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Greetings, Quotaholics:
I’ve
written before that I have never had my fingerprints taken. I never
put any effort into avoiding it, I was just never required to. Nowadays
more and more jobs require someone to submit to background checks and
fingerprints are a part of that check.
I’ve been lucky that I was never fingerprinted. I never got arrested
for anything. Never had a background check. Now it’s gotten to a point
that I would resent having it done. Not out of some moral or privacy
reasons, just because I’ve lived this long without having it done I
don’t see any reason to change now!
To my surprise some people object to having their fingerprints taken
on religious grounds. A story on the KTRE
website tells of a teacher in the Big Sandy School District in Dallardsville,
Texas who is "…suing the state for requiring her to be fingerprinted
for a background check, saying it violates her religious freedom."
"According to her attorney, Scott Skelton, of Lufkin, Pam McLaurin
believes the book of Revelation literally and that getting a fingerprint
would bear her the mark of the beast and she would be ‘be tormented
in burning sulfur.’"
Ms. McLaurin has been a teacher in the school district for 20 years.
The Texas Education Agency recently passed rules, expected to take effect
in 2011, that requires background checks for all teachers in the state.
Skelton says McLaurin is willing to submit to any kind of background
check the state wants to conduct. Just not fingerprints.
"’She just doesn’t want to be fingerprinted. That’s all she doesn’t
want to have to do. She doesn’t mind her background being checked out.
She just doesn’t want to submit to that. But TEA is not allowing an
exception and so she is in this predicament,’ said Skelton."
"Superintendent Kenneth Graham said the district will do whatever
the state requires, but hopes it will allow McLaurin to continue teaching
without being fingerprinted."
"’A person’s religious convictions are their own and we’re not
going to judge them as far as I’m concerned," Graham said. "My
only consideration is that she does a good job for us and she is good
for our children.’"
The scripture that McLaurin bases her belief on is Revelation 13:16-17
and Revelation 14:9-11. It is quoted in the article so I won’t include
it here, but it deals with the "mark of the beast".
Fingerprinting doesn’t seem to me to be a "mark" but if that’s
what she believes so be it. The question becomes does she have a right
to refuse fingerprinting if it violates her religious beliefs? Would
it be possible to do an adequate background check without fingerprints?
Should this only be about the safety of our children and any teacher
who won’t submit should be fired? What if she doesn’t want to submit
to fingerprinting because she knows it would turn up something from
her past?
Educatingly,
Comment
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To a Pittsburg Pirate teammate wearing three small gold chains around
his neck – “What’s that? A Mr. T starter set?” – Mike Diaz
“When someone in Green Bay says he has a good wardrobe, it means he
has ten bowling shirts.” – Grag Koch
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Creation
[Thanks Sied]
In the beginning
God created day and night. He created day for footy matches, going
to the beach and barbies. He created night for going prawning, sleeping
and barbies. God saw that it was good. Evening came and morning came
and it was the Second Day.
On the Second Day God created water - for surfing, swimming and barbies
on the beach. God saw that it was good. Evening came and morning came
and it was the Third Day.
On the Third Day God created the Earth to bring forth plants - to
provide tobacco, malt and yeast for beer and wood for barbies. God
saw that it was good. Evening came and morning came and it was the
Fourth Day.
On the Fourth Day God created animals and crustaceans for chops, sausages,
steak and prawns for barbies.God saw that it was good. Evening came
and morning came and it was the Fifth Day.
On the Fifth Day God created a bloke - to go to the footy, enjoy the
beach,drink the beer and eat the meat and prawns at barbies. God saw
that it was good. Evening came and morning came and it was the Sixth
Day.
On the Sixth Day God saw that this bloke was lonely and needed someone
to go to the footy, surf, drink beer, eat and stand around the barbie
with,so God created Mates, and God saw that they were good blokes.
God saw that it was good. Evening came and morning came and it was
the Seventh Day.
On the Seventh Day God saw that the blokes were tired and needed a
rest. So God created Sheilas - to clean the house, bear children,
wash, cook and clean the barbie. Evening came and it was the end of
the Seventh day.
God sighed, looked around at the twinkling barbie fires, heard the
hiss of opening beer cans and the raucous laughter of all the Blokes
and Sheilas, smelled the aroma of grilled chops and sizzling prawns,
and God saw that it was not just good, it was better than that, it
was bloody good.
IT WAS AUSTRALIA !
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“Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake
and a basic understanding of how the world works.”
“Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which
deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”
“We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science
and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away
with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of
ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.” - All from American
astronomer and writer Carl Sagan born on this date in 1934
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Happy
Bug is Happy
[Thanks Cliff]
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Speak right up!
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A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To…
Almost daily I see something that tickles my funnybone, at least enough
to get a chuckle.
One day I was in my back yard. Two squirrels were playing tag, or one
was chasing the other out of it’s territory, or whatever. All I know
is that they were running up & down trees, going around them like
stripes on a barber pole. Eventually, the lead one was literally "out
on a limb". He was trying ever so hard to maintain his lead from
the other. In a moment of poor judgment, it leapt for a nearby branch.
It was directly over my head, and missed it’s mark. Down it came from
about 25 feet. It landed with a thump only a yard away, splayed flat
like in the cartoons. I went over to it, and just as I arrived, it got
it wits about itself and took off like a shot. That one made me laugh
out loud for a while.
Today I was out on my deck. It was a warm day after several cold days.
A few insects were out. One seemed overly energetic and was buzzing
along (pun intended) at a pretty good clip. It decided a nearby leaf
would be a good landing spot. It landed on that leaf without braking.
The leaf waggled once, then fell. Apparently it was ready to join it’s
brethren below and all it took was that impact to break it free. Down
it went with bug still attached. It spun as it dropped and all I could
think of was that the bug probably lost it’s lunch when it got to the
ground. I got more than a chuckle over that.
One day a couple rabbits were in my neighbor’s yard. One was grazing
and the other got a wild hare (’nuther pun). The 2nd one charged the
first. The first one simply jumped straight up and avoided the attach
as the 2nd went past harmlessly beneath it. The 2nd one must have felt
bested and wanted the best 2 out of 3. Another run resulted in the exact
same reaction, only the mirror image. It was on to best 3 out of five
with another run. Same result. After about 5 or 6 passes, the 2nd rabbit
gave up, but I sure did get a kick out of watching it.
One night a neighborhood cat got into my back yard. It didn’t notice
me on the deck. Nor did it notice my dog coming around from behind the
shed. It did finally see me when I turned on the lights. It took off
around the corner of the shed. That cat must have jumped up 15 feet
when it was almost nose to nose with my dog. My dog must have been jet-assisted
as she took off in the opposite direction with her tail tucked tightly
between her legs. I still don’t know which was more startled.
Here’s your quiz:
What funny thing(s) did you see today?
Do you find something funny almost every day, too?
What made you laugh out loud in public?
A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To… - Everywhere
Cliff (the High-Tech Redneck who doesn’t rate a fancy ’signature pic’)
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Email Kirsten
“Blink
and you miss a sprint. The 10,000 meters is lap after lap of waiting.
Theatrically, the mile is just the right length - beginning, middle,
end: a story unfolding.”
~ Sebastian Coe ~
I like new things. With a few exceptions, I am not really a big fan
of the actual process of going to a store and traipsing around for hours
on end, at the end of which you fork out huge amounts of hard-earned
cash for something that probably cost seventy-six cents to make and
involved terrible human rights violations. But actually having
new things is nice.
I have a few new things. There’s the suit I bought a couple of weeks
ago, that I’m finally going to wear to work tomorrow. I didn’t mind
shopping for that one, because the price was drastically reduced and
I was treated like royalty, which was a nice change from my usual cheap-skate
shopping ventures. There’s the Netbook I splurged on a while ago - it
no longer qualifies as brand, brand new, but it’s still nice and shiny.
My other recent acquisitions are investments in my running. About two
weeks ago I acquired, through the magic of Online Shopping, a really
cool heart rate monitor that’s GPS enabled. I go out for my run, and
all along my route my run data is tracked and displayed - heart rate,
current speed, average speed, total time, time of the last kilometre,
time so far in the current kilometre, time compared with my “virtual
training partner”, elevation, and the fact that the satellite has my
exact location pinpointed to an accuracy of six feet. When I get home
and get within six feet of my laptop, the watch automatically starts
transferring data to the computer. When I open up the application on
the computer, I see a lovely map of where I’ve been, along with graphs
and stats and a little media player that enables me to see my speed,
heart rate and elevation at any point in my run. I’ve only been for
a few runs with this device, and already I don’t know how I ever trained
without it.
Yesterday I got my latest new thing - a new pair of running shoes. My
previous ones saw me through six months of hard training, a half-marathon,
and another month of running. They still have life in them, so they
are not being retired yet. But it was time to start sharing their burden
with another pair of shoes. Fortunately, shopping for running shoes
is the only kind of shoe shopping I actually like. So I went off to
my favourite running store and told the nice lady there that I was looking
for a pair of New Balance stability shoes. The first pair I tried on
were very nice, the second pair were not so nice. I had decided on the
first pair when the lady brought out another pair for me to try on.
When I put them on, I think I actually sighed with pleasure. It was
as if the shoes had been custom-made for my feet. The fact that they
were the most expensive pair of the three I tried on did not deter me.
These shoes are going to take me a long way; it’s worth the money.
This morning, the shoes went on their maiden voyage. I laced up, put
on my fancy GPS thing, and hit the road for fourteen kilometres. An
hour and a half later, I came not-quite-sprinting home, exhausted and
aching. It had been a tough run and the bottoms of my feet felt a bit
worn out. This did not surprise me in the least - a feeling of raw feet
goes hand-in-hand (or foot-in-foot) with breaking in new shoes.
This is the start of a new chapter in my running. Every time I buy new
shoes, I feel as if I am entering into a new phase, with new goals.
It’s such a simple event, getting new running shoes, but it’s a symbolic
one. And so, as I sit here typing this, I am tired but content, and
looking forward to some fantastic miles.
Kaleidoscopically yours,
Kirsten
Comment
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Tim
wasn’t able to write today… I don’t mean he wasn’t physically
able… It’s not like he was hurt or anything… Oh, never mind,
here’s an archive piece.
I did one of the hardest things I have to do at work today. I modified
the program that assigns students times that they can register. It’s
a way to offset times so there isn’t a long line. That is a good thing,
as students can register between classes in their allotted time and
not have to miss a class. In principle, it’s really quite fair, as
the students closest to graduation get the first opportunity to register.
After that, it is based on the alphabetical listing of their name,
and blocks of them are rotated.
For example, if your last name begins with A and it is your first
semester, your registration card might say you can register at the
earliest time on the first day freshmen are allowed to register for
the next semester. The next semester, you would might get the second
day, as those whose last name starts with Z would have first shot.
It rotates like that until just before graduation, where the person
with the "A" name would register on the last day. But still
that isn’t totally fair, as the registration times for the day of
those whose last names begin with X, Y, or Z would always be won by
those whose names begin with X. So it is rotated within the day too,
so one year X would go first on the first day, the next Y would, and
then Z would. Pretty fair and simple enough, right?
If it was that simple, it would take me 5 minutes tops to make the
modifications to the program. But it isn’t that simple. You see, our
registrar thought it would be good to throw another wrinkle into mix.
Every semester, she mixes up a couple of letters, replacing C with
X, for example. So now the day they can register starts with A, and
is followed by B, then concluded with X. X’s place is bumped up, which
is good if your name starts with X, but bad if your name starts with
C and you’re the one that got bumped back.
I once asked her why she did this, and she told me that Kathy recommended
it. I talked to Kathy about it, and she had no recollection of any
such suggestion. I went back to the registrar, and she suddenly remembered
why she did it. She spent probably half an hour trying to explain
her logic to me, but it wasn’t based on statistical math, and I was
quick to point out the shortcomings in her reasoning. She was moving
letters that belonged in the beginning to the end. She mumbled more
bullshit about how it’s important to rotate within a given set, which
was already part of the program, and rotating items between sets,
which is statistical crap.
I know someone is getting screwed. When someone in the "ABC"
group gets moved to the "xyz" group, they get f*cked. I
know this. And that’s why this is one of the most difficult things
I do at work. I’m morally nice like that.
And if anyone was going to give these young co-eds the shaft, I would
prefer it was me.
Tim a’Musing
Having a Ball with Yarns
E-mail
Dear Tim
Comment
on this article
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Miscellaneous Tips
If your cake recipe calls for nuts, heat them first in the oven, then
dust with flour before adding to the batter to keep them from settling
to the bottom of the pan.
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That line wasn’t a hit, but a bunch of make-ups
saved me!
Next opening line…
My spouse said I have a big butt…
Hints:
Here’s a great new rhyming/composition tool. http://www.writerhymes.com/
There’s also a great rhyming dictionary at http://www.rhymezone.com/
Limerick rules. http://freespace.virgin.net/merrick.sheldon/limerickrules.htm
Submit
Opening Line
Submit
Limerick
A
stranger came out of the west
Wearing sun glasses, a hat and a vest.
He said he made movies
And was recruiting cuties,
And naturally, he liked me best! - Peg |
A
stranger came out of the west
It was me he came out to best
I had a reputation for fast
I had him with one blast
Now, I’m sporting his hand-made vest. - Bonnie |
A stranger
came out of the west—
fortunately he was not dressed—
we * and we *
******
at all of it he was the best. - Cassandra in New York |
I think
I’ve come down with the flu—
I sniff all day and go "boo-hoo"—
I sneeze and I sneeze
and fall down in the breeze
I just don’t know quite what I should do. - Cassandra in New York |
I’ve had
too much candy this week—
with my gut I play Hide and Seek—
I just got so fat
‘couldn’t ever take that
I felt like I was so very very meek. - Cassandra in New York |
A man with
a magnificent rod
Said with a wink and a nod
By any measure
This one women treasure
Especially when they start catching cod. - E. Cole Aye |
I once had
a big black cat
Who was rather lazy and fat
Why he became that way
I found out one fine day
He was being served by one smart rat. - E. Cole Aye |
Ashes to
ashes, dust to dust
A proper funeral is a must.
Sadly what can I say?
Wish he were here today. . .
Too bad that Rover didn’t see the bus. - E. Cole Aye |
My wife
just flew in on a broom
To the middle of the living room
I yelled, "Hey you old hag
Your fat ass does drag."
Now I’m preparing to meet my doom. - E. Cole Aye |
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Re: Gene Patents
Gene patents and their
life and death health effects are just one example of how progressive
legislation has been perverted. To understand the situation, we have
to see corporations as a life form made up of humans, but no more concerned
about individual rights and welfare than your body is worried about
the millions of cells it kills off for the overall good of the body
every day.
The corporation is an amoral immortal, designed to concentrate wealth,
not promote health. It is immoral for a company not to shout lies, if
the truth might harm profits. To quickly cut through the legal walls
around them, and get real reform instead of more legal wranglings we
might just resolve to confiscate the assets of 1% of the incorporated
companies every year, based on their level of harm to the commons.
On the patent issue, I’d fund research by taxing obsolete industries.
Any individual or group could get funding, although they’d have to produce
results to make more than minimum wage or get expensive gear. That’s
cheaper than asking bureaucrats to rate the potential of new ideas.
Information sharing would lead to great savings and progress, and new
industries could concentrate on production. - Bob of the North
Not that I trust
the gov’ment, but it would seem that paying for research might be something
it could do so there isn’t a monopoly on life saving technology. - Lucille
Would that mean that anyone that was born after the date of patent who
was born with that particular gene would have to pay the company who
owned the patent? Just
thinkin’ - GrammieSammie
Re: Family Gatherings
I don’t like
to host big family gatherings, I get too stressed out, but my maternal
grandmother used to and when she died my mom took up the torch. During
Gramndma’s time, we would have to clear out every stick of furniture
from the living room of her tiny little house, and put in a very long
table would take up the whole living room. There was no room to walk
around, so you had to either crawl under the table to get to the other
side, or go out the front door and go in the back door and through the
kitchen to get to the other side. It was the same deal to get to the
only bathroom in her house. Later on when all 11(22) aunts and uncles
started having more kids, we had to eat in shifts…kids first, to get
them out from under foot.
When my Mom took on the task, it was basically the same thing except
we had to empty the rumpus room of all furniture to put a long table
diagonally in the room. By then Mom had gotten wise and left room to
walk around the tables but even so, when the families started growing
ever larger we put 2 extra tables out on the sun deck, with a spectacular
view of San Diego bay. The uncles would go out in the living room after
we all ate and us kids would bet on which uncle would fall asleep first.
The younger crowd would go outside and down the block to play some touch
football in the street.
The last large family gathering was Thanksgiving at my Moms in about
2002 I believe. We just had family from the three youngest sisters in
Moms family and only about half of those showed up and we still had
over 45 people and four generations of family at the table. I miss those
days.
I felt so empty after those large family gatherings. I used to wish
everyone could stick around longer, but then I was just a guest and
didn’t get stuck with clean up! - GrammieSammie
Re: Funerals
My
mother passed away in April of this year. Even though she had her wishes
for details of her funeral service written out, we children had to make
the funeral & burial arrangements. I already knew that funerals
are expensive, but I was appalled when we actually sat down with the
‘price list’! Caskets are way, way overpriced - as you said, they won’t
preserve a body forever anyway. We did actually consider ordering a
less expensive casket online, but the shipping created a potential problem
- they could not guarantee that we would receive it in time. Each increment
of service was incredibly expensive! In spite of the director’s "gentle"
handling of the situation, the total cost of a modest funeral added
a tremendous amount of stress on us.
We were fortunate that my mother had funeral insurance paid for. I honestly
don’t know what people do without that. Deciding how to best spend the
money at a time when we felt like lavishing everything on her as a show
of our love was difficult enough. To not be able to afford anything
at all must be unbearable. My heart goes out to all who lose a loved
one, but I grieve most for those who cannot afford today’s outrageous
prices to decently bury their family member.
I have no constructive suggestions to offer as a resolution to the problem.
But I definitely encourage parents of all ages to purchase funeral insurance,
in order to alleviate some of the burden on the surviving children.
- Tere
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Disclaimer- All quotes printed in this publication are believed to be
accurately attributed, but no guarantees are made that some incorrectly
attributed, or even outright false quotes won’t get in here from time
to time. I assure readers that I will do my best to weed out incorrect
quotes, and will print a retraction as soon as I become aware of any errors.
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Click here to see the archives of past issues, or go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/reallygoodquotes/messages.
If you run across something really outstanding when perusing the archives,
I’d appreciate it if you’d mail me at TheBestOfRGQ@yahoo.com
and point it out to me. I’m in the process of compiling an e-book
called, not surprisingly, The Best of RGQ, and I’d like to hear from you
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