Category Archives: News

United Hamlets of Texas

texas-secession

Once again, my beloved home state of Texas is in the news for all the wrong reasons.  We used to make headlines for our space program and oil patch revenues.  Now, it’s the glaring call for “Secession.”  Two years ago Governor Rick Perry publicly toyed with the idea of secession; claiming he didn’t want Washington elitists interfering with our business – especially any half-blooded Negroes who might occupy the White House.  After he won a third term that fall, he denied rumors he would seek the presidency, again stating, in effect, that would betray his anti-Washington stance.  Then, he went back on his word and jumped into the presidential race last year; ultimately embarrassing the crap out of the Lone Star State.  We moderates didn’t like him much anyway, but now, he’s our version of the anti-Christ.

But, the “S” word has reared its ugly head again; this time in the form of a petition a group of Texans actually have submitted to the White House.  The petition reads, in part:

“Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s [sic] citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.”

As of now, more than 118,000 people have signed it.  If I had my way, I’d secede them and any subsequent followers to a boat in the middle of the Atlantic.  Unfortunately, though, the White House – by federal law – now has to take this mess seriously.  We’re in the midst of an economic crisis, and our troops still haven’t left that oversized latrine known as Afghanistan.  But, the Obama Administration will have to spend precious time and resources giving a pack of disgruntled moonshining acolytes the attention they didn’t get from their own trailer park families.

Never mind that, should Texas actually manage to secede, we’d lose tens of millions of dollars in federal funding for highway infrastructure, education and our slew of military bases.  But, if Texas does become its own nation, I have to wonder how our constitution and “Bill of Rights” would read.  From El Paso to Texarkana and Amarillo to Brownsville, what would become of all of us?

Would our currency have a picture of Rick Perry holding a gun or a pair of fallopian tubes?

Would we have to build an electrified fence along our border with New México?  I can understand Louisiana and Arkansas, but New México?!

Will our national history begin with David Crockett and Jim Bowie, instead of c. 9,000 B.C.?

Will everyone above the age of 10 months be required to carry a gun?

Will there be a border crossing bridge into Oklahoma?

What will we bomb after we’ve destroyed all the Planned Parenthood offices?

Will Ann Richards’ body be disinterred and reburied at sea?

Will the Bush clan be declared our royal family?

Will everyone with Spanish surnames have to get branded?

Will Chuck Norris be our ambassador to the United States?  Or, will it be Ted Nugent?

Will legitimate rape be included in the “Texas Bill of Rights”?

Will the Civil War be renamed “The Great Freedom Battle”?

Will the term “slavery” be replaced with “low-skilled labor”?

Will chicken fried steak be considered a delicacy?

What will be the official national religion – Southern Baptist or Smith & Wesson?

Will art museums be considered communist propaganda?

When will open season on Muslims, Jews and Wiccans begin?

Will foot-binding become fashionable again?

Will Texas Supreme Court justices still wear black robes, or switch to leather chaps?

So the death penalty will only apply to retarded people now, right?

Will shooting and killing any non-White person be classified as a misdemeanor?

Will rap music be outlawed?

If Lady Gaga tries to make it into Texas, will she be shot on sight?

Will TV shows like 20/20 and Dancing with the Stars be subtitled?

Will FOX News become our state-run news station?

Will every home have speakers installed through which “God Bless Texas” can be blared 5 times a day?

Will red become the official national hair color?  I’d go for that!

Will people from California and Massachusetts have to step aside at the airport for extra pat-downs?  Or, will they just be jailed as soon as they step off the plane?

Will opera and symphony companies have to shut down and be replaced by NASCAR gift shops?

If Chris Matthews tries to make it into Texas, will he be shot on sight?

Tea klux Klan_secdee

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Gmail to Support Its First Native American Language

Gmail announced recently that it has integrated the Cherokee language into its system, a first for any of Indian languages indigenous to the U.S.  They worked with the Cherokee Nation to make it a reality.

“We are constantly trying to find ways to ensure our Cherokee language lives on and thrives, and being able to converse via email is a vital part of that,” said Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker.

In the 19th century, Cherokee became the first Native American language to be developed into a syllabary, which is a list of symbols, each representing a syllable.  This is different from an alphabet, in which each symbol represents a particular sound.  The Japanese language is syllabary-based, while English and other Indo-European languages are alphabet-based.  The ancient Mayans developed a syllabary-style written language in central México, starting around 600 B.C.; the only one of its kind in the Western Hemisphere.  The Iroquois had something similar; a pictograph arrangement in which they carved images into large wooden cylinders called “Condolence Canes.”

The 19th Cherokee syllabary was created primarily by Sequoyah, who was born of a Cherokee mother and a White father in Tennessee in the 1770s.  Sequoyah was also known by the name George Gist, a legacy of his father.  He grew up with his mother, however, and acquired the traditional Cherokee ways and customs.  He was a hunter, fur trader and skilled silver craftsman who never learned to speak, read, or write English.  But, he was still fascinated by the ability of some Whites to read written words.  His obsession led him to begin work on a written Cherokee language, which often earned him the ire and mockery of his Indian contemporaries; some of whom accused him of practicing witchcraft.

Sequoyah persisted, however, and eventually developed 85 characters that represent all the combination of vowel and consonant sounds that form the Cherokee language.  In 1812, he first demonstrated his system before a group of Cherokee tribal elders.  Despite previous trepidation, the elders approved of Sequoyah’s results and formally authorized the syllabary.

In 1827, the Cherokee Council appropriated funding for the establishment of a national newspaper.  Early the following year, the hand press and syllabary characters in type were shipped to the capital of the Cherokee Nation, New Echota.  The inaugural issue of the newspaper, “Tsa la gi Tsu lehisanunhi,” or “Cherokee Phoenix,” printed in parallel columns in Cherokee and English appeared on February 21, 1828.  It was the first Indian newspaper published in the United States.

One of the challenges of integrating Cherokee into Gmail was translating more modern words that did not exist when the Cherokee Syllabary was composed.

“When Google decides to support a language, it’s not just about which ones have the largest number of speakers,” said Craig Cornelius, a Google software engineer.  “In order to do business around the world, we need to support languages with millions of speakers, such as Japanese, French or Arabic.”

This is a significant advancement, considering that – less than 100 years ago – many Native American children were taken from their birth homes and forbidden to speak their native languages in a futile attempt to “civilize,” or as I call it, “Europeanize” them.  Many Indigenous American languages either have gone extinct or are in danger of being obliterated.  Linguists estimate that 155 indigenous languages are still spoken in the United States, but that nearly 90% are moribund.

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How the Empire State Building Learned to Dance

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Shocked and Awed

Source.

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Fuzzy Math

Well, the U.S. has always wanted to be number 1 in something.

Source.

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Cliff Diving

“Obama’s proposals are not strong enough, per se, to undo the very large inequality increase the U.S. has experienced since the 1970s, particularly when it comes to the incomes at the very top.  To really make a dent, you would need to consider more radical policies.”

– Emmanuel Saez, University of California at Berkeley economist, in the Washington Post.

At the rate we’re going, with the partisan bitchery in Congress, it’ll take a few eons before economic conditions even out.  But hey – maybe the Mayan apocalypse will sort it all out for us before then!

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Attack of the Leftist Trolls

“The person’s posts are usually short and snarky, with reasonably correct spelling, grammar and punctuation, suggesting both intelligence and education.  The posts are on the edge of acceptability, with little or no profanity or vulgar language that would get the post flagged immediately.  The person has a high ratio of posts to the number of days on the site, suggesting he’s posting comments nearly full time and is getting paid to troll.  The person posts politely on progressive websites but nastily on conservative websites, using the same username and IP address.  The person’s posts are consistently belittling, rather than intelligent objections and points.  The person’s posts address a broad spectrum of topics rather than focusing on one or two subjects of particular interest.  The consistency is in the support of leftist policies and positions taken by the Obama administration.”

– Jerome Corsi, complaining that the Obama Administration is paying “trolls” to post comments on the World Net Daily web site.

I’m glad that Corsi – a devout birther who claims Obama is a Kenyan, Marxist, communist – appreciates my attention to grammar and punctuation.  I’m a writer and have an English degree, after all, so even if I piss off religious extremists, I don’t want them saying, ‘Hey, that’s loaded with grammar errors!  We can’t take this shit seriously!’

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Oh, Lord, please set that fire and kill as many as you can! Amen!

“Our prayers, part of our seven year campaign to re-Christianize the City of Springfield, have included an appeal to God to destroy the works of Satan in this city.  We have specifically included the strip clubs in these prayers.  Yesterday the three story Scores strip club on Worthington Street was completely obliterated in a gas explosion, right down to the ground.  I believe this was the hand of God at work in answer to our prayers.  We are giving Him all the glory and praise for this occurrence, since it is only by His power that any of our prayers can have any effect.”

– Pastor Scott Lively, of Scott Lively Ministries, on the explosion of a strip club in Springfield, Massachusetts on November 23.

A Massachusetts state fire official confirmed that the explosion was caused by a utility worker who accidentally punctured a gas line, after responding to reports of a gas leak in the area.  The explosion and ensuing fire injured 21 people, mostly firefighters.

Damn!  If his prayers were powerful enough to cause an explosion, imagine what would happen if he’d prayed to end hunger or something worthwhile.  The possibilities are endless!

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AP Discourages Usage of “Homophobia,” “Ethnic Cleansing”

In an update to their style guide for reporters, the Associated Press officially announced they will cease listing “homophobia,” “ethnic cleansing” and other terms in its Stylebook.

The update reads, in part:

Phobia – An irrational, uncontrollable fear, often a form of mental illness. Examples: acrophobia, a fear of heights, and claustrophobia, a fear of being in small, enclosed spaces.  Do not use in political or social contexts: homophobia, Islamophobia.

“Ethnic cleansing is a euphemism for pretty violent activities; a phobia is a psychiatric or medical term for a severe mental disorder.  Those terms have been used quite a bit in the past, and we don’t feel that’s quite accurate,” says AP Deputy Standards Editor Dave Minthorn.

The AP makes no suggestions for replacement terms.

George Weinberg, who coined the word “homophobia” in his 1972 book, Society and the Healthy Homosexual, does not approve of banning the term.

“I just want to go on record as disagreeing with the AP’s decision not to use ‘homophobia,’ the word.  I am a psychologist and author who coined the word a long time ago.  It made all the difference to City Councils and other people I spoke to.  It encapsulates a whole point of view and of feeling.  It was a hard-won word, as you can imagine.  It brought me some death threats.  Is homophobia always based on fear?  I thought so and still think so.  Maybe envy in some cases.  But that’s a psychological question.  Is every snarling dog afraid?  Probably yes.  But here it shouldn’t matter.  We have no other word for what we’re talking about, and this one is well established.  We use ‘freelance’ for writers who don’t throw lances anymore and who want to get paid for their work.  Fowler even allows us to mix what he called dead metaphors.  It seems curious that this word is getting such scrutiny, while words like triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13) hang around.”

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Fellow blogger “Travel Spirit” has compiled some great photos during her romp across the country in recent weeks, but this set really left me in awe. These are from a sand sculpting competition in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, where imaginations are allowed to run wild. Thanks, TS, for posting these!

Travel Spirit's avatarSherry Lachelle Travels

This year’s Fort Myers Beach Sand Sculpting Championship was amazing!  I’ve never attended a competition and it was exciting to see them up close.  Their site online said it started at 9:00am…so I arrived there about 8:45am…wanting to get early morning light for good photos.  Once there I found out it didn’t start until 10:00am…so I had an English muffin at the Holiday Inn (where the competition was) and took a walk on the beach…

There was a fence with black netting around the sculptures so you couldn’t see them…until you paid the $5.00 entrance fee.  Since I’m tall…I snuck one…

I was the first one through the entrance and was able to get some photos without people in them…

The event is for 10 days and began on Friday the 16th.  The judging took place on the 18th and I attended on Monday, the 19th.

This is the sculpture…

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