Ramblin' with Roger

SamuraiFrog writes: “The trailer for Now Is Good promised me only half of what I’m feeling right now, after having watched the film this morning.” Very touching blurring of film review and personal recollection.

On Facebook, I posted A Note to You, Should You Be Thinking of Asking Me to Write For You For Free by John Scalzi, which Jaquandor cited twice this month. It got a LOT of support from creative types.

Batman and the Golden Parachute.

Liberal values.

Eddie, in his tribute to Doc Watson, wrote:

(From The Bad Chemicals; used by permission)

God is a second-rate fiction writer. “There are true stories, short stories, fabrications, misrepresentations, novels, insurance reports, family sagas, testimonials, memorials, fairy tales, myths and arguments, the point of all being some kind of narrative persuasion. It’s a kind of stubborn, human-nature way of insisting things be seen from my point of view because that particular point of view is more entertaining, or more valid, or funnier or more beneficial.”

“When the news broke that ‘This American Life’ was retracting the episode ‘Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory,’ Ira Glass made an effort to be clear that the show has verification standards, but that they fell short in this instance.”

The sequence of verb tenses: “You get to decide which verb forms to use based on your intentions and your understand of the language from reading, speaking, and hearing it.”

When I mentioned the military draft earlier in the month, I may not have been very clear. Think of a large goldfish bowl with 365 or 366 balls with every date for the year represented. The first date for a particular year pulled would be the first selected for military service, the second date pulled the second selected, etc. There would be a cutoff number, based on need for the war effort. Check out this article and then this one.

The food stamp President; note that Arthur had this BEFORE MoveOn.com helped propel it viral. He also remembers the first anniversary of the Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake, the 50th anniversary of John Glenn’s flight aboard Friendship 7, and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens.

Rosa Parks Did Much More than Sit on a Bus

The Stories I Tell: “Like most of us I was raised to tell the truth and be honest. This can present a minor dilemma for resellers.”

How a mom used Star Wars to answer life’s questions

My problem was that I came from a religious tradition that frowned on astrology, even as Karen told me thinks that I was thinking and feeling that were incredibly accurate, based on our similar charts.

(Does the Bible condemn astrology? YES! Or NO!. Or yes AND no!)

Karen worked on the yearbook pictured above, and in fact was the editor, if memory serves.

Some years later, 1978, to be exact, she convinced/cajoled me to get a natal horoscope by sending $12.95 to Para Research of Rockport, Massachusetts. and this wasn’t just a standard cookie-cutter package. It was done just for me, based on not only when I was born, but where. So it listed not only my sun sign, but my moon sign, Sagittarius, and the various planetary positions.