Oddities and Humor

You've gotta be right, Ceili.What else could it be? I'm glad, at least, that you said "I think" and that Edgar couldn't hear it either. I thought it might only be my hearing or lack thereof.

The idea has been in use for some time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tube

But that was really an inventive idea.

Nah, I'm pretty good with accents. I've grown up around a lot of them.

Heard a kid say, today, "I may not be smarter than a fifth grader, but I can sure as hell beat the crap out of one."

George Washington was almost a Zombie

"The website io9 writes that physician William Thornton is best remembered as the first designer of the U.S. Capitol. But he also proposed reviving George Washington's deceased body using a combination of blankets, an air pump and lamb's blood..."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/capitol-architect-wanted-reanimate-george-washington-corpse-190032910.html

Duh, that sounds logical.

In the summer of 1865, a former slave by the name of Jourdan Anderson sent a letter to his former master. And 147 years later, the document reads as richly as it must have back then.

The roughly 800-word letter, which has resurfaced via various blogs, websites, Twitter and Facebook, is a response to a missive from Colonel P.H. Anderson, Jourdan's former master back in Big Spring, Tennessee. Apparently, Col. Anderson had written Jourdan asking him to come on back to the big house to work.

In a tone that could be described either as "impressively measured" or "the deadest of deadpan comedy," the former slave, in the most genteel manner, basically tells the old slave master to kiss his rear end. He laments his being shot at by Col. Anderson when he fled slavery, the mistreatment of his children and that there "was never pay-day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows."

Below is Jourdan’s letter in full, as it appears on lettersofnote.com. To take a look at what appears to be a scan of the original letter, which appeared in an August 22, 1865 edition of the New York Daily Tribune, click here. As Letters Of Note points out, the newspaper account makes clear that the letter was dictated.

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson.

Wow! That is a great story, edgar.

Another oddity:



Larson (AFP) – 18 hours ago

STOCKHOLM — Twins born in Indonesia and put up separately for adoption, have been reunited after finding each other living just 40 kilometres (25 miles) apart, in southern Sweden, three decades later.

Non-identical twins Emilie Falk and Lin Backman -- strangers until last year -- were separated nearly 29 years ago.

According to a DNA test the pair had done two months after reuniting in January last year, and which they shared with AFP, there is a 99.98 percent chance of them being sisters.

A complex string of events led up to that revelation.

Both were adopted from an orphanage in Semarang in northern Indonesia by Swedish couples, but there was no mention in either of their documents of the fact that they had a twin.

When Backman's parents left the orphanage with her all those years ago, the taxi driver had turned around and asked them: "What about the other one, the sister?" and they jotted the girls' Indonesian names down on a piece of paper.

A satisfying but poignant story Ed.

Great story Miss Letty, I think 99.98% is about certain. Life eh!.

I was separated once. But it was not from a twin. And, we never met again. Otherwise, remarkably similar story. Go figure.

McDonald’s stops using ‘pink slime’ chemical in hamburgers

"The U.S. Agriculture Department classifies the chemical as "generally recognized as safe." McDonald's says they stopped using the chemical months ago and deny the move came after a public campaign against ammonium hydroxide by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver..."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/mcdonald-confirms-no-longer-using-pink-slime-chemicals-171209662.html

If they would just stop making hamburgers, they wouldn't have to go to the trouble of making them edible.

Man Adopts His 42-Year-Old Girlfriend
www.huffingtonpost.com
A wealthy Florida man has adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend as a daughter in a move critics say will protect the man's assets during an upcoming lawsuit surrounding a deadly car accident...

'ammonium hydroxide'

They could call it an 'Ammo-Burger', me thinks there would be quite a market out there.

The law is an ass.

More oddities, yawl.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Set builders for "Code Name: Geronimo" are putting together a replica of Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan at an old New Mexico state penitentiary as filming begins this week.

The Voltage Productions film will tell the story of the manhunt for bin Laden, with executive producer Tony Mark saying it will focus on the imagined dynamics of the special group of Navy SEALs that carried out the raid and the decision-making processes that might have taken place in Washington.

Mark, who also produced the "The Hurt Locker," tells The New Mexican all local filming should be done by the end of February. He says he's moving quickly to get the film in theaters while last spring's event in Pakistan remains fresh in Americans' minds.

Following the raid, the use of the name "Geronimo" in the operation drew angry criticism from many Native Americans, who felt it disrespected the revered Apache warrior's legacy.

I know our edgar will think this silly.

I think most everything is silly.

No ****. These guys know that this sort of propaganda is eaten up by really gullible Americans. No thought is ever given to the facts - the US violated another countries airspace, another country's sovereignty.

Where are Osama's relatives? Osama's friends and associates?

Has OBL's wife been returned to a safe place? Wouldn't that make all US politicans' wives and kids fair game for Iraqi and Afghan freedom fighters.

Is it any wonder that most of the world hates the USA? You want this phony terrorism to stop. Stop terrorizing other people and other countries.

Roseanne Barr Seeks Green Party Presidential Nomination
www.huffingtonpost.com
WASHINGTON — Roseanne Barr is running for the Green Party's presidential nomination – and she says it's no joke. The actress-comedian said in a statement Thursday that she's a longtime supporter of the party and looks forward to working with people who share her values...