T-shirt designer who also has random thoughts about current events, art, philosophy, humor, fashion, celebrities, decor, and everything under the sun. Please bookmark this blog and come back often! If you're a designer or philosopher, ask about guest blogging.
Today, April 2, is World Autism Awareness Day. And April is National Autism Awareness Month in the United States. The purpose of National Autism Awareness Month is to highlight the issue of autism and to "promote autism awareness, inclusion and self-determination for all, and assure that each person with ASD is provided the opportunity to achieve the highest possible quality of life." That is according to the Autism Society.
Years ago, a number of prominent psychologists put forth a theory that autism was caused by "Refrigerator Mother Syndrome", which is exactly as it sounds: a completely ludicrous and now utterly discredited theory that blamed autism on parents (especially mothers) who lacked maternal warmth. Bruno Bettelheim hypothesized that improper breastfeeding and other cold and distant behaviors that deprived the children of proper bonding. How awful must it have been to be a mother (or father) of an autistic child and to be told that your subconscious rejection was responsible! And this theory persisted until as recently as the 1960s.
Today, thank goodness, we know better. And science is learning more and more about the true nature of autism. We know that there is probably not one particular factor or cause, but rather a variety of genetic factors. We know that vaccines are probably not a factor. We know that only a lot more research will lead us to discover the true causes and possible cures for this ailment.
Donald Trump is nothing if not a polarizing figure. Some say he has given a voice to the racist bigots in America. He has done that. Some say he condones violence. He does do that. But he also unleashes humor in those, especially, who oppose his rhetoric.
It didn't take us long to find a wealth of funny anti-Trump tshirts at 3 of the biggest tshirt sources: Zazzle, Amazon, and Cafepress. For your amusement, we present our personal top ten!
By now you've probably seen the brilliant segment by John Oliver, skewering Donald Trump merely by telling the truth about him. But in case you haven't seen it, here it is.
Donald Drumpf. Doesn't have quite the same ring of wealth and power as Donald Trump, does it? I mean, President Drumpf? Not bloody likely. Drumpf Towers? Nah. Drumpf Casino? I wouldn't spend a dime there. So the Donald can thank his lucky stars that his grandfather, Frederick Drumpf, started calling himself Frederick Trump. It's not known, according to the website Bustle, "... if he ever changed his name officially. Some have speculated that he didn’t want to be known as “Drumpf” because of prevailing prejudice against Germans (which would heighten, of course, during World War I)."
Still, the name Drumpf has spawned all kinds of spoofs and memes on the Internet, including more than one hashtag on Twitter. #makedonalddrumpfagain trended for days, and there's a website where you can get a "drumpfinator" extension for Chrome that changes the word Trump to the word Drumpf on every page you view.
Most people know that the Chicago River gets dyed green for St. Patrick's Day, and 2016 will be no exception! BUT! If you wait until March 17 you'll miss it!! That's because the Chicago St Patrick's Day parade and river dyeing always take place on the Saturday BEFORE St. Patrick's Day. This year it will be on March 12. The dyeing will take place around 9:00 a.m. on parade Saturday, according to the website Chicago's St Pat's Parade. The site says that the formula for the dye is a "closely guarded secret" but that it is safe for the environment.
That website also says that the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers group does the dying, as it has for the last 50+ years. What's funny is that the dye that is used appears orange when first added to the water, and then it miraculously turns "Irish green" within minutes. About 40 pounds of vegetable dye are used, and the process takes about 5 hours.
Other things that "go green" for St. Patrick's Day? The Leaning Tower of Pisa, the fountain at the White House ( a new tradition, started by the Obamas, to remind them of Chicago), the downtown canal in Indianapolis, and all the fountains in Savannah GA.
According to Betty, the best way to do it is to use a very light colored beer (pale ale, pilsner). Use liquid green food coloring (the kind that comes in little squeeze bottles). Squeeze some (4-6 drops) food coloring in the bottom of your pint glass, and then slowly pour the beer in to the food coloring. This way, you don't have to stir the beer, which could make it go flat. Oh, and one more thing: if you think adding blue food coloring to yellow beer will give you green beer, experts say you're wrong! You'll end up with turquoise, and nobody wants to drink turquoise beer!
March 17 is the big day! Are you ready? It's the day of pub crawls and parades, of green beer and the river running green in Chicago (more on that tomorrow), of the wearin' o'the green, and of leprechauns.
The word leprechaun, according to the Oxford Dictionaries, probably comes from the Old Irish luchorpan (lu=small + corp=body). The Oxford Dictionary goes on to say that "When the leprechaun first appeared in English literature in the 17th century, it was named lubrican; the modern form dates from the 19th century."
The first recorded instance of the word in the English language was in Dekker's comedy The Honest Whore, Part 2 (1604): "As for your Irish lubrican, that spirit / Whom by preposterous charms thy lust hath rais'd / In a wrong circle."
There are no female leprechauns. This is probably why leprechauns are so grumpy. They spend their whole lives (about 300 years, some say) making shoes and saving their gold in big iron pots. Nobody knows exactly what they spend their gold on, if anything.
One more interesting leprechaun fact, from the website MentalFloss :
Leprechauns are protected under European Law. "Apparently, there are 236 leprechauns that live in the caverns of Carlington Mountain. The EU has granted heritage status to the remaining wee people; they now have their own protected sanctuary nestled in the mountain. The directive also protects the animals and flora in the area to help keep the biodiversity of the land safe."
We've embedded some of our favorite St Patricks Day tshirts in this post. Click the descriptive link beneath each t-shirt to learn more or to be taken to the purchase site. Hope you enjoy them!
Yesterday, I told you a little bit about Pi, and Pi Day. Pi Day, by decree of Congress, falls on March 14 every year. This is because pi's value is approximately 3.14. I also mentioned that pi is an irrational number. It's not a far stretch, in this political season, to marry the irrationality of pi with the irrationality of certain political candidates. When I threw those two things into the blender, out came a couple of funny t-shirts.
I tend to lean, politically, left. That's another reason these tshirts appeal to me so much. The Republican posse of current presidential candidates has been rightly termed a "clown car" by many, because it seems to be completely devoid of anyone actually qualified to be President of the United States. The statements from these men (Carly Fiornina doesn't count, she's out) grow more outrageous, unrealistic, inaccurate and shocking every day. It's a wonder the entire Republican party hasn't exploded yet.
Last March 14, I happened to walk past my local pie shop and there was a line out the door. That's quite a rarity for my little local shop, so I rummaged through my mind and determined that it wasn't Valentine's Day, or Sweetheart's Day, or Mother's Day. I just didn't know why so many people were queueing up for strawberry rhubarb pie, so I asked someone who was standing in line. "What's the occasion?", I said. She looked at me with a sneer, plainly implying I was an idiot, and spat out, "Pi Day".
Okay, so I'm not a geek, a nerd, a math major or even very good at calculus. But she had succeeded in making me feel a little bit dumb. Of course, Pi Day has to fall on March 14, doesn't it?
Pi is a mathematical term we all learned about in school. For my part, I remember that finding the volume of a circle - or is it the square root of a cylinder? - has something to do with pi. It was one of those "I'll never use this information in a million years" moments that I had so many of in math class. And I can proudly say that so far, I've been correct. Still, some people might find it useful to know these pi facts I got off the internet:
* Pi is infinite. Unlike my local pie shop which can only turn out a couple hundred pies a day, the number Pi never ends. Not sure if that means it isn't really a number, or not. But the fact remains, according to this reddit page, "because we know that if a number repeats it must be rational and because pi is irrational it can not repeat. As someone else pointed out we know that any finite number can be written as the ratio of two integers easily so as a consequence we know that since Pi is not rational then it must be infinite." OK, whatever.
* If you got that, you know now that Pi is irrational. My grandmother was irrational, too, which is a definition I understand. But I had to go to a kids' website to understand what an irrational number is. According to Mathisfun.com , an irrational number is "a real number that cannot be written as a simple fraction." I guess that's why Pi has to have its own little symbol, which looks like a tiny little gate to hell:
* Congress, in early 2009, passed a bipartisan resolution designating March 14th of each year as "Pi Day." This may be the last thing Congress ever agreed on.
* By definition, pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi is always the same number, no matter which circle you use to compute it.
* So far, pi has been calculated up to more than a trillion digits.
* Here's a weird one: the first 144 digits of pi add up to 666!!
* In The Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow, after he gets his brain, does not talk about pi. This is something I had wrong for centuries! Turns out he was quoting the Pythagorean Theorem (although apparently he gets it wrong).
So there you have it! Now you understand Pi as well as I do. Which is to say, I still don't get it. But if you see me standing in line at the pie store, please say hello anyway.
Did you know that 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the Irish rebellion, commonly known as the Easter Rising?
The events of the Easter Rising occured mostly in Dublin city, from April 24th until April 30th, 1916. The Dublin group consisted of 1,200 men and women from the nationalist militia the Irish Volunteers, the socialist trade union group Irish Citizen Army and the women’s group, Cumman na mBan. Its purpose was to end British rule in Ireland and establish an independent Irish Republic. But the British army quickly suppressed the Rising, and most of the leaders were executed following courts-martial. While at the time, the rebellion was not widely supported in Ireland, it eventually helped to increase the strength of the radical nationalists in Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein then went on to win three by-elections in 1917 and a general election in 1918, leading to their proclamation of an Irish Republic and the start of the Irish War of Independence.
This year, 2016, marks 100 years since the Easter Rising, and that anniversary will be celebrated all year, throughout all the Republic of Ireland. Here are some useful links that will give you a good idea of what events will be occuring throughout the country:
Discover Ireland The Irish Times List of Events Visit Dublin
Christmas comes but once a year. But when it comes, it lasts for a month or so. Christmas season starts the day after Thanksgiving, with Black Friday. Then there's Cyber Monday -- or is it Cyber Sunday now? -- and then the Christmas shopping season is fully upon us. However, if you're doing your shopping on line this year, it's important to remember to order EARLY. Many companies, such as Cafepress and Zazzle, need a little extra time so they can produce or print your gift order, because Print on Demand companies are exactly that -- they don't even print the item until after it's ordered.
The printing can take as little as a day, but since this is a busy time of year, it can also be considerably longer. So the earlier you order, the better. Add to that the fact that shipping, if you order online, is cheaper if you can wait a little longer. Obviously, if you wait until December 20 to order online, you're likely to have to pay higher shipping fees for fast delivery. Whereas if you order the first or even second week of December, you can opt for the cheaper shipping. It's all about having time to receive the item, check it for quality, and get it wrapped by December 24.
That said, NOW is the perfect time to order that funny holiday t-shirt! If you're planning to order one for yourself, it'll be useful all through the month of December. You can wear a funny holiday tee to office parties, informal gatherings, Santa Claus photo sessions, holiday shopping and other holiday gatherings.
I've spent time in Paris. It's my favorite city in the entire world. If I could live there I would. It's a city of love, and food, and adventure, and culture, and walking, and romance, and light, and joie de vivre. The recent events in this beautiful city are tragic, horrific and unthinkable. The innocent victims were just ordinary people, going about their lives, enjoying the city and one another. We must never forget them.
We must also never forget that it is our duty, as free citizens of the world, to continue to live as freely as we can. We must exercise not only our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but also the responsibility to defeat evil with good. With a life well lived. With grace, love and humility. With a sense of obligation to give back, pay it forward, help when we can.
Recently I've been spending a lot of time on the website GoFundMe.com . I've been donating what I can, when I can. I give $5 here, $10 there. There are many heartbreaking stories, and I wish politicians would spend a couple of hours a week reading some of them. Maybe they wouldn't be so quick to judge, to slash assistance, to denigrate the needy. Recently I gave a few dollars to a family that needed to bury a child and couldn't afford funeral expenses. If that sounds like a downer, well, let me tell you. I felt uplifted all day. I was not only able to assist a family in crisis, but also to be a part of a larger effort, because crowdfunding at its best is a magnificent coming together of humans helping humans. Most people, I think, who donate to GoFundMe and sites like it are not wealthy. I myself am poor enough that I don't always make my bills at the end of the month (I sell tshirts for a living, for chrissake!). But when I have a few dollars left over, I get the urge to give. Well, once when I had $20 left at the end of the month, I bought flowers, but that's a luxury in my life.
All this is a long way of saying the only way to defeat evil is with good. Light is the only antidote for darkness. Laughter is the antidote for fear. And love is the antidote for hate.
