Tom King's Blog, page 7

Guidance Counselor Follies

(c) 2012 by Tom King

Looking for a Sheep to Lead Instead of a Shepherd

IMMUNIZING AGAINST BULLIES


The CDC says that 4400 children a year commit suicide because of bullying. Anybody wonder why that is?. Are we like Behaviorist BF Skinner said, solely the product of our environment, such that we really have no choice but to succumb to negative reinforcement like bullying? To listen to some commentators on culture in this country, someone has to do something about bullying.

I agree. The trouble is, programs to stop the bullies don't help much. Bullies tear down the p...

Facing the Post-Modernist Threat

Ever once in a while, I get riled up and rail against post-modernist philosophy. Given that the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences last week managed to lose  20% of its TV ratings for this year's Oscar ceremony after it presented another dismal panoply of post-modernists film, I thought it time to speak up again. The only Oscar winner that most of us cared about was Gary Oldman's best actor award for playing Winston Churchill in "The Darkest Hour".

Have you noticed lately that, Sir Winsto...

Is Free Verse Easy?

Don't kid yourself. Writing good poetry is very hard work.

Someone on a poetry forum where I'm a member complained the other day that rhymed and metered poetry is harder to write than free verse; that free verse required rather less hard work than, say, iambic pentameter or a sonnet. The person who says that sort of thing is not an experienced poet. I suppose if you were to say poor free verse is easier to write than mediocre rhyme, I might grant you that. I certainly see exam...<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]>

Texas Justice Is Also For the Birds

*Names changed to protect the guilty and the innocent.

The ACLU is currently defending someone who was ticketed and fined for flipping someone off in a public place.  The ACLU's position in defending this particular miscreant is that "the bird" is an expression of free speech and therefore protected by the constitution. It's unfortunate that a speech by Ben Shapiro, Dennis Prager or Bill Whittle is not also considered "free speech" by the ACLU, which turns out to be pretty much entirely o...

Great Grandpa ap Tegfan - Old King Cole to You

Our family's 20+ greats grandmother Ystradwel Verch Gadeon was "Queen Of Britan" also called "Strada the fair" (probably by people who couldn't pronounce "Ystradwel"). Her husband was Coel Hen ap Tegfan, high king of Britain on or about 374ish AD.

Strada's great grandfather was also named King Coel and In his later years he was known as "Old King Coel" by his subjects and he was apparently a merry old soul. After a few hundred years went by, the spelling of his name was changed slightly by som...

Chinese Christmas Dinner

The #1 restaurant to go to on Christmas Day is still the Chinese Restaurant. This dates back to when they were the only restaurants open on Christmas because Chinese didn't celebrate Christmas. It's since become a tradition in many families as an alternative to repeating the Thanksgiving turkey.

Chinese restaurants outnumber McDonald's restaurants in the United States. Part of the reason for this is the length of time that Chinese restaurants have been open in the United States. The first Chin...

Facebook - The Digital Front Porch

First picture I posted of me and DaisyPeople make fun of Facebook friends who post pictures of their dinners, their dogs and cats, or the first snow falling on their patio. Yet, somehow, these are some of the most popular posts on FB. I can post a profound piece on politics or religion that I think is earth-shaking and get a couple of thumb's up. But I post a picture of Mama's mashed potatoes or the dog napping in my lap and generate dozens of likes and comments. Why are people interested in...

Searching for Heaven - The Enigma That is Youtube

You choose....
The YouTube phenomenon is something nobody predicted back in the 60s when I was coming of age. I read a lot of science fiction and I don't remember that anyone ever predicted that the advance of technology would create the creative explosion that it has. Everybody was actually predicting that we'd gradually all become prisoners of our TV sets and that creativity would die away from neglect.

Then came the Internet! Who would have guessed that what was essentially a military commu...

World History for Dummies

A self-described "...keen follower and an avid reader of World History" posted this claim. He said that if Columbus hadn't discovered America and the Europeans had never come there'd be no United States and therefore the following amazing things would have happened (he even includes "links" to prove his point:

We would have more of:
Oil because US tops the list of Oil consumers of the world.Top Oil Consumers More electricity because US is the 2nd largest consumer of electricity. Electricit...