Explanation

OK, here's part of what's going on this week. My friend Tina was diagnosed with epilepsy a couple of years ago, is on medication, and has been doing well. She also has some other health problems that haven't been diagnosed yet. In order to teach the dual enrollment English course next year (academic year), she needs to take six graduate English courses - two a semester. Her family and friends have been worried about her driving to Clarksville which is around 35-40 miles away after teaching all day, not feeling good, and being tired. This semester's classes are from 4:30-7:30 Monday and Wednesday. So I'm going with her.

People over 60 can audit courses free in state universities, so I thought I'd sit in on the classes. I talked with the teacher who said it was OK with her and directed me to the Head of the English Department, who told me it was fine with him as long as the ones teaching the class didn't mind. So that's settled as long as the one Wednesday is OK about it. I hope so because that's the class I prefer to be in.

This Monday class is Composition Theory and Pedagogy. Yeah. First of all, I didn't like teaching composition and really didn't like grading it. Most of what they write is crap. Occasionally it's interesting. I like teaching writing about literature better. Since I never have to teach writing again, this isn't as interesting to me. I can probably learn some new things, though, that I can use to help the grandchildren. Oh wait, I'm wrong! I will have to grade essays on some of the Virtual High School courses, so that writing class will come in handy.

The Wednesday class is Biblio and Methods of Research, which includes some literary theory and appeals to me. We'll see. There's a lobby in the building with couches and chairs that look really comfortable for reading and knitting, which at times I plan to do there. It is an art gallery filled with pieces to look at. Since I've also taught art, this is a treat.

You'll be hearing about this as time goes on. This will cut into my time at home but will be good for me because I'll have a bit of a schedule and be busier.

Ran a bunch of errands today and have more the rest of the week, too. Also need to get the house ready for my little visitor this weekend but mostly need to get "Brendan food" at the grocery. The hardest part now is preparing all those meals since I'm so out of the habit. I eat out quite a bit and just make whatever for myself here at home. Now it feels like a big deal to cook for anyone but me.

I'm meeting Brian tomorrow in Nashville for lunch and to get Brendan's things for when he stays here. I'm looking forward to spending some time with him.

I'll have to get back for training for a new part-time job. I'll be grading work of students at the Virtual High School at the high school where I taught last. It will be done online, and my contract is for 7.5 hours a week. I can do it from home. So I need to go to the Central Office to work out how I'll get paid and sign the contract. More on this as it happens, too.

Several years ago, all this was nothing. Now it feels busy!!

Busy Week

I won't be on the computer as often for over a week. Have lots of things to do and places to go and people to see! I'll post as I can. Then on Friday I pick Brendan up at school for the weekend while Brian and Melissa attend DragonCon in Atlanta. I'll take him to school Tuesday morning. Wish us luck getting up early enough to make the hour-long drive to his school in East Nashville!

Emmys

I thought the Emmys last night was the best I've ever seen. Jimmy Fallon rocked! Did you watch? What did you think?

Feel the Love!

Obama the Muslim?

I guess you saw this on Countdown. Great sarcastic humor!

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DWTS Potential Horror

From Twitter:

4 new tweets.

1. askjimmycarter
   Bristol Palin,David Hasselhoff,Troy Aikman,Jon Gosselin,rumored to compete on 'Dancing With the Stars, report says; ABC will not comment

OMG! What else will that family do? Will Levi take care of the baby while Bristol learns to dance? Depending on who else is on, she probably won't last long since obviously she doesn't have much rhythm (method).

Aikman is the obligatory football player, so that's not surprising. The Hoff and Mr. K8 Gosselin, however, I won't be able to watch without covering my eyes. Not as bad as Tom DeLay and Mrs. Famewhore G, though.

Happy Birthday to King of the Dust Bunnies!

Happy Birthday, David, and thanks for all the laughs, smiles, and love!!

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

Dedicated on May 2, 1997, the monument, spread over 7.5 acres, traces twelve years of the history of the United States through a sequence of four outdoor rooms, one for each of FDR's terms of office. I've never been there but plan to go the next time I'm in DC.

Dusty Trivia

About 27 tons of dust rain down on Earth each day from space, making a total of almost 10,000 tons each year.

I think a lot of this fell in my house.

Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

Although they were fearless in battle, Napoleon and Julius Caesar both suffered from ailurophobia, the severe fear of cats.

Brigit says, "I can take 'em!"

Scary News

My daughter Kathy called me today to let me know a close friend of my granddaughter Kari's received a spinal cord injury after he landed on his head from jumping in their above-ground pool. Here's the video that was on the news in Chattanooga about it.


The article is HERE misspelled words and all.

HGTV Design Star

Any of you who would like to give HGTV some input for the next season of Design Star can do it HERE. Bob had some great ideas for it and so did others of you. So let them know, and maybe some of our ideas can have an influence.

Australian Comedy Routine

This sounds like a Monty Python routine with Australians! Video HERE. Title: "Should BP hire this guy for PR." It's a hoot! Here's what Snopes wrote about it HERE. It's worth the short time it takes to watch it.

Commentary:
According to this email forward, an accompanying video shows a news interview in which Australian Senator Collins talks about a recent oil tanker mishap off the coast of Australia in which "the front fell off" the ship spilling 20,000 tons of crude oil into the ocean. The "senator's" comments are so absurd that the interview is actually extremely funny. The message apparently intends the viewer to believe that this humour is unintentional and simply the result of yet another politician making a fool of himself in the public eye. However, in spite of the claim in the message, the video is not an "actual interview". It is in fact a satirical mock interview that fully intends to be funny.

The video does not depict the real Senator Collins or any other actual government spokesperson. Instead it is one episode of a long running humour segment delivered by Australian comedians John Clarke and Bryan Dawe. The "Front Fell Off" episode first aired back in 1991. For a number of years, the duo has delivered their bitingly satirical take on Australian politics and society first on radio and later in regular TV segments. They currently appear on ABC current affairs program, The 7.30 Report. Clarke has played a variety of "newsworthy" Australians including prime ministers and other politicians and prominent business leaders while Dawe plays his hapless interviewer. Information on Clarke's website explains the pair's approach:

In the interviews, John makes no attempt to look or sound like the person he is pretending to be, but deals with matters as he sees fit. Bryan persists with dignity and strives for understanding.

Clarke and Dawe are well known in Australia, and, when the "interviews" are aired in their original context, most viewers would very quickly realise that they are only for entertainment and feature an actor just pretending to be the high-profile "interviewee" named in the episode.

However, in this case, it appears that some unknown prankster has removed the segment from its original setting and tacked on title and ending captions that imply that it shows a genuine news interview with the real Senator Collins. Senator Bob Collins did serve as Federal Minister for Shipping between 1990 and 1992 but he never gave an interview even remotely resembling the one portrayed in the comedy piece. Collins died in September 2007. Moreover, the oil spill incident lampooned in the Clarke & Dawe segment occurred in 1991 not 2007 as suggested in the email.

The original and unaltered version of Clarke & Dawe's "The Front Fell Off" episode is available on Clarke's website.

Source: Hoax-Slayer

Scary, huh?

Karl Rove (@KarlRove) is now following your tweets (@JoyDurhamTN) on Twitter.

Karl Rove @KarlRove Washington, D.C.

2,569	143,651	165,045
tweets	following	followers

OK, what happened is that I decided to follow him to see what crap he tweeted, so I suppose he returns the following. Yikes!

Space Trivia

When astronauts first shaved in space, their weightless whiskers floated up to the ceiling. A special razor had to be developed that drew the whiskers in like a vacuum cleaner.

Top Chef

Thank goodness Alex finally went home! Not soon enough because Kenny should still be there and he and Amanda should be gone. Strange combination of food on that quick fire. The elimination challenge was sort of hokey. They're getting desperate.

Sucking Trivia

Mosquitoes do not bite; they stab. A mosquito has no jaws; when attacking a victim, it pierces it with its long proboscis and sucks the blood up through a nasal tube.

For many years, that's how I thought vampires did it. I thought their vampire teeth were hollow like straws and that the pointy ends punctured and allowed them to suck the blood into somewhere. That part didn't quite get worked out, but since they are vampires, there should be a way the blood was taken in wherever it needed to go. It seemed better than having to get blood in their mouths, but that's the part vampires probably liked unless there were squeamish ones or the blood tastes strange. You have anything you believed when you were younger like this? Actually I believed it a long time.


See? Her pointy vampire tooth is leaking.

Breck Trivia

Shampoo was first marketed in the United States in 1930 by John Breck, who was the captain of a volunteer fire department.

Golf Meteors

A golfer who found a 203-gram meteorite on the Doon Valley Golf Course near Kitchener, Ontario, on July 12, 1998, was rewarded with a year’s worth of free greens fees. The stone had narrowly missed a golfer who was standing near the sixth tee.

Where the Weather Suits My Clothes

I prefer winter to summer. What I really like is fall and spring and wish we could have those all the time with maybe two weeks each devoted to summer and winter. That would be great! This summer is HOT - very hot and humid, but it's been this miserable before and will be again. That said, I want to go on record saying if I bitch this much about the cold this winter, you can say something to me about it because I don't plan to. Most of my complaining about weather has been during summer. Yes, I'll get cold this winter if it ever happens but will be able to stand being outside more than I do now. My son used to get tired of hearing me go on and on about summer every year and still would if he were around me more like he was growing up.

If I didn't have family and friends here, I'd move. I'd go somewhere with lower humidity and moderate temperatures all year. But alas!

Techno Trivia

The first technology corporation to move into California’s Silicon Valley was Hewlett-Packard, in 1938. Stanford University engineers Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started their company in a Palo Alto garage with $1,538. Their first product was an audio oscillator bought by Walt Disney Studios for use in the making of Fantasia.

It's True! It's True!

IT'S SO HOT THAT

....the birds have to use potholders to pull the worms out of the ground.

....the trees are whistling for the dogs.

....the best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.

....hot water comes from both taps.

....you can make sun tea instantly.

....you learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.

....the temperature drops below 95 F (35 C) and you feel a little chilly.

....you discover that in July it only takes two fingers to steer your car.

....you discover that you can get sunburned through your car window.

....you actually burn your hand opening the car door.

....you break into a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 A.M.

....your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, "What if I get knocked out and

end up lying on the pavement and cook to death"?

....you realize that asphalt has a liquid stage.

....the potatoes cook underground, so all you have to do is pull one out and add butter.

....the cows are giving evaporated milk.

....farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying boiled eggs

Moved Here Early

Is it ever going to cool off? Are we in Hell?


But we all know what that could mean.

Einstein Quote

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

Rachel

Rachel was great last night and very effective with her report of the outstanding soldiers and cadet who were forced out of the military because of DADT. Did you see it? More HERE.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Top Chef Spoiler

Oh no! They killed Kenny!

Gilligan Trivia

Bob Denver wasn’t even in the running for the lead part on TV’s Gilligan ’s Island. Jerry Van Dyke was the original choice, but he turned it down. Ultimately Denver became Gilligan, and the show ran for three seasons. Twenty-five years after its last episode was filmed, it is still one of the most widely syndicated TV shows in television history.

Most Beautiful College Campuses

The University of the South (Sewanee) where Brian and Melissa went was selected the #1 most beautiful college campus in the country. Article HERE. It really is beautiful and was built as a replica of the middle campus of Oxford University in England because of the funding they received from there when the university was founded. It's an Episcopal school and has a theology school there. Sewanee is executor of the Tennessee Williams estate because his grandfather went to seminary there. He mentioned it in Night of the Iguana by having the defrocked priest be a graduate. Any time one of his plays is produced, they receive royalties.


Not only is it a beautiful campus but an excellent liberal arts university. Traditional dress code is traditionally jackets and ties for males and skirts and dresses for women, but I think that's been relaxed a bit. Check HERE for Sewanee traditions. Interesting! For example:

The Sewanee Angel - In a folk story it is said that the domain of the University of the South is a place so beautiful angels dwell within its the gates. These angels protect all inhabitants and visitors on the Domain. Sewanee Angels are more than happy to become your guarding angel and protect you off Domain as well. In order to pick up your angel you must tap the roof of your car as you drive through the gates when departing campus. Upon your return, you tap the roof of your car to release your angel.

Once they get students there, they intend to keep them. There were 10 students in Brian's freshman English class. Jon Meacham, you have seen on MSNBC, graduated from Sewanee the same year Brian did. He's editor of Newsweek and wrote the Pulitzer-winning American Lion about Andrew Jackson.

From their website HERE.

The result of such individualized education is clear in the academic success of Sewanee students and alumni. The University has had 25 Rhodes Scholars--a number that puts Sewanee in the top four nationally among American liberal arts colleges--as well as 26 NCAA Postgraduate Fellows, 36 Watson Fellows, and dozens of Fulbright Scholars, and has an acceptance rate to graduate and professional schools that far outpaces its peers. The School of Theology has added to its alumni ranks countless bishops, including three of the last four presiding bishops of the Episcopal Church.

Quote from Brian: At least once a month while I was at Sewanee, I'd look around and think, "Wow. I go to school here."

All Saints Chapel

One year when I took Brian back to school, I noticed some changes in his dorm and said, "Oh, they've renovated up to the 50's."


Quite a bit of drinking goes on there, and they used to have drinking societies. That's typical of the Episcopal Church since there's a saying that "where three or four are gathered, you shall surely find a fifth." On Shrove Tuesday, the men of the church had a beer in one hand and were flipping pancakes with the other.

Candidates and Officials

You can check out candidates and office holders at Project Vote Smart HERE.

Friday Smiles

Crossover

I voted today in the Republican primary because there were candidates I wanted to vote against. In the general election, I'll vote for all Democrats except for the state senator I've told you about who proposed the bill to allow guns in bars. That's just one of the reasons I want him out of office. He's a piece of work. I'm voting for the Republican candidate running against him. Yes, I am, and you would, too.

Several candidates won on the local level that I hoped would. Yay to them!! Now we'll have even more negative ads leading up to the general election.

I Live in Hell

Well, I live in Hell in many ways here, but lately it's the weather. We got in the triple digits today. Did you get that it was TRIPLE DIGITS? Yes, over 100 with a heat index of 108 with excessive humidity. It's almost 90 degrees right now at 9:30 AT NIGHT! It doesn't cool off. Our lows are Flagstaff's highs. And they have low humidity. Well, it's high for them right now since it's over 30% but heavenly to me. It will be in the low 70's tonight. That's what I like to have in the day.

Mother and I had eye appointments this morning and then went to lunch. We usually do other things and shop or something but not today. Getting back in the car is miserable without a lot of time to cool off, so we didn't do that today.

Can you imagine football practice in this? Some schools canceled afternoon practice, thank goodness, but football season starts soon. It's way too hot for football and dangerous. Students have died from it. How heartbreaking also are hearing about children and pets left in hot cars. What's wrong with people?

And this is one of my regularly scheduled whining/bitching sessions about summer in TN.

Vote tomorrow!

Still Waiting for the Republican Agenda

The Republican Party sure has had a lot to say about the Democrat agenda since President Obama took office, but they have not set forth a new plan yet if they were to take control of Congress. The ideas they are focused on are:

1. Creating incentives for new jobs
2. Cutting federal spending
3. Cleaning up Congress

These are all good ideas, but there is one problem: They have not released ANY specifics on how they are going to do this. The Democratic party has been targeting this large hole in the campaign of Republicans, and so far, there has been no answer. The plan seems to be that the GOP is accumulating ideas from the America Speaking Out program into their platform for the upcoming Congressional elections. This has been projected to be ready in September.

Kevin McCarthy, who is heading the motion to prepare the new agenda, says that Democrats are simply giving up on their own agenda and, "They are trying to change the topic ... (because) they can't succeed with what they have to offer."

What do you think? The Republicans seem to have fueling support off picking at the Obama administration and promising results without any kind of tactics. Do the America people really not care about having a certain path, as long as its not the current path? This seems like it will not hold its weight come time to vote.

People need answers to problems.

SOURCE

Politics

From Addicting Info / Politics HERE. Good site. Check it out.

President Barack Obama will be traveling to Detroit to show off exactly what his policies have done for the auto industry and our economy consequently. He will talk about his reports that the auto industry is seeing record profits once again, the largest since 1999. Not only that, but President Obama will be talking about his new plan to invest 4 billion dollars in natural gas vehicles, along with 400 million in electric vehicles.

So how has the auto industry grown?

• Ford announced a 2.6 billion dollar profit for second quarter, GM with 865 million in its first, and Chrysler with 143 million.
• Exports have increased by 57%, including a significant rise to sales in China.
• Investing has grown as optimism of the future remains in tact.

So how exactly has the auto industry helped our economy?

• 9 of 11 GM assembly plants are working through the summer shutdown to meet demands
• GM, Ford and Chrysler's growth is resulting in 5300 new jobs for Americans

But what about paying back the taxpayers?

• GM repaid their 6.7 billion dollar loan back in April.
• Chrysler paid 1.9 billion back to the treasury that they received from TARP and 1.5 that they received for support.
• The supplier support system was cut, giving back 5 billion dollars to the public.

So, what does this say about the decision this administration made for bailouts?

Da Blooze!

Look at THIS. I want to go. The Arkansas Blues & Heritage Festival is always near my birthday, so I think of it as a celebration for me, too. B. B. King, Taj Mahal, Dr. John, Marcia Ball, and Paul Thorn will all be performing! Finding accommodations is turning out to be a challenge. We'll probably have to stay at Tunica where all those casinos are. Before, I stayed in Clarksdale, MS, which is about the same distance from Helena, AR, but Tunica is north and closer to Memphis and on our way home. Might just work. The rooms are cheaper, too, because of the gambling which I won't do because we know how that works out for me.

Oddness

Been an "interesting" couple of days this weekend. Some ups and downs but not on a see-saw. Melissa and I are meeting tomorrow for Brendan to visit me from tomorrow afternoon until Tuesday afternoon. Brian and Melissa are going to a Crowded House concert. I do not remember them. Brian said they are an 80's band which explains it. I don't remember much about the 80's except for being tired from all the extra jobs I had and graduate school. I do, however, remember the 60's!