Sorry Ralph…sorry Justin…but the numbers are in, and they only look good for me.
**Congrats Bob, here is your award…Justin
Nov 262014
Nov 262014
Hey Folks, Justin here. I am coming to you live on what is one of the stupidest holidays in the entire world. April Fools Day. Informal though it may be, why do we still bother to “celebrate” something that most of the world doesn’t even truly know the origins of? It seems there was a reference to it in Canterbury Tales back in 1392 that was badly translated and people were made to endure a full day of pranks and foolishness.
By the way kids, (notice I didn’t use that horrific BTW that has become so friggin’ popular. That is a whole ‘nother rant) back in 527 AD Byzantine Emperor Justinian delcared that on April 2nd all Justin’s in the world should have homage paid and gifts of “gold, silver and precious things in great quantity.” Check it out, that is tomorrow, I will just wait for all of the good things to roll in.
You see, that actually sound legit (almost) even though I made the whole thing up. Much like April Fool’s Day. My wife is currently preparing devious deceptions to taunt the kids with. She loves it. My kids love to play pranks and “get mom and dad”. I don’t get it. I have never really gotten it. I don’t care to play pranks for the most part. If I want to make someone look silly I can use words better than some silly prank.
So if you are into pranks, go for it. Just know that there are some people out there who really don’t give the rear cavity of a rat about it.
On another note, Congrats again to Hansi for earning his degree from the Cantankerous Old Coots University. he is now qualified to teach Cantankerosity and is an adjunct professor. We will be featuring his first lesson next Tuesday, April 5.
And for the theme writing contest. We have a clear winner this month with 4 votes to the 2 everything else got. The topic that we will be writing on for the week of April 4th to April 8th is, (drumroll please) is, (no really, a drumroll here is appropriate) fine, with no drumroll the topic is Haiku. We will just have to see what splendid and fascinating things that we can write about a simple Japanese Poem.
So that will be all today, go out and do something cantankerous. Maybe just scream at someone who tries to pull a prank on you, or really fly off of the handle and make them cry. That will be my goal, make a prankster cry. Unfortunately, the only ones who will be around to pull pranks are the kids, and homework and chores make them cry anyway. Good thing my new sink doesn’t have the separate sprayer anymore.
Thanks for reading, how are you going to get through today?
Justin
Nov 262014
Image via Wikipedia
Well folks I have a doozy for you today. The main point is about commenting and the things that we are trained to do as bloggers that get ignored by some. One of the first things I learned when I started blogging was to encourage conversation in the comments. And to always respond to comments. And to not argue in the comments which I always took to mean flat out arguing as well as name calling and profanity laden libel.
(Again with the pictures that have no bearing on the post whatsoever. I dunno why it came up but it was a fish so I used it.)
Wednesday the 20th, here on the Coots site we had a great bump in traffic. There seemed to be a couple of reasons for this that I could pinpoint right away. First there were incoming links from some search engine stuff about classic cars and repair.
If you go back to Ralph’s post, Bob and I both commented about car repair in response to Ralph’s handyman service and amateur plumbing. I thought that this must be a decent spike and began to craft a post about cars and repair and how they want you to go to the dealer for the repairs. That post is still coming, I have some things to say about that.
But for today, back to commenting. Bob sent me an email later talking about what he thought was the issue. From Bob’s email:
Stirred some **** at a pioneer woman hater site (did you know there is a whole
damn cottage industry around hating Ree Drummond?) and logged in as
Bob@JuicyMaters. Well, after quite a bit of fun, some of the wimmin
there tracked me back to JM and found the link to COC. When they
went back to the hater site they spread the word that I wrote at COC
too…and today’s stats are the result. My stats yesterday were
double my second best ever day (I did have one post go semi-viral last
year…I don’t count it).It’s probably over. A new post is up over there this afternoon and
all of yesterday’s **** is off the landing page and won’t get as much
attention…LOL. (the edits are mine)
I went back and read all of the comments from this site that I am not going to give a link to. I was surprised to see the backlash against Bob and the only male perspective on this whole post. Screw it here is the link: http://www.thepioneerwomansux.com/2011/04/monetizing-the-hate/. They really attacked him and anything that they could find out from Google about him.
Now, I am standing up for my friend Bob and his place on this site. That said, I will argue with Bob any day of the week of I don’t think he is right. He will do the same. But he will at least entertain your argument (read it, take it out for drinks and try to make it his) and then agree or stick with his point. Therein lies the problem. Bob has opinions. Bob is knowledgeable. Bob knows what he wants and more or less how to get there. He has the detail map to Hell in his back pocket. and he will share that opinion. Argue if you must, but be prepared to be at least intelligent about it.
When the owner of the blog comes back with a profanity laden tirade against Bob and his opinions, and then blocks him from her site! So many things that are just not “right” in the bloggers code. And her cronies start in on little nit picking crap that doesn’t make a difference, but makes them feel like they got the upper hand. Good for them, all of the “Yes Men and Women” are in line and ready to kiss the ass of the moderator, and the lone dissenter is exiled to the blogosphere…..
I probably would have let all of this go but then they started in on Cantankerous Old Coots. Through the magic of Google, the following stream ensued:
Mary Beth says:I just wanted to share one more thing about Boob, sorry Bob. I went over to his site and found a link to a site called Cantankerous Old Coots. I found the following:
http://cantankerousoldcoots.com/2011/04/18/report-from-the-obgyn-department/#more-4614
I can understand why he didn’t include his contribution to this site in his web site resume. But I do love a good case of irony. Wonder if he was on or off meds while he was typing all his crap.
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Just Another says:
Hi Poppy!
Oh yes I went there. That one isn’t his site, it looks like a collection of different contributers who write essays about being old coots and where they vent about how the world is on its way to hell in a Longaberger basket and anything else they don’t like.
I know! Something like this has never been attempted before in the history of the entire internet. Please contain your shock!
Bob’s essay was about how he had to go to the hospital for something something (not life threatening, sounds like he’s a regular there) and the first room available to him was in the ob/gyn wing in a bed with stirrups. He was having a crazy day I tell you! And get this — all this happened while he maintianed saintly endurance of ER shenanigans! and tornado warnings!
And that’s as far in as I could stand to go.
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What is this? Attacking my blog just for 1 lousy article that Bob wrote while all drugged up on meds in the hospital? (the post is not lousy Bob, I got a kick out of it.) They read one article and scanned a sidebar it seems and now are experts on this site. And they have the nerve to complain that this site is not a new concept when the site they came from is nothing but a rip on site of something more popular?
At least we got a link to our site, which will probably be removed when this post hits.
Well I will tell you one thing, There will never be any argument like that on any of my sites. I will debate people until I am blue in the face, but I am not going to start slandering them in my responses. I am not going to block them unless they become a spam problem. We are all in this blog community together right?? Maybe we should figure out how to act like we are.
Responses are open below, what do you think about all of this?
Nov 262014
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.”
― Thomas Paine
Thomas Paine; a painting by Auguste Millière (1880), after an engraving by William Sharp after a portrait by George Romney (1792) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I find myself channeling our founding fathers lately. What intrigues me is that while we recognize their names and credit their contribution to our country today, when they were founding our country, there was no United States of America. They made it all up. They probably wouldn’t recognize our country today. So much has changed. They would have no way to predict the power and influence of the USA or the way it saved the world from tyranny and stands as a beacon of freedom in an unfree and unappreciative world.
What they did know was the oppression of the greatest world power in the 18th century on the insignificant colonies in North America. Most of the colonists were English by culture and, in England’s eyes were English subjects governing themselves but receiving the generous bounty of being part of the British Empire. To that end, England imposed a tax on the colonies and stirred up a hornets nest when free British subjects objected to taxation without representation. The end result was the defeat of the greatest world power at the time and the creation of the United States of America.
Thomas Paine was the conscience of the revolution.
He wasn’t an intellectual genius. He didn’t write the great documents upon which our country is based. But Thomas Paine was important none the less. Thomas Paine tapped the emotional spirit of the revolution and inflamed the passions for right and freedom that fueled the fight. He translated the intellectual clarity and wisdom of the founding fathers as they evolved their more perfect union into common sense, pithy axioms that resonated throughout the colonies.
One of greatest fears for the founding fathers was the power of government. They recognized that government was important and necessary to provide the framework for a free people to exercise their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They also knew that a government that is too powerful and infringes on those rights diminishes the individual. The problem was how to have the framework and limit the potential for excess.
The country the founding fathers created provided the greatest platform for individuals to thrive and created the most prosperous nation the world has ever known. Along the way, the government grew as well. In the guise of helping people and creating equality of result we compromised the balance of power among the branches of government which allowed unchecked overreach as the government- for our own good- limited our freedoms.
Laws and regulations limit our freedoms, our choices and replace common sense on the part of citizens. Regulation is one role of government. But regulation must be tempered by reason and under the direction of citizens who agree that the reduction in their freedoms is reasonable and good. We are way past common sense regulation for the mutual benefit of all when regulations are imposed by faraway unaccountable bureaucrats. When the citizen is no longer considered intelligent and responsible enough to manage his life, we have a government that founding fathers labored to prevent.
The government created at our founding was regarded by its creators as a necessary evil and they carefully crafted provisions to ensure that power be restrained. Two hundred years have eroded those checks and balances. Today we believe that we have the same freedoms and rights embraced by the founding fathers but we don’t. We have accepted the prison of regulation and social pressure. Our world is smaller and the human potential for each citizen diminished from our origins. We accept our smaller opportunities and ask the government to do more because we have been persuaded that we can’t do more; that we aren’t smart enough. We have stopped being citizens and accepted the role of subjects.
The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.
We have come full circle here in 2012. The government we created to serve our country at its founding has morphed into the nightmare feared by the founding fathers. Today we need patriots more than any time since our founding because the citizens of our country become more and more dimished each year. This is no time for complacency. The balance of powers that protected us from government excesses is weakened and ineffective. Government has become an end in itself and a demanding master threatened by any attempt to restore freedom and protecting its power at all cost. As he said, “These are the times that try men’s souls……”
Today we need another Thomas Paine to lead the charge against the government that is destroying our country and what it stands for- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.”
― Thomas Paine
Nov 262014
- Image by Duane Storey via Flickr
“I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric unit.” John Mortimer
Health ‘exerts’ can’t hold a story for very long.
When you have been around the block a few times you begin to notice that the ‘experts’ change their minds from time to time. What they tell you one decade can be considerably different from what they tell you in another. And when those decades mount up, the ‘experts’ often reverse themselves altogether. If that isn’t enough to make you swear off listening to ‘experts’ then I don’t know what is. Take health food for example.
Health food used to be simple
Back in the naive 50’s when I was growing up, we knew what health food was. It was the stuff you got from the farm stand or maybe the farmer made deliveries of fresh stuff every week. It was real food like fresh eggs, whole milk, cream and butter, home grown vegetables and maybe you would buy a cow to butcher and store in the locker. It was a simpler time and we weren’t far removed from our pioneer ancestors, The only processing we did was canning vegetables and making pickles. Then the ‘experts’ stepped in.
Throw out the good stuff
First to go were the eggs, or at least the yolks because of the fat and later the cholesterol. Next it was the whole milk because it contained too much fat and if that wasn’t enough, the ‘experts’ told us that it was bad fat. No more cream. No more butter. Use that paraffinny margarine instead. And while you are cutting, no more pickles because you have to reduce the salt.
Oops!
It was a decade or two later before the ‘experts’ discovered that margarine was even worse for you than the butter they made you give up. You would think that all this revisionism would teach us to ignore the ‘experts’ and eat the good foods that humans have always eaten but you would be underestimating the terrifying consequences that ‘experts’ are able to marshal to cow lesser mortals into submission. They upped the ante (and the syllables) and got us scared again. Mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats, good and bad cholesterol entered the lexicon. You needed an ‘expert’ to know what was safe to eat and what would kill you-
Keep that target moving
These days the ‘experts’ are more tolerant of eggs. Of course they never admit they were wrong. They just reveal that new information makes it safe to eat a few more these days. What rubbish! Throw away all the over processed, chemically enhanced food products foisted on us today as healthy. Toss the tofu. Jettison the vegeburgers. Ix-nay the chemical sweeteners. The future of health food was captured in the prophetic Woody Allen movie Sleeper back in ’73. Forget about the crap from the ‘experts’. Eat what tastes good.
Hi, Mary Beth! Would you please give me a run down? I don’t want to click on anything of his. Thank you!