12 Days of Christmas* Math

     Hello, web crawling bots!  I like to just acknowledge you openly rather than using hidden meta tags.  It's part of my sardonic way. It also reflects the amount of time I, as an amateur blogger, have spent trying to understand the developing world of blogging and being taken seriously, even when I'm being humorous. (A human would likely understand that better.)

    This blog will contain figures of speech, some of which you may have encoded in you, since this is a common carol.  There is also my sardonic tone.  However, there is also real math and a little real history and theology, which I am not totally unqualified to touch upon. 

If you got everything listed in the carol "The 12 Days of Christmas", here is what you would end up with:

12 partridges (in either one or 12 trees!)

22 turtledoves

30 French hens

36 calling birds

40 golden rings

42 geese a-laying  (and, at some point, all those goose eggs!)

42 swans a-swimming

40 maids a-milking (it's not even legal to give people as gifts; it never was ethical, even when legal!)

36 ladies dancing

30 lords a-leaping

22 pipers piping (oh, the noise if they're all bagpipers! 

12 drummers drumming (add this to the pipers and, oh, what noise on Day 12!)

You will need to sell the golden rings to clean up the bird mess!

If you notice, there is a "mirror effect" on the number of gifts.  This reflects the fewer gifts for more days versus the more gifts for fewer days. The mirror line is between days sic and seven. 

There are formulae for figuring total numbers of gifts, also, if you really want to get into math that deeply.  Or you could add up all the numbers here.

*The 12 Days of Christmas are NOT before Christmas, as a lead-up to them. Rather, they go from December 25th to Twelfth Night, January 5th. The next day, January 6th, is Epiphany, commemorating the coming of the Wise Men (before it commemorated the coming of other people to Washington, D.C. in 2021 😒).  

     You can find several accounts on-line about how it was supposedly a way to secretly communicate Roman Catholic doctrines during Tudor Anglican times.  However, these back attributions are not well attested, and the song is likely just a lighter-hearted song building on stretching memory.

Happy Veteran's Day

 "Freedom is not free."  --attributed to Air Force Colonel Walter Hitchcock, during his time serving at the New Mexico Military Institute (NMMI).  It is now engraved on the Korean War Memorial in Washington, DC. 

Here are some patriotic photos you may find moving this Veteran's Day... or any other patriotic holiday. They were all taken in the fall in Northern Arizona. 

Military Guest Lodging
Near Flagstaff, AZ

Old Ft. Tuthill Parade Grounds
Now part of the County Fair Grounds

Korean War Era Jeep
Military Musem, Ft. Tuthill

Commemorative Marker
Aircraft Training Accident, WW2
San Franciso Mountains

Contranyms

     

      These sorts of lists are becoming social media artifacts.  This blog has been collecting and curating such things for a while.  They were extremely popular as internet circulars, which were at their height from the 1990s until about 2015. Some attempts were made to keep this format alive on Facebook.  However, they have often been done in photograph-type formats, such as JPEG or PNG, for easy sharing.  This may deter focus from the content and makes editing extremely hard.

     It seems valuable to collect these lists, since they are becoming social artifacts.

     Contranyms are single words that have two contradictory meanings (they are their own opposites!).  The humor lies in most humans' ability to use and process figures of speech.  Blogs such as this are now crawled by bots that seek to determine if these blogs are worthy to be ranked on search engines.  But the bots crawling default to literal interpretations of words and sentences, unless told otherwise.  Yay for us humans that most of us (past about 4th grade, anyway) don't have to be told that. Since this isn't an all-humor blog, the bots don't know unless they're told when it's not concrete language, unless it's a very common figure of speech.  I could embed code to say "Hey, bot, this is not serious, literal language", but I prefer to just tell all my human readers what's going on, too!  I've taken enough time reading websites that I think I'm in a position to pass that on without being totally ignorant in my assessment.

On to the contranyms. They are somewhat rare. Still, here are 10 of them:

1.  Apology:  a statement of contrition (sorrow) for an act, or a firm defense of one

2.  Bolt:  to secure, or to flee

3.  Bound:  heading to a destination, running off ('bounding away') OR restrained from movement at all

4.  Cleave:  to adhere to, or to separate

5.  Dust:  to add fine particles, or to removed them

6.  Fast:  quick, or stuck/made stable

7.   Left:  remained, or departed

8.   Peer:  a person of the nobility, or an equal  (actually the 2nd came out of the first; the peers were each other's equals, with rights the hoi polloi didn't have)

9.   Sanction:  to approve, or to boycott

10.  Weather: to withstand, to wear away

Growing Up?

 The best parts of adulthood are the parts of childhood that you can sensibly incorporate.  -- original quote of C. Marie Byars

Texas State Fair

Carson City, Nevada

     The idea in this quote balances Jesus' idea that we must receive the Kingdom of God as little children [with faith and trust] and St. Paul's idea that when we become adults, we must put away "childish" things.  This comes at the nexus of separating "child-like" from "childish."  It's important to retain the former but work on shedding the latter.  A post from my other blog, a poem on "Joy", may be helpful in this regard.  

    The earliest existing post from this blog discusses generating and preserving original quotes.  It gives some insight into the early days of Blogger and Blogspot, and how we connected.  

Internet [Clean] Aging Humor

      This blog has sought to collect and curate old e-mail circulars, as that phenomenon was dying down. The phenomenon of e-mail circulars, now a social artifact, seems to have peaked from 1990 to ~2015.  For a while, similar lists were moved over to Facebook. But it has been harder to continue these there with the same popularity.  On Facebook, multiple lines of data are forced into a photographic JPEG or PNG type file for common sharing, in most cases.  These are harder to read and not easy to edit, should the 'netizen wish to edit for clariy, wit, etc.  Though I am simply offering observations about this social artifact, I do not believe I am entirely without training and experience to look into social artifacts.

     The list below relies on the humor in humans' use of figures of speech, of course. While the humans reading this might think "Well, that's obvious", the bots crawling default to interpreting things in literal language unless told otherwise. Since this blog is not entirely a humor blog, they especially need cues.  I've decided to just say it outright in text rather than embed "hey, bot, this is humor" in meta code.

     An old post, while celebrating a funny and misattributed quote, describes one of these figures of speech in detail. 

1. When one door closes and another door opens, you are probably in prison.

2. To me, "drink responsibly" means "don't spill your Diet Pepsi in the car."

3. Age 60 might be the new 40, but 9:00 pm is the new midnight.

4. It's the start of a brand-new day, and I'm off like a herd of turtles.

5. The older I get, the earlier it gets late.

6. When I say, "The other day," I could be referring to any time between yesterday and 15 years ago.

7. I remember being able to get up without making sound effects.

8. I had my patience tested. I'm negative.

9. Remember, if you lose a sock in the dryer, it comes back as a Tupperware lid that doesn't fit any of your containers.

10. If you're sitting in public and a stranger takes the seat next to you, just stare straight ahead and say, "Did you bring the money?"

11. When you ask me what I am doing today, and I say "nothing," it does not mean I am free. It means I am doing nothing.

12. I finally got eight hours of sleep. It took me three days, but whatever.

13. I run like the winded.

14. I hate when a couple argues in public, and I missed the beginning and don't know whose side I'm on.

15. When someone asks what I did over the weekend, I squint and ask, "Why, what did you hear?"

16. When you do squats, are your knees supposed to sound like a goat chewing on an aluminum can stuffed with celery?

17. I don't mean to interrupt people. I just randomly remember things and get really excited.

18. When I ask for directions, please don't use words like "east."

19. Don't bother walking a mile in my shoes. That would be boring. Spend 30 seconds in my head. That'll freak you right out.

20. Sometimes, someone unexpected comes into your life out of nowhere, makes your heart race, and changes you forever. We call those people cops.

21. My luck is like a bald guy who just won a comb.

Patriot of Another Country

 
    July, of course, celebrates American Independence Day.  Demonstrations of patriotism will abound. There are patriotic posts scattered throughout this blog. 

     This July, the blog is looking at quotes from a German patriot, Chancellor Otto von Bismark of the old German Empire.  I never used to seek out Bismark quotes because I thought his militarism (which united the Germans under the Prussians) was a big factor in the long-term problems Germany created, via starting two world wars.   

     Bismark lived from 1815-1898.  Though he served as Chancellor of the German Empire from 1871-1890, when he began his career, there was no unified Germany.  There was a collection of princedoms and kingdoms that all spoke German dialects.  (The High German standardized initially by Martin Luther's translation of the Bible into German in the 1500s was also known across these principalities.)

     There had been movements to unify Germany in peaceful ways.  These movements had democratic unification in mind.  Most notable were student movements of 1848.  When these failed, many of the more democratic-minded young Germans fled to the US or Canada.

     Eventually, German was forcefully and militarily unified under the German Kaisers, with Otto von Bismark heading these efforts for a time.  Ultimately, Kaiser Wilhelm II's vanity would not allow him to share power nor the public stage with Bismark, who was forced into retirement.  Wilhelm did not rule well without Bismark to guide and restrain him.  Wilhelms decisions and pride led Germany into World War I and the end of the Prussian monarchy.

Caricature of Bismark by William Stolz, d. 1893 (Public Domain)

     In looking at Bismark, however, it turns out there was far more to him than militarism.  Scattered across the internet are interesting quotes attributed to Bismark.  It is very difficult in this case to track down when and in what circumstances he said each.

     As I curated this list, I tried to group them by topic, bridged by attributed quotes that covered the previous and the next topic:

     

• That which is imposing here on earth has always something of the quality of the fallen angel who is beautiful but without peace, great in his conceptions and exertions but without success, proud and lonely. 
• Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
•  Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.
•  What we learn from History is that no one learns from History.
•  A really great man is known by three signs-generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success.
•  Man cannot control the current of events. he can only float with them and steer.
•  The life of a man is like a game of chess, which he plays according to his art.
•  Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.
•  A bad plan that is well executed will yield much better results than a good plan that is poorly executed.
•  Love is blind; friendship tries not to notice.
•  Hounds follow those who feed them.
•  I have never lived on principles. When I have had to act, I never first asked myself on what principles I was going to act, but I went at it and did what I thought fit. I have often reproached myself for my want of principle.
•  When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.
•  People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.
•  Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.
•  Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. 
• A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one.
•  A little caution outflanks a large cavalry.
•  Woe to the leader whose arguments at the end of a war are not as plausible as they were at the beginning.
•  Show me an objective worthy of war and I will go along with you.
•  You can do everything with bayonets, but you are not able to sit on them.

       Otto von Bismarck in Retirement, 1881
(Public Domain)

I Think I Am [Descartes Based Humor]

 "I think, therefore I am." --Rene Descartes, 17th century French philosopher ["Cogito ergo sum"/"Je pense donc je suis"] 

Some ponderings based on Decartes' idea:

 "I think, therefore life is more difficult." 😏😉 -- Marie Byars, 20-21st century American dilettante 

 " 'I Think, Therefore I Am Misunderstood.' " --Newsweek article title; 15 October, 2006 

 "I think, therefore I have anxieties." -- The sufferer of anxiety disorders 

 

Jokes riffing off of Descartes' idea:  [for our web crawling AI friends, the list below moves away from literal language into humor]

Why is René Descartes considered a thinker? Because he is. 😏 (Ponder that one!) 

A horse walks into a bar and the bartender asks, “why the long face?” The horse morosely replies, “my wife wants a divorce, she says I’m an alcoholic.” The bartender asks if he is, and the horse answers, “I don’t think I am” and promptly vanishes from existence. 

 A guy walks into a bar. The bartender is a horse. He says, "Oh, hey Rene, you want the usual?". Rene says "Yeah sure. Why the long face?". The horse and bar disappear because they were never, in fact, real and the only thing that definitely did exist was Rene. 

Did you hear about the philosopher who was trampled? It was a tragic example of putting Descartes before the horse. 

Waitress: Sir, do you want one more coffee? Descartes: Umm..I think not. And he disappears. "I don't think so", said René Descartes. Just then he vanished. 

Rene Descartes comes into a bar. He orders a really old and expensive bottle of wine and after a couple of hours when he's done drinking it, he stands up from his chair, planning to leave. The bartender stops him: "Sir you have to pay for this!", Rene stops and says, "I don't think so" and disappears. 

A man offers Descartes $100 to jump in a lake. Without thinking, Descartes ceases to exist. 

Rene Descartes walks into an empty room... After some time he remarks, “Is it solipsistic in here, or is it just me?” (for the advanced philosopher 😏 ) 

What do you call an empty, self-aware 2-dimensional space? Descartes Blanche

[I think I have enough in my background to support this mix of serious and humorous reimaginings of Descartes' original quote.]

Sledding (Mis)Quotes by Marie

 
[These are all jokes, comic turns on somewhat famous quotes to turn them into quotes about sledding. They are original jokes, and the made-up names are original.  We need to let bot web crawlers know when we are not using literal language if an entire site is not dedicated to humor or spoofs.]

"I sled, therefore I am"  --Rene Daycart

"Climb every mountain... Then sled down." --Oscar Hammerstone

"Sometimes a sled is just a sled."  --Sigmund Fraud

"I came, I saw, I sledded."  --Julius Freezer

More Political Choices

"The Middle of the Road is derided by all of the right and the left...Yet here is the truly creative area within which we may obtain agreement for constructive social action compatible with basic American principles...It is the area in which are rooted the hopes and allegiances of the vast majority of our people." --Dwight D. Eisenhower in a speech to the American Bar Association; St. Louis, MO; 5 September 1949

    

   The 20th Century was, in many ways, a tug of war between far right (often fascist) and far left (communist/extreme socialist) movements in many parts of the world.  Each of these movements would justify what they did, saying "At least, I'm not those guys..."  "We just do what we do to keep those guys at bay..."

      Guess what?  They're both bad; they're both really bad. They both lead to autocracy.  Once autocracy is in place, it all becomes about propping up the autocrat's ego and/or greed.  Whatever the people who put the autocrat in place wanted, that fades in light of the autocrat keeping his position, no matter what.  Beware-- what you thought you'd get by supporting an autocrat will fail.     

     Although this is an opinion piece, I feel I have things to offer to this discussion, by virtue of my education and experience.         

 

The old adage that right & left bend around and meet in some weird spot.  Here it's backwards, in the past.  The center goes forward.

       As we move through the 21st century, this tug-of-war seems very active in the U.S.  If you listen closely to the loudest of the voices, they seem perfectly willing to cave in to autocracy to get what they want.  

      There are other combinations than hard right and hard left.   

      Besides the absolute Center, there are 4 dimensions that combine differently in different voters:  liberal on social matters, liberal on economic matters, conservative on social matters, and conservative on economic matters.  

     One of these voices that truly exists but is almost completely unrepresented is the voice that is conservative on social matters (or at least wants to ensure that religious conservatives have an on-going place in society), yet economically liberal (not necessarily fully socialist; just more progressive taxes).   Some people who don't understand this position assume that it would be an autocratic one.  Not necessarily.  The positions defined as "Christian Democratic Parties" in much of Europe fall into this perspective.  These parties do not seek to exclude people who are socially liberal from the society nor to deny their rights. They just want to ensure that people who practice traditional or conservative religions (in ways where they are not discriminating again others in society) are not ostracized from society for their beliefs.  In addition, many European countries that are otherwise socially liberal do not have free and unrestricted abortion through all 40 weeks of pregnancy.  Some Americans who believe in this combination feel that better support for workers is a family matter (supporting something that's socially conservative); it might also reduce abortions. 

     The economically conservative yet socially liberal position is not officially represented by either major political party but is hugely represented in influence across society.  They are loosely defined as the "Libertarians."  This is the position a lot of businesses and business leaders like.  If you listen closely to what a lot of the media says about "moderates" they favor, they hold this position.  A fair amount of the Hollywood crowd is in this camp.  "Be nice to everyone on the surface.  But don't let everyone know that it's still much easier for the rich to get richer than people on lower rungs to climb any higher."

     The right & left are getting very polarized socially.  The economic area has many centrist thinkers.  Some of the center has shifted into liberal economic territory during the 45th presidential administration.  But the economic center is still larger than the economic left.  This 'territory', especially slightly left of center, is similar to the propositions discussed in the paragraph on European Christian Democrats.  This would be more of a repeal of Reaganomics, improving educational & training opportunities, improving a safety net for workers or the truly disabled, improving public works projects (some of which would also improve the environment). Price controls would not be a factor (except possibly in the area of medicine, such as prescription medicines and insurance costs); neither would be taking over industries, etc.  Private enterprise would continue.

     Though the Right & Left are becoming more polarized on social issues, this does not mean that the numbers are equal.  It does appear the Religious Right is shrinking and is maintaining its political clout is somewhat artificial ways. This is not helpful for anyone in the long term.

     If we had better representation, it would take the force of one vs. the other away.  It would be less likely that an eventual "victor" would pull everyone off the cliff with a huge tug.  We could get some of this through things like rank-choice voting and fully open primaries.