"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." —Mark Twain
In the news
When the Rachel Dolezal story came to my attention, one of my first thoughts was, “I know people like that.” I bet you do, too. There probably aren’t many white people claiming to be black, but there are plenty of white Americans who claim Native American blood, and we all know people who have invented […]
Whoa, two posts in one day. Guess I wasn’t done earlier. I’m back from my dry run at the museum. I borrowed the volunteer golf cart and drove the tram tour route, talking about all the aircraft I plan to cover on live tours with visitors once I certify. If anyone saw me putting around, gesticulating […]
The city of St Louis, Missouri integrated its public swimming pools in June, 1949. The experiment was short-lived. When I was five, my grandfather waded into a creek I was playing in and yanked me out. Some black kids my age had followed me into the water. “You’ll catch a disease,” he explained. This was in my home town […]
My give-a-shit meter is close to zero. I’m in a rage slump, kind of like a manic-depressive on the down cycle. Something will set me off again, probably sooner than later, and I’ll be back to normal, ranting and raving about injustice, racism, and stupidity. Ooh, did I just feel a rage twinge there? So how ’bout them Duggars? […]
If you read my motorcycle posts you know I’m a biker truther. That’s what they’re calling members of the motorcycling community who are beginning to question police and media accounts of what happened in Waco, Texas last Sunday, when nine bikers were killed by gunfire and another eighteen injured during an alleged shootout between rival gang […]
Following up on yesterday’s post: the vet said Schatzi was back on her feet and ready to go home, so I picked her up from the animal hospital. She walked from the hospital door to the car, but she’s still wobbly on her hind legs and had to sit down a couple of times. When […]
This, from an article in the Columbia Daily Spectator: “During the week spent on Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses,’ the class was instructed to read the myths of Persephone and Daphne, both of which include vivid depictions of rape and sexual assault. As a survivor of sexual assault, the student described being triggered while reading such detailed accounts […]
I did a stupid thing yesterday (so what else is new?) and commented on a Facebook thread about Pamela Geller’s Muhammad-drawing event in Garland, Texas. The thread was started by a fellow progressive who (I thought at first) feels as I do, that freedom of speech must be protected in this country even when we deplore how […]