hicks

Below is an excerpt from a news story from Vernon, CT. I don't live in Vernon CT, but I've lived near it on and off since living in CT.

Vernon is a combination of the backwoodsy ruralities - the hallmark of the Northeastern section of CT - and a few miles of traffic filled, stripmall lined roads. They have a Price Chopper. There are some diners in Vernon. I feel this makes it distinct from other more truly rural places like Coventry or Ashford. The town of Vernon boasts one lane roads over covered bridges, a paucity of street lights, no sidewalks, and other elements which the residents of this foul state apparently consider quaint. Adding to the quaintness factor are the locals in Vernon, who do what they can to preserve that good old country feel. What makes a CT local? In part, it seems to be many generations of careful breeding, often among just a couple of families who can be traced back to some of the earliest settlers of the area. This results in as little brains as teeth among the lot of them and news items like this one from the Hartford Courant.

VERNON - — Armed with tin snips and fortified by an evening of drinking, a Vernon man led an assault on an electronic speed sign mounted to a utility pole near his South Street home early Sunday.

After noticing the sign missing, police launched a search and soon found its charred remains in a fire pit behind the home of Ben Gardiner.

Gardiner, 22, of 291 South St., admitted, police said, to taking out his anger on the sign after it flashed his speed as he arrived home about 1 a.m. Sunday.
...
Gardiner and friends took the sign to Gardiner's backyard and took turns running toward it to measure their speed. This apparently caused much delight, police said.

The fun lasted until a woman in the group suggested that the sign might have a tracking device or camera on it that could lead police to them. That caused the group to "to freak out," witnesses said. They decided to burn the sign in the fire pit.

Tuesday and fate

Well, no poetry for now. I'm off to get my resume critiqued and to fax a lab req to a doctor's office. The doctor forgot to sign it, I called on Friday, they were off for the holiday. I called yesterday, they said they'd fax a new (signed) req to the lab. I got home last night around 8:30 and found a message telling me the doctor can't remember what he ordered and asking me to please fax the req back to them.

Which causes me to wonder....have these people heard of cell phones? I know I put my cell phone number on the chart, even listed it as my primary number. "Ok, so I guess I'll be doing that blood draw Wednesday," I said to A____ after playing the message. A____ started to chuckle. "What?" I asked. He said "I just had an epiphany. What we consider 'Fate' is often the consequence of other people's stupidity."

Lacking

I was looking over my site meter this morning and seeing that a rather large number of people end up here by typing funny shit into a google image search. Up until now, it took them to a post about Archie McPhee and christmas shopping in 2005. Other than cjblue commenting that she almost bought me some of the very items I had been admiring at Archie McPhee's, there wasn't much remarkable about this post. Oh how disappointed these people must be. I'd like to know what the logic is that governs this selection of search terms.

Last night one of my neighbors kept propping open the outside door. This meant the heat was on full blast, roasting at least A____, me, and two of our other neighbors I ran into while I was closing the door a second time. It did occur to me that they could have been lying, but there are good, non-altruism assuming reasons for that being very unlikely. So some dipshit is propping the door. So what? Aside from being worried that our landlord will raise the rent (an issue for me and A____ who are no longer on a year lease), it means we will run out of oil faster. We've run out between 11 PM and about 1 or 2 AM the last few times. This is no fun because it means (a) NO ONE gets heat. If these idiots think their underheated apartment is cold now, imagine how much colder it will be when the whole building is freezing. (b) the oil line to the furnace will clog because it sucks up sediment from the low end of the oil tank. This happened the last time and the filter had been changed within the past year. Clogged means it won't run or won't run well.

I had occasion to wonder what kind of reasoning leads to the behavior of my neighbor last night. I decided that more than being purely self interested, it is childish. That is, self interest would say "I'm cold and I want to be warmer. I don't care if making myself warmer make others uncomfortable. My warmth is the most important thing." So then this person being warm should be a governing principle in the decision of how to act. While propping the door open on a cold night so the cold night air floods the hallway where the thermostat is will make the furnace run hard and might warm the colder apartments, it will also increase the chances of us running out of oil. No oil means NO heat, not simply insufficient heat. And that outcome would seem to be directly in opposition to the governing principle of maintaining warmth.

Ok so this is not supposed to be like some fucking greek philosopher style argument. My point is just that if you're trying to keep warm, wouldn't you think that you'd avoid doing thing which might make you warmer in the short run or for a limited set of times but which has the risk at ANY point of making you much, much colder?

That's the childish part. I don't mean childish like petulant, I mean childish like someone who hasn't mastered object permanence.

All of this is just a long way of me wondering What the Hell is Wrong with People?

dipshittery

Now I'm going to have to drive by this cheery holiday display and see what all the fuss is about.

Atheist Protests Location Of Tree
By David Owens
Courant Staff Writer
December 14, 2007
VERNON — The leader of the atheist organization that placed a display in Central Park in Rockville has asked town officials to move a Christmas tree placed in the park by town employees that partially obscures the atheist display.

Dennis P. Himes of Vernon, who is state director of American Atheists Inc., wrote a letter to Town Administrator Christopher Clark and sent copies to Mayor Jason L. McCoy and the press.

In the letter, Himes said he expected McCoy to order the tree be moved away from the atheists' display. He also asked that the workers who installed the tree be admonished.
...
The Connecticut Valley Atheists placed a three-sided display in Central Park on Dec. 1, after first applying to the town for a permit. Permits also were issued for placement of a creche and a menorah. Until this week, the atheists' display was the only one in the park. It is a three-sided structure that on two sides features an image of the twin towers of the World Trade Center and is framed by the words "Imagine No Religion."

The sign was a topic at Tuesday's town council meeting, where some speakers expressed anger that it was in the park.

Justin Schwarz of Brooklyn Street said the sign is offensive and told the council he plans to speak with a lawyer about trying to get it removed. Schwarz on Thursday said he views the sign as "hate speech."

"I find the 'Imagine No Religion' offensive, as a Christian and as a human being," Schwarz said Thursday. Schwarz said a friend who is an atheist apologized to him for the sign.

"This group, they're out to force their will upon other people at the wrong time of the year," he said.

The Rev. Raymond Grezel, pastor of the Rockville Church of the Nazarene, asked the town council Tuesday whether the atheists' display is "appropriate." He urged the council to examine the town's policy and consider the ramifications of allowing any group to display its views.

He raised the issue of a white supremacist organization placing a display in the park on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. McCoy said Thursday such a display would likely not pass muster.
...

I'm sure he had a point...

Man nearly dies downing vodka at airport
Wed Dec 12
Associate Press
BERLIN - A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing two pints of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new rules about carrying liquids aboard a plane, police said Wednesday.
...
New airport rules prohibit passengers from carrying larger quantities of liquid onto planes, and he was told at a security check he would have to either throw out the bottle of vodka or pay a fee to have his carry-on bag checked.

Instead, he chugged the vodka — and was quickly unable to stand or otherwise function, police said.

squats

7 pointers to lift a bad mood! was the line. It caught my eye since I'm apparently moving into a Saturn trine Uranus in my house of fuckheads transit. Or more precisely, my mood could use a boost or I'll end up in the tea room for sure.

I clicked on it. I wasn't expecting much, but I sure wasn't expecting this, from Tip #4: Research has found that doing squats and leg presses will greatly increase your natural production of the "youth hormone". Increased growth hormone translates to an elevated mood, among other physical benefits.

Since squats and leg presses are pretty much flat out for me on account of the now perpetually fucked up hip, I wonder if I'd get a similar mood boost from watching someone else do squats. Probably. I'll have to find some way to try it. Now I'm thinking...Who that I know can be manipulated into doing a squat for me, and how would this be best accomplished?

Oh and the paperwork was all shuffled successfully by me. The woman whose job it was said "I'll look for it" and then went home, leaving me with an extra cranky advisor and two more frantic emails from the person waiting for the fax.

ugh

I was contemplating what to ask for in terms of a teaching responsibility for the Fall semester. This news item may have made the decision for me.

Older siblings really are know-it-alls, study finds
By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff

Is big sister always telling you what's best? Does big brother seem to know it all?

Instead of stewing in resentment, maybe you should start listening when they dispense smart-alecky advice.

Turns out, they really are brighter than you, by and large.

A massive study by Norwegian scientists appearing in today's edition of the journal Science concludes that a child raised as the eldest has a higher intelligence quotient, on average, than younger siblings.

Stories based on this research study have been floating around. The non-scientific media claims keep growing, e.g., the headline has mutated from "families' eldest boys do best on tests" (with the buried caveat: "...the Norwegian analysis focused on men...") to "oldest children are smartest". I'm waiting for the headline which reads "Youngest Girls: Why Bother?"

When I see this sort of malarky science reporting being given high press value, it makes the notion of teaching methods to students who will have been exposed to it without innoculation seem quite a bit less enticing. Such articles are likely to enflame what are even now flickers of a will be research topic in the undergrad major come Fall, who if experience is to be any guide, will come in wanting to prove things liek their own personal take on a long standing family grudge about who's best.

The family ones are only a little less troublesome than the people who want to "prove" gender stereotypes. Oh here's a tip on that one. Tell the students if they want to use male/female they have to either (a) call the variable"sex" or (b) measure "gender" explicitly because they cannot conflate gender with sex. It does help, mostly I think because they don't like having to write the word "sex" over and over.

On the brights side, seeing this sort of article does make the notion of teaching intro somewhat more appealing. I feel like some kind of magpie, plucking up the garbage which has been given the glimmer of "science", and flying off to line my nest with it, or in this case, to add into my lesson plan on *scientific*literacy*.

I am armed with library access to many journals. (Hey, one nice thing about being an academic. I found one thing I still truly inherently enjoy Jay!) I can't wait to read the article on this "Massive study by Norwegian scientists". We can just be happy it wasn't "a team of Norwegian scientists". You just can't argue with the findings of a whole team of scientists, can you?

lynch the landlord?

My landlord started painting the kitchen in the apartment upstairs at midnight last night and finished at 3:30 AM. He was here last night too but finished much earlier.
When I went up at 1:45 to ask when he'd be done and to tell him his bumping and thumping around was keeping me up he whined "But your bedroom isn't under the kitchen!"

"It's intermittent noise...at 3:00 AM. That's the worst kind because everything else is quiet and that intermittent thudding and banging and scraping is so intrusive" my fella noted. Indeed.

Landlord will be back tonight. He told me this last night in his, what? excuse? Argument? He always debates. I'm not looking for tail between the legs obsequiousness. Just not a debate about how he didn't think he was making that much noise or where my bedroom is or that he "just opened a restaurant" The restaurant is relevant, he believes, because he's "been working 18 hour days. I don't want to be here at 2:00 AM either, but I have to. It's just economics."

Ok, so here's a guy who can barely manage this building - and he opens a restaurant. The upstairs apartment has stood empty for months - he's been losing rent for MONTHS while there are plenty of folks who'd have painted it for a song, during the day, months ago. And this is the way of doing things that makes the most sense. This let it stand empty for months then paint it at 2 AM shit.

Gay bomb

No, really. And not in like nineteen fifty-bigot, this was in 1994 according to this story.

For as long as it stays up, here's a blurb from network coverage on the Pentagon's Gay Bomb project.

bad parenting to go

You mean those shoes with rollers in them are dangerous? OMG, who'd have thought.

1,600 roller-shoe injuries reported
Accidents from trendy roller shoes are far more numerous than previously thought, contributing to roughly 1,600 emergency room visits last year, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday.

Those injuries were mostly in children, the target market for the wheeled shoes that send kids cruising down sidewalks, across playgrounds and through shopping mall crowds.
...
On Monday, a report in June's Pediatrics said 67 children were treated for roller-shoe injuries at a Dublin, Ireland hospital during a 10-week period last summer.

Heelys, the most popular brand, are sold in 70 countries. They're made by Carrollton, Texas-based Heelys Inc., which maintains that the shoes have a safer injury rate than skateboarding, inline skating and even swimming.

I wonder if anyone's counted up the injuries to adults who were trying to avoid injuring or being injured by a child in these shoes.

The popularity of these shoes is evidence of some seriously questionable parenting. When I see a kid on these things, it evokes in me a similar reaction as when I see a parent in the supermarket check out line letting his kid use an empty grocery cart for a death-(or at least serious injury)defying gymnastics routine. I am horrified, worried, and angry. With roller shoes in the mix, the stunt inclined child can cover more ground faster than ever before which means that, depending on the child's trajectory, coordination abilities, and general motor skill, I and other horrified bystanders can now easily become part of the neglected child's hijinx.

A diamond is disgusting

I think I just vomited in my mouth.

I was reading this article on a town in Massachusetts where a proposal has been made to double the excise tax on SUVs (which makes me chuckle) and I noticed an ad for a diamond seller/jeweler.

Around mother's day and valentine's day, all jewelers are diamond peddlers. One of these days I am going to make that diamond ad parody for the station, I swear.

For now I'll suffer with choking down the bile when I see something like this ad, which has text which starts with "This mother's day..." under a picture of a man being kissed on the lips by a woman. The man's head is the main focus of the frame with the woman who is planting one on him barely making it into the shot. We can see all of his big head but only the important part of hers (her face) as she holds the man's face in her manicured hands (no pigment in that polish though). That was enough to get the stomach churning. What launched it was the trademarked logo under the company name: "Every kiss begins with _____"
(where ______ is the name of the jewelry/diamond company)

Every on the closed lips oedipal kiss might indeed begin with them, however my completely non-oedipal smooches are non of their fucking business and began with a desire for human intimacy. Not feminine decoration bestowed on me by a man.

designer baby?

Another one from Reverse Paranoia. Or rather through. While looking up her link to the "rump presentation" story on the BBC online, I found this one.

Early baby sex test over the web baby gender

A test is being sold on the internet that enables parents to check the sex of their unborn baby at just six weeks.

The kit, sold by DNA Worldwide for £189, is controversial. Critics claim it may prompt parents to abort if they are unhappy with the test result.

The company rejected these claims, saying the early results, obtained from a finger-prick of blood, allow parents more time to plan for their baby.

Michaela Aston of the pro-life charity LIFE ...rejected the notion that the test would allow parents more time to plan for their baby's arrival, arguing that the needs of baby boys and girls were identical.

The saying "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" comes to mind regarding that last line.

It just kills me that the company could even think that the justification of needing more time to plan for the sex of a baby would wash with anyone. I mean, obviously they suck, but consider what it says about the public that the company (a) exists and (b) could use this defense for their existence.

They're exploiting an attitude which is already prevalent. Granted, they are probably stretching it a bit - I mean even if some loser is planning on having extremely gendered baby gear, does she really need to have it 1 and 1/2 months into her pregnancy when she's not even sure if her body's going to keep the little womb-booger or not?


Oh, relatedly - I just ran across the nursery rhyme "Monday's child..." (elsewhere but here's a non-obnoxious link). Perhaps intolerant gay hating would be parents should try to postpone delivery to after Sunday since according to the rhyme, Sunday's child is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

Destined to be "good and gay"? Check here.

anachronism

From today's headlines:
Socialite Anne Bass was one of two people injured during an armed break-in at her Litchfield County estate, state police said.

I had no idea the word "socialite" was still used. I could imagine it being used in a completely sarcastic sense but not as a sincere description of a person. And what shocks me most is that I live in a state where there are people who are apparently best described as "socialites".

Good, bad, and ugly

Today's email.

Good: "The Spring fellowship checks are here! Come pick yours up." I never get a fellowship, didn't apply for one, wasn't told I'd have one, and generally assume I just don't get them. I wrote back and confirmed it though. I do indeed have a fellowship check. Whether it is meant for Spring or Summer is anyone's guess (this is how our department works) but hey, free money. So yeeha for me.

Bad: "There is no longer pre-reimbursement for the cost of your airfare." That was from a message about travel funding for grads. There are two or three bad things about this. One is that it makes it sound as if we all get any imbursement at all for travel. That is not true. Only some people get it, and then only some of the time. The parameters are often murky thus if you wish to travel to a conference, you need to pretty much be able to swallow all of the cost yourself lest you end up with a bill you can't afford and which there are no funds to cover even in part. Two is that anyone who will get money for airfare now has to wait until they get back, with a boarding pass, to get reimbursed for the cost. Grads have so little money that this might make the whole thing cost prohibitive even if there is money available. Three is the word "Pre-reimbursement" - which is nearly as annoying as the word "irregardless".

Ugly: My fella A___ inquired about a job as grad coordinator for one of our department's more popular courses. This job would entail running the TA meetings, helping get shit done, pretty much all the nuts and bolts of supporting TAs in a thankless and over-burdened job for a class which has far too much material and product for the time allotted (on the undergrad and grad side of things). My fella wanted to do it because as a TA for this class, he's seen a lot of things he thinks could be improved with a few measures or changes. He's worked as a TA for the class, worked as a GA for a university department which supports the class (it's a writing class, he worked for the writing people developing measures and evaluations of the efficacy of writing training, teaching, and learning in the class). And he's spoken with faculty who administer the course (mostly in name) about the class. So he applied. Makes sense. And he got an email today from the faculty member in charge of the course saying he could not have the position since it was apparent he wanted to "take control" of the entire course.

A lesson in all of these: Don't ask, don't speak, sink into the background as much as possible, and put yourself and everything you have out on a way over extended limb and ye may be rewarded. Make any kind of noise whatsoever or have the audacity to ask for something in advance and ye shall be spanked.

frickin' laser beams

Is it too much to ask for? Apparently not.

Michael Jackson is in discussions about creating a 50-foot robotic replica of himself to roam the Las Vegas desert, according to reports....On the subject of the robot, [Mr. Jackson] continued: "It would be in the desert sands. Laser beams would shoot out of it so it would be the first thing people flying in would see."

While I've found myself much less enchanted with South Park these days (ok, these years), this seems to beg at least a nod on such a show. Actually, it might be too much to parody. I mean, how do you make something this silly that much more silly? Seems like it's pretty close to the upper limit on silly already.

tea bag fuck up

I don't adhere to a whole lot of beauty product. I have stuff, but in general I consider all but a basic moisterizer and a face cleanser which a dermatologist insisted I use (because the regular shit was ripping up my face) more or less dispensable.

So I don't have eye cream, firming gels, exfoliants, royal anything that came out of a bee's ass, lip venom, lightening creams, darkening sprays, and so on.

If I'm wanting to exfoliate or tighten my pores or whathaveyou, I am as likely to make something out of ingredients in my house as I am to buy a product. Usually the results are innocuous if not better than what I'd get with a $50 wee bottle of synthetic goop.

That said, this evening as I was washing my face I happened to remember a completely terrible outcome of a home "beauty aid". It involved tea bags.

You know the classic cucumber slices on the eyes, hair in rollers, mud mask look? Have you ever wondered about the cucumbers? They are supposed to reduce puffiness. Well, there is another version of that putting things on your eyes to reduce puffiness trick which calls for tea bags.

Many years ago when I was living in Michigan, I developed a seasonal allergy. It involved my eyes pretty much exclusively. They'd puff up so bad they were practically swollen shut every morning for a few weeks in the late summer. Having never had seasonal allergies, it took me some time to realize this was what was going on. In the meantime, I was just stuck with puffy sore eyes. I thought "Oh I read something about putting tea bags on your eyes when they are puffy" and I promptly got some tea bags cooking. I let them cool off, then applied them to my eyes.

After a short time I took them off and looked in the mirror to discover bruise-like rings around both of my eyes. No, they weren't tea dyed. They were covered in dark purple-red bruising. I showed my (now ex) husband, Dr. Flounder. He was horrified and amused, but could offer no explanation. "My god, people are going to think I hit you!" he exclaimed. Ah Bob was a sensitive soul.

It didn't take long for the bruising to go away. It's possible a different tea wouldn't do that but you know, I'm just not planning to go there again.

So I'm wondering. Anyone ever heard of this happening ever? Possible explanations will be entertained. Post them in the comments section.

Charity

I saw this in the news about a university I went to for three years before deciding I could grow up more cheaply outside of college:

PROVIDENCE, R.I.
A legal battle continues over the naming rights and funding for the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University.
Rhode Island philanthropist Alan Shawn Feinstein filed a lawsuit in 2003 in the U.S. District Court alleging the center's director, J. Larry Brown, breached a contract by denying him the right to put his name on the center....

Feinstein told The Providence Journal it was important to have his name on the facility because anonymous donations encourage no one to follow suit.

"If you make a donation and a name is not connected with it, people are not going to be moved to give a donation, but if it's someone they know and like who gave money, then they may be moved to give money, too," Feinstein said. "So modesty does not always work well when it comes to charity."

Personally, I couldn't disagree more. Here are two instances of anonymous charity which are not even remotely dulled by the fact that they are anonymous.
- Last year's donation of $100 million to Yale's Music School. According to ABC News, this donation will make advanced music education (at Yale) free beginning in 06-07.

- "The Kalamazoo Promise". This is a program which will provide four year tuition scholarships to students from the Kalamazoo public school system who will attend any public university or college in Michigan. According to the Kalamazoo entry at Wikipedia, the program is sponsored by private donations from several anonymous individuals.

Mr. Feinstien knocked "modesty" in defending his lawsuit against the people he once thought worthy of his money. To me, that modesty is a very large part of what made the Yale and Kalamazoo donations so fucking amazing.

Then again, I don't have a zillion dollars. I don't know what it's like to have friends who have a zillion and one dollars and who, because they made more named charitable donations than I did this month, get to dock most of their yatchs in the best places at the marina and jeer at me over the buffet at the country club. That could be really difficult to deal with.

Vice president showers man with itty bitty harmless pellets

According to today's follow up in the AP, the poor bastard Cheney shot is back in the ICU after having a heart attack from bird shot near or in his heart. Specifically, The shot was either touching or embedded in the heart muscle near the top chambers, called the atria, officials said.

Earlier in the story, it was noted that Hospital officials said they were not concerned about the six to 200 other pieces of birdshot that might still be lodged in Whittington's body. Cheney was using 7 1/2 shot from a 28-gauge shotgun. Shotgun pellets are typically made of steel or lead; the pellets in 7 1/2 shot are just under a tenth of an inch in diameter.
See, there's nothing at all to worry about. The doctors aren't worried. And why should they be? The vice president merely spritzed this fellow with a light dusting of quite small bits, well, specks really. Barely more than motes in fact.