Small town life . . . enough to make a shy, bald Buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder
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Ask Questions for God
at the Blue Pyramid.
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Annoying customer of the day
So someone came in to order candy for Easter. She wanted to know what day Easter was so she could plan when she could pick it up. I told her it was the 11th. She told me she knew what the date was, but couldn't remember what day of the week it was on. Uh, Sunday, like Easter Sunday, you know.
Space . . . the final frontier
Way cool Mars Exploration animation.
Better living through chemistry
We were bored at work today and joking around about Cialis. Mr. T thought that the warning they put in the ad that the drug might not wear off was pretty funny. Especially if emergency rooms started filling up with guys with no blood flow to their brains. Sounds like a situation worthy of Aristophanes.
The Pledge
as a Power Point presentation. I know it's only mildly amusing, but I had to put something up.
Small town life
There used to be a little upholstery shop in the wide spot in the road that is Fernbridge. It changed hands and is now the home of Turning Point Ministries. Over the door is a sign. "God's not mad at you, no matter what." Whew, and I was worried.
Services are in the evening and since it's right next door to the Angelina Inn, I suppose folks could go there after and have a few drinks, dance with the local shitkickers, and recover.
It's Sunday
First there was Nun Lander, now Nun Gunner.
Annoying customer of the day
Why oh why does a guy wear nylon warm-up pants with no undergarments when he has a REALLY BAD CASE of static cling? 99.9% of women do not want to see your package. Trust me, I've done a veritable Harris poll on the subject.
Links
Like how I put Noam Chomsky right next to Mark Morford? Tee hee.
Oily greasy Jesus
Jesus icon, that is. I'm thankful he doesn't have zits since he is exuding a "colorless, odorless oil."
Gregory Ferguson, a chemistry professor at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, said an analyst might be able to come up with a hypothesis about the oil's origins.
''It's important to recognize that even if one did that, it doesn't diminish the spiritual importance of what's happening,'' he said. ''Science and theology are not opposed to one another. They are complementary ways of viewing the world. They're different, but not opposed.''
Really?
Plus, look at that picture of Jesus. He's got some strange musculature.
Bumper sticker
I saw today. "Focus on your own damn family."
Another brick in the wall
Feministe on teaching, testing, NCLB and the dreaded Shakespeare.
Raise your hand if you want to speak. Fill in the bubbles completely with a No.2 pencil. Don't talk out of turn and don't disagree with me. Don't read books that you like, only read these books. Those are not safe books. Your assignment for tomorrow is to complete this worksheet. And this worksheet. And this worksheet.
And also:
It is the one-path theory of the current administration's NCLB that pushes me away from teaching altogether.
One less babysitter, oops I mean teacher in the system? I'll drink to that.
Oregon on the crest of the wave
I really think we should ban every last marriage anyway.
"It may seem odd, but we need to treat everyone in our county equally," county commissioner Linda Modrell told Reuters.
Click and Clack
On Car Talk's Rant and Rave page is Tommy's New Theory of Learning. In the section called the Backwards Learning Theory, he writes about how we get information about something we really want to know.
Think about it some more. What do you actually do under these situations? Do you read everything? No. You're looking for answers to specific questions. What happens is this. You look at a lot of books and articles until you find something that seems relevant. You read it. Something strikes a chord: maybe a word, maybe a theory, maybe a description of a certain personality type that matches the one you're dealing with. Now you go in search of more info on that personality type. You find more books. They lead you to more. And pretty soon, you know what to do and how to do it.
While all this was happening, how might you have felt? Were you saying to yourself, "God, I wish I didn't have to read all this?" Did you yawn a lot? Did you ask, "Why am I reading this?" Hell no. You probably wished you had more to read. More people to answer your questions. You were--LEARNING!
You can also buy this in a book.
Moz
I'll have to stay up late. 'Beginning May 24, Morrissey is confirmed to appear for an entire week on CBS' "The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn."'
And a sneak peek at "You Are the Quarry."
Morrissey is nothing if not perpetually unlucky in love, a subject he tackles on "I'm Not Sorry" ("the woman of my dreams, she never came along / the woman of my dreams, well, there never was one")
The love songs I like best are at least depressing, and at most, downright mawkish.
Annoying customer of the day
Well, there weren't any. But there was a woman whose nightgown was caught in the back of her jeans. That look worked pretty well with her fuzzy slippers.
Homeschooling news
Posted on the Coalition of Independent Homeschoolers' website, Unitarian Universalist Homeschoolers speak out against HSLDA.
Unitarian Universalist (UU) Homeschoolers believe we cannot let HSLDA’s gross misrepresentation of home educators as a single-minded group with a collective conservative agenda go unchallenged. In fact, HSLDA’s over-reaching positions in areas far outside of home education serve only to underscore this organization’s exploitation of home educators to further its private political agenda, and in the process undermine the crucial cause of homeschooling freedoms for a large and diverse population of home educators . We urge the other 95% of home educators whom HSLDA does not legally represent to let congressional leaders know that HSLDA does not speak for you.
The articles section also has links to Who Stole Homeschooling?, Home Ed Magazine's article about Seelhoff vs. Welch, and Homeschooling Freedoms at Risk.
Small town life
I was listening to the third bastard son on my local radio station yesterday and was reminded of how great he is. Especially compared to this guy, who not only thinks Fountains of Wayne is a great band, but has a strange propensity to talk (on the radio) about how often he masturbates. Apparently, often. But anyway, Dr. Syd started out with Romeo Void. "I might like you better if we slept together." But maybe not.
Female chauvinism
The whole family went out to eat the other night. When I took my youngest to the bathroom she checked the signs carefully so she didn't go into the mens' room. She thought the womens' bathroom was decorated very nicely. "And I know it's clean, since no men come in here."
Annoying customer of the day
A guy tries to pay for his coffee with a dollar and tokens from the car wash. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
Visiting with the dead
And Jon Carroll on el Día de los Muertos.
Last Christmas, for the first time ever, we put a string of lights around our house. We did it not because we believe in Christmas, but because we believe in lights.
Gallbladders, oh my
If Ashcroft were uninsured . . .
One day, on his way into Washington D.C. to see "The Passion of the Christ," John Ashcroft gets a searing a pain in his stomach.
And it goes on from there. I do like the image of Ashcroft sitting in the ER, filling out forms on his financial status. I mean, I do know how painful it is, but still. More on medical bills, insurance, and bankruptcy in the US.
Beware the Ides of March
Today, March 15, is the ides (the 15th day). From the Latin for "to divide." Famous for being the day, in 44 BC, when Julius Caesar was murdered.
While I was looking for something else, I found this bit about H.L. Mencken:
Hulbert uncovers a popular 1920's book--ghostwritten by, of all people, H.L. --whose first chapter, titled "Slaughter of the Innocents," chastises mothers for lavishing too much fondness on their infants ( "Kissing a baby after it has been fed ... is very likely to cause it to vomit").
Looking a little more, I found out the title was What You Ought to Know about Your Baby. The modern version, available on audio tape no less, is called the H.L. Mencken Baby Book.
Advice from a nine-year-old
Never trust a man with a ski mask on in the bank.
I'm reading
Bombay Ice, by Leslie Forbes. I'm liking it.
That last sentence evoked a picture from the bottom drawer of my memory. Two children holding hands underwater, using touch to communicate, writing words on each other's hands like sign language.
I'm behind the times
I had never heard of the Revolve Bible (for teen girls, looks like a fashion mag). But you have to check out the reviews at Amazon. Very funny.
Wow, they can read too
A comprehensive (incredibly long) article on Gamespot about violence, censorship, and video games. When two tribes go to war. Good trip down memory lane too.
Quote of the day
It is possible that there is no other memory than the memory of wounds.
Czeslaw Milosz
Death penalty
So how come I didn't hear about this on the news? OK, I know. I noticed when looking through the listing of actions that there wasn't anything happening in Texas (321 executions since 1976). But then I did find this.
Produce illiteracy
I've had this happen when buying kale or celery root or something, but cantaloupes, strawberries, celery?
What do you call these?" asked the cashier, a young woman in high school.
"Honey," said the woman at the counter, shaking her head, "those are strawberries. Haven't you ever eaten a fresh strawberry?"
Annoying customer of the day
How can there be so many? Man comes in with a big mug, probably about 24 ounces, and orders a brevé. How much is it going to cost? I tell him $2.75. He says, "You must have a different menu in there because out here it says $2.50." Oh, please, not another oh-so-witty big spender. I explain that price is for an 8 ounce brevé. Actually, I'm supposed to charge even more for an extra large cup. So then he tells me I don't have to fill it up all the way. Right. I make the drink in an 8 ounce cup, then pour it in his cup. It barely covers the bottom of the mug, and gee, it only costs $2.50. Have a nice day!
Birds and such
We've been going to the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge to look at the Tundra Swans, which are there for the winter. They are huge and very shy. You can see and hear them from a distance. They spend a lot of time with their heads tucked under their wings. And from reading about them, I realize they must be in an "iron-rich" environment here, because their necks are definitely reddish.
We also spent a lot of time watching the Northern Harriers, which are amazing low flyers. They also seem to spend time keeping an eye on humans. I watched one follow a woman all around one of the trails.
Reading list
From Seattle Weekly, Karl Marx's Reading List. Grace Llewellyn, of Teenage Liberation Handbook and Real Lives fame is on there.
Supersize this
McDonald's will phase out supersizing by the end of the year. Who on earth could eat that many fries or drink that much coke? Not me. I still get a kids' meal. With a diet coke, of course.
Even Rush hated school
Rush Limbaugh may have once been more human than I thought. Even he hated school! From here.
No, I knew I wanted to be in radio when I was 12, when I would get ready -- I hated school, got up and the guy on the radio sounded like he was having a lot of fun, and I looked at my day as going to prison; so I wanted to do what he was doing. That's where it started.
from Insult to Intelligence
The time bomb in every classroom is that students learn exactly what they are taught. They may not learn what their teachers think they are teaching them, but their teachers are probably not teaching what they think they teach. To see what students learn in school, look at how they leave school. If they leave thinking that reading and writing are difficult and pointless, that mathematics is confusing, that history is irrelevant, and that art is a bore, then that is what they have been taught. People learn what is demonstrated to them, and this reality will not change to suit the convenience of politicians and educational administrators.
--Frank Smith
Do as I say, not as I do. Not.
