A Con-tumely

Don't live in fear of being called A Name because what you believe goes against what Is Popular, when you know the name and accusation to be false. That will break your opposition's power over you.

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The more cons I attend as a huckster/dealer/vendor, the more I see the pendulum swing. People with Real World business experience (read "life experience") chafing and rebelling against the SJW Empire, people (including female-type people!) who get what, for example, GamerGate was ACTUALLY about, a call for ethical gamer-industry journalism and reportage, not some fell Patriarchal conspiracy to Keep the Sisterhood Down.
The avalanche has started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.

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The idea that a President, Congressman or Senator should be a politician as part of his resume may be the most pellucidly stupid concept of our day, on the level of having Vienna sausages on toothpicks as hors d'oeuvres at a wedding reception.

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The most smug ad campaign:
United Way.
"I don't just WEAR the shirt...I LIVE it."

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Found on my Facebook feed:
"Happy Women's Equality Day, Weatherly!
On Aug 26, 1920, women achieved the right to vote in the US."


If that was equality, then what's all the kerfuffle about nowadays?

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I am now tasting the heat, not the meat.
Bye-bye propane and propane accessories.
CHARCOAL'S BACK TO STAY!!!

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Everybody makes fun, but it's a fact that NO-ONE died from a nuclear attack on America after "Duck and Cover" protocols were instituted.
Perhaps because the Soviets feared a nation that would "protect" its children in such a feckless way.



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This is what I'm talking about, kiddies. This fandom's need to smear itself on Every Other Fandom.
I despise Who-a-booing.




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Wait... so "Ashley Madison" WASN'T a fashion mail order website?

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TTFN, kiddies!

Anything But Jesus Department

I'll just put this here....

Epigramata

Does thinking that naming newly-discovered features on Pluto after pop-culture SF TV and movie stuff is lame make me a bad person?
We can't have run out of astronomers and physicists already.
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Zimbabwe's response to international badfeels by restricting hunting will have a typical result. Many safaris give the hide and meat to local tribes. This form of sustenance will now be limited, or cease all together.
Betcha the BBC won't whinge about THAT!
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JUST realised why Joel Osteen and his pastorette wife seemed so familiar.
Twenty years ago they would have been Amway Diamonds, exhorting the faithful at "Network Marketing" functions.
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"Cannon" is a projectile weapon.
It is also a fat detective.
"Canon" is The Proper, Accurate, Official Story-line.

Learn it.
Live it.
You don't have to love it. Just do it right.
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The experiment may be done this season. 14 tomato hornworms devastated the hydroponic tomato plants. Few leaves remain, and most of the tomatoes are well-gnawed.
However, I HAVE found NHK World online.
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If a picture is mounted on a hook on the wall, then it has been hung.
If a person has been suspended with a rope by the neck until dead, dead, dead, then he has been hanged.
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Everyone loves evolution, until THEIR favorite critter starts to go extinct.
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If you wish to add tartness to a comment or post, remember:
"Hell" is not spelled "He'll".
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 Just picked some ENORMOUS herb leaves from our garden. Composting must have given them a huge basil metabolism.
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I have the Blu-ray of Gerry Anderson's "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun". Started watching it Friday night.
It's the first time I have "gotten" Blu-ray. It's like a different movie.
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Does being utterly bored with All Things "Star Trek" make me a bad person? See also "Doctor Who".
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Ricky Gervais has a picture of a woman who allegedly shot a giraffe in Africa on a hunt.
One of the animal lovers commenting said "Yeah let's hunt her down instead.".
All the cognitive dissonance we have come to expect....
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Our homeschooling days....



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What do you think? (This is NOT an anti-Catholic screed. It is a glimpse at the damage of overexposure.)
I believe that television has effectively wrecked the Papacy as a force for good.
Back before the Pope had wall-to wall TV coverage (say, the early '60s and before) he remained a mysterious moral figure Over There, one who rarely spoke, but when he did, it was with authority and intelligence, and it affected the whole of Christendom, whether one subscribed to his church and preachments or not. His authority was moral, not based upon consensus nor polls. Now, though, we have the Cable Pope, the CNN/FOXNews/MSNBC Pope, the news cycle Pope, who must fill the ears of the Faithful (and the not-faithful) with politically-charged pronouncements. It's like Christmas every day. It is tiresome. It dilutes his effectiveness, this foaming cataract of sound-bites.

Constant commentary wearies a soul, and the current Pope, the Eco-Pope, the Relevant Pope, comments overmuch, because the news-critters hang upon and report his every utterance.
We need the occasional glittering moral gem, not an endless string of dollar store beads.
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TRIGGER WARNING: Spiritual content. May induce swelling and hives.
This may be borrowed at will. (This is not related to the "angry 'Vark" post.)
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Theology, the Queen of the Sciences, is HARD. Understanding that reading Scripture follows the same rules of grammar and logic as reading Tolstoy or Tom Swift is HARD. Grammar and sense do not become magically squishy Because Religion.

If you are going to play in the Theology Sandbox, you may wish to understand the rules of your own game. The pronouncement "You don't go to church, so you're goin' ta Hell." may be satisfying to your religious pride, but remember how Jesus dealt with similar attitudes in the puffed-up Pharisees of his day. Also, realise that your "sola fides" belief is completely wiped away by that statement, because you have made the avoidance of hell dependent upon a work, "going to church". That is a heretical doctrine, and could put you in peril of the same destination, as might your pride-filled counsel.
This is why systematic theology is important.
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For anyone wishing to bother to check, there IS a difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament (hence the "old" and "new"). A cursory glance would reveal that Old Testament law strictures are no longer binding upon followers of Christ, especially Gentiles (non-Jews). (Acts 15:1-31).
But if you want to continue to call Christians hypocrites for not stoning divorced persons, or for wearing poly-cotton, in the depths of your ignorance, you go right on ahead. Continue to appear as intelligent and informed as you are.
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At last I have been provided as good an epitaph as any I could wish, all things being equal.
"He made preachers laugh out loud."
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Tiki becoming more mainstream does not fill me with joy.

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Just remember.
In Washington-speak, a "cut" is usually just reducing the size of an increase. Calling it a "cut" just gets more arm-flails.
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Happy Sunday, Kiddies!

Bank on it, 'til you can't.

We had a lovely little relationship with Cadence Bank. This was after it was Superior Bank, which cemented my belief that if they have to tell you that it is "Superior" in the name, then it must not be. That was after it was Community Bank, which WAS a community bank, until it was taken over in a spate of interstate banking rapine.

Cadence seemed to march to a different drummer, and had a local branch in our little burg, next to the Pig shopping center.



Very convenient, until the local branch closed. Oh, well. Athens branch was only 15 miles away, and we go to Athens several times a week. All was well, until they closed the Athens branch. They said that they hoped having the closest branch in Madison was not an inconvenience (Madison being 30 miles away. Oh, no, no inconvenience at all. We maintained our Cadence account because of inertia, and Homeland Security, and not wanting the bother of setting up a new business account, and besides, it gave me an excuse to go to Sprouts in Madison once a week.

We finally opted to set up an account at the venerable Redstone Federal Credit Union, which dates from the dawn of the Space Age. We spent an hour setting it all up, and during the filling-out-of-things, the Dread Dormomoo, in whose name the business exists, declared that I was retired.

WOOHOO!

I had gone on a sort of sabbatical from the shop a couple of years ago, when Dealing With People became too much for me to handle. I have of course printed, done design work, stripped screens and such, but I effectively removed myself from being the front man, because I found that to be unbearable where custom jobs were concerned.

Retired. Fishing, building models, reading, writing....(The first is a nod to convention, as fishing is to me, work.) I am retired. At 58. I shall be the envy of my crowd. But soft, the truth is a mistress harsh. Since my emancipation from my métier, my time spent at the shop has multiplied. I have not worked as much in quite some time. Much third shifting done!

The moral: Be careful of what people say about you.