Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On

Also, the stock price for Etch A Sketch manufacturer Ohio Art Company rose 141.25% today.

[via Mashable]
9 Comments

Meanwhile…

Whitney? Coke.

Still waiting to hear what knocked off Breitbart, besides Terminal Assholeness.

@nojo: “I’ll have Coke and water.”

Yeah, and the rest of you were thinking it.

@nojo:

The hand of God, most likely. I hope the autopsy finds the guy was in perfect health and tip top shape, leaving only divine justice as an explanation for his sudden demise.

I was about 9 years old and could wait no longer – I had to take my Etch-a-Sketch apart. Disappointing – weird sandlike stuff and strings mostly, it went into the trash.

I was curious about the less than sterling rating shown for this iconic toy.

Just as Romney is going to find that it is no longer possible to pretend he didn’t say all the things he’s said, shaking the “modern” Etch-A-Sketch does not satisfactorily eliminate previous scribblings.

We soon realized that the lines didn’t erase from the screen. After shaking the toy like madpeople, we just couldn’t get the images to really disappear. Now, with my toy in the 80s, the images could be easily erased with minor, controlled shaking.

Interesting how many things today’s Etch-A-Sketch has in common with today’s Republican Party.

I had an original one years ago, and although the white knob broke off after many years of play the steel axle still allowed it to be workable. But this version has some cheap aluminum axle, which bent and completely broke off after about 3 weeks. So now all we can do is draw a vertical line.

@Serolf Divad: A few glasses of Pinot Grigio embolden me to ask, “You believe in divine justice?” A quote from one of my favorite movies, Enchanted April: “God must know an awful lot.
Why doesn’t he do something?” Another favorite quote (from John Lennon, although I strongly suspect he was quoting another fellow spirit less famous): “God is a red herring in drag.” And yet another (from Peter’s Quotations, I think, but I can’t remember to whom it’s attributed): “I’ve steered clear of God. He’s an incredible sadist.” I subscribe to all of the above. I’ve been rereading Chuang Tzu recently. He says (in one of the inner chapters), “When people are distraught, they kill.” Yes, they do, and it reverberates endlessly, horribly. Just two days ago I walked through the Panera’s parking lot here in Bloomington and saw a car bearing a bumper sticker from Howard Zinn (among other notable ones) that said: “No flag is large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”

I sometimes think that the most notable achievements of my life have been marrying my husband in time to save him from the Vietnam draft (he was flunking out of Harvard for the second time, for reasons deep-seated that neither he nor I have ever truly fathomed) and getting Robert Coles, M.D., an opponent of the Viet Nam war, to interview my half-brother Perry Cross and give him a medical deferment from the draft. I hate war: “What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!” (WAR, inadequate attribution).

Years later, my son said to me, and it occurred to me as a substantial ethical shock. (wait for it). I had only been thinking (overfocused) on saving Paul and Perry and Nick from injury to life and limb and tender feelings and international peace, and then my son said: “I don’t want to kill anybody!”

And so you see, girls and boys (even boys), I haven’t mentioned Jesus of Nazareth, Siddhartha, Gautama, Buddha, Mohammed, or however you choose to designate a teacher. Wait, I forgot another of my favorite quotes, this one from Saint Teresa of Avila: “Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

It’s up to each one of us. I rest my case.

@lynnlightfoot: You have a son. That’s great thing. I’ve been up late trying to work. I feel totally inauthentic. Our dachshund always gets up with me. Thanks for being in touch.

@Benedick: @matador1015:Thanks, Benedick and Matador, for your responses. Nobody who comments here is inauthentic (even, alas, the very occasional flaming whatever who happens upon us and vents his or her spleen, then fades away), you’re all (authoritarian assholes excepted) mensch (don’t know the plural), salt of the earth, persons I’d be delighted to spend time with.

@matador1015: thanks for the link. I believe that it and it ant-similar sentiments he and WAR imbibed with his mother’s milk (and his parents’ ineffectual [? protests] hastened the end and the bloodshed. I have two brother-in-laws who served in vietnam

Add a Comment
Please log in to post a comment