Favorite Pharts

Favorite Place To Live: On the blue water. I'm not sure where, but somewhere tropical--maybe in the British Virgin Islands or the Dominican Republic. Of course, I'd have to be extremely wealthy--these places are expensive, and it would require one big-ass boat to enjoy the blue water.

Favorite Comic: (I'll do comedian since I don't read comic books): Robin Williams. His barely controlled insanity makes for some of the best comedy available, whether movies or stand up.

Favorite Movie: Steel Magnolias. What a lovely bitter-sweet story.

Favorite Book: I have too many to name just one. My reading is mostly true crime novels or mystery novels. M. William Phelps is one of my favorite crime writers; Denise Lehane and James Lee Burke are two of my favorite fiction writers.

My Favorite Power: Oh man, if I had a power I'd be dangerous!

If I had one week to live, I'd live every day to the fullest! And you can bet I'd have that big-assed boat and be cruising in the blue water!

Fearful Phart

We're a fearful people.

Americans have lived through decades of fear. We sailed to this land hundreds of years ago, partly out of fear. We fought a revolution, we fought a civil war...we crossed the big pond and fought the two big wars. We went to the jungle in Asia and the desert in the east. Out of fear.
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For the last 10 years, millions of Americans have lived in an Age of Fear.

Beginning at the millennium, many people cocooned themselves in fear...our leadership was in question, and we knew it. In September 2001 that fear went to a deeper, darker, scarier place. Our physical safety had been damaged-- we had yet to see what was to come.

Americans have long been aware Big Brother is Watching. We knew that even before Orwell published 1984 in 1949. Orwell was not shy in setting forth his fears of an intrusively bureaucratized state of the future. It took a littler longer than the writer thought, but we now live in a nation where cameras and computers spy on everything we do!

In the minds of many Americans, the Bush Administration used 1984 as a how-to guide, rather than the warning about despotism it was meant to be.

The U.S. Patriot Act, referred to by Congress as legislation to "Protect Life and Liberty," gave government agencies and law enforcement agencies the right to track, intercept and obstruct terrorism. Yet, it impacts beyond terrorism. It touches any American citizen. Under this Act, telephone conversations, e-mail, medical, financial and other records are no longer personal or private. What I check out of the public library can be put under scrutiny! The checks and balances guaranteed by our Constitution have been reduced. Big Brother is truly watching!

Many Americans feel this act is contradictory to protections of life and liberty. Instead, it has eroded our basic civil rights. For a people who believe in democracy and who have been proud of a 221-year-old Constitution pledging justice, tranquility, and liberty, the absolutism of government today is cause to shed tears.

True Pharts

Nothing But The Truth...

....and all that razmataz!!

Always be a journalist who runs a factual story and refuses to out her source. Especially if you're the journalist who outs a CIA agent who has leaked the truth about a war that shouldn't be--and the obsessed falsehoods behind that war. Go to jail on contempt first.

That's the premise of this 2008 film.

Should be a good movie.

Should be a really moving flick when the outted-CIA agent is killed to silence more information leaking out.

It was based on fact...up to a point.

The fact is the press shield law...a journalist is protected against giving up a source or confidential information leading to a story. Fact of the law is: a reporter can not be forced to give up a source.

The reporter in this film went to jail for three years. Divorce, loss of job, threats, abused in prison. She stayed true to the ethics of the shield law. Fiction entered the flick after about a year in the slammer. No judge is going to hold a journalist that long on contempt.

Well, not until we got the Patriot Act! The Big Brother Sneaks Into Your Life....With License and Without the Original Constitution!

The movie fell short...I was bored. You can only show prison life, divorce, loss of job...and loss of a Pulitzer so long. Move on, there was a murder of the CIA agent here.

We ignore that? To protect a lie?

The movie was about truth and lies and paranoid government.

Great premise....gets a C+

Peeved Phart

Mindless reality TV grinds my gears.

What happened to television with meat, meaning and merit--or even sane comedy? Why is it today, when I brave turning on the television, I feel I've been sucked into the mind of some drug-addled, undisciplined, horny adolescent?

Who gives a rat's ass about the tempest of The Kardashians, Gene Simmons's Jewels, Donald Trump's arrogant outbursts, or a Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé? I'm not interested in who trips and stumbles on the runway, who lost five pounds this week, who gets an alien hair style, or who can or can't dance!

Granted, unscripted television isn't new. Decades ago, Candid Camera, Beat The Clock and Godfrey's Talent Scouts blazed the way for today's line-up of slapdash, brainless entertainment. But, in my opinion, the schedule of programs today has crossed the line of ridiculous into complete lunacy.

Bravo network leeches our minds, maybe even leading the networks with nonsense television. One afternoon--out of total boredom--I briefly watched The Real Housewives of New Jersey. The gang of girdled, make-up dripping, nasal-whining bimbos were having cocktails, and they were in a heated mud-slinging frenzy. Before I could jab the remote, I watched as one hussy leaped from her chintz chair and bitch-slapped another big-haired broad. I'm not sure, but I think big-hair had been shagging the hussy's boy toy. And the Joisey shit hit the fan! That was some noteworthy afternoon diversion.

The Live Out Loud network is not going to sit back and let Bravo claim the prize for idiocy. Oxygen boasts a whole new arena in absurdity.

The Bad Girls' Club. Or could that be The Ho House?

Those seven halfwits may have issues, but the issues go deeper than anger, control and trust. They're living their slut-driven insanity out loud and--apparently--for millions of viewers to see.

Television is no longer free entertainment; I pay good money to watch television, and when I see these kinds of programs I want to chew nails and spit out spikes!

Default Phart

In 2015 I'll be five years older, and I'll still be wondering what I'm going to do when I grow up.

Coincidentally, when the journalism student suggested the blog topic this week, another student was doing an interview with me for a career reflection essay for one of her teacher education courses. The blog topic begs a look forward; the interview focused on past events, addressing how I got to my current career.

Damn good question!

My spending 30 plus years in education was not by desire or design. It was by default. I knew when I was 12 years old what I wanted to do, and it wasn't working in the field of education. My plan was to be a journalist, and that plan held strong until the summer after high school graduation. To make a long story short, I changed my mind based on immature thinking, enrolled at Northeast Missouri State (letting my enrollment at the University of Missouri go), and graduated four years later with a bachelor's degree in psychology. I had no idea what I was going to do with the degree.

I stumbled through one job, and then another, then returned to school--twice, earning two additional degrees--before I eventually took a job with an Iowa school district in counseling psychology. All the while knowing I was not in the career I wanted, but I was stuck. I did have to pay the bills and I'm not one to go without food! I've always said I made the move into education for three reasons: June, July and August. There is some truth to that! There was never any true passion for the career, there was a true passion for boating, and I needed my summers free to do that!

Six years into the career and the desire to work as a journalist was still niggling in my head. The desire had never really left, I had merely settled. But, I was fortunate--I was close to the University of Iowa, they had a graduate program in journalism, and I had a little cash. I jumped on the chance, and after the first semester was awarded a scholarship that did help defray some of the tuition cost. I wasn't flush with money, so I did have to maintain my school position: I was working 40-hour weeks and taking classes over summers, evenings and during weekend seminars. It took four years, but I finally was awarded the degree I wanted all those years before.

I left education and moved into a job as a feature writer with the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette. I felt the excitement of doing a job I enjoyed.

Family circumstances, however, eventually made it necessary for me to return to Missouri. Although I was offered a job with the local newspaper, I had moved on from minimum wage jobs, and I had to fall back on my counseling psych education and experience. I was back as an educator.

Looking forward, I have two projects I hope to complete: a fiction novel and a true crime novel. The idea for the fiction novel I've played with for several years and have one completed very rough manuscript; recently, the true crime novel literally fell into my lap! My thesis in grad school was new journalism and the true crime novel. I was that enthusiastic high school kid again when I stumbled on the local case that has all the ingredients for a great book. Currently, I'm working with a CNN trial consultant, hoping we can bring the trial (if the case(s) gets to trial in my lifetime!) to live court television.

I made some mistakes in my career selection, and I spent three decades regretting that. However, in five years I hope to have both writing projects completed. I can then say: "I did it!"

Day-Tripper Phart

Ambien doesn't treat acid reflux disease.

Recently, a long-time member of the Brew Crew learned that lesson when she swallowed two Ambien thinking she had taken two Nexium with her morning medications. Later, she said she wondered at the time why those ARD (acid reflux disease) tabs were pink and not little purple pills. By then, it was too late.

She was on a magic carpet ride!

For a while during her trip she stayed with her routine: she left her home, drove through McDonald's, got a yogurt with granola and drove--or sailed, or hallucinated, or floated on a magic carpet--to work. Once at work, her routine went wildly out of control.

The first indication something was out of whack was when a colleague heard what he thought was a high school student revving his big-muscle engine in faculty parking. Concerned--and a little angry--the coworker went to the lot--and found a staff member putting the pedal to the metal! In a big way! Luckily, she did have the car in park; she was just burnin rubber! Goin nowhere. Not knowing where she was. Not caring. Had she not had the car in park, her little blue SUV would've been parked in the main commons of the school, all beat and battered, waiting on the kids to come have breakfast!

After he realized this was no kid, the co-worker got the day-tripper into the building. Ah, but she got away from him. She was later found by another co-worker stumbling in the hallway and mumbling--poor dude had no idea what she was saying. But, that's okay, neither did she! He, too, came to her aid, and he managed to contain her at her desk until reinforcements--including her boss--came to help him. He might have talked to her about little blue men in silver suits riding in funny little ships with bright lights. Who knows. She will tell you, she sure as hell doesn't know! Mamma had a groove on!

Some 30 minutes after taking her meds, Brew Crew member was not only staggering, she was slurring, rubbery and, well, appeared slam-damn drunk as hell! She had a buzz, baby. Ain't no thang. Live and let live. Peace and love, not war. Is my red parrot still on my head?

Help--albeit shocked help--did finally arrive, and four people finally got her across town and back home. By this time, the buzz was full-blown. Oblivious. Gone, baby, gone. Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Glazed-eyes, staggering and nearly incoherent -- but not so far gone she had forgotten her yogurt and granola. She, by gawd, wanted her breakfast. There was, however, a problem: she couldn't hold the spoon. She couldn't find her mouth, evident after her first try at eating independently and smearing her breakfast across her face like an infant. One of the rescuers spoon-fed her the yogurt--after being told "haaaaaaaaaaaaay, the seral stuff goes in there, too!"

We love our P Rose. We laughed at this incident. We belly-laughed. Still, truth be told, this could've been a horrible tragedy. I think we all now know--check the damn medication bottle before swallowing pills!

Squiggly Wiggly Pharts

I've got ants in my pants!

It's almost March, and come March I get antsy. Squiggly, wiggly antsy. Could it be...?

My history of March includes:

Buying nine acres at the lake where I could build a house
Buying a Ford Ranger Truck
Buying two boats
Buying a Chevy Blazer
Enrolling in a second graduate degree program...
...and so it goes. I won't go more with this, it scares me.

It could be Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), or layman's terms--Cabin Fever--or it could be a damn fool who is bored.

Could it be somehow related to the tides? Or the moon?

How many excuses can we find for our nonsense.

Baby-Boomer Phart

I learned to walk wearing red leather Mary Janes.

The little red shoes were my first real pair of shoes. Maybe my aunt gave them to me because the top grossing film in 1948 was The Red Shoes. More than likely, according to my mother, aunt Arlene gave them to me because they were bright and shiny and cute. Ed Sullivan, a former journalist and host of The Ed Sullivan Show, was also into shoes. He talked about them--every Sunday night. Sullivan pronounced show as shoe, and the quote of the year was: "Tonight, we have a really big shoe!"

When Harry Truman--a Missouri boy--was elected the 33rd president three months after I was born, I wasn't wearing those shoes yet. I was still in crocheted booties, several months away from walking, and totally oblivious to the Chicago Tribune headline of November 3: Dewey Defeats Truman!

Later, Give-Em-Hell Harry was quoted in the Tribune as saying: "This is one for the books!" He was right, it has been one for the books! That newspaper (pictured above) with its famous journalistic screw up brought $950 at an auction 10 years later. Imagine what it's worth today.

Although Scrabble made its way onto the toy shelves before I reached my first birthday, my toys were metal rattles and soft stuffed animals. It was 17 years after the daring bikini made fashion history (or scandal) that I wore one, much to my father's horror. Although, the bikini of 1948 required a lot more fabric than the bikini (or is it thong?) seen on beaches today.

I've lived through two major recessions in American history, and the older I get the more I realize the impact of those recessions. I pay attention to how expensive things are today. In 1948, I didn't pay attention to much except my little world, I sure wasn't aware of this:

Yearly USA inflation: 7.74%

Average cost of a new house: $7,700

Average yearly wages: $2,950

Gallon of gas: 16 cents

Average cost of a new car: $1,250

Loaf of bread: 14 cents

Lb of hamburger: 45 cents

Movie ticket 60 cents

(From: The People History)

Although my parents were fans of big bands and swing music, rock and roll--or an early version--was born in 1948.

In his Britannia Blog, Gregory McNamee states: "Rock and roll had many midwives. The first, and arguably most important, was another product of 1948, when the California instrument maker Leo Fender released the first mass-produced electric guitar."

There was no going back to big bands and swing music.

The rock was rolling.

Several musicians who would later become influential to music trends in the 1960s shared my birth year: James Taylor, Stevie Nicks, Jackson Browne and Alice Cooper (pictured above).

The events, issues, inventions and cultural changes of 1948 undoubtably had some effect on me; the fact that I was born in 1948 certainly had an effect on me.

I came of age in the 1960s.

I was a young high school student and later college student during The Age of Aquarius. Everything was protested; the establishment and most American ideology was being questioned. We were overwhelmed and angry about America's involvement in a conflict in southeast Asia. We hipped Woodstock. We rebelled. We discovered grass wasn't just something dads mowed on Sunday afternoons. We wore funky clothes and Jesus sandals. We were hungry for liberal philosophies, beliefs and values. We rallied against social injustices and racial unrest.

It was a riotous decade of change. The sixties decade has been described by historians as the decade that resulted in the most significant changes in our history. And most of us born in 1948 changed with the upheaval of those times.

My little red shoes were long forgotten--they had been replaced by psychedelic tie-dyed Keds.

Dressed Up Phart

Chit or Poot Phart

I've got a book, and I'm going to write it...or die trying!

There's a murder for hire in the Kirskville area and I'm on it like white on rice.

In 2006 a man was shot to death allegedly for insurance money. As the story goes, his wife hired a friend to do the deed. Nevermind that we don't know what really happened, the man is dead....they found the two women and the rifle, and the suicide theory they put out didn't fly.

This was murder.

And I'm following it. I have been for four years, and I'm going to stay with it until it's over.

Piddling Phart

I piddled in kindergarten.

The day I wet my panties--and the resulting puddle under my little chair and the teacher's vocal disgust--was my first embarrassment in life. It stayed with me for the next 11 years.

Prior to my accident, the teacher lined up the class and walked us to the restrooms for our afternoon potty break. I didn't take advantage of the break. Later, the urge hit! As hard as I tried, I could not stop the spill out. I was a timid kid and would not raise my hand and let Mrs. Humphries know I needed to go back to the restroom.

Kindergarten was my first experience with the big world. I was an only child--and the only girl grandchild--and my parents and both sets of grandparents saw me as very special. On the rare occasions when my parents went someplace without me, I was with one or the other set of grandparents. I never had a babysitter (so I also missed all the havoc a kid can bring to a young babysitter!) and pre-schools had yet to be established. The first five years of my life were spent in a very small, comfortable and loving world. Mix up those ingredients and you have a recipe for a spoiled, shy, socially awkward kid.

Mrs. Humphries was my first encounter with an adult who was not a family member and who would be in charge of me for long periods during the day. I knew she was really a witch--and I was terrified of her. When the urge hit, I sat silent; fearful of wetting my pants, but even more fearful of dealing with Mrs. Humphries. Even today in my memory bank, my kindergarten teacher was straight out of The Wizard of Oz!

Terror turned to gushing water and soon became a lingering humiliation.

I went through many years in school always feeling I could very easily do something that would make me the class embarrassment. I did well in school, but I was anxious about being called on in class--forget about getting up in front of a class for an activity! I never tried to draw attention to myself. I remained shy and socially awkward.

It wasn't until my junior year in high school that I came out of my self-imposed cocoon and gained confidence in myself as a student and as a member of a social group larger than my family and few close friends.

Retro Phart

In 1957, swiveling hips were banned on television. Fifty-three years later, couples' sex-aid lubricants are a main-stay of television advertising!

When Elvis--The Pelvis--Presley took the stage on The Ed Sullivan Show in January 1957, CBS censors had determined he could only be filmed from the waist up. This was a family show, after all, and both Sullivan and CBS considered the thrusting hips more striptease act than family entertainment.

Teenagers world-wide were denied a visual of his sensual, gyrating hips! Those famous hips were lewd and crude. And--by gawd--downright sexual. The underlying theory, no doubt, was that the gyrations would fuel the libido of millions of teens (and some adults) and send them into a sex-driven frenzy. Although, to have voiced that theory publicly would've been taboo in 1957.

Today, every third commercial on prime-time television is for KY Brand Yours and Mine, and the sister product: KY Intense.

Yowza!

I can get hyper-critical of most television advertising, and I'm really tired of seeing the KY ads over and over and over. But, I have to admit, I do chuckle at the sweet little couple skipping through the forest!

We've come a long way, baby!

Closed-minded, chit-cricker pharts

Closed minds and stereotypes wore this old phart out today!

My work day always starts upbeat: I have a nice group in the social psych class. My work day usually ends a little hectic, but satisfying, for the most part. Many in my end-of-the-day journalism class are giving it a run...some are very talented. It's the Longaberger cheese in the center of my work-day sammich that is giving me gas.

Social psych is on stereotypes....and the local, long-held stereotype came out. Shit-cricker! Only in Kirksville. What is that? You decide. I'm going to bet if you're not from this area you have no idea what that derogatory--and wrong--belief is.

I also gave this class an outside activity. Only two of the 12 declined to take part. The asking them to take part WAS the activity. Two were holding on to false and fearful beliefs. I was pleased that only two refused.

Ah, but the stinky cheese.

Many of my gen psych students just can't (or haven't or won't) pull it together. They're defensive, fearful--and today--three of them were down right defiant!

We do a functional fixedness (think outside the box) activity in class: students are given a piece of paper, a sewing kit, a magic marker and a record (and an old vinyl for these young students is an unknown! And that's another story!!) and are told they need to make a phonograph (another story) with the materials they have. By the way, it can be done. Try it.

Working in groups of three, most groups at least tried. One group bucked up, bulled up and decided I was deliberatly trying to make them look stupid. Hmmm And they never once tried to--well--think! Any time I walked close to them to ask how it was going....they bulled up on me. At the end of the exercise, all the other groups had the general idea, and one group had made a phonograph.

During this exercise, one young man in another group decided to haul out his wham-bam-fancy cell phone and (trying desperately to hide it under the desk) bring up music. Whoa baby, I ain't that damned stupid. When I told him cells were off-limits in class, he copped a 'tude. When I told him policy states it goes off and in his backpack or it was mine...he came out of his chair and told me if I tried that effin shit he'd effin walk. Okay....I can play that game. I pointed out the door and told him I hope to hell it didn't hit him in the ass on the way out! Professional? Umm, no way.

But the little babe who, as we were getting ready to dismiss, decided to whip off her sweatshirt and twirl around and show her buddies her body art (or her boobies, I'm not really sure which) and then yanked down her jeans to show a nice piece a work on her left butt cheek, put the stink in my sammich!

I did, however, get a laugh when another student let it be known, "Yo, idiot, this isn't a gawdam bar, this is a classroom!"

Tickle Phart

Buzzzzzzzzzzt

Do I have any readers left? Twelve months down? I doubt it. But, hey, I still phart now and again...and damned if the brain doesn't buzz or poot out. Very seldom--except for the poot out--but any minimal brain phart is okay. At least then I'm assured I have a half-assed brain.

I'm an excited old phart... stand back, watch out for the splatter!

I convinced the boss lady to add a new class at our branch of the college...journalism. My passion is writing, my former life (prior to my tenure in psych counseling when I returned to Kirksville from Cedar Rapids) was as a staff writer for a major paper in Iowa. I had fun. It wasn't easy. Going in to teach a psych class, well, after all these years, that got very easy; I got very lazy and complacent. The challenge was gone.

The challenge is back!

The students--the ones writing three and four stories a day and wanting immediate response, the one's turning in shoddy work at deadline, the ones not meeting deadline at all--are a challenge.

Fer crine out loud, it's a phart a day with a few of them! I think I'm going to have to tickle the work out of them and forget publication deadlines. Never forget publication and ethical standards. Take our time and get the story right. It's that or beat them, and it's illegal to beat them! I have no desire to phart in jail!

The challenge in my classroom goes beyond my classroom. It goes to public school education. Students don't know the basics of grammar and language mechanics. Deadline? They have no idea what it means to have an assignment in on time. Nevermind we have to meet a publication deadline. No assignmnet = F. No deadline = No Paper.

Challenge Phart.

I used the wrong headline on this entry.

Focus the story, take the story to your focus!