03.30.07

The down-side of unconditional love….

Posted in General, Not Really Sure at 4:44 pm by JB

Sometimes the one offering it is no longer able to function, and live a happy life.

I have flown to Memphis today with the express purpose of doing something I have dreaded for the better part of my life. My puppy, the sweet and wonderful Burnadette Prometheus Blazer, has had a wonderful 14-1/2 years, but she has gotten very feeble, and in the last two weeks has had seizures and now is basically immobile and frail.

She spent a few days at the vet and all her other organs are working fine, it seems, but she has some serious neuro control problems. So….

Tomorrow morning I will be standing in a clean room, with a metal table, and saying goodbye to the best friend I have ever had.

I know most people don’t care to hear things like that, and honestly neither do I…. but I needed to share.

I’ll post some pics and stuff in the coming days so you can know who I’m talking about. And I know it’s a silly request, but… keep my sisters and the rest in your prayers, if you would. I don’t think any of us realized how hard this was going to be. The upside is now Burney can go see my Pop and Grandmother, and my Jo, who she knew and loved dearly, and her Fee, who died very early, and all the other puppies in history who were loved and left us too early.

All dogs go to heaven, after all.

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03.17.07

Kiss Me, I’m Irish! (at least 1/8th)

Posted in General at 1:30 pm by JEG

Happy St. Patrick’s Day from TheTalkArena! Hope you all enjoy the “drinkin’ o’ the green!”

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03.14.07

Nobody Wants To See Your Butt!

Posted in General at 12:42 am by JEG

OK, I’m all in favor of “art.” I’ll admit, I’ve never been a big fan of museums, galleries, or sculpture gardens. But I have a healthy appreciation for the arts (music, in particular), and I’m generally a defender of artistic expression, even the otherwise blank pieces of canvass that have random splatterings of paint thrown at them from ten feet away. Not my thing, but who am I to decide what constitutes “art?”

Gotta draw the line somewhere, however. When a teacher decides to drop his trowsers and show his butt in the name of art, I have to strenuously object.

Aside from the intimacy of your marriage or your committed relationship (or your one-night-stand, if that’s your game), nobody wants to see your butt. It’s not a pretty thing. It’s not an artistic thing. Certainly, nobody wants to see your butt exposed to High-School kids in the name of “art.”

Yet here’s the latest outrage put forth by an educator:

A part-time Florida high school music teacher has run afoul of the school district because he is baring his bottom in a community theater production of “The Full Monty.”

I repeat, nobody wants to see your butt.

Like most weirdos, this teacher cites the inalienable right to bare all.

“For me it’s the principle of the thing, because I’m not letting anybody stifle my art (emphasis added),” said Brenner, a fledgling musical director, vocal coach and performer who teaches music and chorus at the high school.

Thanks, but PLEASE stifle!!!!

Some things are just barely offensive (pun definitely intended). Some are outright disgusting. Butts need to be covered. Hiding behind “art” doesn’t cover your butt!

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03.11.07

Yeah, we do things a bit differently here in Colorado…

Posted in Not Really Sure at 12:30 pm by JEG

And I thought that the well-preserved Adam Smith at King’s College was weird. This, however, shouldn’t surprise anyone, given that Nederland is just a quick jaunt up the canyon from Boulder!

My favorite from this story:

The Town Council immediately passed an ordinance making it illegal to store dead bodies on private property, but couldn’t make the law retroactive, which meant Mr. Morstoel was allowed to stay.
“He was grandfathered in,” Mr. Felkley deadpanned.

Weekend at Bernie’s comes to mind!

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03.08.07

Oooops

Posted in General, Television, Music, Who Cares ? at 9:41 am by JB

On that post earlier about American Idol…. I forgot about Carrie Underwood. She’s done pretty well.

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03.05.07

Not ready for prime time….

Posted in General, Media Morons at 2:25 am by JB

Joel Surnow, the wildly successful producer of 24 has started a new show on Fox News called The Half Hour Comedy Hour. Or something. He talks about it here.

It’s been on for three weeks, I think, and I’ve watched part of it every week. It opens with a…. staple ?…. of Rush Limbaugh as President and Ann Coulter as VP, and then goes into a news-cast type of satire situation, similar to Weekend Update on SNL or…. I dunno.

It’s just not funny. I have yet to laugh at anything they do. There have been a few amusing things, but nothing that is just laugh-out-loud funny.

The laughter is canned, the jokes just aren’t funny. There are dozens of very very funny conservatives. P.J. O’Rourke, for an easy example. Dennis Miller. Larry Miller, who writes for the Weekly Standard occasionally is a riot. And that’s the “comedian” list. Bill Bennett is funny. Jonah Goldberg is hilarious. One of the reasons “The Corner” at NRO is so widely read is because it is populated with some very funny folks.

This show just tries too hard, and as such it fails.

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10.11.06

Words to send a chill up your spine….

Posted in Not Really Sure at 4:27 pm by JB

From Fox News…. “US INTEL: No indication of terrorism”

Yeah….. ok. Not sure if the US intel community- sadly and sometiimes tragically- is the best place place to turn to for information.

For the record, at this moment I think this is probably an accident, but not exactly sure how that can happen. It’s not easy to crash into a building no matter how damaged the plane may be. But the facts aren’t in yet, and we’ll just have to see.

I guess my actual response would be “not a terrorist attack, but a lone-nut attack”. But the story is still young. If I had to guess, some private pilot wanted to take himself out and maybe a few others with him/her.

It does show a glaring hole in the net that should be over our cities, both in radar and military-response preparedness.

But it’s early at the moment. My gut tells me it’s intentional, but not an orchestrated attack… just some lone nut who wants to off himself and be forever famous.

UPDATE: And thank goodness, preliminary indications are that I am dramatically wrong, and it was just a terrible accident.

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