Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

We’re heading off up to the cottage in a few minutes, me and Sam by bus, Helena and Isabel are already there, so I’m writing today’s blog in the morning and I’ll write tomorrow’s in the evening when we’re back, thus saving a bucketload of frustration trying to figure out how to write it on a phone.

I am not a big fan of Easter. It was my least favorite holiday as a child – the drudgery of getting dressed up to spend a holiday with your oldest and dullest relatives did not seem very festive to me, and the fun of searching around the house for colored eggs and then getting a bit of chocolate was not quite adequate compensation.
Easter in the Czech Republic is a bit weirder, what with the whips and all. The Easter trees are rather pretty, but they do not stir any deep emotions. It is still not my favorite holiday, and I decided a few years back that I would go ahead and side with the feminists on the whip issue. Even though it’s generally a fairly harmless thing, I’ve definitely seen a few guys who enjoyed it too much. So, I don’t participate, and that makes for even a duller holiday.
Basically, despite the obviously pagan symbolism and the need for a holiday of joyous renewal, to welcome in the summer, Easter is a Christian holiday and I’m very much in favor of leaving them to it.
I celebrate Carodejnice (Walpurgisnacht) where they burn a witch (not a real one. There might be a few real ones in the crowd but even they are dressed up as fake ones.) People eat hot dogs, there might be a band afterwards, and it’s just a good time.
That’s about 3 weeks from now.
In the meantime, have a Happy Easter, whatever you do, or just a nice rest of the long weekend. I’ll post again Monday evening.

“Will nobody fight me?!” Remember that scene from Highlander, early in the movie, before he realizes his superpower, and he walks through the battle and everybody gives him a wide berth?
I felt like that on facebook today.

The first case was an old classic argument. He was saying the Democrats are all just as bad as Republicans and I said come on, dude, no way, they might be a bit on the corrupt side or, in the case of Dianne Feinstein, who sparked the argument, more than just a little bit, but there are clearly differences.
I gave him a list of 5 or 6 Democrats who I think are more or less O.K. and he responded with “Do you want a list of why all those people are shit?”
I replied “Sure, bring it on, chumpie.” (that is not verbatim – I believe I was actually very polite.)
And he replied “There’s no way to persuade you since you obviously just like all the Democrats.”
I suppose I should see that as a win because, as I could plainly see, he couldn’t do it. But, like a 3 move checkmate or having sex with somebody who’s so drunk they think you are somebody else, there was not much satisfaction in it.
The second case was similar, but the subject was medical marijuana. His original point was that there is no scientific proof that marijuana cures cancer. I said that there’s enough anecdotal evidence that the idea needs to be taken seriously. I would have enjoyed arguing with him a bit more, I’m certainly not such an expert in the matter that I can’t learn more. But he wrote back “You’ve obviously made up your mind so there’s no point arguing with you.”
Weenies.

Astronomers, most of whom look nothing at all like Jodie Foster, first heard the frb’s or ‘fast radio busts,’ about 8 year ago. They didn’t know what they were then, and they don’t now.
Pigeon drippings on the antennae, some sort of earth bound

distortion of the power towers, or the natural spin of a neutron star have all been mentioned as possibilities.
And Aliens, of course. We can’t rule out the aliens. The problem is, they’ve been trying to figure out these signals for 8 years, so if we answer now, their response might be “Dang, those people are slow. Let’s just send down a bacteria to wipe out the dominant species and see what else evolves.” If these signals were intended as an interstellar intelligence test, we have failed and won’t be allowed to join the federation just yet.

Here’s another thing I saw today that I thought was amazing. Actually, I thought it was awesome the first time I saw it, too, so it’s not a completely new meme but it hasn’t been implemented yet, so it bears talking about.
There is so much win in this project that it deserves to be spread around even more. Cool video, too.

American police killed more than twice as many people in March than British police have killed since 1900.
Sure, the U.S. population is 5 or 6 times as great as that of the U.K.
But we’re comparing one month to 115 years.
We’re comparing 111 to 55.
In terms of world view, Britain is far closer to typical than the U.S. is. Some countries go years and years without the police killing anybody at all. It’s as if they aren’t even trying.
One person pointed out in the comments, quite correctly, that only a handful of these ever catch the public eye. We are so busy talking about Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner that we miss most of the others completely.
I suspect there are two reasons for this. One is just that we are overwhelmed. No matter how enlightened or civic minded our brains are, we can only cope with a certain amount of information. Since 111 is a bit over 3 per day it’s true. We are a bit overwhelmed. Even if the press was reporting every one of these cases with the attention they deserve (which they are not, because they suck ass) we wouldn’t be able to absorb it.
The second point is that it only makes the news, if it does at all, if somebody at the scene had the presence of mind to get the whole ugly incident on film.
Thank you, internet.

I am, at times, a bit of a grammar nazi myself. It actually makes me angry when I see someone write could of instead of could’ve. When I see loose instead of lose, the likelihood that I will give any credence at all to that person’s opinions drops to a point somewhere down around zero unless, of course, they are saying something I totally agree with.
But, I have my limits. Recently, several people on my facebook page (I have a lot of people on my facebook page who claim to be writers, yet I remain unconvinced of their claim. If they are writers, it has not become evident within the limitations of a social media format.) have jumped righteous and made statements about how there should be one space after a period, and one space only. They seem to place great importance on this.
One particularly irritating and self-righteous young prick left this comment today: “Nothing says over 40 like two spaces.”
Fuck you, you smarmy little shit. Nothing says over 40 like being 60, and I’ll leave as many spaces as I want.
If the main beef you have with my generation is that we use two spaces after a period, you are missing the point.
My generation has polluted the planet to such an egregious degree that we may, within the next few decades, lose islands, entire countries, and several coastal cities.
My generation has started wars just because some twisted fucks thought it was good entertainment, and then my generation re-elected those war mongering fucks.
My generation has replaced good film making with cliches and special effects.
My generation has failed to heed Eisenhower’s warnings of the military-industrial complex, and instead of fighting it, embraced it.
My generation invented Reality TV, and if that isn’t a crime against language and human intellect, I don’t know what is.
If the biggest problem you have with people over 40 is the fact that we leave two space after a period, your life is suffering from a serious lack of quality problems.
I’m going to continue to leave two spaces. Deal with it.