Axles and cusswords

Image by way of wikipedia.

In his book Deer Hunting with Jesus, author Joe Bagaent describes some characteristics of Scotch-Irish Appalachians. He had a great one liner that describes my family pretty well:

Cussing is a form of punctuation to us.

Profanity was regarded as a high art form by my father, although my mother is no slouch herself. I've inherited their genes as has my daughter. My son, for some reason, doesn't seem as disposed to it.

I mention all this because my memory has been jogged recently when I was told that my grandson does good on his spelling tests. Back in the day, I did pretty good at spelling. In fifth grade, I came in second in our school's spelling bee.

The great irony was that I lost on--of all things--a four letter word, which is something I kind of specialize in. It was axle by the way and I ended it with an e-l. Since then I have redoubled my efforts to never again be out done in the four letter word department. And that's no ****.

THE RICH GET RICHER...Robert Reich rants here.

SOMETHING ELSE FOR FLAT WORLDERS TO DENY: rapidly melting Greenland and Antarctic ice.

PUNISHED FOR SUCCESS. Here's James Surowiecki on the politics of the Recovery Act.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: a Montana woman fought off a charging bear with a zucchini.

NOTE. This post was scheduled for publication the night before. If anything really good or bad happens between now and then, please accept appropriate congratulations or condolences.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED