Notes From A Bear's Journey

     Sometimes I feel as if I want to be trapped (in a good way) in an old English village, singing 'it's a fine life"  from the musical,  Oliver .  Having finished the 4th season of the PBS remake of  All Creatures Great and Small , the veterinary adventures of a 1930a farming community in old England, all captured so well in the books of James Herriott and now put twice onto film, I couldn't help but be pleased at the visual break from the hectic pace and world we now reside in.  With beautiful countryside and politeness everywhere (even from the hardened farmers for heaven's sake), one left each season with a Picardian wish to "make it so."  But alas, those times are gone for most of us as we encounter long lines and traffic jams (and impatience) almost daily.  And realistically, how long could any of us live in a place where almost nothing changes, where everybody knows everybody else plus what's going on in their lives, little though it may be. 

     Because alcohol is toxic to our bodies, we have the word in toxic ating; and because that oily, viscous formula we put on our lips rapidly dyes and dries, we have the word lip stick.  And because it is the tannic acid that binds so quickly with collagen in leather, we use the term tann ing leather.  That same sort of history follows the naming of the ball-point pen.*  Such hidden meanings in grammar have always fascinated me with their backgrounds because so much of what we take for granted actually does  have a reason for being.  And yet, as one can see with such words, we often don't dig any further than the surface.  This was the topic my wife and I brought home after an evening of conversing with some friends, an evening pretty much filled with the typical chatter of such gatherings.  But looking deeper once we were home, both of us realized the despite all of the laughs and the good times we once again shared with our friends, we actually knew very little about them...or

      What is happening out there in the "real" world, a world many of us insulate ourselves from simply because it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate truth from fiction (look at the popularity of historical "fiction" in libraries, which may be a descriptive indicator of how we'll remember these times).  And even with all the vaccine mis-information still  going around (yes really, numbering around 300 false narratives as defined by NewsGuard ), how is one to sort out perhaps even larger events such as what is happening in the Middle East, or in your own city for that matter?  Even the London Review blog had to ask why the U.S. still has military bases in Syria and other Middle East countries?  And why does the U.S. export so many weapons to the Middle East (such "military aid," which basically means free weapons, includes fighter jets, missiles, and armaments and account for 80% of Kuwait's military imports, 75% of Israel's, and 6