Notes From A Bear's Journey

Queen Ann Replogle globe from the Globe Store     Remember those globes, spinning orbs that were suspended on a hook or a forked base and dotted with an ever-growing mosaic of countries and terrains.  Before the days of computer graphics such world globes were a steady feature in libraries and classrooms (and sometimes even in a home), a visual aid meant to impart the distances between cities and countries or the location of them.  And then suddenly...they were gone.  Now and then you'll spot one, perhaps as a nightlight for a child's room or as a piece of period furniture meshed into a corner with some dust-gathering books; and occasionally it will begin to draw you over as if tempting that tactile memory, daring you to touch it and spin it and pretend that you are actually interested in whatever part of the world shows up when it stops.  And then you move on, just as the world itself has moved on taking with it a piece of that "globe" memory by itself going glo

   That song from the almost ancient musical, Bye, Bye Birdie , (which starred a young and singing Ann Margaret , no less) was upbeat and a bold attempt to convey that "gray skies are going to clear up."  And of course many cultures value the aspect of "saving" face, of not facing humiliation or embarrassment (or in other cultures, that of being "two-faced," that of showing an artificial side to the outside world while hiding your true self inside).  As an older piece by author Alida Brill in Psychology Today wrote (this on the aspects of the effects of steroids changing the appearance of one's face): Even if you're feeling your real face has been "lost" to steroids, celebrate your existence this holiday season.  We are our stories.  Sometimes these stories are written on our faces and do tell tales of bravery and resilience even more than of suffering and sorrow.  With enough determination, and in unity, we save face by going f

   It's a rather hectic time of year with crashing stock markets dampening the excitement that was expected with the holidays.  Stores are still full but people once flush with cash, money that seemed to keep multiplying like magic, are now viewing statements that are proving shocking instead of exhilarating.  As the chastising headline in Barron's yelled out last week after the tidal surge of declines, "It's the Stock Market, Stupid."  Ouch!  It was also the time for me to reflect on my annual and personalized re-cap of the year, a holiday letter which I send out to friends and family members who either look forward to it or dread it as much as Aunt Mirabella's centuries-old dessert recipe (in the U.S. that would be any sort or version of fruitcake, an often-dry, almost unleavened cake packed with dried pieces of what is supposed to resemble chucks of fruit but is often left for the birds to sort out --which they do, by leaving all of it alone-- and eventual

Predictive model of the next recession from Guggenheim Investments    The financial market swings are causing a bit of concern for those invested in it, from those hopeful with retirement plans to those who might already be retired, and from investors once giddy with quick fortunes now watching those gains disappear as quickly as the cryptocurrency trend.  A drop of 10% in a portfolio is a mere $1000 if you've put in $10,000; but multiply that by another 10 or 100 and you may be gulping at a one-week loss of $100,000.  All nonsense to those not so involved and coupled with that nonchalant attitude of "it's out of my hands" or "think long term."  But this is what struck me most about these gyrations (beyond the fact that our U.S. government is now passing the 21 trillion dollars debt level)...auto loans for new cars are through the roof with the average loan being for $31,000 (and many are above the $50,000 mark).  The key word here, as with our governme

   It was tempting to jump back to the new political take on the Mary Poppins song , Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.  From Northern Sun comes their own take on it about the current president in the U.S. -- Super Callous Fragile Ego Trump You Are Atrocious.   It's a cute play on words, and with that here comes a few last minute takes of my own from the vocabulary lectures I had mentioned in an earlier post,* and these words sound almost as foreign.  To back up a bit, I've never taken (or was required or forced to take) Latin in school, and to be honest, even after all of these lectures I will likely still take away a little more than 10% of the 200+ words presented, despite the grand, almost used-car-salesman pitch, words such as mountebank, treacle (no, not the syrup),panegyric, or desuetude.  Certainly they all sound about as memorable as the names of new chemicals but really, how many people listening would even want to hear such talk?  My opinion, of course.  But here&

    Oh no you might say, here he goes trying to impress us with another new vocabulary word since listening to those lectures.  But no, propriception is more commonly termed our sixth sense as in that of an awareness of our body's location (upright, moving, active, etc.), basically the position and movement of our body.  And no this is not related to the movie of the same name although who's to say? -- we all have that feeling now and then when someone is peering over our shoulder or when your gut feeling tells you to avoid taking that path or turning down that alley.  But to date, the recognized six senses are smell, touch, taste, sight, hearing and yes, proprioception.  But new on the scene, and the lead article in a recent issue of Scientific American , is the likely discovery of a seventh sense, and it's coming from a place we rarely considered...inside us.  The editor's page introduces the piece this way: In our cover story, “The Seventh Sense,” neuroscientist Jon

  Today was trash day, a term used here in the U.S. to indicate the day that those big 9-miles-per-gallon hydraulic-loaded trucks come and haul away the contents of your rubbish bins, big 50-gallon bins that for us somehow keep filling up each week despite our best efforts at recycling (our recycling bins are rather full as well).  Of course everything is packaged here in the U.S., from the frozen peas to the replacement wiper blades for the car which come complete with every possible bracket and adapter for the various years and models of vehicles.  Off it all goes into either the trash bin or the recycling bin, a dilemma made no easier at the recycling facility which is now fond of the term, "aspirational recycling," a term used to describe how we consumers throw in everything that we think can be recycled but aren't really sure so let the recycling facility sort it out (here's a hint, most of what we throw in with that mindset can NOT be recycled); and off it goes

  There's that word, one which means to fill in the blanks, to conclude beforehand, to --as the mnemonic goes if the word is taken apart-- to make an "ass" of "u" and "me."  It's easy to do, of course, to make an assumption of someone or something, to stereotype or lump entire segments of peoples into small groups.  Think of these trigger words: homeless, immigrant, conservative/liberal, hippie, Muslim/Jew/Korean/Chinese/Saudi.  Think of your own impression when you meet someone for the first time and he or she lights up a cigarette or pours a glass of whiskey; does it repel you or draw you closer (perhaps because you do the same?), or maybe it causes you to have no judgement at all; and what if that person were pretty or handsome, or rich or poor.  There are many assumptions we tend to make, sometimes even lumping entire populations together such as "oh, those Americans;" perhaps some of this is because of the instant availability of soc