Email: Ferrell not feral [EH]

I've never thought one thing Will Farrell has done is funny, though I do love Curious George and I think his cowbell player in the SNL sketch was ribald.

Oh no! Don't vote for a ceratin [sic] -aceous person! (Like Lt. Worf. Bad joke.) [As for the man's wife] being told how to vote, the point of voting [is] not to vote all the same by conspiracy! Geez, some women are so stupid [about their manipulative husbands]!

Email: JWs go home [EH]

Molley will go on a tear if she decides she needs to defend the domicile. Today the JWs came to the door and she wouldn't stop barking to beat the band! Good dog! (I shooed them off the property. Of course, they disputed everything I said -- JWs are control freaks -- but they finally left.)

Email: Half of success [EH]

Half of all success is just having the right equipment.

Email: Just drop it [EH]

It may be that the Dems commit future sins. Everyone is human (a fact the Repubs wouldn't acknowledge with Clinton). Forgive or punish, just don't use a scandal for political gain, I say. [Try a matter in court, not the press.] I don't think any Dems used the Abrahamoff or Delay or Foley or other Republican scandals against them -- they sure didn't want to talk about any of it -- the people just decided and then voted.

Politics come and go; that's why politicians have to be able to learn to let go -- just drop it -- see things with the people's eyes instead of "must entrench the party's power base!"

Email: Love is (a bad metaphor) [EH]

Love isn't a light switch (on or off, yielding only stark brightness or darkness) but more like a dimmer switch that, once turned on, can only (with proper attentions) grow warmer and brighter.

Web: Sexual consent

My folks just sent me this video link. It has to be the best-produced, most socially relevant amateur video I've yet seen on the Web! (Tagline: Romance deserves better than this.)

Email: Weighing both sides [EH]

That's just it: Anyone who understands the Gospel would know that Jesus would have been a Democrat. Unfortunately, conservatives don't like to rub elbows with prostitutes (or gays) -- or tax collectors! Texas is full of Republicans too! I'm independent, not a member of either party, so I try to listen to and weigh both sides to find the middle (or the moral) ground. It's up to each of us to discern that for ourselves, not to accept others' word or hearsay! (Because of my background in academics, even in business I'd always read a document to know exactly what it said rather than rely on those who say "So I haven't read this thing, does anyone know what it's about?") Discerning is about testing and weighing what we see and hear to see if it is true.

Email: Politics is not... [EH]

The stress of [election time] conflict comes from people who invest too much in wanting to control others' situations (which is why the Republicans have been shunted out by the people--the people!). The Republicans have been too much about power and not about governing well (much less ethically). Politics is not about power but about taking the temperature of the will of the people. Politics is not about what a party says its values are but what its actions actually are! Anyone can say they are Christian but do they act like Christians? Politicians rarely can do so because power tends to corrupt. And if you listen, the Democrats are not gloating, they are going overboard to be understated and humble. (This will not be what Rush Limbuagh says or thinks, however -- or anyone who listens to him.) I think it's interesting how ideas and attitudes travel virally through a population: Rush Limbaugh's perspective can be poisonous to civil discourse, and I dislike him and any other oafish verbal thug (like Bill O'Reilly) to the core. My antidotes are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert: They not only have a firm grip on their sense of humor but through satire and irony they are equal-opportunity skewerers of the indignities of either political party!

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: Finding Jackson Pollock

Media: Music - Be Good Tanyas

Email: The morning after [EH]

I think the Republicans have gotten a long ways from Pres. Bush's "I'm a uniter not a divider" campaign talk and have polarized and politicized everything with their power plays and ethical lapses. Their losses are their own fault. I hope the Democrats follow through on their promises to return the country to working in a bipartisan fashion again. The people want our country to be united against terrorism and injustice, not divided against each other on political lines. Let freedom ring again!

Email: Seeking work [KK]

I see job seeking in four (full-time) categories: permanent, contract (optionally to hire), temporary (optionally to hire), and freelance or telecommuting. It's natural to apply directly to any permanent openings you can, but working through a contract firm [can] expand the base of available openings. (Contract firms are common among IT professionals, temp firms among administrative professionals.) It's a robust economy now, even if the decision process takes much longer than in prior decades. If you're not getting a response to one out of ten applications, something is wrong with the fit or the resume. It's not about the skills but how you fit with the team (interpersonally) and the corporation (culturally). Last but not least, the process usually seems geared to exclude applicants; breaking the rules and doing what [works is the way to] success.

Lyrics: Her First Mistake - Lyle Lovett

Honey I don't know what you just heard
But come on baby
Are my favorite words
And where we're going
Is a long way from here [...]

So like the years and all the seasons pass
And like the sand runs through the hour glass
I just keep on running faster
Chasing the happily
I am ever after

Trivia: What is my amazing mental ability?

Steve's Amazing Mental Ability ... You can stop time. Unfortunately, you're still subject to it, so you can't do much while time is stopped. (Remember ... with great power comes great responsibility!) 'What is your Amazing Mental Ability?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Web: Very Best of British

See this online dictionary for explanations of British slang!

Words: pelf [MW]

Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French pelfre booty
: MONEY, RICHES

(Pilfery, in other words.)

Press: Cyber-neologoliferation

(NYT Magazine) "When I got to John Simpson and his band of lexicographers in Oxford earlier this fall, they were working on the P’s. Pletzel, plish, pod person, point-and-shoot, polyamorous — these words were all new, one way or another. They had been plowing through the P’s for two years but were almost done (except that they’ll never be done), and the Q’s will be “just a twinkle of an eye,” Simpson said. He prizes patience and the long view. A pale, soft-spoken man of middle height and profound intellect, he is chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and sees himself as a steward of tradition dating back a century and a half."

Words: slubber-degullion

A nasty, paltry fellow. A slub is a roll of wool drawn out and only slightly twisted; hence to slubber, to twist loosely, to do things by halves, to perform a work carelessly. Degullion is compounded of the word “gull,” or the Cornish “gullan,” a simpleton. (E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898)

Words: tawdry [AHED]

ADJECTIVE: Inflected forms: taw·dri·er, taw·dri·est
1. Gaudy and cheap in nature or appearance. See synonyms at gaudy1. 2. Shameful or indecent: tawdry secrets.
NOUN: Cheap and gaudy finery.
ETYMOLOGY: From tawdry lace, lace necktie, alteration of Saint Audrey's lace (sold at the annual Saint Audrey's fair, Ely, England), after Saint Audrey (Saint Etheldreda), queen of Northumbria, who died in 679 of a throat tumor, supposedly because she delighted in fancy necklaces as a young woman.

Quotes: "I won't admit to being lost" (Boone)

"I won't admit to being lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks." -- Daniel Boone

Web: Cats in Sinks

Words: sere [MW]

Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English sEar dry; akin to Old High German sOrEn to wither, Greek hauos dry, Lithuanian sausas
1 : being dried and withered
2 archaic : THREADBARE

(Normally I already know and love the words I present under Words, but today I ran across this word for the first time ever -- twice -- first in Leon Hale's Sunday column quoting a poem by William Bryant Cullen and then on COPYEDITING-L, citing a poem by Emily Dickinson.)