13 August is “Left Handers’ Day,” and since Friday the 13th comes on a Monday this month, it means a whole week of bad luck – but only for those of the dextral persuasion.
My first inkling that things were not equal, at least handed-wise, was with the q-shaped school desks. Occasionally there was a single p-shaped desk per classroom, but that was a rarity, so us lefties adapted without complaint.
Later on it was penmanship, where part of the grade dismissed content and replaced it with “neatness.” To further embarrass us non-dextralites, they made us put little green plastic thingys on our pencils and pens as if we didn’t now how to grasp them properly. As late as 4th grade, Mrs. Mikulski grabbed and twisted my hand because I was “hooking” in order to write in cursive with the proper slant.
Kitty Werthmann was born in Austria and witnessed the effects of Hitler’s policies first hand. The article below dates to at least 1996 -I found it in the July 2012 issue of Military. As we approach another Independence Day it seems entirely appropriate for recirculation, especially in this election year.
Commentors on the websites where the article appears generally consider it to be historically accurate, with the exception of her description of the Austrian election which was a contrived fraud. Others corroborate her story. Left-leaning blogs dismiss Werthmann due to her religion, her position on the 2nd Amendment, her age, and especially because she’s a popular speaker at TEA Party rallies. One website even described her article as pure propaganda.
Regardless of the criticisms, it’s a must-read, IMO. -Bunk
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America Truly Is The Greatest Country In The World.
By: Kitty Werthmann
What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or will ever read in history books. I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide – 98% of the vote. I’ve never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.
16 June was the 25th Birthday of GIFs, according to Fast Company. We missed it, but we’re going to make up for the oversight.
“Choosy programmers choose GIF,” quipped Steve Wilhite of CompuServe, after he created the GIF image compression file format in 1987. It allowed for sequenced upload delays necessary for embedded animations. There’s a nice history of the now ubiquitous .gif on Daily Dot.
UPDATE: In the interview with Daily Dot (linked above) Steve Wilhite said that he thought the first .GIF animation was of an airplane. This is one of the first that I ever captured, several computers ago:
Here it is, all blowed up, in 5 frames of pixellated glory:
Is this the first .gif animation Wilhite was referring to? I don’t know, but it’s a contender.
After his wife died giving birth to their sixth child, Civil War vet Henry Jackson Smart was left to raise the litter all by himself. Imagine, if you will, what the average day was like for Henry: six kids of varying age screaming, kicking the crap out of each other, wetting the bed, refusing to eat their vegetables. It was hard on the single father until he found himself a worthy partner to alleviate the stresses of child-rearing: beer, and lots of it.
Fueled by the saintly patience only good ale can provide, Henry did such a good job with the kids that he inspired his daughter, Sonora Smart Dodd, to organize the first Father’s Day on June 19th, 1910. Fourteen years later, President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day, and Nixon, established it as a permanent day of national observance in 1972.
Approximately 200-400 years ago during Japan’s Edo period, an unknown artist created what is easily the most profound demonstration of human aesthetics ever committed to parchment. I am referring to He-Gassen a.k.a. 屁合戦 a.k.a. “the fart war.” In this centuries-old scroll, women and men blow each other off the page with typhoon-like flatulence. Toss this in the face of any philistine who claims that art history is boring.
Ancient Japanese art is a gas – but my hoax-alert antennae are twitching with the reference to “He-Gassen” even though I found another source here.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term “humpty dumpty” referred to a drink of brandy boiled with ale in the seventeenth century. The riddle probably exploited, for misdirection, the fact that “humpty dumpty” was also eighteenth-century reduplicative slang for a short and clumsy person.
Although there are other unproven theories that the rhyme references an historical figure or event, Humpty Dumpty was merely a riddle of the “What Am I” sort, and the answer was “an egg.” (And ten dozen guys couldn’t figure out how to make an omelette?) Try this one:
I am white And wet to touch; I can blind If you stare too much.
For years Tacky Raccoons has posted a small collection of Utoobage videos every weekend just for fun, entitled “The Saturday Matinee.” The videos posted are those that amuse us, and often include oddities and obscure musical relics from the past. Innocuous stuff, for sure.
We like to post ahead of time, so we linked and gave hoops to the delightful and fetching Miss Cellanea forthisand this, thinking that the vids she turned up would be entertaining for folks of all ages, good manners and proper posture, i.e., those who peruse Tacky Raccoons. However, if you click on the links to those videos, you’ll see something like this:
Here are the screencaps of two vids we intended to post that have since been squelched by the Great Squelchers of the YouTube:
If anyone reading this blog is offended by the destruction of washing machines or the herding habits of sheep, DO NOT CLICK HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, or especiallyHERE, and DO NOT enjoy the videos posted below the double-line of death.
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Yeah, so I went all caps. The YouTubers are out of line on this and they can bite me. Pass it on.
Update: Miss C has the story and forwarded new links.
Oh wow, I had no idea those were pulled! Luckily, I found replacements. Thanks for the heads up!
The guy who originally did the washing machine video was pissed that someone who copied him went viral, so that’s why that one was pulled. When I heard about it, I replaced the video at Neatorama, but neglected to update the one at Miss Cellania. The original video is here. http://youtu.be/6_PLnInsh7E
Now the sheep one is completely confuzzling. Harmful activities? That phrase isn’t even on the YouTube community guidelines page! But it’s probably a case of someone (or some group) flagging the particular copy that went viral. There are plenty of other copies. Like this one. http://youtu.be/pysET6UvN60
Official 2012 video [via]. It’s MUCH more intricate than what was shown in the original advert. Pure awesome.
Girl In A Coma plays GoGos plays Ramones plays Ritchie Valens.
Bill Deal &The Rhondels. R&B rock steady and clogging makes for a great ending to the Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend, see you here tomorrow.
Tacky Raccoons 