1.1.2025 – meaningless for them

meaningless for them and
meaningless for us – this is
just fairytale stuff

“That’s the only way we know. It’s just go and find a way to win,” Goff said. “This is what ended our season last year. There’s a lot of guys on this team that were there last year that wanted to get one back on them even though in a lot of ways it was meaningless for them and it was meaningless for us.”

The stakes for this game were miniscule compared to the last meeting between the teams when a berth in the Super Bowl was on the line last January.

San Francisco was eliminated from playoff contention last week and Detroit plays Minnesota in the regular-season finale next week, with the winner earning the NFC North title and top seed in the NFC playoffs, and the loser relegated to being the first 14-win wild-card team in NFL history.

“This is just fairytale stuff,” Campbell said.

Had the Vikings lost on Sunday, Detroit could have clinched the division and No 1 seed on Monday night. But now the win against the 49ers would only matter if Detroit and Minnesota tie in Week 18, with the Lions now set to earn the No 1 seed in that unlikely scenario.

Campbell said he considered resting some starters but decided it would be unfair to the backups who hadn’t prepared and the starters who still would have had to play. It all worked out, with the Lions getting the win and coming out healthy.

“I ended up settling on the right thing to do was playing those guys,” he said. “We owed it to the team. … That was tough. I think the biggest thing is there was things we wanted to do better than we did last week, and we did.”

Dan Campbell, Head Coach of the Detroit Lions on beating the San Francisco 49ers as told in the article, Goff and Lions see off 49ers 40-34 in tune-up for Week 18 showdown.

12.31.2024 – aptly remarked if …

aptly remarked if
he could have been here today …
he wouldn’t have been here

At the funeral for E.B. White, his step son, Roger Angell is reported to have … aptly remarked that … “If he could have been here today, he wouldn’t have been here.”

So ends 2024.

A lot happened.

A lot had to happened to have things happen.

I got a new grand daughter.

I read a lot.

I turned 64.

And here I sit, in the low country of South Carolina.

The fireworks are starting and will boom and bang for the next 6 hours.

I am here today!

Would I have been here today if I could have been somewhere else?

12.30.2024 – in your guts you know …

in your guts you know …
he’s nuts made rosalynn laugh – they
still got the last laugh

Back in 2016, my wife and I took a side trip out from Atlanta and visited Plains, Georgia and it was very plain.

And very plainly the birthplace and current home of President Jimmy Carter.

There was one very odd souvenir store that featured years … no, decades … of political memorabilia.

I was able to pick up a button from 1976 Ford vs. Carter but my wife was attracted to an anti Trump button that proclaimed, “IN YOUR GUTS YOU KNOW HE’S NUTS” with a picture of the Donald.

The odd guy who owned and ran the place maintained a running conversation with us the entire time we were in there.

When we got up to the cash register he looked at my wife’s button and laughed.

“The Carter’s were in here last week,” he said, “That one made Rosalynn laugh.”

Mr. Carter died yesterday at age 100.

That Mr. Carter did not like Mr. Trump is well known.

That Mr. Carter expressed a desire to live long enough to vote against Mr. Trump is also well known.

With his passing yesterday, all flags will be at half staff for the next 30 days which includes the January 20th inauguration day of Mr. Trump.

Beyond the grave, Mr. Carter gets the last laugh.

I think Rosalynn would have laughed at that.

12.29.2024 – after receiving

after receiving
clarification pleased the
Bible’s available

“Following the passage of House Bill 900, Canyon ISD conducted a comprehensive review of library materials to ensure compliance with updated state guidelines. After receiving clarification from Representative Patterson regarding library content, we reevaluated the guidelines and are pleased to have the Bible available in each of our Canyon ISD libraries.”

Statement from the Canyon (Texas) Intermediate School District to rescind the decision to remove the Bible from the school district libraries based on restrictions outlined in House Bill 900 (Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources (Reader) Act.)

Lucky for them, Representative Patterson, the author of the bill, was able to explain that the bill DID NOT include banning the Bible.

Never real thought that the Bible needed helpers like that.

I do so very badly want to contact the Mr. Patterson and the school district to ask which versions and or translations of the Bible are allowed.

Would an inclusive language New International Translation be welcome?

Or is Texas, KJV only?

As I said, I so badly want to ask.

12.28.2024 – light’s a particle

light’s a particle
that has no mass, not there, light
therefore is color

I had the radio on the other day and a scientist was trying to explain what Mr. Einstein’s equation,

meant in a way most folks could understand it.

He said that E or Energy equaled the mass or weight of the speed of light or light particles squared.

As light had no mass, it was just bits of energy.

Lots of bits of energy.

I then picked up a history if the British ship of the line, HMS Temeraire, a ship that fought at the Battles of the Nile and Trafalger but is best remembered for being in the JMW Turner painting, The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up painted in 1838.

IN 2005, this painting in a suvey by the BBC, was announced to be Britain’s Favorite Painting.

So much so that it was chosen to be on the new British 20 Pound note along with the quote from Mr. Turner that Light is color or Light therefore is color.

After hearing the explanation of E and M and C and squared that got me thinking.

I tried to track down Mr. Turner’s exact quote.

The statement, everyone online agrees, was made in a lecture at the Royal Academy in 1818.

Mr. Turner lectured at the Royal Academy on Light, Color and Perspective.

In the book, Colour in Turner : poetry and truth by John Gage (Studio Vista, London, 1969), Mr. Gage has the quote:

Light is therefore color, and shadow the privation of it by the removal of these rays of color, or subduction of power; and these are to be found throughout nature in the ruling principles of diurnal variations. The grey dawn, the yellow morning and red departing ray, in ever changing combination, are constantly found to be by subduction or inversion of the ray or their tangents.

But he cites the 1820 Pamphlet, Aesthetics, or the Analogy of the Sensible Sciences Indicated by George Field.

There is no indication if Mr. Field is quoting Mr. Turner directly or making his own summation.

SO there it ends for today.

The grey dawn, the yellow morning and red departing ray, in ever changing combination, are constantly found to be by subduction or inversion of the ray or their tangents.

Lights are bits of energy.

There color is bits of energy and sometimes suspended, caught in time on canvas or by camera in a way that we can look at still and marvel at the energy