A Christmas comedy in 4 parts. One of the best I’ve seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvmh99alpJk&feature=share
Jesus still changes things.
Best lines: When boyfriend is asked if he has a gift (for baby Jesus) he says, "I have nothing," and when the step-mother is asked if she wants to hold the baby, she says, "But my hands are dirty."
My ongoing discussion with customer service, Kimberly.
“I have the feeling you kids have never talked to your grandparents. Wouldn’t we all be saving a lot of time if the company just included instructions that are on the website with the nice packaging? Just a thought. I paid $300. That’s $200 more than I ever paid for a watch.
The least I should get is instructions. I bought a $10 toaster at WalMart and have instructions in 3 languages. Happy New Year.”
Norma
Remember, though box
in the plural makes boxes
The plural of ox
Should be oxen, not oxes.
And remember, though fleece
In the plural is fleeces,
The the plural of goose
Aren’t gooses nor geeces.
And remember, though house
In the plural is houses
The plural of mouse
Should be mice, not mouses.
All of which goes to prove
That grammar a farce is
For where is the plural
of rum and molasses?
There are many versions of this poem on the internet, and most start with ox and oxen, and some include papoose, man, vine, etc. But this just shows people were having fun with it 160 years ago. I copied it on the back of scrap card when I was writing an article about women writers for this journal for Serials Librarian. It's possible there are more cards, and they are in the dark recesses of my desk. I had opened a drawer wondering if I needed to make a New Year’s Resolution about cleaning my desk!
There are also many explanations in Quora on how all these plurals happened, and they don’t seem to agree with each other.
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-word-oxen-used-for-the-plural-of-ox-and-not-oxes
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Seen on the Internet--a flight plan for 2019.
Hello, welcome to Flight #2019. We are prepared to take off into the New Year! Please make sure your Attitude and Blessings are secured and locked in an upright position. All self-destructive devices should be turned off at this time. All negativity, hurt and discouragement should be put away. Should we lose Altitude under pressure, during the flight, reach up and pull down a Prayer. Prayers will automatically be activated by Faith. Once your Faith is activated you can assist other passengers. There will be NO BAGGAGE allowed on this flight. The Captain (GOD) has cleared us for takeoff. Destination GREATNESS.
A note on Facebook from our friend Sue in California. We’ve known her in person about 15 years, but knew of her years before that because she’s such a close friend of Bob’s sister, Debbie. Sue spent a week with us in Lakeside in 2017, and by the end of the week I think she knew half the people in town—she’s just has that kind of super personality. She and her first husband had 3 sons, and they lost one, Michael, late in 2018. She had to leave her home in California and go to Oregon to live and care for him after he was released (briefly) from the hospital. We were one of the many friends privileged to have a thank you note from Michael in his handwriting before he lost the use of his hands.
“Before 2018 ends, I want to make sure I thank all of my family and friends for all your love and support. It has been the most difficult year of my life and for Kevin and Chris as well. Without all of your support it would have been even worse.
We appreciate all the food baskets, flowers, plants, gift cards, money towards plane tickets, letters and cards that we have received and are still receiving over the last 8 months. Michael loved them too. If you sent them during the brief time he was out of the hospital in October, you received a handwritten thank you card from him. Those were the last notes he ever wrote. Sometime in early November he lost the ability to use his hands to write.
My beloved coworkers even donated some of their vacation time so I would receive full pay for the month of December.
Tonight is brutally hard for me to go into 2019 without his midnight phone call. He always called me to say “Happy New Year Mom” and to let me know he was safe. I know he will be saying it, I just won’t be able to hear his voice.
God bless you all in 2019 and know that in your time of need, I will be there for you as well.❤️❤️❤️”
I’ve never seen them looking better. This fall they began home sharing and are now in a household with 4 generations, their daughter and husband, their grandson, and his twin girls—plus Diva the dog. There is lots of activity, which has been wonderful for Bob who has been ill.
We may not be in a position to do #6 (gift up to $30,000 to an individual if married), but we all need to do #10, organize our records for 2019, and shred documents no longer needed for retention.
Also, in 2018, you can contribute up to $18,500 in your employer-sponsored retirement plan (i.e., 401(k), 403(b), most 457 plans, and the Federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan). Employees aged 50 or older who participate in such plans can contribute an additional $6,000 in "catch-up" contributions. #3
AMA's 10 resolutions for the New Year. I'll need another list. Already have done all of these.
https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-offers-10-health-recommendations-new-years-resolutions
My mother kept a "commonplace book," in which she pasted poems, cartoons, articles from magazines, and things she'd hand copied or typed from books. I see familiar names--McCall's, Chicago Daily News, Farm and Ranch, Christian Herald, and Rockford Morning Star. As a child I would sit and look through it often--a small, 3-ring black leather notebook. I particularly enjoyed the poem, "For a female cat named Horace," because it reminded me of my friend's cat "Butch" who populated Forreston, IL with kitties and the one about how to make a recipe taste like mother's--walk 5 miles before dinner. She may have been saving clippings in a box for years, but the first item was the baby New Year 1946 with a broom greeting old man 1945 giving him a terrible mess. So here it is again, Mom, for 2018-2019. The world is still a mess and we need you.
I wrote about her commonplacebook in January 2010, and noted:
“Her final hand written entry (in the scanned copy) is undated; but it was near the end of her life--perhaps the end of 1999. She died in January 2000. There is no attribution other than her name.
If
Each day we fill a page
The year a volume makes
These last ten books are very full
of joys
changes
sorrow
growth.
Gently place this year on the shelf--
if there is room.
Close the decade.
This is a photo of my nephew David apparently doing a little emergency repair or battery replacement on his grandson’s Tickle Me Elmo.
Someone had given a Tickle Me Elmo to my mother-in-law (maybe us, I don’t remember) when she was in a nursing home. She loved that toy and would squeeze it, and would just beam when it laughed. We inherited it after her death in 1998. Bob kept it on a shelf in his office, and one day I suppose the battery malfunctioned and it began vibrating and giggling on its own. Sort of creepy. Not sure what became of it—perhaps we donated it, because it’s not in his office now. The photo is from 2006.
Our mothers in 1993.
A very common phrase among Christians is, "God will meet you where you're at," and it just hurts my ears. I heard it three times in worship this morning. What is the purpose of "at?" What does it link? Why not, "God will meet you where you are."
So I looked at a grammar page and found, "We meet you where you’re at and bring you where you want to go with a free placement test." Even the English teachers say it.
Prepositions are difficult for English learners, and we make them more difficult by dropping them where they have no function.
The only 'Russian bots' to meddle in US elections belonged to Democratic-linked 'experts' | 28 Dec 2018 | US cyber-security experts have blamed Russia for meddling in American elections since 2016. Now it has emerged that authors of a Senate report on 'Russian' meddling actually ran a "false flag" meddling operation themselves.
A week before Christmas, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Russia of depressing Democrat voter turnout by targeting African-Americans on social media. Its authors, New Knowledge, quickly became a household name. Described by the New York Times as a group of "tech specialists who lean Democratic," New Knowledge has ties to both the US military and intelligence agencies. Its CEO and co-founder Jonathon Morgan previously worked for DARPA. His partner, Ryan Fox, is a 15-year veteran of the National Security Agency who also worked as a computer analyst for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Investors pumped $11 million into the company in 2018 alone.
Morgan and Fox have struck gold in the "Russiagate" racket, which sprung into being after Hillary Clinton blamed Moscow for Donald Trump's presidential victory in 2016. Morgan, for example, is one of the developers of the Hamilton 68 Dashboard, the online tool that purports to monitor and expose narratives being pushed by the Kremlin on Twitter. The dashboard is bankrolled by the German Marshall Fund's Alliance for Securing Democracy [sic] -- a collection of Democrats and neoconservatives funded in part by NATO and USAID.
LinkedIn co-founder 'sorry' for funding 'Russian bot' disinformation campaign against Roy Moore | 27 Dec 2018 |
The co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, has apologized to Republican Roy Moore for funding an organisation that faked a 'Russian bot' involvement to mar his election campaign in Alabama. American Engagement Technologies (AET), which Hoffman gave 750,000 to, put 100,000 of the entrepreneur's m-ney towards New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm which fabricated some 1,000 Russian language Twitter accounts to follow Moore. The company used the tactic to link the controversial Republican to so-called Russian influence campaigns and then fed it to the mainstream media. They also created misleading Facebook pages urging Republicans to support a 'write-in' candidate instead of supporting Moore.
Yahoo, AOL, and Gmail are caught red-handed trying to influence the 2018 election --"One Test, in Florida, 100% of Republican Rick Scott's emails went to spam in Yahoo, while 100% of his Democratic opponent Bill Nelson's emails went to our Yahoo inbox." | 29 Dec 2018 |
Is the world of email biased against conservatives? ... Our team created email addresses with different email providers and signed up for the email lists of around fifty different candidates, committees, and political nonprofits. In the month leading up to the election, we tracked how many emails were sent from each entity, and what percentage of those emails made it into our inbox. Republicans Were Sent to Spam Far More Often Than Democrats --The results were striking, across every email provider... In Nevada, Democrat Jacky Rosen averaged over 90% placement in inboxes, compared to Dean Heller's over 90% placement in spam. In Florida, 100% of Republican Rick Scott's emails went to spam in Yahoo, while 100% of Bill Nelson's emails went to our Yahoo inbox. While these were the most dramatic examples, this pattern emerged in every toss-up Senate race we tracked.
https://imge.com/news/email-providers-suppress-republicans-2018-election/?
But it came with no information, instructions or warranty. When I wrote the company and asked, I got some of the answer in an e-mail from customer service, and some in an attachment which if printed would be white on black. Really? So I did what I should have done before I ordered: I looked up the company. It was crowd funded.
“When Jake Kassan and Kramer LaPlante dropped out of college to start MVMT in 2013, they had no clue what venture capital was. Instead, the duo raised around $300,000 in preorders through Indiegogo, the crowdfunding site, to create their first line of watches.
MVMT’s minimalist aesthetic, accessible price points and messaging about cutting out traditional retail middlemen appealed to a segment of millennial shoppers more willing than past generations to try out new brands and not equate high prices with quality.
“Watches are marked by flashy brands and millennials reject that idea,” Kaden, of Union Square Ventures, said.”
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The watches are handsome. And so are the founders. The instructions aren’t.
“MVMT was also an early mover in podcast advertising and marketing on Instagram at a time when the media formats were growing in popularity but advertising demand hadn’t fully caught up.
It didn’t hurt that they had picked product categories in watches and sunglasses that boasted big profit margins. Tuft & Needle did, too.
By the end of 2017, MVMT had managed to cross $70 million in annual revenue, mainly through its own website but also dabbling with sales on Amazon.
Along the way, its founders did learn what venture capital was — watching the press attention grow for heavily backed consumer startups like Warby Parker and Harry’s — but still kept their distance. Cautionary tales like that of Jessica Alba’s Honest Company — which raised too much capital at too high of a valuation, while convincing itself it was a tech company — spooked the founders.
“Once you do it one year, you have to do it next year; it becomes this bad cycle,” Kassan, its CEO, said. “I think having the discipline and flexibility was just the secret for us all along.”
https://www.recode.net/2018/8/29/17774878/consumer-startups-business-model-native-mvmt-tuft-needle
https://www.mvmtwatches.com/products/bourbon-rose
“The Bourbon Rose takes on a rich brown and gold colorway, pulled from iconic wood tones of California modern design. Italian tanned leather straps, a matte face and domed crystal complete this 41mm stainless steel case. A special exhibition case back reveals the dynamic intricacies of the automatic movement. . .
Automatic watchmaking is a centuries-old and deeply admired practice. Constructed with up to three-times the working parts of our traditional analog quartz watches, automatic movements harness energy through the natural motions of the wearer’s wrist. This powers the intricate series of wound springs and gear trains within the watch to keep time, making the Arc Automatic our most sophisticated timepiece to date. . .
Sleek steel and rich leather embody the core duality of the Arc Automatic. Inspired by the experimental spirit of 1960s architecture, this model explores the tension of modern design and timeless style.
This self-winding machine is distinguished by its intricate mechanical heartbeat. The gears that drive the smooth sweeping motion of the hands are powered by the natural movements of the wearer, revealed by a sculptural exhibition case back.’”
Here’s the small print I didn’t read when we ordered it. . .
“The Arc Automatic is best worn every day to keep accurate time, and should be fully wound before every wear. It’s best to keep in the watch winder when you are not wearing it. Avoid magnets, shocks and water exposure. In the event that water penetrates the case, repair immediately. Avoid setting the date between 9:00 p.m. -- 1:00 a.m. Best to avoid extreme temperatures, as accuracy is compromised below -10°C and above 60°C. Best to service approximately every 3 years to ensure long-term quality performance. In the event of time-delay or other unusual occurrences, service immediately. “
This non-profit has been launched by Steve Ballmer and wife Connie. Although most non-profits established by wealthy capitalists claim to be non-partisan and unbiased, we’ll have to see about that. When Ballmer gives interviews we’ll see the clues. But since I frequently use government statistics myself in making my points about medical costs, education, immigration, sex/gender, religion, animals, housing, etc., I welcome any source which can make sense of it all, particularly the blending of federal, state and local. Federal dollars, for instance, are only 3% of total spending on education.
https://www.geekwire.com/2017/full-interview-steve-ballmer-discusses-usafacts-new-10-k-government/
“USAFacts is a new data-driven portrait of the American population, our government’s finances, and government’s impact on society. We are a non-partisan, not-for-profit civic initiative and have no political agenda or commercial motive. We provide this information as a free public service and are committed to maintaining and expanding it in the future.
We rely exclusively on publicly available government data sources. We don’t make judgments or prescribe specific policies. Whether government money is spent wisely or not, whether our quality of life is improving or getting worse – that’s for you to decide. We hope to spur serious, reasoned, and informed debate on the purpose and functions of government. Such debate is vital to our democracy. We hope that USAFacts will make a modest contribution toward building consensus and finding solutions.”
The plan is to divide all government statistics by the four items in the Preamble’s mission statement.
Government revenue and expenditures are based on data from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Each is published annually, although due to collection times, state and local government data are not as current as federal data. Thus, when combining federal, state, and local revenues and expenditures, the most recent year shown is 2014, the most recent year for which all three sets of data are available. We show government spending through two different lenses:
Spending by segment: We recategorized several programs and functions to align them with four constitutional missions based on the preamble to the constitution:
- Establish Justice and Ensure Domestic Tranquility
- Provide for the Common Defense
- Promote the General Welfare
- Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity
This approach is modeled after what businesses do for their own management accountability and shareholder reporting. Public companies present their businesses in segments – a logical framework for discussing the areas in which the they operate. We do the same for government. In using this constitutional framework, we have made judgements in how we group programs. . .
Spending by function: We also show spending by functional categories such as compensation for current and past employees, capital expenditures, transfer payments to individuals, interest on the debt, and payments for goods and services. “
I don’t recall ever seeing this photo of our son’s junior year in high school. I guess they didn’t get any copies.
Harley Price, Canadian professor at University of Toronto Priceton.org
“When I walk into a room and say to people I meet ‘I’m Jewish’ often I will get the response ‘but you’re Black.'” Since when are the two mutually exclusive? People often make offensive racial assumptions about Jews (and converts) of color. Just like we’re not all named Rosenberg, one convert of color says it’s helpful to note that “Judaism is not a ‘race’ of white people. One of the things people should be mindful of is not to assume all people of color in the synagogue are converts (or the help, for that matter).” Yavilah McCoy (The Color of Jews)
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-dos-and-donts-of-talking-to-converts/?
Goy jokes are not funny.
“Words like shiksa (gentile woman) and shaygetz (gentile man) both derivations of the word for “dirty” in Yiddish, don’t make converts feel welcome either. Blondes with blue eyes, converts or not, tend to hear these words more often than converts like me with olive skin and big brown eyes. Still, my first Passover went south after someone repeatedly threw the word shiksa around along with some other ugly words about non-Jews. At the first bar mitzvah I attended, jokes about non-Jews were flying all over the place.”
Much of the advice in this article also applies to Christians. I stopped attending a Bible study by a pastor on a topic in which I was interested because of the sly little digs at Catholics, since I knew some of the invited guests were Catholics, or some grew up Catholic.
Much of if boils down to being an insider or an outsider whether a small town, a group, a church, a club, a resident new to the neighborhood, an alumnus, or a political campaign. We just can’t assume we are all like minded.
“In 2014, when I was a freshman, Mount Holyoke began admitting transgender and “non-gender-conforming” students. That means students who identify as men, or otherwise as nonwomen, can attend.
Doesn’t admitting transgender men to a women’s college undermine their claim that they are actually men? Or is Mount Holyoke simply a male-free zone, open to anyone except biological men who identify as such?”
Wall St. Journal, https://www.wsj.com/articles/my-alma-stops-identifying-as-a-mater-11545868845?
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