Category: Personal

Pondering the Pundits

Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important. Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on …

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I was home all day

I had one hell of a day yesterday but thanlks to a few friends I survived,

They say you should eat. that you shouldn’t drink so much, They also say that you should hydrate when working in 95 degree temperatures and ninety percent humidity. They say you should take your meds yet make them unaffordable, I hate being told what to do and I hate fucking rules.

Exhaust

This is not a rant because I haven’t got enough energy for that.  I’m working from a state of exhaustion, which is the genesis of the title.

 photo IMG_0040_zps84f07477.jpg photo IMG_0036_zpsef6fedf4.jpgOver Thanksgiving Debbie and I drove over 1000 miles to North Carolina and back to visit my daughter and her husband and their two children (Rachel (to the left), who is 2 and mighty large for her age, and Zack (to the right, with his father), who just turned two months old).  I’ll sprinkle some photos taken during the visit in during my screed…which was generated by commentary left in a recent diary posted at Voices on the Square and Tuesday evening’s diary at Daily Kos.

Upon arriving back home, I was faced with the last week of classes before Finals Week.  So on Wednesday I gave exams in all of my classes, which I spent all day Wednesday and Thursday grading so that I could return them today.  It turned out that I was able to avoid the all-nighter that was a distinct possibility, but the stress generated still made for less than restful sleep.

That’s a major reason why I do not have something different prepared for this evening.

 photo IMG_0043_zpsfdfece41.jpg

Zack, with his paternal grandfather

Greetings Buddies,

Pardon my absence, but I’m still with ya.  

Yes, I walked away from Omelas, and it has cost me dearly.  Worse yet, walking away has no exits that I can discern.  Exiting has no exits.  My situation has required me (or will soon require) to re-start torturing children for no good reason and throwing carbon into the atmosphere, all the stuff I try to avoid like the plague.  So, “yay!” for the economy.  Having any old dirt-throwers income that is completely unrelated to my not inconsiderable education means demand is back, Jack.  Let’s party.  Unfortunately, when I get home I’m so knackered in the pants I can barely read the toobz, much less comment or write.

This is my pathetic update to my web buddies at my usual sites, posted here at my home base of DD.

This is NOT to say that I’m done bitching.  Or helping.  Far from it, bitches.

Over and out.  Roger, Roger.

CF

Food For thought w/ question

Hi All,

I haven’t been around for a period of time, largely as a result of how things have ended up at my favorite (and only group I’ve ever joined) blog. Thank you, MomCat for keeping this alive.

My thought is re President Carter. This guy was a true visionary. His concerns with respect to energy and climate change, had they been taken seriously, would surely have left our country and the world in a better place. Further, when he spoke of true shared sacrifice, then Gov Raegan, ridiculed the idea that Americans had a responsibility not only to ourselves but to the rest of the planet as well. “there you go again”.

I ask those of you who are wiser than myself, to help me understand how our political discourse has become so shallow and self serving.

President Romney? That thought is nothing less than terrifying.

Thanks for your ear(s).

Bill  

Popular Culture 20121012: Rituals for the Deceased

I originally was going to write about the new Dark Shadows motion picture, but circumstances have intervened.  It turns out that my dear friend’s mum’s twin brother died either late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, alone except for his little dog.  My friend called me around 9:30 Thursday morning to go next door and try to comfort her mum, and I was honored to do so.

Her mum was a basket case.  She and her brother were Christmas Day babies, 65 years ago Christmas past.  I have a brother, but not a twin, and my brother and I are separated by 14 years.  She and her brother were separated by fewer than 14 minutes, so they grew up together.

I did comfort her, and she cried in my arms.  I could not do much except to try to let her know that I really care, and she appreciated that.  Now for the culture part.

Pique the Geek 20120325. Wrist Drop

I apologize for not keeping up with my normal posts, but I have developed a rather serious neurological disorder, the common name being wrist drop.  It has to do with damage to the nerve that serves to flex, in my case, the right wrist and fingers.

It also has a minor sensory component in that the dorsal surface of my thumb and surrounding part of my hand feels pressure poorly but is fully responsive to heat and cold.  It happened literally overnight, as when I awoke Monday morning my hand was fully involved.

I am much improved now, and thought that I should share some of my findings with you.  I also plan to resume My Little Town and Popular Culture next week.

Not Popular Culture 20111202: 90th

Normally on Friday evenings I write about popular culture, but no tonight.  I am very wistful for several reasons, on of which is that if she had lived, my mum would have turned 90 years old today.

Born to a dirt poor couple when her mum was only 18 years old (my grandmum and granddad married when my grandmum was only 16 years old), Geraldine Sandlin entered this vale of tears on 19211202.  It was cold, and in accordance with the custom of the time, she was born at home with relatives taking the place of physicians.

It Happened Last Night


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copyright © 2011 Betsy L. Angert.  Empathy And Education; BeThink or  BeThink.org

It happened last night.  As I reflect, I realize it has happened all along.  Each day, in most every moment I have an opportunity to look at life and learn.  Yet I become consumed with more immediate concerns.  He said. She said.  The system, situation, or some other entity supplants a deeper assessment.  Years ago, I came to understand that I create my own chaos, calm, or shades of what will be.  As an Educator, I speak of this often.  My students often quote me on the subject of choices. Yet, until yesterday, I never fully grasped how true my words might be.  I am unsure why the events of the evening took me where they did. I share the story.  

My Little Town 20110315: Elwood Brockman

Those of you that read this irregular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile of so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River.  It was a redneck sort of place, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.

I never write about living people except with their express permission, so this installment is about a long dead denizen of Hackett.  This time it is about a teacher of mine, Elwood Brockman.

Mr. Brockman taught high school maths, and was also the grade school principal.  Since the entire school system from grades 1 to 12 (no K at the time), double duty was the norm.

Bloggers Behaving Badly: FDL Moderating Team

In follow-up to a post I made regarding an entry by Rusty1776 at FDL, I want to let people know that the site moderators have falsely removed the entry in question as spam and banned Rusty from posting.

Rusty’s entry, which in no way violated site rules, argued that it is immoral for Democrats not to issue a primary challenge to Barry Obama in next year’s election for the office of the presidency.  He was subsequently flamed by Bill Egnor, Rayne, RBG, Kelly Canfield, and a suck-up named newtonusr, who apparently took it upon himself to stalk Rusty across at least two threads with the intention of goading him to angry outburst.  The plan worked, and the moderators got the pretense they required to ban Rusty from FDL.

That this happened should not be surprising.  FDL is, like Daily Kos, Open Left, and other so-called leftist blogs, in reality a right-wing gatekeeper blog designed to neuter any real organization by the Left that is independent of the right-wing Democrat Party.  Its moderators have proven over and over again that their sole purpose is to maintain an online environment wherein people may complain about how bad the Democrats have become, but are not allowed to do anything beyond that.  People like Jeff Roby are similarly intimidated with the same tactics used to rationalize the banishment of Rusty1776, with the same message sent loudly and clearly: “You are here as window dressing for the veal pen.  Dare try to be or do more than that, and you are gone.”

This is why it is so important for genuinely independent blogs and activism sites to be independent of the Democrats, or for that matter, any political party.  As long as the Left remains tied to political parties, it remains subservient to the ambitions and interests thereof.

If there is anything positive about this latest abuse of power by a self-proclaimed liberal blog’s moderators, it’s that its agenda is now official, and now publicly exposed.

UPDATE BELOW THE FOLD

Stone Cancer Pillar

“One more game?” I asked of my bff, who really needed to go make dinner by 5:30. Our happy hours are short and to the point.

Mike had just had another “wobbly” moment, I saw the stacked Tupperware waiting in the hallway to be put under the house when the deck access unfreezes swing wildly and had run to him.  It was the first time Jake saw it. It is as I describe it, like watching a marionette’s strings being randomly pulled, rather than a moment of dizziness. His legs twitch, he looks like he is misfiring on a brain-level.

I put Mike to bed, feeling ok, the maybe 15 or 16 second episode having passed.

“Nah, I have to go make my dinner,” she said.

“Its just,” I said, misting slightly. “playing yahtzee and having happy hour a couple times with you, or this,”  I said tapping the laptop, “doing the radio show, writing, those are the ONLY times I not-think about everything I have to think about. The rest of my day is all that. Nothing BUT that. Its the only time I can rest my worries for a minute, and be focused on something else.”

She brushed the dice away, and said, “I’m here for you. You have to talk about it. You never talk about it.” I think have have cried about this 3 times since last year in front of Linda since it began. Each time, copious alcohol was involved. I’ve got this. Its my burden. Its not yours, hers, or anyone else’s, and by gahd; the LAST thing I want to do is make my escape hatches part of the drama….

And she is where I go to NOT-THINK.

I was proven wrong.

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