Thursday, October 16, 2008

Random Thoughts

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Considering what a complex and still little understood thing language is, I find it appalling--simply appalling!--that unlicensed amateurs are allowed to teach it to their children.

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If you're going to be a knitting snob, wouldn't it make more sense to be snobbish about the advanced skills you've mastered than about the tools and yarn you use?

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Some people say "People's beliefs don't matter" out of one side of their mouths and "It is necessary to believe in ourselves" and "Self-esteem is so important" out of the other side.

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Why does "homemade" usually have good connotations when we're talking about food and bad connotations when we're talking about clothing? What--did millions of Americans grow up around women who were great cooks and lousy seamstresses?

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Anyone who mocks the old-fashioned virtues of showing some reserve, controlling the emotions, considering the neighbors, and not airing dirty laundry in public ought to be required to go along with policemen on a few domestic disturbance calls.

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Maybe I'll feel better about people referring to "a Down's Syndrome child" (or, worse, "a Downs child") when I start hearing people say "Oh, s/he has a cancer child."

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Why do some people admire the "quaint", traditional architecture and clothing of peasants and peons in other cultures, while complaining about the dreadfully "uncreative" people in their own culture who insist on doing things the way they've always been done?

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If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. Both are true because if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing. Period.

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To live in Key West it seems you must either be rich enough to afford two houses (one well away from Key West) or have a lot of family and friends you can stay with every time the Keys are evacuated.

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Sometimes hurricane weather reports make me feel a bit like a parent who's heard on the radio that a child at his child's school has been killed and then, when he's located his own still living child, feels a huge rush of relief, only to realize a few moments later that he's relieved it's some other parent going through the worst day of any parent's life, not him.

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Possible new word--Conflusion. The result of drawing an asinine, confused conclusion from data presented.

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