Ducklings Provide Message Of Courage
Courage, Love, and Mandarin Ducks
The BBC Planet Earth video clip below shows day-old Mandarin ducklings taking a literal leap of faith.
Watching it this morning while someone close to me is going through yet another set of tests for yet another feared complication of her disease brings to mind thoughts about the kind of bravery she has exhibited in these situations.
- For some, courage is a daily necessity that is manifest without fanfare or self-aggrandizement. Those of us honored to know someone in this category have the responsibility not to confuse the absence of dramatics with an absence of courage or, worse, an absence of peril.
- Cute and courageous are not mutually exclusive. Those of us in the audience would do well to acknowledge and applaud both qualities.
- Grace, born of resilience, is far more important than gracefulness.
the sole sources of self-esteem and personal dignity, and,
ultimately, the only items of value we have to offer one other.
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The 2006 HOAGIE Awards & Internet Popularity Tutorial
What Are You Looking At?
Heck Of A Guy 2006: Made From Contented Posts
Now that the Heck Of A Guy 2006 review has considered the place of Heck Of A Guy posts in the blogosphere, why DrHGuy publishes posts, the quantity and categories of those posts, and who is reading the posts, attention turns to the content of the posts, especially which content proved popular, which received only polite applause, and which got the gong - and why.
The 2006 HOAGIE1 Awards: The Most Popular Posts
The HOAGIE Award
In contradistinction to those presentations that attempt to build suspense by announcing the most prestigious prizes only after bestowing long lists of lesser honors (e.g., Best Dubbing In A Dead Language, Miss Congenital Anomaly, Most Likely To Win A Reduced Sentence For Cooperating With Authorities), the most coveted HOAGIEs, in keeping with Heck Of A Guy Posting Principle #3 — Start slow and then peter out altogether — are presented up front in fearless disregard of the perils of anticlimax.
Similarly, the Heck Of A Guy HOAGIE Post differs from other award shows by confessing — nay, boasting that designating the winner(s) is at best a crapshoot that invokes both the validity and reliability of the judges’ tabulations in an Eastern European Regional Figure Skating Championship, which may be unsurprising given that both processes utilize nearly identical pseudoscientific formulae to calculate scores.2
The Winners
The most popular 2006 Heck Of A Guy posts3 are — the envelope please:
[Click on a thumbnail to view larger image]
- Someone You Should Know: Giles Brindley
- The Very Merry Trio Airport Ad:
Chuck E Cheese Meets Twilight Zone On The Hallmark Channel - Anjani & DrHGuy FAQ
- Urban Skills: The How-To Of Ketchup Decantation
Of Note
First, I should note that not only were these four entries the most viewed individual posts on the Heck Of A Guy Blog but also that there was a significant gap between this group and their closest competitors.
Second, I should note that interpreting the results of this popularity contest is at best precarious and may even be misleading. As one might already suspect from the discussion of web site statistics in Heck Of A Guy 2006: Who’s There?, these numbers offer no easy answers to which posts are most read. Even if one chooses, as I have, to use only one set of statistics (Google Analytics, in this case) to avoid dealing with the inevitable conflicts between counts by different services, and a simple “one visit by one unique visitor equals one vote” rule, ambiguity reigns. After examining the explanations in the next section, however, the astute reader will discover that this uncertainty can indeed by removed, revealing underlying bewilderment and confusion.
Third, I should note that working through the difficulties of determining which Heck Of A Guy content was most popular, I (involuntarily) began to comprehend just how significantly the Internet has changed the relationship of authors and readers (or web site content producers and viewers). The remainder of this post looks at a non-exhaustive list of factors that affect how viewers connect with specific content (in this case, the Heck Of A Guy posts) and how the viewing is quantified.
To many readers, especially those who have their own blogs or do any of the technical work on a web site, this material will be redundant while to others, it may be so unfamiliar as to be daunting. I hold that thinking through these ideas will be repaid with at least a nascent appreciation of how the internet influences its users. In addition, it will be helpful in grasping a discussion of the internet’s impact on the ethical and philosophical constructs of writers, but that’s another post for another time.
Those Confounded Confounders
Standard (And Non-Standard) Deviations
As already discussed in Heck Of A Guy 2006: Who’s There?, web site statistics are flimsy and not to be blindly trusted. I won’t address stats further other than to note that the currently used statistical programs were put in place in August 2006, placing earlier posts at a disadvantage.
Timing:
Ketchup Decantation, for example, was posted on 30 June 2006 (and continues to steadily garner hits in January 2007), but the next post on the most visited list is Line Rider Rides Again.4
Line Rider Rides Again did not come online until 6 October 2006; thus, it had three fewer months than Ketchup Decantation to accumulate visits. If both had been published the same day, would the results have been different?
Single Vs Multiple Posts:
The Very Merry Trio Airport Ad, the second most popular post, is an example of a single post with a single topic. Anjani & DrHGuy FAQ was third on the popularity list, but Music Recommendation That Will Make You Want To Kiss Me, the original post about Anjani, is a respectable 7th on that list. Hey That’s Not A Bad Way To Say Goodbye, A Muse Amused, and It’s Pandoracious were also part of the Anjani ensemble.
The stats also make it evident that while many who viewed one Anjani post viewed them all, others viewed one or more but not all five related entries, making equivalent counts impossible.
A Post Is Not A Post Is Not A Post:
Anjani & DrHGuy FAQ is not, technically, a post. It never appeared as one of the dated entries in the main column of the blog (where you’re reading now); it exists as a more or less constant page with a link in the sidebar under “Favorites.”5
And, there are not-Posts that are not-Pages. For example, because of search engine indexing methodologies, some folks entering certain search terms at Google, Yahoo, and similar sites were linked directly to Great Gifts For New Owners Of Digital Cameras.
Others, who entered similar or identical search terms were instead sent to Aha! Stuff.
Aha! Stuff is not a post but a category of posts, which includes but is not limited to Great Gifts For New Owners Of Digital Cameras. Aha! Stuff was also the fifth most popular web page at http://1HeckOfAGuy.com.
Ever wonder why the web page to which you were directed by Google seemed to have no connection with your search? Consider this: anyone directed to Great Gifts For New Owners Of Digital Cameras by way of Aha! Stuff this morning would be confronted by a Heck Of A Guy page with this post on top.
Great Gifts For New Owners Of Digital Cameras would be the fifth post on this page.
Seasonality:
Because The Very Merry Trio Airport Ad focuses on an ad for a Hallmark item specifically produced for the 2006 Christmas season, it is doubtful (if there is a God) that the ad will be viewed again except in the YouTube archives. Consequently, one would suspect that the popularity of the post about that ad will diminish rather rapidly. On the other hand, I expect ongoing interest in Ketchup Decantation to be my (hyper)link to immortality, outliving me by a considerable margin.
Referrer Weirdness — Timing:
None of the search engines promise inclusion and, in fact, Google (and, as far as I can discern, most of its competitors) routinely ban web sites — without notification or explanation — that, according to its algorithms, attempt to improve their rankings illicitly.
And, as I discovered (see Google’s Just Not That Into Heck Of A Guy), even if Google includes a web site, Google begins indexing that site when — well, when Google decides to begin indexing that site.
The Heck Of A Guy Blog was not indexed by Google until the latter part of July 2006, an event subtly heralded here by this post announcing Google’s #1 Heck Of A Guy.
Some content is only modestly affected by delays in search engine inclusion as long as it is eventually indexed. Whatever mental process compels internet users to search for efficacious methods by which to pour ketchup from a bottle seems to be primal and therefore constant. As a result, that post enjoys a continuing stream of Google referrals even though it was posted a month before Google began indexing Heck Of A Guy.
If, however, a post covers an item of topical interest, the lack of contemporaneous search engine indexing can be deadly. The popularity of The Very Merry Trio Airport Ad has been and continues to be primarily due to viewers referred by Google. If Google did not begin indexing Heck Of A Guy until three or four months after the Christmas season, it seems unlikely, given the seasonality of The Very Merry Trio Airport Ad, that it would have been viewed nearly as often.
More poignantly (to me, at least), a series of early posts that I thought were (and, on review, still think are) hot stuff that were published during Heck Of A Guy’s Dark Ages (AKA HOAG’s pre-Google era) and, being tied to (then) current events, were only seen by a limited audience — although both of those viewers did seem to enjoy the pieces.
These posts dealt with the contentiousness that arose when the Gay Games asked to use Crystal Lake, which coincidentally is near the town of Crystal Lake, which coincidentally is near Heck Of A House, as the venue for their rowing events.
The story, which appeared prominently in the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times as well as many smaller publications and was picked up by other periodicals and national news sources, was a controversial issue in March and April 2006.6 Anyone searching Google for information about the story during that time would, of course, have found no reference to the Heck Of A Guy posts since it was long before Google listed this blog. By August (when almost all Heck Of A Guy posts were finally being indexed), whatever interest that might have once triggered searches for “Gay Games Rowing Crystal Lake,” which could have then led one to the high class hilarity Heck Of A Guy offered, had long since dissipated.
The highest ranking of any post in this sequence is the first one, Crystal Lake To Permit “Whatever Floats Your Boat” Rowing Event; it is the 368th most popular Heck Of A Guy post in 2006.
- Crystal Lake To Permit “Whatever Floats Your Boat” Rowing Event
- Gay Games Rowing Approved; Moral Issues Eschewed
- Pre-apocalytpic Follow-up
- Gay Games “Rowing” Apparently NOT A Euphemism
- Gay Games Rowing Is Fine & Dandy; Heck Of A Guy Posts Nonetheless
Referrer Weirdness — Frequency:
Even when search engines index a site, the frequency with which they re-index can be crucial. Some sites are re-indexed almost immediately while others are re-indexed daily, weekly, monthly, or even less often. The interest in a post published about the Chicago Bears winning their Conference Championship will dissipate as time passes; if the site isn’t re-indexed until two weeks later, fans will by then be searching for Super Bowl stories, not Conference Championship posts.
Referrer Weirdness — Social Bookmarking:
A number of services are organized such that one or more members can nominate specific sites that they believe other members might also find worthwhile. Digg, Del.icio.us, and Furl are among the larger, more popular services, but even less well known sites, such as StumbleUpon can cause a huge influx of viewers, a phenomenon which accounted for a majority of the viewers who checked out Someone You Should Know: Giles Brindley, the most popular Heck Of A Guy post.
Referrer Weirdness — Linkin’ (Web)Logs: Links to a post that come from sites other than search engines are important not only for the readers that are thus connected to that post but also because they are the most powerful determinants of ranking for Google and some other search engines. Yet, who links to Heck Of A Guy and who doesn’t may be determined by social connections, the energy and technical skills of a web site manager, contractual and reciprocal arrangements, whimsy, … . More about this later.
Next:
The next Heck Of A Guy 2006 post will focus on the Internet’s effect on creative expression, especially writing. Yep, metaphysics, ethics, the meaning of life, Monty Python, and all that. Makes one giddy with anticipation, eh?
Footnotes:
- HOAGIE refers to the “Heck Of A Guy Internet Excellence” Awards ~back~
- Incidentally, still another difference between selecting HOAGIE winners and choosing recipients of awards such as the Oscars or The Booker Prize is that the HOAGIE judges are unimpressed and uninfluenced by publicity campaigns so there is no need to waste money on PR firms or consultants. No, that money should be forwarded directly to the Heck Of A Guy Blog where it will do some good. A price list for HOAGIE awards of various sizes and description is available on request. Heck Of A Guy judges, being of an populist, free market mindset, will also consider bartering goods or services for HOAGIEs. Remember the HOAGIE’s guiding principle: Make me an offer ~back~
- The most popular posts, in this case, are arbitrarily defined as those posts, other than the index page, (i.e., the most recent post, which is positioned at the top of the column when ones browser lands on http://1HeckOfAGuy.com) with the most unique visitors according to Google Analytics ~back~
- No, I have no clue why Line Rider Rides Again was (and still is) popular. It was, after all, an afterthought, a quickie post that was a casual followup to Tiara Yes - Tonsils No, an entry that included Line Rider, Movie Mappr, and Mr Picasso Head as entertainments for a convalescing Hippie With Tiara. That original post was in the top 15% of the popularity list but was considerably less frequently visited than the sequel, which consisted almost entirely of four links to YouTube videos of Line Rider tricks. Line Rider Rides Again is by no means the only mystery ranking; in fact, I plan to publish a list of Heck Of A Guy posts, the popularity of which seem inexplicable. ~back~
- For that matter, it’s significant that Anjani’s own contributions were entered in “Comments” rather than a proper post. ~back~
- The Gay Games themselves took place in July 2006, by which time the storm had subsided, and interest had waned ~back~
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Non-Quotidian Quotations
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver
Proverbs 25:11
For many years, I’ve collected quotations based on little more than their appeal on first sight. Today’s offerings are those that (1) have repeatedly proven pertinent and useful and (2) are, at least in my readings and conversations, less commonly referenced. These quotations, as quotations should, stand independently and need no explanations. I have added only brief identifications to those individuals quoted who may not be universally known. The chief difficulty of this list is restricting it to a reasonable length; several of these eminences (Oscar Wilde and Samuel Johnson, for example) appear to have written and spoken exclusively in epigrams.
The Quotations
“I love deadlines; I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”
Douglas Adams (Author best known for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series)
“I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.”
Warren Buffett (Investor, businessman and philanthropist who is considered the second richest man in the U.S.)
“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt”
Bertrand Russell
“If I’d shot you sooner, I’d be out of jail by now”
Unknown
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
H. L. Mencken (Twentieth-century journalist, literary critic, and freethinker)
“Don’t ever speak more clearly than you think… ”
Attributed to Niels Bohr (Physicist best known for the investigations of atomic structure and his work on the U.S. Atomic Energy Project; winner of the 1922 Nobel Prize for physics)
“I don’t mind that you think slowly but I do mind that you are publishing faster than you think.”
Attributed to F. Dyson (Physicist and mathematician, known for his work in quantum mechanics, nuclear weapons design and policy, and for his theorizing in futurism)
“Don’t be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so”
Thoreau
“Perhaps the rare and simple pleasure of being seen for what one is compensates for the misery of being it.”
Margaret Drabble (Novelist, biographer and critic)
It is impossible to criticize unresisting imbecility.
Samuel Johnson
“Say the purpose of sex isn’t procreation or recreation. Say it’s concentration. Say it makes you focus on the person you’re sleeping with, ’cause there’s just too many other people in the world. It’s like biological highlighter.”
From the movie, “The Opposite of Sex,” spoken by character played by Lyle Lovett
“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”
Oscar Wilde
“Nothing succeeds like excess”
Oscar Wilde
“Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength & courage to yield to.”
Oscar Wilde
“I’d rather be looked over than overlooked”
Mae West
And my personal favorite,
“You can imagine my embarrassment when I killed the wrong guy”
Joe Valachi (Soldier in New York City’s Vito Genovese crime family, who testified before congressional committee on organized crime that the Mafia did exist)
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The Twelve Fundamental Truths
Introduction To RFC 1925
(AKA The 12 Networking Truths, AKA The 12 Fundamental Truths)
While this document conveniently includes its own built-in caveat (i.e., posting this list is itself a nice example of its Point #11: Every old idea will be proposed again with a different name and a different presentation, regardless of whether it works), my contention is that the only significant error contained herein is that of opportunity cost. True to its engineering roots, the document is intended to be conservatively read as applicable to networking. Had the author majored in, say, English Lit rather than Electrical Engineering or Computer Science, the scope would have been more encompassing, which would be a good thing; on the other hand, the piece would have also expanded to 56 pages (not including the two pages of acknowledgments), reeked of commas and semicolons, and wound up a deservedly obscure exhibit at a PMLA poster session. And, there is always the chance that it might have been written in free verse.
Regardless,
This RFC1 can be found on thousands of web sites, most of which appeal to geek-rich audiences. I’m publishing it here in hopes of garnering credit for missionary work. I’ve reprinted the text from my copy of the first version I ran across in 1997, but there are few variations in any of the posted lists. I have corrected a couple of blatant misspellings and reformatted it to fit this space. The names, numbers, addresses, etc are unchanged.
The Twelve Networking Truths
Network Working Group……………….R. Callon, Editor
Request for Comments: 1925……..IOOF
Category: Informational………………1 April 1996
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This memo documents the fundamental truths of networking for the Internet community. This memo does not specify a standard, except in the sense that all standards must implicitly follow the fundamental truths.
Acknowledgments
The truths described in this memo result from extensive study over an extended period of time by many people, some of whom did not intend to contribute to this work. The editor merely has collected these truths, and would like to thank the networking community for originally illuminating these truths.
1. Introduction
This Request for Comments (RFC) provides information about the fundamental truths underlying all networking. These truths apply to networking in general, and are not limited to TCP/IP, the Internet, or any other subset of the networking community.
2. The Fundamental Truths
(1) It Has To Work.
(2) No matter how hard you push and no matter what the priority, you can’t increase the speed of light.
(2a) (corollary). No matter how hard you try, you can’t make a baby in much less than 9 months. Trying to speed this up *might* make it slower, but it won’t make it happen any quicker.
(3) With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is hard to be sure where they are going to land, and it could be dangerous sitting under them as they fly overhead.
(4) Some things in life can never be fully appreciated nor understood unless experienced firsthand. Some things in networking can never be fully understood by someone who neither builds commercial networking equipment nor runs an operational network.
(5) It is always possible to agglutinate multiple separate problems into a single complex interdependent solution. In most cases this is a bad idea.
(6) It is easier to move a problem around (for example, by moving the problem to a different part of the overall network architecture) than it is to solve it.
(6a) (corollary). It is always possible to add another level of indirection.
(7) It is always something
(7a) (corollary). Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two (you can’t have all three).
(8) It is more complicated than you think.
(9) For all resources, whatever it is, you need more.
(9a) (corollary) Every networking problem always takes longer to solve than it seems like it should.
(10) One size never fits all.
(11) Every old idea will be proposed again with a different name and a different presentation, regardless of whether it works.
(11a) (corollary). See rule 6a.
(12) In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Security Considerations
This RFC raises no security issues. However, security protocols are subject to the fundamental networking truths.
References
The references have been deleted in order to protect the guilty and avoid enriching the lawyers.
Author’s Address
Ross Callon
Internet Order of Old Farts
c/o Bay Networks
3 Federal Street
Billerica, MA 01821
Phone: 508-436-3936
EMail: rcallon@baynetworks.com
Footnotes
- The following is extracted or minimally modified from Comments on RFC: “RFC” is an acronym for “Request For Comments,” which are the working notes of the Internet research and development community. They contain the description of protocols, systems, and procedures for Internet, or simply reviews, experiments, or information on some topic. The first RFC was written in 1969. Now there are well over 3800 RFCs today. An RFC is for forever. Once published, they can never be changed or modified in anyway. If there is an error in the RFC, then a revised RFC is published that obsoletes the one with the error. An RFC can be submitted by anyone, Eventually, if it gains enough interest, it may evolve into a standard. The home page for all RFCs is here: http://www.ietf.org/rfc.html ~back~
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Spooklight Story
Gather ’round the virtual campfire, cyber-campers & Uncle DrHGuy will tell you a tale from a time so long ago that DrHGuy was HGuyM1,1 which doesn’t scan nearly as well and loses much in the necessity of explanation.
Before we start, cleanse your minds of those classic urban legends (e.g., the insane killer with a hook for a hand who escapes from prison, the murderer hiding in the backseat of the car, the babysitter who starts getting creepy telephone calls only to discover that, when the police trace the calls, they’re coming from inside the same house, and the vanishing hitchhiker) that high school girls tell at slumber parties to scare themselves out of their pants and that high school boys tell high school girls to get into those pants. The source of this story isn’t a guy I met at church camp who told me it happened to his uncle’s best friend nor a cable TV show with a title along the lines of Mysteriously Strange But True Stories That Are Strangely Mysterious But True (& Will Scare You Out Of Your Pants).
I witnessed this myself.
By crackey
Once Upon A Time
Attending the University of Missouri School Of Medicine in the 1970s has, I suspect, little in common with making a pilgrimage from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas à Becket at Canterbury Cathedral in the 14th century. My classmates and I did, however, practice the same storytelling ascribed to Chaucer’s pilgrims2 and did so for the same purpose, to elude boredom.
Thus it came to pass that I offered up to the group of my fellow medical students a Believe it or not phenomenon from my neck of the woods:The Spooklight.
The details I provided were simple enough:
Eleven miles southwest of Joplin, Missouri, just past the village of Hornet, in the area where Missouri borders Oklahoma and Kansas, there is a gravel road, which I’ve only recently come to learn is officially known as E50, that is locally known as “Spooklight Road.” The road is narrow and bounded on both sides by brush and trees and travels a rising and falling course over the hills.
In the daylight, the scene is pretty enough but nothing special.
At night, however, there are almost always at least a few cars parked along the road, waiting.
These folks are, of course, hoping to see The Spooklight. And, most nights, they aren’t disappointed.
The Spooklight has appeared here since the 1860s, typically taking the form of a bright light (sometimes described as a “ball of fire”) of a yellow-orange color, ranging in size from what one might guess would be a large flashlight to something the size of a bushel basket or larger, that seems to be at the top of the next rise. The light routinely moves to the left and right. Less often, it’s said to split into smaller balls of light or take on different colors (red, blue, and green). Those walking toward the light find that it disappears until, if they continue forward, it reappears behind them.
The Expedition
As one might expect, the predominant responses of my classmates to my story of The Spooklight consisted of jeers, speculation that the spectators may have imbibed too much local moonshine, aspersions regaling the diminished intelligence and high gullibility of hillbillies, and explanations ranging from mass hysteria to swamp gas and beyond.
My protestations that I had personally seen the thing were to no avail, especially when it became known that local teenagers viewed Spooklight Road less as an opportunity to explore paranormal phenomena than as an opportunity to explore each other’s bodies.
Naturally, a field trip was organized.
Out brave little group, two of my more sympathetic classmates, the spouse of one of those classmates, and I, made the five hour journey into the heart of darkness I like to call home, established a base camp at my parents’ place, and proceeded to Spooklight Road.
The Shining Of The Spooklight
By 9 or 10 PM, the four of us were parked, along with perhaps a dozen other cars, in the prescribed viewing area.
It wasn’t long until our efforts were rewarded by the appearance of a small but distinct and unambiguous light some distance away but clearly on the same road, resembling the light shown in the photo below.3
This occurrence was, of course, a significant relief to me. Otherwise, the ridicule that would follow a no-show by The Spooklight would be devastating.
It was a warm night so we were outside, walking about or leaning against the car, watching the antics of The Spooklight, which were entertaining enough. It veered to the left, it veered to the right, it moved around, it did The Spooklight hokey-pokey.
Having been initiated as certified Spooklighters, we were jaded enough to begin discussing plans to return home when the light became brighter and seemed to move toward us. We stared at it because, well, it was interesting. Then, it unmistakably became bigger and brighter, increasing in size from that of a distant flashlight as seen in the photo to that of a basketball. But what captured our attention was its distinct increase in acceleration as it moved toward us. In another moment, the increase in size, intensity, and acceleration stepped up again.
It was at this time that our conviction that we understood how the world operated in general, along with our beliefs in specific scientific principles, dissolved in the acute, undiluted fear of impending doom. This is not an exaggeration. While I’ve treated many cases of panic disorder and heard descriptions of the conviction that catastrophe was imminent and inevitable, this is the only episode in my life when I was possessed of – and by – that sensation myself.
The “ball of fire” descriptions, which had seemed inappropriate to the spotlight we had watched throughout the evening now became all too apt. My last glance at that light, before I turned my back to join the others scrambling for the car, revealed an orange, glowing comet with a circumference larger than that of a large beach umbrella, leaving a trail of sparks behind it — and moving every more rapidly toward us.
And, suddenly, it was gone.
We pulled ourselves together and saw that the light had reappeared, diminished to its flashlight size and relocated safely down the road.
Without saying much, we left.
[Update: The Spooklight Background]
Credit Due Department
Top photo from stock.xchng
Footnotes
- ”M1″ translates as “First Year Medical Student” ~back~
- Chaucer set up the frame of storytelling as a suggestion of the Host of the inn where the pilgrims spent the night prior to starting out for Canterbury. In Chaucer’s words,
Ye goon to Caunterbury - God yow speede,
The blisful martir quite yow youre meede!
And wel I woot, as ye goon by the weye,
Ye shapen yow to talen and to pleye,
For trewely, confort ne myrthe is noon
To ride by the weye doumb as stoon;And in translation,
You go to Canterbury; may God speed
And the blest martyr listens to your need.
And well I know, as you go on your way,
You’ll tell good tales and shape yourselves to play;
For truly there’s no mirth nor comfort, none,
Riding the roads as dumb as is a stone; ~back~ - This photo was taken a different night, but at the same location and is a reasonable representation of what we saw. ~back~
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In My Mother’s House Are Many Tchotchkes
In My Mother’s House Are Many Tchotchkes: if it were not so, I would have told you — but that wouldn’t be much of a posting, would it? Not to worry.
I grew up in, and, more pertinently, my mother still lives in the Ozarks, where the only gated communities are inhabited exclusively by cattle, and upper-class is spelled
“d-o-u-b-l-e-w-i-d-e.”
In these parts, the citizenry is allied in the conviction that the guy who wants his neighbors to cease using their lawns as sites for burning is at best an uppity snob and may well be a proponent of socialism, communism, or even vegetarianism. That he is seeking to ban the burning of tires, not leaves, cuts no mustard (or, alternatively, makes no nevermind). There is also a consensus that the other political radical, the one who proposes zoning regulations that would, for example, limit clotheslines to a length of 30 feet and restrict them from front yards, should either keep his nose out of others folks’ business or find happiness elsewhere.
On the plus side, if God is swayed by pleas expressed via roadside signs, America’s blessings are assured for eternity. And, the scenery — at least the portion of the scenery not obscured by cars propped on concrete blocks, the identical pre-fab sheds used for everything from The Tabernacle of the Universal Holy Spirit to Universal Battery Outfitters, Wholesale Division, and handwritten signage pointing the way to Bass Heaven, Bass Haven, Bass Hall, and Just Bass — is striking with rugged hills setting off man-made Table Rock Lake. The view in the photo below is from the deck of my mother’s home.
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Hewlett-Packard, Tom, and I Were All Lucky
– OK, HP and Tom were REALLY lucky, but still …
Tom Peters has been so criticized and parodied in the past few years that we may well be at risk for an outbreak of a re-revisionist movement that will not only promote his work as a way to think about business but reveal it to be a secretly coded manuscript that, decrypted, details the conspiracy undertaken by the Odd Fellows Lodge, the City Council of Joplin, Missouri, the companies formed from the sham diss