American Privilege

Barataria - The work of Erik Hare

Any essay on “privilege” has to start with a solid disclosure. As a middle-aged pale male, I have no business lecturing anyone on privilege. I’m at the top of the heap, and I know it. That is my point in this piece, after all. I have the privilege of contemplating privilege.

It still seems to me to be primarily the benefit of the doubt. If I walk into a store, I’m a customer – not a potential thief casing the joint. If the cops pull me over I get a certain level of respect that not everyone does, and I do use this to my advantage at times. If things get really bad and guns are pulled out, the benefit of the doubt makes me the good guy in the split second decision that separates life from death.

I have no illusions about any of this. That is, actually, my…

View original post 807 more words

Advertisement

Letters to the Power Plant #120 — Electrical Internet

Read that my college radio station used local power lines to broadcast signal. You guys were not nuts.

Power Plant Men

After I left the power plant and went to work for Dell on August 20, 2001, I wrote letters back to my friends at the plant letting them know how things were going.  This is the one hundred and twentieth letter I wrote.  Keep in mind that at the time when I originally penned this letter I didn’t intend on it being posted online.

10/4/05  —  Electrical Internet

Dear Sooner buddies,

Hey.  I was just reading an article about the Internet and it reminded me of one of our Power Ideas.  —  Oh.  You remember.  “We’ve Got the Power” in 1990.  And how it gave everyone that warm and fuzzy feeling for each other….and how it sort of brought everyone together in a wave of kindness…..  Well.  At least that’s the way I remember it…..or is it.

Anyway.  I remember one of our “way out there” ideas was to have…

View original post 233 more words

Slipping in Unicorn Puke

Author Sarah Angleton

In the early part of the fourth century BC, a historian by the name of Ctesias returned to his native Greece after traveling through India and Persia, where he served a number of years as physician to the royal court. When he got home, he set to work writing about his travels in his great works Persica, which like many of the era’s works of history is somewhat dubious in nature, and Indica, which among other things, describes India’s native unicorn.

The unicorn, he wrote, was as large as a horse, with blue eyes, a red head, a white body, and a horn on its head measuring at least a foot and a half. It was also very strong and lightning fast.

For a while rumor had it only a young virgin could successfully catch a unicorn because the creatures were attracted to purity. By Domenichino – Public…

View original post 490 more words

Critics of high-speed rail step up pressure as federal decision

PenneyVanderbilt

Took afew minutes for me to get the mail on this.Started out in THE HOUR in Norwalk, Connecticut. Went to California who reblogged it their E-NEWS. Then friend sent to me.

In simplicity: With a major decision looming, preservationists are stepping up their efforts to get the Federal Railroad Administration to rethink its proposed high-speed rail route through Connecticut.

The FRA’s NEC Future would cut 29 miles of new rail lines, between New Rochelle, N.Y., and Greens Farms, under preliminary plans released late last year.

“There is significant concern that the Federal Railroad Administration intends to push through public opposition to the New Rochelle, N.Y. to Greens Farms bypass through Fairfield County,” said Gregory Stroud, director of special projects for The Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation. “Until we hear otherwise, the Connecticut Trust intends to exert maximum pressure possible so that this poorly-considered project will be dropped from the plan.”

View original post 86 more words

Jeri Walker Talks Breast Cancer in The Abandoned Boob Chronicles

When Women Inspire

Meet writer and editor Jeri Walker. She is an inspiration for anyone battling breast cancer.

Ah yes, the “C” word. C is for Cancer. It also stands for, well, Crappy. Crummy. BUT, when it comes to Jeri Walker, it’s also about being Courageous.

This is Jeri Walker

You may know Jeri from Word Bank Writing & Editing, where she offers writing tips, editing advice, author interviews and more. It’s a literary heaven, really. It was through this website that I first came to know Jeri, and we quickly became friends. Her intellect was Captivating (another “C”!).

Then, recently, Jeri reached out with words of her breast cancer diagnosis, and it shook the worlds of so many of us. But Jeri, resilient woman that we know her to be, stands strong and uses The Abandoned Boob Chronicles to bring us her deepest thoughts, struggles, and triumphs.

What is The Abandoned Boob…

View original post 301 more words