Feeling and Thinking…versus Knowing

The Stupid-a-fication of Society


Suppose I said: “I’m hungry”

A fair enough utterance, I believe.

If you were standing around me and heard my complaint, you might be inclined to offer to dine with me. You might even offer to buy me a cheeseburger, or possibly a bowl of soup or some gumbo.

I'd say a hearty "Thank's so much."

Next, from that experience, you might then be inclined to “FEEL” like cooking for me tomorrow, because you might “THINK” that I’d be hungry again.

And you know what, you’d be RIGHT, except that I might also have already cooked something to eat or have gone somewhere like Wendy's for a bowl of chili or Chick Fillet for a biscuit.

And…

You would also be guilty of making assumptions.

You’d be FEELING like you KNEW what I was going to WANT and NEED, but YOU wouldn’t actually KNOW what I NEEDED or was FEELING because YOU weren’t ME.

Right?

Come on....ADMIT IT...

I think that is the situation that Israel is in today.

The entire population of a fairly recently created county populated by the the decendents of the survivors of one of the greatest genocides in history, is being restrained by the opinions of a bunch of stupid idiots residing in places like the United Nations, our domestic peacenicks, the partisan Democratic party, and various other third world countries so-called professional news organizations…people that “FEEL” like they “THINK” that they “KNOW” what to do if they were in Israel’s place.

The only problem is, that they’re not, and most of them never will be.

They drive their $70,000 cars into their $2,000,000 houses and chat with their children on their cell phones at soccer practice and never worry about anything but the Mexicans or the Negro’s working on the adjacent lawn peeing in the flower beds or possibly breaking in and stealing the DVD player and great grand mama’s diamond pendant.

Booo Hoooo Hooooooooooooooooo

I, on the other hand, personally give Israel and their population free rein to take their best shot at who ever and whomever they want to over the next few weeks--perhaps going to the extent of dropping a small nuclear weapon on a piece of uninhabited Syrian or Iranian desert—because I think that that action just might be the best and only ointment that will cure what ails them.

It will also go a long way toward shutting the hell up the idiots in Afghanistan, Iraq, and possibly Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

But then again, that’s just the opinion of one ever graying, ever balding, ever aging Redneck.

That would be none other than…Little old ME...and feel free to quote me on that...

English For Engineers

Or Is It More Likely...A Word For The Wise?


Have I ever mentioned that I have a love hate relationship with languages in general, but specifically with my own language—the ENGLISH language?

Dang it all…but what moron(s) or imbecile(s) made up these rules of spelling and grammar in the first place anyway?

“I” before “E”, except after “C”, or when it sound’s like Ayyyyyyy…Crap like that, you get the gist of my complaint.

How are you to keep up with it all, particularly when they keep changing the rules over time?

If English wasn’t bad enough, I was forced to take a year of Spanish back in high school and I hated every minute of it…concatenating verbs and such…

Why the heck should you make the VERB refer to the sex of the offender person performing the action in the first place?

Either THEY did THIS or THEY did THAT.

What ever was “did”, and who ever “did” it, it was still “done” in the end…weren’t wasn’t it?

In my book, tossing in a few “he’s” or “she’s” or “it’s” into the conversation should be good enough without having to modify the rest of the sentence along the way.

In college at Georgia Tech I managed to pretty much avoid English class because my engineering curriculum emphasized numbers over words, although the words that were used to describe the numbers and even the curriculum were sometimes beyond belief.

Things like Computational Fluid Dynamics, Magneto hydrodynamics, Thermodynamics…I have to admit that I was almost completely “dynamics out” by the end of my third year of college…and I haven’t even mentioned the ultimate dirty word…

C-A-L-C-U-L-U-S

Five quarters worth, at five quarter hours per quarter.

Then if that wasn’t enough, they hit you with something called “Differential Equations”, and if you didn’t get your Calculus studies right, you were absolutely DOOMED in “Diff Eq” as we liked to call it.

Then there were classes like Statics, Dynamics, Deformable Bodies, Heat Transfer, and Materials Science, all specifically designed to make you want to quit school and move back home to work at the local convenience store or “fillin’ station.” No matter what they called the class, when it was all said and done, after the second year it was all still…

C-A-L-C-U-L-U-S

You absolutely, positively, could not get away from the stuff.

I still have nightmares about Calculus and Calculus books.

Since that time, however, I have managed to make amends with the English language and the literature that is produced by its use.

Take this blog, for instance.

Instead of writing “Esto es mi blog, lo adora o lo sale”, I just pound out the words “This is my blog, love it or leave it” on my keyboard.

Seems simple enough today.

I’m finally pretty comfortable within my native verbiage, although I could be found dieing a slow death if it weren’t for spell-check in the old word processor.

I love to do Google searches to find the definitions of words that I missed by not going to graduate school or otherwise managed to bypass along the way in my technical education, and I’m intrigued with the idea that some languages don’t have direct translations for words or concepts (usually expressed by groups of words).

At the same time, words like LOVE in English have multiple translations in Latin and the other ancient and romantic languages.

Recently I’ve been publishing and emphasizing what I call “million dollar” words that expressed my opinion of various world events or our local “community theater companies” and "newspapers."

Instead of cursing at people, things, and organizations, my latest form of assault is to describe them with carefully chosen words…

Words which they don’t understand or know the meaning of.

You might have seen them here before…

Words like:


Feckless \FEK-lis\, adjective:
a. Ineffective; having no real worth or purpose.
b. Worthless; irresponsible; generally incompetent and ineffectual.


Obtuse \ob-tuse\, adjective:
a. lacking quickness of perception or intellect.
b. Characterized by a lack of intelligence or sensitivity: an obtuse remark.
c. Not distinctly felt: an obtuse pain.


Those are a couple of my current favorites.

That all said, I now come back to my original point—My "Word or Words of the Day."

This will be a semi-regular posting here on the blog for at least the short term and actually, instead of being “Word or Words of the Day,” it will more likely be “Word or Words of the WEEK.”

So now, if I may I have a Drum roll please....

This week’s "Word or Words of the Week"...................dddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

Non Sequitur \non SEQ u i tur\, noun:

a. An inference or conclusion that does not follow from the premises or evidence.
b. A statement that does not follow logically from what preceded it.


Here’s an excellent example of a Non Sequitur:

1. If A then B. (e.g. If I am in Tokyo, I am in Japan.)
2. Not A. (e.g. I am not in Tokyo.)
3. Therefore, not B. (e.g. Therefore, I am not in Japan.)

You see, even if the speaker is not in Tokyo, they could be anywhere else in Japan.

It is my assertion that many journalists and most politicians suffer from a bad case of Non Sequitur each and every day of their lives.

I also believe that many of our citizens that will be voting this week in the runoff elections suffer from this same form of mutated logic.

Barely anyone will vote in the runoffs, and when the 50% of the elligable voters that manage to drag themselves to the voting booth in November finally get there, they will already have let the wild eyed partisans and the idiots suffering from a bad case of "non sequitur" pick the candidates which are on the ballot.

I, personally, aspire to try to avoid that affliction.

Just in case you were wondering...

Houston...We have A Problem

Decisions About Elderly Drivers


I guess that by now most everyone has heard the story or read the headline about former Senator and Astronaut John Glynn and his wife being involved in an auto accident:

Former senator and astronaut John Glenn and his wife, Annie, were slightly injured in a traffic accident near Easton Town Center last night.

The crash happened at 11:14 p.m. on Morse Road near the ramp to I-270, Columbus police said....

Glenn was charged by police with failure to yield on a left turn, Butland said.

The two-car accident happened on Morse Road near a ramp to I-270. Amy Myers of New Albany, the driver of the other car, was not injured.

This story points out a situation that in the end will affect every individual and family in this country, and I think that the state governments should take the initiative and stop acquiescing to popular opinion and public sentiment.

JOHN GLYNN SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN OUT DRIVING AROUND AT 11:14 PM AT NIGHT, UNLESS HE COULD PASS AN ANNUAL VISION AND DRIVING TEST.

I don't give a diddly doo if he was qualified to strap himself into a Mercury space capsule bolted on top of a modified Air force Redstone Ballistic Missile and hurl around the planet in outer space a couple of times back in 1962, I guar-an-damn-tee you that things in the man's brain and body have changed a good deal in the past 44 years, and he twern't no spring chicken when he accomplished the aforementioned superman-like feat.

Let's face it folks...John Glenn is OLD.

Heck...come to think of it...I'm old, and with my mental attitude I just may start running around crashing my old Chevy Suburban into other people's cars on purpose if they don't straighten up and start driving better.

The media constantly laments the demise of teen drivers and people coming home at night from bars, but the reality is that, for many of our elderly friends and relatives, driving down the road at 8:00 AM or 11:30 PM is just as dangerous as you and me setting out from the local tavern after happy hour with a blood alcohol content of 0.15.

People that were wonderful, safe, courteous drivers for 50 years suddenly become a danger to themselves if not an outright menace on the roadways, particularly after the sun has set.

Just like a learners permit and other limitations on young drivers, I’d like to see the government work with families to save our seniors from themselves, and prevent the injury of the general public in the process.

I personally know how hard it is to tell your grandfather that he can’t be allowed to drive any more. Our family had to remove the wires from the distributor of my Grandpa Rushing’s 56’ Chevy Belair to get him off of the road in the early 1970’s.

I also had to help the family of a dear elderly friend revoke his driving privileges in the past year.

I know that it’s very hard—losing your independence—particularly in a country and a society that has placed the personal automobile on a pedestal and eliminated the public transportation systems that were built in the early parts of the past century when these same citizens were coming of age to drive.

Still, I think that the reality is, if you really care, you should get off of your rear end and verify the driving ability of your older family members at least several times each year.

Take a look at yourself and your kids while you’re at it, by the way…

As the old saying goes, the best offense is a good defense, and I believe that it’s better to stop the driving “offenses” before they occur, rather than spending time in a hospital or funeral home lamenting your own inaction.

Just a thought…

Saved From A Speedo

You Just Can’t make Stuff Like This Up…


OK…I’m CLOSE to declaring that I’ve seen EVERYTHING now, and maybe you will too after reading this Local6 story about the “rescue” of a dolphin having an “extra large” men’s Speedo bathing suit wrapped around its middle.

A bottle-nosed dolphin caught in a life-threatening extra large Speedo bathing suit off the coast of Sarasota, Fl, was found and the clothing was safely removed, according to Local 6 News.

Back in June, Marine biologist in Sarasota spotted the dolphin named Scrappy swimming around with the Speedo wrapped around his torso.

Biologist thought the swimwear would just slip off, but the Speedo was too tight.

First of all, I have to say that I think that it should be against Federal law to make “extra large” Speedo bathing suits.

Anyone else agree with me here?

The same should apply to ladies’ thongs and G-string bathing suits; and almost any other article of clothing intended to be worn in public that is both “extra large” and fits in a skin tight manner.

I think that those type of offenses should fall under a new category of what I call "impossible exposure" laws.

In addition, I think that they should hand out giant sheets of opaque plastic shrink wrap to the lifeguards so that if you are walking down the beach and you notice some 300 pound dude wandering around in a XXXL Speedo (looking like he’s got a Squirrel in there with him) or some giant pasty white chick flopping around in a size 24 G-String ensemble, you are required to point them out to the guy with the shrink wrap and the offending visage is immediately removed from the eyes of the already traumatized public.

I don’t even like looking at Speedo’s on trim little dudes competing in the Olympics or other swim competitions. Based on my own personal survey, most reasonable women ladies feel the same—at least in public.

God help us and protect us from the Europeans, however.

From my experience, they somehow think that a pot belly and a Speedo go nicely together.

I did a bunch of diving in the Caribbean back in the 1990’s and I always shuddered when I saw a party of Germans and French jumping on board our dive boat because you were guaranteed to see something you didn’t want to see (and often times couldn’t have previously imagined) while on board.

I personally, being of modest southern gentlemanly heritage, did own a Speedo bathing suit at that time, but it was not the bikini style and it was worn under my dive skin or wetsuit for the times when the changing of clothing was required in a semi-public venue.

On the other hand, it seemed that the dang foreigners were dead set on showing you everything that God gave them from their toes and butt crack to the top of their pointy little heads.

The Men were worse than most of the women, but it seemed that the uglier and more out of shape the woman was, the greater the odds of turning around to stow your mask and regulator and having some hideous image permanently burned into your mind and retinas that would haunt you for the rest of your life.

All I have to say is…come on people, cover that stuff up except possibly when you are in the privacy of your own bedroom, unless everyone has been warned and allowed to take a special class or sign a legal waiver of some sort.

Some of my personal experiences almost required counseling...

And while I'm at it, let me say that the same goes for all of you pudgy little teenaged and twenty something bitches girls that insist on wandering around in public with your mid-drift showing—injuring my eyes sporting your pot belly—just because you have a pierced bellybutton and/or a butterfly tattooed in the small of your back.

I'm proud to state emphatically that I don't want to see a roll of fish-belly white flesh on someone old enough to be my daughter or granddaughter, and if I had a son (which I don't) and he brought you to my home (with your pierced pot belly and tattooed torso) I would personally see to it that my manchild promptly entered the military with the next 48 hours.

Talk about fates worse than death...have some modesty and dignity, for Christ’s sake....AAAAAAaaaaaaHHHHHHhhhhhh!!!

Taking

a

big

breath.....

Finally, the Speedo wearing Dolphin news story shared this little titbit:

"I want to know whose Speedo's those are," a resident said. "That person needs to come forward".

Who is THAT moron, and why did the so-called journalist bother to quote the expulsion of air from their brainless head?

No you don’t want to know, dammit, because the son of a bitch would probably show up at the police station stark nekkid naked…let him suffer in the privacy of his own bathroom and leave the rest of us to our injured imaginations.

What the hell is the world coming to anyway???

I’m Eatin’ “Goober Peas”

…and I Want My Money Back


Consider with me for a moment, if you will, ladies and gentlemen, the humble Legume called the Peanut.

You know…the Peanut, of Peanut Butter fame.

I’m quite proud to tell you that I’m a Peter Pan man myself (smooth, not chunky) and you can have Skippy and Jiff and all of that expensive organic crap they sell for $8 a jar.

I actually think that I eat my own weight in Peter Pan Peanut Butter each year.

By the way, did you ever wonder who the heck named all the brands of peanut butter in the first place?

Skippy?

Jiff?

Peter Pan?

Why not Betty and Barney and Fred and Ethel Mertz...but I digress.

Could it have been someone like Walt Disney that’s responsible for the names on today's Peanut Butter jars?

Any way…forgetting the various processed versions, my topic this morning is the native pea, in its native pod.

One, two, three, sometimes four, and IF you’re really lucky—FIVE luscious blobs of fat, protein, and starch—all neatly prepackaged in a fiber shell that splits right down the middle when you press in between your fingers or crunch on it with your teeth.

Specifically, I’m talking about BOILED PEANUTS.

I made myself some yesterday, and they absolutely, positively, are horrible…but it’s not my fault.

I bought them in the grocery store, green, to cook on the stovetop; but after I had finished 24 hours of soaking, salting, seasoning, and lovingly tending to my ambrosia, I was aghast to find that not only were my peanuts “green,” but they were REAL green.

In fact, they weren’t completely ripe.

Gosh dang it.

You see, I’m a bit of a peanut connoisseur, having grown up in southern Alabama in a major peanut producing area, and spending summers on a farm that in it’s day produced hundreds of tons of peanuts.

In fact, there are peanuts either growing or being processed practically everywhere you could look around where I’m from in LA (Lower Alabama.)

There’s even a monument dating back to 1919, in the little nearby town of Enterprise, Alabama, dedicated to the Bowl Weevil—a little critter that forced the post Civil War southern farmers out of cotton business (in spite of Mr. whitney's Cotton Gin) and into crops like Peanuts and Soybeans.

It seems that back in the late 1800’s a black dude named George Washington Carver was convinced by another famous African American, Booker Taliaferro Washington, to come down to Tuskegee Institute and once there Mr. Washington gave Dr. Carver some cash, along with all the peanuts, soybeans, and sweet potatoes that he could handle.

We're not talking eating or snacking here either...

Massive research ensued.

When it was all said and done, there were thousands of new products and a number of US Patents issued as a result of his efforts.

I wish he’d (Dr. Carver) would somehow come back from his grave here this morning and fix MY peanuts.

Oh Well...It doesn't hurt to ask...

Here’s another thing about peanuts that many of my fellow ignorant city slicker southerners and most of you Yankees out there probably don’t know.

Peanuts are STRANGE plants.

They grow their stems and leaves and develope their blooms ABOVE ground, then the peanut plant turns around and somehow manages to dive the stems with the pollinated blossoms BACK INTO THE GROUND, where the peanut proceeds to develop like a carrot or potato.

You can take that little known fact with you to the TV show "Jeopardy" or go out and try to win some cash hanging around your favorite watering hole betting with ignoramuses that don't know peas beans about Peanut farming.

Heck...I’ve had doctors and lawyers and snake oil salesmen threaten to beat my brains out arguing about that fact…but it’s a FACT none the less…

All I know is that it looks like I cooked me the crappiest batch of boiled peanuts I’ve ever had tonight and...like I said earlier…I WANT MY MONEY BACK…ALL $4 WORTH..Dangitttt.

My Grandpa Rushing is probably turning over in his grave right now if he knew how much I paid for RAW peanuts…

UPDATE:

Ironically, if you look closely at the picture of Enterprise's Bowl Weevil monument, you'll notice that the marble statue is not actually holding the bronze Bowl Weevil insect...about 10 inches long...because it is a long standing tradition for various pranksters and high school kids to steel the "bowl Weevil " off of the top as a joke and hold it hostage.

I'm happy to report that when I last drove past a few weeks ago that the image of the bug was comfortably resting on it's perch atop the gothic maiden's vissage. I think that they had to make it a Felony or something to keep the bug in place for public viewing.

I can just hear the commentary of the times..."a spending a five hundred dolllllarssssss a building a monument to a gosh dang buuuuuugggggggg."

The descendants of those same people are complaining here in Brunswick today about "a spending thirty five THOUSAND dollars a carvin' on a stupid dang treeeee stumpppppp..."

Heh...

Finally...From the NY Times...

Something I Can Agree With


OpEd contributor Billy Shore writes a piece entitled "The Flags of Our Sons" in today's edition of the NY Times.

"They stood at the window between Gates 43 and 45 and watched as a full Marine honor guard marched up the tarmac, coming to attention between the plane and a silver military hearse. The unloading of their son’s coffin from the cargo hold was very slow, and every time someone inside the terminal noticed and stopped to stare, someone else noticed and did the same, and this kept happening until about 20 people stood in silence watching out the window...

Except for a handful of us standing frozen at a respectful distance from the window, the war and its carnage might as well have been on another planet. The disconnect between those who serve and those of us who are beneficiaries of their service has always felt great to me, but never greater than at that moment.

The mom and dad stepped away from the man in the T-shirt and to another window, still not touching, their movement synchronized by grief. They waited until the marine in charge came back up from the runway to escort them to a government vehicle. I went to my car and drove to work with no ambition for the day other than to be worthy."


A free registration with the website is required, but I think that you'll find it well worthwhile.

Stop by and take a read, if you will...

Random Thoughts & Cogitations

I Have Very Little To Say, So I Will Resist The Urge To Say Much More...


Although the old adage "If you can't say something nice, don't say nuthin' at all" rarely applies here on this blog, I have to admit that I'm a bit short on words these days.

It could be because my mind—at least the part of it that hasn't atrophied—has been occupied elsewhere recently.

Rather than following the political landscape and cheering the Israeli forces onward toward downtown Beirut, I’ve been doodling park layouts and designing amphitheaters.

Rather than wandering around the pool deck in the 100 degree heat, I’ve been E-mailing government officials asking questions about DUNS numbers and getting permission to be an AOR (Authorized Organizational Representative)…silly crap like that.

The good news is that tropical storm Chris is having a bit of trouble strengthening or even staying organized as a tropical system because of “tropospherical sheer resulting in an offset of the center of circulation from the convection boundary at flight levels…blaa blaa blaa”

I didn’t make that last statement up (except for the blaa blaa blaa part)—I got it in an e-mail from the NOAA web site. Regardless, everything is just peachy here on the Georgia coast in the middle of what was predicted to be a record hurricane season.

I noticed that the Hurricane forecasters somewhere out in Colorado just reduced their predictions when it comes to the total number of named storms and the number of severe hurricanes this season.

What I wonder is why do we let people in Colorado worry about hurricanes in the first place?

Could it be that maybe they are the only ones with enough sense to stay far, far away from the Atlantic and Gulf coast between May and October.

Then again, very few people freeze to death or are buried in avalanches here on St. Simons each winter…so I guess that I’d call the situation a commercial wash.

There’s lots of juicy stuff out there, just read the news y’all…click on some of my links and go over and see what the lawyers at Powerline or Captain Ed over at
Captains Quarters is up to these days.

I’ll try to wander back by and peck on the keyboard a little later if I see something worth commenting on.

Government Spending???

Playing in the Spoils of Institutional Raping, looting, and Pillaging


I have to admit that I can hardly face myself in the mirror these days.

Why?

Just Because.

Because I realize that I’m just another Bureaucratic Wannabe, caught sticking my hand out to grab some of the public dole.

“Arts Funding” is my drug, and my second “drug of choice” is something called Federal “Block Grants.”

I’m currently wallowing in the application for both right now.

It’s actually ridiculously easy to fathom the process, and you can do it electronically on line now rather than spending your time licking envelopes and pasting postage stamps.

Anyone need their roof replaced or a swimming pool in their back yard...I be 'da MAN.

Just In Case We Forgot Where We Are...

We're Almost Back In "The Cone Of Death"

Twenty Thousand Hits

Queue The Fireworks…


Well Folks, you actually did it.

What took my readers sixteen months beginning in August of 2004 to do, has now been done in slightly over seven months.

My hit counter here on this blog passed 10,000 visits on December 20th of 2005, and later today or early tomorrow I expect it to pass 20,000 hits (and over 1,060 individual postings.)

Now don’t get me wrong here, because I know bloggers that get 20,000 hits in one day, but they generally are selling something and most definitely paying for a hosting service and their blogs are loaded up with ads and pop-ups and stuff, but, here at “What I’d Liked to Have Said”…

All you get is just little old, hairy chested, ever graying, ever balding, pompas, arrogant, opinionated…

ME.

And this blog cost me nothing, except my time. And I find it to be a whole lot cheaper and infinitely more fun than therapy.

Thanks so much to my regular readers and commentors (all six of you), and I hope that some of the total strangers and accidental visitors will find something interesting and entertaining enough to make my humble piece of cyberspace a regular stop in your ramblings through the internet each week.

I am, therefore I blog…

It’s just that simple.