This Would Be a "Shaggy Fart" Story.

My elder sister, whose sense of humor is usually dry, albeit a bit prudish, sent this. It's funny:

When I bought my Blackberry I thought about the 30-year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouses, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and ev ery other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Noble talking to my wife and everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. I had to take my hearing aid out to use it, and I got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-u-lating." You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a right turn instead. Well, it was not a good relationship.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.

I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, No, but I do toot a lot."

The Purpose of School

The following is the text of a FaceBook exchange earlier today which encapsulates in precis my view of the current state and status of the Academy:

Forest Taber (the son of a friend of mine in meat-space):
College .. as needlessly expensive as it is complicated. What a racket..
26 minutes ago via Android · Like · Comment

Kenneth Gervais (a friend of Forest): Amen.
23 minutes ago · Like

Woody Wiqiliques Konopak (Me): It's the consequence of the commodification of knowledge and the credentialization (they call it "professionalization," but that's bullshit) of employment. It amounts to the creation of artificial stratifications after the "natural" ones--race and gender, mainly--broke down...
9 minutes ago · Like

Forest Taber: And this coming from a Dr .. Man, the world sure seems broken to me
8 minutes ago · Like

Woody Wiqiliques Konopak: I'm as disgusted about it as you are...
There is of course, the other side of the coin, which is that, overwhelmingly (in my 15 years teaching in university), students come there looking for nothing resembling 'education,' but rather (only!) to have their prejudices ratified and their tickets to the middle-class stamped.

It is extremely difficult, unto impossible, to stress--to impress-- upon them that they are not at the University to GET an education; they are there to learn how to MAKE their education.

School doesn't--is not SUPPOSED to--teach you WHAT to know.
School IS supposed to teach you how to LEARN what you NEED to know.

Fandom, Marketing, and the History of Politics

Did O'Bama's New Jobs Czar Boost GE Profits By Off-Shoring USer Jobs?

I "understand" at a certain level that this is, after all, what I've accused it of being for 30 years: A kabuki performance. Still, you'd wish they were still at least trying a LITTLE bit to disguise it. Or is this primitive level of performance enough to "satisfy" the current demands of th audience for "political theater?"

Via HuffPost:

Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chairman and chief executive of General Electric Co. tapped (--without any apparent irony at all~~W) by President Barack Obama as his next top outside economic adviser, will be asked to guide the White House as it attempts to (appear to care about actually doing anything to~~) jump-start lackluster job creation and spur a muddled recovery.

Immelt's firm stands as Exhibit A of a successful and profitable corporate America standing at the forefront of the recovery. It also represents the archetypal company that's (taken its successes from the hides of itw workers while~~W) hoarding cash, sending jobs overseas, relying on taxpayer bailouts and paying less taxes than envisioned.

The move is the latest salvo in the White House's continued aggressive and very public outreach ("outreach" = obvious cave-in, capitulation to, and fellation of ~~W)to corporate America. Earlier this month, Obama appointed a top (notoriously CorpoRat/corrupt Chicago fixer and former~~W) executive at JPMorgan Chase as his chief of staff, and this week he granted a longtime wish of business interests by (ass-fucking the environment, consumers, and the rest of the citizenry by~~W) promising to review federal regulations perceived as onerous.

Immelt's appointment raises fresh questions (they're not fucking fresh to me~~W) about Obama's courtship and future policy proposals. (People like Immelt who have spoken for~~W) Firms like GE say good jobs will come from lower taxes and less regulation. Immelt told analysts Friday that he'll focus on tax policy and regulation, among other topics.

"A clear problem in the recovery is that it's been a much stronger recovery for business in terms of their profit and earnings than for those folks who work and earn a living in the U.S.," said Gary Burtless, a former Labor Department economist and now a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a research and policy organization in Washington.

Burtless said Immelt was likely hired to reassure corporate America. Political opponents have cast the Obama administration as unfriendly to business interests, and the administration has had difficulty rebutting that theme. Immelt's hiring was yet another step in that direction.

Follow the link to the rest. It's depressing. Another case of O'Bama bending over to the Bosses and Massas...

Reynolds Price: "You'll ONLY Regret Your Economies"

RIP, a truly wise man (dec. Jan 20, 2011, age 78)

Dept. of Getting All UP In Their Grille: Health Care Hypocrisy Division

The GOPigs in the House "symbolically" voted to repeal the very modest, inadequate, stop-gap reforms universally now known as Obama-care, yesterday. Digby, and some others in the left/lib B'osphere are getting together some resources to slip a knife into the GOPocrits who voted to undo even the tiny advances that O'care portended for the mass of folks while selfishly, and often self-righteously, claiming their own tax-payer-funded medical insurance/care to be exempt.

If you gotta buck, send it to' em (me? hah.)

Pan-Spermia! That Freaky One-Percent

I cannot tellya how I admire this dude; just wish he were a little more decisive on Climate Change.

Imagine: Dawkins Foundation's Censored Fund Raiser

Stop The Madness" by StBarthelemy1572 ; Special thanks to McTash ; Richard Dawkins Foundation: Support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and human suffering.

javascript:void(0)

A Brief History of the Idea of "Unions"

Touches the high spots, in just about 90 seconds.

Late and Lamented, Utah Phillips: "Natural Resources"

Run fer yer fucking LIVES, children!

Cenk Takes "Vafanculo" Tony Scalia to the Rhetorical Shed

"This guy (Scalia) isn't brilliant, he's ridiculous."

Fuckin' DUH!

A Polite Discourse

The conversation may not yet be complete. I only posted my last remarks within the past hour. T"The New Mexico Fan Page" may yet reply; indeed may ban me for illegitimately "politicizing" the page.

DILLIGAF?

Woody Wiqiliques Konopak >>> The New Mexico Fan Page
The Railrunner, if the GOPukes under Tex Martinez don't run it into the ground, will turn out to be the best thing for New Mexico since snow...But since it is a public expenditure, I expect 'em to screw it up, defund it, let it decay, so they then can point to it and can say what a terrible idea it was.
So enjoy it while you can...
Friday at 4:26pm · Like · Comment
Diego Arreola likes this.


The New Mexico Fan Page We are sad that you take such a pessimistic view on the situation. With a new year beginning, we like to be optimistic about the future of this great state. Hopefully the new administration will work to better serve it's concerned citizens like yourself!
4 minutes ago · Like ·


Woody Wiqiliques Konopak How much you wanna bet?
The best thing the "new administration" could do for citizens like myself--hell, for ALL the citizens-- would be to shag her carpetbagging, valero-greased butt back to Texas, where empty-headed tea-baggery, anti-worker reactionism, and fear-mongering anti-intellectualism are normal.
a few seconds ago · Like

An Addendum appeared after my last post:

Jolene Lilley: So sorry you are so bitter. Wow!! I personally am so excited for this new administration to get going and make this GREAT state even better!!! God Bless our new gov. and the rest of our leaders.
43 minutes ago · Like ·

If It Weren't So Fucking Pathetic, This Might Be Funny: A Gay GOPuke "Explains" His "Position"