Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, July 31, 2022
through
Saturday, August 5, 2022
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It’s Saturday, August 6, 2022
Welcome to the 1,528th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Kamakouchi
Mt. Hotaka and the Kappa-bashi.
Inti-sol~commonswiki
上高地の梓川と河童橋。投稿者が2002年5月に撮影
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Commentary
“Keep Breathing” stinks but the “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” on Netflix, is a breath of fresh air. Heartwarming and comical the series, sensitive and adorable is Atty. Woo, as played by Park Eun Bin. Not since Mrs. Maisel have I been as enthusiastic about the screen as I have been by my personal discovery of this very popular show.
And aside from its excellent script writing and performances, this is a groundbreaking integration a major disability, specifically, autism, groundbreaking because of the style and grace the subject matter is constantly handled.
Cancel your dinner out.
Call takeout. Binge, baby, binge.
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Word of the Day: OMAKASE
For definition, see below, immediately after the Short Essay
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Screen time
Keep Breathing on Netflix is average television fueled by an average script and average acting. It’s a mini series and I am a story freak so I’ll keep it turned on while I write the blog and watch the story unfold. Half-heartedly.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
Prayer does not use up artificial energy,
doesn't burn up any fossil fuel,
doesn't pollute.
Neither does song,
neither does love,
neither does the dance.
~Margaret Mead
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
So much socialization with persons that are already in the August whirligig. What time are you going? How are you getting there? What should go on the cake? Plus another date: a dinner with close friends in late August.
Blog meister responds: What fun! Next scheduled event is Sunday morning to Monday afternoon: a trip to New Hampshire with my niece and her husband.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
On Wednesday, Tucker and I had a delicious lunch at Ga Ga in Boston. Peking Duck was juicy and flavorful. The large shrimp in Lobster Sauce is always delicious.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Rack for utensils in blogmeister’s apartment
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Short Essay*
Kamikōchi (上高地, Upper Highlands) is a remote mountainous highland valley within the Hida Mountains range, in the western region of Nagano Prefecture, Japan.
It has been preserved in its natural state within Chūbu-Sangaku National Park. It is designated as one of Japan's National Cultural Assets, on the list of Special Natural Monuments and Special Places of Scenic Beauty. It is sometimes referred to as the "Japanese Yosemite Valley," although it is considerably smaller than its Californian counterpart.
As the entire Kamikochi valley is protected as part of the Chūbu-Sangaku National Park, road access is only granted to shuttle buses, taxis, forestry and maintenance workers' vehicles. Private vehicles have been restricted from entering the park beyond the Kama Tunnel for both traffic management and environmental reasons since 1994. Private cars are required to park at either the Hirayu or Sawando parking area from where shuttle buses or taxis transport visitors directly to the centrally located park visitor center.
Highland Rail train on the Kamikōchi Line
For rail passengers approaching from Matsumoto an integrated park transportation ticket is available using the Highland Rail service of the Kamikōchi Line to Shin-Shimashima rail terminal and then the Highland Bus service provided by Alpico Kōtsū. The journey to the center of the park from Matsumoto Station by rail and shuttle bus takes approximately 1 hour 50 minutes.
Longer distance and overnight buses directly to the park are available from Tokyo (Shinjuku), Nagoya, Kyoto, and Osaka.
The park is officially open from mid-April to mid-November, with peak crowds during the summer school holidays (end of July through the end of August) and when the autumn leaves are at their peak in October.
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Definition of Today’s Word of the Day: OMAKASE
a meal consisting of dishes selected by the chef
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Friday, August 5, 2022
Welcome to the 1,527th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Tsukiji Fish Market
Netherzone - Own work
Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo
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Commentary
Thought you’d be interested in this article which I stole from a blog called
How to make a reservation at Sukiyabashi Jiro, of “Juri Dreams of Sushi” fame.
This is perhaps the trickiest part. You cannot walk in or call the restaurant to make a reservation. In fact, it is deemed one of the most difficult reservations to get in the world. To dine at Sukiyabashi Jiro, you must make a booking through a concierge of a reputable hotel in Tokyo. However, to have access to the concierge in the first place, you generally must have stayed previously with the hotel.
Another problem is that the restaurant is normally fully booked for the next few months. So it is impossible to go to Tokyo, stay in a reputable hotel, and get a reservation during the duration of your stay.
Most of the hotels in Tokyo with concierge services will assist to make reservations at Sukiyabashi Jiro restaurant and you will need to book at least 1 month prior to the reservation date and confirmation are upon availability.
What you need to do is to get access to a hotel in Tokyo with a concierge service. You then speak to the concierge to assist in making the reservation. You are likely to only book your flight tickets and hotel (assuming you don’t live in Tokyo) after you secure a reservation at Sukiyabashi Jiro. Once the concierge has confirmed your booking, you will have to confirm you are staying at the hotel (so make that reservation), and you will also have to forward your credit card details (in case you somehow don’t make it to Jiro!).
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Word of the Day:
OMAKASE
For definition, see below, immediately after the Short Essay
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Screen time
Better Call Saul has only two more episodes and it’s over. It’s already been three episodes too long. These last shows have been pretty poor.
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Wellness
Feeling just fine.
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Social Life
My busy August has begun: Lunch with Lauren on Monday; a technology lesson and lunch with Tucker on Wednesday. And coming quickly, a sleepover at my niece’s on Sunday-Monday.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
It may be necessary temporarily to accept a lesser evil,
but one must never label a necessary evil as good.
~Margaret Mead
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
A father confided some frustrating details of his raising children.
Blog meister responds: But his explanation of the events uncovered that he was in fact an excellent parent making excellent dcisions.
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Food
Sushi lovers all remember the movie, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.” I’m going to Tokyo so I would like to eat at SUKIYABASHI JIRO, the small (10 seats, all at the counter) sushi restaurant made famous by the movie and its 3-star Guide Michelin rating. I looked up the price. It’s one price. $420.00.
Plus tax.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
A caricaturist in the Boston Common always has a line waiting for their turn. For a buck, I would have myself done. Just don’t want to wait in a line.
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Short Essay*
The Tsukiji Market supervised by the Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market of the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Industrial and Labor Affairs, was the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world. It was also one of the largest wholesale supermarkets of any kind. The market opened on 11 February 1935 as a replacement for an older market that was destroyed in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. It was closed on 6 October 2018, with operations moving to the new Toyosu Market.
The market was located in Tsukiji in central Tokyo between the Sumida River and the upmarket Ginza shopping district. When the inner wholesale market was operational, it offered only restricted access to visitors.While the inner wholesale market has closed, the outer retail market, restaurants, and associated restaurant supply stores remain operational, and the area is still a major tourist attraction for both domestic and overseas visitors.
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Definition of Today’s Word of the Day:
OMAKASE
a meal consisting of dishes selected by the chef: "we had the five-course omakase”
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Thursday, August 4, 2022
Welcome to the 1,526th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Tiger Woods
President Donald J. Trump presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Tiger Woods May 6, 2019, in the Rose Garden of the White House. (Official White House by Photo Joyce N. Boghosian)
The White House from Washington, DC - President Trump Presents the Medal of Freedom to Tiger Woods
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Commentary
The first Capitol rioter to stand trial was sentenced to seven years in jail. Guy Wesley Reffitt, 49, of Wylie, Texas, was convicted by a federal jury in March of five felony counts, including obstruction of justice as well as entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a firearm.
Hopefully, faced with substantial punishments, others who have withheld important information will be encouraged to strike deals.
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Reading
I’ve switched my reading from Shogun to a book my dear friend Jim P gave me, “Japan”, one of a series called “The essential guide to customs & culture”.
The inciting factor, my account was just depleted by a 3100+ withdrawal by the Go Ahead Tours, indicating the trip is on and I should accelerate my immersion in that country’s mores.
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Wellness
I seem to have fully recovered from the bike whack.
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Social Life
Had a great visit with my cousin Lauren, in celebration of her new job.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are
when you don't come home at night.
~Margaret Mead
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
An acquaintance asked for my help with a story about his life that he has just finished. Would I edit it for him?
Blog meister responds: We went for a walk. As I suspected, he has no prior writing experience. He has no college education. He doesn’t read.
My advice was to offer him two scenarios.
The first, undertake a deep reworking of the manuscript by joining writers groups, either in person or on line. Go through a complete rewrite with peers pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of your work. When you think the work is ready, hire a professional editor to help with a more thorough reading and correction of the script. Then expect a six month search for an agent.
He did not want to invest the time. He has no love of the process.
So comes the second alternative. Self-publish.
Specifically, go onto Amazon’s self-publishing site and let them publish it for you as is.
It's not a bad option.
A dear friend, with a great talent, is going this route and he is happy with it. Of course, he has paid his dues. His manuscript was terrific to begin with and then he sought editing help from his friends.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
On Tuesday, I ate at Figs. I got a lovely, organized waitress who made the dining experience pleasant. The pizza was tasty but underdone.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Sabino, my friend, a strolling musician in the North End.
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Short Essay*
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records.[4] Woods is widely regarded as one of the greatest golfers of all time and is one of the most famous athletes in modern history. He is an inductee of the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Following an outstanding junior, college, and amateur golf career, Woods turned professional in 1996 at the age of 20. By the end of April 1997, he had won three PGA Tour events in addition to his first major, the 1997 Masters, which he won by 12 strokes in a record-breaking performance. He reached number one in the world rankings for the first time in June 1997, less than a year after turning pro. Throughout the first decade of the 21st century, Woods was the dominant force in golf. He was the top-ranked golfer in the world from August 1999 to September 2004 (264 consecutive weeks) and again from June 2005 to October 2010 (281 consecutive weeks). During this time, he won 13 of golf's major championships.
The next decade of Woods's career was marked by comebacks from personal problems and injuries. He took a self-imposed hiatus from professional golf from December 2009 to early April 2010 in an attempt to resolve marital issues with his wife at the time, Elin. Woods admitted to multiple infidelities, and the couple eventually divorced. He fell to number 58 in the world rankings in November 2011 before ascending again to the number-one ranking between March 2013 and May 2014. However, injuries led him to undergo four back surgeries between 2014 and 2017.[9] Woods competed in only one tournament between August 2015 and January 2018, and he dropped off the list of the world's top 1,000 golfers. On his return to regular competition, Woods made steady progress to the top of the game, winning his first tournament in five years at the Tour Championship in September 2018 and his first major in 11 years at the 2019 Masters.
Woods has held numerous golf records. He has been the number one player in the world for the most consecutive weeks and for the greatest total number of weeks of any golfer in history. He has been awarded PGA Player of the Year a record 11 times and has won the Byron Nelson Award for lowest adjusted scoring average a record eight times. Woods has the record of leading the money list in ten different seasons. He has won 15 professional major golf championships (trailing only Jack Nicklaus, who leads with 18) and 82 PGA Tour events (tied for first all time with Sam Snead).Woods leads all active golfers in career major wins and career PGA Tour wins. Woods is the fifth (after Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus) player to achieve the career Grand Slam, and the youngest to do so. He is also the second golfer (after Nicklaus) to achieve a career Grand Slam three times.
Woods has won 18 World Golf Championships. He was also part of the American winning team for the 1999 Ryder Cup. In May 2019, Woods was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Donald Trump, the fourth golfer to receive the honor.
On February 23, 2021, Woods was hospitalized in serious but stable condition after a single-car collision and underwent emergency surgery to repair compound fractures sustained in his right leg in addition to a shattered ankle. In an interview with Golf Digest in November 2021, Woods indicated that his full-time career as a professional golfer was over, although he would continue to play "a few events per year". He returned to the PGA Tour for the first time since the car accident at the 2022 Masters.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Wednesday, August 3, 2022
Welcome to the 1,525th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Linguini Vongole
Copyright: Howard Dinin
Clam sauce (Italian “alle vongole”) is a topping for pasta, usually linguine. The two most popular varieties are white, usually featuring minced clams, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice or white wine, and parsley, or red, usually a thin tomato sauce with minced clams. Other variants include the incorporation of whole clams, hot pepper flakes and other ingredients. Clam juice may be used in the preparation of clam sauce.
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Commentary
The Fed enjoyed flexing its muscles for us to bow touching our heads to the floor. I wish they would be personally responsible for paying the unemployment claims that certainly will result from this egregious interest rate rise.
Full employment and skyrocketing wages with a nationally mandated $15.00 to $25.00 per hour
minimum wage is what we need,
as is targeted price controls that include free education through college, gas, prescription drugs, and health care among others,
as is targeted industrial direction including the production of computer chips, climate control, and electrical autos.
And, and, all industrial investments and incentives emanating from the federal largesse must be paid back with interest.
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Wellness
Feeling fine.
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Understanding aging
Aging is a process.
It’s incumbent on ourselves to live our days productively and enjoyably
so that we resist death.
It’s further encouragement to live our lives healthily.
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Social Life
Although August is already busy, death has a way of not asking permission.
A good friend lost his daughter in a car accident.
Unplanned, I will be attending the wake and visiting with the handful of boyhood friends still with us.
Funerals are a genre of social calls rarely welcomed but never unheeded.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
Sooner or later I'm going to die, but I'm not going to retire.
~Margaret Mead
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
A friend writes that he enjoyed cooking the Linguini Vongole in the Recipe section of the blog.
His experience was positive. He used superlatives. Made me feel good.
Blog meister responds: We all like praise and admiration. Thank you.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
On Sunday I had the second dinner of turkey with peas and masked sweet potato. The sweet potato is naturally so flavorful it needs no butter or milk to enhance the flavor, saving some calories.
I made a stock of the bones and then reduced the stock and added it to my container of Turkey Gravy in my small freezer.
The rest of the meat I wrapped in small packets and froze to enjoy next week.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Red Clam Sauce
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Short Essay*
Clam is a common name for several kinds of bivalve molluscs. The word is often applied only to those that are edible and live as infauna, spending most of their lives halfway buried in the sand of the seafloor or riverbeds. Clams have two shells of equal size connected by two adductor muscles and have a powerful burrowing foot. They live in both freshwater and marine environments; in salt water they prefer to burrow down into the mud and the turbidity of the water required varies with species and location; the greatest diversity of these is in North America.
Clams in the culinary sense do not live attached to a substrate (whereas oysters and mussels do) and do not live near the bottom (whereas scallops do). In culinary usage, clams are commonly eaten marine bivalves, as in clam digging and the resulting soup, clam chowder. Many edible clams such as palourde clams are ovoid or triangular; however, razor clams have an elongated parallel-sided shell, suggesting an old-fashioned straight razor.
Some clams have life cycles of only one year, while at least one may be over 500 years old. All clams have two calcareous shells or valves joined near a hinge with a flexible ligament and all are filter feeders.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Tuesday, August 2, 2022
Welcome to the 1,524th consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
4th Estate
Journalists interviewing a government official
EU2016 SK - Doorstep - Informal Defence Ministers Meeting (Informal FAC/defence)_2016-09-27
Informal FAC/defence- High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Mrs Federica Mogherini High Representative/Vice-President Photo Rastislav Polak
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Commentary
Halfway through the summer.
Amid the misery rampant throughout the world, including a few unlucky Americans, most of we Americans are enjoying ourselves in our unique ways.
Diving into the ocean, walking, tanning, eating outdoors, wearing summer clothes, barbecues.
Let’s make sure we stay aware of how fortunate we are.
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Screen time
I am enjoying watching Turn. My second time around. This is one of the most unappreciated series I’m aware of.
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Wellness
The bike accident is a distant memory by now. Sleep continues to be an issue. I’m going to try taking melatonin every other night. No rhyme or reason except that everything else I’ve tried has failed.
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Social Life
August 1 begins a busy social month for me.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
A city is a place where there is no need to
wait for next week to
get the answer to a question, to
taste the food of any country, to
find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again.
~Margaret Mead
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Food
I had turkey dinners both on Saturday and Sunday. They were delicious. But finding a quality turkey proved depressing. Markets that carry turkeys this time of year are selling very poor quality birds. For me, they are not worth eating, and I love turkey. Most other supermarkets will not ‘special order’. But Savenor’s market not only special ordered one for me (it took 5 days to arrive) but then sliced the turkey in half and permitted me to buy only half. That was sweet.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Boston City Hall Dance Event
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Short Essay*
The term Fourth Estate or fourth power refers to the press and news media both in explicit capacity of advocacy and implicit ability to frame political issues.
The derivation of the term fourth estate arises from the traditional European concept of the three estates of the realm: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. The equivalent term "fourth power" is somewhat uncommon in English, but it is used in many European languages, including Italian (quarto potere), German (Vierte Gewalt), Spanish (Cuarto poder), and French (Quatrième pouvoir), to refer to a government's separation of powers into legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
Thomas Carlyle attributed the origin of the term to Edmund Burke, who used it in a parliamentary debate in 1787 on the opening up of press reporting of the House of Commons of Great Britain. Earlier writers have applied the term to lawyers, to the British queens consort (acting as free agents independent of their husbands), and to the proletariat.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Monday, August 1, 2022
Welcome to the 1,523rd consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
US Secret Service
Logo of the United States Secret Service
U.S. Government - Extracted from PDF version of March 2006 Know Your Money poster (direct PDF URL [1]). Internal bitmaps were replaced with gradients, with some elements slightly repositioned to eliminate join errors.
The United States Secret Service star logo.
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Commentary
How sad to think that certain of those in the United States Secret Service were in the pay of Donald Trump. That they betrayed the country they swore to protect. That they deliberately erased electronic recordings that would have shown the grossest betrayal of our country since Benedict Arnold tried to surrender West Point to the British. There may be other explanations. There may be women on Mars. Horsesh-t.
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Screen time
I’m watching Turn, one of the most entertaining studies of the Revolutionary War. Not only is it historically accurate, fairly, but it has a lot of episodes so I don’t have to make decisions: what should I watch now?
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Wellness
I slept poorly last night, waking up for good at 2.00am.
Despite having taken 8mg of melatonin.
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Social Life
Sat and Sun were the last two alone days until September. They are alonely.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood,
all the work into middle age, and
all the regrets into old age.
~Margaret Mead
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Blog meister responds: Quiet moment.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
I had my turkey.
It was delicious.
I’m too tired to say more.
Tomorrow.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
free public performance in Downtown Boston
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Short Essay*
The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security charged with conducting criminal investigations and protecting U.S. political leaders, their families, and visiting heads of state or government. Until 2003, the Secret Service was part of the Department of the Treasury, as the agency was founded in 1865 to combat the then-widespread counterfeiting of U.S. currency.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Sunday, July 31, 2022
Welcome to the 1,522nd consecutive post to the blog
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
NATO
NATO military ceremony, Pabrade, Lithuania in November 2014
US Army - https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20170526024652/https://warontherocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/15624933930_035f6c88a0_k.jpg
Soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, and 2nd Cavalry Regiment participate in the closing ceremony for Iron Sword 2014 in Pabrade, Lithuania, Nov. 13, 2014. More than 2,500 troops from nine NATO countries, including U.S. Army Soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division and 2nd Cavalry Regiment, participated in the two-week multinational exercise, aimed at enhancing interoperability and demonstrating U.S. commitment to its NATO allies. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. David Turner)
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Commentary
The Inflation Reduction Act gets critical support from Joe M. So important.
Separately, the ‘chips bill’ has gotten through the Senate and the House. Also important.
Good stuff. Keep it up, guys.
On the minus side, the Honoring Our PACT Act, which had passed both the House and the Senate with bipartisan support in June, lost 25 Republican votes on Wednesday evening, and short-circuited the legislation. The legislation would have removed the burden of proof from veterans and their families by presuming a number of conditions could be related to exposure to toxic fumes from burn pits in Afghanistan and Iraq, Shifting the burden of proof critical to our veterans receiving health care as promised.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values,
we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so
weave a less arbitrary social fabric,
one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.
~Margaret Mead
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Wellness
I dropped my intake of melatonin from 10mg to 8mg. And I slept very well.
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Social Life
Monday begins a month to perhaps ‘too many’ social engagements.
I’m holding my breath.
Can I keep up with my work while I socialize?
I think of Sally C when I think of the old adage,
“You can’t soar with the eagles in the morning if
you fly with the owls at night.”
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Dear Dom,
Your statement about your supper made me laugh and cry at the same time. Just that simple, unadorned statement: “The kielbasa provided me with one of the worst meals I’ve ever prepared.” How grim!
I think the worst meal I ever prepared was something akin to a stir-fry with diced ham and carrots, among other ingredients. Perfectly awful. I had never before put those two ingredients together, and I never have since. About forty years ago, and the memory of its awfulness is still vivid.
Here's to your next meal, which no doubt will be far better.
Sally
Blog meister responds: For amazing movie and games reviews we have one of the best in the country, in Tucker J. But, in the area of homespun, no one beats our Sally C, whether the single sentence or a short essay, Sally, you’re the top.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
On Friday, I had duck breasts with my duck gravy enhanced by green peppercorns.
It was a delicious meal. I opened a bottle of zinfandel for it and the turkey dinner I’ve planned for the morning.
That turkey the big thing.
More on it to come.
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Community Photos**
Boston city hall plaza is nearing completion
This is a huge plus for the city. The construction has been going on for YEARS and has been a blight.
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Short Essay*
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct military uniform. It may consist of one or more military branches such as an army, navy, air force, space force, marines, or coast guard. The main task of the military is usually defined as defence of the state and its interests against external armed threats.
In broad usage, the terms armed forces and military are often treated as synonymous, although in technical usage a distinction is sometimes made in which a country's armed forces may include both its military and other paramilitary forces. There are various forms of irregular military forces, not belonging to a recognized state; though they share many attributes with regular military forces, they are less often referred to as simply military.
The profession of soldiering as part of a military is older than recorded history itself. Some of the most enduring images of classical antiquity portray the power and feats of its military leaders. The Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC was one of the defining points of Pharaoh Ramses II's reign, and his monuments commemorate it in bas-relief. A thousand years later, the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, was so determined to impress the gods with his military might that he had himself buried with an army of terracotta soldiers. The Romans paid considerable attention to military matters, leaving to posterity many treatises and writings on the subject, as well as many lavishly carved triumphal arches and victory columns.
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