Depression Cooking with Clara has a new website

Great Depression Cooking with 93 year old Clara has gone from occasional video to YouTube channel to copyrighted material to her own website. Nice to see the growth. Her latest video is "Depression Breakfast" and Clara is just as charming as ever.

Israeli Ambassador slips: war with Iran?

I wrote about it here.

Wife Swap Long-Fowler family

Oh, boy is the 'net howling today after that disastrous pairing of Stephen Fowler and Gayla Long in ABC's Wife Swap. Stephen Fowler's insistence that his education, accent, and standing in the world gives him license to demean and abuse the woman from Missouri was shameful. I believe it was unnecessary for ABC to continue with that pairing, since he refused to participate in the Rules, and reneged on his obligations to participate fully in the show. He kicked Gayla out and she wound up in a hotel room, for heavens' sakes. What does it take for ABC to decide to end something? They canceled Boston Legal quick enough. But they didn't release Gayla Long from her abuse inside that house of horrors with Stephen Fowler. What a long and lonely night in the hotel room that must have been for her.

Mr Fowler had called her names, insulted her for the fun of it, (and in the so doing insulted all his wife's clients), taught his kids to do the same which to me, is child abuse, and refused to participate in the obligations of the show on the basis that he was above her and her ideas were beneath him.

That is not how we treat people. That is not how we fulfill our business obligations. Why ABC continued subjecting Gayla to the classless boor is beyond me.

Now. Taking a breath. My family was blessed enough to have money and emphasized education, world views and culture to the same extent that Stephen Fowler did. However, they also taught me to be thankful for the material comfort we had, to listen to other points of view, and never ever think myself above another person. Certainly they set the example that you are courteous to all people in public and treat them respectfully. I do not know why or how Mr Fowler ended up so heartless, but to showcase that level of meanness on a national television show was just too crass for words, especially since Mrs. Long was such a classy person and stayed true to Christian values in the face of hard, deep, and constant abuse on national television no less.

ABC: do not let your show participants be abused for the sake of ratings. I enjoy Wife Swap for the sake of seeing how others cope when living outside their element and seeing what they could and do learn, but abuse should never be part of the mix.

So that is my rant. This is another person's rant and they said it much better than I could:

Wow. At present, I am two-thirds of the way into this evening's episode of Wife Swap. I am so aghast at the actions of Steven Fowler that I had to write in. I actually took the time to grab my laptop, power it up and sign up for an account on ABC.com, merely in hopes of Mr. Fowler reading this message. So Mr. Fowler- You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself. Before you label me with one of your stereotypes and dismiss me as some wannabe Internet opinionist, let me give you my background. I was educated at Le Rosey through my A -levels, did my undergrad at Harvard and my post-grad at Columbia.

While I am proud of my education, it does not define who I am, nor do I deem it as a measure of my self-worth, in any way. Education is a wonderful thing and the fact that you place such emphasis on it is admirable. The fact that you use it to judge others and to assume some kind of superiority over them is pathetic. As an educated person I would hope that you would be beyond acting in such a callous and classless manner - this is clearly not the case. You were immensely rude and obnoxious to the other family and should be ashamed of yourself. Absolutely ashamed.

What's even more pathetic is how you continually spewed academic euphemism, sesquipedalianism or some polysyllabic bit of arcane jargon just to make the wife from the other family feel beneath you (see how it comes off?). With the grace of god and a bit of luck, I have been extremely successful and I would never, ever try to intentionally make someone feel like they are beneath me. That is sadistic and beyond reprehensible. I don't judge people to begin with; I do, however, look to their heart and actions in drawing my conclusions about them - not their education (or lack of it) or wallet. I learn from different people EVERY DAY - rich, poor, educated or not. I just try to be a good human being.

The priorities you preach to be important (education, environmentalism, etc.) are indeed so; however these are all tools for self-improvement. It seems you would rather use them in the context of measuring your own self-worth or more disgustingly the lack of worth in others. I usually attribute some of the characterizations I see on reality shows to editing, but not in your case. You just came off as an incredibly small-minded, petulant, narcissistic jerk. I hope you watch yourself on camera and are able to learn from it. Class is an intrinsic quality; it is not mutually exclusive to wealth or education. You, sir, proved that this evening. I hope, for the sake of your children, that you grow from this experience.

I know where Birmingham UK's apostrophes went

"Birmingham City Council has dropped possessive apostrophes from its road and street signs altogether - so St Paul's Square becomes St Pauls, for example. The decision follows years of debate about whether apostrophes should be restored to local place names such as Kings Norton, Acocks Green and Druids Heath. John Richards, founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society, said the decision was 'absolute defeatism.'"

The Apostrophe Protection Society?

After my shock at learning there is such a club, I immediately decided that we need one here in the US. I see things like this all the time.

It drives me bananas!!!!!!! Absolutely bonkers. So the UK got rid of their apostrophes and they all immigrated here, gleefully attaching to any letter s without concern for whether it is their punctuation turn or not. Attack of the Apostrophes!

The Abuse of Apostrophes in Everyday Life
The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks
Apostrophism

Ready to hurl? Here comes BARF

Politicos are considering creating a "Bad Asset Repository Fund." AKA, BARF.

ROFL. Who elected these people?

Not for the foodie faint-hearted

Two pounds of bacon wrapped around two pounds of sausage drenched in BBQ sauce. A recipe sweeping the internet, called "Bacon Explosion." LOL! Honest, it is "the most popular recipe on the web." How about a dressing made of mayonnaise drenched in lard with a topping of butter while we're at it.

I confess, Bacon Explosion does sound good. Speaking of bacon, don't forget the ever-popular Bacon Of The Month Club.

Now go eat some bacon and watch some Super Bowl! That's an order, soldier!

Everything is never as it seems

I posted here about a guy who drove off a ledge and hundreds of feet down got hung up on a rock outcropping, and miraculously was saved. Seeing the photo, I was moved to say that this was one of the reasons I believe in God.

Turns out he is an alleged child molester who tried to kill himself.

I still believe that God's hand is in this. I just switch from thinking I know why God did something (always dangerous) to once again, realizing that God moves in mysterious ways.

La di da, it's almost spring

My yard is big and it has a lot of old birdhouses hanging around. I snapped this about ten days ago but the lawn and yard has popped a lot since then with new growth and precursors to spring. I even saw a dandelion next to my doorstep this week!

I watched Annie Hall again last night on Turner Classic Movies. What a funny film that is. It holds up today. My favorite scene of all was the one when Alvy and Annie were standing on line for the movies. Apparently this is the bane of New Yorkers, the lengthy wait to get into any good film is a standard annoyance they expect and put up with. Also annoying is having to listen to blowhards behind you in line pontificating on subjects of which they know nothing. Alvy (Woody Allen) puts up with a guy loudly pontificating for as long as he can and then Alvy breaks into the conversation to tell the guy that he knows nothing about Marshall McLuhan's poetry. The guys retorts that he teaches poetry and literature at Columbia, so Alvy should just shut up. Just then, Alvy brings out McLuhan from behind a movie poster to settle the argument. McLuhan immediately confirms Alvy's pronouncement. "I heard what you were saying. You - you know nothing of my work. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing." I laughed so hard I almost missed Allen's next line. Looking directly into the camera, he says, "If only life were like this!"

N. Korea: "All bets are off!"

I posted this on The End Time blog last night. I am still amazed that mainstream news outlets in the US have not picked this up yet. At last the BBC has published an article by now:

North Korea tears up agreements
"Communist North Korea has said it is scrapping all military and political agreements signed with the South, accusing Seoul of hostile intent."

So North Korea says 'all bets are off.' Remember, N. Korea's nukes are in the hands of a crazy dictator. Now, nothing happens in a vacuum, and on January 18th "South Korea said its military forces remained on alert Sunday a day after North Korea issued a statement pledging "an all-out confrontational posture."

I just wonder about the timing. Were they waiting for hard liner Bush to be out and talk 'em kiss kiss Obama is in?

Anyway, The End Time has a short list of why this is bad and scripture to ponder.

Another escape, this one from death

The driver survived, was extricated and flown to a hospital.

This is one of the reasons I believe in God.