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Word of the Every So Often

kulak: (noun) History time! The Russian Empire abolished serfdoms in 1861, which created the ability for peasant farmers to become landowners, and for some to become wealthy, even to the point where they could lend money. These wealthy peasants were called kulaks. And then came Joe Stalin, bless his heart, who saw kulaks as no better than capitalists. Stalin wanted to make kulak farms into collectives, which the kulaks resisted. So, pretty much, Stalin had them all killed. What a guy! It’s estimated that Stalin may have killed, either directly or indirectly, up to 20 million people.

The Almost Daily

It's Carl Linnaeus’ birthday! Carl was born on this day in 1707, and was formally classified on January 10, 1778. And of course, we all know Linnaeus as the father of binomial nomenclature, which, of course, is the modern system of naming organisms. You know, all the Latin names, along with things like Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species, and Subspecies. Pretty much, he laid out a system for naming everything. Take you (assuming you're human). Humans are in the Kingdom of Animalia, the Phylum of Chordata, the Class of Mammalia, the Order of Primates, the Family of Hominidae, Genus of Homo, and the Species of Homo sapiens. It's that easy. Do you suppose that someday there will be Linnaean classifications for AI?

Cartoon of the Week

Stuff

The Travelers

Not yet abandoned,

we left in the car

only those things we’d never miss:

a broken radio

and a glovebox forced shut

on miss-folded roadmaps

to places neither of us would ever return.

Down a tree-crowded road

we came upon a place

where the creek had moved on its own accord,

and a mailbox now stood

in the middle of the stream.

I couldn’t help but wonder

how they would get their mail,

and laughed at the image

of the postman puttering along in his boat.

And, of course,

you reminded me not to be stupid.

It was plain to see that no had lived there

in quite a while.

And, after all, we had to keep moving on,

because there was somewhere else we were sure to be

before dark.

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