nobody asked…

• Why do people drive over to the health club for a workout and then drive around the parking lot looking for the closest parking spot to the door?
• Ad slogan for one of the fast food chains, Hardee’s I think:
  Without us, some guys would starve.
• Growing old is expected, and while not really welcome, is OK.
  Growing infirm of mind or body is a bitch kitty! Just shoot me!
• I grew up understanding what the word illegal meant. So why all of a sudden does no one seem to understand what illegal immigrant means? In 1960 they would have been rounded up and sent back home, and that would have been right, proper, and legal. No one would have objected, and most would have applauded. Why is that not a viable solution now?
• The transititions from season to season are so sudden, so abrupt now. No more sliding gradually from winter to spring, summer to fall. It happens … BANG … overnight while we’re sleeping.

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One machine can do the work of 50 ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man. — Elbert Hubbard

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Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest and came in second…

UPDATE: Yaakov Kirschen of DryBones blog (a great read, by the way) raised a question in his comment as to the mythiness of the look-alike contest claim. Yaak is right to question since this does sound so very much like an urban legend. I usually verify such things before writing about them. My failure here was in not quoting sources of validation … hence this little update, to clear my besmirched name.

Wikipedia verifies the claim. Snopes, the well known debunker of urban legends and myths, also validates the claim, but with much more information, including this: “Chaplin did indeed fare poorly in a Chaplin look-alike contest … the competition took place in a San Francisco theater. His final standing is not recorded, although it was noted that he ‘failed even to make the finals’.”

Interestingly, the winner of one such contest was a struggling young actor who would become known to the world as Bob Hope.

I remain just one thing, and one thing only — and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.
— Charlie Chaplin

Chaplin died in 1977 without the realization that in a few years, clowns would be occupying many elected positions, even the highest office of the land.

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Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. — Scott Adams

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This is not the kind of thing I normally post, but when I found it over at Maverick Views, I just couldn’t help myself. This is one of the most amazing 4 minutes you’ll spend this month. Sound on … and keep one eye on the guys facial expressions. If you are on dialup, skip it and go wash your cat or something. Alternatively, there is a link to the right of the active window to download if the video stalls out.

Stay with it to the end… and enjoy!

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A prudent question is one-half of wisdom. — Francis Bacon

Old Francis would probably not extrapolate that thought to equating two questions with wisdom.

Chances are you know someone who always answers a question with a question. Doesn’t that just drive you nuts? If I was not interested in your input, I would not have asked. So if I ask “Should the new sign out front be light letters on a dark background, or dark on light?”, please give me an honest opinion and do not answer with “Which do you think it should be?”

Responding to questions with questions, throwing it back to the questioner to get them to think, can be an effective teaching technique, whether one-on-one or a classroom setting. This tactic, when surgically used at the precisely correct moment, can be a deadly debating ploy. And in similar fashion, no course on negotiating is complete without learning the judicious deployment of question as reply to question.

But in day-to-day relationships, whether at work or in our personal lives, the questioning attitude can be carried too far. It soon loses effectiveness and quickly passes through neutral territory to become annoying and frustrating. That is not helpful in the nurturing of important relationships. Before someone bashes me for thinking my questions always deserve explicit answers - no, that is not what this is about. I probably ask a lot of stupid questions that are not deserving of any response, not even another question, unless it is “What the hell are you talking about?” Enough of anything is enough. Just give it a rest and engage in meaningful dialog with me. We both might learn something…

A few parting thoughts on the subject, some supportive of my plea, some not…

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers. — Voltaire

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious. — George Bernard Shaw

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
— James Thurber

Questions show the mind’s range, and answers its subtlety.
— Joseph Joubert

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Saw this over at Johnno’s place and decided to give it a shot. Interestingly, I took the little quiz twice (different questions each time) and answered honestly both times. First time I came out Les Miserables, second time, the mis-labeled 1984. Orwell should have called it 2006. I don’t understand the connection between Les Mis and 1984…

Since I’ve always had a self-identity fantasy of being an Orwellian rebel, part of a small, select band of dissenters fighting against the draconian tyranny of the forces of dark and evil, I’ll go with…

You’re 1984!
by George Orwell
You have this uncanny feeling that you’re always being watched. Thus life has become a bit of a show as you try to portray yourself as much more reputable than you actually are. All around you, people seem to accept an unending stream of lies and propaganda without flinching. Your only hope may be a star-crossed love affair, but pain seems stonger than love. If you have any older brothers, be very wary of them.

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

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Study this list of words:

Alligator Barbara Hero Sarah Pluto Omega
OK, got them? Now look at this list and tell me the relationship between the two lists. Take your time.

Compromise Cynthia Lemon Midnight Pocahontas Olio

Driving back toward god’s country, Tennessee, I noted a marker along Mississippi Highway 61 pointing to Bobo. I’ve seen the sign on previous trips, and it always teases at least a wry smile, if not an outloud chuckle, from me. I made a note on my hand-held device, the ubiquitous 3×5 card in my shirt pocket, to check it out later.
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Back home, I found the big road atlas and started combing the alphabetical index of towns in Mississippi. What a harvest it turned out to be! The two lists above are comprised of names of Mississippi towns. I have not had time to explore any other states, but I know that Tennessee also has its share of winners, so I would assume others do too.
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In addition to many towns with female names like Alice, Janice, Lena, Louise, Paulette, and Thelma, the Magnolia State has a rich heritage of names derived from Native American words. Those include Hiwannee, Tchula, Itta Bena, and Shuqualak (pronounced sugar-lock by the local citizens).
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But who can begin to explain towns with names such as Hard Cash, Scooba, Chunky, Longshot, Hot Coffee, Panther Burn, Rafn, Soso, Whynot, or my personal favorite, Zero?
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By the way, the words in the title to this post, Increase, Service, Improve, and Success, are also Mississippi town names. I cannot leave Mississippi without thanking them for their generosity in naming a town for me, Winstonville. It is over in the Delta not far from Bobo, so maybe next trip I’ll take time to check out the local nightlife…

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Paul’s post over at Shadow of Diogenes got me thinking about a roadtrip and what my top 3 reasons for taking one might be. So I decided to share the results with you. If you have other reasons for wanting to take a roadtrip, would love to hear them.

1. To get away from everything.
2. To get away from everybody.
3. To get away from everything and everybody.

That seems to cover it abundantly adequately.

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Pleasant, sunny days. Gentle breezes. Dogwoods in full bloom and the Redbuds trying to catch up. Green leaves and buds and shoots showing up overnight where there has been brown and gray. And me, sneezing my ass off … It truly must be Spring!

A little madness in the spring is wholesome even for the King.
— Emily Dickinson

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
— Victor Hugo

The buds awake at touch of Spring
From Winter’s joyless dream…
— Mackenzie Bell, Spring’s Immortality

Spring weather is life a child’s face, changing three times a day.
— Chinese Proverb

Spring’s an expansive time: yet I don’t trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,
Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither thro’ the sunless hours.
– Christina Georgina Rossetti, Winter: My Secret

Ah, spring. When a young man’s fancy turns to love baseball taxes!
— Anon Adaptation

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Passing by a Hardee’s, I noticed this on the marquee, and pulled over and stopped to make sure I was reading it correctly…

FREE FRY WITH SHAKE.
Wonder what they charge if you want a second fry?

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Go to a public place where you are comfortable. Now park your butt for a half-hour. Observe and take notes. The place can be almost anywhere — shopping mall, inside or out, school, city park, street corner, restaurant, busy parking garage, supermarket. Anywhere you might find a broad cross section of your fellow humans. For our purposes, a health club or spa will not yield an unbiased sample, so best to avoid them. Besides, you never know when some of the people that frequent those places might be contagious. You certainly would not want to develop any firm abs or rosy cheeks. Terrible, tragic conditions!

Now, just sit and relax — bet you haven’t done that in a while. Watch the folks coming and going, or hanging around. Without getting unduly technical or accurate, make mental or pencil or digital notes on how many of the people you see are trim, fat, or way fat.

Over the past couple of years I have gained about 15 pounds, mostly around the middle, above what had been a very stable and ideal weight for me for many years. With my height and frame, 185 is about right. Hovering around 200 is not comfortable or healthy and I know I must lose it. You would probably not label me as fat, but the little roll around the middle is definitely noticeable. You might say that I am slightly overweight. I am wearing the same pants waist size, but I notice how uncomfortable they have become and how glad I am to peel out of them and into sweats at the end of the day.

While preparing for this essay, my regular blog reading led me to another that has done far more work on the subject than I intended. So I’ll just point to it, steal it, and say merci to dus7 at Come Speak To Me 2 for her work and post titled Round is a shape. dus7 has done a credible job of pulling together studies, statistics, trends, and related information. The interpreted results from one study indicate that “6 out of 10 American women, 7 out of 10 American men, and 3 in 20 young people are overweight.”
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My own observations are quite similar, though I do not see much difference between men and women, both being at about 75%. I would also raise the percentage of young people to as much as 25%. Of course, the figures (pun) will vary a bit depending on your venue of choice. Your mileage may vary…
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dus7 also includes information and links on the reasons for our fattening populace and what can be done about it. These are simple rules we learned in 3rd grade health classes, but far too many of us fail to practice:

• Eat right, both quantity and quality.
• Get plenty of exercise.

We are a nation of fat people just waiting for a heart attack to happen. The problem, as widely reported in various media, has reached pandemic proportions. Think of the burden this places on our already out-of-control health care system over the next generation. The trend must be reversed, and each of us is responsible for ourselves. No one is going to do it for us.

A simple place to start would be to stay out of fast-food places completely. If you must go, have a salad or baked potato (not loaded) or something else from their lean menu, never say yes when asked if you want fries, and never biggie-size it.

Well, I worked up quite an appetite putting this together. Think I’ll whip up a big batch of pancakes and sausage…

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Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
— Bertrand Russell

These two seemingly unrelated ideas, when taken together, might well describe what politics is, how and why it works … and doesn’t.

Or perhaps this one sums it up best…

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies. — Groucho Marx

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