Don't copy that floppy!

M-W's Word of the Day

That's a lot different from how I would pronounce it:

I Don't Believe In The Time Tested and Scientifically Proven

Somehow, even your typical believer can't be sympathetic to these parents' beliefs. I find this contradiction interesting... One would think that this episode would shake the parents' beliefs a bit, but that doesn't appear to be the case - especially not with Dad. Mom, on the other hand, seems a bit shaken.

Here are some gems from the article:

"I don't believe in them," Carl Worthington said of doctors. "I believe in faith healing."

- But I can present a doctor to you. You can see the doctor, touch the doctor, and you can see the results of the doctor's work. Can you provide the same evidence for your faith healing?

He said no one in his immediate family has ever been to a doctor or used prescription or over-the-counter medicine. "It's not something we believe in."

- Again, saying you don't "believe" in something that is supported by mountains of evidence is just ludicrous and willful blindness to the obvious.

Brent Worthington said he had ultimate responsibility for Ava's care. "I'm the head of the house; it falls to me. The wife follows the husband."

- Dark Age beliefs in faith healing and "anointing with oils" - coupled with Dark Age beliefs in the man's and woman's respective places in the world. I can't believe these people are alive in 21st century America.

"I did everything I could do for her," Worthington said. "What I was doing was working," he said. "She was getting relief."

- No sir. The sum of everything you did equals zero. Your daughter died as a result of your unwillingness to act reasonably in her best interest.

In Honor of the King of Pop: How To Do the Moonwalk

Blogger Templates Make Me Want To Punch A Kitten (Not Really, But Kind of)

So, there are 5 types of blogger templates out there. Let's review, shall we?

1. Emo / Goth - Cry, cry, I'm going to cut myself, the world is so dark and vile but I don't have the stones to off myself, or write my thoughts in a paper journal that no one will ever read, thus sparing the blogosphere of my "woes." Incidentally, I'm also a suburban kid who lives in an otherwise perfectly normal household and community. Moonlit gravestones and leafless branches clawing at dark skies abound in these templates.

2. Puppies, Kittens, Hello Kitty, Butterflies, Anatomically Incorrect Hearts, etc. - You know what I'm talking about. Picture mid to late 30s mother of 2 who wants to share ideas (inane reviews) of household cleaning products and reality TV with her scrap-booking group. Blog is woefully neglected thanks to Facebook.

3. Too Dark / Too Bright and Flashy to read. Vivid background that explodes to white and, um, white text in the posts, rendering the text illegible. Or, black background and text which can only be described as "charcoal" - forcing squinting or highlighting of text just to see what's being discussed.

4. Blah - All of Blogger's standard themes fall into this category. They are about as uninteresting as the scientific study of weevil mating habits. They are also highly prolific, since most "bloggers" have the technical skills of a stone age hunter/gatherer.

5. Almost Right, But - That rare gem, the diamond in the rough, which is visually pleasing (if not stunning) and full of features that make this blogger happy. However, some little nuances make this template...frustrating. Perhaps the title doesn't link to another site the way you're familiar with, or perhaps it doesn't render your archive list quite correctly. There's some flaw that makes one long for improvements.

I'm looking for the mythical 6th type of template (say "mythical sixth type of template" 10 times really fast). The one that is #5 without the flaws. The quest continues. Until I find this unicorn, please brace yourself for periodic changes.

13-year-old reviews the first walkman

I remember junior high school, hip like no other with my new Sony Walkman, listening to Rush's newly released Signals, enraptured by music, aloof, self-sufficient. It's hilarious to read this kid's take on something so nostalgically close to my heart.

"It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette."

Teach Thy Children

"What people don't understand is that black people should die."

These words were uttered by a 7 year-old girl to social workers in Winnipeg in May of this year. We can (and should) easily condemn the parents for raising a young child with this type of world view. We can only hope that somehow she can be raised out of it, over time.

The bigger picture here is that children will adopt their parents beliefs and world views. We can raise inquisitive free thinkers or automatons of dogma. What's truly distressing is that parents also risk being condemned for raising children with open, questioning minds - which is the real tragedy here. Check out this short list, for example, of custody cases where one or both parents are atheists.

The 7 year-old Winnipeg girl is on one hand of the extreme, and free thinkers are on the other. Unless you walk a fine line somewhere in the middle, you risk discrimination and ostracism.

I am the bearer of Death news

I posted on Tuesday that Ed McMahon died...



Yesterday, the beautiful Farrah died :-(

And today...

Michael Jackson Dies.

My all of them, wacky Ed, beautiful Farrah, and loony-bin crazy Michael, R.I.P.

And now who is going to hand out the $10,000,000.00 prize?

Ed McMahon dead at 86: He was model for TV sidekicks