Pain in the Glass

Parenting:    Place your child in position in front of a ferocious lion, separated only by a pane of glass.  Imagine what would happen if the lion were to grab, and probably kill and eat, your own child.  Allow others to view and imagine the same.     OR:  Place your child into a glass-fronted washing machine.  Allow yourself to imagine what would happen if the machine were to start the wash cycle, and probably mutilate and drown your child, in view of others.  Oops!  Oops!

War and Pieces of Kismet

 When I was in college, Russia and things Russian were an integral part of the culture  of our country.  As an English major with a minor in social studies, that meant the required reading of every thousand-page Russian novel ever written, as well as the political treatises and theories of past and current Russia.  So I can't say for sure where I encountered the theory of chaos; it may have been collateral damage from trying to make sense of "War and Peace,"  or it may have sprung from another source entirely.  But I recall its being something like this:   The study of history, or even cause and effect, is intrinsically flawed and therefore essentially worthless, because there are so many actions taking place at any given time, that humans can isolate only a few out of millions of factors that may bear responsibility for the occurrence of any given event.  The world is essentially a pit of chaos, with no rhyme or reason behind what happens.  Humans attempt to make sense out of life by categorizing a small number of  the multitude of occurrences of nature, or the lives of only a few out of a population of millions, in order to assert a semblance of control over life.  Chaos reigns and man's attempt to create a history is like sorting sand.  Select a narrow path, and ignore the overwhelming ocean of unrelated events.  I don't give this theory nearly as much credence as I did when I was a college sophomore, but I think of how the media selects a paltry few stories to report ad nauseam, thereby ignoring thousands and thousands of other occurrences that would be equally newsworthy, but since there is only so much time to devote, they go with the tried and true "facts" and willingly disregard other events.  Similarly, success stories of victories  over disease, and mystical experiences are documented, with the idea that what humans do can control outcomes, never mind the poor souls who succumb to adversity despite valiant efforts, strong will and prayer.  Try to make sense of the violent  slaughter of children, or the horror of innocent childen battling and succumbing to fatal disease.  The only valid explanation is a world beset by chaos.  A search for the good in such events can not exist. Again, the theory of Chaos. 
    
PRACTICAL APPLICATION AND PAYBACK!
        So intellectually I do not believe in Karma, but I do note the incidence of coincidence.  Ergo:
                                     It was very hard to do anything for Dorothy.  She was a fiercely independent individual in many respects.  Try to repay her for an expense which she may have incurred on your behalf, and she could find a hundred ways to "refund your money."   She would shove the cash back in your pocket, leave it on the TV, or even toss it in your door as she was leaving your house.  When she toured Ireland, with funding just starting to be an issue for her, I made her take some "mad money," just to spend any way she wished for the trip of her lifetime.  She accepted it, but she returned with gifts for everyone, in at least the amount given her.  When last year, she asked me what  my Derby  pick was, I gave her some betting money, and chose Animal Planet.  He won, and though I told her I didn't want any of the winnings, I found the full payoff amount in an envelope she had hidden in my pocketbook.  We always watched, or at least coordinated, American Idol.  For several years, we entered the AI pool at Marilyn's school.  Neither of us ever shared in any of the winnings.  This year, though my heart wasn't in it, I didn't even watch all the shows, but ended up winning the first place pot anyway.  When Marilyn handed me the envelope with the winnings, a modest amount, I took out the 2 twenty-dollar bills and asked her to make a memorial contribution or have Mass said in Dorothy's honor.  That was last week.   Today I was attempting to sort through the chaos in my own home, and was going through some of her old handbags, which had been stored in her, and now my, garage.  I'd looked through them before, in consideration of discarding or donating them, but for whatever reason, they ended up here.  It should be noted that there was no cash in Dorothy's house when she left us; her purse on the kitchen counter contained three dimes and a few pennies.  No money in the cabinets, dressers, nothing. ( Only an overlooked booklet of U.S. State Coins.) Today when I looked into one of her purses again, there in the side pocket, were 2 crisp twenty-dollar bills.    

Judging the Judges

I'm sort of reluctant to say I care about such things, but the judges on "America's Got Talent"  are way more watchable than the three clowns on "American Idol."    Mandel, Osborne and Stern's comments are actually interesting and funny.  On the other hand, when it's time for JLO, Randy, or S. Tyler to comment, I'm tempted to hit the mute button---pompous, repetitious, and worst of all,boring.

The Curse of Cursive

I  just wrote my grandson a note, in the best handwriting I could muster.  Unfortunately, the note had to be read to him because, although he's in the third grade, he can not yet read cursive.  I think cursive is doomed to become an extinct form of communication.  Why teach a form that has no real practical application. It seems kind of sad, in a nostalgic sort of way. In truth, I had to take pains to write the little note, because I so rarely use handwriting any more myself, and I grew up with it.  When I went to school, in the first grade as we had no kindergarten, we learned to recognize block letters if we didn't already know them and how to print them.  When we learned to write, it was in cursive.  The teacher would have a student distribute pencils from a wooden pegboard studded with red Coca Cola pencils and we would practice drawing ovals and push and pull shapes.  I liked almost everything about school then but I thought this Palmer Method or whatever it was called was a waste of time.  I was never lucky enough to get a pencil with a sharp point and my hand would smudge the soft lead into the even softer lined paper that went with the exercise.  Besides, I wanted to write the way my mother did, or the way I thought she wrote.  Occasionally, my mother would take time out from her busy day of hard work to write to her mother or sisters.  It seems strange now, but that was the only way she had to communicate with them, though they lived not that far away.  My father would drive us for visits every other week, weather permitting, so probably most of her letter writing was done in the winter.   She would sit at the kitchen table with her stationery, ask us kids  not to interrupt her for a while, and write away.  I would watch her, and looking at the letter as she moved her pen across it, I used to think she wrote in a continuous stream, with no spacing between the words, and I couldn't wait to learn to write like that. At some point, I had to realize that she also wrote in separate words, and I felt disappointed. For most of my childhood, I had the feeling I never really knew what was going on, and that feeling  lingers even today.

Game Talk

The hat trick!   A double triple!   A triple Double!  A walk-off home run!  And, the No-no.   All need explanation, don't they?

Purple Passion Redux

To find a joke "guaranteed to annoy your friends,"  google Purple Passion Joke.   As advertised, it is annoying, even if you read it yourself. 

Purple (or Pink) Passion

It was a joke, one of those segmented, or serial, anecdotal recitations which narrates several, even more than that, adventures of a youth's search for the meaning of a a mysterious phrase, which ultimately culminates in the punchline.  Ta-dah!  Mission accomplished.  Or so one might think.  But if the joke is being relayed through uncle to nephew to mother, it's not as simple a process as you might expect.  First, the mother is in a hurry.  The son doing the narration of the joke does not want to omit a single syllable of what was told to him, and the story is quite lengthy--one of those ongoing quests where the outcome seems obvious, especially after the fourth or fifth installment.  What takes even longer is the mother's  interrupting with repeated admonitions to get to the point, we're in a hurry.  Finally, finally, the end of the joke, punchline delivered!  But no laugh, not even a chuckle for this budding deliverer of comedic schtick.  Instead the comment, "I hate that kind of joke, and I can't believe that "D." told you that.  He always hated that kind of thing too, anything with a refrain.  He couldn't even stand listening to Old McDonald Had A Farm when he was a kid."   For the rest of the story, and to learn the moral, ask a kid named  "B."  But be prepared; it does take a while.

Mensa Pooh-Pooh

The kid didn't say that she was experiencing  an imminent urge to have a bowel movement and requested that she be given access to the proper facility.  No, she said, "I have to poop."   The mother reports that her daughter was using complex sentences at two years of age.  No s*#*t!

Only words

Scene in hospital:      2 nurses approach patient and one introduces herself, and the other as Robin.   Patient points out that the ID badge says Roberta.  "How very observant," says the first nurse, turning her own badge backward.  "This  isn't even my badge."
 Scene in Attorney's office:    Attorney to home buyer:  "Now we're going to need you to sign a lot of papers.  You need to put your furniture here...oops, I mean signature.  "That was random," points out another official."  "Well, both words end in t-u-r-e," comments another.

Life's Lesson Learned

You knew it was a snake when you picked it up.  Never stroke a cheetah: the cheetah will not like it, and....

Weight, Weight, Don't Tell Me

The early news just reported that obesity in the USA is a bigger problem than was even anticipated.   Putting it it terms we can easily understand goes something like this:   If a football stadium  holds 135,000 people and one third of them are obese, that's about the same as having 45,000 more people in the stadium.  Oh, now I get it.  Fat people take up more space.

Half-life

Since we are made of a bunch of atoms, do we have a half-life based on  the probabilistic exponential-decay process?  I think it's true that the longer we wait, the less remains.    I hated Chemistry class when I was in high school.  But I know that NaCl+H2So4 yields NaHSo4+HCl yielded as a gas.  I still haven't been able to put that formula to use, except for its helping me to score about 4 points on the mid-term exam, which unfortunately didn't matter all that  much.

Celebrity Apprenticeship

I wonder if I could pull a Ted Nugent and launch a vicious tirade against all of life's injustices; facilitators and perpetrators included.    My excuse probably wouldn't fly either.

Life

Un cauchemar.

Baby dangling

Michael Jackson was severely criticized for holding his baby out over a balcony.  The child didn't fall; M.J.  was confident it was safe in his arms. Questions as to his fitness as a parent arose because of his apparent wish to cause a sensation at the expense of his child.   Placing a baby in simulated danger is at least equally evident in arranging for a baby to sit in front of a glass-fronted lion's den, where the animal repeatedly lashes out in an attempt to kill the child. What a thrill----just let your mind picture what would happen if the glass shattered, or if Blanket fell out of his father's arms.

Jeopardize

 A parent or parents dress their infant in a zebra suit and place it near where it can be seen and attacked by a lion, save for a pane of glass.  The child is unaware, but the animal obviously intends to feed on the child.  The aborted feeding frenzy  is videoed and every network carries the thwarted attack, for the apparent amusement of parents and the viewing public. The natural reaction would be to imagine what would have happened if the glass were not there.  Should that not be an image which normal persons would want to shut out of their minds, not welcome into the what-if venue?  Lawsuits have been settled for potentially traumatizing situations, where no actual injury has occurred:  the "suffering" part of pain and suffering.  What if the infant grows up enough to see and comprehend the video and becomes haunted by  horrifying thoughts of being eaten by a large angry animal.  Parents should protect their children wherever possible, and not exploit them for the edification of an unknown public.  People are not allowed to show potentially sexually suggestive poses of their children.  There are perverted beings who would enjoy merely looking, through the glass of their computer screens, with the child completely unaware and unharmed.   A terrible scenario, we would all agree, but contemplating what would happen to a baby being torn apart by a carnivore ranks right up there on the scale of  exploiting an innocent child.