Photo Of Huge Kentucky Fried Chicken Bucket & Link To Fast Food Nation

Here is a picture of a big Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket/sign I took in Cincinnati this last summer.

Here is a link to how bad it is to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken posted on a website connected to the Lebanese military.

Here is a link to a review of the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser.

Blogging Is Hubristic By Definition & Meet The Staff Behind Texas Liberal

  

 Blogging is, quite often at least, an act of hubris and an act of self-definition. ( A bit how people here in Texas— correctly or not— like to see themselves.)  

You might inquire that if it is an act of self-definition, why not create yourself as humble? Good question. I think one can be both humble and assertive at the same time.

Anyone looking for an audience understands they are not in full control of their fate.  Yet one must also be assertive to find an audience.    

At core, a blogger is a man, woman or child sitting alone at a computer with the notion that someone else will care what he or she has to say. It’s one person sending out his or her thoughts into the big world. It requires a thick skin. I’m not all the way there on that yet, but I’ll get there.    

A blog post is a hit-or-miss prospect. Some work. Some don’t. Some work for reasons you did not expect. Others surprise you for why they fall flat.   

I can’t imagine anyone who spends a lot of time writing a blog who does not feel an emotional investment in the success of the blog and in how people react to the blog. The good news is that we always have the ability to define success in our own way and in our own context.  ( An advantage of self-definition.) 

For me, success is defined by working hard at the blog, being creative, growing my readership and having the best blog in Texas. (Please click here to see why I have the best blog in Texas and possibly beyond Texas.)

Please see above my home computer and my staff.

The computer is a called a “Colossus”

Thank you for reading the blog and please recall that a blogger is a lone human being just the same as you.

Hubris and sincere courtesy and appreciation need never be at odds

If Houston Has $24 Million Extra For Police, We Have Money To Help Get Innocent People Out Of Jail

Ronald Gene Taylor is a Houston man who spent 14 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. He was recently released based on DNA evidence.  

Houston has a crime lab with a long history of sending innocent people to jail.

Mr. Taylor spoke yesterday before Houston City Council. He asked that the Mayor and Council look into other cases that might be similar to his situation.

The Houston Chronicle reports the following about Mr. Taylor’s remarks before City Council—

” (They)….vowed to devise a plan and quickly review 180 newly identified cases with crime lab evidence similar to Taylor’s. But they stopped short of proposing a concrete plan for reviewing the cases or committing resources for the effort.”  

Mayor Bill White just found $24 million dollars for more police. The city appeared to find that money out of the blue. If we can find that money, we can surely find the resources to help exonerate potentially innocent people wasting their lives in prison.  

The Mobility Of Ideas

 

I’ve begun reading Wanderlust—A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit. I walk often—Even here in pedestrian-hostile Houston. 

Here is an excerpt from the book I think has some value. Ms. Solnit is speaking of the Ancient Greek Sophists and it leads to these thoughts—

“….they were often mobile, as are many of those whose first loyalty is to ideas. It may be that loyalty to something as immaterial as ideas sets thinkers apart from those whose loyalty is tied to people and locale, for the loyalty that ties down the latter will often drive the former from place to place. It is an attachment that requires detachment…..ideas are not as reliable or popular a crop as, say, corn, and those who cultivate them often must keep moving in pursuit of support as well as truth. Many professions in many cultures, from musicians to medics, have been nomadic, possessed of a kind of diplomatic immunity to the strife between communities that keeps others local.”

I can relate to this to some degree and I imagine many others can as well