They Were Wrong

It was the war to end all wars.   

They couldn’t imagine that such carnage was possible.  

Chivalry, gallantry and honor were dead.  

Without that, what good war? 

They thought it the last war ever fought.   

They celebrated its end.  Declared a holiday, Armistice Day.  They were wrong.  

So, they changed it to Memorial Day.

Friday Flash 55 at the G-Man's

Of Silver Springs and Dancing Girls

This post is probably better suited for Facebook than a blog, but I've been so busy with other stuff my head just hasn't been into it lately.  However, a couple of weeks ago I met my buddy Punch down in Ocala to attend an open house at Silver Springs attraction hosted by the Silver Springs Alliance, of which I am a member.

It was a walk down memory lane for both of us as Silver Springs was a favorite destination for high school trips and such back in the day.  It was also a favorite location for motion pictures.  All of the original Tarzan movies were filmed here along with such notables as The Yearling and The Creature From The Black Lagoon.  Also such TV series as Sea Hunt, Wild Kingdom and SeaQuest attracted by the crystal clear waters and scores of fish.

Today, the springs, all of Florida's springs for that matter, are polluted with fertilizers and runoff and the beautiful sand bottoms are becoming covered in algae.  The swarms of fish and manatees that use to migrate into the springs no longer can because of a dam built on the Oklawaha River for the construction of the Cross Florida Barge Canal, another "conservative" boondoggle gone bad.

The famous glass bottom boats were running.  These boats were created here at the springs.  We chose to watch from the shore with a beer in the lounge chairs you see in the distance.

The river is still beautiful.

That night we went to a festival just a little out of town, the Paralounge Drum Gathering.  As the name implies, a huge gathering of drummers who pound out the rhythms as the girls whirl.  I love watching whirling girls.  Don't know why.

Not a bad weekend for two old men with nothing better to do.

The Geography of Hate. Be careful what you tweet, you twit!

Here's another one of those Twitter maps that's interesting.  The first time I became aware of this socio-mapping was during the last presidential election when Twitter followed tweets across the country and mapped in real time conversations, pro and con each candidate, as the election progressed.

This map, created by geography students at Humboldt State University in California, looks at more than 150,000 geocoded tweets (tweets that say where the user is located) between June 2012 and April 2013, sorting for those that contained a racist, homophobic or anti-disability word. The researchers then decided whether or not the tweet was using the word in a hateful way.

Of course, as so often happens with these type things, the survey is slanted to support a preconceived view.  You'll notice that, in the student's erstwhile effort to uncover hate in American, they have conveniently omitted a search for words of reverse discrimination such as, whitey or cracker or honky.  It figures.  I could write a tome on how the creation of the blues and jazz has been handed over to the blacks, but that's another story.

Here's The Link To The Interactive Map,  it's worth a look.  Scroll over the words at the top for a more detailed search and zoom in to the county level.