Personal stuff
Remember this, from these very pages a couple weeks back?
...”A grateful nation says thank you for your service — now fuck off and live on the streets.”
Turns out the original story appears to have been fabricated bullshit. Read all about it here.
I need to wait longer before I talk about this stuff. Sorry about that.
In the past I’ve scheduled my posts to appear just after 6am Central so that people could read them either before or soon after they got to work — which many people have supported. But several Longtime Brit and Euro Readers recently asked via email whether I could possibly give them the same opportunity, and it’s an easy change to make.
Henceforth, my daily posts will appear soon after midnight Central, i.e. early morning Over There. (I have no Asian Readers other than a slew of what appears to be Chinese bots, and my ANZAC Readers will just have to deal with it, as the time difference is too extreme for me to do anything to help them. Sorry.)
Speaking of Brits, Mr. Free Market shared this wonderful take on modern education with me, and I didn’t want it to be submerged amongst all the other cartoons and memes:
Brilliant. (I know: “Theorem” not “Theorum”. Probably written by a Math guy.)
Inspired by the Brit list, here is mine.
In drawing up my list, I hearkened back to my travels outside the U.S., and asked myself: what were the things I missed most whilst Over There, and what were the things I was glad to have or see when I returned?
My Top Ten (in order):
The first five on the list are self-evident, especially as they are almost universally absent from foreign countries; and I’ll talk about that in yet another post because it deserves a longer exposition.
The last five points are personal, but important.
Only when your TV is confined to a few (usually State-controlled) channels do you realize how nice it is to have a choice — even among dreck.
Large pickup trucks are lovely — they are powerful, not really necessary (unless you’re pulling a large trailer or farming) and one of the things that tourists comment on the most. And the fact that pickup trucks are by far the most popular choice among ordinary Americans says it all.
Drive along a non-U.S. highway with a gnawing hunger and see how hard it is to find a restaurant of any description along the way. Granted, our choices are often only from the Usual Suspects (the top 30 chains), but at least there’s a choice. In Yurp, you often have to go into a town to buy food, which is okay if you’re a tourist, but it must suck if you’re a local.
Nothing says “America” like a damn rodeo: tough people doing a dangerous thing for fun.
It’s only when you’re trying to get from point A to point B without having to go through C, D and E that you appreciate the freedom associated with our highways. Now, as rule I myself try to avoid the stupid things as much as possible; but when you need one, it’s there for you to use.
Conspicuously absent from my list are things that are uniquely American, but that don’t touch me: the Grand Canyon, the Empire State Building, Broadway shows, the Rocky Mountains, etc. etc. Landscape features are just things — the Grand Canyon is a large hole in the ground, the Hoover Dam is a chuck of concrete, every country has a Broadway, the Alps are just as stunning as the Rockies, and so on.
But a busy shooting range and gun show (see point #1) are so much more American than anything one may find elsewhere, and ditto all the other related stuff in each point.
My old friend bronchitis has come to visit me again, courtesy of Beloved Granddaughter, who has managed to infect both her father and mother as well — so la famille du Toit is not a Happy Place at the moment, with barking-dog coughs and such all over the place.
New Wife, who works at a preschool, has an immunity system like tempered steel, so she has to do the Florence Nighringale thing for everybody.
Once again, light posting for a day or so… sorry.
For the next couple weeks we will be hosting New Wife’s son and daughter-in-law as they flee (temporarily) their South African home for springtime in Texas.
None of that matters, because they will be bringing our* precious granddaughter with them:
…so the fortnight will be spent in Grandparent Heaven, and posting may be a little light other than the regular features such as the Caption Competition, Monday Funnies, Art / Culture Saturday and Classic Beauty, which I’ve already pre-loaded.
*I say “our” because my own kids have proven to be completely useless at the Grandchild Production business, so I take them where I can.
There’s another grandchild lurking in the above pic, but we won’t be able to see that one until it’s born in August.
Long ago, I went to pick the then-6-year-old Son&Heir up from his Catholic school’s after-school care, and found him sitting alone in the corner of the room.
One of the volunteer mommies told me that he’d been isolated for “fighting”. Now, he wasn’t (and still isn’t) a fighter — unlike his Dad — so I called him over and asked for his side of the story. Here’s what ensued.
“Ryan was picking on me, I told him to stop it but he didn’t, and when I turned away from him, he hit me in the back. So I shouted at him to stop it and walked away again, but he followed me, so I hit him on the face — just like you told me to do.”
I turned to the supervisor and said, “Yeah, I did that. I told him that if he’s being bullied, to try to get way from the bully, but if the bully comes after him, to hit the bully as hard as he can.”
“Well,” said the woman, “we don’t allow fighting in daycare.”
“But you do allow bullying, from the looks of it.”
“We didn’t see him being bullied.”
“So you admit that your supervision was a failure, in other words.”
“No, we just didn’t see anything.”
“But my son already said he shouted at Ryan, and Ryan was hitting him. So you didn’t hear the shouting, and you didn’t see the fighting — which seems to me to be a failure on your part — and you didn’t do anything until Ryan came over with a bleeding nose.”
“Well — ”
“Did you bother to ask my son what the fighting was about? You didn’t, did you? This is the first time you’ve heard about the bullying, in other words.”
“We still can’t allow fighting.”
“Okay; so what do you want me to do about all this? Give my son a beating when we get home?”
“Oh no no no, we don’t want that. We just want him to obey the rules.”
“He will, I promise you. As long as you tell Ryan about the no-bullying rule.” And I turned to the Son&Heir. “Come on, boy. Get your stuff and let’s go home.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“No; how could you be in trouble for doing exactly what I told you to do?”
We never heard a peep from the school.
All that was recalled from Ye Olde Memorie Bankes by this article.