Better to have loved and lost?

You know the expression. One source traces it back to Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who may have cribbed it from St. Augustine.

But today it occurred to me upon hearing of the passing of Cathy Seipp, who left us this afternoon after 5 years of lung cancer. I never had the chance to meet her. But if her friends and their regard for her are in any way her measure then we've truly lost a treasure. Blessings to her daughter and the others who have lost far more than I.

What does it take to turn people into authoritarians?

The most annoying little kid I've ever run into always said "Why?" in response to anything anyone said. Inquisitiveness is fine, and if a kid is really interested in something he'll get as much of my time as I have. But this little pest really needed a chokechain. Mercifully he grew out of it. (I guess he would have had to escape it by the time he was a teen - by then he would have known everything and been telling all the rest of us "why").

Yeah, I suppose I'm getting older and crankier every year, and I'm either noticing things I didn't or reacting differently. Yet the world really has changed. Good grief, what kind of jerks have to sue a school district because they want to wear Tigger socks? Heaven forbid that she couldn't show "who she is" - the schools must be ruled by the whims of 14 year old girls and publicity-seeking attorneys.

I have a hint for you and your lawyer, sweetie. You won't be showing "who you are" until you stop wearing bottoms.

You might say that it's at least as silly to act as if permitting the changes would end civilization as we know it. If there were no need for any kind of dress code for schools I might agree, but this just shows that no matter what you might put in one, some jackass might take issue with it. Couldn't the judge who got this case sentence the girl to, say, write a twenty page single spaced report on good citizenship as opposed to being a narcissistic twit, and then to make a longhand copy of it for every one of her fellow students in the district?

Salespeople know that you want customers to say "yes". Crap like the above eventually forces us to start saying "no". And once we get started, the easier it becomes to be more restrictive. If we ever do become authoritarians, IMO it will have started in response to clowns like this who show no perspective or discretion.

Give 'em hell, George!

Which president was told by his father that it was a good thing that he wasn't born a girl, or else he'd have been knocked up all the time?

The answer?

Surprised? After recent events I'd think GWB would be the most popular guess. It might not be good policy to line up all the Dems in the House and Senate (and a few Reps too) and kick them all in the crotch, or to put Ann Coulter in charge of his PR, but he puts up with way too much crap without even a comment.

Another form of stupidity

An anti-smoking group called on the U.S. National Slavery Museum to return a donation from tobacco giant Philip Morris USA, saying the company targets children "for another form of slavery."

Just think - all those slaves ever had to do was break a habit. We had a war over that?