Charles at Dustbury has discovered that the makers of Cheese Whiz have figured out a way to make the stuff without cheese. Whoop-de-do.
Back off, I say, those folks down in Port Arthur have to do something with all that petro waste they produce while filling your cars with gasoline. They can’t dump it ALL in the Gulf.
Besides, I do assure you from my very own personal experience, there’s not a 13-year-old boy on the planet who could tell the difference.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Mr. Boy, Science/Engineering, Texana, The Economy
Tagged Cheese Whiz, Dustbury, petro waste, Port Arthur
I’ve told Mr. B. that he can legitimately claim an African-American ancestor. It would work as an Affirmative Action gambit these days if that should ever be needed. IF, that is, we buy into (or pretend to) the widespread claim that South Carolina planter/slave owner Gideon Gibson was a mulatto.
He was, indisputably as far as my family is concerned, our six greats uncle because we descend from his sister Hannah Gibson and her daughter Marcia Saunders Murphee.
Marcia (nicknamed Massey) married Claudius Pegues III Jr., a disabled Revolutionary War veteran and my four greats grandfather whom my late mother (and subsequently one of her granddaughters) used to establish membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Although if mother knew anything about Hannah and Gideon Gibson she never spoke of them to me. Neither the African nor a possible Jewish connection would have appealed to her, to put it politely.
I prefer the claim that these Gibsons (sometimes spelled Gupson) were, in fact, Sephardic Jews, possibly originally from Portugal. Not that such exalted sources as PBS and Tulane University would necessarily agree. Indeed, large numbers of African Americans claim descent from Gideon and we know what openly daring to disagree with black people will get you nowadays.
But genealogy is very far from an exact science, and other than establishing a link to a person, old (and frequently misspelled) public and private records are at best ambiguous—we have no idea, for instance, whether Gideon called himself a mulatto, or whether some officious British colonial clerk decided he was one based on his skin color, hair texture and/or facial features.
We do know that Gideon carried documents proving he was a free man, because he showed them to the then governor of South Carolina (1740s), which was duly recorded, but the documents could as easily have been his release from indentured servitude—rather common in his time—as any manumission from slavery.
So we are pretty much left to believe what we like. And what I like is the idea that Gideon and Hannah Gibson were not half or less Africans at all but Melungeon Jews, Sephardics in flight (and often in secret) from the Catholic Inquisition which had driven their ancestors from Spain and Portugal.
Although I’m sure the African claim would make a much better Affirmative Action gambit than the Jewish one.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Genealogy, Mr. Boy, Obsessions, Scribbles
Tagged Crypto-Jews, Gideon Gibson: African American or Sephardic Jew, Melungeon Jews
I see today where Gov. Perry is opposed to the Boy Souts of America’s expected determination that local Scout groups should be allowed to decide whether to admit gay boys and gay scoutmasters. I’m not surprised at Perry’s opinion. It fits with the former Eagle Scout’s recent book on the Scouts and his overall conservative approach.
I was surprised to see that libertarian editor Nick Gillespie, who also achieved Eagle rank, kept his two sons out of Scouts because of the ban, which he thinks is immoral. That’s a shame for his sons, I think, but it’s also is in keeping with his overall political opinions. He also says Scouts have been losing membership and relevance, which I haven’t seen at all in Central Texas.
I only rose to Star rank (two under Eagle), lower than my father’s Life rank (one under Eagle), but I enjoyed Scouts and particularly the camping trips and so I encouraged Mr. B. to join and he’s been having fun at it, even if he’s been too lazy so far to achieve First Class (one under Star). I also recently bought him a copy of Perry’s book for his coming birthday.
Like Perry, I’m pretty conservative, but like Gillespie I’m also fairly libertarian, and I also have a liberal streak, at least in social terms, and I agree with Gillespie that the ban on homosexuals is immoral and not in keeping with the Scout Law—“to keep myself morally straight,” etc. Although I agree with the BSA that to ban or not to ban should be up to the individual Scout groups, not imposed from above.
Back in the 1950s, my father made me quit one Scout troop because he thought the scoutmaster (based on looks and behavior) was homosexual. I argued against quitting because I didn’t agree and, in any case, didn’t care. The man had never bothered me or anyone I knew about. But I lost. I had to find another troop to join.
I think dad, like the governor today, confused homosexuals with pedophiles. Having known more than a few gays of both genders I know they aren’t the same thing. Could be in some cases, of course, but not as a general rule. And the Scouts already have rules to counter potential abuse, such as requiring two adults to supervise boys, never allowing one adult to do it by himself.
In Mr. B.’s case, however, I doubt that his troop will allow gays under any circumstances and, frankly, I don’t care one way or the other. If they do, in fact, I could foresee an immediate problem: Mr. B. and his chums already have a certain amount of homophobia, which they seem to have picked up at school (ironically, given the school’s politically-correct approach to everything) apparently from each other.
So, as usual, life is more complicated than the simple memes the pols and news media throw around because they both fit the mentality of the editors (leftist Democrat) and also (and probably more importantly) fit easily into a headline. But I’m glad for the BSA’s impending action. It’s progress worth making and I hope it all works out.
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Posted in Mr. Boy, Scribbles, Texana
Tagged editor nick gillespie, Governor Rick Perry, scout ranks, the scouts and homosexuals
Gender discrimination is just fine when it’s women teachers imposing it on little boys.
This item about the first grader in Maryland being kicked out of school for pointing his index finger at another kid and saying POW! doesn’t surprise me. It’s not the first time either. We have that malarkey even in Texas.
I still see Mr. B.’s b**ch of a second-grade teacher at the grocery now and then and have a hard time not giving her my middle finger. She acts as if we’re all buddies now. Pig.
She’s apparently forgotten what she did when she saw Mr. B. drawing knights fighting monsters with swords and later with machine guns. She insisted that he was potentially dangerous and that we take him to a psychiatrist. Mrs. C., being the compliant type when it comes to authority, agreed and we did.
The psych had a meaningless little chat with him about his likes and dislikes and then wrote a prescription for Ritalin, or one of its generic varieties. I refused to fill it and Mrs. C. agreed. In the trash it went. At least they didn’t kick him out of school. If he’d done the finger gun, however, they might have.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Guns, Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Texana
Tagged criminalizing boys, finger guns, gender discrimination
Mr. B., who saw The Hobbit movie while visiting his grandmother in Fort Worth over New Year’s, tells me it’s really good and worth seeing. He remembers me reading the book to him twice as he was learning to read.
But one part he mentioned worries me a little. The makers apparently invented a new plot twist, possibly to enable them to spread the epic out over three movies instead of one. Something about a Goblin-Dwarf blood feud, which I suppose is logical enough.
Mr. B. says it didn’t spoil anything for him, but I’d really rather they’d have left Tolkien’s classic pristine. They can’t possibly have improved it.
UPDATE: Richard Fernandez (Wretchard of the Belmont Club blog) delivers a brilliant review of the book and how it fits with the better-known and more popular LOTR. And the comments, alone, are worth reading.
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Posted in Blogosphere, Library, Mr. Boy, Scribbles
Tagged The Hobbit, tinkering with a classic
On this supposedly peaceful Christmas day, which it usually is here at the rancho, the Nightmare before Christmas lingers. As well it should.
Mr. Boy told us that, in the days following the Newtown massacre, there were three armed security men patrolling the grounds of his middle school up the street. Mrs. Charm figures they needed three because the school has portable classroom buildings outside the main building.
I doubt very much the three armed men will be there when school resumes after Christmas break, however. The school district, top-heavy with administrators like so many educational institutions these days, couldn’t afford such extra spending for long.
Meanwhile, the “come-and-get-em” signs, otherwise known as “gun-free zone” announcements, still decorate the entrances which are said to be locked now but, again, for how long? Have noticed word that Utah has school teachers who carry concealed weapons, at least one Texas public school district does and a New Jersey school district is talking about it. UPDATE: So is state government in Arizona.
No clamor for change here yet that I’ve noticed and I don’t really expect any in liberal Austin where antigunner Democrats rule the roost, though the city pols officially are called non-partisan. Sure. Ours was the only city in Republican Texas to vote for Barry.
Despite the NRA’s good advice on the subject, at least one Texas Dem “leader” has suggested that NRA members who don’t support gun control should be slain. Uh, that would be me, but I’m not worried. The man’s mouth is bigger than his brain. Only fools and cowards make public threats.
Pundit Charles Krauthammer calls out popular video games in which players shoot people over and over again. He’s referring to the Call of Duty war games, which Mrs. C. and I have forbidden Mr. B. until he’s sixteen. We do allow him the Halo shooter game because its targets are monsters. Not a small difference to my mind, even if they are cartoons. None of us attends the Hollywood bloodbaths that pass for movies these days. I’d certainly support banning them, but their makers are Democrat donors, so we can forget that.
Home schooling may proliferate now, pundit Peggy Noonan thinks (behind the WSJ’s fire pay wall), when parents realize that the likes of the Texas Dem “leader” will block any attempt at more school security. While the elite’s own children are protected.
Not that Dems have much influence elsewhere in Texas, but our concern is here, where they do. But home schooling is out. Even if I was qualified, which I’m not. So we’ll wait and see. I’d be happy if they’d take down the damn “hunting preserve for children” signs. It would be a start.
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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Obamalot, Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles
Tagged gun-free zone: come-and-get-em, NRA, Peggy Noonan, school security, wayne lapierre
Another sorry Texas loss last night, on a national stage, supposedly, for those who couldn’t find a better game to watch than the kiddie beat-down Texas suffered, losing to TCU 20-13. It was, well, embarrassing just to watch it. More painful even than the OU slaughter back in October.
Mr. B. watched Ash drive them the length of the field before he threw an interception in the Red Zone. No. 1 son then wisely opted for a video game. I took several breaks outside in the moonlight because I just knew Ash would throw another one. I never expected McCoy to throw one, too. Sigh.
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Posted in Mr. Boy, Scribbles, Texana, Texas Football
Tagged Texas loses to TCU: 20-13
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 