Beautiful day today. Not hot, not cold. A great day to play some really bad golf.
Came home crossed paths with the S.O. who was on her way out. “Ah an opportunity!” , methinks. ” I can squeeze in a nap!” Well its 3 hours later and she is still not back. I know where she went, as she was volunteering today with some friends to help out at a charity auction. She knows I hate those things, so this year she took pity on me and let me stay home. Besides, another piece of furniture will not fit in our apartment and I think she has finally realized that.
Moving on with some random thoughts:
To boldly go where Skippy shouldn’t go. A little cat blogging:
The new vermin kitten……
Thought maybe the folks at home might want to see the cat before the S.O. loses it one night and dumps her out the door. Actually she is getting better and we are both feeling confident enough to let her out from time to time from her prison home in the laundry room. Maybe she has finally figured out the whole litter box thing.
Cat blogging is not going to be a usual feature here though, so don’t get used to it.
More sex please!
Did some surfing today following up on my recent posts about blogging and censorship. My surfing led me over to Queen of the Sky’s blog. For those who may not know, she used to be a flight attendant for an American airline that is now in bankruptcy…..( used to be that would narrow it down, not anymore since just about all of them are). She was fired for posting pictures of herself in uniform on her blog. The useless twits at this airline said they were inappropriate. I’ll leave you to judge for yourself, you can see them here. She also tells her side of the story here. That in turn led me, through links, to a whole host of other stories of employers who think that the US Constitution is theirs to shred and discard at their own whim. Take a look at this story, this one, and this one for some examples. You should also look here for some context and also some fair points about work usage of computers. These meanderings of course led me over to the sit for the Committee to protect bloggers. You have seen me post there banner here a couple of times:
Its a wealth of knowledge. They have even posted a guide for anonymous blogging. There is also a good link to the EFF (Electronic Freedom Foundation) with some good common sense guidelines to protect your self from the evil ones who think they have the right to tell you how to live your life and what you should think… I probably should have read that before I started blogging. Oh well.
I guess what I find disturbing is not the fact that companies and the US government and Armed Services behave in a reprehensible manner with regards to free speech. That needs to be expected. ” The man” will always work to defend itself. It’s the number of supposedly self respecting individuals who defend the practice that really bother me. In effect these folks are saying that, even though many of the thoughts lie within the realm of protected speech, conformity to a certain vision of what is a correct lifestyle or ideology., is more important than defending the bedrock values of the American republic. Its astonishing. No wonder companies like Yahoo are aiding and abetting the efforts of the Chinese communists to erect the “Great Firewall“.
So it leaves a couple of choices. I could stop, which would be letting the bastards win. Or I can accept my old pal Popeye’s advice: ” I am what I am!” . With me what you read is what you get…..warts and all. I shall not go quietly into that good night…………..
If you don’t like what I’se saying, you know where the back button is!
Old ideas may yet be the best:
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
George Orwell
What he said!–Skippy-san
