Day: August 9, 2018

A Glimpse Into Conservative Thinking

Fandango18 Comments

979397E7-8581-4898-BCDD-CE0F61A09E8DFox News host Laura Ingraham issued a dire warning to America. “This is a national emergency, and we must demand that Congress act now,” she said.

What is this “national emergency” that Ingraham is so upset about? Well, here’s what she said:

“In some parts of the country, it does seem like the America that we know and love doesn’t exist anymore. Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people, and they are changes that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like. From Virginia to California, we see stark examples of how radically, in some ways, the country has changed. Now, much of this is related to both illegal, and in some cases legal immigration that, of course, progressives love.”

Whoa! “Massive demographic changes…that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like.”

So who is this “us” that Ingraham is referring to? Hmm, let me think. Could it be white Christian conservatives? I think it just might be.

Is this conservative Fox News host being blatantly racist? And is she reflecting the feelings of the majority of conservative white Americans? Sadly, I believe she is.

And now for something completely different

Now that Vice President Mike Pence has officially laid out the plans to create the Space Force, Jimmy Kimmel has aired the first Space Force recruitment video. Enjoy.

“Finish the Story Challenge” Part 3

Fandango12 Comments

So this “blog hop” challenge, started by Teresa over at The Haunted Wordsmith, involves taking a brief story she started and then passing it along to others to run with it. She titled her story “Come Join Me For Lunch.” Teresa tagged Cheryl, aka “The Bag Lady,” to run with it. And Cheryl picked me for the next “chapter.” You can click here to see how Teresa started it and where Cheryl took it. Anyway, here’s my part 3:

3D8D39E8-7391-492D-B0E5-04C16712B7C3As soon as she opened the door and walked through the Golden Arches, Louise was hit by the pungent aroma of grilled chopped beef and deep-fried potatoes. How long had it been she’d last stepped foot in a McDonalds? She honestly couldn’t remember.

Louise got into line and was trying to decide if she should be good and order a salad or indulge on a burger. When it was her turn to order, she asked for a quarter-pounder with cheese with everything on it. Plus, a large order of fries. Hell, the way her day had been going so far, she deserved to treat herself to something different, right?

So that’s it. Now I suppose I’ve got to choose someone else, huh? I’ve got it. I’m going to tag master storyteller James Pyles over at Powered By Robots. No doubt he’ll take this tale in an interesting direction.

Over to you, James.

Here We Go Again

Fandango26 Comments

I’m a breakfast cereal kind of a guy. Most mornings I fill my bowl with dry cereal, add some raisins, some blueberries, and a sliced banana. Then I pour milk over it all and, well, yum!

For many years my favorite cereal was Just Right. 74FAD78E-1176-4F8C-900E-7EC8ADDB4305It was a nutritious mix of crispy flakes of wheat, corn, and rice with raisins, dates, and almonds. But then I noticed that Just Right was getting harder and harder to find at the local grocery store. Until it just stopped showing up at all in the cereal aisles at any of my local food emporiums.

It turned out that Kellogg’s, that venerable purveyor of breakfast foods, particularly cold cereals, decided a number of years back (2007) to no longer manufacture and sell Just Right. What?!?

So then, after exhaustively searching for a replacement for my beloved Just Right, I finally found a new cold cereal, this time from that other purveyor of cereals, General Mills. This cereal, Total, became my new breakfast favorite.FB956754-2D25-4A59-A241-9FB81BB4F700Total has “all the wholesome goodness and nutty flavor of 100 percent whole grain wheat flakes with 100 percent of the Daily value of 12 vitamins and minerals you will need all day long.”

But lo and behold, Total has been totally missing from the grocery shelves for the past few weeks. I went to the General Mills website and Total still shows up there. But when I went to the Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Target websites, they all listed Total as either “not available” or “out of stock.” One website did have a box of Total available, but the price was $20 plus shipping. Fuhgedabouddit.

So here we go again, in search of a new breakfast cereal.

Science Lesson

Fandango8 Comments

197ACA4C-F38F-4391-AE62-42299170F471“We were learning about atoms today is science class,” Steven told his father. “We learned about the nucleus, which is made up of protons and neurons, and about the electrons, which orbit around the nucleus.”

“Uh huh,” his father said, without looking up from his newspaper.

“You know what it reminded me of?” Steven asked.

“Uh uh,” his father absently responded.

“It reminded me of the sun and the planets orbiting around it, with the sun as the nucleus and the planets as the electrons.”

Sam looked up from his newspaper for the first time. “That’s a good analogy, son,” he said.

“Dad, with all of the planets and stars out there in the universe, with all of the solar systems and constellations, do you think there’s intelligent life on any other than besides our own?”

“I expect that at some point, astrophysicists will discover that there is intelligent life on other planets, son.”

“My science teacher said that they once thought they had discovered a planet with intelligent life forms on it, and that we tried to make contact with those life forms, but it turned out the scientists were wrong,” Steven said.

“Yes, that was thousands of years ago on a planet called Earth,” his father said. “But how intelligent could those life forms have been if they knowingly destroyed their own home planet? The planet Earth was declared to be a dead planet centuries ago.”

Written for the following prompts:

FOWC with Fandango — Nucleus

Fandango21 Comments

FOWCWelcome to August 9, 2018 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “nucleus.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.