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decline of parenting skills
There's an interesting Cafferty tirade up on CNN.com today, and oddly enough it fits in fairly well with my recent post on public education. Now, most times I roll my eyes a bit at Cafferty -- because he's a blowhard shock-jock type, that's why -- but sometimes he makes a good point, and I'll give him his due. In this article he says, among other ( Read more... ) -
bad metaphors. down, boy.
For a laugh -- an an example of whoa how not to spice things up with metaphor -- read this. And don't forget to then reference the subsequent fan art.
I am inferring that Princess Bronwyn has pink hair, but I know pfft-all about leopard tongues, really. -
sifting through the public education dialogue
As mom to two preschoolers, I have some interest in learning more about public education and its alternatives. I've read the statistics (too many, over the years, to cite): public school education in this country kind of sucks, and it's even worse in Texas than in some other states ( Read more... ) -
pup yearly health update
Before I had human children, I had the furries: two superior little Chihuahuas, Louis and Xena. (Some of you might remember Lou from his failed Presidential bid in 2004, which defeat he blames on Canadian operatives and neo-contraltos ( Read more... ) -
review of Jodi Picoult's "Keeping Faith"
I read Jodi Picoult's Keeping Faith and have a few things to say about it ( Read more... ) -
Big ones, O
Here was the proposal floated in an AP interview by noob Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood (wording pasted from the Washington Post article, but it has been reported all over, in both liberal and conservative sources):
"We should look at the vehicular miles program where people are actually clocked on the number of miles that they traveled," [ ( Read more... ) -
Concession about the Recession
So far, we haven't been affected by the recession. In fact, Austin in general hasn't been hit as hard as many other parts of the country. Whew ( Read more... ) -
bailout, stimulus, and other dirty words
We bailed out Wall Street, got within a frog hair of bailing out the auto makers (which could still happen), periodically bail out Amtrak and the USPS, and now... newspapers have their hands out. Yep, you heard right. Story on CNN.com: How important is it to save America’s newspapers?My answer: not a bloomin' bit ( Read more... ) -
punctuation service announcement
When you have an adverbial phrase modifying a noun, you don't need to hyphenate. In fact, it's wrong to insert a hyphen after the adverb, so
"tightly-clenched fist"
should always be
"tightly clenched fist."
Over-hyphenation seems to be a fad right now, like jargony invented verbs were a few years back. Oh, well.
And now back to your regular -
2008 oscar noms: *yawn*
Oscar noms are out, and so begins my annual "huh?" As I scan down the list of nominees, I ... see one I recognize! A movie I have seen dozens (maybe hundreds) of times, in fact: WALL-EBut ... nominated for "Best Original Screenplay." Huh? The whole movie had maybe 20 lines. Tops. Do the members of the Academy watch the movies on their lists? Or do ( Read more... )