Tom King's Blog, page 11

Everybody's a Critic

One of the side effects of the Internet has unfortunately been the provision of a forum for the proverbial "experts who can't do anything." It is said that those who can do, those who can't teach and those who can't teach become critics.  I think I may have been the one who said that.

In any case, with the rise of the "comment" thread it seems everyone or at least most everyone, has taken it upon him or herself to lay into every book, movie, song, restaurant, sports team, or work of art,...

Publishing's New Slavers - Writers Are Revolting!

Writer's are revolting and tightwad publishers would heartily agree!  The romantic characterization of writers in film and television is pretty much a figment of delirious, underfed writers' imaginations. The truth is that, unless they are smart, freelancers can wind up little more than underpaid drudges. At Christmas time, the image of poor old Bob Cratchit springs to mind.

The Internet arrived on the scene to great fanfare in the late 80s/early 90s. It was going to change the world they...

Little Boxes Filled with Tiny Numbers

I have decided to enter a more productive phase of my life.

Henry David Thoreau once said that he went to the woods to live "deliberately".  Good old H.D. understood that back in civilization, it is the bookkeepers who rule and where the bookkeepers rule, no one lives as he wishes. He lives as others wish. 

I too want to live deliberately. I just have to finish up all this paperwork that the government wants from me. Have I told you how much I HATE paperwork?  Other people seem...

My 2016 Election Prophecy

I have a prediction that I am confident is 100% accurate.* I call it the loser pred-election. I tend to vote for the loser. In the past six elections I have voted for the winner only 16% of the time. It would have been 33%, but I had just moved in one instance and didn't change my voter registration in time so I couldn't vote. I mean I could have but my official precinct was 300 miles from where I was living or, as we would say in Texas during the Carter 55 mph speed limit stupidity. "just un...

My 2016 Election Prophecy -

I have a prediction that I am confident is 100% accurate.* I call it the loser pred-election. I tend to vote for the loser. In the past six elections I have voted for the winner only 16% of the time. It would have been 33%, but I had just moved in one instance and didn't change my voter registration in time so I couldn't vote. I mean I could have but my official precinct was 300 miles from where I was living or, as we would say in Texas during the Carter 55 mph speed limit stupidity. "just un...

How We Wound Up Back in the Box

And How Do We Get Out?

Here we are eight days till we choose the form of the Destructor and most of the electorate is locked into a black and white, binary mindset. It's an either or choice for Mr. and Mrs. (or Ms.) America, and few of us have the ability to think much beyond that. The idea that there might be something outside the box we are presented is too much of a strain on our brains in this busy world we inhabit. Anything outside the box just isn't worth the effort to think about. It do...

Marriage Is NOT an Antiquated Institution

The day my life got better.The other day someone made the comment that she didn't think that marriage was "important' anymore. The group immediately chimed in with various comments about how it was an antiquated institution and not really needed anymore. "In patriarchal societies," opined one newly minted college-grad, "marriage was a matter of survival." Apparently not any longer according to this batch of millennials. The whole thing started over a lament about the divorce of "Brangelina" -...

There is No God - Flaws in the Argument

I got jumped on in the comments section of some blog or other today. That happens a lot to Christian apologists, though I'm not sure that term is entirely accurate. I've never apologized for being a Christian or believing in God. If someone asks a question or proposes a flawed idea, I just jump into the conversation. I can't help myself.

My favorite math class in high school was Geometry, especially the bit about proofs and theorems. I loved using logic to prove geometric premises. I've always...

Before You Judge a Person's Intelligence by an IQ Score - Read This!

Albert Einstein is the epitome of the high IQ
sort of genius, but something else enabled him to
transcend physicists with higher IQ scores. IQ is a highly over-rated measure of intelligence. I can say this possessing a Mensa level IQ of my own. I know this is from my own experience and from considerable training in psychology at the graduate level; training which included the administration of IQ tests. IQ tests measure only two specific types of intelligence - verbal and mathematical/logical. T...

In Search of a Peach Along the Broken Road

Sheila and I singing with Jack Allen at the nursing home
before God smacked me upside the head....I'm a mess tonight. I know my Sweet Baboo is coming home from Louisiana, but I'm worrying anyway and will till I get her home. Except for a quick trip home, she's been gone for three months. I lent her to someone who needed her and they nearly broke her. The song below really hits me in the heart. When I was a teenage kid, I just knew that my heart was out there wandering around looking for me to...