North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un has launched a new video featuring him overseeing the launch of his nation’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) – thus proving Vladimir Putin is not the Eastern Hemisphere’s only raving lunatic.
Retro Quote – Walt Whitman
Filed under History
Word of the Week – March 26, 2022
Enchiridion [eng-kə-RID-ee-ən]
Noun
Greek, 16th century
A book containing essential information on a subject. The ancient Greek ἐγχειρίδιος means “fitting in the hand”. An “enchiridion” came into English in the 16th century as a portable, hand-sized guidebook. The modern handbook has its roots in the enchiridion (related to the Greek word for “hand”), traditionally a small, portable manual widely used from early Greece through to the 19th century. Enchiridons were designed to keep useful information near at hand, including religious teachings, ethical advice, the rules of poetry, guidance for soldiers, and means of understanding the law.
Example: My decades of personal journals comprise an enchiridion of my ambitions, hopes and fears.
Filed under News
Tweet of the Week – March 26, 2022
Kim Mangone, a 2020 California congressional candidate, is sponsoring a number of billboards in Florida to counteract the state legislature’s HB 1557, Parental Rights in Education. Known colloquially as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, its primary purpose is to eliminate discussion of sexuality in schools.
Filed under News
Worst Quotes of the Week – March 26, 2022
“Do you agree…that babies are racist?”
Sen. Ted Cruz, to Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, repeatedly asking about her views on racism, children’s books and critical race theory (CRT)
He specifically asked if she agrees with a children’s book called “Anti-Racist Baby,” by Ibram X. Kendi, which is in the library at Georgetown Day School, a private school in Washington, D.C., at which Jackson was a board member. Cruz held up a copy of the book and described it as one of the “most stunning” taught at the school. He claimed it teaches children that babies are taught to be racist, not born racist, and that they are encouraged to admit if they have been racist and to talk about it.
In response, Jackson noted, “Georgetown Day School, just like the religious school that Justice [Amy Coney] Barrett was on the board of, is a private school.”
“On a scale of 1 to 10, how faithful would you say you are? Do you attend church regularly?”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, inquiring about Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s faith and how important it was to her
Jackson replied that, although faith played a big role in her life, she was reluctant to talk about it in detail because “I want the public to have confidence in my ability to separate out my personal views.” Jackson noted she is “Protestant, non-denominational”.
Graham conceded that judges could separate their religious beliefs with the way they rule. It must be highlighted, though, that Graham voted to confirm Jackson three times to other posts: her current seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a court considered second only to the U.S. Supreme Court; her previous seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; and her previous seat on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Filed under News
Best Quotes of the Week – March 26, 2022
“You are worthy. You are a great American. I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.”
Sen. Cory Booker, during Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Senate confirmation hearing
Booker chose to praise Jackson instead of asking her questions. Booker also railed against his Republican colleagues who highlighted specific cases from Jackson’s past. The senator referenced abolitionist Harriet Tubman and Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to serve as a federal judge in 1966, as role models in his life and who paved the way for Jackson’s historic path.
“That is the nature of a right. When there is a right, it means that there are limitations on regulation.”
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, in response to Sen. John Cornyn’s question whether a 2015 Supreme Court ruling establishing a right to same-sex marriage conflicts with the beliefs of some religions
Cornyn was referring to the High Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which compels states to recognize same-gender marriage under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“At some point, you have to follow the rules!”
Sen. Dick Durbin, to Sen. Ted Cruz, as the latter went beyond his time limit during the Jackson confirmation hearing
Frustrated with Durbin’s repeated gavel-banging, Cruz shouted, “You can bang it as loud as you want!”
“It shows considerable effort when somebody goes to that much trouble to create that many organizations to hide how much money they’ve spent to control the nominations process to the court.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, comparing the efforts of some conservative groups to the Republican Party’s recent attacks on progressive groups, such as Demand Justice, as well as Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
Demand Justice supports Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Whitehouse also specifically named The Federalist Society and Judicial Crisis Network among the conservative groups he claims encompass a vast network of secretive “dark money” groups that have played a major covert role in seating five of the Supreme Court’s current justices.
All told, he said, these groups have spent at least $400 million to help select and confirm Justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Filed under News
Finis
There are a number of things that terrify people: spiders, darkness, getting stranded on a desolate road in East Texas. But, in this modern age, one thing horrifies people more than seeing another Starbucks pop up in the neighborhood – your computer crashing. For decades we’ve been led to believe technology is our mechanical savior; it will make our lives easier and more productive at all times. And, to some extent, that’s true.
But when that dreaded “Blue Screen of Death” materializes, it’s worse than learning you need to shop again for homeowner’s insurance. That’s what happened to me recently, when my 11-year-old desktop PC apparently decided it had enough of me and my cyber antics and took its own life. It explains why I didn’t post anything last weekend. I try to be consistent. Of course, I tried to be consistent in pursuing my adult film career some 20 years ago – but obviously nobody had faith in my sexy technical writer persona.
Anyway…the old bastard died (the PC), and I was stranded. Fortunately, I still had my father’s desktop PC, and a long-time neighbor/friend helped me yank out the hard drive from mine and showed me how to install it temporarily into this other one. I still wasn’t able to pull any of my old data off of it, but I’m glad I back everything up onto a zip drive once a month.
So not all was lost.
All of my writings were on that zip drive, which – I guess to any writer – is one of those lifesaving moments. Kind of like realizing there is at least one place that still sells your favorite wine.
And a writer without their collection of stories is like…well, a porn star without lube!
Filed under Essays
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day 2022
Filed under News
Word of the Week – March 12, 2022
Corybantic
Adjective
Latin, 17th century
Wild; frenzied. Cybele, a goddess of nature from Greco-Roman mythology, had priests and attendants called “Corybants.” The term comes from the Greek “Korubantes.”
Example: Some of my stories appear corybantic upon initial reading, but there’s a reason behind the chaos.
Filed under News
Chief Writing Wolf 