Tragic Rabbit
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Posts posted by Tragic Rabbit
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Old Habits Die Hard
A man was standing in line waiting to go into a movie theater when he suddenly felt the guy behind him massaging his shoulders. He turned around and said, "Hey, what the hell are you doing?"
The guy stammered, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. It's just that I'm a chiropractor and I could tell you were pretty tense, and without even realizing it, I started to release the tension and help you relax."
"That's hogwash," the man cried. "I'm a lawyer, and you don't see me screwing the guy in front of me!"
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Exactly how 'long' do you need the editor to be, Caylor?
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You lost me. I'm not comparing Roddenberry to anybody -- I'm just saying he wasn't a great person.
He created a great show, but had terrible flaws as a human being, that's all. I'm not mentioning Hitler, Mussolini, Bin Laden, Jesus, or Mohammad, either.
Twas indeed my own and only point, Dear Pec, that Roddenberry as person wasn't relevant to Roddenberry as Great White Bird of Trekdom, whose sacred creations were being trifled with.
Ba da boom
TR -
Yes, and Adolf Hitler was a smart, often charming, vegetarian non-drinker who loved kids and dogs...but does that make him 'better' than Roddenberry?
hijack the world...
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Today's just the 12th. Remember that. There will be a quiz, probably ahead of time.
No, today's quiz was yesterday, you just missed it.
Don't blink!
TR -
I'm more 'anit' turkey, myself. All that neverending gobble-de-gook.
Penguins are cool...practically cold, really.
TR -
Not even a little bit?
No, and if you keep this up, I'll report you to Gene Roddenberry's ghost.
TRP.S. They totally screwed Gene over in the making of STTNG, as you know, plus all the movies after the first one. Ah, Gene, we hardly knew ye...
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Have they thought of an education policy, or is that banned too? Yes and yes.
If you ask anyone who used to teach, and most who currently teach, why they'd rather not teach, it'll be this exact ban. Tiresome but true. Too much media and political cr*p and not enough time for your students.
Bleh.
TR -
(It works though doesn't it?)
No.
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Imagine how we feel when we hear Americanese.
I an always greatly amused by the fact that the US distributor dubbed Mel Gibson's voice for the first release of Mad Max because they thought the American audiences wouldn't understand Mel's Aussie accent.
I can understand Mel just fine, but don't ask me to interpret Southern (that's 'Deep South') American. Even some forms of Texanese are unintelligible to me. When I think of Aussie accents, though, I tend to think of the mock-Aussie skits perpetrated by Monty Python's Flying Circus.
What some people in the UK don't appreciate is that Americans don't understand their fellow Americans if they're from a few States over. I've lived in several parts of the country and have often had to learn to tailor my speech to local ears, even though my pronunciation is pretty close to American Standard. The biggest obstacle is usually speed: there are whole swathes of America where people speak veerrry slooowly...and expect you to do the same.
So, while I can understand Bob Hoskins and Michael Caine in films, I can't always understand--or stand--the regional speaking styles of my fellow Americans.
For what it's worth...
TRI have to say, I adore the BBC news site:
Stunning discovery of ancient Hobbit bones in the Shire raises anthropological questions
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In the terms of Star Trek we allowing our own existence and future to be violated by failing to apply the prime directive of non-interference to ourselves. The Borg is threat not because it seeks to absorb us, but because it is a warning we seem to be ignoring.
Des, you didn't just use Star Trek Next Gen as philosophical arguement.
Everyone knows you can only use Star Trek TOS for that...
TR -
Tomorrow I will awaken refreshed, knowing that at least we in Austraya write the date as befitting the Queen's English, even if we speak it a bit funny.
OMG, that's English you lot speak?
I had no idea, it's always been Greek to me.
TR -
I have one that I have posted at CW, but I'd like to see it here too. Is that okay?
Yes.
Also, I have one I sent to the Dude a short while ago, but have not seen it posted. I assumed it was not worthy, but maybe he was just leaving it for me to post here, since he knew this section of the forum would soon be up and running? Should I just go ahead a post that too?You can, or you can first re-send it to Dude and CC the Rabbit (me).
Be sure you've made clear what you are submitting is for the Flash section.
TR -
We won't need to send them to Dude or TR, then? We'll just post them here?
Just Clarifying,
Rad
Correct.
Anyone is free to post flash fiction here in the forum (but if it doesn't belong, Camy and I will move or remove it), but AD Authors may prefer to submit their better 'flashers' to TR and the Dude for possible uploading to the main site's Flash section. Please don't do both with the same story.
Flash stories in this section will be available for comments from readers, much like posted work in the Poetry and Bull Pen Forums.
Kisses...
TR -
Soon, oh wise Raccoon. Soon. ;)
GRRR, where art thou, O Emu??
Yeah, soon Racoon.
Bad, bad Camy, not signing onto IMsies...
TR -
TR, a most excellent advertorial ... except you forgot to mention your latest venture: THIS!
Quite right, Camy, though it's actually THIS!
Also heard from Mum today, she actually liked the Millmount Mound story (!!) but she did correct my Ireland geography. Apparently there is no 'County Connacht', Connacht is one of four provinces and contains Counties Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo.
So much for me!
Kisses...
TR -
what's a 'tenterhook' anyway, when it's at home?
tenterhook
Main Entry: ten?ter?hook
Pronunciation: \ˈten-tər-ˌhu̇k\
Function: noun
Date: 15th century
: a sharp hooked nail used especially for fastening cloth on a tenter*
? on tenterhooks : in a state of uneasiness, strain, or suspense <the waiting kept us on tenterhooks>
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tenterhooks
*Main Entry: ten?ter
Pronunciation: \ˈten-tər\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English teyntur, probably from Medieval Latin tentura, from tenta tent frame, tent
Date: 14th century
1: a frame or endless track with hooks or clips along two sides that is used for drying and stretching cloth
2archaic : tenterhook
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Again as always, RM, you've managed to capture with well-sharpened words a painful moment that we can all identify with. Very nicely done!
You're a gifted poet and I love you.
Kisses...
TR -
Ellen DeGeneres Responds to Killing of Lawrence King
Ellen DeGeneres cleared some time during an episode of her talk show, set to air today, to comment on the killing of 15-year-old Lawrence King who was shot Feb. 12 in Oxnard, California allegedly because he was gay. In the commentary, posted to her website last night, Ellen talked about equality, homophobia and the importance of screening politicians on equality. She became emotional and choked up.
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I think I like TR's take on it better than the original article...AHAHAHAHH!
Why thank you, Maddie.
TR Today's hatchet job: Arrogant 'Crypto-Nazi' William EffBuckley Jr. Felled by Very Large WordAND Prince Harry to Agincourt frontlines; Bavarian claimant 'moves up a notch' -
JAMES SAVIK!!
Take that *shudder* SuperTramp lyric out of your signature or... I'll murderize you!!Why, I oughtta....
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I know exactly what you mean, and agree. You'd probably have to be English to truly understand.
Camy
Ay, I'm as English as that Rolf bloke, he's from Perth!
I'd never heard of that soldiers song and I like it, it's sugary sad, but on looking into the singer, I found he'd done another song that even I'd heard of: Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.
Mum liked it, had it on a 45 and would sometimes play it and other 'novelty' tunes for us kiddos.
Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport by Rolf Harris
I have to say, that song and the whole 'diggery-doo' thing sounds awfully gay.
Sorry, guys, I know you all love him. Just teasing.
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I agree, the idea behind Two Little Boys is somewhere In the Mud of Millmount Mound but it's also in other TR tales. I think the underlying idea of children, particularly boys, caught in a grownup world of hate and horror is one that fascinates and moves me.
Grown-up children, the idea of what happens to all the darling little boys after they grow up, is an intriguing idea though not a popular one, I'd guess.
People like to mystify and mythologize childhood but there is a definite cut-off date in most people's minds, after which you are forever banished from Eden. Witness the bile and hate directed at former child-star Michael Jackson, now that he's (supposed to be) grown up. Peter Pan wouldn't fare well away from the Isle of Lost Boys, would he?
But when and how do we grow up, exactly?
I have two soldier boys a bit more like the Rolf song in Der Cowboy. That's about an American and a German soldier having a snowed-in interlude during one of the hairiest battles of WWII--what Americans call the Battle of the Bulge.
And DOG BOYS is about a young boy coming to grips with the reality behind his boyish wish to... 'run with the pack', join the world of grown men. It also features two boys who are friends.
So does Some Enchanted Evening.
...and you can read all those and other TR tales at Tragic Rabbit Stories TR -
This just shows how children in schools are being made to think. With standardized testing and zero tollerance policies we are slowly forcing our children to only be able to think one way and essentially sheltering them from reality.
Schools, in America at least, have always been used for this purpose. It's not for naught that George Carlin refers to them as our society's 'indoctrination centers'.
I don't think they are any more so these days than they were, for example, in the days when the Bible was what you learned to spell and read on and teachers carried rods or switches to chastise slow learners. Every society wants what it wants of its young--the specifics may change but the pattern remains.
Hitler knew that when he asked 1933 Germany to give him its young, and with them he'd create the world they all wanted. He only did more extravagantly what schools in America, and probably elsewhere, have always done: social indoctrination and training.
I report this as a longtime classroom teacher, btw, and not as outside observer.
*******************************further reporting....
Back to the subject here, of the play's cancellation, I'd like to report that I've had this happen to me twice through my years as a drama teacher and coach: had a play halted mid-run by some crackpot complaint.
What outsiders may not understand is the essential and deep conservatism of school administrators--if there is any complaint, no matter how trivial or ludicrous,their initial impulse is to shut down, stop or hush up the complaint's source. It's reductionist but that's how school-think works.
Thus have I had two productions halted AFTER initial performances based on some crap comment or complaint from someone....anyone really--a parent, a fellow teacher--but they usually do so by indicating in any sort of public forum that it's 'too mature': which is 'hot button' school politix gobbledegook code for sex, drugs or violence. The play doesn't have to actually have sex or violence, of course, the response is knee-jerk, I promise you.
It could be some tiny thing in the script, one line if that, and nearly always has nothing zero ziltch nada to do with the quality of the play (one of mine that was cancelled had been a prize-winning Broadway hit) or the importance of the subject to the students viewing it. That's the part that outsiders aren't grasping, imo, if these posts are an indication.
Reality and School are two different things.
It can even be some teacher with a grudge against the drama coach picking the best way to injure the drama teacher: shut down or discredit the drama program. They may even hate the queer/disgusting/Goth/weird/drama kids who skive off class (with full permission, always) to work on the sets.
Don't kid yourselves that drama programs are supported and encouraged-- they exist as weak little fiefdoms on the sufferance of an autocratic and ever-changing administration staff and goals. You only have a drama program where you have a drama teacher not only qualified to put on productions but willing to fight a neverending and thankless fight on behalf of his or her students.
It takes nothing to shut down a play, unfortunately. The best you get, when and if reality ever comes home, is a weak 'apology'...cold comfort to the many students, parents and teachers who worked hard to get the play into production.
I can't tell you how much making that announcement to your cast and crew SUCKS---utterly and absolutely SUCKS.
Everyone crying?I promise, you'd rather have your eyeballs gouged out with toothpicks than face your kids with that news. TR -
Firstly, you have to read it
Well, that's for sure, Camster.
The reader non-response to the reanimation of TR is underwhelming...and I'd therefore like to take this opportunity to thank Camy, Dude, Mum and Dad for encouraging me to learn to spell.Kisses...
TR
TR
TR
TR
TR
The reader non-response to the reanimation of TR is underwhelming...and I'd therefore like to take this opportunity to thank Camy, Dude, Mum and Dad for encouraging me to learn to spell.Scan to donate
Conn. Student Suspended for Buying Candy
in News & Views
Posted
Three Little Pigs 'too offensive'
By Sean Coughlan
BBC News, education
A story based on the Three Little Pigs fairy tale has been turned down by a government agency's awards panel as the subject matter could offend Muslims. The digital book, re-telling the classic story, was rejected by judges who warned that "the use of pigs raises cultural issues". Becta, the government's educational technology agency, is a leading partner in the annual Bett Award for schools.
The judges also attacked Three Little Cowboy Builders for offending builders.
The book's creative director, Anne Curtis, said the idea that including pigs in a story could be interpreted as racism was "like a slap in the face".
'Cultural issues'
The CD-Rom digital version of the traditional story of the three little pigs, called Three Little Cowboy Builders, is aimed at primary school children.
But judges at this year's Bett Award said that they had "concerns about the Asian community and the use of pigs raises cultural issues".
The Three Little Cowboy Builders has already been a prize winner at the recent Education Resource Award - but its Newcastle-based publishers, Shoo-fly, were turned down by the Bett Award panel.
The feedback from the judges explaining why they had rejected the CD-Rom highlighted that they "could not recommend this product to the Muslim community".
They also warned that the story might "alienate parts of the workforce (building trade)".
The judges criticised the stereotyping in the story of the unfortunate pigs: "Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?"
Animal Farm?
Ms Curtis said that rather than preventing the spread of racism, such an attitude was likely to inflame ill-feeling. As another example, she says would that mean that secondary schools could not teach Animal Farm because it features pigs?
Her company is committed to an ethical approach to business and its products promote a message of mutual respect, she says - and banning such traditional stories will "close minds rather than open them".
Becta, the government funded agency responsible for technology in schools and colleges, says that it is standing by the judges' verdict.
"Becta with its partners is responsible for the judging criteria against which the 70 independent judges, mostly practising teachers, comment. All the partners stick by the judging criteria," said a Becta spokesman.
The reason that this product was not shortlisted was because "it failed to reach the required standard across a number of criteria", said the spokesman.
Becta runs the awards with the Besa trade association and show organisers, Emap Education.
Merlin John, author of an educational technology website which highlighted the story, warns that such rulings can undermine the credibility of the awards.
"When benchmarks are undermined by pedestrian and pedantic tick lists, and by inflexible, unhelpful processes, it can tarnish the achievements of even the most worthy winners.
"It's time for a rethink, and for Becta to listen to the criticisms that have been ignored for a number of years," said Mr John.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_n...ion/7204635.stm
Published: 2008/01/23 13:49:31 GMT
? BBC MMVIII