DEC 31, a brief saga: Hogmanay (Auld Lang's Sine)

 A HAPPY NEW YEARS TO ALL !!!

DEC 30, Canadiana: Haida Gwaii

web-photo

Authors' Note:

snowbird: a Canadian retiree seeking a warmer venue to spend the wintry months

  The Queen Charlotte Islands are a Canadian archipelago situated between 

the northwestern tip of Vancouver Island and the Alaska Panhandle, with landmass one-third that of the Hawaiian Islands (the latter located considerably further south). They had been the heartland of the aboriginal Haida people, who numbered thirty thousand at the time of first contact with European explorers in the eighteenth century. Their territory has a unique environment based on moderate temperatures and heavy rainfall. The province of British Columbia renamed the islands Haida Gwaii (HIE-duh GWIE[-ee], 'islands of the people') in 2010.

You can review poems, pictures and diverse nonsense related to Canada on the post "Canadiana" on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense".

DEC 29, patients and maladies: knee effusion

Authors' Note: This verse resulted from the author’s personal experience (as patient).

  Following trauma, standard X-rays taken in the Emergency Department show most fractures where the bone fragments are displaced. They can not, however, diagnose many undisplaced fractures, particularly in elderly patients with reduced bone density. 

  Nonspecific swelling with evidence of leaking of fluid into the adjacent joint space (joint effusion) is particularly common in injuries about the knee, and is easily discerned on visual inspection and X-rays. Follow up radiographs after another 3 weeks sometimes display an initially missed healing fracture. In cases where instability, ongoing pain, or persistent effusion are prominent, injury to ligaments may be suspected. 

Be sure to check out the whole collection of verses on 'Patients and their Maladies" by proceeding to our full-service blog, "Edifying Nonsense." CLICK HERE !

DEC 28, pill-poppin' poems: antimalarial

 

 

Author's Note: Hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil), a drug developed to combat the infectious disease malaria, was found by happenstance to be of value in suppressing certain manifestations of SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus), an inflammatory disease, and retains a niche use for that secondary purpose.

  Recently, the drug has been advocated, without convincing evidence, to treat the severe lung involvement of COVID-19 pneumonia.

Also, please check out the Lancet's concurrent study on the acute use of antimalarial drugs as published online  at  https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext
Or, check this link to the story in the Washington Post.

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Pharmaceutical (pill-poppin') Poems' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.

DEC 27, non-sequitur: cumulative song

 Authors' Note:  The cumulative song "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" was created by two Canadian folksong aficionados in 1952, and then recorded by Burl Ives in 1953.  Other well-known cumulative songs which are traditional include "Old MacDonald had a Farm" and "The Green Grass Grew All Around". 

 Our collection of 'Non-Sequiturs' on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense", contains an admittedly bizarre assortment of nonsensical odds-and-ends, that don't quite fit into other topic-based offerings. But should you want to review the entire collection, click HERE.

DEC 26, old world palindromes #5 and #6

 

DEC 25, holiday verse: every Adventuality

 

DEC 24, holiday verse: "The Night Before Christmas", pandemically

 

DEC 23, classic palindrome: 'Yreka bakery'

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PEH !!!

 

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Reversing Verse: Limericks About Classic Palindromes' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. 

DEC 22, waterfowl: brown pelicans

TO ENLARGE any slide or stand-alone photo on this blog, just click on it. To reverse the process, and return to this standard view, find the little 'x' in the upper right corner of the black field and click there.

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Immersible Verse: Limericks about Waterfowl' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. 

DEC 21, anagram swarm: A-VERY-STABLE-GENIUS -- wordplay for the holiday season

Today's collection should definitely wrap up this excessively extended effort. (But I am proud to say that you can now find some 350 anagrams developed as part of our labours -- and some of them do seem to have some important meaning!)  

You can review an amazing number of anagrams based on this book title on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. There are two posts to view: 

 

'A Very Stable Genius': Theme and Variations (97 anagrams),   and 

'A Very Stable Genius': additional funky anagrams.

DEC 20, Ontario nostalgia: art installations

 

You can review the entire series of illustrated poems about  the good old days in Ontario by checking the post 'Ontario Nostalgia' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. 

DEC 19, wordplay map: r-i-c anagrams #11+#12

 

You can view the entire collection of 18 wordplay maps of 'R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N-S in Canada' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE.

DEC 18, American anagram swarm: 'c-o-n-s-t-i-t-u-t-i-o-n-a-l'

A brief explanation of anagram swarms, and some other examples can be found on the blogpost "A Brief Saga: Anagram Swarms"; click HERE.

 

DEC 17, Canadiana: joual

Authors' Note: Accent is a word written similarly, but spoken very differently in French and English. Joual (ZHWAHL) is the name for the accent, grammar and even spelling used naturally by many speakers in the Canadian province of Quebec; this dialect had evolved over several centuries separately from the language spoken in France. In schools, businesses and media in Quebec and other francophone areas of Canada, 'québécois' (kay-bay-KWA), more standard French, with a local inflection and local vocabulary, now predominates. In Canadian English and French, residents of the province are known as Quebeckers or Québécois respectively.

 You can review poems, pictures and diverse nonsense related to Canada on the post "Canadiana" on our full-service blog  "Edifying Nonsense". 

DEC 16, diagnostic imaging: parathyroid scanning

Authors' Note:   Attacks of renal colic (spasmodic intermittent pain) may occur due to blockage of urine flow by stones in the ureters. In adult patients, stones consisting of calcium salts are most likely. If a high serum calcium level is found (this situation prevails in only a minority of cases of kidney stones), overactivity of the tiny parathyroid (PT) glands may be responsible. Milder cases of excessive parathyroid hormone secretion may also occur without symptoms, but can lead to loss of bone mass and increased risk of bone fracture.

   A single functioning adenoma (benign tumor)  of one of the PT glands is most commonly responsible, but hyperplasia (overgrowth) of all four glands may also result in inappropriate PT hormone secretion, detected by increased blood levels. The radiotracer Tc-99m sestamibi is taken up selectively by overactive PT glands, and may help plan surgery to explore the neck and remove the tumor.

  

You can review all our verses on this intriguing topic by proceeding to a post on 'Edifying Nonsense' entitled 'Selected Topics in Diagnostic Imaging'. Click HERE!

DEC 15, etymology: 'miser'

For fans of etymology, we have three blogposts with collections of verses about word-origins such as the one above on our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". You can start to review some of this intriguing material by clicking HERE, and then following the links!

 

DEC 14, Toronto oases: Art installations

NEWSFLASH !!!

December 14th: The Electoral College meets, and according to all expectation confirms the victory in the November election of Joe Biden as incoming President and Kamal Harris as Vice-President. 

 

DEC 13, wordplay map: r-i-c anagrams #9+#10

 

You can view the entire collection of 18 wordplay maps of 'R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N-S in Canada' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" by clicking HERE.

DEC 12, portraits of couples: domestic geese, dogpark figures

 You can view these samples from our portfolio of 'Couples' portraits in a wider context on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" HERE. 

DEC 11, American satire(3): government shutdown

Author's Note:  The verse imagines an advisor or supporter picking up on an assertion by the contentious 45th US president. The latter had remained steadfast in demanding budgeting for a southern border wall with Mexico (putatively to decrease the unregulated influx of refugees), and was prepared to take the credit/blame for the pending global shutdown of government financing should it occur.

A venous cutdown is a maneuver to provide reliable access for fluids and drugs during a medical emergency. 

 We hope that you enjoyed this verse. You can find 30 more on this topic in 5 collections on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to start! 

DEC 10, holiday verse: Chanukah, selected by Giorgio

HAPPY CHANUKAH !

 

DEC 9, anagram swarm: A-VERY-STABLE-GENIUS -- lawsuits

 The book title "A Very Stable Genius" has invited a flurry of activity in composing anagrams (word-scrambles) that contribute to the sense of uncontrolled chaos that swirled through the American political scene during the White House administration of 2016 to 2020. 

  A compendium of Giorgio's wordplay on this topic can be evaluated by reviewing posts on the blog "Edifying Nonsense".  An initial listing that displays almost 100 anagrams dealing with a variety of topics (foreign policy, internal political maneuvering, domestic scandals, etc.) can be found here. Subsequently, further anagrams dealing with more specific topics were accumulated in a followup offering here. 

  The tabulation presented today was inspired by the recent series of lawsuits instigated in state and federal courts to contest the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

You can review an amazing number of anagrams based on this book title on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. There are two posts to view: 

 

'A Very Stable Genius': Theme and Variations (97 anagrams),   and 

'A Very Stable Genius': additional funky anagrams.

DEC 8, spineless verse (invertebrates): centipedes

 

READING MORE WIDELY:

You can find all our illustrated verses about various 'INVERTEBRATES' , as compiled on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" HERE. But, in fact, we had hived off verses about INSECTS, and they are gathered in separate blogposts that you can get into HERE. So, follow these links, and enjoy.

links for any date: scroll over to the calendar-based listings of 'Past Posts' in the righthand column on this page, choose your month of interest, and then select (by clicking) the blogpost of your choice.

to continue daily titillations: BE SURE TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE!

DEC 7, unusual wildlife: Ontario sightings

DEC 6, Toronto ravines: art installations, #2

 The sculpture is the work of the renowned Canadian innovator, naturalist and artist William Lishman.

For views of other artwork sited in Toronto ravines, see the post of September 2.

If you are interested in winding your way through an encyclopedic collection of four blogposts stuffed with photo-collages on Toronto ravines, click HERE.

DEC 5, trees: cinnamon tree

Keep more to yourself for a while, wash your hands frequently, remember to laugh on occasion, and stay well!

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Uprooted Verse: 'Poems about Trees' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". 

DEC 4, holiday verse: Advent #4

 

DEC 3, holiday verse: Advent #3

 

DEC 2, holiday verse: Advent #2

 

DEC 1, sleek Greek prefixes: DYS-

Authors' Note: Another example of use of this prefix is the medical term dyspareunia. Click HERE to review a verse on this intriguing topic.

Clicking HERE will introduce you to our entire collection of verses about the Greek prefixes!