Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Six Words Is All I GOT – Belladonna’s Flashlight

Six Words Is All I GOT

You tried drowning me; I WON!

Story time on my six words coming on Wednesday.

Stay tuned….

Source: Six Words Is All I GOT – Belladonna’s Flashlight

‘Moving to the mountaintops’: rising seas displace tens of thousands in Papua New Guinea | Pacific islands | The Guardian

“It’s not easy moving inland, I was born and raised by the seas, I am a fisherman. I know the flow of tides and currents, I know when the wind will come strongly and when it will rain – but now I don’t understand why everything is changing,” says James, who is in his early 40s.

He says the tides “seem to be growing every day”.

“I heard them say it’s global warming. I left school and ran away to go fishing, so now I don’t know what’s global warming, but the rains don’t come when it’s supposed to, the winds have changed,” James says.

“Maybe we offended the sea gods, I don’t know, but now I have to move my family inland,” he says.

Climate change in Papua New Guinea story. A string of villages that sit on Kikiri beach.
‘A total waste of time’: why Papua New Guinea pulled out of Cop29 and why climate advocates are worried

Pariva beach is part of Kerema in Papua New Guinea’s Gulf province. In that area, rising sea levels and sand erosion have forced about 40,000 people to move inland over the past decade, a local councillor says, in what a leading climate change activist describes as a “humanitarian crisis”.

Source: ‘Moving to the mountaintops’: rising seas displace tens of thousands in Papua New Guinea | Pacific islands | The Guardian

♫ Auld Lang Syne ♫ | Filosofa’s Word

I’ve played this one a couple of times on this date, December 31st, most recently last year.  I suppose it might become my annual last-day-o’-the-year song.  Last year when I played it, Clive also played the same song, but a different version that he likes much better, and since I like both, I decided to include that one by Mindy Smith this year, so you get a bonus!  Wishing you all a peaceful New Year.


This song is a classic New Year’s Eve tune, but I was curious how it became so.  From the American Songwriter website, I found my answer …

So far as folk standards go, you’d be hard-pressed to find a song with the same stature and staying power as the Scottish traditional, “Auld Lang Syne.”

Known in America as the definitive song for New Year’s Eve, it’s actually popular all around the world in a variety of contexts—from Dutch soccer songs to Japanese graduation songs to an older version of the Korean national anthem. Yet, most folks—even in the English-speaking world—probably feel pretty similar to Billy Crystal’s character in When Harry Met Sally, who said: “What does this song mean? My whole life, I don’t know what this song means.”

To find the answer to that question, we’ll go back to the first major documentation of the song: Robert Burns’ 1793 letter to his friend George Thomson. Seeking to document this slice of Scottish culture, he wrote down the lyrics of the tune and described it as an “old song of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man’s singing.”

Combining English words with words from the Scots language—something Burns was particularly fond of—the tune served as a personification of Scottish heritage in an era marked by the encroachment of English culture. Thus, we sing the words “auld lang syne” in place of their literal English translation, “old long since,” which would more accurately translate to “for the sake of old times.”

To that end, the song is, in short, an ode to the old times and a hopeful look to more good times ahead. Whether sung to mark the end of an era or merely sung at the end of a good night of drinking, its message is as simple as it is powerful: remember the good times, and here’s hoping for more.

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

So, that essentially answers Billy Crystal’s question… but how did it become known as the New Year’s Eve song? To answer that, we’ll take a little trip to 1929 to listen to Guy Lombardo’s New Year’s Eve broadcast, in which he and his band, the Royal Canadians, performed a rendition of the tune as the clock struck midnight. Liking the sentiment, Lombardo decided to make it a tradition—so, countless households, year after year, listened to “Auld Lang Syne” as they said goodbye to the past year and hello to the new one. Lombardo continued the tradition until he died in 1977.

And picking up the mantle, Dick Clark opted to use it as his midnight song when he started broadcasting his New Year’s Rockin’ Eve in the early ’70s—when Ryan Seacrest took over that broadcast in the early 2000s, he, of course, continued the tradition.

So, to this day, thanks to the efforts of Robert Burns, Guy Lombardo, Dick Clark, Ryan Seacrest, and countless generations of Scots, music lovers, and party-goers, the song remains a treasured tradition for millions around the world. And when you raise your glass this year to the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, now you can know just how many folks through the annals of history stand with you—for auld lang syne!

And now, from Filosofa, Jolly, and Joyful … Happy New Year!

Auld Lang Syne

Guy Lombardo 

Source: ♫ Auld Lang Syne ♫ | Filosofa’s Word