On This Day

On this day in 1961 I was assigned to Army Security Agency headquarters at Arlington Hall Station for training at the Pentagon.

Except for ‘on mission’ ASA personnel, we were released if we wanted to attend the inauguration festivities, but there was no way of verifying if we went or just stayed home.

Shirley and four days over a year old Jon stayed home at our Arlington apartment with a view of Arlington National Cemetery. I trudged through the snow in to a nearby bus stop rode into D.C. where I listened to JFK’s speech and stood along the parade route.

A moving barricade of D.C. police, military, and other security personnel kept people from rushing to the popular young man walking the route with his wife; yet I and thousands of others were within 20 feet of the new president.

The man in the picture was drunk and loudly protesting JFK. I don’t remember what he was saying other than many profanities were shouted.

Eight years and multiple life events later, I was out of the Army and we were living in Manassas, VA. Shirley and Sarita stayed home, and I took Jon and Duane out of school so we could view the Nixon Inauguration. We didn’t make it to the speech, but stood along Pennsylvania Avenue for the parade; as far as I know, Nixon never exited his limo until he got to the presidential viewing platform.

Block Issues

An advice column, Dear Annie, had a question and answer about writer’s block.

My 184th blog¹was about writer’s block.

In that blog I concluded that I have a finisher’s block. Well, since then, I’ve only partly overcome my FB. There are several started books ²in my files, however, three of my books have been self-published since I did blog 184.

Also, I have several ³ books I’ve started and/or haven’t opened to start reading.

Let it be known to all that blogs not appearing on Octogenarian Writer for a while is part of an effort to cure my Reading Block Syndrome.

However, if my reading gives me an idea for content or presentation of content in one of my unfinished works, I’ll put some time into helping cure my FB.

Murder in the Back Yard

Except for reference to the three or more crows that perch/fly/strut/caw/etc. in our back yard, murder is probably the wrong word in the title.

As previously blogged, we have several murders of crows in our yard and neighborhood. But this is not exactly about them, well at least one murder is under suspicion of…

Some time ago, I may, or may not, have blogged a murder being suspected in the dispatching of a rabbit in our front yard. I wasn’t sure if it was the crows that put down the poor thing¹, but there was activity outside the window of the room where I sit and do this.

Lo and behold, there was a still rabbit under our quince bush and one of the murder was pecking at it. I’m not personally opposed to the normal activities of wild critters, but my yard hasn’t been a designated place for wildlife activity since the 70s when the area was developed for…

Crows are capable of aggressive bullying – I’ve seen them in groups of three, chasing a lone hawk. Don’t they know raptors can kill even larger critters with talons and beak.

Speaking of killing with talons and beak, there is a Redtail hawk that frequents our neighborhood. I’ve seen squirrel scraps under a tree and a Redtail flying away with carry on, whoops, carrion baggage.

I’ve eliminated the murder as a suspect ² and even without having observed the shredding of another rabbit, I suspect the Redtail.

Well there are racoons around too. However, none of the wild critters leave visible clues.

The victim of the non-criminal killing was given a demised goldfish like sendoff ³ without ceremony before the murder in our back yard had a chance to take lunch.

Teaching Materials

From a pedantic curriculum director¹

To:
Chair, Department of Social Studies
RE: inquiry about using the document entitled Declaration of Independence as supplemental material in your United States history classes.

Unfortunately, the document as a whole fails to meet the District’s recently adopted specifications for proposals of teaching material to be included in the supplemental materials pool for use in the above mentioned studies.

In this regard the committee has the following questions for your explanation to verify the worth of the document.

In the opening paragraph the phrase “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” is used.
What are these laws? In what way are they the criteria on which the central arguments are based? Please document with verifiable citations from recent literature.
In the same paragraph the document refers to the “opinions of mankind.”
Whose polling data was used? Without specific evidence, it seems to us, the “opinions of mankind” are justifiably considered a matter of opinion.
It continues by stating that certain truths are “self-evident.” Please elaborate.
If they are as evident as claimed, then it should not be difficult for you to locate the appropriate supporting educational statistics.
“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness” seems to be the goal in the overall message of the document. These are not measurable goals by current definition!
If it were to say something like: “among these is the ability to sustain an average life expectancy in 60% of an identifiable population of at least 60 years, and to enable all newspapers to print news without outside² interference, and to raise the average income of afore mentioned population by 10% in the next 10 years” the goals would be measurable.

We certainly do not want to discuss goals that cannot be measured on a currently acceptable scale.
It further says “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it and to institute a new Government…”
Can you provide grammatical proof that ‘these ends’ is antecedent to unmeasurable goals afore mentioned? Do you believe the general population and specifically students will be able to weigh this assertion against all alternatives? Or was the authors’ statement predicated solely on the baser instincts?
The description of the situation that may or may not have existed at the time is quite extensive. For the document to meet current educational writing standards, such a long list of grievances should precede the statement of goals, not follow it.
A strategy for achieving the goal is not at all developed in the document. It states that the colonies³ “ought to be Free and Independent States,” and that they are “Absolved from all Allegiance of the British Crown.”
For the document to be useful to meet current criteria the following questions should have been addressed. Who or what must change to achieve the objective? In what way must they change? What specific steps must be taken to overcome the resistance? How long will it take?
Who among the list of signatories was responsible for implementing the strategy? Who conceived it? Who provided the theoretical research? What measurement instruments were used and was valid documentation used? Is there a usable evaluation design in the archives?
What impact will the supplemental material have on your program? Your failure to include any assessment of this inspires little confidence in the long-range prospects of your using this document called Declaration of Independence in your department.
In addition to answering each of the questions in the nine items above, please submit a PERT diagram, an activity chart and an itemized budget.

Remember that in all cases, based on investigational observations, the incorporation of additional teaching constraints or liberties is further compounded when taking into account the evolution of interpretive criteria over a given time period.

Sincerely,
I. Kuda Gotcha

I Therefore Resolve

NAH!

Years go I decided to not go with the crowd of New Year’s resolution makers.

So, since then I’ve not had to feel guilty about:

Not Losing XXX pounds ¹

Not Gaining a few pounds ²

Not Cutting down on coffee/tea/sugary drinks ³

Not Eating Better ⁴

Not Walking rain or shine ⁵

Not Writing every day ⁶

Not Reading a book a week ⁷

Not Accessing social media ⁸

Not Etc. ⁹

Category: Blog

On This Day

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Block Issues

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Murder in the Back Yard

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Teaching Materials

From a pedantic curriculum director¹

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I Therefore Resolve

NAH!

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From a pedantic curriculum director1Written as a spoof in 1991.

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NAH!

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From a pedantic curriculum director¹