Musings of the Chronologically Challenged™ Fourth Generation

 
HAPPY SAMHAIN - -

To all my Celtic friends, including those in Boston!

I had a really neat Halloween story to tell, but it was vetoed by the Chairman of the Board of Possums. (LOL) Really enjoyed the stories shared by blogging buddies Yorkie-lady and Chuckie-baby. But these left me with an 'attitude' of "why bother?" - no way I can one-up-man-ship them. And for really scarey, Bubba wins hands down!


And thinking ahead - - -

If anyone on your Christmas list is into Native American (art, books, clothing, misc gifts), check out http://www.nativecircle.com/redearth.html John Two-Hawks' Red Earth store. Some great stuff - all price ranges - don't miss the knives. And if you don't need the gifts, just listen to the awesome flute music!


posted by HCL at 3:57 PM

 
THE SOUTHERN WAY!

This is just too good not to share. Attention: Axis of Weevil: We've got it going in NC too!

Raleigh News and Observer
Thursday, October 24, 2002

Whipped in name game
By DENNIS ROGERS, Staff Writer

Elizabeth Dole may have spent the past 40 years away from North Carolina, but her sweet-as-pie social skills, honed by generations of Southern ladies, were not dulled by her sojourn with the Yankees.

What she did to Erskine Bowles at the beginning of Saturday night's debate was a rhetorical butt-whipping delivered by the reigning queen of the Steel Magnolia Sisterhood.

Just call me Elizabeth, she purred from behind the innocent smile of a Columbus County water moccasin. Then she stuck a sterling silver butter knife between that Charlotte frat boy's ribs with her sweet offer to "make it Liddy, as you have in your ads."

Call in the dogs and put out the fire, boys: This hunt's over.

Bowles, who looked as if he'd been told his fly was open at a Presbyterian funeral, bravely soldiered on, but his heart wasn't in it. He knew he had fallen into the velvet trap that has ensnared many an unwary Southern male.

It was a down-home diva moment. She's calling him "Erskine" rather than "Mr. Bowles," not because they have a first- name friendship, but to put him in his subordinate place. It is one step above calling him "Sonny Boy." It conjures up images of students and teachers. He's about one debate from calling her "Ma'am" and raising his hand to speak. Clearly, she's the Boss Hen in that roost.

Not that he has a choice. If he'd started off calling her "Elizabeth," she would have politely called him "Mr. Bowles," which would have made him look as if he were being rude to an older Southern woman. That is a hanging social offense in the tangled web of Southern white-glove manners. For a Southern man to even be perceived as being disrespectful to an older woman is considered trashy.

Nor could he have taken her up on her insincere offer to call her "Liddy." That immediately makes a connection with his nasty campaign ads that use her nickname. Everyone who has not been asleep for the past several months knows she actually hates being called "Liddy" by anyone other than childhood friends who have earned the privilege.

Had he called her "Liddy" on live television, she would likely have crawled over that lectern and smacked him upside the head with a can of the industrial-strength hair spray she keeps close at all times. Even her own campaign staff goes to great lengths to refer her as "Mrs. Dole" and never as "Elizabeth" or, God forbid, "Liddy."

She has him where she wants him now. He has become the diminutive "Erskine," while she is the dominant "Mrs. Dole."

It is dangerous to play your opponent's game on her own court, especially when she's so good at it, but little Erskine is in trouble.

He's got to go hard country, and I don't mean dropping his final "g's" like he's been doing to show he's a regular guy.

He must resort to the Southern verbal nuke that has laid low many a victim, the devastating "Bless her heart."

An example: "She has lived among Yankees so long she couldn't make a decent deviled egg with her mama's recipe in one hand and Southern Living in the other, bless her heart."

It is either that or, come recess, little Erskine can go play jump rope with the girls.

Columnist Dennis Rogers can be reached at 829-4750 or drogers@newsobserver.com.

(Send any comments for Mrs. Dole to indigoinsights@hotmail.com. I will be delighted to forward them to her.)


posted by HCL at 4:53 PM

 
NO BOYCOTT

So I did watch the show. And I judge for myself that it in no way glorified prison inmates, but did give insight into the control the inmates are under. Music does have sounds that soothe the savage (!) and apparently is a good influence on those who qualify (stringent regulations) for the bands. Another media overkill, I'd say. I should be old enough to hold my knee down, but I half way succumbed to the advance hullabaloo surrounding this issue.
posted by HCL at 11:38 PM

 
Your comments, if any, are welcome at indigoinsights@hotmail.com. I have not yet acquired the thickness of skin nor the metallic testicles to install a "Comments" link!!!
posted by HCL at 7:06 PM

 
VH-1 = TEEN IDOLS

It seems many of the observations/opinions I've been hearing on the VH-1 Prison Show are from those who probably have no teenage children, nor have ever watched VH-1 -- or both. I've seen comments such as "So what?", "Just don't watch the show.", "a frivolous subject", and other such inane comebacks.

But millions of teenagers will be watching this show - even if you don't. It will not be "frivolous" to them. It will be the epitome of "cool", the "bomb", and super "jiggy" to see prison inmates attain national attention with head banging "music". This is not the first, and will certainly not be the last, of VH-1's poor taste television. As far as I know, however, it is the first featuring (glorifying?) murderers, rapists, and/or perhaps pedaphiles.

And no, I'm not an ultra-conservative Republican whacko. Just a concerned adult familiar with the teenage mind set of our times. Teens find their idols/heroes in strange places -- preferably in areas that turn off adults (their parents). e.g., Charles Manson. Anyone notice how many teens wear t-shirts with his picture emblazoned?

This is not a liberal/conservative issue, nor an Amendment issue. ANY parent of ANY political party should be uncomfortable with their children finding role models in prisons. Yes, it remains to be seen if the show has any redeeming qualities - such as the referenced "Scared Straight." I intend to watch the show to judge for myself, then decide whether a sponsor boycott would be appropriate for me. I hope all parents will do the same.

posted by HCL at 6:29 PM

 
A DEMOCRAT SPEAKS

I really want to share this with the few bloggers who stop by, but so far no luck in getting it linked. Trying once more.
posted by HCL at 6:58 PM

 
E-MAIL

Received the following email this morning. Thought it worth sharing.

HOW DID WE SURVIVE?

Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have.

As children we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

Our baby cribs were painted with bright colored lead based paint. We often chewed on the crib, ingesting the paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes we had no helmets.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day.

We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda, but we were never overweight; we were always outside playing.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade.

That generation produced some of the greatest risk-takers and problem solvers. We had freedom, failure, success, and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.





posted by HCL at 6:56 AM

 
"GOOD HOUSEWIFE" ???

Yeah, right!!! Take it from one who burned her bra during the Korean War -- way ahead of the Nam burners -- this piece referred to by Possum Man via Snopes and Nate (Nice to meet you, Nate) is pure, unadulterated bovine scatology (thank you General Swartzkopf!). I did, in fact, take high school Home Economics in 1950. While there were no such "10-points" to becoming a good wife in my textbook, I don't doubt that such a page could have been in some textbook, somewhere. These would have been ten points that my mother would have attempted to teach me - but it was wishful thinking on her part that I would conform to the "10-points" of her bridal days!!! I adamantly protest and disagree with the idea that an entire generation of wives (mine!) were automatons whose remote controls were held by their husbands. Yes, there are wives even today who could be stereotyped as docile sheep also. Some of them are even friends of mine. But all the way back to Cleopatra there have been females who were self-reliant as well as sultry; independent thinkers as well as diplomats; iron-fists in velvet gloves, if you will. Whoever is responsible for this urban legend is obviously a mysogynistic, chauvanist pig, and I would suggest that he and his entire generation of males be thought of as ignorant gladiators. Or pitied because they never found an equal and interesting female partner.

Whew! Feel better now.

posted by HCL at 5:29 PM

 


R & R

Whatever R & R means in the military (I've heard several versions), in this senior's vernacular it's "Revive & Restore". In fact, "R & R Monday" is getting to be standard for this household - even for the dog! And neither of us is a whit guilty for lying around the house all day in a completely non-productive mode. We earned it in a total-activity four-day weekend.

Blog Mine

Sometimes, especially on R & R Monday (LOL), since I'm not using the day for anything else, I think I may as well go a-blogging. As stated in another blog, however, what little creative fecundity that surfaces is usually in the witching hour. You know that time after going to bed when you try to turn the power off the mental keyboard, and just before the light goes out, the Mother of All Blogs flashes on the mental monitor? In this circumstance, I have two choices: manually turn out the light and ignore the epiphany, or go to the computer and stay up a couple of more hours. Last night I chose the first option. Today I recall enough of it to report this: My #2 Grandson gave me a George Carlin calendar for Christmas 2001 - the kind with a tear-off page for each day. Each page has a quote from George and I have really enjoyed it throughout the year. It finally dawned on me what wonderful material I have been tearing off and throwing away every day of 2002!! George Carlin is a gold mine of blog material to work with during a hopeless writer's block. This one alone could generate an entire page (hint to Terry):
"Suggested bumper sticker: We Are the Proud Parents of a Child Whose Self-Esteem is Sufficient that He Doesn't Need Us Advertising His Minor Scholastic Achievements on the Bumper of Our Car."
posted by HCL at 9:22 PM