I Miss You!

Dear Reader, and, perhaps, Former Follower,

Since migrating this blog to Wordpress, The Last Half, has gotten ZERO (0) hits from Europe, Asia, or Africa.  And even the U.S. folk who read my posts--some who followed me--gave up on me.  I miss you guys!  Please forgive me!

After illness for a couple of months (autoimmune foolishness) when this blog sat lonely and unposted, I relocated it to Wordpress on a friend's advice.  She said "the search algorithms just LOVE Wordpress!" Have since learned that the truth is the exact opposite--well, duh, since Blogger is a product of google!

Please, please visit me at my new location:  The Last Half.   I'd come back to Blogger, but there is no painless porting tool (it was a bear going to Wordpress), plus I resent Google for its obvious preferential search engine treatment of its own product.

I didn't mean to abandon you.  I can't promise to post regularly, but can promise to be..okay, don't know what to promise.  Just once a month, that's all I ask:  When it's the last half of the week or month, think of The Last Half : )  (maybe a teensy little bookmark now would help...?  just a small one...?)

Hope to see you!

P.S.  The dumbest part of all this is that I like the look of the site over here better, and couldn't mimic it on Wordpress (at least, not YET).  But, on the plus side, I've added cute little baby blogs (sub-bloggits) over there, and will be adding more : )


P.P.S.  How do I know Google prefers Blogger?  Right after I migrated, both sites sat idle.  Looking at the historical hits, the identical posts, with identical tags, on the equivalent sites, in Wordpress vs. Blogger--guess which ones got more hits?  Could it be the one on GOOGLE'S product?

P.P.P.S.  Oh, for heaven's sake, I'll probably give in at some point and migrate back.  It's the Great Google.  Resistance is futile...

The Groupon Guide to: Being Autistic

If you enjoy this post, the current version of The Last Half has been relocated here.  It has all the posts found here, new posts, and...baby blogs with their own little posts!


This is an edited-down  excerpt of an old Groupon guide (www.groupon.com) which they originally titled The Groupon Guide to Being Yourself, but they clearly intended this title, instead.  I’ve corrected it for them, because that is what we Asperger’s folk do—jump to give advice and help to you non-Aspies even before you think to ask us.  Sometimes even if you tell us you don’t want our help.

You’re welcome!

 

Anyone Else Notice This is ALL the Brain Structures?

The Groupon Guide to:  Being Autistic

 

• Begin each conversation by rattling off your childhood medical history. If weather permits, reveal all relevant scars.
• If all of your friends are jumping off a bridge—jump too!  They clearly know something about this bridge that you don't.
• If you meet someone who shares your first name, suggest that they instead go by their middle name.
• Reject all constructive criticism. Though teachers, employers, and traffic-court judges may cite areas for improvement, they're outranked by (the late) Mr. Rogers, who said you're perfect the way you are.

Clouds

A small "puff piece" (heh heh) written just after I drove from California to Florida.

Driving cross-country, you can’t help but notice the clouds. 

As I cruise along, peacefully feeling the heat (it’s about 100 degrees outside) and hearing the wind whooshing through the wide-open windows, there is much more sky than I remember there being back in Los Angeles.   Most of the time, the clouds are those big, fluffy white ones:   Always lovely to look at against the big blue sky.   

 A few times on my long journey, though, I receive little gifts of cloud surprises.

 In Arizona, I notice the famous mesas first, which I had expected.  What I did not expect—and had never heard described in a book or seen in any painting—are the Magic-Mirror mesas I see in the sky:  Perfect mesa-shaped clouds, but suspended upside-down exactly above each mesa on the ground.  This sky-world lasts for only a few miles, but I thoroughly enjoy my short time traveling in the thin layer between worlds. 

In New Mexico, I see a Chinese dragon, complete with bushy eyebrows and two pair of long trailing whiskers.   He is not breathing fire when I see him, but the sky before his face is filled with small cloud balls.  His head is tilted up toward them with a satisfied air, so one imagines he has just finished puffing them out.

Snoo-ti, the Chinese Elephant

In Oklahoma, the clouds make me hungry.  Six giant identical wedge-shaped mason's trowels descend gradually from left to right like stair-steps.   Actually, the trowels themselves are hidden by the delicious mounds of whipped cream on top of each one, revealing the trowel shape underneath.  I so want to ascend to the sky and eat my way up those stairs.  I wonder what I would find at the top? 

Ekhart Tolle, The Bad: A New Science for A New Earth?

If you enjoy this post, the current version of The Last Half has been relocated here.  It has all the posts found here, new posts, and...baby blogs with their own little posts!

A sweet gentleman recently recommended Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth:  Awakening to Your Life's Purpose.  The book was not empty of all value, but positive comments are in another blog.  This is for the dish:

Tight Face, Tight Waist Show Elevated Consciousness

Right away, on page 2, Tolle claims flowers played "an essential part in the evolution of (human) consciousness".  From whence does he draw this remarkable conclusion?  He doesn't say.On page 3, Tolle states, "Any life-form in any realm--mineral, vegetable, animal, or human--can be said to undergo 'enlightenment'."   Minerals are a life-form?  Show me mineral poop, mister. 

Continuing on to page 4, he adds:  "Since time immemorial, flowers, crystals, precious stones, and birds have held special significance for the human spirit.  Like all life forms (notice, crystals and stones are living), they are, of course, temporary manifestations of the underlying one Life, one Consciousness.   (Of course--goes without saying).   Their special significance and the reason why humans feel such affinity for them can be attributed to their ethereal quality."   Evidence, Mr. Tolle?  Anything may be attributed to anything you want.

Rocks, alive?  Stones, ethereal?  Even I think that's stupid.

Crow Faces

If you enjoy this post, the current version of The Last Half has been relocated here.  It has all the posts found here, new posts, and...baby blogs with their own little posts!


Freakish Fact:

The pioneering animal behaviorist Konrad Lorenz was so convinced of the perceptive capacities of crows and their relatives that he wore a devil costume when handling jackdaws so that they wouldn't recognize him at other times.

Closet Konrad

Surprised by his wife

Who’s the madman dressed in red

Blackbirds dancing round his head;

Cloven toes point dartfully,

Mincing oh so artfully;

While he swishes pointy tail,

Drawing birdseed from a pail;

Happy birds and happy man,

Can devil care? Indeed he can!

The text in this post, except the doggerel, is excerpted from New York Times items about crows, and abandoned plans to find bin Laden w/their help.

It is well established that crows are highly intelligent.  The Clark's nutcracker, for example, caches up to 100,000 nuts in dozens of different locations at the end of spring, and can find them all again up to nine months later, even if they are covered with snow.

Typical Crow Headstone

The researchers therefore decided to investigate the possibility that crows can recognize human faces, and devised a relatively experiment (sic) using rubber masks. They went out on campus and in the surrounding areas wearing either a "caveman" mask or a Dick Cheney mask. Those who wore the caveman mask caught and banded between 7 and 15 crows on each excursion, but those who wore the Dick Cheney mask did not.

In the following months, they went out wearing the same masks, walking around the university campus in pre-determined routes without bothering the crows. They also recruited volunteers to do the same. The crows consistently harassed anyone they saw wearing the caveman mask, scolding them with loud squawks and even mobbing them.  This happened regardless of the size, sex or walking style of the person wearing the mask, and even when the mask was partly hidden under a hat or worn upside down. They were, however, indifferent to the neutral mask...

What's more, their memory of the mask was persistent - nearly three years later, they continued to attack anyone who wore it.  Marzluff says that he has been scolded by far more birds than had been originally trapped, suggesting that they not only recognized the mask, but had transmitted the information to their offspring and to other birds in the flock.

Clever Sheik Disguise

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2011/05/us_military_spy_crows_binladen.php?utm_source=nytwidget

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html

Coming Soon: The Disappearing Spoon

Watch this Space for an Excerpt/Review of "The Disappearing Spoon"

(Amah gonna reviewa da book wit only one excerpt.  Dat's it.  Dat's all-a you gonna need.)

Imagine: A Soapbox On Teacher Pay

If you enjoy this post, the current version of The Last Half has been relocated here.  It has all the posts found here, new posts, and...baby blogs with their own little posts--including The Last Half Goes to School with posts related to education:  students, teachers, policies, lessons...  

Imagine

Imagine going up to a businessman on Wall Street and asking him to please watch your 10-year-old child for a few minutes while you run into your office to grab a call.  Now, imagine asking him to watch your child for an hour—perhaps you have an emergency committee meeting.  Now, ask him to baby-sit your precious darling all day, with a half-hour break for lunch.  Now, add your child’s best friend. 

Now, go out and choose another 23 children at random.  Ask that businessman to baby-sit all 25 children for six hours. 

How much salary do you think that businessman would want, to consider this worth his while?

Then, spring the first surprise:  He must keep that group of 25 ten-year-old children quiet and confined to one room for most of those most of those six hours.  Then, spring the second surprise:  He must teach those children 7 subjects, whether or not they are willing to learn them, and whether or not they read well enough to understand their textbooks.

Oh, yes—and let the businessman know that he will be evaluated on how successfully he has achieved that learning goal.  If he is less than successful, it will be viewed as entirely his fault—never the fault of any of the children or their families.

Now how much salary do you think the businessman would consider enough?

Let’s imagine that many of the children have parents who speak little or no English, are almost illiterate in their home language, and are ignorant (or uncaring) of basic child-rearing principles.  Finally, let the businessman know that, should some children choose to talk non-stop for the entire six hours, or throw objects across the room, he is powerless to force them to stop (although he is free to order them to do so in his most emphatic, businesslike voice).  He is expected to cope, and to advance all of the children in their knowledge by at least a year.

Any guess how much salary that businessman would demand now?

I have 20 years' experience as a programmer, systems designer, technical writer, software trainer, and manager.  I have a Bachelor's degree in Literature and Linguistics, and a Master's degree in Liberal Arts.  Before I become a teacher, my salary is $74,000.  My starting salary as a teacher is $31,500.^[1]  The lowest-paid 25% of our city’s garbage collectors earn $31,700.[2]

---

[1] My Master's degree earns me that extra $500 per year.   Woo, woo.

[2] Source:  www.bls.gov/oes/oes_dl.htm.  One of my nephews dropped out of high school and got a job moving boxes in a warehouse.  They made him a manager at $42,000.  That's $10,000 more than the teacher pay I got in my first year.  Women are so stupid.

The concept of Imagine was borrowed (well, one likes to claim, improved) from an unknown source received many years ago--cannot find it, but will be delighted to credit and link to the original source if you know it and clue me in.