Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

I went to BlogLunch with Halley Suitt and Scott Johnson, and both sides of my brain now feel so good:

Baby pigs goofing around with a peaceful tiger? This image came from Sukree Sukplang/Reuters–here’s their explanation:

“Sai Mai, a 26-month-old female tiger, plays with baby pigs at a zoo in Chonburi province, 50 miles east of Bangkok, May 7, 2003. The Royal Bengali tigress was born in captivity and breast-fed by a female pig for four months after her birth.”

No kidding–at the Sriracha Tiger Farm (Thailand), you can visit those tiger-and-pig mixed families.
amazing moments as the comely, but scarred lass feeds a croc.”)

How many times have you heard the pious hope that bringing diverse groups together would make people friendly? BZZZT! Wrong! People are much too smart (or too stupid) for this.

Ethnic groups in close contact rarely share space like good-natured tigers and happy little pigs. Pakistan glowers at India–Argentina smolders at neighboring Chile.

Who hates Northern Irish Protestants? Northern Irish Catholics, that’s who! Neighbours who ride the same bus routes and love the same tin-can brands of instant coffee and rice pudding.

I’m tired of pious hopes for cheap solutions. I can imagine human groups finding peace–IFF (scientific jargon for “if and only if”) they aren’t in conflict for the same scarce resources. If I see your needs as a threat to the needs of my kids–I’m not going to like you. No matter how well I know you, I’m not going to like you.

One of the things I love about NH–I get stuff I want without spending too darn much. Just for example, here’s part of the menu of Manchester’s Goldenrod Restaurant and Drive-In.

And, just for example, my blogfriend Critt drove all the way up from Boston to Nashua last Thursday night. He wanted to see Howard Dean. He was hoping his dream for our nation’s political future could maybe come true. And he too was not disappointed in New Hampshire. Just a short quote from his first-person account of meeting Howard Dean at a NH “Meetup.”

I chose to listen well, rather than attempt to take detailed notes. I’m a blogger, thus I’ll leave voice transcription processing to the pros. Surely a full transcript will become available? But, I will tell you something now – some things I learned and felt from tonight’s meeting.

It is time for us to stop temporizing and compromising.

We are tired of being divided by race.
We are tired of being divided by income.
We are tired of being divided by gender.
We are tired of being divided by sexual orientation.
We are tired of being divided.

Howard Dean’s Call to Action is about giving you, giving me, a reason to stand up for what we believe in….Howard Dean is resolute. And, you know what? 

So am I.

Go, resolute Critt! Go, Howard Dean!

And (woo hoo!) I am tired but resolute too!

Goldenrod Restaurant and Drive-in
1681 Candia Road
Manchester, NH
Exit 6 (Hanover St.) from Rte I-93
603-623-9469

Picnic tables outside. Lots of pickup trucks. The menu includes fried smelt, chicken croquettes, grape nut ice cream. If you sit inside, there is a smoking section.

Yes! Yes! In a brand-new world where people confess to the most embarrassing stuff–yes! I confess! I love the Goldenrod.

I love the fried shrimp and belly-clam plate, half and half, with melted butter, red spicy sauce, tartar sauce, salllllty french fries. . I love sitting here with so many NH people, enjoying ourselves, eating yummy high-calorie foods for not much money.

Does God exist? Brilliant philosophers argue either side, and I can’t understand a word they say. My two arguments for a loving God are simple, based on food:

1. Strawberry-rhubarb pie is possible only because strawberries and rhubarb come in season together.
2. The Goldenrod Restaurant and Drive-in in Manchester, NH still exists.

(John Fladd at HippoPress.com also gives Goldenrod a super-top rating.)

There’s something about the landscape you grew up in. The trees are just the right color, in every season. The mountains have just the right shape. And everyone’s accent is so familiar, so welcome.

The landscape I grew up in is New Hampshire. And New Hampshire always seems just right to me–not just the postcard pretties, the mountains and lakes, but all of it. Manchester’s Elm Street, once the world’s broadest main street. The roadside fruitstands. The bustling strip malls. The gold-domed State Capitol. So many small red-brick towns with few stores left. Families who go for a walk to get ice cream cones and stand around swatting at each other’s mosquitoes.

So, if you wondered why I’m adding a new “New Hampshire” section to my weblog–that’s why!

What is the strangest thing you’ve bought on the Web? Hard to narrow it down to just one, isn’t it?

Long ago, in a galaxy far away, I needed sound effects for a joke-telling program. In fact, I needed clips of children laughing.

Picture some sage in a B-grade movie shaking his head, telling this uppity woman, “I’m sorry. Some wonderful things in life are not for sale. One of these [dramatic pause] is the sound of happy little children laughing.”

Well, BZZZZT! Wrong! You can listen to, download, and buy a whole lot of sounds of laughter in the sound-effects emporium of SoundDogs.

I love the SoundDogs website. Their individual sounds are pretty cheap, and you can browse the entire collection without buying anything. What can you hear there? Their sound-effects page starts you off with this clickable catalog?

Airport, Amphibians, Animals, Applause, Aviation, Bars,Restaurants, Basketball, Bells, Birds, Boats,Marine, Buildings, Buses, Cars,Specific, Cars,Various, Cartoons, Casino, Communications, Construction, Crowds, Crowds,Kids, Dogs, Doors, Farm Machines, Feet,Footsteps, Fight, Fires, Foley, Glass, Guns, Hockey,NHL, Horns, Horses, Hospitals, Household, Humans, Industry, Insects, Low Frequency,Boom Tracks, Machines, Magic, Metal, Military, Motorcycles, Nature, Office, Police,Fire, Rain,Thunder, Rocks, Science Fiction, Snow, Sports, Synth, Toys, Traffic, Trains, Trucks,Specific, Trucks,Various, Vehicles, Voices, Water, Whoosh, Winds, Wood

My find of the day was a gladiator striptease.

Go to “Foley” subcategory “Drops,Armour,Shields,Clothing.” A little mood music, please, here comes Russell Crowe. Let the sound effects begin!

Put Down Belt, Put Down Boot, Put Down Boot, Put Down Broken Armor, Put Down Broken Shield, Put Down Buckler Shield, Put Down Chainmail Armor, Put Down Chainmail Armor, Put Down Chainmail Armor, Put Down Cloak, Put Down Glove, Put Down Glove, Put Down Helmet, Put Down Helmet, Put Down Helmet, Put Down Large Shield, Put Down Leather Armor, Put Down Leather Armor, Put Down Leather Armor, Put Down Medium Shield, Put Down Plate Armor, Put Down Small Shield, Put Down Belt, Put Down Boot, Put Down Boot, Put Down Broken Armor, Put Down Broken Shield, Put Down Buckler Shield, Put Down Chainmail Armor, Put Down Chainmail Armor, Put Down Chainmail Armor, Put Down Cloak, Put Down Glove, Put Down Glove, Put Down Helmet, Put Down Helmet, Put Down Helmet, Put Down Large Shield, Put Down Leather Armor, Put Down Leather Armor, Put Down Leather Armor, Put Down Medium Shield, Put Down Plate Armor, Put Down Small Shield.

Bye now–and have fun at SoundDogs!

I’m feeling foolish tonight–and I’ve got company, all over the Web. From my nerd joke collection, here are a few favorite bloopers:

• Questions people ask at Banff Park (Bert Christensen’s Truth & Humour Collection)
  
  “So it’s eight kilometers away… is that in miles?”
  “How do the Elk know they’re supposed to cross at the “Elk Crossing” signs?”
  “I saw an animal on the way to Banff today – could you tell me what it was?”

• Questions people ask at Mesa Verde National Park (Compiled by Alan Silverstein):
  
  “What did they worskip in the kivas — their own made up religion?”
  “Why did they build the ruins so close to the road?”
  “Do you know of any undiscovered ruins?”

• Questions people ask in Edinburgh, Scotland (Compiled by Alan Silverstein):
  
  “Do you have any photgraphs of the castle under construction?” (The castle dates back to the 10th century AD).
  “Wouldn’t it have been better if they built the castle nearer the stores?”

• Remarks from tourists at dinosaur track sites(Compiled by Glen J. Kuban):
  
  “I know dinosaurs were heavy, but I never dreamed they could punch footprints in solid rock like this!”
  “You know Billy, these dinosaur footprints are hundreds of years old!”

• Responses to the US Forest Service’s request for backpacker comments:
  
  “Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill.”
  “The places where trails do not exist are not well marked.”
  “A small deer came into my camp and stole my bag of pickles. Is there a way I can get reimbursed? Please call.”

So if anyone tells you “There are no foolish questions”–just tell that person to read this foolish page!

From the Official Dean weblog, Howard Dean’s closing remarks at Saturday’s debate:

We can’t win this election if we worry so much about electability that the American people can’t tell the difference between us and the Republicans.

The great unspoken political lie, which comes from stages like this, is elect me and I’ll solve all of your problems.

The great unspoken truth is that the future of this country rests in your hands, not mine.

You have the power to rise up and take this country back. You have the power to give this party the backbone to challenge this President, and all of the harm he has done to our country. You have the power to create jobs, balance the budget, and bring us our dream, which Harry Truman put in our platform in 1948 – health care for every American.

The reason people don’t vote in this country is that we don’t give them a reason to vote. This campaign is about giving all of you a reason to vote.

Abraham Lincoln said, “A government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” President Bush has forgotten the ordinary people of this country.

It’s time to take our party back and it’s time to take our country back.

Last night, a few tons of granite fell down a NH mountainside, injuring nobody, landing on more tons of granite that fell before it.

But this new heap of granite used to be special. It was NH’s landmark stone profile, our “Old Man of the Mountain.”

Daniel Webster made speeches about it. It was the subject of thousands of amateur sketches and watercolors before anybody invented the camera. Every NH kid was dutifully taken to admire the craggy stone face. After you looked at the face for a while, you looked at the upside-down version reflected in Profile Lake. Then you and your folks could all go drink local birch beer and hike in the Flume.

I grew up in NH, and though I don’t live there now I took my own two daughters to see the Old Man. Now I’m having a lonely feeling inside, thinking of generations stretching ahead who won’t see what I saw, what Daniel Webster saw.

I also grew up enjoying clean air and clean water, a strong Bill of Rights, and a sense of being part of one human family. There wasn’t a darn thing I could have done to save the Old Man, but I’m going to keep working to pass that other stuff along.

Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe, jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.

Daniel Webster (1782-1852) — also known as “Black Dan”; “Defender of the Constitution”; “Great Expounder of the Constitution”

“Ansible,” a crazy Brit sci-fi email newsletter, is one of very few I subscribe to. Today’s issue says that the incomplete biog of sci-fi great Robert L. Forward is now online. Forward is perhaps best known for Dragon’s Egg.

Forward’s neutron star physics and exo-biology are spot-on–he’s a hard-sci-fi master–and _Dragon’s Egg_ also has some of the wackiest, most convincing alien sex scenes ever.

Want more alien sex? You may get a bang out of the species with 3 genders in _The Gods Themselves_ by Asimov.

I met a bunch of great Boston-area bloggers Thursday at Dave Winer’s Harvard blog meeting:

http://www.scripting.com/ “Scripting News: Dave Winer’s weblog about scripting and stuff like that”

Dave was there fixing our blogs and having fun with subjects from Chinese households to NH primaries.

http://radio.weblogs.com/0120875/ “Shiny Glass Beads: Shiny Glass Beads:
Pay it forward: Got a penny? Leave a penny. Need a penny? Take a penny.”

Critt Jarvis blogs about politics, collaborations, and of course blogging. Lots of good snips and links.

http://critt.weblogger.com “One Co-Intelligence Avenue/
Exploring wholeness, interconnectedness, and co-creativity”

A new group blog where Critt Jarvis will be a contributing writer.

http://www.castleblack.net/mikeb/ “Castle Black: It Made Sense at the Time”

Michael Booth’s blog–here is just one insightful quote:

“It is okay, within limits, to talk about an absent person, but when someone is in the room you are supposed to either invite them into the conversation or leave them out of it. The problem with the Web is that the whole world is in the room, so you can’t really talk behind anyone’s back.”

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/stanleyc/“Stanley’s Weblog: Technology investing is my thing”

Stanley Cohen’s new blog invites comments on micro-cap stocks and broadband strategies.

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/natureisprofligate/“Nature is Profligate or so it seems… “

Amity Wilczek is a Harvard biology grad student, who blogs about some wide-ranging bio interests with wit and a lot of fun pictures. Disclosure: I do aleady know her, because she’s my daughter.

Jamie, Mike, and some others whose names I don’t know

Start up your weblogs soon!

p.s. Most blogs link to the Daily Show’s own Bush versus Bush debate; I couldn’t get their plug-in to work. That’s why I linked yesterday to a different 12.4 M mov. version