Courtesy Counts

How often do we get email messages from friends that have been forwarded uncountable times and contain even more names and addresses? More importantly, how many times do we, ourselves, send those same messages "as is" without making any effort to clean them up before exposing names and addresses to the world?

If friends adhered to the gentle hint above, recipients would be left believing that they were special and the message was meant just for them.

All that's needed is a little time and effort on our part to demonstrate appreciated courtesy and consideration to friends and even many we don't know that have been thoughtlessly included in the clutter that makes email rounds.

Today's version of the old fashioned postal "chain letter" is the prime source of junk mail that floats around via the Internet. It matters not whether the subject matter be religion or patriotism or politics or friend-of-the-day that the sender deems to be critical to the spiritual or cultural welfare of their designated recipient(s).

I don't mind so much the subject matter as I do the attached clutter that the sender has been either too impatient or lazy to remove. Friend or not, they apparently think that I might give a fat rat's pattotie about their point of view.

On the positive side, something forwarded lets me know that that I have not been a completely forgotten part of their lives.

When someone requests a return I often return to them only without forwarding to anyone else. Don't want to injure their sensitivities, you know. For all they know I have BCC'd the 13 1/2 others in order to have my wishes granted before the Age of Aquarious begins December 21st, 2012.

Thirteen, XIII, 13, Friday

Sufferers from paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia can apparently rest easily for the next nine months (until August 13th). I suppose that I must admit to some minor superstitions but I can honestly state that I have no fear of Friday(s) the 13th. There is no burning need to stay at home hiding under the bed when the date occasionally comes around.

Neither paraskevidekatriaphobia nor friggatriskaidekaphobia are yet 100 years old. The former was derived in 1911 and in 1953 first appeared in a mainstream source, the same year Eisenhower became POTUS. Now, doesn't that just grab you?

We can thank the Norse goddess Frigga (associated with the word Friday) for the latter word which apparently came into being in 1910.

Triskaidekaphobia is a bigger umbrella word because it deals with all numbers 13. Hospitals and hotels eschew rooms and floors numbered 13. Towns avoid names like 13th St., 13th Ave., etc.

Seems the problem with number 13 is a western thing. FDR, Henry Ford, Napoleon, among others avoided doing anything important on Friday 13th.

In other parts of the world 13 is OK. Some other numbers not.

Rule #1 for Mo Betta' Writing

One of the first rules for good writing is that the writer must remember to never split an infinitive. Right here that rule has been broken. Often the word to marks a verb as an infinitive: “to walk,” “to think,” “to fly,” “to exist.”

Examples of infinitives are much easier to illustrate than to define that part of grammar. Never is an adverb and its placement in the opening sentence "splits" the infinitive, to split.

The same goes for a split, or cleft, infinitive. Probably the most recognizable split infinitive is this: To boldly go where no man has gone before! To go is the infinitive that is split by the adverb boldly.

In Latin, infinitives are only one word and cannot, therefore, be split. Modeling of English style writing on Latin has in the past often been considered the epitome of good writing. An example of the misguided application of this notion is the injunction against splitting the English infinitive.

Many modern speakers and writers depend on their ear for a natural sentence rather than arbitrary rule. In order to avoid awkward or stilted language there are occasions when a split infinitive is preferable.

Now, if anyone even bothers to read this, just who the hell cares? Blogs are for fun. Split away!

Conservatism vs Liberalism

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn't buy one.

If a liberal doesn't like guns, he feels that no one should have one.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat.

If a liberal is, he wants to ban all meat products for everyone.

If a conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy.

A liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.

If a liberal is homosexual, he loudly demands legislated respect.

If a black man or Hispanic are conservative, they see themselves as independently successful.

Their liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection and support.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.

A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels.

Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.

A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God or religion silenced.

If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.

A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

Fashion Maven Alert

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithrs see us!

It wad frae mony a blunder free us.

~ Robert Burns

Bet you'll never guess which store this shopper was found. Saks Fifth Avenue in New York? Neiman's in Dallas? Or maybe Henri Bendel, New York's legendary Fifth Avenue boutique, a girls' playground for trendsetting young women from around the world.

Nope. All wrong. If you guessed, however, that she must might be in a Wally World somewhere in the USA you would be absolutely correct! She may not be a trend setter, but she surely is a follower.

So far as I know there is no law ... in this country at least ... that says a burqa is limited to women of the Muslim faith. This beautiful blue model would be perfect for the Wal-Mart trend follower. It's loose and probably allows the cool air to circulate whereas tight clothes are constrictive.

Gomer Pyle said it well after learning that if you can't say something nice about someone, then say nothing at all. His famous line was: For a fat girl you sure don't sweat much.

How fortunate we are to be able to enjoy our freedoms ... even if one of them is to exhibit a total lack of pride in our public appearance.

Tanker's Good Advice

Back on September 5th Tanker posted New blog!. I've been reading his Mostly Cajun blog for quite some time. Not every day but often. His post, New Blog!, has some good advice for those of us ... especially me ... who get our Model T stuck in the mud and there's no AAA to pull you out and provide a tow to the gas station.

His words from referenced post just may be the gas I need to get started again.

Try writing something every day, or at least posting SOMETHING. It’s disappointing to keep visiting a blog and seeing the same old post at the top for weeks on end. I know life intrudes, folks, but please, we’re your friends. Tell us! “I’m going to be on a two-week assignment to south Timbuktoo and won’t be blogging until I get back” is a nice thing to do.

The whole post serves as an incentive or kick in the butt. I thank him for that.

His "tricks" help to fill in the blanks and they are mostly pretty neat. I never thought of them as tricks but I did recognize them as being fillers. They beat the sox off our local excuse a/k/a newsless paper which uses their own ads when all else is lacking.

Prayer Request

"Anyone with needs to be prayed over come forward to the front at the altar." the preacher says.

Leroy gets in line, and when it's his turn, the preacher asks: "Leroy, what do you want me to pray about for you."

Leroy replies: "Preacher, I need you to pray for my hearing."

The preacher puts one finger in Leroy's ear, and he places the other hand on top of Leroy's head and prays and prays and prays. He prays a blue streak for Leroy.

After a few minutes, the Preacher removes his hands, stands back and asks "Leroy, how is your hearing now?"

Leroy says, "I don't know, Reverend, it ain't ‘til next Wednesday!"

Not Really Funny

A Harley rider is passing the zoo, when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside, under the eyes of her screaming parents. The biker jumps off his bike, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch. Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.

A New York Times reporter has watched the whole event. The reporter says, "Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I saw a man do in my whole life." The biker replies, "Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger, and I acted."

The reporter says, "Well, I'm a journalist from the New York Times, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page.... So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?" The biker replies, "I'm a U.S. Marine and a Republican."

The following morning the biker buys The New York Times to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads on front page:

"U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH"

Another Obama Appointee of Questionable Character

John Holdren — the guy who wanted to put a sterilizing agent in our water supply and is now in charge of federal science policy — is hardly the only dangerous radical to attain "Czar" status in the Obama regime. NewsBusters reports: The administration's "Green Jobs" czar, Van Jones, has a "very checkered past" deep-rooted in radical politics, including black nationalism, anarchism, and communism.

Jones is a San Francisco extremist who admits to having been "radicalized in jail." Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity draws the clear parallel between Jones' communist and environmentalist advocacy: the idea that government ought to be reordering society in accordance with some utopian vision that failed with communism and socialism, and will fail with this green jobs idea.

Jones views environmental activism as a means to advance the ultra-left's Orwellian notion of "justice." He has referred to himself not only as a "communist," but as a "rowdy black nationalist."

The above is taken verbatim from here.

I first saw mention of this on The Bear's post dated today. The title -- Obama's latest "In Your Face": "Green Czar" admits he's a Communist with arrest record.

Washington's Buffoon Ex-Mayor Barry

A little more than twenty years ago former Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry claimed that, Aside from the increase in homicides, the District of Columbia actually had a low crime rate. This statement has been authenticated. He declared this during a March 23rd, 1989, speech to the National Press Club.

He is current D.C. Council member representing predominately black Ward 8. So there are those who still revere him.

After all the time that's passed he back in the national (dim) spotlight again. Another arrest. Maybe he just likes the part of playing buffoon. At least he's successful at that.