"Euphemism" is derived from two Greek Words "eu" (good) and "pheme" (speech).
As far as I can tell, we use them in several ways:
1. To soften a word or phrase where a harsher word or phrase would be, well, too harsh. "Passed Away" is a common one for this example, as we use it when people are at a vulnerable point in their life, having lost a loved one.
2. To lie to people about what you are doing by calling it exactly the opposite of what it is. Bush must have 5 or more people working on his euphemisms full-time "Operation Iraqi Freedom" means the opposite of what it is: "Kill as many Iraqis as we have to, to achieve our goals". Orwell called this "double-speak".
3. To soften a condition so as to pretend a person does not have that condition. "diferrently abled" means if you cannot walk and are chairbound, we do not have to talk about it and we can pretend that you are not.
4. To out-an-out go so far with positive thinking that it becomes a total farce. Today's Toronto Star quotes one from the British Teachers' Association. No more will children fail - they will simply be in a state of "deferred success". That beats out the best (worst) one ever, that was pointed out by George Carlin: Not "learning disabled" but "minimally exceptional". On my list for sometime, also British, is "positive disrimination" (that's always been right up there with "reverse sexism" or "white slavery"). Well the dear old Brits call garbage "dust" and reffered to the carnage of The Great War as "the unpleasantness".
Tom.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Monday, July 18, 2005
Another Hit
Anyone who's talked / e-mailed / messaged with me for more than 3o seconds over the past few years has heard me rave about The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. A new show that began in April is Pop-Cultured with Elvira Kurt (comedy channel) and anyone who loves Stewart will like this too. It's funny and delivers the same punches as Stewart, but from a Canadian perspective. She uses other performers, like Stewart, and, also like Stewart has a daily guest. (Also like Stewart I FF past the guest quite often).
Finally, I guess we all realized that sometimes the only thing worth watching on Saturday Night Live was "Weekend Update".
TF
Finally, I guess we all realized that sometimes the only thing worth watching on Saturday Night Live was "Weekend Update".
TF
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Celliquette
What :so now it's cellphones he's pissed with?
When I bought my first ever cell phone in 2004, I vowed to not do some things that I have seen others do with their cell phone. I won't even get into driving while chatting on one that isn't "hands free".
Some absurvations:
1. Why is it that the less interesting a conversation a person is having on a cell on a bus or in another enclosed public space, the longer it lasts. Also the louder it is. Polite people who take calls like "I'm on the train we're passing Mimico....6:20..ok.on the shelf above the fridge..k.bye" are wonderful people. Ones who "do business" on the train should all die miserable deaths...well not on the train right there....later..when they're alone.
2. I have seen teenage girls talk to each other on their phones when they are IN THE SAME PLACE - hope Mom and Dad have one of those unlimited plans or a second job (or a sound heart when they get open the bill).
3. A ringer does not need a sub-woofer. I'm not kidding: I've heard them that loud and with that much bass so you think some jackass is driving by in his car whose entire trunk is a subwoofer blaring hip hop.
4. If you are standing behind me and you start talking on your phone (with no ringer going off) out of the blue don't be suprised and give me a dirty look when I turn around and wonder, for all of a second and a half, if you are talking to me. I don't care if you are a gorgeous young woman and I am an old goat: This is a reflex developed over 3 and a half decades of life where nobody had cellphones and only insane people talked in public.
5. So your phone has an MP3 player? Excellent, my friend. But use the HEADPHONE JACK - I don't share my MP3s with you, show me the same fucking courtesty.
When I bought my first ever cell phone in 2004, I vowed to not do some things that I have seen others do with their cell phone. I won't even get into driving while chatting on one that isn't "hands free".
Some absurvations:
1. Why is it that the less interesting a conversation a person is having on a cell on a bus or in another enclosed public space, the longer it lasts. Also the louder it is. Polite people who take calls like "I'm on the train we're passing Mimico....6:20..ok.on the shelf above the fridge..k.bye" are wonderful people. Ones who "do business" on the train should all die miserable deaths...well not on the train right there....later..when they're alone.
2. I have seen teenage girls talk to each other on their phones when they are IN THE SAME PLACE - hope Mom and Dad have one of those unlimited plans or a second job (or a sound heart when they get open the bill).
3. A ringer does not need a sub-woofer. I'm not kidding: I've heard them that loud and with that much bass so you think some jackass is driving by in his car whose entire trunk is a subwoofer blaring hip hop.
4. If you are standing behind me and you start talking on your phone (with no ringer going off) out of the blue don't be suprised and give me a dirty look when I turn around and wonder, for all of a second and a half, if you are talking to me. I don't care if you are a gorgeous young woman and I am an old goat: This is a reflex developed over 3 and a half decades of life where nobody had cellphones and only insane people talked in public.
5. So your phone has an MP3 player? Excellent, my friend. But use the HEADPHONE JACK - I don't share my MP3s with you, show me the same fucking courtesty.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Men are from Omacron Theta 8, Women are from Omacron Theta 7
It's friday so who wants to be stir things up? I'll look at a topic that inspires very little debate: how men and women differ.
OK, I am more curious as to how we think they are differrent and how we used think they were different, in a different way.
What are the early 21st century sterotypes: Women are more artistic, care more for fashion and cosmetics (they have more of a flare for it), are much deeper thinkers than men and see life more as a whole. Women can have children and take care of them. Men make good worker bees, have tin ears and wooden eyes when it comes to art, and dress like they don't care, see things in simple terms and can never see "the big picture".
Go back to the late 18th century, and here is what you get: Men are great artists and novelists - women? Why, what a silly idea - they are good at pushing out babies, but men are much better at raising them. Women do not have a good enough grasp of the world the way men do that is required to create great works of art - they are simplistic. Only men can deal with emotions because men are simply more emotional, and feel things deeper.
The 18th Century European Nobleman wore powder and rouge on his face, a wig, and hose on his legs. Today, he'd better do that in the gay part of town or he'll be arriving home with less teeth than when he set out.
I wonder how men and women will differ in another 200 years.
Tom.
OK, I am more curious as to how we think they are differrent and how we used think they were different, in a different way.
What are the early 21st century sterotypes: Women are more artistic, care more for fashion and cosmetics (they have more of a flare for it), are much deeper thinkers than men and see life more as a whole. Women can have children and take care of them. Men make good worker bees, have tin ears and wooden eyes when it comes to art, and dress like they don't care, see things in simple terms and can never see "the big picture".
Go back to the late 18th century, and here is what you get: Men are great artists and novelists - women? Why, what a silly idea - they are good at pushing out babies, but men are much better at raising them. Women do not have a good enough grasp of the world the way men do that is required to create great works of art - they are simplistic. Only men can deal with emotions because men are simply more emotional, and feel things deeper.
The 18th Century European Nobleman wore powder and rouge on his face, a wig, and hose on his legs. Today, he'd better do that in the gay part of town or he'll be arriving home with less teeth than when he set out.
I wonder how men and women will differ in another 200 years.
Tom.
By the People, Adjacent to The People, At the People...
Sometime in the 1980s, in the US of A, it became not only a popular idea, but very close to dogma that governments need to be run "like a business". Since Canadians are independent thinkers we did not follow this course.....until a bit later in the 1980s. "Taxation" became a dirty word and raising taxes became as acceptable as B.O.
We have taxes for a reason - we need things done by governments such as defense, water, roads, education and (In Canadian provinces not named "Alberta") health care. Taxes are not wonderful things - if you wished to pick a single reason the Roman Empire isn't there any more, taxation could easily be that reason.
So we play a game when governments switch to the right and then to the left and then the centre and then the.....
The "tight is right" rightests slash taxes, and of course, Ontario under Harrissment is the obvious example, services have to be cut. Then taxes, evil, evil taxes, must be cut so far that a large deficit is run (see: Bush's America; again: Harris and Eves in Ontario).
Then, when the centre or left get in they have to raise taxes to a level higher than before the cuts just to get back to the pre-cut era, or call them something other than a tax. (Witness McGuity's health care "premium").
Can't we follow a more European model and stress not how much we pay in taxes - but more that we worry about what we are getting for our tax dollars?
In this sense, at least, "like a business" can be a good thing.
TF
We have taxes for a reason - we need things done by governments such as defense, water, roads, education and (In Canadian provinces not named "Alberta") health care. Taxes are not wonderful things - if you wished to pick a single reason the Roman Empire isn't there any more, taxation could easily be that reason.
So we play a game when governments switch to the right and then to the left and then the centre and then the.....
The "tight is right" rightests slash taxes, and of course, Ontario under Harrissment is the obvious example, services have to be cut. Then taxes, evil, evil taxes, must be cut so far that a large deficit is run (see: Bush's America; again: Harris and Eves in Ontario).
Then, when the centre or left get in they have to raise taxes to a level higher than before the cuts just to get back to the pre-cut era, or call them something other than a tax. (Witness McGuity's health care "premium").
Can't we follow a more European model and stress not how much we pay in taxes - but more that we worry about what we are getting for our tax dollars?
In this sense, at least, "like a business" can be a good thing.
TF
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Progress
Cellphone features are getting more and more elaborate. In Fact, there is a way that, if I am not near a computer but have my cellphone with me, if I am suddenly inspired with something I must share here, I can do it with my phone.
Of course, with my wide fingers that a jazz bassist would envy, that little keypad, and the invisibility of the screen in sunlight , I'd have to say that by the time I managed to get the message typed, I would probably already be home in front of my computer anyway.
Back when Edison was inventing half of the modern world, one of his inventions was the electric pen. It's always been my favourite "why" invention of all time (OK "Hip Hop" comes close...).
There is a word in German for this vyzehellvouldievaneedtodozis" - ok maybe it's old low German.....would you believe Assyrian???
Thomas
Of course, with my wide fingers that a jazz bassist would envy, that little keypad, and the invisibility of the screen in sunlight , I'd have to say that by the time I managed to get the message typed, I would probably already be home in front of my computer anyway.
Back when Edison was inventing half of the modern world, one of his inventions was the electric pen. It's always been my favourite "why" invention of all time (OK "Hip Hop" comes close...).
There is a word in German for this vyzehellvouldievaneedtodozis" - ok maybe it's old low German.....would you believe Assyrian???
Thomas
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Why?
I have never understood the reasoning that goes on in the brain of those who write computer viruses. When I was young and naive (you know, about 34) I asked my college I.T. instructor if computer viruses were ever accidently unleashed, the way a biological virus might be. He said no - they have to be crafted.
The latest thing is an e-mail that looks like it is from CNN with a clip taken from a cellphone camera in the London Underground. It's fake and contains a virus. I am actually a person who gets updates (headlines) from CNN e-mailed to me because I want to know right away what a country with it's head so far up it's own ass deems immediately newsworthy (um..actually most of the time I DO want to know this, to be honest). Ironically, as soon as I get the CNN headline, if it's something I want to know I then go to yahoo news or the CBC website. Most people should expect nothing sent directly to them from CNN so be careful, folks.
Back to my point - what kind of infantile mind enjoys fucking up other people's computers and their lives? Most of us rely on our computers for a multitude of things these days.
I understand phishing - this is pure fraud and theft, and theft has been with us forever.
Tom.
P.S. Addendum: For example, I just got a headline from CNN that the Space Shuttle launch has been scapped and this is something I wanted to know.
The latest thing is an e-mail that looks like it is from CNN with a clip taken from a cellphone camera in the London Underground. It's fake and contains a virus. I am actually a person who gets updates (headlines) from CNN e-mailed to me because I want to know right away what a country with it's head so far up it's own ass deems immediately newsworthy (um..actually most of the time I DO want to know this, to be honest). Ironically, as soon as I get the CNN headline, if it's something I want to know I then go to yahoo news or the CBC website. Most people should expect nothing sent directly to them from CNN so be careful, folks.
Back to my point - what kind of infantile mind enjoys fucking up other people's computers and their lives? Most of us rely on our computers for a multitude of things these days.
I understand phishing - this is pure fraud and theft, and theft has been with us forever.
Tom.
P.S. Addendum: For example, I just got a headline from CNN that the Space Shuttle launch has been scapped and this is something I wanted to know.
Green Tea and Bodywash
I was a normal kid - no allergies or asthma or anything beyond the usual measles and chicken pox. There were kids who were always sick (it wasn't their fault) but I wasn't one of them. I was not a chucklehead daredevil alpha male (I'm more a Theta or Epsilon).
I've found as I age, over time I get less and less masculine - no more 2 pots of coffee a day - maybe a few a month and the rest of the time it's green tea. I can't use bar soap or I itch all day - it has to be bodywash. We angle more towards the sick kids every day. Man, I'd hate to see how they are doing in their 40s....
TF
I've found as I age, over time I get less and less masculine - no more 2 pots of coffee a day - maybe a few a month and the rest of the time it's green tea. I can't use bar soap or I itch all day - it has to be bodywash. We angle more towards the sick kids every day. Man, I'd hate to see how they are doing in their 40s....
TF
Monday, July 11, 2005
An Unpopular Opinion Part Deux
At the core of any major religion that I know of is the belief that humanity is a special creation that merits special attention from deities or a single creator (I always loved the term '"unmoved mover").
The problem is: we are not.
Evolution is a "theory" like gravity is a "theory" or 1+2=3 is a "theory".
Evolution is not a set of dogmas, but a desciption of a process. Complex organisms evolved from simpler ones. That's it - no morality or necessity that we ever arrive on the scene.
Most people who never question evolution also tend to forget this: Just because Evolution came up with us does not mean that evolution was geared towards us or that we are even a good idea. We are just what it came up lately and we will be gone one day.
We have been "us" in the broadest stretch of what homo sapiens is for a million years at most and we have been exactly what we are for about 50,000 years.
Dinosuars were around for 150 MILLION years. Evolution seemed to really like them, but they've been gone now for 65 million years. This is because evolution did not see fit to develop a shield against asteroids.
How can any religion have much to say about the things it loves to go on about when the centre of it (us) has been here for 5 minutes in geological time and we may be a flash in the pan compared to T Rex?
TF.
The problem is: we are not.
Evolution is a "theory" like gravity is a "theory" or 1+2=3 is a "theory".
Evolution is not a set of dogmas, but a desciption of a process. Complex organisms evolved from simpler ones. That's it - no morality or necessity that we ever arrive on the scene.
Most people who never question evolution also tend to forget this: Just because Evolution came up with us does not mean that evolution was geared towards us or that we are even a good idea. We are just what it came up lately and we will be gone one day.
We have been "us" in the broadest stretch of what homo sapiens is for a million years at most and we have been exactly what we are for about 50,000 years.
Dinosuars were around for 150 MILLION years. Evolution seemed to really like them, but they've been gone now for 65 million years. This is because evolution did not see fit to develop a shield against asteroids.
How can any religion have much to say about the things it loves to go on about when the centre of it (us) has been here for 5 minutes in geological time and we may be a flash in the pan compared to T Rex?
TF.
Are we Next?
"The Base" and their sister cells have now struck everywhere but Canada: I guess it was a group of six nations who are unjustly keeping radical Islamists from setting up a theocracy that would make Iran or George W Bush cringe.
There is no reason to expect we will be spared. Tranist seems to be their favourite choice as it is a public place and you cannot screen millions of riders as you can an aircraft boarding gate. Vancouver and Toronto, maybe Ottawa and Montreal seem the likely targets.
I have no idea how to defend against this, short of turning towards a police state as The Americans have (who are always it seems 5 minutes away from doing that anyway).
What Dubya Tony and thier allies (including us) need to do now is to fight the war on terror by fighting the war on terror. Afghanistan made sense. For Iraq, Dubya used 9/11 as excuse to level Iraq which is what he wished his father had done in 1991. (Silly Bush Sr - listened to those UN people...).
I am sickened when, usually by accident, I see local American News and the lament for the soldiers killed in Iraq: They should ALL still be alive. Iraquis killed them BUT YOU A*&H*LES STARTED IT.
If "last throes" of an insurgency is this bloody I am not looking foward to "over": In Cheney double-speak, who knows what that will mean.
TF
There is no reason to expect we will be spared. Tranist seems to be their favourite choice as it is a public place and you cannot screen millions of riders as you can an aircraft boarding gate. Vancouver and Toronto, maybe Ottawa and Montreal seem the likely targets.
I have no idea how to defend against this, short of turning towards a police state as The Americans have (who are always it seems 5 minutes away from doing that anyway).
What Dubya Tony and thier allies (including us) need to do now is to fight the war on terror by fighting the war on terror. Afghanistan made sense. For Iraq, Dubya used 9/11 as excuse to level Iraq which is what he wished his father had done in 1991. (Silly Bush Sr - listened to those UN people...).
I am sickened when, usually by accident, I see local American News and the lament for the soldiers killed in Iraq: They should ALL still be alive. Iraquis killed them BUT YOU A*&H*LES STARTED IT.
If "last throes" of an insurgency is this bloody I am not looking foward to "over": In Cheney double-speak, who knows what that will mean.
TF
An Unpopular Opinion
999 out of a 1000 will disagree with me.
We are now at a point in world history where organized religion does far more harm than good.
I understand the importance of ritual (like the cannabalism of my youth: blood and body of Christ), and community and of a moral structure.
Yes, perhaps I'm letting a few bad apples..throwing..baby..bathwater....etc..etc..
Some not maybe very related observations about religion:
1. The only Bhuddist temple (sorry if "temple" is the wrong word) I have seen anywhere near my home is in Lorne Park, the richest area of Mississauaga. Yes, only those with everything need to cleanse themselves of it all.
2. Ever notice how well the Catholic church thrives best in the poorest of places? Wasn't it wonderful advice to tell women that condoms are not allowed on a continent where AIDS is a raging pandemic?
3. As Mark Twain said - religions are openly hostile to intellect and those who think for themselves.
4. Some people are gay. They're here, they're queer DEAL WITH IT. You can't thou-shalt away gayness. The Canadian Sikh leaders condemned same-sex marriage. You see, it's okay to condemn homosexuality, but it is NOT okay to condemn those who wear turbins. You can't just mete out human rights . You can't just close your eyes and pretend that gay people do not exist. And don't call it a "choice" - it IS a choice to wear a turbin, a yarmulka or a crucifix.
5. Most religions are anywhere from slightly repressive to openly hostile against women and having them in control of their reproductive choices. People who rule a country south of me, don't much care for women other than as breeders.
Oh well, I'm always mad at somebody....
Thomas.
We are now at a point in world history where organized religion does far more harm than good.
I understand the importance of ritual (like the cannabalism of my youth: blood and body of Christ), and community and of a moral structure.
Yes, perhaps I'm letting a few bad apples..throwing..baby..bathwater....etc..etc..
Some not maybe very related observations about religion:
1. The only Bhuddist temple (sorry if "temple" is the wrong word) I have seen anywhere near my home is in Lorne Park, the richest area of Mississauaga. Yes, only those with everything need to cleanse themselves of it all.
2. Ever notice how well the Catholic church thrives best in the poorest of places? Wasn't it wonderful advice to tell women that condoms are not allowed on a continent where AIDS is a raging pandemic?
3. As Mark Twain said - religions are openly hostile to intellect and those who think for themselves.
4. Some people are gay. They're here, they're queer DEAL WITH IT. You can't thou-shalt away gayness. The Canadian Sikh leaders condemned same-sex marriage. You see, it's okay to condemn homosexuality, but it is NOT okay to condemn those who wear turbins. You can't just mete out human rights . You can't just close your eyes and pretend that gay people do not exist. And don't call it a "choice" - it IS a choice to wear a turbin, a yarmulka or a crucifix.
5. Most religions are anywhere from slightly repressive to openly hostile against women and having them in control of their reproductive choices. People who rule a country south of me, don't much care for women other than as breeders.
Oh well, I'm always mad at somebody....
Thomas.
Friday, July 08, 2005
String 'em up!
Here's a case where if you can't accept the first premise, the second one really won't make be your cup of tea (or hemlock).
Capital punishment in the U.S. takes the lives of poor people and/or non-whites at a stupidly disproportionate rate to the general population. That nation thinks it is OK for the state to kill people.
Premise 2: It is not killing them fast enough. We in Canada becry "wating time" as a serious problem - waiting time for medical services. Republicans agree with us - but their "waiting time" is for executing those on death row. That's right - their government is not killing people FAST ENOUGH so a bill has been introduced to strip rights to appeals so that the poor black man who had the only lawyer he could get can get wrongly executed as soon as possible.
Milgaard...Morin..Truscott - aren't you glad we don't have the death penalty?
Oh, and I heard a capital trial costs 5 to 10 times what it costs to imprison a person for life.
TF.
Capital punishment in the U.S. takes the lives of poor people and/or non-whites at a stupidly disproportionate rate to the general population. That nation thinks it is OK for the state to kill people.
Premise 2: It is not killing them fast enough. We in Canada becry "wating time" as a serious problem - waiting time for medical services. Republicans agree with us - but their "waiting time" is for executing those on death row. That's right - their government is not killing people FAST ENOUGH so a bill has been introduced to strip rights to appeals so that the poor black man who had the only lawyer he could get can get wrongly executed as soon as possible.
Milgaard...Morin..Truscott - aren't you glad we don't have the death penalty?
Oh, and I heard a capital trial costs 5 to 10 times what it costs to imprison a person for life.
TF.
London
This isn't going to end soon.
It was only a matter of time before the terrorists hit London - we all knew that.
What is going to happen even more than it already is, is it will be a culture war: The West vs. Islam. Bush and Blair have already levelled two Islamic countries - one with an obvious tie to terrorism, 9/11 and subsequent attacks. Another, that, in 2003, had none at all. They succeeded in bringing terrorism to Iraq and now it's a war caused by a war.
Good people who happen to be Muslims and live in Western Countries are going to suffer more than they already have, for the actions of a few who use a peaceful religion as an excuse for violence.
I was literally shaking when I watched the WTC towers collapse in 2001. Yesterday, I was simply just angry that I belong to the same species that blows up subways and buses and has no regard for human life including their own.
As bad as Bush is, these people are 100 times worse.
What's next?
Tom.
It was only a matter of time before the terrorists hit London - we all knew that.
What is going to happen even more than it already is, is it will be a culture war: The West vs. Islam. Bush and Blair have already levelled two Islamic countries - one with an obvious tie to terrorism, 9/11 and subsequent attacks. Another, that, in 2003, had none at all. They succeeded in bringing terrorism to Iraq and now it's a war caused by a war.
Good people who happen to be Muslims and live in Western Countries are going to suffer more than they already have, for the actions of a few who use a peaceful religion as an excuse for violence.
I was literally shaking when I watched the WTC towers collapse in 2001. Yesterday, I was simply just angry that I belong to the same species that blows up subways and buses and has no regard for human life including their own.
As bad as Bush is, these people are 100 times worse.
What's next?
Tom.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
US Supreme Court
Give us your Hebes, your Spics and your Polocks,
.. so they may all be free to live
in their own part of town.
-Archie Bunker on "The Statue of Liberty".
If you have read Atwood's novel, you may notice that the Republic of Gilead is being set up south of us in "Jesusland".
The US supreme court has 9 persons - so a slim majority is 5-4. Sandra Day O'Connor has been the "swing" vote and she was about 50/50 for or against the Democrat or Republican viewpoint.
I think I'd be very suprised if Dubya doesn't put in a bible-thumpin' gun-totin' oil-baron in her place. Then watch gay rights be quashed, abortion outlawed and the obliteration of the separation of church and state.
We may have to tighten our border with all the refugess from the "red" states moving to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver with the huddled masses yearning to be free.
We may have a section of Toronto called "Little Boston" where you can get the best beans in town.
"Freedom" to Dubya means only who and what HIS PEOPLE say you are free to do.
TF
.. so they may all be free to live
in their own part of town.
-Archie Bunker on "The Statue of Liberty".
If you have read Atwood's novel, you may notice that the Republic of Gilead is being set up south of us in "Jesusland".
The US supreme court has 9 persons - so a slim majority is 5-4. Sandra Day O'Connor has been the "swing" vote and she was about 50/50 for or against the Democrat or Republican viewpoint.
I think I'd be very suprised if Dubya doesn't put in a bible-thumpin' gun-totin' oil-baron in her place. Then watch gay rights be quashed, abortion outlawed and the obliteration of the separation of church and state.
We may have to tighten our border with all the refugess from the "red" states moving to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver with the huddled masses yearning to be free.
We may have a section of Toronto called "Little Boston" where you can get the best beans in town.
"Freedom" to Dubya means only who and what HIS PEOPLE say you are free to do.
TF
Karla
Did anyone else catch that performance last night? It's nice to know that a person can be insincere in two languages. She admitted she, what, "made some mistakes"? OK: You kill one person and realize it was a mistake, but after the 2nd and the 3rd, that argument gets rather weak. And there would have been a 4th, 5th,6th..... had they not been caught.
Her boyfriend in prison is doing a few lifes for murdering his girlfriend. I can just see his first fate with Karla "Oh, you kill people? Why, ME TOO. It's so nice that we have things in common!!".
TF
Her boyfriend in prison is doing a few lifes for murdering his girlfriend. I can just see his first fate with Karla "Oh, you kill people? Why, ME TOO. It's so nice that we have things in common!!".
TF
Monday, July 04, 2005
That 70s dog
I happened to catch a re-run of "That 70s show" and they brought the weiner dog back - "oh we still have him? I haven't sen him for a year", says Eric. Yes, in tv-land dogs fade in and out of existence like a sub-atomic particle (element #204: Dachshundium).
That's still better than the oldest sibling losses of the 60s and 70s (Mike from "My Three Sons" and Chuck from "Happy Days").
And NO The Beaver did not "buy" it in "Nam".
Tom.
That's still better than the oldest sibling losses of the 60s and 70s (Mike from "My Three Sons" and Chuck from "Happy Days").
And NO The Beaver did not "buy" it in "Nam".
Tom.
Celebrity
I once saw "celebrity" defined as someone who is "famous for being famous". Elizabeth Taylor seemed to personify this - by the 1980s she hadn't done much acting for years.
Einstein and Gandhi deserved to be famous as did Stalin and Hitler for the opposite reason.
But sometime since the 80s, rock stars began to start preaching political policy and skinny blondes with chiuhuahuas had their every move publicized (includng their forays into porn) just because they are rich, as an ancestor of theirs did interesting things that made lots of money.
John Lennon stayed in bed for peace, which was fine, but Bob Geldof and Bono need to shut up now and then.
Tom Cruise is an actor with a very limited range (what he does well he does well and that's it) and I can't imagine the presses of The New England Journal of Medicine were stopped when he added to the sum total knowledge of psychiatry. I know nothing about scientology, but I know I don't like relgions with self-esteem so low they keep looking for people to join so they can feel better about themselves. I prefer my old religion, Catholicism, where they kick people out (or burn them at the stake..).
It's like the modern versions of the idols from teen mags of the 70s (where Donny Osmond's favourite colour and Shaun Cassidy's favourite food were discussed) have now moved into the adult news. When your acne clears up and you get a job, you are supposed to grow up, aren't you??
TF
Einstein and Gandhi deserved to be famous as did Stalin and Hitler for the opposite reason.
But sometime since the 80s, rock stars began to start preaching political policy and skinny blondes with chiuhuahuas had their every move publicized (includng their forays into porn) just because they are rich, as an ancestor of theirs did interesting things that made lots of money.
John Lennon stayed in bed for peace, which was fine, but Bob Geldof and Bono need to shut up now and then.
Tom Cruise is an actor with a very limited range (what he does well he does well and that's it) and I can't imagine the presses of The New England Journal of Medicine were stopped when he added to the sum total knowledge of psychiatry. I know nothing about scientology, but I know I don't like relgions with self-esteem so low they keep looking for people to join so they can feel better about themselves. I prefer my old religion, Catholicism, where they kick people out (or burn them at the stake..).
It's like the modern versions of the idols from teen mags of the 70s (where Donny Osmond's favourite colour and Shaun Cassidy's favourite food were discussed) have now moved into the adult news. When your acne clears up and you get a job, you are supposed to grow up, aren't you??
TF
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