What do dolphins like to do? The best way to find out is to ask the dolphins. They can't really talk right now, but they're working on it. You could ask that question about any animal. Often, careful observation of the subject answers the question.

I was watching a YouTube video yesterday of captured dolphins. That's what made me ask the question. In the video, the dolphins were swimming in what appeared to be turquoise water. The water probably appeared to be that color because the bottom of the pool was painted turquoise. One dolphin kept leaping onto what looked like a white plastic platform with a "slide"built into it, something like a one-piece fiberglass shower and tub unit that people foolishly install in their homes. The dolphin's behavior looked a lot like someone repeating a boring task.

As an aside, on the subject of fiberglass tub and/or shower units, I would like to ask people who have had them installed in perfectly good homes, "how do you like those things after three or four years?" You can only clean them with a few products as explained in the care guide that accompanies them and which almost no one reads. If you use anything harsher than, say, baking soda, the shine comes right off. It gets worse and worse from there on. The plastic-like fiberglass surface becomes a sponge and attracts film and bonds forever with it. The job of cleaning the shower then becomes a real workout. There are a lot of people who know exactly what I'm talking about. Porcelain is the best way to go in the long run.

Let's return to the subject of dolphins. They can obey commands and signals and appear to enjoy these types of activities in the ocean, but that may be because they can swim away when they get bored. At the Dolphin Research Center, the dolphins train the trainers to work with them. Although you can't make a direct correlation, dolphins are like people in that they have different personalities and different likes and dislikes. Mostly, they just like to have fun.

In trying to make a practical application of this information, try to remember "one fish after every behavior" is boring.

First of all, let me say this didn't happen to me. It happened to a friend of a friend, and that's how I know about it.

Let's just say the holidays are tough and sometimes confusing for this person. It seems he or she, whatever, was waiting for the pumpkin pie to come out of the oven and feeling funny, glanced at the laptop keyboard, when all of a sudden, things looked completely different, kind of like a time warp to a different plane. For example, he or she had never really comprehended the full meaning of the "Fn" on the keyboard before. Suddenly, it seemed to mean "fun", whereas it had never seemed to mean that before. Also the lamp on the book shelf seemed to take on the characteristics of a saint, fully illuminated.

The friend of a friend does not take drugs. Alcohol is enough to render them silly. That's why it's OK for some people to say, "No, thanks, I'm driving." even if they're not.

God Almighty, I love John Denver, because he was the first one to condone the Rocky Mountain High and think it was funny.

I am not a Master Fromager. As a cheese lover, I don't know what's good, but I know what I like. That's a true statement if you consider what a real Master Fromager thinks of my favorite cheese, Munster. In the book Mastering Cheese, Lessons For Connoisseurship From A Maitre Fromager, Munster is listed as a "stinky cheese". I hadn't noticed. It is also called "cow-y", but I don't see that they call goat cheese goat-y or sheep cheese sheep-y. I feel bad for Munster, as if someone had said my pet could be a contender for The Ugliest Dog In The World contest.

St. Benedict is not actually the patron saint of cheese, but he can be thanked for "inspiring the construction of monasteries...which in turn led to the creation of a great modern cheese type: washed-rind stinky 'monk cheeses'" (33).

The blue cheeses, called Miraculous Moldies in the book, are blue because of the mold that gives them their flavor. This mold is a kind of pennicillin. I don't know if you could culture a medicinal grade of penicillin in a lab from blue cheese or not. That's like saying, sure, I'll deliver your baby in an end of the world scenario, otherwise, no.

It seems they've got cheese tasting down to a science:

"What we humans perceive as cheese flavor is made up of a few of fundamental components: first, the five flavors detected by the taste buds on our tongues- sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami (savory); and second, the thousands of odors we can pick up with our noses" (92).

There are terms you can use to describe cheese. "Terms such as fruity, nutty, and grassy are common...You'll find some interesting- at times quirky, quizzical, comical, and even anthropomorphic- references. Some of them are a tad alarming; some are even cute. (See sidebar on "squidgy" and "bilious", page 100) (98).

The sidebar title Take a Good Sniff suggests that one should Smell The Rind, but not to eat it if it smells "funky". Yes, that's the exact word used.

What do you call it when the cheese squeaks on your teeth?

The book is actually quite informative and could raise your level of cheese awareness beyond pasteurized American cheese:

"...In 1851, a dairy entrepreneur named Jessie Williams built America's first industrial cheese factory in Rome, New York...American cheese manufacturers skimmed off their cream and sold it for extra income. By cutting corners and shipping out inferior cheeses, they were able to turn a better profit."

American cheese has ruled America since then. It, like Americans, could be called bland due to the so-called Melting Pot effect, but I prefer to think of it as The Sleeping Giant. I think it is the Industrial Strength bi-product of America's love of cheese.

A window to the sky is not slavery. It is an invitation to let your mind soar. There is no prison of the spirit if your mind can fly yourself out of there, wherever you might be. They say that "kids these days" have so much content provided for them that they are short on imagination. I suppose if they didn't have computers and such, you could just give them a couple of sticks and they could rub them together and discover fire all over again, but that's a different blog. This blog is about being enslaved.

There are many ways to be enslaved. You can be enslaved by your own life, your desires, your passions, and whatnot. I am fond of saying that men are slaves to their biology, and that keeps me from having to think, dispute, or reconcile some of their behavior.

When you think of plantations, do you think of Gone With The Wind? This movie is a classic film drama, but Scarlett and Rhett represented the privileged few, the sharp point at the top of the pyramid. The truth is that plantations existed before the Old South in the United States of America.

Tudor and Stuart plantation systems were established in Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries. Plantations in the Caribbean were stocked with Irish slaves and servants, many of them children. Orphaned and poor children, in fact, were often used as slaves in the past and today.

Many Scandinavian people came to the United States as indentured servants. An indentured servant did have the option of being free after fulfilling a term of service.

This brings up a touchy subject. On a plantation there has to be two classes: masters and servants. This subject is not so touchy with the masters, but it is a real stinker with the servants and slaves.

Slavery exists today in human trafficking of both adults and children.

From time to time it is necessary to think about something which requires our attention, since awareness that a problem exists is the first step in solving a problem.

Have you ever imagined what it would be like if you were a slave? That might be difficult if you don't know anything about it, the everyday and harsh reality.

This brings to mind the subject of autonomy. To me, this word means the right to choose one's own course in life, to make one's own decisions, and most of all, to do one's own thinking. If someone else tells you what to do and what to think all the time, are you not similar to a robot which is programmed to obey commands?

Blogger has an exciting feature. Just go into "settings" and enable yourself to translate your blog into several other languages. A word of warning though, when you are on the dashboard page, do not, I repeat, do not click on Arabic unless you can write it. It will take you a while to find the English button again.

This feature comes with a tutorial, This is part of it:

"How do I use the transliteration feature?

The Quick Answer

• Go to the Settings|Basic tab and enable the transliteration option.
• * Select your language.
• Click the Transliteration button on the posting form to type in transliteration mode.

What is transliteration?

Blogger offers an automatic transliteration option for converting Roman characters to the characters used in the following languages:

Amharic

Arabic

Bengali

Greek

Persian

Gujarati

Kannada

Hindi

Malayalam

Marathi

Nepali

Punjabi

Russian

Sanskrit

Serbian

Tamil

Telugu

Tigriny

Urdu

This lets you type these languages phonetically in English script and still have them appear in their correct alphabet. Note that this is not the same as translation -- the sound of the words is converted from one alphabet to the other, not the meaning. For example, typing 'hamesha' transliterates into Hindi as:
"

Even though my native language is English, and I think and blog in English, someone who blogs in Russian could translate my blog into English.


Imagine that!