Len wrote Sun11/23/14 @11:15 EST re redundancy,
superfluity and Ian Tyson:

Poetry gets a pass.  Ian Tyson always gets a pass.
Handle that redundancy.

Well, yeah!  Your Editor is a big Ian Tyson fan himself.
We honor poetic license.

Some of our non-cardplaying friends did not catch the
redundancy, by the way.  For their benefit, it is that the
only card game in which you "hit" is black jack (known
to some as 21), and all black jack is played against the
dealer.  "Never hit at 17"  says it all;  one  needn't  add
"when you play against the dealer."

Some of our readers are not even familiar with Ian Ty-
son, but we'll bet about 95 per cent of them would rec-
ognize his song "Four Strong Winds."
                                                                        – Editor

A charter bus driver taking Kentucky high school students home
from a conference in New Orleans was convinced to pull off the
road on which she was speeding and swerving (she was arrested
for DUI).
                                                            [courtesy Associated Press]

A forgery defendant in Lawrenceburg, frustrated at not getting his
$5,000 bond modified,  told the judge "This is fucking ridiculous!"
and got 30 days to serve, without bond, for contempt of court.

                                                                [courtesy Anderson News]

The obituaries, November 26:

• William "Billy" Abell, 80
• Bernard "Bernie" Aydt, 83
• Robert "Bob" Bain, 63
  
• William "Billy" Caine, 54
• Joseph "Joe" Decker, 65
• James "Jimmie" Lawson, 80
  
• James "Jim" Lynch, 80
  
• The Rev. Robert William "Papa" "Bill" "Doug" Malone, 89
• William "Bill" Mattingly, 69
  
• William "Bill" "Shad" Shadwell, 89

                                            [courtesy Louisville Courier-Journal]

In a road rage incident at a Lexington intersection,  a per-
son in one vehicle pointed a gun at a second vehicle,  and
a woman got out of the second vehicle to confront the gun-
ster and was run over by the first vehicle. . . .

Lexington's most wanted: Tarshia Lewis, BF, 39, 5'7", 195 lbs

    [pulled kicking and screaming from the Herald-Leader]

"I tried everything – I mean, we played four white guys and an Egyptian."

                    – Rick Pitino,  University of Louisville basketball coach,  explaining his efforts to
                       hold the score down in his team's 87-26 blowout of Savannah State,  which trail-
                       ed 29-0 before it scored  (and  it's  true:  Pitino actually did, at one time, have four
                       Amer'can white boys on the floor along with Anas Mahmoud, a recruit from Egypt)

"It feels like we shouldn't stop to go continue on with our regular lives."

               – Leah Bailey, painting a mural on plywood boarding up a shop in Ferguson, Missouri

"Prices talk loudly and often drownd out
  other meanings."
                                         – author Sarah Thornton, speaking of art auctions

"All the rail engines are pulling oil tankers, while our wheat sits in grain cars on the sidings,
  in grain elevators and in piles in our fields.  The railroads have forgotten what made them,
  and the environmentalists are fighting the pipelines."

                                                                                                – photo by Ted Fiskevold

Quotations of the Wheat: "If Aunt Bertie had balls, she'd be Uncle Bert." – Leonard Simon

The Xipiter "USB device condom" (thanks, Bruce).

Jenna Bush (and her twin sister, Barbara), 33
Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)
Bruce Lee (1940-1973)
Anna Mae Bullock ("Tina Turner"), 75
Paul Stookey, 77

A lesbian couple's son found their driveway in Canton,
North Carolina,  marked "Fagits live here"  on  Google
Maps. . . . A 26-year-old woman who bought a gun and
proclaimed "We're ready for Ferguson"  was  killed  as
it went off in her car in St. Louis,  Missouri. . . .  A 12-
year-old boy was shot and killed by police in a park in
in Cleveland, Ohio, as he reached for an Airsoft gun in
his waistband (he was black). . . .The Speaker-elect of
the Nevada House of Representatives resigned his new
post after being called down for calling African Ameri-
cans  "simple  minded  darkies"  (a fire chief in Bullitt
County, Kentucky, who called them "niggers," did not).
. . . Bob Marley's heirs launched "Marley Natural,  the
world's first global cannabis brand."  .  .  .  The Monty
Python song  "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"
was found in a poll to be the most popular song at Brit-
funerals. . . . Bill Cosby shows were canceled in South
Carolina and Washington. .  .  . Britain denied a visa to
Julien Blanc,  a California "pick-up artist" who started
the Twitter "hashtag"  #ChokingGirlsAroundTheWorld.
.  .  .  The book Great Medieval Thinkers: John Wyclif
blocked  a  bullet  fired into a backpack worn by a stu-
dent at the Florida State University library. . . .Police in
New Jersey released five photos of a  300-pound  black
bear taken by a hiker with his cell phone before he was
mauled to death  (the bear mauled the cell phone also).
. . . Phuc Kieu,  a Vietnamese immigrant,  was arrested
for sexual battery in Gainesville, Florida.

Katy Perry was selected to provide the next Super Bowl
halftime show.

We are writing to ask what we can do about the way our
son's family talks.  They have foul mouths. Whenever we
phone, we can hear them in the background yelling about
something  and using the F-bomb  rather  liberally.  Even
our high school age grandson speaks this way.

We've asked our son if he and his wife try to correct the
kids.  He says everybody talks this way,  and "Get used
to it."  How do we tell them we've  had  enough  of their
toilet mouths?
                                                                                Ohio

Cumit Boulanger wrote Sun 11/16/14 @08:21 CST: The motto in Ian Tyson's cowboy song "Summer Wages" is  "Never hit at 17 when you play against the dealer."  I am an English teacher;  and my slogan is, " ' Superfluous and redundant ' [as that cowboy motto is]  is a prime ex- ample of redundancy" (or of superfluity). Sherman the Kitten wrote Thurs 11/20/14 @09:56 CST: My motto is,  "Every day is my birthday!"  I am just so happy to be here!

Two cast members of the Moonshiners TV reality show were
disinvited from the Christmas parade in Owensboro.

                                                                [courtesy WBKO-TV]

          

Lexington's most wanted: Deshana Faulkner, BF, 22, 5'3", 120 lbs (pulled kicking and screaming from the Herald-Leader)

"Do you fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning? 
                                                                                                 – Chris Rock, mocking TV drug ads

"You want to take a picture?  I'm going to lock your ass up."

                 – Darren Wilson, the cop who shot Michael Brown, in a videoed arrest a year earlier

"#PantsUPDon'tLOOT."
                                                 – projected police mentality billboard near Ferguson, Missouri

Quotations of the Wheat: "Isn't it strange when some strange really would be strange?" – Leonard Simon

Miley Cyrus, 22
Dick Smothers, 75
Gordon Lightfoot, 76

     

Wanted in Wichita: Ambrosia Dawn Sicka, WF, 26, 5'6", 135 lbs., tattoos on right arm and stomach, possession of opiates (Wichita Eagle)

A drunk in West Harrison, New Jersey, stole a bulldozer
for a ride home to Newark and leveled signs,  three ben-
ches and a tree in a city park. . . .  A New Yorker almost
bit into a chicken breast with  Jesus  looking right at him
from the skin. .  .  .  A 70-year-old man shot and killed a
motorist who arrived in his driveway  in Lilburn,  Geor-
gia,  erroneously guided there by GPS.  .  .  . Demonstra-
tors burned the Australian flag outside the "G20" summit
in Brisbane.  .  .  .  President Obama had a photo op with
Jimbelung the Koala.  . . .  A Jewish rapper reported that
his web site had been hacked by the Islamic State. . .. An
Italian artist was searching for a needle in a haystack at a
museum in Paris. . . .  A police detective in Manassas Ci-
ty, Virginia,  brought a defamation suit against the lawyer
for a teen-ager whose penis the detective got a warrant to
photograph in chemically induced erection  to compare it
with a penis in a "sext."  . . .  A defendant committed to a
mental hospital for being found unfit for trial  for stealing
a cheap necklace 40 years ago  was released in Washing-
ton, D.C. . . . A 16-year-old drove 35 miles in the wrong
direction on I-93 in New Hampshire, at speeds up to 118
m.p.h. . . . President  Obama's  speech  to the nation  last
week was not on TV. . . . Sheriff Joe sued the President.

                 [courtesy Harper's, HuffPost, Raw Story, AP]

In the National Football League,

• The Oakland Raiders won their first game  in  a  year
  (beating their old rivals,  the Kansas City Chiefs,  24-
  20 after 16 straight losses);
  

• New York Jets coach Rex Ryan  was  fined  $100,000
  by the National Football League for saying "Fuck you!"
  on television, and
  

• Today's game between the Jets and  the  Buffalo  Bills
  in  Buffalo  was rescheduled for tomorrow  in  Detroit
  in hope the Bills could get through seven feet  of  snow
  to the airport (and the airplane could get off the ground
  – maybe they should go by dog sled?).
  

I am a married woman in my early 60's.  My husband
and I have been married for 35 years.  We  get  along,
but he has a constant need for sex.   In the early years
I went along with it,  but he'd want sex at the most in-
convenient  times,  like  when  I was all made up and
dressed and ready for work.

After years of trying to satisfy him I'm at an age where
sex is neither important nor enjoyable. Sometimes it is
downright uncomfortable.  I do it occasionally, for his
benefit; but I really don't like to.

I do love my husband and show him in other ways. How
can I tell him that I don't enjoy this part of marriage any
more without hurting his sense of manhood?

                    Trying to Build a Better Life in the Midwest

Dave Surtees wrote Sun 11/9/14 @08:27 PST:

I heard that "Mrs. Calabash" was Jimmy Durante's pet
cat that mysteriously disappeared.

Publius Leget wrote Sun 11/9/14 @07:54 CDT:

For  "Roots  and grafts":  Putting one little word after
another, as you like to say, and, what is the difference
between a motto and a slogan?

The Random House College Dictionary defines "motto" as "a
maxim  adopted as an expression of one's  guiding  principle,"
and  "slogan"  as  "a distinctive phrase or motto of any party,
group, manufacturer, or person;  catchword or catch phrase."
That's a little circular,  of course;  and the two words are list-
ed as synonyms of each other in standard thesauri; but while
"aphorism,"  "axiom,"  "dictum"  and  "maxim"  are listed as
synonyms  of  "motto,"  they are not  of  "slogan."  Likewise
(differentwise?), "catch phrase" and "watchword" are listed
as synonyms of "slogan"  but not of "motto."  That's instruc-
tive.

The dictionary definitions also  give us a clue to a strict dif-
ference.  Good examples of  mottoes  are New Hampshire's
"Live free or die" and the Boy Scouts' "Be prepared": They
are words to live by, in both cases.  Good examples of  slo-
gans are Capital One Credit Cards' "What's in your wallet?"
and Unisys' "You can't hack what you can't see." The form-
er only hints at how to act; the latter gives you no clue, and
both are mnemonic catch phrases  (there's a redundancy for
you!) for specific companies.  (The Boy Scout  "slogan"  is
"Do a good turn daily," but that's actually another motto).

The United States motto used to be "E pluribus unum," but
since 1956 it has been, by law,  "In God we trust."   The re-
duction in stature did not reduce "E pluribus unum"  to the
status of a slogan,  however.  The U.S. slogans are "Home
of the brave" and "Land of the free."

Wikipedia has separate lists of state mottoes  and state slo-
gans.  There is some repetition,  but it's not  total.  One  of
the latest and dumbest state slogans is  Kentucky's  "Unbri-
dled spirit"  (it would make more sense in the plural).  All
of this makes us think that Tabloid Headlines'  own  list  of
"Southern state mottoes"  might better be called "Southern
state slogans":

Texas:  "It's T for Texas."
Tennessee :  "T for Tennessee."
Mississippi:  "It's T for Thelma, that gal that made a wreck out of me."
Maryland:  "The only Southern state defined by Mason's & Dixon's line."
Kentucky:  "Five million people, only fifteen last names."
West Virginia:  "One big happy family."
Indiana:  "The only Southern state north of Mason's & Dixon's line."
Louisiana:  "Highest incest rate south of Indiana."
Virginia:  "Carry me back to old virginity."
Arkansas:  "Y'all ain't from around heah."
Alabama:  "Y'all ain't from around heah, ah yuh?"
Florida:  "You're not from around here, are you?  Neither are we."
Missouri:  "I-70, the best thing to come outta here."
South Carolina:  "Where the Great War began (and we have yet to surrender)."
North Carolina:  "They're kinda ignorant down there."
Delaware:  "Well aware we're the smallest state in the South."
Georgia:  "Cracker, Jack."

– with credit to our regular correspondent Len Zanger, who suggested that Arkansas's,
   above, could be used by any or all of the Southern states.  We have deliberately left
   out Oklahoma, which is a Western state, not a Southern state (even though it lies en-
   tirely east of west Texas).
                                                                                                                            – Editor

A Louisville church was kicked out of the Kentucky Baptist Con-
vention for tolerating homosexuality.
                                                            [courtesy Associated Press]

A 4-year-old girl fell asleep on a school bus in Madison County
and woke up alone, an hour later, after the driver had gone home,
parked the bus outside and gone indoors.
                                                                     [courtesy Lex-18 TV]

"God is enough."
                                – sign outside Missionary Baptist Church, Brownsville, Ky.

"I've had enough."
                                  – Jesus Murillo Karam, Attorney General of Mexico

"Today nearly two-thirds of the 382 million people with diabetes
  live in cities."
                                – drug manufacturer Novo Nordisk (and, of the rest of the folks? . . . )

" . . . but also Representative Paul Ryan did so too."
                                                                                        – Meredith Dodson, of the anti-
                                                                                           poverty organization Results

"Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev says tensions between the major powers has
  put the world on the brink of a new Cold War."
                                                                                   – Giles Snyder, National Public Radio

"Today's celebration falls on the 100th anniversary of the end of
  World War I."
                                – at least two different NPR newscasters on November 11, 2014

Quotations of the Wheat: "I'm running short of money:  Could I buy you for what you're worth,   and sell you back for what you think you are?" – Leonard Simon

Second party:  Do you still love me now that you know that I am stupid?

First party:  I love you because you are stupid.

Transcript of a conversation at a card game table on line:

"fistobul" (second player there – first thing said):  went to mars hs

"fanubartek" (table "host"):  on Mars?

fistobul: pa

fanubartek:  same thing

fistobul:  lol  [and he left]

    

Wanted in Wichita: Janice M. Fields, BF, 60, 5'7", 220 lbs, scars on neck and left wrist: theft; Africa W. Stewart, BF, 32, 5'6", 165 lbs, tattoos on both arms: unlawful possession of controlled substance; Barbara Jean Harvey, WF, 36, 5'7", 170 lbs, tattoo on left arm, possession with intent to distribute prescription drugs, escape, forgery, falsity (Wichita Eagle)

   

Austin R. Tyler, WM, 31, 5'10", 160 lbs, tattoos right arm, shoulder, back and chest, possession of stolen property; Kevin K. Roberts, WM, 21, 5'7", 128 lbs, no tattoos, forgery, probation violation; Jimmy D. Suttle, WM, 28, 5'3", 150 lbs, tattoos left calf, arm, leg, forgery, probation violation

         

Ethan John Ray Pittman, WM, 24, a/k/a "Drake-you-La," 6'2:, 133 lbs, scars chest & abdomen, tattoos both arms, aggravated weapons violation by felon; Jennifer Renee McCain, WF, 39, 130 lbs, tattoos left foot & ankle, possession of controlled substances, paraphernalia; James M. Edens, WM, 36, a/k/a "Marshall Hornback," 5'9:, 205 lbs, tattoos left calf and shoulder, chest, back, theft

MacKenzie Foy, 14
Calista Flockhart, 50
Condoleezza Rice, 60
Chi Coltrane, 66
Neil Young, 69
Ellis Marsalis Jr., 80
Charles Manson, 80
Petula Clark, 82
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, 92

Booker T. Washington ("Bukka") White (1909-1977)

An anti-abortion amendment adopted  in  Tennessee  in the
recent election was challenged on grounds that not all who
voted for it  voted for governor  (the state constitution pro-
vides  that it can be amended by  "a majority of all the citi-
zens in the state voting for governor voting in … favor.". . .
"Legitimate"  purveyors  of  pornography called on Google
to suppress pirate porn.
                                                    [courtesy Associated Press]

Basketball star Blake Griffin  (a half-white guy),  arrested  in Las Vegas for grabbing
a fan by the throat for taking his photograph at a night club,  has not been suspended
by his team, the Los Angeles Clippers, or by the National Basketball Association.

 

I've known "Owen" for four years, and we are in vari-
ous classes together. We e-mail regularly and chat all
the time,  and I consider him my best friend.  Our par-
ents are good friends, too.

Recently  Owen  and I have become closer than  "just
friends" and privately expressed our feelings for each
other.  However,  our parents promptly shut us  down,
saying we were "unqualified" and "under age."

Owen is a great guy. We are both very responsible kids.
I don't have a fantastic relationship with my parents; so
I tend not to be that open with them.  It's not comforta-
ble for me. What should I do?
                                                                            Annetta

DISCUSSION GROUP:     Don't  forget!   Readers  interested  in intellectual dissection of important current events  are invited to attend  the Weekly World News Round Table  at  the offices  of  Borf  Books  outside Brownsville,  Ken- tucky,  just after church every Sunday.  Guest  speak- ers lined up for meetings in the  near  future  include Carrie  Johnson,  Carrie Kahn,  Kerri  Smith,  Carrie Fisher and Carrie Banahan ––––––––––––––––––>

           

Blenster wrote Sun 11/2/14 @10:53 EDT:

The question of what is and isn't a pumpkin sent me
to Wikipedia, where I learned that there is no scien-
tific definition of "pumpkin"; and that is likely why
neither dictionary definition was definitive.  "Pump-
kin" is a colloquial term.  "Gourd"  also  is  loosely
defined; but in scientific parlance it is, according to
Wikipedia,  "a plant of the family Cucurbitaceae or
the fruit of the  two  genera  of  the  'calabash  tree,'
Crescentia and Amphitecna."

These include all gourds and squashes, among which
pumpkins reside as a type of "winter squash."  So, it
seems,  a pumpkin is a type of squash;  a squash is a
type of gourd,  and all gourds belong to the family of
plants called Cucurbitaceae.  These  categorizations
would render either term – gourd or squash – appli-
cable to a pumpkin  regardless  of colloquial defini-
tion,  which may vary based on region or opinion.

Editor's note:  You'll find mentions and even pittures of both
punkins and gords in the Wikipedia article on Cucurbitaceae.

Now, Mr. Blenster, for your next research project,  you might
want to weigh in on the origin of Jimmy Durante's "Mrs. Cal-
abash."  Or we can just go for that, too, to Wikipedia,  which
traces it to a  little  town  in North Carolina  on the Calabash
River, which got their name, Wikipedia says, from gourds of
the region.


Jay Cory wrote Mon 11/3/14 @09:49 EST:

About this "mobery" thing:  I am familiar with the word
"mopery," meaning a minor infractionof some sort;  but
I've never run across  "mobery."  Could  this  be  a  mis-
typed  word,  or has the Kentucky judicial system  come
up with its own spelling?

A teacher at a Catholic school in Louisville was asked to take a
21-day leave after returning from a trip to Kenya  (she  resigned
instead).  Meanwhile, Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly  was  in-
vited  to  speak  at  a Global Missions Health Conference at the
Southeast Christian Church in Louisville.

                                             [courtesy Reuters, Courier-Journal]

Mitch McToadConnell was re-elected and will become the ma-
jority leader of the United States Senate.
                                                                            [courtesy KET]

A fan dropped a  .32-caliber  handgun  at a high school football
game in Springfield, and it went off  (no one was injured except
the fan, who spilled hot coffee on himself). . . .

The Lincoln County Jailer, who lost his bid for re-election, was
pursuing his lawsuit filed the day before the election to disqual-
fy his opponent for a signature on his ballot petition  by  a  state
employee in violation of a law that provides that  "no employee
in the classified service . . . shall take part in the management or
affairs of any political party or in any political campaign except
to exercise his right as a citizen privately to express his opinion
and to cast his vote." . . .

Kentucky's prohibition of gay marriage,  along with Tennessee's
Ohio's and Michigan's, was upheld by the 6th Circuit U.S. Court
of Appeals in Cincinnati.
                                             [courtesy Lexington Herald-Leader]

  
                                                [courtesy WKYT-TV, Kyle White]

Deborah Asher, 37, of Somerset, was arrested in Laurel County for traffic in a controlled substance, first degree, and possession of methamphetamine; "I wonder what tipped off the cops?" asked Drew Franklin on kentuckysportsradio.com

"The linguistics professor was saying,  'In most languages, a double negative becomes a positive;
  but in no language is a double positive  a  negative' – when from the back of the room came the
  call, 'Yeah, right!' "
                                        – Garrison Keillor, on the annual Prairie Home Companion joke show

"The Big Bang, that today is considered to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the cre-
  ative intervention of God;  on the contrary,  it requires it.  Evolution in nature is not  in  contrast
  with the notion of creation  because  evolution  requires  the  creation  of the beings that evolve.
  When we read in Genesis the account of creation we are in danger of imagining  that  God  was
  a magician, complete with a magic wand that can do all things.  But he is not."
                                                                                                                                        – The Pope

"I was . . . feeling . . . we were experiencing the relative death of black prophetic fire in the age
  of Obama – what I call the reniggerization of the black professional class . . . ."
                                                                                                                                    – Cornel West

"If I get to be President, white men who are in males only clubs
  are going to do great."
                                                            – Senator Lindsey Graham

"We are going to make them squeal!"
                                                                – Senator-elect Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who grew
                                                                   up on a pig farm, proudly castrating hogs

Quotations of the Wheat: "Who decides when liberals are going to be liberals and when   they aren't?  Van Jones or Jesse Jackson?" – Leonard Simon

Caller:  Hello, may I speak to Hank?

Hank:  Speaking.

Caller:  Is Hank there?

Hank:  This is Hank, you dumb cunt.  Didn't I just say that?

Caller:  This is Lisa, and . . . .

Hank:  Lisa, do you see that closet behind you?  In the corner of the room.

Lisa:  I don't see a closet . . . .

Hank:  Way back there, in the corner . . . .

Lisa:  I don't see a closet – I'm in a call center.

Hank:  Well, it's there;  and here's what you do:  You go to the closet;  go in,
            rummage around;  you'll find a broomstick.  Serrate the broomstick.

Lisa:  Sir, we cannot celebrate.  I'm at work.

Hank:  I said serrate, not celebrate, you dumb cunt.  Get out your pocket knife

            and cut little notches in the broomstick.  Then  shove  it  up  your  ass. . . .

Tonicha Jeronimo, 37
Kris Jenner, 59
Lulu, 66
Peter Noone, 67
Bram Stoker (1847-1912)
Vlad the Impaler (1431-1477)

Stonewall Jackson, 82

Bonnie Raitt, 65
Guy Clark, 73
Doug Sahm (1949-1999)

           [USA Today]
    Name that hottie! (a Tabloid Headlines contest!)

Chicago election workers prepare to count ballots

Already submitted:
    Ebolaine Mitchell
    LaJauna Cajuna
    Yuki Noguchi
    Iwona Peter

Borf

A political party leader in Bangladesh was sentenced to death
for  crimes  committed  in  the country's war for independence
from Pakistan  in  1971. . . .  A poll in the United Kingdom re-
ported that 42 per cent of the people believe in UFO's and on-
ly 25 per cent believe in God.  . . .  A white Scot named Scott
was appointed interim President of Zambia, which is 99.7 per
cent black.  . . . It wasn't a bull in a China shop;  it was a wild
boar in a hardware store, in Mainz, Germany.

The 6' 8", 207-pound Brittney Griner was one of two
professional women basketball players cut by a man
wielding a knife on a bus in Shenyang, China. . . .

A  former  National Football League  cheerleader  for
the Baltimore Ravens,  Molly Shattuck, 47,  separated
from her husband, was charged with raping a 15-year-
old boy.

Molly then . . . and now (mug shot)

I am a professional male in my late 50s in a large cor-
poration.  About three years ago I became a mentor to
a female employee then 24 years old.  She has told me
my guidance has been tremendously helpful in her pro-
fessional growth.

Most of this time we worked in different locations,  and
our communication was via e-mail and phone.  Not long
ago we agreed to meet for dinner in order to get to know
each other better. But before it happened I suffered a se-
rious heart attack and nearly died.  My recuperation was
rapid, and we had our dinner three weeks later. The mee-
ting was like an electrical charge to my system.  After  it
I could not get her out of my mind. Then  she  was  trans-
ferred to my building.  I tried to move the relationship to
a more personal level;  but the harder I tried,  the cooler
and more distant she became.

A couple of weeks ago she told me she was going to be
out on an assignment.  I thought she told me that only to
avoid seeing me.  The day she was to be gone I prepar-
ed some professional development materials  to  leave
on her desk. When I went to her office,  she  was  there.
I gave her the materials and left. The  more  I thought a-
bout it,  the more hurt and angry I became.  I  sent  her a
text  asking  if  she  thought it was time for us to end the
mentoring relationship.  I told her that while I  may  not
have been in love with her,  I was surely  in  love  with
the idea of being in love with her.  She said  she  agreed
we should end it,  and she promised to  keep  the  entire
drama between the two of us.   Believe  it  or  not,  I’m
one of the good guys  who just happens to have made a
mistake.  Is there any way I can repair the relationship,
rebuild her trust and regain her friendship,  or should I
cut my losses and let it go?
                                                                  Feeling Regret

Publius Leget wrote Sun 10/26/14 @12:20 CDT:

Pray,  sir,  just what is "mobery"?  I keep seeing
these people arrested in Lubbock for "mobery."

Mobery is general misbehavior annoying enough to rise to the
level of a  misdemeanor  (but it is a lesser offense  than  disor-
derly conduct).   Luther's Law Dictionary.    – Editor


Nolan Porterfield wrote Weds 10/29/14 @10:09 CDT:

Why, oh, why, is Lubbock the object of scrutiny for Tabloid
Headlines?

It's  the  mobery.  We didn't know that Lubbock was your home town
when we initiated this column, but now it's all starting to make sense.    – Ed.

FGDean@aol.com wrote Sun 10/26/14 @14:47 PDT:

Our friend Franklin D. Reed shared your one-ton pumpkin
story with me after finding it on AOL news.  He noted that
the item is described as a gourd rather than a pumpkin.  He
said he raised gourds as a kid and they were considered to
be a separate species. 

Frank may have a point.  Our dictionary does not mention pump-
kin in its definition of "gourd," and does not mention gourd in its
definition of "pumpkin."  But that article we linked (by the Asso-
ciated Press) says pumpkin in the headline, in the caption, and in
the text. Curiously, though, the first two paragraphs say a one-ton
"gourd" won the "Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-
off."  Maybe the AP needs a piece of Frank's mind.

It sure wasn't orange, was it?

Obituaries: D'Juan Suan Smith, 26, Louisville. Children surviving: D'Juan Jr., Shaunie, Sean, Keal'Suan, Suan'Keal; Siblings surviving: Clint, Antwain, Antonio, Alisa, La'Shay; Parents surviving: Curtis Quisenberry, Hazel Smith

Marcella ("Kentucky Puddin' ") McGinnis, 64, Louisville.

                                                                  [courtesy Courier-Journal, Ohio County Monitor]

Lexington's most wanted: Allison Prather, WF, 27, 5'9", 140 lbs, featured fugitive, burglary

                        [courtesy Herald-Leader]

The Harlan County High School girls basketball coach was indicted
for video recording in the locker room.
                                                                            [courtesy WKYT-TV]

"You cannot put Pol Pot on a milk creamer."

                                            –Tristan Cerf, spokesman for the Swiss retailer Migros, apologizing
                                              for creamer tops bearing the faces of Hitler and Mussolini

"There's never been a big market for Ebola vaccines. . . . Who[m] are they going to sell it to?"

                                           – Thomas W. Geisbert, developer of a vaccine that worked on monkeys

"The San Francisco Giants are one game away from their third World Series title."

       – Louise Schiavone, National Public Radio News:  Actually,  it would have been  (and was)
          the third World Series title for the "San Francisco" Giants – but the Giants won five World
          Series before leaving New York in 1958; so it would have been (and was) the third title for
          the "Giants" in five years, but their eighth over all.

"The Louisville 'Cure-yer'-Journal and [the] Lexington 'Here-ald"-Leader both ran editorials on
  Sunday in support of [Alison Lundergan] Grimes [for the U.S. Senate].  The 'Here-ald'-Leader
  argued Grimes would bring 'inergy' and an independent voice to the 'Sinate'."

                                                                                                    – Lisa Autry, WKYU-FM "reddio"

Quotations of the Wheat: "There's no doubt in my military mind: It's never got too   weird for me." – Leonard Simon

Bill Gates, 49
Bruce Jenner, 55
Richard Samet ("Kinky") Friedman,70
Grace Slick, 75
Patrick Buchanan, 76
Bill Anderson, 77
Tom Paxton, 77
Dan Rather, 83
Lucille Wood Smith / Frances Octavia Smith ("Dale Evans," 1908-2001)
Stuart Hamblen (1908-1989)

All in the swine of duty: Resource officer Leia Loveday kisses a pig for a student fund-raiser at Sevierville Primary School in Tennessee (Curt Habraken / Mountain Press / AP)

  

This little piggy . . . this little piggy . . .

                                 

and yet an'er'n' little piggy . . . (Alison Lundergan Grimes)

Boko Haram kidnapped another 25 schoolgirls in Nigeria.
.  .  . Paris' Opéra Bastille expelled a woman from the au-
dience at Verdi’s La Traviata for wearing an Islamic veil.
. . . Reynolds American Inc.,  producer of Camels, Kools,
Pall Malls, Winstons and Salems,  banned smoking in the
workplace. . . . Hong  Kong  protesters objected to an ap-
pearance by Kenny G. .  .  . Hong Kong administrator Le-
ung Chun-ying said open elections would give  too  much
power to the poor.

Aaron Lewis, of the rock band Staind, who had some choice
words about Christina Aguilera's singing of the National An-
them at the 2011 Super Bowl ("twilight's last reaming") – "I
guess I just  don't  understand  how people who sing the Na-
tional Anthem can be  so  fucking  self-absorbed,"  he said –
screwed it up himself  at game 5 of this year's World Series:
He left out "the twilight's last gleaming" altogether and sang
"what so proudly we hailed  was  so  gallantly  streaming,"
and then sang "was so gallantly streaming"  again,  where it
belongs.   The YouTube presentation is titled  "Aaron Lewis
fucks up the National Anthem."  Plus, he sang it through his
nose.

The Kansas City Symphony Orchestra nailed it at game 6.

Joyce DiDonato, local KC diva, didn't miss any notes before
game 7,  but she added one: ". . . free-EE . . . ."  Speaking of
Lewis' complaint of "self-absorbed":  She was awful.

So were all who sang "God Bless America" in the 7th inning
– Generald Wilson (game 1 - bad), Richard Gibson (game 2-
terrible),  Craig Campbell (game 3 – not posted; musta been
worse), (game 4 – not posted; musta been worser),  Michelle
Doolittle  (game 5 – awful),  Angie Johnson (game 6, as bad
as it gets),  Jennifer  Sherman  (game 7 – what  was  that?) –
and what ever became of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"?

P.S.  One  pitcher – the Giants' Madison Bumgarner – won
this year's World Series, for the Giants, against the Royals,
4 to 3.   First time a player won a World Series by himself
since the Milwaukee Braves'  Lew  Burdette  beat the New
York Yankees in 1957.

And: Here is the reason no one gives a shit about baseball
any more: Sportswriter Frank DeFord's commentary.

I make small talk all day long on my job. At the end of the day
I like to go to a neighborhood restaurant by myself for a quiet
dinner.  But the owner,  "Giovanni,"  sits down at my table to
chat.   He speaks limited English,  and conversation with him
is a chore.

I can’t think of a polite way to ask that I be left alone without
hurting his feelings.  Any suggestions?
                                                                      Hungry and Tired

RR:  Hello?

Caller:  Do you owe $2,000 or more on any credit card?

RR:  Probably.  I don't pay attention.  I just charge on them.

Caller:  Do you owe $2,000 or more on any of them?

RR:  Shouldn't you know?  Isn't that why you called?

Caller:  So you owe $2,000 or more on one of your credit cards?

RR:  Well, yeah, I'm sure.  I just spent $1,500 on a blow-up doll.

Caller:  I don't think that is an appropriate thing to say to a lady.

RR:  I'm sorry, I don't think it's appropriate to call about a credit card you don't know about.

[CLICK (call ended by CALLER)]

Entemologist slammed for euthenizing puppy spider

    [National Public Radio Weekend Edition (corrected within hours of its posting)]