The English Language

The English language has some wonderfully anthropomorphic collective nouns for the various groups of animals.

We are all familiar with a Herd of cows, a Flock of chickens, a School of fish and a Gaggle of geese.

However, less widely known is a Pride of lions, a Murder of crows (as well as their cousins the rooks and ravens), an Exaltation of doves and, presumably because they look so wise, a Parliament of owls.

Now consider a group of Baboons.

They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates.

And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons?

Believe it or not ……. a Congress!

I guess that pretty much explains the things that come out of Washington! …………..

 

People Who Get Democrats Elected

People Who Get Democrats Elected — A woman noticed a particular effect caused by her lawn sprinkler and at 4:30 p.m. on  July 6, 2007 she recorded it. She attributed it to metallic oxide salts that had been  introduced to our water supply and “oxygen supply” within the last 20 years.

She decided to place her evidence as to this harbinger of environmental doom on YouTube to warn the world  and it can be found here.

The effect that she noticed was a rainbow in the sprinkler spray.

You make a fairly safe assumption as for whom she voted for president the next year.


People Who Get Democrats Elected

Mountain Lions In The Northeast?

Mountain Lions In The Northeast? — Two persons reported seeing a mountain lion the afternoon of Oct. 26 near the Drexelbrook Apartments near Darby Creek in the Drexel Hill section of Upper Darby, Pa.

Police investigated and declared the sightings unfounded.

Coincidentally, though NBC is reporting that a mountain lion has been seen in Washington D.C.

Interesting coincidences are worth a mention.

About 15 years ago, there was also a spate of mountain lion sightings in Delaware County, Pa..

In the early 1980s, a fisherman  in Crum Creek in Newtown Township thought he saw a tiger. He threw down his rod and reel, a wade a mile through the creek to a road where he flagged down a car to take him to the police station where he reported it. Police investigated with shotguns at the ready. They found the “tiger” to be a striped great dane.


Mountain Lions In The Northeast?

Psychopaths Spotted Via Speech

An article published Oct. 20 on  LiveScience.Com indicates that difficult-to-change speech patterns can unmask psychopaths.

Researchers deduced these patterns after interviewing  52 convicted murderers, 14 of whom were considered to be  psychopaths.

They  think it possible that  by using text-analysis software to search for these patterns on things like Craigslist postings, law enforcement will be able to solve serial killings .

The researchers say that the psychopaths used subordinating conjunctions such as “because” and “so that” more often than none-psychopaths; and that their speech was broken up far more than normal by ‘uhs’ and ‘ums’.

Just something to consider next time you watch a presidential address.

By the way, regarding the debate as to the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath, Kelly McAleer, Psy.D. claims that a psychopath acts according to an innate nature while a sociopath has been conditioned by his environment.

Sounds good to me but feel free to disagree.

Psychopaths Spotted Via Speech

 Psychopaths Spotted Via Speech

Insults from on High

                                                                         The Roar

I am a patient man with what I consider to be a modicum of intelligence.  As such, our current President seems to have an unusual but consistent manner which infuriates, embarrasses and insults.  When lumped together with his second in command, these impressions become magnified greatly.  I’ll graciously give Biden a pass since his jobs requirements and subsequent laughable performance is thankfully a non factor.

Not so for the “can’t wait for Congress” President.  Nearing his three year mark and after receiving the public’s trust and expectation for addressing policy ills, his track record is abysmal.  He has infuriated as his promises for exiting the Middle East was put on hold.  Now, with next year’s election looming and his poll numbers in the tank, he deems abandoning Iraq, at a most inopportune moment, an appropriate and viable decision.

His actions and mannerisms leave much to be desired if Presidential decorum is still a worthy trait.  His gait is one to be found in a youthful jive setting.  His lack of self control uncovered another level to his unique Presidential style when kicking a closed door open after leaving what seemed to be a  briefing of some sorts.  And need one harken back to the embarrassing photo of the First couple saluting with their hands over their heart?  Can any Obama supporter explain why our commander in chief is clueless to a rudimentary grade school function?

Remember our embarrassment when President Obama felt the need to knell when confronting foreign heads of state?  This, aside from committing a grave injustice to the office, was not the actions of a leader.  This was so out of sorts to proper and established American protocol that it presented an air of being intentional.

Lastly, Obama has obviously kicked off his own campaign season, by preaching at his favorite niche for support, the college campuses.  Once again this gifted community organizer reverts back to his tactics of creating unrest as he instinctively “talks down” to his youthful supporters.  He  even seems to roll up his sleeves in an attempt to “get down.”  The only glitch is that his “get down” presentation is to the excessively educated who themselves tend to “look down.”

Those of us who have worked for a living while raising families and who have eventually severed the mortgage strings are aghast at such a performance.  This man has indeed transformed America but in doing so, he has also awakened both sides of the political aisle.  His record of instituting purely socialistic policies, along with his rude and arrogant style of conduct and iron fist, “can’t wait for Congress” approach, has become a unifier in opposition to the love, trust and adoration which brought Obama to our White House.

Similar to his record, there is little to defend as his current campaign mode is to amass votes in whatever manner available.  His ploy for buying votes with student loan relief substantiates this reckless “the end justifies the means” philosophy.  These are tactics learned early and carried throughout his life.  As such, he may well be too entrenched at playing the organizer than to act Presidential.

Jim Bowman
Author of,
This Roar of Ours

Pa. Senate Passes School Choice Bill

The Pennsylvania State Senate, yesterday, Oct. 26, passed SB 1, 27-22 sending it to the State House.

The vote was mostly along party-lines in the Republican-controlled institution with Democrat Daylin Leach (D-17) leading the opposition with claims that the bill will take money from poor school districts. He failed to note, however, that the money taken will then been given to the families of the poor children. He attempted to add an amendment prohibiting private schools from discriminating due to sexual orientation. It failed.

Democrat Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams, however, who represents the 8th District which consists of a large section of southwest Philadelphia and a large section of southeast Delaware County, made an impassioned defense of the bill

Republicans who voted against the bill were Stewart Greenleaf of the 12th District; Lisa Baker of the 20th District;  John Gordner of the 27th District; Pat Vance of the 31st District; and Elder Vogel of the 47th District.

Democrats who voted for the bill were Williams; LeAnna Washington of the 4th District; and Andy Dinniman of the 19th District.

Not voting was Republican John Pippy of the 37th District.

The bill offers vouchers ranging from $5,765 to $13,905 to families with incomes of $29,000 whose children attend the 5 percent worst performing schools in the state that would allow them to  transfer their children to private or parochial schools. In the second year, the vouchers would also be offered to low-income students already attending private schools.

The bill also raises of the limit on the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (E.I.T.C.) from $75 million to $100 million for next two school years to $125 million for  2014-2015. Children from middle class families in all school districts are eligible for  E.I.T.C. scholarships.

Gov. Tom Corbett will almost certainly sign the bill if the House should pass it.

 

Broadcast Pioneers Honor Cardinal Foley

Broadcast Pioneers Honor Cardinal Foley — Cardinal John Patrick Foley, who  headed the Pontifical Commission (now Pontifical Council) for Social Communications at the Vatican, has been named Person of the Year by the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia, and will be honored at the organization’s Hall of Fame Banquet on Nov. 18.

Foley led the Commission from 1984 until 2007 when he was made a Cardinal. He was responsible for all the Vatican’s print
and electronic communications and ministries and was responsible for the historic NBC Today Show week-long broadcast from the Vatican. He also served as a special commentator for the NBC broadcasts of Christmas Midnight Mass from the Vatican for a quarter of a century.

Foley, who is 75, retired from his ecclesiastical duties for health reasons in 2009 and left the Vatican. He now lives at Villa Saint Joseph in Darby.

Foley grew up in Sharon Hill and began his broadcasting career as a teenager as a WJMJ Radio announcer. He was co-producer and co-host of the Philadelphia Catholic Hour on WFIL Radio in the 1960s. He co-produced 20 television episodes of “The Making of a Priest,” for Group W.

Foley, who has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University’s School of Journalism, was editor of the Catholic Standard and Times from  1970 to 1984.

The dinner is open to the public and tickets can be acquired here.


Broadcast Pioneers Honor Cardinal Foley

OWS Hippies Meet Reality With Bank Squabble

OWS Hippies Meet Reality With Bank Squabble  — Reader Tom C has sent a couple of links pointing out that the Occupy Wall Street crowd is not only now keeping its money in a bank — those vile capitalist — and squabbling about it, but is learning why criminal justice systems develop, namely the participants are finding themselves victims of theft, vandalism and sexual assault, and learning that their tent camps have become havens for child molesters and such.

They may as well have just stayed home and  read Lord of the Flies.

Thanks, Tom.

 

OWS Hippies Meet Reality With Bank Squabble

Could A Pennsylvanian Be President?

Could A Pennsylvanian Be President? — Pennsylvania is known as the Keystone State and for most of America’s history it was the second most populous one. Yet, it has produced just one president, James Buchanan, who by all accounts was rather bad. In fact, most consider him the worst.

Yes, even worse than Obama, he was that bad.

Well, among those on that Las Vegas stage, Oct. 18, vying for the Republican nomination were two native-born Pennsylvanians — Ron Paul who was born in Pittsburgh and Newt Gingrich who was born in Harrisburg.

Granted, Paul is now a long-time congressman from the 14th District of Texas while Gingrich made his fame as a congressman from the 6th District of Georgia and now lives in McLean, Va. in the Washington Beltway.

And Rick Santorum? Pennsylvania’s former senator was born in Winchester, Va., albeit he would be the only candidate who would list Pennsylvania as his residence if he should win the nomination.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who represents Minnesota’s 6th District, also has a Pennsylvania connection in that she credits former Pennsylvania State Rep. Sam Rohrer with inspiring her to get involved in politics.

And Georgia businessman Herman Cain made his first mark in business by turning around the Philadelphia region’s Burger King franchises, although he made his home in Moorestown, N. J. while doing it.

With regard to Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, it is pretty hard to find a connection to the land of coal, steel and the Liberty Bell regardless of how hard one stretches.

Same would be true of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman who declined to appear in Vegas but remains technically in the race.

There is a caveat to Buchanan being the only Pennsylvanian to be president. Dwight Eisenhower, a native-born Texan who grew up in Kansas, ran as a Pennsylvanian in 1956 to win a second term. He ran as a New Yorker four years earlier. Ike would retire to Gettysburg after leaving the White House.

Ike was a pretty good president.

 

 

Could A Pennsylvanian Be President?

Broadcasting Off Air Nov. 9 2011

Broadcasting Off Air Nov. 9 2011 — All radio and TV broadcasts will be knocked off the air for about 3 minutes starting at 2 p.m., EST on Nov. 9 for the national test of the Emergency Alert System. The tests with which we are all so familiar with have been local ones.

Yes, the test will include cable, digital television and satellite radio.

“While most messages, such as tsunami or hurricane warnings, are limited
to 2 minutes by the EAS system, the Presidential message capability does
not have a time limit. So to evaluate if the system properly
interprets the Presidential message code in this test, the message
duration must be longer than two minutes in length,” FEMA says.

To it’s credit, FEMA made the announcement in June.

 

 

Broadcasting Off Air Nov. 9 2011