I was in my early twenties before I knew more about Woody than "This Land is Your Land". It's not that I had anything against Woody, it's just I hadn't been raised to his music. I really seriously began to listen to him in college. Other than Henry David Thoreau, no other imperfect, mortal individual has influenced my life and my philosophy more than Woody. That has made it especially thrilling to be involved as I am WITH the Guthrie Center in Pampa, knowing that even if my part in preserving...
After my "perfect day" on Wednesday, I finally got to start to sort through the haul yesterday (it will actually be awhile before I've totally calculated the haul). The main concern of mine was the laptop. I don't have a laptop, and I'm starting to need one. I have an HP that was given to me, but it has a bad power jack. We have a chance to save the machine by having a new jack soldered on (fortunately, I know exactly ONE person who's good enough at soldering to give it a real shot. One person, ...
I grew up LDS. Through the years, my faith has become something I could most tactfully describe as NOT LDS. For reasons that are not at all relevant to this blog, except to establish the fact that if anyone had a bone to pick with the LDS church, I would. And yet, if Mitt Romney wins the GOP nomination, my vote will probably be cast against him, but because he is a Republican, NOT because he is a "Mormon". See, Mr. Romney's religious persuasion is as irrelevant as his hair color. It is int...
Before going further, let me warn you that the following is about the ongoing feud between me and another user on this site. If you want to stay out of the blog drama, I understand. Now would be a good time to find another article. I truly intend this to be my last word on the topic, as I want to move on. OK, you've been duly warned. For those not following the argument it stemmed over my relief that the TX legislature had overturned Governor Rick Perry's executive order mandating the HPV ...
There was a recent article stating that blacklists shouldn't be used on featured articles. Backstory: it's someone who disagrees with my blacklisting him and unleashed a torrent of attack articles in response. The disagreement is because an article of mine is featured and he wants the ability to take the feud he insists on perpetuating to that article. The purpose of a blacklist is to control who can comment on your blog. The idea is that if you have a disagreement with someone you do have th...
For the casual reader, two pieces of background information help set this story up: 1) I am a tech geek; 2) I am a board member on the board for the Woody Guthrie Folk Music Center in Pampa, Texas. Today was the kind of day that you're morally compelled to write about. The very reason blogs exist. It started on Monday. The Network Administrator of a large company that does business in the area was at the school helping with the network. I spoke with him about my designs on some older machi...
RE: The recently overturned vaccination edict of Texas Governor Rick Perry. Governor Perry unilaterally issued an "executive order" mandating the HPV vaccine to be administered to all girls going into their sixth grade year. The vaccine, for those living in a cave, is supposed to prevent SOME types of HPV that have been shown to cause cervical cancer. Governor Perry recently won a hotly contested re-election bid. One of his biggest contributors? Merck, the manufacturer of this vaccine. ...
Governor Rick Perry announced today that he will not veto the bill put forth by the legislature revoking Perry's executive order that would have mandated all incoming sixth graders receive the HPV vaccine. In a rare case of doing something right, the legislature was reacting to overwhelming public pressure opposing the order. The executive order was cronyism at its finest; vaccine manufacturer Merck had spent a lot of good money on the Perry campaign; money that would have netted them a prett...
A conversation has been ongoing on another thread about wages. The accusation is that the poor in America are suffering horribly. The proposed solution is massively increasing the minimum wage. I was asked to live on $10,000 a year because that's what the poor make working full time. Let me answer that first: NO. One, I have worked hard to get where I am, and two, you don't find families for the most part working minimum wage jobs. The people working minimum wage jobs are for the most part hi...
Cap'n starkers, we need your help. We have commandeered a vessel on the high seas and hogtied the cap'n, who, by all reports, was stoned out of 'is ever lovin' mind. We've stowed a goodly quantity of Jamaica's finest rum aboard and we be awaitin' yer orders.<br><br> https://forums.joeuser.com/?aid=151910#1203979<br><br> We'll send the wenches below deck when you arrive wit' our orders. We be awaitin' yer able command!
The engastrimyth awakened from his slumber to the sound of some far off kerfuffle . His given name was Jon Boucher, but he was yclept the Lexiphanic Gaberlunzie of Berlitz, given his penchant to engage in a number of rousing quodlibets in the course of his performance. This evening, he had come home after a rather annoying encounter with the chiliastic blatherskite who always patronized the street corner with his sandwich boards constantly declaring doom and the impending demise of ...
(Thanks, LW, for the inspiration) This exercise was inspired by a mini challenge issues by Little Whip in which we were to use various words from the blog in a paragraph. That wasn't enough for me, so I hunted down some obscure words and decided I would issue a challenge to put together a story or poem using as many of the following words as possible. I was going to give the words without the meanings, but I didn't want to deter people. Because of the potential scope of the project, I und...
The tired puppet master returned from another harrowing day. He was growing tired of the politics of it all. For what seemed like the thousandthe time, his nemesis, the Acrhduke of Toadberry, had attempted to upstage him with a fancy new show, using pyrotechnics and some newfangled marinettes (sic...extra credit, LW?). The handbills that were distributed liberally through the square advertised the show as a " wang-dang-doodle of family fun". As he reheated last night's eggplant parmesa...
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0502072coat1.html Elizabeth Logan is scum. No, scratch that. Take scum, examine it, and find the bacteria that feed on scum. Then find whatever parasites feed on THEM, and you'll have a picture of this woman. The Hillsboro, Oregon first grade teacher apparently decided to profit off the school's lost and found bin. She took the coat of an eight year old and tried to auction it on eBay. She now faces felony charges. Now, I can understand ...
Today's 21st century anthropology class will focus on the species known has homo cubiclus, the cubicle dweller. While cubicles were an invention of the 20th century, they increased in commonality and function in the 21st Century, when the world was ruled by the Borg collective under the illustrious leadership of Billgatus of the borg. (A typical cube farm, the habitat of homo cubiclus ) (21st century despot Billgatus of Borg) (an artist's rendering of homo java , a ...