A Different Street

by Satchel Pooch

Archive for December, 2007

My favorite haiku

Saturday, December 8th, 2007

By Ron Padgett
First: five syllables
Second: seven syllables
Third: five syllables

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A small insight about human behavior

Saturday, December 8th, 2007

I wish I could remember to whom to credit this, but the truth of it really hit home as I labored on the school play structure for a second Saturday (fortunately, we had sunshine today instead of snow/rain like last week):
Everyone wants to be good at something.
Unfortunately, I am not good at construction work, having [...]

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Human history in 100 words

Thursday, December 6th, 2007

Written by Alan Charles Kors, George H. Walker Endowed Term Professor of History at University of Pennsylvania. As someone trained in indexing and abstracting, I always appreciate succinctness.

* First, tribes: tough life.
* The defaults beyond the intimate tribe were violence, aversion to difference, and slavery. [...]

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A life-changing sort of laugh

Monday, December 3rd, 2007

My younger child, who tends towards giftedness, sometimes gets bored and frustrated with school assignments that are too easy or patronizing for his taste. In earlier years, he would take out his frustration on the cartoon characters on the worksheets, often sketching “10,000 pound” weights dropping on their heads or various other unfortunate events.
A [...]

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A pattern that needs to change

Monday, December 3rd, 2007

A disagreement with my spouse last night, plus some prolonged sulking, led me to the recognition of a pattern in my life that needs to change.  It goes like this:
1.  I go on for some period of time taking care of everyone else’s needs and neglecting my own.
2.  Something (usually something trivial) happens when I’m [...]

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Ow ow ow.

Saturday, December 1st, 2007

Out of shape people in their middle years should not spend all day doing manual labor (helping erect a giant play structure for the elementary school).   Advil.  Please.  ::: whimper :::

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