I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

I’m only a tutor, but some of the horror stories I hear from parents leads me to believe that truth is stranger than the following fictions; imagine being sent to the office for asking an English teacher why you’re studying the colon before you study the semi-colon.

TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North America.
MARIA: Here it is.
TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered America?
CLASS: Maria.

TEACHER: John, why are you doing your math multiplication on the floor?
JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables.

TEACHER: Glenn, how do you spell “crocodile?”
GLENN: K-R-O-K-O-D-I-A-L”
TEACHER: No, that’s wrong
GLENN: Maybe it is wrong, but you asked me how I spell it.

TEACHER: Donald, what is the chemical formula for water?
DONALD: H I J K L M N O.
TEACHER: What are you talking about?
DONALD: Yesterday you said it’s H to O.

TEACHER: Winnie, name one important thing we have today that we didn’t have ten years ago.
WINNIE: Me!

TEACHER: Glen, why do you always get so dirty?
GLEN: Well, I’m a lot closer to the ground than you are.

TEACHER: Millie, give me a sentence starting with “I.”
MILLIE: I is…
TEACHER: No, Millie… Always say, “I am.”
MILLIE: All right… “I am the ninth letter of the alphabet.”

TEACHER: George Washington not only chopped down his father’s cherry tree, but also admitted it. Now, Louie, do you know why his father didn’t punish him?
LOUIS: Because George still had the ax in his hand.

TEACHER: Now, Simon, tell me frankly, do you say prayers before eating?
SIMON: No sir, I don’t have to, my Mom is a good cook.

TEACHER: Clyde, your composition on “My Dog” is exactly the same as your brother’s. Did you copy his?
CLYDE: No, teacher, it’s the same dog.

TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
HAROLD: A teacher!

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from A Strategy For Daily Living by Ari Kiev.

“It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen,” Herodotus.

Part of being a good citizen of the blogosphere is visiting, reading and, most importantly, taking the time to leave a comment on other’s blogs. It’s all about the conversation. In the interest of setting an example I’ve decided to link to those blog posts that have compelled me to leave a comment.

1644 Wal-Mart Goodwill

The case of Julie Amero, a substitute school teacher railroaded for a school’s failure to update it’s computer security software since 2004 (that’s like three millenia ago in computer years) is getting international support. Surf over to Steve Bass’s report get a good case indignation on. Then send a check (I did) and write a few respectful emails (ditto).

Doug Templeton: I write this post from the safety of my office back in the States. I am here on 30 days emergency leave. My father died after a four-year battle with cancer. Never in that time did he ever complain about the pain or worry me about his suffering. When the end came it was a shock to me because he seemed to be doing well. I know it was his way of keeping me…

Andrew Sullivan posted this chart from a USA Today/Gallup poll taken two weekends ago. While I find it encouraging that 45 percent of American would vote for an Atheist, it’s still disturbing the more than half would not. Why do you think Americans view Atheists as the least desirable (in the poll’s universe, at least) of possible candidates?

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

Four retired guys, two from California and two from Arizona, are walking down a street in Chicago.

Then they turn a corner and see a sign that says, “Old Timer’s Bar” “ALL DRINKS 10 CENTS!”

They look at each other, and then go in. The old bartender says in a voice that carries across the room, “Come on in and let me pour one for you. What’ll it be, Gentlemen?”

There seems to be a fully stocked bar, so the 4 men each asked for a martini.

In short order, the bartender serves up 4 iced martinis and says, “That’ll be 10 cents each, please.”

They can’t believe their good luck. They pay the 40 cents, finish their martinis, and order another round.

Again, four excellent martinis are produced with the bartender again saying, “That’s 40 cents, please.”

They pay the 40 cents, but their curiosity is more than they can stand.

They’ve each had two martinis and so far they’ve spent less than a dollar.

Finally one of the men couldn’t stand it any longer and asks the bartender, “How can you afford to serve martinis as good as these for a dime a piece?”

“Here’s my story. I’m a retired tailor from Brooklyn, and I always wanted to own a bar. Last year I hit the lottery for $25 million and decided to open this place. Every drink costs a dime – wine, liquor, beer, all the same.”

“Wow!! That’s quite a story,” says one of the men.

The four of them sipped at their martinis and couldn’t help but notice three other guys at the end of the bar who didn’t have a drink in front of them, and hadn’t ordered anything the whole time they were there.

One man gestures at the three at the end of the bar without drinks and asks the bartender, “What’s with them?”

The bartender says, “They’re seniors from Florida.

They’re waiting for happy hour.”

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from A Strategy For Daily Living by Ari Kiev.

“To be what we are and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life,” Baruch Spinoza.

It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees, Robert Feinman, Peter Sayles and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.

ANOTHER WAL-MART ASSOCIATE SPEAKS OUT… One of the ways we keep track of what”s going on in the Wal-Mart universe is to track who”s linking to us. This evening I found Retail Storm, a new Wal-Mart blog. The blogger is a Wal-Mart associate in the deep South. Welcome to the fray, Stockboy. Keep reading…

OLÉ…! WALMEX TO SPEND $981 MILLION… Wal-Mex, the Mexican division of Wal-Mart, intends to spend nearly a billion dollars on expansion this year to open 125 new stores. Wal-Mart is Mexico”s top retailer, with stores in 139 cities and more than 140,000 employees. Keep reading…

DOES WAL-MART EVER HAVE A PLAN B…? A month ago I posted about Tashina Byrd and the Wal-Mart pharmacist who laughed in her face when she tried to legally purchase Plan B. Things worked out for Byrd, she got what she needed at another pharmacy, but the story didn”t end there. Keep reading…

AT THE WALLY PLEX… There are sound stages on Hollywood”s back lots smaller than Bentonvile”s behemoths, so it”s no surprise that budding video talent has been sneaking cameras in at odd hours. And now for the midnight show at the Wally Plex featuring talentgoldmine.
Keep reading…

BEND OVER AND GET YOUR BONUS… Stockboy offers a fisking of the touted quarterly bonuses announced at the annual managers meeting. He admits that the math is a bit fuzzy, but he lays out his assumptions and conclusions clearly so that anyone can decide if what he says makes sense or not. Keep reading…

IT MUST SUCK TO BE BRENT BEAMS… The Tashina Byrd/Brent Beams meme is spreading across the country and writers are using not a little sarcasm in describing their feelings on the subject. A particularly vitriolic skewering of Beams come from I Blame The Patriarchy: Keep reading…

SUPPOSE HE”LL HIRE SOME WEB PEOPLE…? In the continuing saga of re-arranging furniture at Wal-Mart, the company is moving two of it”s people around at Walmart.com. I”m sure the movie download debacle has nothing to do with it, but it would be nice if the new guy hired a web savvy programmer or two. Keep reading…

SOMEBODY FIND A FECKIN” CORNER… When your business (or administration) is in the toilet you start talking about turning corners. The challenge is to find the corner when your locked into your course like a luge Olympian going for the gold. Wal-Mart”s Japanese connection needs a corner; bad. Keep reading…

$2.5 BILLION SEEMS LOW TO ME… A week ago I posted about Wal-Mart”s back-end deal with India”s Bharti. At the time I wondered what the numbers were going be. This morning the Associated Press has a figure we can chew on $2.5 billion. I think that number is strangely low. Why? Keep reading…

EDELMAN, CHINA, HEALTH, WAL-MART… HMMM… There is absolutely no connection that I can find in this paper between Wal-Mart and Edelman, but still, as I read the story on Blogspotting this morning, I had to go hmmm? I wonder how all of this plays with the whole Internet censorship issue? Keep reading…

CLEVELAND TO BE ONE OF THE RESCUED… As Peter noted earlier today, Wal-Mart is engaging in what may become a bellwether empirical experiment in urban development and the development that started this blog, Steelyard Commons, is going to be part of that investigation. Keep reading…

NINE BECOMES TEN… Yesterday, one day before today”s anticipated announcement of its quarterly earnings, Wal-Mart touted a plan to aid nine ten economically struggling urban areas by building Super Wal-Marts in those communities as jobs and opportunity zones. Keep reading…

UP…? DOWN…? SIDEWAYS…? It”s times like these that I wish I”d payed more attention in my economics classes and perhaps taken a real business course or two. Scanning the web yesterday I found about as many opinions on Wal-Mart”s quarterly report as I did stories. Keep reading…

THE MORNING AFTER… Twenty-four hours have passed since yesterday morning”s quarterly report from Wal-Mart and the gnomes are starting to voice their displeasure. Gary Sattler of bloggingstocks asks the question that must be on a lot of stockholder”s lips: Keep reading…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.

A flying saucer landed at a gas station on a lonely country road. The two space aliens inside seemed completely unconcerned about detection; in fact, the letters “UFO” were emblazoned in big, bold letters on one side of their shiny craft. As the station owner stood and gawked in silence, paralyzed with shock, his young blonde attendant nonchalantly filled up the tank and waved to the two aliens as they took off.

“Do you realize what just happened?” the station owner finally uttered.

“Yeah,” said the blonde attendant. “So?”

“Didn’t you see the space aliens in that vehicle?!”

“Yeah,” repeated the blonde attendant. “So?”

“Didn’t you see the letters ‘UFO’ on the side of that vehicle?!”

“Yeah,” repeated the blonde attendant. “So?”

“Don’t you know what ‘UFO’ means?!”

The blonde attendant rolled his eyes. “Good grief, boss! I’ve been working here for six years. Of course I know what ‘UFO’ means ‘Unleaded Fuel Only.'”

Andrew Sullivan notes this morning the last sentence in the fifth paragraph of Alicia Colon’s Heroes And Cowards in yesterday’s New York Sun. In the sentence, Colon repeats the true but disingenuous meme about non-combat military deaths during the Clinton administration without noting that they are, in fact, non-combat deaths.

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from A Strategy For Daily Living by Ari Kiev.

My most important goal is to: “write a novel that appears on the New York Times bestseller list.” Tape this goal to my laptop. Place this goal in my wallet. Tape this goal to my bathroom mirror.

…infects your web server.
via my own web sorceress

The American Medical Association agreed today to meet with a group opposed to what has become known as the Ashley Treatment, a series of surgical procedures that included the removal of her uterus and breast buds and hormonal treatments that have rendered the nine-year-old, severely brain damaged girl perpetually prepubescent.

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

“We are still asking that the AMA oppose the Ashley treatment” and to endorse proposals to allow disabled people on Medicaid to get-in home support so they can avoid drastic treatment or being institutionalized, said Chicago activist Amber Smock of the group Feminist Response in Disability Activism.

Dr. Michael Maves, the AMA’s chief executive officer, said the AMA agreed to meet to hear the activists’ viewpoint firsthand and “to perhaps just begin a discussion on this.”

[Snip]

“The ethical issues around this I think are difficult for everybody involved. All of our hearts go out to Ashley, her family, the physicians involved. It’s one of those cases that captures popular sentiment because of the difficult ethical issues” involved.

Activists from Smock’s group and several others picketed outside the AMA’s Chicago headquarters last month, demanding a meeting. They also have repeatedly phoned and faxed the AMA to press their demands, and considered the AMA’s agreement to meet at least a partial victory.

I predict that no matter what the AMA decides it will be heralded as both a victory and a defeat for both sides.

She just wants to be employed
for eight hours a day. She is not
interested in a career; she wants a job
with a paycheck and free parking. She
does not want to carry a briefcase filled
with important papers to read after
dinner; she does not want to return
phone calls. When she gets home, she
wants to kick off her shoes and waltz
around her kitchen singing, “I am a piece
of work.”

From Employed by Beverly Rollwagen.

I came across his straight-forward illustration of the difference between science and faith. Where faith fails is in the critical step of tossing out wacky ideas like group suicide, burning women for showing too much ankle and donating one-tenth of your income to support the purchase of more art artifacts to fill some huckster’s coffers.

Part of being a good citizen of the blogosphere is visiting, reading and, most importantly, taking the time to leave a comment on other’s blogs. It’s all about the conversation. In the interest of setting an example I’ve decided to link to those blog posts that have compelled me to leave a comment.

1739 Untitled
1446 Supporting Our Troops
1353 NEO complains about deer, buys old fruit for $5 to feed them
0708 Car as phallic symbol?
0200 if it’s an apple for the teacher
1505 Wal-Mart returns tax abatements, money will go to city as planned
1339 Army Vet w/PTSD, releases stress in adult chatrooms, sues IBM for $5mil when they fire him for doing it at work
1026 How blogs are like religious missions
1015 Overheard in the pizzeria: Pre-adolescent business

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is one of my favorite paintings by Edouard Manet because of the expression on the woman’s face. This photoshopping is part of a Worth 1000 contest and I like it, but I wish he could have captured the woman’s face.

CAPT Doug Traversa: Just when I think nothing will surprise me, Afghanistan throws me a curve ball. Let me set the stage. Maj Apple, Wali, Hamid (our interpreters) and I were sitting in our office having a Deep Discussion about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Somehow the topic of gays serving in the military came up, and Maj Apple and I both think they will be…

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog chuckle I present: From My Dad.