Category: Editor Picks

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Week 454: The Sensitive Side of Evil and One, No, Make That Three Special Announcements

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Sensitive Side

I believe that there should never be violence of any kind directed at a child. But that presents a problem. There’s neither intelligent discourse nor diplomatic give and take with a two-year-old individual who considers it perfectly reasonable to shit her pants rather than heading to the bathroom while something she wants to watch is on TV. You cannot spank this person (not that you’d want to) nor can you take any disciplinary action that someone out there somewhere won’t find objectionable.

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Week 452: It’s All a Conspiracy; The Real Things and X Marks the File

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The sixtieth anniversary of The Kennedy Assassination is rapidly approaching. It also marks the sixtieth anniversary of my memory because 22 November 1963 is the first certain date I remember (although I hold what are most likely older visions). It is also the sixtieth anniversary of the conspiracy theories that have dogged the event since.

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Week 450: Halloween Memories and Horror Heroes

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The Caramel Apple Orchard

Although I will probably have another Saturday post closer to Halloween, it is on my mind now. And since all my other current ideas have the charm of razor bladed apples, I will go with the cheerier topic.

When I was growing up Halloween was mainly for kids, but over the years it has been taken over by The Failure to Launch Generation. I was one of those children who put next to no effort into a costume. I was goods oriented; people were giving out candy no matter how shoddy I looked. So I’d get one of those cheap witch masks (the kind that always got sweaty and smelled like a runny nose after about a half hour of wearing), don a dark blanket for a cape and carry a whisk broom, which inevitably went missing early. The sack was the important thing. And I took the biggest one I could find–usually a pillow case.

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WEEK 448- Bulking Up; Another Fine Week; Annoying TV Characters

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Andy

Now that it is officially autumn, Andy and Alfie the Feral Cats are bulking up for winter. Well, actually only Andy, because Alfie is already beefy as it is. He’s a rarity, a Feral Cat who has a double chin. Andy, however, changes his body type with the season. During the warm months he sheds his long coat and becomes lean and ripples with muscles. Come September he begins eating twice his normal amount and by the time November rolls around he looks like a fuzzy Tapir.

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Week 446: Influences; Site Influencers and Under the Influence

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Influence

When in a certain mood my mother could kill a good vibe with a comment more quickly than the Andromeda strain can wipe out a small town in the desert. There would be a get together of family and friends, and everyone would be chatting and having a nice time and she would inevitably have to say something like:

“It’s sad to think we will all be as dead as people in old movies someday.” Then she’d cast an innocent glance around the room (which included children) then add “Ever wonder who’ll kick first?”

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Week 440: Cherophobia; Another Sane Summer Week; Actual Site News and More Rejected Questions

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Liquifying Cherophobia

Cherophobia is the fear of happiness. Fortunately, it is a treatable if not curable phobia. I guess I have the condition, but I view it as more of an aversion to buying into happiness than the fear of it. Sort of like counting a Gift Horse’s teeth, certain that your free Pony has a set similar to those of a Great White Shark, and that they will be dripping blood–and not Horse blood, either. Cherophobics suspect good news and are constantly listening for the other Horse shoe to drop.

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436: Farewell Neighborhood Dive; Another Week That Was; and the Debut of International, Interstellar, Interdimensional Cloven Hoof Shaking Day

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Taking the Dive

Recently, after nearly forty years of business, the nearby Social Club Tavern has closed for good. There’s a special sadness when the wild things in life die.

Still, it’s strange to feel sentimentality for something that was one hell of a long way from sentimental during its existence. The Social Club was rough and tumble. I saw some guy punch the window out of the front door after a fight with his girlfriend. A piece of plywood replaced the window for about a year. I usually like to glance through the window of a bar to get a feel for the situation. Since the Social didn’t have any other windows except the one on the front door, entering blind was a roll of the dice. Only hell knew who or what waited inside.

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WEEK 435: Crows; Brilliance and a Fourth of July Salute to the UK

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And the Brain Dead Shall Lead Them

If it weren’t for slogans and bumper-sticker philosophies, management would have very little to say at work meetings. Just the other day, at a meeting, I heard the slogan “Write What You Know” “shared” by a member of the “team” (as anyone who has worked at least one day in life, the preponderance of facetious quotation marks soon becomes obvious). I work in a government warehouse that delivers supplies procured from the “civilian sector” to various locations on base. Cases of toilet paper and flats of bottled water, that sort of stuff. There ain’t a whole lot of writing what I know in that field, yet it got said because it has taken its place among managerial verbal dingleberries such as “Wow, let me look into that and get back to you”–which, translated from management-speak, means “I do not care, and hell will grow petunias before I get back to you.”

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WEEK 433: Feral Advice; It’s A Big World Afterall; A to Z of the Kitchen

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Feral Advice

Come spring, Feral Tomcats, nature’s charming blighters, seek the bliss of temporary domesticity. Such is happening in my courtyard; or at least the attempt is being made. Both my Feral Tomcat friends, Andy and Alfie are doing well. But Alfie has been smacked with lovesickness.

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Week 428: Spring Cleaning; the Week That Is; Ten Names For the Inhabitants in the Box Behind the Stairs

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In Just Spring

The American Pacific Northwest is similar in climate to the UK. Both are just about as north as the other and both are close to an ocean. My home in the Puget Sound region is typical of the kind of weather found in such latitudes. We get twenty, sometimes thirty spring days spread over the course of four months. Seldom more than two in a row.

When it does come, everything gets all warm and cheery. People appear ready to spontaneously break out in song, smiles are unforced, and birds often garnish people with necklaces made from wildflowers, just like Snow White.

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