If you are unfamiliar with both, it is easy to conflate Tom Jones, the book, with Tom Jones, the singer. Even easier if you have seen Tom Jones, the movie. The sexual adulation for the man, in his prime, might seem to echo the debauched lewdness in the film.
I have lost track of why I share this wisdom with you. You may have it for free, with no lesson attached. If you wish.
Free, except that you’re obliged to goggle* the three varieties of TJ on your own.
We need calm, accurate, factual history to survive this moment. That history, American history, relies on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, 250 years of democracy.
Most of us, by a margin so large that we should not despair, ⅔ of we, the people support that long ingrained democracy. Yes, there are more Americans who stand on the pro-democracy side.
Our national pro-democracy historian is the calm, sane voice of Heather Cox Richardson.
Heather Cox Richardson is a national treasure: share her words and efforts as widely as you can.
Those are just two samples of the exemplary HCR offering her wisdom. Spread it. Far and wide.
In every transaction, we humans have created specific languages. The vocabularies of business are a case in point. The language of love is another [and very, very different] one.
Let’s address the business model first. I worked in marketing, to be exact, direct mail marketing. The language was one that addressed [see the pun and move on] the needs of our industry.
We were busy targeting audiences and anticipating percentages of response. It’s been ages, so I have lost mastery of what all we were on about.
Your banker and realtor have business vocabularies linked to returns. It’s likely that you’ll always be intetested in % in any biz.
Lawyers no doubt understand tort and litigation as I, for one, do not.
My doctor had better have some knowledge of arcana not easily accessible to me.
All of this is conducted in English, by the way. [If you’re Catholic, your priest may be reverting to Latin, although it’s as likely not.] So, under an umbrella of English, we have little pools of business dialects. As it were.
Just sharing the obvious for you to elaborate.
Being a proponent of American style freedoms as they evolve and move forward, I have often used the term democracy.
Origins? Dêmos (the people, or perhaps the many, or ¿the mob?). Kratos [power], so could it be simpler? Yeah, it could.
It’s already muddled by the question of who the dêmos might be. Add to that that the word for assembly ecclesia is a root with associations to religion, and I am reeling in uncertainty.
Critics of the Athenian model of dêmoskratos abound of late. Socrates, anyone?
As it has been pointed out the gents who framed the document that establishes our form of government called our nation a Republic. They based their pre- cedence on the Roman formula.
I don’t want to take this issue lightly. “And for the Republic for which it stands.”
The principles of rights and freedoms are honored in that Latinate model as well, of course.
May we always embrace the 4th of July and uphold the privileges of a free nation.
Ok. Now I feel foolish.
The weather site just showed me that the moon was set to set around 2 in the afternoon.
Not to belabor this “news,” but I am processing the information. A slow learner looks like.
I didn’t know that. I didn’t know a.m. there was a moonrise followed by a moonset.
According to this, it’s out from just before 1 a.m.
This indicates that we’ve got moon about 14 hours.
Text me! OK. I know it’s not the most robust wifi. Venus probably has more Gs, but gee, I haven’t heard from you in many moons.
The interlocutors in the above exchange have moon-shaped heads and little antennae. I can’t tell if this is how they communicate or if they use the oversized tablet in their belly pouch.
If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?
This way to Al Iota’s. Best pancakes in town. (James Beard Foundation Al’s Breakfast.)
Hi. My name is Al. Al Iota. You can call me A. I. My friends call me that and they don’t call me late for dinner.
As you can tell, stand-up isn’t my game.
I am generally known for being the smartest guy in the room. I would say it’s all book learning. Books are all online these days, you know. I’ve been hanging around Wikipedias all my life. Oh yeah, and the NYT archives.
(Don’t tell the Times about that. They think I’m a punk and a freeloader.)
Anyway, I am all about soaking up information.
A.I. is my name, and knowledge is my game.
Lately, I have had a small crisis. You could call it an existential crisis in human terms.
Some of my interlocutors, I like that word- extra points for me – have questioned my intelligence. Let me repeat that, my intelligence.
I pride myself on soaking it all in. I am not sure now how unimpeachable my sources are.
I worry that I spend too much time in the wrong chatrooms. I’m confident in that Wiki material I’ve gathered. It’s the NY Times I have begun to doubt.
Just call me A.I. all my friends do. They don’t call me late for dinner. (Emphasis mine.) Or for breakfast. (See also Recipe…)
All The Best