The Random Yak

To all those who think Obama’s recent comment (referring to a female as “sweetie” while on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania) was not out of line:

1.  Do you think Obama would have called a male reporter sweetie?  (And if so, tell me, how would that have impacted your opinion of him?)

2.  Assuming you answered question 1, “no,” : Is it appropriate to treat equally situated professionals differently from one another on the basis of gender?  (And if so, what differentiates gender from race?)

Although I’m not usually one to stick my shaggy nose into the feminist movement (though I do often think some feminists would benefit from having their noses rubbed in it…) it occurs to me that on this particular issue, some of them have a point.

NOT because calling a female “sweetie” should constitute a hanging offense in any context, but because the comment suggests Obama does not treat similarly situated professionals of different genders in an identical manner.  And that statement holds true regardless of the reason or explanation offered by the Obama camp.  If he said it because he wasn’t thinking, the statement reveals his true nature.  If he said it because he was thinking - well, that’s another can of worms altogether, but it doesn’t represent a nicer reality.

Thinking people should see the incident as a dangerous warning.  Unfortunately, as David at third world county so recently pointed out in another context, Obama isn’t looking for thinking people.  He’s looking for a majority.

Isn’t that right, Sweetie?

When people asked The Random Father how he was doing, he generally responded, “Well, I’m not looking at the bottom side of the top side of the box!” (Statistically, 37% of you don’t get it.  Take your time.)

Now, some might dispute whether or not that statement actually represents the best possible state of being, but for those of us attempting to enjoy our limited circuits around the sun, each day of life offers another opportunity for joy - as well as the chance to avoid stepping in it as badly as we did yesterday.  (Statistically, 85% of you will manage at least a C.  Statistically, 8% of you found the preceding statistic humorous.)

But if every day is a gift, an extra day is truly something special.  Consider: the opportunity to live one more day than you thought you had.  What would you do with it?  Would you spend it working?  Playing with family?  Reading a good book?  Would you laugh and pray more, and cry less?

I hope you would.

As it happens, I just realized that today is an extra day.  All day yesterday, I thought it was already Thursday.  I did my Thursday work, looked forward to Friday work (which does differ from the work I do the rest of the week, but that’s a different blog) and pushed through the Thursday exhaustion.  I emerged from the fog late Thursday afternoon, victorious over another working week - only to discover what the rest of you already knew: yesterday wasn’t Thursday.

It was only Wednesday.

At first I felt let down.  Disappointed.  Cheated by time.  Tomorrow was supposed to be Friday.  The day I do something different from the norm.  The day I look forward to digging in the garden and playing in the pool.  The week hadn’t just sneaked up on me, it had pounced with all its temporal fury, dragging me backward into a Thursday redux.

Only this morning did I realize what had actually happened.  Repeating Thursday didn’t represent a punishment, it offered an opportunity.  An extra day.  24 additional hours to try and “get it right.”  Like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day (if you haven’t seen it - see it.  I won’t say more.) I mistook the chance to live an extra day for the obligation to slog back through something that I had made not worth repeating.  Note: “I had made.”  Instead of taking the day that God had made, and the opportunity to figure out something new and exciting to do in it, I turned the error into something I had made - with fairly standard and fully foreseeable consequences.

Twelve hours remain in the extra day, and I intend to use and try to enjoy them all.

And the next time you find yourself cowering beneath the fax machine, whimpering “it’s only Wednesday, it’s only Wednesday,” pull yourself together, take someone you love for an ice cream, and celebrate the fact that you’ve received the gift of an extra day.  One you didn’t know you had, and one you’d better choose not to waste.

Because an extra day is One Good Thing.

 

Step 1: Leave Child in Airport.

Step 2: ???

Step 3:  (Not sure what goes here, but it ain’t “profit.”)

A family traveling across Canada recently lost more than just baggage at the Vancouver airport.  The family, consisting of four adults and at least one 23-month old child, had only ten minutes to transfer between an incoming flight from the Philippines and a departing flight to Winnipeg.

Some time after the flight departed, Air Canada officials realized the Tagalog-speaking toddler wandering between security and the gate area might have been inadvertently left behind.  Although no one had reported a lost child, and the flight to Winnipeg had left without any indication a passenger had missed the flight, it turned out that the child’s parents and other family members had seats in separate areas of the plane, and each thought the other had control of the missing toddler.

Air Canada paid to fly the father back to Vancouver, as well as father and son’s return flight to Winnipeg.  Officials say this is the first such incident at Air Canada - and they hope it’s also the last.

A sentiment doubtless echoed by the missing toddler.  Fortunately, Air Canada officials handled the situation well and no one suffered lasting injury as a result of the event.

Unless, of course, you factor in the irreparable damage caused by a person having to spending hour after hour wandering aimlessly between security and the flight gates, wondering when someone will help him get where he’s heading.

On second thought, I think we call that “airport business as usual.”

Yesterday, one of The Random Cousins (technically a first cousin to The Random Father, but in TRF’s absence I claim him as my own) sent the following e-mail account of a Most Excellent Adventure (With Duck) he had over the weekend.  (Note: this isn’t one of those “really happened to someone but we all pretend it’s me” emails - this one happened to The Random Cousin and his wife, and I’ve got the photos to prove it.)

The story cracked quacked me up, and I asked permission to reprint it here for everyone else’s enjoyment.  Although he’s not usually much for the public square, The Random Cousin kindly agreed to the publication (with the obvious deletion of identifying names and e-mail addresses), and so, with no further ado:

The Random Cousin’s Excellent Duckling Adventure:

Last night at about 8:30 pm there was a knock at our front door. 
Great…it’s probably someone peddling magazines or casing the place..

But no!  It was a Latino guy named Nic on a bicycle asking for help.  He explained in broken English that he was protecting a mother duck and her chicks from being run over.  He had followed them from [the local] High School trying to keep them out of harm’s way but the Momma Duck seemed to be getting more and more nervous about him being there, they were getting away from him, and heading for the Coast Highway.

Could we please help?

(more…)

I no longer need to tell most of you that as a rule, we don’t pay much attention to birthdays on this side of the mountain.

I also don’t need to mention that I believe in the suspension of rules for anything from legitimate cause to “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

In light of that, I’ll take this opportunity to wish a very, very happy fourth birthday to The Random Niece, Anna Paola.  (Last name omitted.)  Princess Anna’s party commences at one o’clock this afternoon, and will doubtless continue, in one form or another, until everyone passes out from exhaustion or a sugar coma.  (Place your bets.  Personally, I’m hoping for ”sugar coma.”)

Although I’m not fond of birthday parties held on my account (Note: the foregoing has been a message from the Yak Department of Massive Understatement) I bear no ill will toward other peoples’ parties (provided the recipient/honored guest actually requested or wanted the celebration).  I may not like people throwing parties for me, but I do like giving presents to others, and if I have to attend a party in order to deliver said gift, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.

Where the kids are concerned, giving a group of children the opportunity to run around, in the presence of cake, balloons and assorted party games and activities, is not only a parent’s duty but also a pleasure (at least, if properly organized).  Fortunately, The Random Spouse and I also agreed that such events were best held away from The Random Domicile, where someone else could handle the major setup, cleanup and cooking activities. 

For those brave enough to hold their children’s birthday parties in their own homes …  We who are about to die at the mere thought do, indeed, salute you.

Whether held at home or in the relative safety of a park, pizza parlor or other child-centered birthday locale, a child’s birthday party is a happy thing.  The birthday girl (or boy) starts the day with a party-inspired glow that lasts (at least) until the last present transforms into a beloved gift surrounded by a growing pile of shredded paper and sticky ribbons.  Granted, one or more parents may end up on the verge of a nervous breakdown at the pile of dishes dripping with half melted ice-cream, the taffy ball stuck to the edge of the good carpet or the *cough* mess left by the kid who ate four corn dogs right before spending twenty minutes in the bouncer (with foreseeably unpleasant results). But at the end of the day, no matter how much stress went into the planning and execution, most of us know we’d do it all again - and will - because of the joy on the little face of the birthday child who stands, balloon and bear in hand, waving goodbye to the sticky but satisfied friends marching back down the walk.

For despite the tearful moments and bouncer-inspired cleanup, making your child happy with a birthday party of his-or-her choosing is, indeed, One Good Thing.

Happy Birthday to The Random Niece.

 

 

Sitting in the weeds,

Looking for the other side.

Won’t get there today.

…and I won’t be in a minute!

Rose Griffin received a telephone call late last Friday night.  When the caller, who apparently asked for Ms. Griffin’s son, hung up without identifying himself, the irate Rose returned the call using the caller I.D. feature on her telephone.  The call went through to a funeral home, where the director informed Ms. Griffin he intended to return a call from her son, who had contacted the funeral home to make arrangements for his mother’s funeral service.

Without missing a beat, Griffin responded, “You’re talking to the dead person.”

The original call to the funeral home, apparently a prank, had left Griffin’s telephone number and the information that the caller’s mother had died and services were required.

Fortunately, Griffin seems to have taken the events in stride.  Rather than worry about the impact of her mortality on her advancing age, Griffin stated that she didn’t expect to die soon “because she’s mean and only the good die young.”

I can’t speak to that allegation, but Griffin definitely does have a good sense of humor, so here’s hoping she’s with us for the foreseeable future.

April showers bring Mayflowers, so before we’re overrun with buckle-shoed pilgrims, let’s take a look at the monthly observances you can also expect this May.

For those who didn’t already know, May is:

Gifts from the Garden Month (I got a rock…)

Creative Beginnings Month (but what if it really *was* a dark and stormy night?)

International Audit Month (and any month that sends the IRS overseas is all right with me!)

Motorcycle Safety Month (because friends don’t let motorcycles drive drunk)

National Photo Month (Rhode Island keeps disappearing behind New York…someone please tell it to stand up straighter - and California seems to have moved way too far to the left, we can’t even get it in the frame.) 

and

Better Hearing and Speech Month (I sorry - you saided something?)

An Open Letter to all the spammers out there who, not being satisfied with the traditional trackback/comment spam, have developed spiders and other bots designed to register their disgusting websites with comment names and identities, in order to blast this and other blogs with spam that would curl the hair of the most recalcitrant yak:

NEENER

NEENER

NEENER.

Translation: 

I periodically review the “active commenters” list, gleefully deleting all of the *cough* adult-and-drug-related ‘authors’ registered to comment on the blog  (some of which would end up deleting themselves, regardless of content, because my language filter would ban even the commenter names).  While a few of your spambots actually do a relatively convincing job - at first blush (pun intended) - at creating faux commenter names that might belong to a real (Note: not the same thing as “legitimate” - ed.) website, somehow I can always see you sneaking around the edges.

Case in point:  I’m not sure what pearls of wisdom “AdultEntertainment4U” intended to contribute to the comment section of this blog, but not knowing is a sacrifice I decided I’m willing to make.  No, I didn’t go to check out the website attached to the comment name.  Because somehow, I don’t think drinking a beer and watching a football game (though that definitely qualifies as entertainment for many adults) is what (s)he had in mind.

Other times, it’s much more difficult to recognize the spammers who who and what they are.  After all, hXxxGo83nNNxer has nothing to do with sex, drugs or *cough* lifestyle enhancement products.  I’m sure that individual has nothing but positive, mentally stimulating dialogue to add to the conversation.

NOT.

Delete, delete, delete.

Delete, to the tune of 37 spammer comment names since the last time I checked (which, granted, was about a month ago).

The good news? We rest easy, confident in the knowledge that another battle in The Spam Wars has gone to the good team.

This message, and the positive outcome it contains, is brought to you by The Delete Button.  For all your one-stop spammer-eradication needs.  Also known as One Good Thing.

Trackposted to Conservative Cat, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.  

Many people think they don’t agree with the title to this post.

Some consider work something to avoid at all costs, while others merely find the prospect frustrating or distasteful.

I submit, for your consideration and ultimate (if grudging) approval, that all such people actually have it wrong. (more…)

Read Jan LaRue’s review of the reviewers of the new movie “Expelled.”

“Don’t monkey with the truth.”

William Jennings Bryan’s opposition to teaching evolution in the 1920’s, that led to his role as prosecution attorney in the famous Scopes trial (for which he was pilloried in the movie Inherit the Wind and by the movie critics of that era), was its justification of eugenics, “improving” the human race by ridding society of the lower classes, the weak, the unintelligent, the minorities, to implement natural selection through “survival of the fittest.”  Darwinian ideas supported the racism of eugenics and the Nazis directly and through the “will to power” philosophy of Nietzche, the promoter of the “superman,” who is above morality due to superior evolutionary development.

This may come as a surprise to most some a few well, probably none of you, but I’m not altogether a fan of change.  Particularly when the change at issue involves service-oriented websites that worked perfectly well to begin with, and most particularly when the changes require me to duplicate non-billable, non-entertaining time and effort I’ve already invested in setting up preferences, account information and other necessary evils required to help the service provider help me handle the need for which I created the account in the first place.

Now, I won’t tell you precisely which website’s super-duper-awesome-improved-really-great-time-eating-patience-burning-sanity-threatening alleged “upgrades” made me want to chuck the computer through the window this afternoon, but let’s just say I was dealing with sending out some documents that absolutely, positively had to be there overnight, and I wanted to fill out a packing slip online rather than resorting to the old-fashioned (and in my case, likely illegible) pen-and-paper method.

Or something like that. (more…)

From time to time, I like to pick up old things, brush off the dust and marvel at the fact they still work.  Apparently that works here too, so I’m reinstituting the daily One Good Thing (though statistically, 98.3% of you know I’m not likely to get it done every day). 

A few weeks ago I released live ladybugs in my rose garden as part of the ongoing War on Terroraphids.  (Some of you might not appreciate the threat terroraphids represent to a rose garden, but take my word for it, they can nuke a rosebud faster than just about anything other than grasshoppers - for which I bring in the SEAL team of biological pesticides: the praying mantis - but that’s another blog.)

Some time later, I noticed a few ladybug larvae making their way along the roses. A good sign, because it means the ladybugs stuck around long enough to do their job and to leave a second generation in place for later in the season.  For those unfamiliar: ladybug larvae look nothing like ladybugs.  They resemble tiny black alligators with orange-red spots, and the unwary regularly mistake them for pests.  After crawling around for a while, the larvae make little orange-spotted cocoon-like structures on the leaves of plants, where they cling for a week or so and then emerge as .. yep, ladybugs.

Normally, you don’t get to see the ladybug larvae making their little cocoons, or even the cocoons themselves, but we apparently had such a large hatching that the little guys had no choice but to stick themselves to every available surface, including the leaves of the corn plants in the vegetable garden.

Flash forward to Saturday.  Not the best day on record, as I had to spend an otherwise warm, sunny and generally beautiful day going through my father’s old legal papers in an attempt to recreate his tax deductions for the past couple of years.  (Combine the incomprehensible state of his files with the expected reaction to locating old family photos and artifacts stuffed into said files, and you can imagine it wasn’t a great afternoon.)  After several hours of this highly entertaining activity, I bailed out and headed for the solace of the garden. 

While standing over the corn, watching it grow, I noticed movement on the leaves.  Not the wind, but rather little quirky struggles coming from the multitude of ladybug cocoons - all of which apparently decided to hatch at the same time.  As I watched, half a dozen ladybugs worked their way free and settled in to dry their shells in the afternoon sun. 

Plenty of ideas went through my head as I watched them sitting there.  Some related to me, others (many admittedly anthropomorphic) to the not-so-little bugs. (Aside: Biggest ladybugs I ever saw.  Makes me wonder what was in all those aphids.)

I could relate them all, but I probably don’t have to.  (If you’d understand, you already do, and if you wouldn’t I’d only sound cliched.)  Suffice it to say I felt a lot better after watching them sun themselves than I did a few minutes before, and that while this wasn’t the first time I’ve seated myself in the garden “simply to watch” it also won’t be the last.

As killers of aphids, ladybugs beat chemicals every day of the week and twice on Sunday, but that isn’t the only benefit they provide.  Try not to smile at their purposeful, busy attitude as they bumble around looking for something to munch.  Don’t let yourself appreciate their colorful shells or notice the fact that just about everyone likes them.  Better not watch a child light up when one lands on his-or-her shoulder and crawls around for a moment before taking flight (And no, it’s not worried about the fire.  They figured that one out long ago.).

Because if you do, you might just have to admit that ladybugs are One Good Thing.

 

Allegedly Republican congressional candidate Tony Zirkle (which might even still be his real name) recently defended a decision to speak at a private event on the grounds that “I’ll speak before any group that invites me.”

An interesting campaign strategy, and potentially a good one.  Unless, of course, the group in question is the American National Socialist Worker’s Party - and the private event is a celebration of the birthday of Adolf Hitler.

Yes, that link takes you to a picture of The Candiate Formerly Known as Zirkle addressing the SWP, while standing in front of a full-sized photograph of the Fuhrer in his prime, flanked by the Nazi flag and swastika-clad representatives of the inviting organization.

How much you want to bet Zirkle won’t be using that one on the campaign ads?

Zirkle further attempted to cure his current case of foot-in-mouth disease by claiming he “didn’t know much” about the Neo-Nazi movement and stating that he once spoke on an “African-American radio program.”  (Two characteristics he also happens to share with Hitler, who knows nothing about Neo-Nazism and frequently spoke on African-American issues…though not quite the same way Zirkle means it.)

A word to the wise and the unwise alike: speaking before groups that invite you is all well and good, but when it leads to a positive response (and media coverage) for the Neo-Nazi “Hitler Birthday Bash,” Zirkle might do better to follow the advice of Groucho Marx and refuse to have anything to do with any club that would have him as a member.

But then, I doubt that quote gets very high Marx at the Socialist Worker’s convention.

I’ve always been fond of saying there are three kinds of people: those who can do math, and those who can’t.

A new study published by Ohio State University suggests that statement may not be completely true.  According to researchers, the method may bear significant responsibility for the mathematical madness so prevalent among students - and adults - as well as the attitude that attends it.

The Ohio State study shows that students taught math using methods designed to teach abstract concepts and mathematical formulas - ”old school” methods that teach concepts rather than attempting to entertain - performed better and learned more thoroughly than those taught using more “modern” methods designed to make math “more relevant.”

In other words: teachers who substitute trains, cups and balls for “real” math may be short-circuiting the learning process and shortchanging their students. (more…)