"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
. . .but either someone(s?) in the turnpike authority of a certain state (again, no names, but the relevant initials are O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A) has a macabre sense of humor, or the turnpike authority needs a literate adult on staff, because signs in construction zones read:
“Don’t hit our workers
Pay $10,000 fine”
I tell ya, I don’t have the $10,000 to spare. I started thinking I should look for a worker to hit so I could avoid the fine. . . *heh*
Lovely Daughter commented today after Mother’s funeral, graveside service, and the funeral dinner at the church (at which neither she not I found anything to eat, though there was some palatable–just!–coffee) regarding my (successful!) efforts when she was a small girl (a talkative three year old? About that) to teach her to say to my mom, “Grandma, please take me to Chik-Fil-A.”
So, in honor of her grandmother, she had her lunch at. . . Chik-Fil-A.
🙂
I find my lips moving anyway.
Not to in any way belittle the suffering in SoCal, but the fires are almost as if California, the land, is saying, “Get off my lawn!”
I had a few “*sigh*” moments earlier today. Some early AM car “dwama” with my Wonder Woman’s car, ended up taking her to work & coming back to run errands/prep for tomorrow’s “funeral procession” (couple of hundred miles one way. . . and back), and. . . Pixel, our lil rescue kitty who’d gotten out almost a year ago during a week of the lowest temps in a year, was nowhere to be found. She usually responds to her name, and if not that to “cooing” in the manner she “coos” (yeh, like a dove, really). And where did she show up? Nowhere, mon frere. *sigh*
Now, take note that she has a coat that is effective camouflage against MANY backgrounds (think desert digicam but done really, really well. *heh*), so when I finally saw her, I realized I had looked there earlier and seen her w/o realizing it. Behind a chair, under a table, laying on a heating vent. She still doesn’t want to move from there.
*heh* At least she’s not out in the cold again.
Speaking of which–the cold that is–it was a wee tad nippy this AM here at TWC Central. Car reported 16°F in our driveway, but at about 14′ elevation (up the lil hill leading out of our neighborhood), it reported 18°F, prompting my Wonder Woman to say, “Looks like we’re headed the right direction.” Except. By the time we got to the bottoms ~3/4 mile away, the car reported 14°F. . . and moved down from there as we climbed the long hill to the interstate.
But, never fear! By the time we got to the “Greater Wally World Metro Area” where her MTW school is located (pop 295 when the area recently annexed by a wee village in order to have the county’s WallyWorld included in its borders. Closer to 100 for the village proper), the reported temp was all the way up to 18°F again! Downtown “Greater Wally World Metro Area” was on fire, man!
Mid-morning, temps are a toasty 39°F here at TWC Central, now. Nice. Thank heavens for Globull Warmening.
Any time I see “[Whatever]-splaining” used by someone to dismiss an argument, I know the person using the term is really saying, “I don’t have an argument, and I just don’t want to listen, so I’ll use this nonsense term instead of putting my fingers in my ears and chanting, ‘la-la-la-la. . .’ and maybe the horrible person using facts and reason will just go away and leave me with my chosen, ignorant opinions.”
At that point, I realize that the only proper response is raucous mocking.
And that, dear reader, is how one uses a “Splainsit Stick.”
Many folks bemoan the obviously divided state of our society, but that’s really just either a thoughtless dismay or a disingenuous appeal to rally around destructive values. Mankind (yes, I use the time-honored term; I am not a Child of Darkness–at least in that regard) has always been divided into Children of Light and Children of Darkness, always has been for all of recorded time. I prefer to view the obvious divisions now in plain view as clarifying a time to choose which side one is on: Light or Darkness.
If you should decide to choose Light, then recall also these things:
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”? Edmund Burke (in a letter addressed to Thomas Mercer).
And
“The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”
And
“What fellowship does light have with darkness?”
Division should be a Very Good Thing, but it depends on the children of Light not hiding that Light but shining it into the Darkness.
Lame. Of course, from available evidence (ballot box, successful entertainers, best selling novelists–I’m looking at you, Dan Brown–etc.), most people can’t (or refuse to) think well enough IRL to be _able_ to use math in ways that would enhance their lives. JMO, of course, but I’m right.
He’s always been a little hinky, but the “naughty-nice” list is an invasion of privacy that even the NSA would quail at.
As I recall it, when I was six, it was a relief when my eight-year-old sister explained that Santa Claus wasn’t real. Oh, I uttered the obligatory defenses, as I recall it, but I’d had my suspicions. . .
. . .but my sadness is selfish, all for me, really. Mother “graduated” this morning ~0845, and I know full well she is happy to be where she has wanted to be.`
94 years young, now.
So, a while back I began installing new laminate flooring on one floor of the house. It was planned (and purchased for) to cover the living room (where we really do “live”–spend most of our time), dining room, kitchen (with precautions against water damage), and two bedrooms. When I got to the hallway to the two bedrooms on this floor and pulled the carpet and padding, I discovered oak flooring underneath. Sadly, it would take too much work to reclaim it because the moron who installed the carpet glued down the padding! (In addition to stapling it to the oak flooring.)
#gagamaggot
But. . . when I got to the bedrooms, I discovered that the padding was apparently NOT glued down there. *shrugs* I dunno. Maybe the moron thought traffic in the hallway would cause the padding to move. Oh, the carpet pad is still stapled, which means a LOT of fiddly bits to carefully remove, but the flooring itself looks to be in really nice condition. So, removing the carpet and padding a bit at a time (makes removing it from the house easier, anyway) and getting the staples dealt with looks like it will give us back some nice hardwoood flooring we didn’t even know was there.
Oh, transition from the “bronzed acacia” look laminate to the oak flooring will be. . . interesting, but we decided we can live with that pretty easily. I’m using actual oak baseboard trim to make transition from the hallway to the bedrooms, and I decided to stain it “red oak”–different from both the laminate and the oak in the bedrooms. Why? Because the laminate is 3/8” “taller” than the oak floor. The trim I’m using to make transition with tapers down from 3/8”. The different oak stain will provide an almost subliminal cue to the transition in height, hopefully making the (very small) height differential marginally safer to navigate, kind of like those yellow/black warning strips for stairs and shallow ramps. *shrugs* We’ll see.
But then there’s the fact that we’ll be stuck with several hundred square feet of extra laminate. Oh, well. Maybe I will eventually end up doing a garage conversion. Really nice laminate on a workshop/crafts room. *heh*