Category: Teaching

This is a very difficult topic for me, because I have now realized that I have to do that.  I wish that I did not, but I do.

Before I go on any further, let me say that I used to lie.  That was in my cheating days, and I really regret the cheating.  It destroyed my marriage, and I was married to one who still remains one of the most wonderful people in the world.

I lied to spare her feelings a bit, but honestly, to keep my ass from being trouble for the most part.  That is how liars work.  They lie to avoid the consequences of their actual actions.  But I really did, at least for some part, to spare her feelings.

David Keith McCallum, Jr. is a wonderful actor who has been on TeeVee for decades in either bit, supporting, or starring roles.  Most folks would not realize that he is 78 years old, because he looks much younger.  He is a Scot, being born on 19330919 in Glasgow.

He has been a professional actor since he was 15 or 16, and began doing voiceovers in 1947.  He did a fair amount of film work early on, but it was TeeVee that really got him noticed.

I hope that you will read and comment about this little tribute to not only a great actor, but also on whom I consider to be a great person.  The reasons for that will become more evident later.

Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River.  It was a rural sort of place that did not particularly appreciate education, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.

When I was a lad there were two general stores in town, the one that Gene and Katy Pittman ran and the one up the street that Mr. and Mrs. Rutledge owned.  Gene and Katy had the smaller one, and it was literally a mom and pop outfit.  The Rutledge’s store was quite a bit larger and had a greater variety of things, like clothes, than the other one.

The Rutledges employed Mr. Hall as a butcher.  Mr. Hall was at the time around 60 or so.  They lived only a few blocks from my grandmum, and Mrs. Hall was the classic stay at home spouse, but she did teach piano lessons in her home.  They were really nice people, and Mr. Hall was into radio in a big way.  I was also interested in radio, so we would sit in his shop and he would show me how to repair them.  He did that as a sideline business and he also collected antique radios.

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is back in the news since the Ohio Department of Natural Resources indicated that it was likely that disposal of those fluids after the actual fracturing operation was likely the cause of seismic activity in the Youngstown area, the largest of which was a magnitude 4.0 on 20111231.  It turns out that it us usually not the fracturing activity itself that caused the seismic, but rather deep well injection for disposal of the spent fluids after use.

This not the only potential problem with this procedure, however.  I have written about the process before, but am returning to give a more in depth treatment of it.  I was first drawn to the subject when earthquakes occurred in Guy, Arkansas last year.  The Guy area is not known for seismic activity, but sure enough after deep well injection of the spent fluids began so did the earthquakes.

Before we look at the potential problems with this process, we should look into why it is done and some historical background.  It turns out that the process is over a century old.

Every now and then we discuss this subject, but the last time that we broached the area I was not as good about finding video on line as I am now.  This time instead of merely discussing the adverts, there will be in most cases the actual advert before the bulk of the discussion.

Whilst many adverts are annoying, a select few make my list of obnoxious ones.  These fall into a few fairly well defined categories, but there is always the miscellaneous one.  You must realize that what is obnoxious for me might be delightful to you, so this is necessarily sort of an arbitrary list.  However, some adverts just cross the line.

I have grouped the obnoxious ones into these categories:  the stupid husband or boyfriend, and by extension the smart wife or girlfriend; the precocious kid; the deceptive parents; obnoxious celebrities; offensive cartoons; and other.  These categories are quite subjective, so feel free to suggest others in comments.

The common thread in most of these is that someone is a buffoon and that deception is often used.  This not always the case, but far too often in.  In addition to obnoxious adverts, there are the ones that are just stupid, and I have an example or two of those as well.

Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River.  It was a rural sort of place that did not particularly appreciate education, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.

Writing this series is a continuous learning experience.  Last time I posted some email traffic that I had had with descendents of Ben Boggs, and they took me to task, properly, for not portraying him as they knew him.  Amongst other things, he held the Purple Heart.  I honor him for serving our Nation in time of war.

This weekend I received a long email from his daughter, Jenny, whom I knew well with even more information.  Here is what she sent me, her words exactly copied and pasted in blockquote, and my responses to her words in plain text.

Ben taught his children manners.  There is no doubt about it.  I could not have come up with a better topic for tonight than to give the side of the story that I never realized.

I was actually going to address another topic this evening, but after late Friday and all of yesterday (and part of today, too) this topic is on my mind.  First we shall review my symptoms then get to some material released by CDC about this nasty bugger.

Friday evening I was answering comments for Popular Culture and started feeling a little funky.   I did not think much of it then, but I noticed that when I would stand up that my equilibrium was a bit off.  It was getting late, so I shut down the computer and went to bed.

I must first offer my apologies to Peter Townshend.  Pete, sorry, but I think that you would probably approve of this.  Please know that I mean no disrespect to the original song.  This is just political satire using one of your standards.

Normally I do not write highly political pieces, that function being done far better by others here, but tonight is an exception.  I hope that this gets my feelings about how the Republicans have taken what should be a foregone conclusion and twisted it to try to make their point, whatever that point is.  I have tried to be witty and not mean with it, but when talking ’bout Republicans sometimes it is difficult to keep from getting mean.

Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River.  It was a rural sort of place that did not particularly appreciate education, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.

This piece is mostly about two old rock buildings near Hackett.  One of them was the “old schoolhouse” to which my mum and dad met each other as first graders.  Their story was actually a love at first sight one, and that is actually, literally true.  My dad fell in love with my mum immediately, and their love affair continued to produce two sons, me being one of them, several grandchildren, and a circle of friends that still continue, although most of them are now gone.

The secondary story is about the consequences of posting about people.  I got a very irate email from the granddaughter of one of the men that I described months ago, just day before yesterday.  She was upset about the way I described him, and rightly so.  We communicated further, and became friends.  I shall show everyone what she said, my responses, and the consensus that we finally came to that resolved the issue.  I plan to continue this series, but will be a bit more considerate in future.

This is the forth and final installment on my short piece about milk.  This time, instead to focusing on human consumption of milk from other species, in particular from cattle, to the importance of human infants being given human milk until at least six months of age.  The first three installments can be found here, here, and here.

Human milk was universally used up until comparatively recently as the sole food for infants.  However, it was not always the mum of the child that supplied the milk.  Throughout history, surrogate women have supplied milk for other women’s children, a practice know as wet nursing.  This was pretty much confined to the wealthy class when the mum chose not to breastfeed her child and either hired other women to feed them or made slaves to that.  Although not explicitly said, the Mammy character in the book and motion picture was assumed to be Scarlett’s wet nurse.  In other cases friends of relatives of women who for some reason or another could not nurse a baby would fill in for her.  More on that later.

In the 1950s many countries began to encourage the use of infant formula as the “scientific” successor to natural breast milk.  While formula can be a wise choice in many circumstances, the latest research is pretty much a consensus that natural breast milk is superior in almost all ways to formula.  More on that later as well.

This is the third part of a four part series about milk.  The first and second parts are here and here.  The final installment will be about human milk with emphasis on its importance to the development of infants.

Cheese is one of the oldest processed food products known.  Whilst the origins of cheesemaking are obscure, it is fairly easy to speculate on how it got started, and we shall look at that in due time.  Archaeological evidence indicates that cheesemaking was an established art at least 4000 years ago, and the actual date of regular production is likely to be much older than that, but no records exist.

Because of the tremendous variety of cheese, I am sure not to mention one of your favorites.  Please pardon that oversight, but I like to keep under 5000 words!  However, I found an expert source that is likely to mention yours, and it appears directly under the fold.

Those of you who have been reading this series know that this will be the last installment about the history of The Who.  Although The Who continued to record new material and tour after 1978, to me the band really ended then and what was left was sort of what we now call a tribute band.

For 1978 to be such a disaster, it started off well enough, actually really well.  The Who were at the top of their game insofar as business interests went, Townshend, after being burnt by Kit Lambert, with whom he never reconciled, developed a high degree of business acumen, and The Who as a band were never strapped for cash again, although Moon and Entwistle had chronic money woes because of their lifestyles.  Daltrey was pretty conservative and also had a fairly successful acting career post 1978.

Although it pains me greatly to write this last installment, we might as well get on with it.  There are a number of ironies in 1978, and I shall point them out as we encounter them.  Please follow after the fold.