Friday, March 25, 2016

Easter/Passover

 Easter/Passover


For thousands of   years

it shouldn't come as a great mystery,

though accompanied by prayers and tears,

that they haven't been able to agree

In a world that is almost always disconnected

on if, when or where ,Christ was resurrected.



All this, in addition to differences in Faith

and what some Prophet or Other sayeth, 

has something to do with Calendars, and

so, when ritual observances are planned,

 whether they're based on the Moon or the Sun,

 seems only to add to the fun.



But they  all can get mutually out of whack

as , every year,  days are removed or put back.


And to think all this will  soon be cleared of its mist,

You'd have to be a serious optimist--Class Dismissed!

HZL
3/25/16


The Islamic Leap Year

The tabular Islamic Hijri calendar has 11 leap years in a 30-year cycle. An extra day is added to the last month of the year during the Islamic leap year.
Mecca
The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Hajj.
©iStockphoto.com/afby71

Lunar Calendar

The Hijri calendar is a purely lunar calendar and contains 12 months that are based on the Moon phases.

Different From Civil Calendar

In this sense, it is very different from solar calendars, like theGregorian calendar used as the civil calendar around the world. Solar calendars are based on the length of the tropical year, which is defined by Earth's revolution around the Sun. Leap years are added to keep the calendars in sync with solstices and equinoxes.

Pilgrimage Month

During a Hijri leap year, one day is added to the last month, making it 30 days instead of 29 days long. This month, Dhu 'l-Hidjdja, is also referred to as the month of the Hajj – the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
The Hijri calendar has a 30-year cycle with 11 leap years of 355 days and 19 years of 354 days. In the long term, it is accurate to about one day in 2500 years.
The leap year occurs in the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 18th, 21st, 24th, 26th, and 29th years of the 30-year cycle. Leap months are forbidden by the Qur'an. The calendar is based on the Qur'an and its proper observance is a sacred duty for Muslims.
Topics: Leap Year, Calendar



Passover and Easter―A Quick Guide to Understanding Dates

www.infoplease.com › ... › Calendar & Holidays › Major Holidays
A quick guide to the dates of Passover and Easter ... Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, the holiday commemorating the Hebrews' exodus from ... For more than a billionMuslims around the world, Ramadan is a "month of blessing" marked by ...

Easter and Passover - My Jewish Learning

www.myjewishlearning.com/.../easter-and-passover/
MyJewishLearning
The following article explores the similarities and differences between the ... The frequent overlapping of Easter and Passover — of the Christian Holy Week ... to periodic extension in order to keep the Jewish lunar calendar in sync with the ...

Easter—A Tale of Two Easters - Fact Monster

www.factmonster.com › Cool Stuff › Holidays
Fact Monster
Find out why Western churches and Orthodox churches celebration Easter on different dates. ... but the churches base the dates on different calendars: Western churches use ... The Eastern Church sets the date of Easter according to the actual, ... Easteralways falls after Passover, since the Crucifixion and Resurrection of ...

How the Easter Date is Determined - Timeanddate.com

www.timeanddate.com/calendar/determining-easter-date.h...
Time and Date
According to the Gregorian calendar, Easter falls on a Sunday between March 22 ... This would have solved the Easter date difference between churches that ...
‎March Equinox - ‎Easter Sunday - ‎Spring Equinox

Easter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter
Wikipedia
Related to, Passover, of which it is regarded the Christian fulfillment; .... Because of the 13-day difference between the calendars between 1900 and 2099, 21 ...
‎Easter egg - ‎Easter Bunny - ‎Ēostre - ‎Easter Monday
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Teen Chatbot nixed by Microsoft


Teen Chatbot nixed by Microsoft

Like a parrot,artificial intelligence can  be trained to curse,

make sexist remarks and  political stands from bad to worse.

But clearly, doing so by using    Twitter

and listening to those  who are venting and bitter.

can overly rush its education

and lead to a sticky situation--

requiring strong  inhibition

and refunding of tuition.

HzL
3/25/16




Racist Tweets by Tay, Microsoft's AI Chatbox on Twitter
The Escapist‎ - 3 hours ago
Microsoft programmed the AI-powered chatbox to learn through friendly, informal ...
Microsoft deletes 'teen girl' AI after it became a Hitler-loving sex robot within 24 hours
Telegraph.co.uk‎ - 17 hours ago
Meet Tay, Microsoft's new AI chat bot
PCWorld‎ - 2 days ago
More news for Microsoft chat box
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Thursday, March 24, 2016

An English Country House


An English Country House

(While there's no charge  to take a peek,

  I doubt it's  rentable by the week)


From Bloomberg, hzl/3/24/16


George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin's English Country House

Steam Room
(Source: FameFlynet Pictures)
START OVER
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This Month's Song

This Month's Song

Though it may seem rather arch *
I'd prefer not to sing about March

and I hope you'll grant  immunity
to avoid the opportunity

of my having to cite April too
which , though it   may mean Spring to you--

with thoughts of a Love's caress--
 to me suggests more a date with the IRS.

But besides 
those dreaded Ides**,

the Spring Season's been celebrated enough
by others more talented, tender or tough.

and I feel now,  having gotten quite old,
that we should not neglect those months that are cold

to celebrate still what pleasures remain
in using what's left of the brain

with music that's good
in company with food

for even if  

memories of September may be only  an ember
It's still rather nice to  be around in December. 

HzL
3/18/16

*Arch | Definition of Arch by Merriam-Webster

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/arch
Merriam‑Webster
Define arch: a usually curved part of a structure that is over an opening and that ... Ultimately deriving (via Latin and French) from the Greek verb archein ("to ... sorts,arch eventually settled into use as an adjective to describe one with impish or ...



**Ides of March - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ides_of_March
Wikipedia
The Ides of March (Latin: Idus Martiae, Late Latin: Idus Martii) is a day on the Roman calendar that corresponds to 15 March. It was marked by several religious observances and became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC.
‎Ides - ‎Assassination of Caesar - ‎See also - ‎References

September Song - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Song
Wikipedia
"September Song" is an American pop standard composed by Kurt Weill, with lyric by Maxwell Anderson, introduced by Walter Huston in the 1938 Broadway ...
‎Origins - ‎The Song - ‎Subsequent Recordings - ‎Instrumental renditions



September Song - Willie Nelson - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9nSgMwtkK0
Sep 12, 2010 - Uploaded by maynardcat
September Song by Williie Nelson a song about treasuring the years left in the autum of your life, and caring ...
About 3,810,000 results (0.66 seconds) 

Search Results

    September Song
    Frank Sinatra
    When I was a young man courting the girls
    I played me a waiting game
    If a maid refused me with tossing curls
    I'd let the old Earth make a couple of whirls
    While I plied her with tears in lieu of pearls
    And as time came around she came my way
    As time came around, she came
    When you meet with the young girls early in the Spring
    You court them in song and rhyme
    They answer with words and a clover ring
    But if you could examine the goods they bring
    They have little to offer but the songs they sing
    And the plentiful waste of time of day
    A plentiful waste of time
    Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
    But the days grow short when you reach September
    When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
    One hasn't got time for the waiting game

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Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Tracey has Married a Rock
















Tracey  has Married a Rock

Tracey Emin announces she has married a rock

which might give her mother a bit of a shock

However, perhaps she is not alone
.
in appreciating "the security of a large ancient stone"

since many a prospective bride

seems to take considerable pride

and  even may be led  to sing

about the one in her engagement ring.



And remember that for lovers on the  the island of Yap

 large rocks can serve as currency to smooth over a marriage trap

though I think it's a bit more handy

as they do in those  Islands Trobriand-y

instead to rely on a well-cooked yam

to get you in or out of such a jam. 

HzL
3/23/16

Rai stones - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
Wikipedia
Rai, or stone money (Yapese: raay), are large, circular stone disks carved out of limestone ... They have been used in trade by the Yapese as a form of currency.
‎Form and value - ‎History - ‎See also - ‎References

Search Results

Trobriand Islands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trobriand_Islands
Wikipedia
The Trobriands consist of four main islands, the largest being Kiriwina Island, and the others being Kaileuna, Vakuta and Kitava. Kiriwina is 43 kilometres (27  ...
‎Geography - ‎People - ‎History - ‎Anthropological studies and ..

Marriage customs[edit]

At seven or eight years of age, Trobriand children begin to play erotic games with each other and imitate adult seductive attitudes. About four or five years later, they begin to pursue sexual partners. They change partners often. Women are just as assertive and dominant as men in pursuing or refusing a lover.[2] This is not only allowed, but encouraged.
In the Trobriand Islands, there is no traditional marriage ceremony. A young woman stays in her lover's house instead of leaving it before sunrise. The man and woman sit together in the morning and wait for the bride's mother to bring them cooked yams.[2] The married couple eat together for about a year, and then go back to eating separately. Once the man and woman eat together, the marriage is officially recognized.[2]
When a Trobriand couple want to marry each other, they show their interest by sleeping together, spending time together, and staying with each other for several weeks. The girl's parents approve of the couple when a girl accepts a gift from a boy. After that, the girl moves to the boy's house, eats her meals there, and accompanies her husband all day. Then word goes out that the boy and girl are married.[7]
If after one year, a woman is unhappy with her husband, she may divorce him. A married couple may also get divorced if the husband chooses another woman. The man may try to go back with the woman he left by giving her family yams and other gifts, but it is ultimately up to the woman if she wants to be with that man.

Tracey Emin announces she has married a rock

Tracey Emin, the artist, says she appreciated the security of the large, ancient stone

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Tracey Emin speaks to member of the media during a press conference in Hong Kong, China
Tracey Emin speaks to member of the media during a press conference in Hong Kong, China Photo: EPA
Hannah Furness
By , Arts Correspondent
7:57PM GMT 22 Mar 2016
She was once the enfant terrible of British art, bursting into the establishment with her unmade bed.
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Tracey Emin, the artist, has proved she still has the power to surprise, after announcing she has married a rock.
Emin, who this week opens a new exhibition in China, said she has married a large ancient stone in France, wearing her father's white funeral shroud.
She told The Art Newspaper: "It just means that at the moment I am not alone; somewhere on a hill facing the sea, there is a very beautiful ancient stone, and it’s not going anywhere.
"It will be there, waiting for me."
In a separate interview, she added: "It's in my garden, it's very nice and very impressive and I like it a lot.
Tracey Emin speaks to member of the media during a press conference in Hong Kong, ChinaTracey Emin speaks to member of the media during a press conference in Hong Kong, China  Photo: EPA
"The other thing about the stone is that it could be quite monstrous and scary. Instead I saw it as a protection thing as opposed to a fearful thing."
Emin's latest exhibition, I Cried Because I Love You, will be in Hong Kong until May 21.
It is intended to explore the "universal" emotion of love, with the artist admitting: "Some people think it sounds sad, but I think that, for many people, they have felt tears of joy when they have really been in love."
When asked how her understanding of art had changed with age, Eminsaid: "I think that when we are younger, it is totally wrapped up in lust and physical conquest.
"My idea of love now is so heightened and spiritual that I really am looking for a soul mate; nothing else will do.
"Maybe when I was 18, I could have met someone who was my soul mate, but would not have known. I am very happy with the few people I have loved in my lifetime and I consider them to be extremely close friends.
"Not everyone can say that."
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