Tag: Non-partisan blog posts

Make Your Own Cause

In an effort to advance the cause of supporting supporting, has anyone thought of Ribbon 2.0 where everyone makes up the content of their own magnetic cause ribbons making for a cacophony of causes and claims confusing the drivers of America? Maybe if there were more rounded edges the link to the new 2.0 world would be clearer. The other day I listened to an NPR hour on “the long tail” which I still have no clue about as it seems to be only a way to take existing circumstances, repackaging them as new and making sure someone gets a guruiffic revenue stream from the merchandise. Maybe personalized magnetic cause ribbons will help in my understanding.

The Blogdrums

Blogs and doldrums – get it? I think everyone went on vacation…or computers seized or something. Sooner or later the guys spamming for viagara are going to even pack up. You know, making up words with blog in it was a blast in 2003. The other day I went to check out whether anyone was using the word “blogorrhia” as in “logorrhia” and they have. I can’t wait for the next big thing. But no one has used “blogdrums ” yet so that is at least something.

Woot.

Lester Then Paplebon


Google images acting as an ouija board

Even though it was against Kansas City, you have to like the fact that a 22 year old had an eight inning one-hitter for the Red Sox before handing over to another guy born in the 80’s who then earned his 28th save in a 1-0 win.

This is a good year for the Sox – despite Tavarez – and one in which you do not see a slump of major proportions given the strength of the infield, the distribution of hitting and the depth on the bench. So will they trade before the end of the month? Long relief? Maybe…but maybe we have that in another child of the 80’s Manny Delcarmen. If Wells comes back in any reasonable fashion and Beckett is given all home day games, we may even survive the starting rotation.

So…why can’t you get a Tavarez shirt?

Still With The Zizou

It is funny reading this morning in the Canadian papers more going on about Zidane’s headbutt and the need to have it explained by scientists…the science of the headbutt looks like this:

“Just because somebody acts aggressively doesn’t always mean that they’ve lost it,” Glassman said. “There’s also often a question of choice.”

“Anger, he said, “can be learned behaviour to get what you want.” But anger that does result in losing it is almost always evoked by a perceived violation, said Lorne Korman, director of the anger management clinic at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Canada’s sport, hockey, is entirely based on retaliation and violence. Canada’s back up game, CFL, is pretty much based on retaliation and violence. The reason soccer does not do well in North America is the false perception that there is not enough retaliation and violence.

Soccer is filled with retaliation and violence, headbutts behind the play, slide tackles that are way too hard, cleated shins, clattered skulls during a well fought for header. North Americans (softies for the most part) just do not understand how that can go along with the grace and hearty athleticism of fitba. Heck, I snapped a guy’s leg once and finished another game with three teammates in the hospital, one of whom made the New England Journal of Medicine for his badly bruised pancreas. Good, then, to see Zizou getting the best player award because he was – and no namby pamby new PC NASCARian milk-drinker misunderstanding of the importance of a head butt should have gotten in the way of that.

And Now A Word From Our Potter

I am quite pleased to have the only blog with its own Potter Laureate, Gary Rith. [Ed.: click that link for a picture of a tea pot.] Recently there has been some interested talk in knowing more about his work. So Gary sent along this:

Alan says I should really have everything together before posting an ad at gen x. Well, he has a point. I am never really all that together, but let’s put it this way: you people are the test cases.

OK, so there is a little interest in my work, maybe some shoppers here, maybe just a preview of an open studio sale? There are pictures sent seperately, all look a little bluish for some reason, but are pretty good. I have to look at my Paypal acct. to remember how that works. So, although I make a lot of stuff, this is the standard list. Ask about teapots, pitchers, vases, plain items without animals:

Glazes: lemon, grape, super celedon, turtle celedon, speckly celedon, strawberry, baby blue, slate blue, blue jeans, green beans.

Glaze combos: yellow w/ a little green and blue accenting;blue jeans 1/2 and 1/2 with any celedon;
grape, speckly celedon or baby blue with green and blue swirls.

Prices:

  • Small sitting piggy bank $20 US postpaid
  • Mugs: Large, postpaid $22 US dollars

    1) straight sided with swirly spiral cuts: animal on bottom or handle
    2) fancy foot with textured sides, animal only on handle

  • Steins (enormous!) $26 US postpaid
    -animal on handle above or below

  • Bowls:

    med. cereal/ice cream/salad size $22 US postpaid
    -med. large serving $32 postpaid
    -large $36 postpaid
    all with one animal on edge, add another for 3 more bucks (like 3 piggies or a pig on one side, cow on the other

Animals available: piggy, cow, elephant, bunny, frog, dog (beagle mutt), dog (Spike), dog (springer spaniel), dog (black lab) cat, fish, turtle, rhino, hippo, (human )baby or clown

Everything is cute, microwaveable, dishwasher safe, LEAD FREE non-toxic glaze and guarenteed to arrive in good shape or replaced. You are welcome to submit an order subject to viewing, and I will make it if I don’t have one, picture it, and you can say yes or no. I also reserve the right to make suggestions: for example, no blue elephants on a blue mug.

Lastly, I would need your address, and if they have to, prices subject to change.

So there you go. We are going to likely set up a page for Gary’s works after I get back from special assignment. I get nothing out of the deal. All money goes to Gary and he spends it on chips and soda pop. Click on the pictures for a bigger view.

NCYO’s New Look

There are few blogs that really look as good as they can look but recently NYCO has undergone an upgrade which is visually attractive, well designed and functionally useful. This might leads one to suppose that I am praising its usability but I hate that word-like thing.

Anyway, even through there are three columns and blank space to the right and left, it words as the blank space compliments the rest in its natty grey. The shadowing between the columns keeps it from looking two-dimensional and cluttered. The “yellow box” to the upper-right with the lead side-story is a nice touch on the side-blog idea.

So it looks good and it works well. Good thing she is a good writer, too.

Things I Love About Canada

Wow. I am sure glad that my folks got to this place. And not just cause Europe (and Grannie, too!) turned out to be socialists! But because Canada is really great as our celebrations on July 1st…celebrate. Here is my list about what I really like about Canada – you add yours:

  • Paddle to the Sea. I hadn’t thought about this NFB movie from the 60s for decades and, voom, there is it as the absolute paradigm of the nation’s soul.
  • Wacky idealistic politicians who turn out to stand for exactly the opposite of what they pledged to the benefit of us all. Trudeau claimed logic and was nutty enough to put us on the world stage through doing all sorts of things largely since undone. Mulroney pretended he was fiscally prudent but never finishing the job, acting like he was under Washington’s wing but helped leverage the end of apartheid. Chretien being a nutjob yet getting finally getting 30 or 40 years of deficit financing in line while making us love him for choaking a citizen.
  • Comedians who leave for the US market. They are the good ones and you can tell because the CBC rejects them. SCTV is a perfect example. And did you know Saturday Night Live was turned down as a project by the dullards?
  • Maple products. We eat the blood of trees. What is neater than that?
  • Federalism and how it divides us. Think about it. You have a mobile population, largely made up of immigrants over the last couple of generations, drop them into ten jurisdictions and – whammo – they learn to dislike each other and hold on to what they have and try to keep it from others. Overlapping redundant bureaucracies foster these jealousies.
  • The neediness. From the whole flag on the backpack in Europe and how much that makes tourism operators their love us so much to the hand wringing about how we should be doing this or that on the world stage. The best is the argument over what Canada stands for. What does Belgium stand for? No one cares. We are a nation of whining twelve year olds and we don’t see it.
  • Trees. Both Kingston and Halifax, my two favorite home cities, still sit in the woods and are full of the damn things. That is why downtown Toronto feels so weird. You can’t see the trees. We love them so much we have provincial and Federal parks that we hardly every use but are great when you do. Ontario‘s park system is particularly amazing.
  • The flags. We have the weirdest flags. The national one has a bit of a tree on it. And look at New Brunswick’s – who the hell ever picked that yellow? British Columbia looks like it was designed for a space traveller worship cult. Alberta’s politicians lobbied hard to further reduce the size of the crest and add even more blue.
  • Events like today’s England v Portugal create some small but telling discomfort between immigrant groups of different generations based on their understanding of what this country stands for even though they are compatible visions.

Me and mine? We are off for a ballgame in the US and some pie. Hey – there’s a double header today.