By the way, I put up a link on both websites for nominations for the Fourth Annual People's Choice Podcast Awards. And you're the people. I'd imagine both "Grizzly's Growls" and "Stories from the Hiber-Nation" could be nominated.
I'd appreciate your nomination, in whatever category you think appropriate, if you're willing. Don't cost nuthin', and I'd feel good about it.
Thanks.
Grizzly
Friday, September 26, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Ripley
Just finished watching an episode of the TV Show "Bones." A veterinarian, involved in dogfighting, was murdered by having a fighting dog ordered to attack and kill him. The human who gave the order was jailed. The dog was killed.
This is just plain wrong. Dogs trust their masters, and their masters, their pack leaders, ought to live up to that trust. This, this is just wrong. Not just the murder -- dogfighting is way beyond shameful.
I'm not a violent guy.
But, as the fella said, some folks just need killin'.
This is just plain wrong. Dogs trust their masters, and their masters, their pack leaders, ought to live up to that trust. This, this is just wrong. Not just the murder -- dogfighting is way beyond shameful.
I'm not a violent guy.
But, as the fella said, some folks just need killin'.
Oh, Happy Happy Day!
I wanted to wish you all a happy and safe International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Avast ye, and put 'im in the skuppers with a hosepipe on 'im!
Arrrr!
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Well, if that ain't the Damnedest thing.
Did yet another search for references to my podcast and this blog.
And I came across...
"
That would be this blog. In French.
Damn.
They have Me in French? Why? Cool, but. Well, Damn.
And I came across...
"
Changeling Turquie - La vie et l'époque de Mineure une célébrité locale
That would be this blog. In French.
Damn.
They have Me in French? Why? Cool, but. Well, Damn.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The New and Trendy Neighborhood
So, just now, from a post on news://alt.callahans, I was thinking about neighborhoods and neighborhood improvement.
And I thought about my old neighborhood.
I grew up on the vague edge of the agricultural lands on the outskirts of Duluth Minnesota. My Dad had our house hauled to the site on the back of a flatbed truck -- it was two rooms, at the time.
My grandfather used to grow potatoes in what turned into our back yard. He gave up part of his planting ground for Dad to put his house on. At the back of the half of the property that became my Dad's, and my home, there was a scruffy old shed, where my Grandfather had kept chickens for a while, and stored coal for a while. And there was the outhouse. My Mom could explain in detail what a "wringer washer" was, and how that was a the tech cutting edge at the time.
As I grew up, my folks got a Septic Tank & Field, which was replaced (the next year) with a connection to City Sewage (because the City would demand payment anyway). They added rooms, and a basement, and a "yardlight," and a bunch of other stuff. Say, for example, five kids. A ridiculous number of cats, and occasionally, dogs. Turtles, fish, mice, Guinea Pigs, hamsters, and so on.
My older brother and his friends built the Fort up in a tree, back a way in the woods behind our house. There were trails throughout the "Thirty-Acre Wood" behind our house, and we wandered on them all,
There are dozens of other "new things" that happened for me, growing up, in my neighborhood, and at My House. I gather one or two people may have mentioned details of the history of the '60s and '70s. It was my home, and I miss it.
A few years after my Dad died, my Mom sold the house. I lived in other states for years. Right now, the house is owned by some strangers. I can't go home.
I mention all this because I remember when The Mall was built to improve the value of the neighborhood. They started out by causing the death of someone who lived right on the border of their site. Some old lady, would have died anyway, just ask them.
Her husband was moved (by financial force), house and all, to the lot where my Grandfather's farmhouse was located. They just plowed it under, antiques and all. No warning.
But they paid money, so the fact they ignored their contract about notification of distruction is beside the point. And after all, they were Improving The Neighborhood.
I was gone for 13 years. Recently, I went back through the neighborhood where I grew up, that The Maul improved.
One entire side of the street, the equivalent of five or six or more city blocks, is mostly empty. Almost all the homes are gone.
The other side, the side I lived on, only 70 or 80 percent of the homes are gone, and the rest are huddled -very- close together. Not that they've been replaced by commercial sites. The remainder is utterly abandoned. The only marginally commercial site was a church, built when I was a child, since torn down.
Only one site has a business on it. The corner where they caused the death of old Mrs Stafford, is still bare ground. And all that new available Commercial Zoning is ignored, and returning to raggedy woods.
And The Maul is dying, and more and more of their tenants are moving outside of the city limits. So we'll have a demolished and abandoned residential neighborhood -AND- an abandoned and weed-ridden former Maul, with one tenant, suing to force it to remain open.
Sure glad to have the developers doing such a wonderful job of improving my old home stomping grounds. God forbid, we should have Residents in a residential neighborhood.
So, how's your neighborhood? Anyone still living there, who's not required to as a condition of their parole?
And I thought about my old neighborhood.
I grew up on the vague edge of the agricultural lands on the outskirts of Duluth Minnesota. My Dad had our house hauled to the site on the back of a flatbed truck -- it was two rooms, at the time.
My grandfather used to grow potatoes in what turned into our back yard. He gave up part of his planting ground for Dad to put his house on. At the back of the half of the property that became my Dad's, and my home, there was a scruffy old shed, where my Grandfather had kept chickens for a while, and stored coal for a while. And there was the outhouse. My Mom could explain in detail what a "wringer washer" was, and how that was a the tech cutting edge at the time.
As I grew up, my folks got a Septic Tank & Field, which was replaced (the next year) with a connection to City Sewage (because the City would demand payment anyway). They added rooms, and a basement, and a "yardlight," and a bunch of other stuff. Say, for example, five kids. A ridiculous number of cats, and occasionally, dogs. Turtles, fish, mice, Guinea Pigs, hamsters, and so on.
My older brother and his friends built the Fort up in a tree, back a way in the woods behind our house. There were trails throughout the "Thirty-Acre Wood" behind our house, and we wandered on them all,
There are dozens of other "new things" that happened for me, growing up, in my neighborhood, and at My House. I gather one or two people may have mentioned details of the history of the '60s and '70s. It was my home, and I miss it.
A few years after my Dad died, my Mom sold the house. I lived in other states for years. Right now, the house is owned by some strangers. I can't go home.
I mention all this because I remember when The Mall was built to improve the value of the neighborhood. They started out by causing the death of someone who lived right on the border of their site. Some old lady, would have died anyway, just ask them.
Her husband was moved (by financial force), house and all, to the lot where my Grandfather's farmhouse was located. They just plowed it under, antiques and all. No warning.
But they paid money, so the fact they ignored their contract about notification of distruction is beside the point. And after all, they were Improving The Neighborhood.
I was gone for 13 years. Recently, I went back through the neighborhood where I grew up, that The Maul improved.
One entire side of the street, the equivalent of five or six or more city blocks, is mostly empty. Almost all the homes are gone.
The other side, the side I lived on, only 70 or 80 percent of the homes are gone, and the rest are huddled -very- close together. Not that they've been replaced by commercial sites. The remainder is utterly abandoned. The only marginally commercial site was a church, built when I was a child, since torn down.
Only one site has a business on it. The corner where they caused the death of old Mrs Stafford, is still bare ground. And all that new available Commercial Zoning is ignored, and returning to raggedy woods.
And The Maul is dying, and more and more of their tenants are moving outside of the city limits. So we'll have a demolished and abandoned residential neighborhood -AND- an abandoned and weed-ridden former Maul, with one tenant, suing to force it to remain open.
Sure glad to have the developers doing such a wonderful job of improving my old home stomping grounds. God forbid, we should have Residents in a residential neighborhood.
So, how's your neighborhood? Anyone still living there, who's not required to as a condition of their parole?
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Re: BB: Vaccinations
It was 2 Sep 2008, when Matthew T. Russotto commented:
> In article <mejhb4psdekro9umbn1nd2kvbhcu5ohmjf@4ax.com>,
> Denny Wheeler <dennyw@zipcon.netREMOVETHIS> wrote:
> >On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 02:14:37 GMT, Ken <kwar6996@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> >
> >MTR:
> >
> >>>There's also the issue of the severity of the conditions. The
> >>>childhood diseases can kill and cripple, but they usually don't.
> >>>Autism screws up the kid's and the parents life forever.
> >
> >>As one on the autistic spectrum with a child also on the spectrum, I
> >>strongly object to that statement.
> >
> >I expected this. :) Had I got there first, I'd have pointed out that the
> >correct wording was "autism affects the kid and parents..."
>
> I'm not talking about autistic spectrum disorders. I'm talking about
> full-blown, all-out, full severity, autism. The kind that if you had it,
> you wouldn't be able to post here.
In other words, Kanner autism, as compared to Asperger autism. Roughly,
Low-functioning versus high-functioning Autism. As We have learned,
there's a whole spectrum of phenomena that can constitute Autism, hence
the modern term "Autism Spectrum Disorder." But you only want to speak of
the extremes of the extremes of even Kanner's version.
FWIW, many folks on the Spectrum find online communication much more
tolerable than face-to-face, and many on the Spectrum prefer it -- and you
might not be able to tell, if your only contact is online.
If you talked physics online with Stephen Hawking, not knowing who Stephen
Hawking was, how "crippled" do you think you'd think he was?
And many who have lived long enough to learn to cope to a certain extent
take offense at generalizations based on only some of the impact of some
people on the spectrum sometimes. Not all black people are good at
basketball, and not all (of us) on the Spectrum are utterly unable to
communicate.
Lots of us do just fine, thanks. Easy? Oh, hell no. Impossible?
Hardly. Takes time and effort -- in my case, 50 years thereof, and it
continues day to day.
There are agencies out there using "poster child" presentations of our
extremes as a mechanism for fundraising, and making plenty of money off
same. If you encountered something similar about some aspect of your own
life, and someone started repeating those statements, how would you feel?
What would you say, in your own defense?
--
Grizzly's Growls Podcast: <http://grizzly.libsyn.com>
Stories from the Hiber-Nation:
<http://grizzly.libsyn.com/index.php?post_category=story>
Blog: <http://grizzlysgrowls.blogspot.com>
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Still out there
By the way, I am still blogging, and I am still a podcaster. Got a new "Stories from the Hiber-Nation" coming out on Thursday, which I rather enjoyed.
But don't tell my Mom. She thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse.
But don't tell my Mom. She thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Scott Sigler's The "Ground Rule Double"
Chatting online with Scott Sigler on Twitter, after avoiding an argument about politics, we came to some conclusions:
He was angry about the lunatic fringe of my party and my end of the theoretical political spectrum.
My objection was specifically about his taking offense as to actions of the fringe of my wns of things, because I most assuredly ain't on the fringe, I'm as moderate as can be -- which is not to say I agree with The Other Guys.
So, Scott's upset by a position taken by the fringe.
I ain't part of the fringe, and ain't gonna jump to the defense of our fringe. Which doesn't mean I'm in favor of his party ... or his fringe for that matter.
And we both know. we're dealing with fringe elements in both parties. And even when we're objecting to 3rd Parties, we're mostly objecting to the fringe elements in -those- parties.
So, Scott came up with this idea of an an Internet meme for dealing with cases where you aren't agreeing with the Lunatic Fringe -or- agreeing with the opposition. All you're agreeing to is, "Yes, you got nuts, we got nuts, alla God's chilluns got nuts." Since everybody knows it's a rule, it's Ground Rule, and since everybody knows it applies to both sides, it's a
Ground Rule Double
or GRD. So, Scott and I agreed we have created a new (beta) Internet Meme, the "Ground Rule Double." AKA, we're either dealing with your nuts or my nuts. In any case, we aren't arguing with each other. So, our personal feelings about the whole process are beside the point. We agree it's a GRD and we aren't going to argue between ourselves about this particular skirmish. Doesn't mean we agree, or we won't argue equally vehemently later, about something that might be apparently identical.
But about the incidents and consequences of this particular instance, we say, "F*** it, don't let's worry about it, GRD."
BTW, I think it was mostly Scott Sigler's idea, and he keeps blaming it on me. That's okay. GRD.
He was angry about the lunatic fringe of my party and my end of the theoretical political spectrum.
My objection was specifically about his taking offense as to actions of the fringe of my wns of things, because I most assuredly ain't on the fringe, I'm as moderate as can be -- which is not to say I agree with The Other Guys.
So, Scott's upset by a position taken by the fringe.
I ain't part of the fringe, and ain't gonna jump to the defense of our fringe. Which doesn't mean I'm in favor of his party ... or his fringe for that matter.
And we both know. we're dealing with fringe elements in both parties. And even when we're objecting to 3rd Parties, we're mostly objecting to the fringe elements in -those- parties.
So, Scott came up with this idea of an an Internet meme for dealing with cases where you aren't agreeing with the Lunatic Fringe -or- agreeing with the opposition. All you're agreeing to is, "Yes, you got nuts, we got nuts, alla God's chilluns got nuts." Since everybody knows it's a rule, it's Ground Rule, and since everybody knows it applies to both sides, it's a
Ground Rule Double
or GRD. So, Scott and I agreed we have created a new (beta) Internet Meme, the "Ground Rule Double." AKA, we're either dealing with your nuts or my nuts. In any case, we aren't arguing with each other. So, our personal feelings about the whole process are beside the point. We agree it's a GRD and we aren't going to argue between ourselves about this particular skirmish. Doesn't mean we agree, or we won't argue equally vehemently later, about something that might be apparently identical.
But about the incidents and consequences of this particular instance, we say, "F*** it, don't let's worry about it, GRD."
BTW, I think it was mostly Scott Sigler's idea, and he keeps blaming it on me. That's okay. GRD.
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