This has not been an easy week for me. The combination of over a day of no power, several days of no water, being stuck in with literally nowhere to go and nowhere to get there even if I wanted to, because of six to nine inches of snow – gives me a lot of time to think. Or try to avoid thinking. This blog has gone off the rails. I’m not apologizing for it because it’s my blog and if I want it to go off the rails I’m… Read More »Japanese: Off The Rails
Somewhere around 25 years ago, in a college somewhere in the American Midwest, I sat on a hideously yellow or orange sofa in the middle of a Performing Arts building. I was approached by an American Indian/Native American/First Nation/Whatever They Call Themselves Now person asking me to donate to some cause for American Indian rights, or some such. He tried to play the guilt card, about how his people have historically been oppressed. Let me stop right here and say: they have. That’s really not in doubt, and not going… Read More »Guilt
Today, a broadcasting great, Rush Limbaugh, has died at 70 of Lung cancer. Plenty will have been said of Mr. Limbaugh’s accomplishments, and they are many. Whether or not you agree with them, it’s impossible to overstate his achievements in the shaping of conservative thought over forty years. I agreed on some things, disagreed on others. But I think I will let others write an obituary. There will be many who will do a better job than I. I want to, instead, call out the atrocious behavior of people who… Read More »Speaking Ill of the Dead
Over the past few days, Texas has encountered a cold snap the likes of which we haven’t seen in a century. Last night we got down to 2 degrees, the all time record in Austin is -2. The roads are pretty much impassable, and everything has been shut down for a couple of days. Power here has been nonexistent. For some reason the power grid has pretty much collapsed. I have been without power for 18 hours now and some for much longer. In fact, four million people are currently… Read More »Texas: Living in the Third World
So, in the vein of what I had written earlier, I decided that I was going to try a past-life regression. I found a practitioner here in Austin (who shall remain anonymous), and come the appointed day and time, I went to the office. I was sat down and started the process to get me in a hypnotic trance. Honestly, It really didn’t work. I could visualize what she was saying, but I never actually fully relaxed, my conscious mind never disengaged. Finally, though, we started on the actual regression.… Read More »My Experience with Past-Life Regression
I have mentioned several times on this blog that Ihave no idea why I’m studying Japanese. Well, dear reader, I’ve figured it out. And I may quit. My mother tells me that from a very early age I loved learning. And Iguess that’s true. But there’s something else I’ve also loved, and that’s collecting. I don’t know why, but from a very early age, I’ve liked collecting things. I never had anything good to collect, so I just ended up collecting random, stupid things. Things that a child with little… Read More »Why I’m learning Japanese