And Now, For Something Completely Different

A Samurai cutting an 80 mph fastball in half:

Video won’t embed, sorry.

 

 

So Long, and Thanks for All the Clicks

I had an epiphany this week. Maybe it was a Zoloft. No, definitely an epiphany.

I don’t enjoy the internet.

Odd, for someone who has enjoyed writing here, commenting at other sites, and promising to defend the First Amendment “over my dead keyboard.”  I’m just not enjoying any of it any more.

I don’t even like Google. If you asked me a dozen years ago would I like to have the answer to any question within seconds, but I’d have to let some company compile all the questions I’d asked…I would have chosen to keep my questions to myself. That’s where we are.

Of course the internet is a great tool. It’s been fun. I’m taking a break.

A couple of years ago I started writing this blog immediately after someone told me to mind my own business. In my opinion, the last few years have shown that I’m not intimidated. My decision has nothing to do with that controversy. I’m not making a break from the people like John Hoge who have been a part of the online Team Kimberlin issue.

In about a week, I’m limiting my internet to the bare minimum, work-related content. I’m deleting my email, erasing all this here, and refusing to touch Google, Facebook and the rest…at least for the next 6 months. I’m going on an internet diet. Maybe a fast.

My plan is to read books, work on some fiction writing I’ve wanted to do and complete some professional development.  I want to be a Reading Specialist, and secure Board Certification as a Special Educator. These things take focus, and as long as interesting ideas are floating around on the ‘net…within a few clicks…I don’t think I can do them.

Many thanks to John Hoge, David Edgren, Aaron Walker, MJ, Gus Bailey and Sarah Palmer for inspiration. Thanks also to Paul Krendler, whoever he is. Thanks to the hundreds of internet friends and the thousands of readers whose paths I have crossed.  So long.

 

You Can’t Take it Away

Benjamin R. Dierker in The Federalist:

In a properly functioning America like the Founders envisioned, a repeal of the Second Amendment would be virtually meaningless. The right existed already; the Constitution merely secures it. Unfortunately, our society has loosened its grasp on natural rights philosophy and devolved into dependency on government-sanctioned rules. Today, however, even unambiguous text is under scrutiny by Democrats as prominent as former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

Same thing for my right to free speech and religion. They are to some extent protected by our government, but not granted by our government. Do Saudis and North Koreans have less of a free speech and religious choice right? No.

It used to be that the left cared about human rights everywhere. Now, not so much.

 

The Pope Has Never Worked in Special Education

Drudge.

Apparently lost souls simply disappear. Makes as much sense as eternal damnation.

 

In Order to Develop a Theory, We’ll Need to Find Experienced Researchers

A theory of jerks…

Picture the world through the eyes of the jerk. The line of people in the post office is a mass of unimportant fools; it’s a felt injustice that you must wait while they bumble with their requests. The flight attendant is not a potentially interesting person with her own cares and struggles but instead the most available face of a corporation that stupidly insists you shut your phone. Custodians and secretaries are lazy complainers who rightly get the scut work. The person who disagrees with you at the staff meeting is an idiot to be shot down. Entering a subway is an exercise in nudging past the dumb schmoes.

We need a theory of jerks. We need such a theory because, first, it can help us achieve a calm, clinical understanding when confronting such a creature in the wild.

Read more here.

I believe I have encountered jerks. It is not a mental illness, so much as a personality quirk. Folks who are smarter, wittier and more talented — though their own personal outcomes don’t show it.

Why?

They’ve been kept down. Ignored. Mocked by their lesser beings. Thwarted at every crossroad. They are so convinced of their greatness, or wisdom, that they don’t bother to challenge themselves academically. lest they explore their weaknesses.

The way I avoid being one is by constantly gut-checking. Am I really doing what I should at work or at home? Was I polite today? What do my friends say when I relate true stories of interactions with waitresses, custodians and bosses.

Do I complain, or work to improve things? Is my way the only way? Have I ever written an email or Tweet to defend myself after the boss chews me out? Do I have the need to be correct?Do I think I’m surrounded by idiots? Or just people who value different things?

Have I ever accused someone, or made a big deal over something I myself am guilty of?

Jerkology is a wide open field, though I know folks who have experience enough of it to have advanced degrees. Please. Discuss.

“The UK Today” by a Top Ace of Spades Columnist

From Ace:

 

 

“So Great Britain is rapidly turning into a surveillance state that would make old Joe Stalin green with envy. You can actually go to jail there for posting a disparaging comment on Facebook. Monty Python would be in jail for some of their comedy skits. Meanwhile acid attacks are a daily occurrence and law enforcement is doing everything in its power not to notice the rape gangs that have victimized young girls by the thousands. All in the name of not being racist. I keeping waiting for enough Brits to finally say ‘enough is enough’, and straighten out their priorities but the boiling point never seems to be reached. So it looks like it’s going to be ‘Fail, Britannia’ for the foreseeable future.”

Not just acid:

In the UK and Wales, there were 37,443 knife attacks in the 12 months ending Sept. 2017. That’s a 21% increase.

And about those rape gangs:

Grooming gangs abused more than 700 women and girls around Newcastle after police appeared to punish victims

From the article:

…the perpetrators [17 men, one woman] came from a diverse range of backgrounds including Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, Iranian, Iraqi, Kurdish, Turkish, Albanian and Eastern European.

…and English? Scottish? No?

My Chickens Have Walked Away

I don’t know why.

This morning we found an egg on the deck. So, we got that. In the kitchen, we have four bantam chicks under a heat lamp. 

Thus ends the Artisan Craft Blog Farm Report. Tune in next weekend for an update.

In the meantime, enjoy fine writing at these excellent blogs:

• Allergic to Bull

• The Other McCain

• Thinking Man’s Zombie

• Billy Sez

• Hogewash!

 

I Have Organized a Walkout at My School

4:30 sharp. Every teacher. Gone.

The students organized their own walkout around 3:15. It was peaceful. Eventually.

I Hate You, Internet 2018

Update: My crazy ex-girlfriend (that’s what I call my wife now) has been illegally accessing my data on Facebook. She knows everything!

On Ace:

 

 

For this,…

Everything is illegal, or soon will be.

Vermont Loon Watch

… we spend large sums of money on salaries for local legislators, state Poobahs and the Great Elite in DC to get wonderful results. We know you sleep more soundly knowing your street is protected from persons who might violate this ordinance.

A member of the local constabulary most likely has nothing better to do than patrol the area around such signs to deter and or capture miscreants violating said statute.

On the state and federal level the hue and cry over school shootings has our stalwart Overlords struggling to find the Grail to end forever the horrors of America’s misguided youth.
They came up with this, the Golden Nail to seal shut the lid to the past.

All this without having to pay them overtime.

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