Imagine you’re in college. Far from home. It’s 1977. You’re partying down, as the Grand Funk Railroad put it. One guy is walking around with a clipboard, asking personal questions; he’s also taking photos. As the night goes on, inhibitions fade like cotton candy in a hot shower, and you find yourself in a hot shower. With someone named Cotton Candy, as it turns out. Who invited her? That guy is still taking pictures, too. Eventually you ask what he’s doing.
“Well,” he says, “I’m going to put together a big collection of incriminating photos and remarks, and post it up at that bulletin board outside the grocery store. And there’ll be another one in your home town.”
You’d be livid. It would take all your self-control to keep from hanging a fat lip on the fellow. Why? you ask. Who would want pictures of themselves performing stupid drunken party pranks on a bulletin board where Mom could see it, let alone read answers to a questionnaire about the most detailed personal matters? You take his film and kick him out. That was close.
Ah, how times change. It's no surprise that we're waging a war against dignity and privacy; it is a surprise that so many people volunteered to fight.
(Be sure and watch the video. Put yourself in those guys 's shoes . Remind your kids: the Internet Is Forever.
New Strib online feature: the Pursuit of Happiness. Occasionally it involves yarn. We’re fortunate to live in a land that makes that pursuit a guaranteed right. Not attainment, but pursuit. Imagine if the words “pursuit of” had been edited out of the Constitution; by now 37% of the GDP would be devoted to ensuring everyone was in a good mood.
There’s nothing to be said about a story such as this: man killed when truck drives through the wall of the Goodnite Motel. But it did get me googling to see if I could find a picture of the motel. No luck – but check out this bird’s eye view of the area around Antigo, Wisconsin. You can see the ancient geography, how land use depends on what happened millions of years ago. Zoom in to see the peculiar square item in the lower-middle area. I can’t figure that one out, but I lost interest in geology when they expected me not only to know the difference between schist and mica, but to care.
Incidentally, if you haven’t visited this site, it’s a fine timewaster: Google Sightseeing. It finds peculiar items all over the world as captured by the All-Seeing Eye of the Google.
Final Note: if you’ve posted a remark about how the “pursuit of happiness” is in the Declaration, not the Constitution, well, this’ll teach you to read to the end of the entry. ;)
That sounds like my first college experience
Back in 83, before I got academically expelled .
("Wiredog: Zero. Point. Zero.")