It is appalling how many blogs on the web use animals as the butt end of a joke. While surfing one of the major blog exchanges I saw a video of a live kitten being stuffed into a fruit jar. I have seen dogs dressed up in people clothes. I have seen snakes held captive in boxes far too small for survival.
Does it bother you the first letter of each word in the phrase "King Korn Karnival" spells out"KKK" and if it does, are you willing to help create a change? Or should I say: "khange?"
I was raised to believe "a deal is a deal" and that means once you agree on something with someone -- written contract or not -- that part of the deal is done and settled and to go back later and try to renegotiate is tantamount to going back on your word.
When I first started teaching at a small liberal arts college on the East Coast I knew I was unprepared for student interaction. I didn't know how to create a syllabus. I didn't know how to grade students. I had no clue how to speak to them.
I was a last-minute emergency appointment for a freshman English composition course and when I talked to my boss about going into the classroom feeling so totally unprepared, he said, "Just teach them what you know," and with those words of encouragement he kicked me out of his office and down the hall into my classroom.
I have been called a Pasty White Boy from Nebraska (my skin is so pale my friends tease me I actually look green) more often than I like and ever since I moved to the East Coast I have become, against my will, a Personal Information Servant.
Over the last couple of years I have done an informal survey over the web. This survey is not scientific, but it is telling, and over 361 students between the ages of 15-22 and provided these results:
If you are 23 years or younger you may be vaguely insulted by this post perhaps without really realizing its point because, through no fault of your own, modern media have mollycoddled you into a false, safe space where, in order to survive, you only need to agree with what has come before.
The unfortunate universal history of American university education is -- on the undergraduate level at least -- students remain a bit dumber than their instructors from generation to generation. I include my early undergraduate experience in that wash.
Do you believe in the Dead?
Or do you believe the Dead crumble into dust?
I'm not talking about the Grateful Dead, I'm talking about what you are when you are no longer living.
A deeply religious friend of mine believes there is a "thin veil" between the living and the Dead and you can communicate with those who have passed if you are sensitive enough and aware enough to either peer through the veil or strong enough to fold back a corner of the veil for a clear angle to touch.
If you only need one reason to beat off instead of 21 then stop reading.
If, however, like me, you appreciate all medical research to help rationalize the joy of release, keep reading.
If you have ever been labeled "difficult" by someone else, I know we will get along great!
Is it because I am "difficult" as well?
Did you know in New Jersey a nurse fresh out of a nursing degree program can haul down $60,000 a year in starting base salary?
Nurses can also choose to work three 12 hour days in a row with four days off.
Nursing is a great career choice if you can afford the training and eventual, inevitable, humiliation at the hands of some doctors who believe they know more than you.
There is a nurse shortage across the nation and if you have the education and the talent you can work a great deal to haul down the dough.
Visas can be hard to get but did you know there is a "nursing exception" that basically allows any foreign national with a nursing degree to get a "permanent Visa" into the United States with appropriate sponsorship?
I understand several New Jersey hospitals prefer to import their nurses from Ireland because Ireland has an excellent training program for nurses and they fit in well with the American way of healing.
There's an insider saying in New Jersey if you are sick and your nurse has an Irish brogue you know you're in good hands because that nurse was imported to take care of you and is being paid really well to get you well.
When I was in graduate school 15 years ago, I had a Gay instructor who mentioned one day all the Gay people he knew were incredibly smart, rich, creative, emotional and thoughtful.
He was not making a political statement.
I'm not sure what it says about me but most of my closest friends are on some kind of medication to make them less wacky -- and when I say "wacky" I mean it in the best and most admirable way.
A few of the medications my friends swallow every day include Paxil, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Zoloft, Luvox and Prozac.
I was called a Hillbilly yesterday when I asked for something to drink.
No, I wasn't ordering moonshine.
I was ordering something to drink from a New York City street vendor to slake my thirst.
The offending word I used was "pop."
Usually when I ask for "pop" I get squeals of laughter from children and adult fingers pointed at me.
Yesterday was the first time I'd been labeled a Hillbilly.
I have learned the hard way -- through embarrassment and finger-pointing -- that on the East Coast you don't call a carbonated beverage "pop." You call it "soda," but sometimes I forget.
In Nebraska, where I was born and raised, you call soda "pop" but, I have also learned, there are few people beyond the great prairie state who use "pop" to order soda.
Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly culturally inebriated, I will defy the trend and order a "soft drink," but when I do, I am always corrected with "you want a soda," which, I suppose, is better than getting a blank stare when I order "pop" instead.
I suppose I could split the baby and order a "soda pop" but I just can't bring myself to utter those two silly words together in the same sentence.
The Atkins theory of weight loss went bankrupt last week as the company that manufactures the Atkins brand filed for Chapter 11 protection.
The Atkins diet, in its last days, embraced a "balanced diet" of fruits and vegetables but the early hallmark of the diet mainly consisted of a high protein and low carb eating plan consisting of meats, eggs and cheeses and no starches.
I am a reality show junkie and while I may not like all the shows, I do enjoy watching most of them for the human spirit on display each week.
One show that is quickly going into the dumper is CBS' Rock Star: INXS because the show is set up all wrong making for uninteresting viewing:
Yesterday I went to the eye doctor for my yearly exam. I love the guy. He's smart, cranky, old-fashioned, wildly energetic -- not much older than me -- and he won't do surgery on a healthy eye for moral and ethical reasons.
Portable headphones are a good way to listen to good music on the go. I've been trying out several headphones over the last few months to find out which fit my giant head the best and which reproduced the best sound for my sensitive ears.
I "burned-in" each of these headphones for 100 hours before listening through them. I did that by plugging each into my stereo, turning up the volume to a comfortable listening level and then taking the headphones off my head and letting the music play on without me.
The greatest living American Playwright and double Pulitzer Prize winning author 
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