stay away.
The seeds were not eaten nor chewed and destroyed by little animals with sharp teeth.

The species was not reproducing  as expected. Numbers were down for those chilis.
All was not lost though.
Rather, birds took up the slack
They did not chew the seeds. They never tasted the spice, hidden within the seed.
Instead they swalled them whole, complete with their little sac of nutrients.

The seeds never got digested, so when the critter pooped, out came the seed and fertilizer, et voila, better reproductive efficiency and success.

What a clever strategy for advancing your life goals.

[ On re-reading some time later, I now think the logical path of this piece is very flawed. I wonder about "causation" matters. Birds had been around before animals got scared off chilis. So what's the diff...]

CBC New Branding is Misleading

 Nothing new here folks.

The CBC's latest effort at self aggrandisement,  a new branding and slogan campaign, was bound to be criticized as 'misleading'. Part of CBC's DNA the critics would say; an inevitability.

For the memory challenged among us, a quick recap:
A short while back the marketing gurus at The Corp decided to burnish their rather tired brand.

The result was this ear numbing slogan:
All aboriginal, All the time, All the way!

To many this breezy triad resonated. And not just sonically. It was almost intersectional.
It encapsulated economically the state of affairs in the ether for the CBC's many services.
The media and platform mattered little.
You could count on their loyal staffers to come through in spades (racist?), reds (oops) with appropriate content to fill the slot.

But this remember, is The Corp.
Adequate will never do if you can go over the top.
And in the result, they mislead. They deceive. By overstating their case.

Each use of the word "All", and it's used 3 times in an 8 word sentence, is a blatant exaggeration.
In none of the 3 instances is the word used truthfully. Nor will repetition  make it true.
What's true? Well, I wouldn't grouse if the slogan was:
Lots of aboriginal, lots of the time, lots of the  way.
But I can not let the hyperbole go unchallenged.

Attentive listeners and viewers will have no problems spotting the tiny fissures through which the non-aboriginal content slips through.
You know  the content I mean.
The Womans, Gender, LBGTQ+, re-education pieces, racial sensitivity items, climate change warnings, and pandemic hysteria.
None can deny that this stuff slips through.

One may be forgiven for not immediately being alert to the seepage.
Far too often the contaminating content is smushed together with the Aboriginal angle.
A piece about a transgender eco-warrior having trouble with her tomatoes due to climate change is every bit an Aboriginal story if it takes place with a day's drive of a reserve.

But I say: Enough.
Time to call out CBC for its egregious deceptions.
It ain't All Aboriginal. It ain't All the Time. And it ain't All the Way.

Ashtrays - 70 years on

 Harry S Truman was the President of the United  States when I was born (1952).

Some federal museum in Washington recreated the presidential office as Truman used it, and recently I saw a photo of it.

A tidy desk with a small desk sign is among the objects taking up surface space. Famously the sign reads:

"the buck stops here"

from the phrase 'pass the buck' - referencing a convention in some poker games to use a buck horn (handle) knife to mark who had the deal

The desk intrigued me for other reasons.
There, a bit to my surprise was an ashtray. You know, for holding tobacco cigarette ashes and butts.
Actually there were 3 ashtrays on the one main desk unless I miss my guess. And for good measure at least one other ashtray is visible on the credenza behind the desk chair. Four, count 'em, ashtrays within the reach of the chair's occupant.

One may safely assume that Truman in office was the very exemplar of appropriate American culture and values. Smoking was obviously OK by him.

Somehow though, the masses seem to be experiencing some collective amnesia about the former prevalence of smoking, and the huge implications of that prevalence.

Collective amnesia is all the rage these days.
Residential school issues come to mind, along with gender and race matters.

Historical revisionism is ascendant.
Leading to manifestations of a Cancel Culture.
How sad and misguided.