Tag: Mental Health

So I had a morning full of errands

and just got home. I decided to eat one of the donuts I bought while out (there was a sale! As the shoppe will be closed until 1/5. Yay…) Anyway, the 1st page I open online every day is the NASA APOD, and here is what they put up today. Such a wonderful thing to see when I sit down to break my fast with a forbidden food and tea!! and relax a little reading blogs. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2024 December 21
A Year in Sunsets
Image Credit & Copyright:Wael Omar

(I don’t get why WP won’t accept these photos. I thought it was my puter, but I have a new one, and the pic is still not here. It’s a quick click, and a really nice page today, so please go see it. After all, SPACE-X’s photos are likely to be poor, if they even do this for us.)

Thursday Poetry

Click on the title to learn more about the poem and the poet.

my yoga teacher kassandra Andrei Codrescu 1946 –

has only good news for my body
and for my mind, she warms them
and she becalms them unlike her
greek namesake who left her
listeners terrified and tense
ah the onomastic turnaround
took twenty centuries to turn
the older story on its head
which explains ex-lingua why
my modern body feels comfort
in the new diachronic goddess

Copyright © 2024 by Andrei Codrescu. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 18, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

Peace & Justice History 12/15

December 15, 1791
The Bill of Rights became law when Virginia ratified the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution.
Read The Bill of Rights 
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee  (emphasis mine -A. It’s an important site these days!)

December 15, 1930

Albert Einstein, 1930
Albert Einstein urged militant pacifism and the creation of an international war resistance fund. Einstein stated in New York that if two percent of those called for military service were to refuse to fight, and were to urge peaceful means of settling international conflicts, then governments would become powerless since they could not imprison that many people.
He struggled against compulsory military service and urged international protection of conscientious objectors. He concluded that peace, freedom for individuals, and security for societies depended on disarmament; otherwise, “slavery of the individual and the annihilation of civilization threaten us.”
Einstein on Peace and World Government 
December 15, 1946
Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh sent a note to French Premier Leon Blum congratulating him for his selection as French Premier and asking for peace talks. France had exercised colonial power over the Vietnamese as part of French Indochina, formed in October 1887 from the provinces of Annam, Tonkin, Cochin China, and the Kingdom of Cambodia; Laos was added in 1893. Vietnamese nationalists, however, had demanded independence for the three provinces at the end of World War II.
December 15, 1973

The American Psychiatric Association reversed its long-standing position and declared that homosexuality is not a mental illness and
“…deplores all public and private discrimination in such areas as employment, housing, public accommodation…”
Read the APA policy on discrimination against [gays]
December 15, 2000
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down 14 years after becoming the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident ever. Nearly nine tons of radioactive material – dozens of times as much as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs – were released in the explosion.
The radioactive fallout affected 23% of Belarus, with 4.8% of Ukrainian territory and 0.5% of Russia. The Belarussian government spends 30% of its annual budget dealing with the aftermath of Chernobyl.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december15

Cookies In The Oven

but this is so nice, I had to share it. Sorry about the cookies, though. Our moon isn’t full here until 3:01 Sunday AM.

december full moon by onecloud

fri 13, 2024 over richmond st. at spadina ave. Read on Substack

december full moon

over richmond at spadina

at 5 PM

under full moon 
traffic west bound 
bound for home

at oxford st

at richmond

“Shore Lark”

American Pipit

Click through to hear its song while it eats snow!

Enjoy Some Comics on Friyay

Get Fuzzy by Darby Conley for December 13, 2024

Get Fuzzy Comic Strip for December 13, 2024

Last Kiss by John Lustig for December 13, 2024

Last Kiss Comic Strip for December 13, 2024

Lard’s World Peace Tips by Keith Tutt and Daniel Saunders for December 13, 2024

Lard's World Peace Tips Comic Strip for December 13, 2024

Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for December 13, 2024

Non Sequitur Comic Strip for December 13, 2024

Have some comics this afternoon

Close to Home by John McPherson for December 12, 2024

Close to Home Comic Strip for December 12, 2024

Dark Side of the Horse by Samson for December 12, 2024

Dark Side of the Horse Comic Strip for December 12, 2024


Lard’s World Peace Tips by Keith Tutt and Daniel Saunders for December 12, 2024

Lard's World Peace Tips Comic Strip for December 12, 2024


M2Bulls by Marty Two Bulls Sr. for December 12, 2024

M2Bulls Comic Strip for December 12, 2024

Delightful Poetry On Thursday

Just click the title to read more about the poet and the poem.

In a Grain of Sand by Jesús Papoleto Meléndez

To see a world in a grain of sand …
—from “Auguries of Innocence” by William Blake

We are Starseeds  
                   every one of us –  
                                                     you & me,  
                       & me and you  
                           & him & her,  
                                                    & them  
                                                    & they  
                                                    & those  
                    Who know of this  
                         are truly blessed  …  

 True for all  
                    living beings,  
                                        beings living –  
                                                               not humans only,  
                                         but ants & trees  
                                              & the open breeze,  
                                                  things that breathe  
                                                      air or fire,  
                                                         water, earth  
                                       all  kinds of dust  
                                                                & dirt,  
                                                                   particles  
                                        a  part of all,  
                                                            all a part  
                                                                          of  
  Everything  
            that is  
        in everything;  
                                 Thus, it Sings!!!  
                                                      & its song  
                                                                    is Life,  
                                                                       & Life
                                                                                 is!!! …  
  a  seed of Stars,  
                      the dust of Suns  
                                                & Moons  
                                                        rocks & dust  
                                       &  outer smoke  
                                                    in outer space  
  Floating  
        in a bath of timelessness,  
                                           counted, measured  
                                                  numbered  
                                   by some species –  
                                                      others caring not;  
  Science & Mathematics  
                     trying to plot  
                                             Poetry in motion,  
                                                                                Motion  
                                                in a Helix’s curve,  
                                And Life  
                                       on Earth
                                           becomes visible
                                                                  to You
                                         through the naked I!

Copyright © 2024 by Jesús Papoleto Meléndez. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 11, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

So, I Did A Thing (again) The Other Day-

Cartoon Nine Four Seven by Josh Lieb

Injection Read on Substack

Santa’s bedroom. Santa, looking very scrawny, is trying on his red suit. The jacket is way too big and the pants are falling down. Mrs. Claus, annoyed, says: “I told you not to get those stupid shots.”

Some people just look better fat.

Ali Redford ends a long, long drought of reader art by submitting this wonderful nine four six:

Ali thought my cartoon was funny even though, she confesses, she’d never previously heard about the free U2 album that mysteriously appeared on peoples’ phones ten years ago. It occurred to me while I was writing it that I might mystify some of my younger readers. So yeah, while they were rolling out a new iPhone a decade ago, Apple and U2 rather presumptuously “gave” all iPhone users this new U2 album. Everyone woke up with it on their phone and just felt… invaded. Even U2 fans were a little put off. I think it bothered people to discover that they were not in charge of their own phone.

Most people deleted the album (or kept it and enjoyed it). Then there were people like me, who had the unwanted album follow them, from phone to phone, for a decade.

Ali, I love the cartoon you drew — it’s maybe your best yet. The women feel very real, and the speaker’s sense of liberation is palpable. Thank you!

The rest of you: get to work drawing my cartoons.

(snip)

I Just Had To-


Close to Home by John McPherson for December 10, 2024

Close to Home Comic Strip for December 10, 2024