The curators of the gardens of your mind definitely want to keep them weed free.

2021 06 01

In particular, they are suspicious of venomous thoughts from sources such as ukr.net and especially protonmail. They hate the fact that it is encrypted.  They can't snoop, either to sell you stuff or to snitch on you to Big Brother.  A fair amount is being returned to me, and several of you report that my mail winds up in spam.  I'm sending this episode from both mail senders. Please let me know, if you get only one, which it was.

The ToastMaster of our May 22 meeting chose gambling as the theme. As I delivered this speech on lifetime fitness I wove in Frankie Laine's 1957 "Moonlight Gambler."

Eddie loved the song. The two of us have been singing it around the house ever sense. Eddie knows what gambling is, but he needed a bit of explanation about why moonlight is special for men and women.

This family does love to sing. Being out of coffee this morning inspired me to launch into the Manhattan Transfer's "Java Jive," for which Zoriana requested an encore as we walked to her kindergarten. We had earlier sung Cielito Lindo. It has a great verse in Spanish to the effect that singing brings joy to the heart. The tune also used to bring joy to us as nine-year-olds on Gladys Avenue, albeit with different lyrics

Aye, yie yie yie yie

In China they do it for chili

So sing me another verse

Worse than the other verse

Waltz me around again Willie.

Eddie likes that one as well.

Eddie is studying for fifth grade entrance exams. This is not rainforest math. See how you do on practice questions five and six.

5. The length of a rectangular classroom is 9 m and the width is 8 m. How many students (according to sanitary norms) can study in a class if 12 m 2 are required for every 7 students ? (2 points)

6. In the park there is a game in which you need to hit the ball into the ring. Each hit is given 2 free throws. Ira made only 16 shots and paid only 4. How many times did she manage to hit the ring? ( Write down all your thoughts ) (3 p.)  NB: Ira is a girl's name here – short for Irena.

The Ukrainian is equally difficult, and he is less well prepared for that despite the fact that it has been his language of instruction. Ukrainians are nuts about grammatical cases (you students of German and Latin know about them: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative and so on) and Ukrainian has about six. He should be able to name them and decline nouns and pronouns. This week's task is to know them. And hope that next year's school is a bit more serious about it.

Getting set up for a cataract surgery operation has informed me a bit better about Ukrainian medicine. Getting one eye done by one of the most highly recommended doctors is going to cost me $2000. Cost is not the issue. I had to make seven visits to their clinic for various tests, after which they sent me to another clinic for general medical testing, requiring another five visits. An amazing waste of my time.

Before they would operate they needed to make sure I didn't have syphilis, HIV, untreated dental problems and a host of other seemingly unrelated ailments. The cardiologist gave me a terrible time about my arrhythmia, not weighing the fact that my blood pressure was 110/80 and she measured my pulse at 63. I'm a healthy guy. I'm scheduled for June 11. Assuming all goes well I'll get the other eye done in July. I'll let you know.

While I was filming the above video on lifelong exercise, I committed my thoughts on biodiversity to a short video as well. You have seen the theme. Although claiming widespread extinctions would be a convincing argument in favor of other desirable propositions, such as controlling herbicides, ending pollution and so on, it just isn't so. By my arithmetic biodiversity is probably increasing. Since this is an argument that would not appeal to anybody except big oil, nobody else will make it.

More, and more frequent and devastating arguments are coming out concerning the origins and handling of the Covid 19 epidemic and especially the dangers of the vaccines. I thank those of you who are sending me references. As for the rest of you, I will give it a rest. Minds are made up.

That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the men are strong, the women are good looking, and the children are looking forward to an eternity of freedom – summer vacation.