Who I am…
I am a lawyer, former mother of teenagers, and a quixotic seeker after and champion of factual truth.
I make the best damn brownies you have ever had that are not regulated by the federal government.
I love movies, Broadway, and intelligent conversation.
I think in song lyrics and movie and television quotes.
I believe in the use of proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar even in text messages. I am willing to debate the use of the Oxford comma, if you know what the Oxford comma is. It also makes me very happy if people use the subjunctive mood when appropriate.
I have been told I intimidate people. I am really just a fluffy-centered teddy bear. Really.
- It's all my fault. No, really. The views expressed in this blog are mine and mine alone and in no way whatsoever represent the views of anyone else, including any past, present, or future employer.
- Follow The Wild Winds of Fortune on WordPress.com
Wild Winds of Fortune Feed
Search this blog
Archives
Words to live by ….
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8.
“Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living.” Mary Harris (“Mother Jones”).
“Don’t boo. Vote.” Barack Obama.
“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” Reinhold Niebuhr.
“No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.” Sir Terry Pratchett.
“Damning facts are still facts.” Steven C. Holtzman.
“If you don’t stick to your values when they’re tested, they’re not values — they’re hobbies.” Jon Stewart.
“Darkness never sustains, even though it sometimes seems it will.” Doctor Who.
“Writing is a form of mischief.” Stephen Sondheim.
“An idea is not responsible for the people who believe it.” Don Marquis.
“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” Joseph Campbell.
“Truth is our strongest ally, our biggest weapon, and our best defense.” Me.
“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Stephen Colbert.
“The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation.” Jonathan Larson.
“We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger.
We rise and fall, and light from dying embers
Remembrances that hope and love last longer.
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love;
Cannot be killed or swept aside.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda.“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” Emma Goldman.
“No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett.
“I believe that the God who made (among other things) light, and space, and number, and time, and the spiral curve of Fibonacci numbers, must be acknowledged to understand more than I do about why there’s pain in the world.” Teresa Neilsen Hayden.
“No, it’s not fair. You’re in the wrong universe for fair.” John Scalzi.
“Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.” Lawrence O’Donnell
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.” Molly Ivins.
- Art Beadwork Blogging Books Culture (popular and otherwise) Family Feminism Food God faith and theology Health History Justice KIds Kids in all their glory Miscellany Music My life and times nothing special Personal Relationships Politics Science SCOTUS Social Issues Sports The Internet and its perils The World Travel (real or imaginary) Who I am Work! Writing
Tags
- abortion
- Antarctica
- anti-vaxxers
- architecture
- Art
- baseball
- blogging
- Books
- Broadway!
- Capital punishment
- chinchilla races
- computer
- elections
- Everybody talks about the weather
- Feminism
- first
- first-world problems
- Florida
- football
- Gamergate
- Geeks! Geeks! Geeks!
- Get your red hot links here!
- GMOs
- God faith and theology
- Gratitude
- guns
- hehehe
- hehehehe
- History
- LGBT rights and issues
- life
- life sucks sometimes
- Look what I made!
- mental health
- Mindfulness
- Mom
- Moooom!!!!!
- movies
- Music
- My friends are the coolest people
- NASA
- neil-gaiman
- news
- notes to self
- People worth listening to
- poetry
- Politics
- privacy
- Profundities
- Railfan
- really cool things
- recipes
- Reprehensible people
- Space
- technology
- television
- The Interminable Job Search
- The Not-So-Little Drummer Boy
- The NSLDB
- The Red-Headed Menace strikes again
- The Rocket Scientist. the field season
- the search for truth
- The Voice
- The wonderful Penwiper
- things I believe
- torture
- Tragedy
- Trivia
- Unions
- Voting
- What did I do now?
- What I like
- writing
- you have *got* to be freaking kidding me
-
Join 303 other subscribers
Contact info:
Email me at wwf@lithic.net
Monthly Archives: September 2015
I’ve just downloaded and installed the latest OS X for my Macbook Pro (vintage 2011). Having exhausted the “Big Cats” naming convention, Apple continued with the “Great Places In California” theme with El Capitan. I was a little dubious: Yosemite … Continue reading
The sword cuts both ways.
Pope John Paul II decried “cafeteria Catholicism,” being in the Church while not accepting some of its decreed tenets. He was right. Even though I was raised Roman Catholic, I am not now and will not be in the Church … Continue reading
Our long national nightmare is over. Judge George H. King, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California, ruled this week that the copyrights claimed for the lyrics to “Happy Birthday” were invalid. Hurrah! No … Continue reading
Breathtaking (literally) corporate malfeasance.
Lately, the only things I find unspeakably awful are the Republican presidential candidates. I know other awful monsters are out there, but my outrage meter has been pegged pretty high. This, though, exceeds it by a mile. Volkswagen modified the … Continue reading
Dear Ben Carson: I know people who support you. People I love. People I care about. I don’t understand it, but then they can’t figure out why I like Bernie Sanders, either. I saw where you stated that a Muslim … Continue reading
This has gotten old.
I watched ten minutes of the Republican debates last week. That’s up from two minutes for the first one. I have heard other bits and pieces through the week. If I think about them too long, I start to feel … Continue reading
Which of these things is not like the others?
I have been intellectually lazy. Not the first time, nor I suspect, the last. Like quite a number of people — professional pundits and Facebook philosophers alike — I have equated the candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Outsiders rule … Continue reading
Government surveillance for good.
Remember my tree? I had to have a talk with the city department of Forestry today. We had received a letter lecturing us about the heritage tree ordinance, and stating that several neighbors had complained about our removing the tree. … Continue reading
This Labor Day…
If you have paid sick or vacation leave, thank unions. If you get overtime at your job if you work more than forty hours a week, thank unions. If your kid isn’t working in a sweatshop, thank unions. If you … Continue reading
I read through my last post about Mike and Ikes, and realized that my protestations to the contrary I do eat Hershey’s Chocolate on a regular basis. I eat miniature Hershey’s Bars when I am at work. Campaigns run on … Continue reading
Cleaning up.
I adore high-end (preferably custom-made) chocolates. My current faves are from Alexander’s Patisserie in Mountain View, CA. (The site does not seem to have pictures of the chocolates, which is a shame: they are encased in a very thin shell … Continue reading
No, you’re not a martyr to your faith.
People scream about the First Amendment a lot. Usually they claim that their right to free speech is being violated, just because they are boycotted or face demands that they be fired or criticized for making offensive statements on the … Continue reading
Whiny, navel-gazing post of the month.
I have been re-reading a bunch of my posts. I think I have a “voice,” but I also think the voice tends to be over-serious, humorless, and somewhat presumptuous. I know there are political blogs out there, and personal blogs … Continue reading
“Being Poor,” ten years on.
Ten years ago today, in the aftermath of Katrina, John Scalzi wrote one of the most deeply profound pieces on poverty in America I have ever read. I made my kids read it when they got old enough I thought … Continue reading
Hope.
Ted Cruz and Chris Christie mocked Jimmy Carter the day after the former president announced he had cancer which had spread to his brain. This on top of Cruz making fun of Joe Biden earlier this year, three days after … Continue reading
The Wild Winds of Fortune 