Jonathan's Musings

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

So I just "borrowed" this from another blog. Enjoy. It makes me feel homesick for the good country.

Rules in the Southern States

If you are going to live in or visit the South, you need to know the rules.In an effort to help outsiders understand the rules of the Southerner's mind,the following list will be handed to each person as they enter a SouthernState.(These actually should be the rules in all states.)

1.That farm boy you see at the gas station did more work before
breakfast that you do all week at the gym.

2.It's called a "gravel road." No matter how slow you drive,
you're going to get dust on your Lincoln Navigator. Drive if or get out
of the way!

3.The red dirt – it’s called clay. Red clay. If you like the
color, don’t wash your car for a couple of weeks – it’ll be permanent.

4. We all started hunting and fishing when we were seven years old.Yeah, we
saw that Bambi movie, too.We got over it the first time we tasted fried
deer steak.

5.Go ahead and bring your $600 Orvis fly rod.Don’t cry to us if a flathead (that’s a catfish) breaks it off at the handle.We have a name for those little 13-inch trout you fish for…bait.

6. Pull your pants up! You look like an idiot.

7. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallards are making their final approach, we will shoot it. You might want to ensure it’s not up to your ear at the time.

8. No, there’s no “Vegetarian Special” on the menu. Order steak. Order It rare. Or, you can order the Chef’s Salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.

9. Tea – yeah, we have tea. It comes in a glass over ice and it’s sweet. You want it hot? Set it in the sun. You want it unsweetened? Add a lot of water.

10. You bring Coke into my house,it better be brown, wet, and served over ice!

11. You have a sixty-thousand-dollar car. We’re real impressed.We have a quarter of a million-dollar combine that we only use two weeks a year.

12. Let’s get this straight.We have one stoplight in town. We stop when its red. We may even stop when it’s yellow.

13. We eat dinner together with our families. We pray before we eat – yeah, even breakfast.We go to church on Wednesdays and Sundays, and we go to high school football games on Friday nights. We still address our seniors with “yes, sir” and “yes, ma’am,” and we sometimes still take Sunday drives around town to see friends and neighbors.

14. We don’t do “hurry up” well.

15. Greens – yeah, we have greens, but you don’t putt on them.You boil them with salty fatback, bacon, or a smoked hamhock.

16. Yeah we eat catfish, bass, and bream. You really want sushi and caviar? It’s available down at the bait shop.

17. They are pigs. That’s what the smell like.Get over it. Don’t like it? Interstate I-65 goes two ways.Interstate 20 goes the other two. Pick one.

18. Grits are corn. You put butter, salt, and maybe even some pepper (or cheddar cheese and bacon) on them. If you want to put milk and sugar on them, then you want cream of wheat - go to Kansas. That would be I-40 West.

19. The “Opener” refers to the first day of deer season or dove season. Both are holidays. You can get pancakes, cane syrup, and sausage before daylight at the church on either day.

20. So every person in every pickup truck waves? Yeah, it’s called being friendly. Understand the concept?

21. Yeah, we have golf courses. Don’t hit the water hazards.It spooks the fist and bothers the gators – and, if you hit it in the rough, we have these things called diamondbacks, and they’re not baseball players.

22. That Highway Patrol Officer that just pulled you over for driving like and idiot –his name is “Sir,” no matter how young he is.

23. We have pine trees. The have sap. It drips from them. You park your Navigator under them,and they’ll leave a souvenir on your hood.

24. You burn an American flag in our state, you get beat up. No questions. The liberal contingent of our state legislature – all four of them – enacted a measure to stop this. There is now a $2.50 fine for beating up the flag burner.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Microsoft/Phizer rise to the occassion

Finally, the free market goes to work. This time, the spammers are going down. Government regulation of spam hasn't seemed to help my inbox much, but I suspect this litigation will. Wouldn't you know it? It's the free market that comes through once again.

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

The genius of Bruckner

So this is probably common knowledge to many of you classical music buffs, but Anton Bruckner was genius. Symphony No. 0: with that simple title, Bruckner took the least honored number of the Arabic system and revealed its beauty and value.

In the numbers continuum, zero generally gets no respect. In fact, unless it is preceded by some other number(s), it is typically despised. I mean, who wants to be a zero? A "zero" is a nothing, a nobody, it's someone or something associated with the most meaningless number in the world. Does zero deserve this maltreatment?

Apparently Anton Bruckner didn't think so. He saw the veiled worth of the unloved number. He saw that deep within, "zero" has immense significance far beyond what most of us ever dream. Without zero, numbers would have no meaning, but would be lost in a sea of relativism and insignificance. Without zero, men would have no standard to measure by. Without zero, chaos.

Zero is the standard that holds all numbers in check. It is the point at which the infinite numbers continuum is balanced. Zero is the only number absolutely necessary to the mathematical system, and hence, the most important.

Anton Bruckner recognized the incredible worth of this powerful number and used it appropriately as the name of one of his most beautiful symphonies. A symphony which, like its number, seemingly provides life to all others.*


*This post is acknowledged to be revisionist history (or historical fiction, if you prefer) and, aside from the name of the composer and a common name for his unnamed D-minor symphonies, the statements, opinions, motives, and arguments herein are the author's creation only. However, if Bruckner had thought this thing through, he most certainly would have agreed with me.