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"So many of us have been raised to see strangers as dangerous and scary. What would happen if we instead saw them as potential sources of comfort and belonging"? Read more

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Get out your red-blue glasses and hover over the surface of Mars. Taken on July 24, the 3D color view is from the Mars Ingenuity Helicopter's 10th flight above the Red Planet. Two images from Ingenuity's color camera, both captured at an altitude of 12 meters (40 feet), but a few meters apart to provide a stereo perspective, were used to construct the color anaglyph. Ingenuity's stereo images were made at the request of the Mars Perseverance rover science team. The team is considering a visit to these raised ridges on the floor of Jezero Crater during Perseverance's first science campaign.

I will not write
and no longer speak
of a lost love,
for it is surreal.
How can I describe,
a missing piece
of a broken heart.

The Sun has risen.
The sky obscured by cloud.
I am happy we have rain,
in spite of the dark shroud
worn on this dreary day.
Perhaps the Sun will appear
driving all the clouds away.

..."The government's definition of working poor refers to the federal poverty line. But MIT's Living Wage Calculator suggests a family needs to earn double or even triple that to afford the very basic necessities of life. The data below are for various household sizes for Rochester, New York, which is about the national average for cost of living. Annual incomes are based on average wages and 2,080 hours of work a year."..... Read the full article on The Conversation

Life can be hard,
many people will say.
As hard as it is,
some are worse off,
than thee.
Thanks be to God,
not for the hurt,
which comes every day,
but for the love
in my life,
from friends and family.

There is a beauty
in all we see.
It is there, please look
for the goodness of we.

If you’re a savvy investor like myself, no doubt you’ve been sniffing around the cryptocurrency phenomenon, wondering if it’s time to plunk down some of those 20th Century dollars and trade em in on bitcoins. You might even be wondering what exactly cryptocurrency is, possibly googled it, and undoubtedly come away realizing you haven’t got a clue. But then, what is an Andrew Jackson, really? Just cloth with dyes and inks and watermarks. Worth what it says on the bill if everyone keeps believing it’s real even if no gold is sitting in Ft. Knox to back it up. Economics, a faith based religion?

Cryptocurrency, forget about the gold standard. What you got is blockchain. Okay, I know, you don’t actually understand blockchaining. That’s fine, neither do I and neither do most people who own bitcoins or any other cryptomoney. You just know some economists think this is the future of monetary transactions, safer than greenbacks in your bank account some lowlife hacker can empty faster than you can say Bad Password. Bitcoins, well, their password is unhackable, but … if you forget it, no way can you or the hackers get at it, sorry.

But what you do notice is that bitcoins and their brethren virtual cash move up and down in value the way Apple stocks do, a breathtaking hedge against minimum interest rates on your savings. Now, you could ask yourself, before, hopefully, you convert your life investments and 401-K and the pension to bitcoin, what kind of currency can change value 20% in a day, up, down, you just never know. Would you put your money in a bank that offered the potential to drop in value half overnight?

Well obviously some people would. If it looks like a pyramid scheme and smells like a pyramid scheme and acts like a pyramid scheme, I think you and I know it probably isn’t a real smart investment, it’s just a high tech form of gambling cloaked in crypto-babble. Me, I’d rather bury money out in the yard. Just so long as I don’t lose the map showing where I put it. 
Read more Skeeter Daddle Diaries

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Cosmic dust clouds cross a rich field of stars in this telescopic vista near the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. Less than 500 light-years away the dust clouds effectively block light from more distant background stars in the Milky Way. Top to bottom the frame spans about 2 degrees or over 15 light-years at the clouds' estimated distance. At top right is a group of lovely reflection nebulae cataloged as NGC 6726, 6727, 6729, and IC 4812. A characteristic blue color is produced as light from hot stars is reflected by the cosmic dust. The dust also obscures from view stars in the region still in the process of formation. Just above the bluish reflection nebulae a smaller NGC 6729 surrounds young variable star R Coronae Australis. To its right are telltale reddish arcs and loops identified as Herbig Haro objects associated with energetic newborn stars. Magnificent globular star cluster NGC 6723 is at bottom left in the frame. Though NGC 6723 appears to be part of the group, its ancient stars actually lie nearly 30,000 light-years away, far beyond the young stars of the Corona Australis dust clouds.

Photo by Vikas Chander

My hands are trembling.
Why am I still awake"
I need my sleep,
not my Soul, which you'll take.

Music may soothe,
the most savage of beast
but for me, it's the food:
which are served at a Feast.