Friday's Odds and Ends

Tomorrow is the day. The Nite of Comedy plays on the stage at the Winnsboro Center for the arts in Winnsboro, Texas. If you are nearby, consider coming by and supporting the talented Young Players. 

200 Market Street - Downtown across from the Depot

I noted this past week that one of my favorite Dallas Morning News columnists, Jacquielynn Floyd, had issues with the spelling of her name on documents when she was going through airport security. Apparently the spelling on her driver's license did not match the spelling on her boarding pass. Long before this, I could have told her there would be problems. I never can spell her first name correctly when I mention her in a post and have often wished she could just be Jackie, or Jack, or maybe even Mary. All simple names to spell, right?

I'm rather fond of the simple spelling of my name. What about you? Is your name difficult to spell?

"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us." FDR.

That quote caught my eye when I saw it at the top of a recent column by Alex Rose in the Dallas Morning News. She has spent several years in the Texas Legislature and wrote about how we can have our voices heard over those of lobbyists. Her message was that special interests groups do have significant influence in federal and state governments, but that does not mean that voters cannot have influence if they band together and speak up.

I won't argue the second part of that message. We do have to keep speaking up, even when it seems like our words are blown back in our faces by the wind of big businesses that have the biggest lobby groups. And one of the major things we need to speak up about is a drastic change in the political system, so businesses don't have the kind of power they do now.
 
Now for some fun from the comics.

This first one is from B.C. and Wiley's Dictionary: The definition of "Lip Service."

"Regular botox injections."

This one is from Baby Blues. The family is in a pet shop and Darryl says, "A puppy wouldn't be that hard to train Wanda."

She says, "O, really?

To which he responds, "It just takes patience. Look how well-behaved our kids are."

Then there is a loud crash and Darryl says, "Okay bad example."

Hammie runs up and says, "We just bought a tank of guppies." 

 I had to include that one as it reminded me of taking my kids to the grocery store - not something I did often, especially after one of them knocked down one of those towers of canned goods that stores used to have.

Do you have a favorite story of taking your kids to the store? Feel free to share it. And don't forget to leave your e-mail addy if you would like to be in the drawing for my Birthday Gift that I mentioned in Wednesday's post.

Friday's Odds and Ends

It was a bit scary to watch the national news last night and see how many tornadoes formed over the last 24 hours across the country. I think the total number was 150. I don't know if we are seeing more tornado activity than in the past, or we are simply getting more news of storms because people can use their cell phones to capture images and send them to news sources.

This is the kind of wall cloud that often spawns tornadoes.

Some areas of Oklahoma were hit again last night, although not as severely as Moore, OK. That is one bit of good news. Tornadoes also touched down in Arkansas, but so far there are no reports of deaths or critical injuries from any of the storms last night. But we are not out of the woods yet, as the old cliche goes. The weather service's Storm Prediction Center is forecasting a moderate chance of severe weather in parts of Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas and Missouri today. 

Also a bit scary is the extremist who is protecting his right to bear arms by sending poisoned threats to New York Mayer Bloomberg and President Obama. Right. You want people to seriously consider leaving you alone with your weapons when you don't seem to have any control over your reactions? Right after Mayor Bloomberg went public with a call for more gun control following the school shooting in Connecticut last December, people started protesting his stance, and the protests have been anything but civil. Some of the comments made were personal attacks, calling the mayor a “nanny statist fascist” and another person dared him to “come and personally take my guns.”

Wordage in the letters sent to the mayor and to a gun-control advocacy group is equally combative. “You will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns,” the letters said. “What’s in this letter is nothing compared to what I’ve got planned for you.”

I support gun rights and do believe that law-abiding people in the U.S. should be able to have weapons if they so choose. What I don't support are these fringe elements that don't seem to know the right way to ensure those rights. It is not by threats and violent stand-offs.

Now for a bit of fun. A recent B.C. cartoon featured a new spring flower that pops up in the first panel saying, "I have spring action roots."

In the next panel a bee approaches with a weapon and says, "Hand over the nectar, Springie."

Then a woman pulls up the flower and starts taking off petals while saying, "He loves me, he loves me not. He Loves me."

She tosses what is left of the flower and a dinosaur comes along, sniffs the plants, then stomps on it. The flower is left thinking, "Spring is a whirlwind of emotion."

Okay, maybe it was a lot cuter when you could see the dinosaur stomping, the bee threatening, and the lady pulling off petals.

Life Lesson from the character Grady Service in Ice Hunter by Joseph Heywood, "Relationships are either going forward or backward."

Friday's Odds and Ends

Here's some recent news regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline. Twenty-eight Vermont towns added their voices this week to the chorus of national and international; opposition to tar sands expansion by passing “tar sands free” and related tar sands resolutions in the past two days. This recent batch of local resolutions brings the total number to 33 in the region, and 49 when including resolutions in Québec. The U.S. resolutions state concerns about the environmental and public health hazards of tar sands or explicitly oppose sending tar sands through ExxonMobil’s Portland-Montreal Pipeline.

Tar sands oil is a particularly dirty form of oil that utilizes a carbon-intensive process to transform the tar into usable oil. The State Department just reported that the tar sands in Keystone XL will release up to 19 percent more greenhouse gases than conventional oil. Tar sands spills are particularly risky and difficult to clean-up given the oil’s unique properties that cause the oil to sink in water.

If you are interested in adding your voice to the opposition, you can sign a pledge with CREDO Action. The oil companies have their voices in Washington, we have to add ours. 

Protect the Earth

Now just for fun, some comics:

This one is from B. C. - one of Wiley's proverbs - "Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll drink beer and pass out with a pole in his hand."

Another from Pearls Before Swine last Sunday. Pig is complaining to goat about his sister who is always borrowing something every time she comes over.  Goat tells pig to just tell her how he feels, and pig says he has tried but she doesn't listen.

So goat tells pig to draw it out for her. "Say, look sis, we're like planets, ech moving in our own ellipse, but sometimes outr orbits intersect and during that time you always want things."

Goat draws the intersecting planets and then Pig's sister walks in, asking to borrow a tack. Pig says no, and the sister pushes until Pig says, "Read my ellipse, no new tacks, sis."

In the last panel, goat goes to Stephen Pastis and says, "You ruin my entire Sunday."

This has been an exciting week, celebrating Read An E-Book Week. I have run two specials and am so happy that people were able to get my stories free for a few days. My historical mystery,  Boxes For Beds will still be free through Saturday, so grab a copy if you have not already. And if you are so inclined, leave a review on Amazon. That is always so helpful to other readers who may be considering the book for purchase later.

Pardon me while I experiment with embedding a Tweet. I am trying to learn how to embed videos and other things.

Boxes For Beds now #3 in mystery/historical for #Kindle. Thanks to all who got a copy. tiny.cc/pdxktw
— Maryann Miller (@maryannwrites) March 8, 2013

 Hey! It worked. What do you know. (smile)