While it's true that I was too lazy to get out of bed Monday night to go out and watch the lunar eclipse, I did find a time-lapse video of the whole thing. If you'd like to watch it, the link is:
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More and more I have been stumbling across anecdotal reports of the current "Do not offend anyone" policy so prevalent in schools and other institutions and organizations. And this trend is not confined to the United States. Some of them are ridiculously unnecessary and many are downright stupid in my opinion. Some of them make a guy wonder if the term 'human intelligence' is not an outright oxymoron. Below is an example:
The parents of a Muslim boy who attends a secondary school in La Línea, Cadiz province, have reported their son's teacher for an incident in the boy’s geography class which the child said caused him offence as a Muslim.
The teacher, Jose Reyes Fernandez, with more than 20 years in the profession, was explaining to the class how the cold climate in Trevelez, Granada province, aided in the curing of the village’s most famous local product, jamon serrano. The boy told his teacher that hearing the word 'ham' in class was offensive to him because of his religion and asked his geography teacher to stop referring to the product which caused him offence.
El Mundo newspaper reports that the boy’s parents then reported the teacher to both the National Police and to the courts. They placed a denuncia against the teacher for psychological ill-treatment in the context of xenophobia and racism.
Read more here:
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Donald Harington said: "If you are destined to become a writer, you can't help it. If you can help it, you aren't destined to become a writer. The frustrations and disappointments, not even to mention the unspeakable loneliness, are too unbearable for anyone who doesn't have a deep sense of being unable to avoid writing."
I suppose that could be true. But how can one author know this to be true of other writers? One can observe other people throughout a long lifetime, but making a statement like that one seems to me to be setting one's self up as some kind of god like figure. To know the workings of one's own mind is nearly impossible, so knowing what or how another person thinks (even if seemingly revealed by that person) is ludicrous. And ludicrous means (to me) laughably absurd.
So many of the cockamamie conclusions we humans reach and so easily accept, upon observing the actions of other individuals, are truly bizarre. But, those are the kindling sticks of fired up storytelling. I have in mind The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in case you were wondering.
And no, I have not yet read any of Donald Harington's fiction. But I have two of his (01-cent used) books in my Amazon Shopping Cart at this moment. I'm still pondering upon the question of whether or not to make the purchase.
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I read a short, short-story a few days ago and I don't know what to think about it. It might be prophetic... or it might be merely mush-brained alarmist crap. I'm still not sure.
It is titled: Good Gaia Day
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Have you been hearing a lot lately about something called "Dark Matter?" Yeah? So have I. But until a few minutes ago I had no idea what it was. Now I know.
It's a body building supplement... in other words, it's not mysterious at all.
"Good Grief!"
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By the way... even at my age I can still be surprised. Here is an Christmas Card I received from an admirer. It was attached to an email message.
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The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.
--Anatole France
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