IT'S AGAINST THE LAW TO FEED WILD ANIMALS -- Hmmm?

This is the post that I told you to expect day before yesterday.  I can't get over the dichotomy that this presents to anyone who lives in the park, mostly.  It is also rich in mental curly-q's, such that when I read it, I couldn't help but wonder how long I could keep the mental smiles going before the novelty wore off.
The first item that struck my funny bone was the fact that it seems to be very important that ducks are being eaten by other wild animals.  Really!  Wow,imagine we have a pond in the park that is frequented by a rather large population of ducks, also wild, I always presumed.  It is really not news, (or is it?) that the occasional one should be caught napping by a carnivorous wild creature.  Actually, if a duck gets eaten by a coyote the duck is to blame, really.  Wings against feet!  Is that a fair pairing?  Not in my book.  By the way, so what?  The manager signed this notice. I am protecting the innocent here.  He understands wild life being that he hails from northern Ontario, Canada.  You know, fur trapping country and the home of the oldest corporation in North America.  So he knows nature...you know, coyote eats sleeping duck...
I was rather happy to see that the sign did not suggest that the Chinese lady around the corner could have snitched one of our dear wild Mallards.  (Actually, she's safe since she is a figment of my imagination.)
Now, here's the punch line:

This is a representative portion of the Mallard population that I caught on camera just as most of the gaggle had finished dinner as provided by the kind human souls of the park.  A group of humans contributes $1.00 per month, per person to buy seed to serve as daily (illegal,per the posted notice) dinner to the "wild" animals--- the feathered type who are either too lazy or too fat to fly away from the four legged carnivorous types who might happen along.
In a short and impromptu conversation with the manager earlier this morning, I inquired as to the natural status of the ducks.  Wild or not wild?  Animal or not animal?  He just shook his head and looked at me with a smile of the type that only an authority figure can give a peon.  It came to mind that it might be quite a while before anyone will get arrested for the crime of feeding the wild animals.
So, dear friends and neighbors, seeing that none of you is neither coyote nor raccoon, you may want to check out our fat, waddling denizens.  You might encounter one sleeping with head tucked under wing and then decide if you want to engage in the complicated process of extricating yourself from having turned yourself into a raptor, you, a domesticated animal forcing yourself upon wild(?) fauna who should have been alert enough to fly away from you in the first place.  Or are these feathered creatures really more friends than fauna?

Care to give it a try?

Oh, by the way, are stray (feral?) cats wild animals? Maybe, but they don't like duck...fur is OK but feathers?  Yuukk!

MANHUNT -- GO BABY, GO!

Oh, yeah! 20 days and counting!
Oooppsss!  Not too much more counting left, maybe.
Looks like one of my guys committed suicide by cop.
It will be an interesting read when the story gets captured between hard covers.
I was trying to tell them by telepathy that they had to split.
So, they have split.
I'm betting that they flipped a coin to see who would be the "sacrifice."
Uh, no, sorry.  It's unlikely that they would have a coin.
They must have followed the Biblical ploy of casting flat stones.
Be that as it may, now there is but one.

I started developing this in my mind one night when I saw a picture like the one you see here.

Imagine 1,000 more of these people looking for only 2.
Now, of course, only 1.
I must confess that I hold these two in some kind of admiration.
Imagine, on the run for three weeks with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
What did they eat?
What did they smell like?
How could they hide?
Were they lucky enough to have been pursued by stupid dogs instead of smart ones?
One other thing that tweaked my being into admiration is the fact that they have not harmed one single civilian during the whole episode.
Of course, the episode still has to come to a close.
However, so far so good on that front.

I also have a lot of questions that I suppose will be answered in the book.
Where did they get the tools?
I mean, these had to be fairly sophisticated tools to get through the walls.
What about the tools to cut the pipe open so cleanly?
Didn't these tools make any noise?
Seems to me that there had to be more than two state employees implicated here, unless everyone else on the state payroll is as deaf as a pot!

So, now I am going to continue to root for the other guy.  He isn't a good artist like the first one, but day to day manhunt watching is a neat little passtime.
I wonder what odds the Irish gambling houses are giving that he too will arrange to get shot by the gendarmes?

So, that's my thought process (yep, I do have one, believe it or not!) for the time being.

Wait until you see the next one about feeding the wild animals.  Not in New York.  California.
I hafta take the photo tomorrow.

OXYMORON -- CAN YOU FIND A MORE CAPTIVATING ONE?

Every now and then as we travel through life one step at a time we are stopped dead in our tracks by something that we wish we had devised, but...
But, we are glad that since it is fact that we haven't caused it to be, at least we are blessed with the knowledge that it is there right in front of us.
This writing is one of those things.  The head-on clash of ideas doesn't shut the lights off.  Quite to the contrary, it literally shocks the lights of my brain into some dimension of clarity that takes me beyond a point where any previous enlightening convulsions concerning the concept of love have ever taken me. The depths to which it points are so far unfathomable.  I'm still working on finding my way down, or is it up?  Should I have said "heights?" Hmmm, maybe so.  One way or the other, I suspect that I will spend some fairly intense moments in rather heavy duty mulling over this one.

Rends-moi mes chaînes

 Je me sentais libre

Quand j’étais lie à toi.

Maintenant, je ne suis plus lié,

Plus paralysé dans la liberté que je ne l'étais

Confortablement menotté à ton amour.

De temps en temps en parcourant à travers la vie étape par étape, nous sommes arrêtés raide par quelque chose que nous souhaitons que nous-mêmes avions réalisé, mais ...

Mais, nous sommes heureux que puisque c'est déjà accompli hors de notre initiative artistique, au moins, nous sommes heureux d'en avoir fait la connaissance et la pièce est là juste en face de nous.

Ce texte est une de ces choses. Le choc des idées de front n’éteint point les lumières. Bien au contraire, il cause une dimension de clarté provenant des lumières de mon cerveau qui me prennent au delà du point où toute convulsions éclairantes antérieures concernant le concept de l'amour ne m'avaient jamais conduit. Les profondeurs auxquelles ils pointent sont à cette heure insondables. Je m'efforce toujours à trouver mon chemin vers le fond, ou devrais-je  dire les "hauteurs?" Hmmm, peut-être, je suppose. D'une façon ou d'une autre, je soupçonne que je vais passer quelques moments assez intenses en ressassant le défi que présentent les tensions de ce petit poème..

Devuélveme mis cadenas

Me sentí libre

Cuando estaba atado a ti.

Que ahora estoy no ligado,

Más paralizado en la libertad de lo que nunca fue

Cómodamente maniatado a tu amor.

De vez en cuando a medida que viajamos por la vida un paso a la vez que de repente nos detuvimos congeladso en nuestras pistas por algo que nos hubiera gustado haber ideado, pero ...

Pero, nos alegramos de que aun que es un hecho que no hemos causado que sea, al menos, hemos sido bendecidos con el conocimiento de que es allí justo en frente de nosotros.

Este escrito es una de esas cosas. El choque de frente de las ideas aparentemente contradictorias no apaga las luces de my mente. Muy por el contrario, choca literalmente las luces de mi cerebro en alguna dimensión de claridad que me lleva más allá de un punto en cualquier convulsiones esclarecedoras anteriores sobre el concepto de amor.  La profundidad a la que los puntos están tan insondable. Todavía estoy trabajando en encontrar mi camino hacia abajo, o es para arriba? ¿Debería haber dicho "alturas?" Hmmm, tal vez menos. De una forma u otra, yo sospecho que voy a pasar unos momentos bastante intensos en deber reflexionando más intensivamiente  sobre éste.

SPANGLISH -- FRANGLISH -- SPAÑILIANO, ETC... TAGLISH TOO, MAYBE?

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2015/jun/03/press-1-spanglish/

Welcome to San Diego, the second largest city in the world where Spanglish rules and the only one where such linguistic magic can even be glorified as an art form.  If you care to read the article before going any further into my true to life stories about linguistic mish-mashes, click on the link that serves as the caption for the cover of the "San Diego Reader" weekly free magazine with an average circulation of  115,000 [Wikipedia, April 2015].
I grew up in Western Massachusetts where a large part of the population was of French Canadian descent, I included. So naturally, we spoke French less fluently than our parents and grandparents.  Let it be said though that even they had a serious tendency to mix their mother tongue with English words and expressions.  It is over 100 years, four generations, since Franglish was introduced to the area.  It is now all but gone.

As the years wore on, I migrated from Franglish to Spanglish by moving to California with a few linguistic  stops along the way.  How I got here is a long story.  It is a story that is as interesting as the metamorphosis of Western Massachusetts from Franglish to Spanglish [Puerto Rican immigration] and my relatives didn't even have to move! Because they did not move, they are surrounded by a new tongue that has grown up around them.

The story in the San Diego Reader depicts a very classy project that was realized at one of the famous and popular museums in San Diego's marvelous relaxation and strolling area, Balboa Park.  This is a huge park of some 1,200 acres complete with a mammoth outdoors organ, many museums and a wonderful arboretorium. The production of Spanglish depicts one form of hodge-podge language, the classiest possible form that was worked out for the production that resulted.  One of these days I will have to go see it, en vivo, as we say in Southern California and Madrid.

The Spanglish and Franglish of the simpler type goes like this.

I was the HR Director for a company close to East Los Angeles.  I got the job because of my fluency in Spanish.  Here's a sample between me and an EE from ELAX.

Me: Sabes que?  Se nos hace que tu camioneta ocupa el espacio del dueño en el estacionamiento. Podria ser justo?
EE-ELAX:  Eee, por favor, can you speak Ingles?
Me: But you asked me to speak Spanish when you entered my office.
EE-ELAX:  Eee, not understand a proposito del dueño.
Me:  Ah.  Tu troque (truck, got it?) esta en el parking del patron, maybe?
EE-ELAX:  Oh no.  Mi troque is parking en el otro lado del railroad crossing, no here.

This was a 25 year old employee from East Los Angeles who professed to not know English.  His problem was worse than that, he did not know Spanish to boot.  We did straighten out the parking problem and we parted friends.
I tell this story a lot because it is true and I have a dear friend from East Los Angeles who speaks very straight English and some rudimentary Spanish from his background.  Across the years, he has decided that if he is going to speak English he is going to do it right.  His Spanish is quite strong on the listening side, but but not so great on the speaking side.  This happens more often than not as people mature and realize that they have to communicate better to deal with the wild, wild world.

Me?  I can speak and understand a lot of things, especially when I get hungry.  I had some rather interesting linguistic experiences over the years and especially when I worked in Tijuana, Mexico. You want to hear some fluent Spanglish?  Go to work there.  Even some municipal signage is in Spanglish.

In this world, it is unwise to not learn the meanings of "cross-over" language.  On the Internet, some words stay in English and some are translated literally and this sometimes makes a polyglot laugh, or brings on confusion.
For example, the French do not use the term email.  They simply say mail in the masculine gender.  It never means what we accept as the default meaning of the word "mail."
They also do not say "Fin de semaine" for "weekend."  They say "weekend."  They've been saying "weekend" for decades.  We Franco Americans (and French Canadians) NEVER say "weekend" because it is one expression that we do not accept as being acceptable Franglish!  So there!

So, friends and  neighbors, Enjoy your taste of San Diego Spanglish Culture.
I can't wait until some artist discovers Taglish!


  

EINSTEIN QUOTE -- IS THIS WHAT HE MEANT?

One thing that it ain't, is a guess!
It is a predictor of what it can cause
It can be tested for veracity

WHAT IS A THEORY?

The logic of a theory must stem from an inner coherence, not because
external evidence makes it the most logical over other theories.  
(Albert Einstein, as quoted in "Jews, God and History" by Max I. Dimont.  Published by Signet Classics, 2004) 

You know, I have been so busy and so occupied and pre-occupied in the past several weeks that I am wondering where the beginning is and where the end is.  It is like the cat and the ball of twine.  The cat sees the ball and often doesn't see the end, so it just goes from side to side and he doesn't make any progress.  That's probably why the ouse is at such a disadvantage.  The cat knows where the mouse begins and where the mouse ends.  That's good for the cat.  Not so good for the mouse.

When it comes to hypotheses and theories, it's this way.  A hypothesis is like a ball of twine.  A theory is a mouse.  It actually gets us somewhere.

How many times have you heard someone say, "I don't believe that, it's just a theory."  [No it's not.  It's a mouse.] I know, you can't count how many of them you have because it is such a common comment. It is so tempting to push a reality aside because it's just a theory.  It is so tempting that we miss a good chunk of life letting certain valuable facts lie outside of our intellectual asset bank.  If it weren't for theories we would not know a lot of what we know. [If it weren't for mice, would we have cats?] Furthermore, we would not have the ability to gauge our degree of safety as we went along our daily lives.
Much of our lives are lived in the theories of probability as measured by mathematical theorems.  So, when we drive an auto or walk down the street, we count on the fact that our safety is assured because the chances of our being destroyed are minimal compared to our chances of getting back home in one piece. [not so for the mouse]  It's a good thing that those statistics are a theory that works.
Medicine is one of those theory-filled facets of our lives. [Hmmm, so many theories, in fact, that I think of it as a ball of twine]  Think of it a little bit. We all know that certain practices can harm us.  But experience shows us that if we are observant we can actualize the harmful practices to a certain degree and still survive quite nicely, thank you.  We know that the theory is righter than not, so we know how to measure our pleasureful actions so that we stay protected by the truths contained in the theory.
You see, theories are not guesses.  Theories are conclusions.

Actually, I like Einstein's thought.  I think that it is fitting for it to come from a close relative of the Creator.  The thoughts and inspirations that generate inside of us, through our intangible spiritual side are what drive us forward to catch the wily mouse.  That is the part of us that gives our life value.  It is the inner fire that we have that drives us along the correct path toward our happy ending.  

We make so many vain guesses in life that lead us nowhere.  So many times those are made because the wrong raw material went into their making.  The next time we have a hypothesis about our life, let's use the material that we have on the inside to clear the path and enlighten the goal so that we come up with a solid theory about where it is that we are headed and how we are going to get there.

In short, we need to catch more and fatter mice...by finding the way to get that done.