@Lookout

A mole or ...
"Avogadro's number was initially defined by Jean Baptiste Perrin as the number of atoms in one gram-molecule of atomic hydrogen, meaning one gram of hydrogen." So they defined the weight of H as one and the atomic weight/mass of all other elements is relative.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICXYMjgmG88]

I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground (Basom Lamar Lunsford 1928) - 3.5 min

Analysis of song:

In order to understand the famous first lines of this song, it is necessary to look at the whole song first. The singer has recently been released from the pen(itentiary), and was for a long time in the brutalizing company of rough and rowdy men. How did he wind up there? He possibly had an altercation, possibly a dispute over wages, with a railroad man, possibly a foreman or owner. He does not like a railroad man, possibly because they exploit their workers by putting them in life-threatening work situations and by cheating them out of their wages.

He has left prison with some money he managed to put aside--possibly the wages from his railroad work. Money is an important aspect of his relationship with his girlfriend or wife, Tempy (Temperance). She wants him to buy her things--a nine-dollar shawl. She is happy to see him return with a forty-dollar bill. Bascom Lamar Lundsford, who recorded the most famous version of this song in 1928, said he learned it in 1901. Given that the average salary in 1901 was $450 a year, the singer would have had to spend a week's wages to buy Tempy her nine-dollar shawl; a forty-dollar bill was about a month's wages. The work week was six days, nine hours a day. The singer stresses that Tempy's happiness upon seeing him returning to her coming over the hill is to some extent dependent on her knowledge that he has a forty-dollar bill in his pocket.

The singer recalls his time in prison, when he was like a lizard in winter, lethargic and stone-like, and he wished to be like a lizard in the spring, warmed by the sun and delighted by the melodious voice of his beloved Tempy. There follows a description of Tempy's beautiful curly hair. It is a folkloristic version of a Botticelli painting of curly-haired angels. Tempy's hair, which the singer contemplates in ecstasy, has a redeeming and purifying significance for him. The mountain that the singer wants to root down symbolizes the massive social and economic impediments that prevent him from achieving happiness. He wants to destroy its foundations, as a determined mole might miraculously be able to, and see it collapse and his days of humiliation to come to an end. So on the one hand, the song is a lamentation about the series of humiliations the singer has had to suffer: being exploited at work, imprisoned; knowing that his beloved sees him as a source of income. At the same time, it is a song of joy and thanksgiving--thanks for the joys he experiences with his beloved, and hope that he might someday be able to change his situation and no longer live a life of humiliation.

@riverlover
with respect to those latest injuries, and take care of yourself.

(blood and gore saturated), blood on my white comforter, blood on my face and hands. My nascent trust in my body dribbled out and has exited the premises. Now a raging thirst. Too much blood loss? A blood hair helmet this morning. No ability to look in a mirror. But I think I reopened a back-of-skull wound. And hit a new spot as well. I seem to be a woe-magnet. I had not finished cleaning up the entire previous bleed out...

@eyo
is opposed to spending "their" tax money on those lazy bums, which makes it hard to find a real solution, though said populace would, no doubt, rail about and object to the "waste" of spending or appropriating the money to no effect.

How highly paid bureaucrats are blocking a massive plan to help Sacramento’s homeless

Quote below is The End of a lot more words written there, please read it in all its glory. Outrage meter already pegged, I'll just ask "Fire them? How about put them in prison? Or take their homes away?" Sheesh. Yeah okay, I don't know anything. What would I do with 98 million dollars? duh

Whether heads roll or not at the county is interesting but far less relevant than the crisis at hand. Sacramento is crying out for a real organized effort to combat its massive homeless problem.

If elected officials ultimately decide they can’t craft a solution, then voters can hold them accountable if voters so choose. But I didn’t elect the people holding up this process and neither did you.

Serna, Kennedy, Nottoli and their supervisor colleagues should either make them do their jobs, or fire them and find people who can.

good luck