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JackSparx

Published Letters: 981
Editor's Choice: 18

Monday, March 31, 2008 03:21 PM
Original article: McCain Girl responds

Vanilla Rain?

John McCain/Some stay dry and others feel the pain

John McCain/A baby born will die before the sin

John McCain/The school books say he can't be here again

John McCain/The prisons make you wonder where he went

John McCain/Build a tent and say the world is dry

John McCain/Zoom the camera out and see the lie

John McCain/Forecast to be falling yesterday

John McCain/Only in the past is what they say

John McCain/Raised your neighborhood insurance rates

John McCain/Makes us happy 'livin in a gate

Monday, March 31, 2008 03:50 PM

Fond memories of Ayn Rand toting hippie chick

I had a friend who moved to a remote rural area. He said it had changed his view of women--"out here, if a woman still has some of her own teeth we consider her a great beauty."

I feel that way about women who read. They're so scarce that they're all beautiful to me. I have had memorable relationships with women who read Ayn Rand, Wiccan manuals, Dan Brown, Bridges, the Mammoth Hunters, and even Lorrie Moore.

On the other hand, my Nabokov ex? Whoa, never again. Tolstoy girls are easy. Easier than Anais Nin girls, actually.

I've always aspired to go out with a woman who reads Alice Munro, but I guess they are out of my league.

Monday, March 31, 2008 04:24 PM

@AKA I'm not Munro-worthy

But do you know any women who read T.C. Boyle? I'd like to check out their templates, if you know what I mean.

As for Coulter...I once had an affair with the head of the College Republicans chapter. She looked a bit like Coulter.

I'm kinky like that.

Monday, March 31, 2008 04:31 PM

I love the nasty

One of my ex g/f's loved Dr. Laura's radio show, so we were always listening in the car. But she only read books about dogs.

Not sure if that's related.

Monday, March 31, 2008 04:37 PM

Boyle is very mannered, yes

Those two books are my favorites, especially Drop City. Also Tortilla Curtain, maybe more than Friend of the Earth. His short stories can also be killers. One of my female friends read Tooth and Claw and refuses to read anything more by him. Her comment "I"m not going through that again."

Not so in love with his historical novels though.

Not chick lit.

Monday, March 31, 2008 04:46 PM

What's male for "chick lit"?

Maybe dick lit? Heh, heh.

Treeple, I actually meant Boyle readers are men, but the books seem to serve for men what chick lit does for women. Like, Tom Robbins, same genre. It would be interesting to find women who actually like Boyle.

Also, I read chick lit. I read anything.

Monday, March 31, 2008 04:51 PM

@froggy In the future all books will have a read-aloud button

And you'll be able to choose the synthesized voice.

I plan to listen to Audacity of Hope as read by Hillary Clinton.

In any case, I don't think your son will be left out. The technology is here and the bugs are getting worked out.

Monday, March 31, 2008 05:04 PM

You're right philliejoe

I had gf once who loved Baby Driver by Jan Keroauc (Jack's daughter). I've never read it but I get a pang whenever I see an old copy at a book store.

Hey, AKA, I've read most of McCarthy, just read The Road. I have to say, though, that the dude does not exactly spell "romance" to me.

"Oh baby, whisper in my ear how much I remind you of Judge Holden, woncha sweetie?"

Monday, March 31, 2008 05:11 PM

I myself would like to call Dr. Ruth

But I'd rather leave a bag of flaming dog poo on Dr. Phil's front porch.

Monday, March 31, 2008 05:15 PM

That would be a good name for her memoir

"Dull Thud," by Hillary Clinton.

Monday, March 31, 2008 06:21 PM

Cow boys, Indians, and buffalo

I wish I could access the White article (more than the first page). Is this the same Lynn White who wrote Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis?

My absurd theory is that the buffalo did not make their way from India alone, but rather in the company of herders, with Indians perhaps all the way. The Indian buffalo has been domesticated a long time, and the rich milk would make it desirable. But, why not bring the herders with the buffalo, which would mean you've got Indians in Europe, though maybe the herders are replaced by locals long before Europe.

But, the Roma (Gypsies from India) might have appeared in southern Europe history by 800 CE, so maybe Indians of some sort had come in earlier but were not mentioned.

And from that leap, I'd make the leap further to try to equate the Avars with Indians of some sort. In other words, maybe they didn't have to rendez-vous with the buffalo, maybe they had the buffalo all along. Long hair with ornaments, travel in wagons, rouse the attention of the locals? Sounds like the same impact of the Roma.

Since the Avars kind of just disappeared into some other population, we perhaps can't know. But, the people(s) we call Roma now are a varied lot.

There are many reasons my theory is unlikely but just let it loft a bit into the intellectual ether before shooting it down.

Monday, March 31, 2008 07:08 PM

How else would you meet someone?

Can't meet your guy at work. Not flirt on the street. Can't pick up at a bar. No more 1970s spandex come-hither looks at the gym.

We live in a vacuum packaged society where you are supposed to meet your someone online.

There are millions of couples lying by saying that the meet on line in order to hide the truth.

Monday, March 31, 2008 08:47 PM

Sounds like my startup

I Go Ogle for You.

You'll never have to visit a nasty strip club again!

Tuesday, April 1, 2008 07:27 AM

Buffalo herders=Zutt=Roma!

I got access to Lynn's article which identifies the buffalo herders with Zutt, which Encyclopedia Britannica identifies as "a nomadic Roma (Gypsy) group" that got to the Gulf (Oman) by the early 9th c.

So, I wonder if the Gypsies that had reached Greece also by the early 9th c., also had buffalo with them.

If so, we are very nearly getting an Indian group into Italy with buffalo.

But, that still doesn't identify the Avars as Indian.

Unless you look at it the opposite way. Rather than use language to identify this group (which is iffy anyway seems like), you use the buffalo. If they had buffalo, maybe they were Indian (and always had the buffalo).

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