On Catastrophic Blog Devastation
When you can’t login to your blog or when your blog is offline, do you have a physiological reaction in addition to an emotional response?
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Shackling the Young to Free the Old
Garrison Keillor wrote a moving article called America Eats Its Young and his words are especially sharp today on Labor Day in the United States where we celebrate the working person before the real work of the Fall takes us over:
Helicopter Parents and Militia Mommies
A good friend of mine in Nebraska — who shall remain nameless unless he steps forward here — sent me a great email yesterday full of fascinating thoughts and feelings as well as the following riff on unsavory and selfish parents:
I have personally witnessed and heard stories about minivan moms. These are the women — who have one, maybe two kids — but don’t work regular jobs, and take their kids to school every day. They band together in packs, always drinking their morning coffee in the drop off lanes at school.
On the surface, this of course is a “Leave it to Beaver” scenario. But I have discovered that many are prejudiced against those of us that have jobs, and drop our kids off and go to work. If we are in a hurry, they bitch and honk at you like you ran a red light or cut them off on the interstate. They travel in packs, socialize at the school, and help out at the school like it matters to their son’s or
daughter’s education if they are there or not.What I have read, later on in life, these parents, usually women but sometimes men, become “helicopter parents.” Right now in the Lincoln paper, there’s another article how they follow their kids to college and continually intervene in the guidance of their children who need to start thinking and figuring life out on their own.
In trying to be protective and nurturing, these people don’t do justice to their own offspring and get a bad name for themselves. Like an alcoholic or
drug user, they deny a problem exists. Some of these parents I have run across at the elementary level are down right nasty to deal with.
Have you heard of the “Helicopter Parents” phenomenon before?
Own Your Words
When I was growing up in Nebraska, my family was famous for always telling its young, “Never write something you don’t want read out loud to the rest of the world.”
That sort of advice, bundled in a warning, and wrapped in a grin and punctuated by a pointing finger, was daunting for a group of nine-year-old cousins to comprehend as we scrawled our names in crayon on a Big Chief pencil tablet.
We Are Now 9Rules
On Saturday we were selected as one of 111 blogs — out of 700 submissions — to be granted membership status in the 9Rules Network.
Baby Blogging: Signs the Blogosphere is Imploding
If there is such as thing as the “Blogosphere” I discovered over the weekend it is imploding with the weight of bad intentions gone wrong. We have discussed the perils and predilections of Mommy Blogging in the past — but Baby Blogging — the worst possible aftereffect of The Mommy Bloggers, takes the entire idea of precious children on the internet, into a whole new sad level of self-importance. I read one blog “written” by a one-year-old baby using words like “dimorphic” and “ball sack” and “fistula.”
We also learned what was digested that day, how it came out in the end, and how many times Daddy was punched in the groin by baby’s precocious fist. I’m making it sound much more entertaining and funnier than it was because there were five entries per day for that kind of babbling diarrhea.
What is the point of Mommy writing a blog as if her Baby had written it?
The idea can’t be humor. It must be some sort of prospecting for genius in their offspring:
“My baby was blogging at nine months, what’s your excuse for an illiterate 11-month old?”
Continue reading → Baby Blogging: Signs the Blogosphere is Imploding
Why I Skip Thursdays
I know this article may tick off 90% of the blogosphere but sometimes the truth stings and a barb or two can bump things back into an entertaining reality.
I skip reading blogs on Thursdays for two reasons: Half Naked Thursday and Thursday Thirteen.
Become an Urban Semiotic Author
If you are interested in becoming an Urban Semiotic Author today is the day to make contact!
Please read our Writing Tips page first to make sure what we require is something you are interested in providing.
If you’re ready to take the step into writing posts, here’s how it will all work:
1. WordPress 2.0 allows us to assign Roles to registered users. The two roles that interest you are Author and Contributor. There are two differences between those roles: Authors can publish their own work at will and also upload files. Most new writers will start as Contributors where their articles will be reviewed before publication.
2. Express your interest in writing via the Contact page and explain what type of articles you plan to write and what topics you plan to explore.
3. You will then provide a brief bio for our Authors page. You may also provide an 80×80 Avatar to accompany your bio if you wish. You will have to email the Gravatar because the code to call the Gravatar from Gravatar.com won’t work on the Author’s page. If you do not use a Gravatar, the default Gravatar image here will be provided for you. Authors will generally be listed in alphabetical order by last name.
4. We will add your blog to our Blogroll.
If you have any questions, please post a reply to this message.
Bitches and Hoes
When did so many young women — especially those from the middle and upper middle-classes — begin to find pleasure in being called “Bitches and Hoes” instead of slapping the person referring to them in that degrading manner?
Was it the growing popularity of the Hip-Hop movement that numbed young minds of both genders to the debased and insulting intent of “Bitches and Hoes?”
Was it the incomprehensible and insidious rise of non-melodic Gangsta Rap — with its graphic spoken lyric telling tales of treacherous living in the urban core — that somehow made “Bitches and Hoes” acceptable to most high school and many college age males and females?
The only purpose of “Bitches and Hoes” is to make females sub-human so they can be treated less well.
The fact that awful phrase persists in current modern culture is disgusting and its intra-gender propagation as a term of endearment makes the sane wonder how it is possible “Bitches and Hoes” can be perceived by some as both a compliment and a condemnation in the same thought.
Award Winning Awarded Winner
The world is award-winning crazy and the delicious fact is none of those awards matter!
The awards ceremonies grow exponentially each year. Soon we’ll all be winning awards for just waking up in the morning. In fact, you just won an award right now: The All-Time Great Blog Reader Award!
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