Me too. Those old ballads tell some incredible stories . I like rhyming poetry best and have never understood why it fell out of fashion as most songs are basically rhyming lyrics anyway.
You know why, Rainbow. There isn't much left of education. Having a large vocabulary, creating rhymes with said vocabulary, and spending time having to think are just too much for the 30-second-soundbite/texting/snapchat generations.
It irritates me to no end that my company recently “updated” our handbook to replace the words ‘nursing mother’ with ‘lactating employee’. Plus took all female references out of the paragraph.
The problem is that the "they" who are fomenting this lunacy are almost entirely composed of the "you" - HR graduates of some Ivy league factory or their little sister finishing school such as Sarah Lawrence....
Honestly, I'd guess that there are non-believers among the HR tribe, but as with most employees these days, they go-along-to-get-along to keep their jobs. 😢
I'll fess up. I'm one of the lifelong HR types- formally in different HR verticals, and now consulting. As with many things, a lot of what people "blame HR" for is not exactly accurate. But I totally get why many people in the profession have the reputation they do.
I suppose if we ever want to talk about how HR actually works I'll chime in, but for obvious reasons I'm pretty slow to jump in and preface anything by providing my background. Currently having that as part of your resume is much like declaring yourself to be a leper.
God forbid your company should offend that one-person-ever (or never) in the firm's history those terms would apply to! I can't roll my eyes hard enough at this garbage!
It’s totally stupid anyway as we are a fully remote workforce. There’s no need to talk about accommodations for nursing mothers or otherwise when everybody already works from home.
I'm rather surprised that your government is actually naming this group as a criminal organization. I guess attacking the military was beyond the pale.
And the globalize the intifada guy newly released from prison while his court case exPelling him from the country goes on, is now back in NYC globalizing the intifada and pimping for Iran!
A strange little tuna for sure! A reminder to never underestimate the wrath of a woman scorned and especially that of a witch who can turn you into a worm...........
Well, old tales are filled with women who turn men into animals. Look at Circe. Whole lotta swine milling about her island.
Different from poor old Hecuba who, upon learning that her trusted servant has murdered her child, turns into a dog. (Hence the word "cynic.")
Sorry -- a pedantic fit. It happens.
A most magnificent two-hour tour of Gettysburg battlefields yesterday afternoon. It's nice to have a Celia-made community of people who can advise one. Thanks, all.
I spent a lot of time at Gettysburg when I was in grad school 35 years ago, quite a place. I was doing deer and plant surveys, but was also interested in the history...and the tourists. I remember watching people with their camcorders recording lots of the monuments for as long as it took them to reach the inscriptions, they forgot they would have a pause button to read them later and not need 1-2 minutes of tape for some of them :-)
I was thinking that almost any of the ugly old liberal white crones throwing themselves around at no kings or illegal alien demos could give old Gross Alison a run for her money. Think saggy tattoos, too......
You just reminded me of a poem I wrote years ago called- "Where Have All The Scary Grannies Gone' It involved Botox and looking glass mirrors and such........
Yeah I just found it. But it goes the other way with the scary granny motif. Ie the truly scary grannies I grew up with who had a shotgun behind the door! The question is asked as a refrain -where have all those kinds of scary grannies gone who never used to take any shit from anyone, least of all the entittled little pipsqueaks of today.
Humm, I am one of those Grannies. I was that way when I was young, as well. We lived on a farm way off the road. My husband worked 3rd shift. We had 3 little children all under 8. We had the shell of the house built and finished the inside ourselves. One night after we moved in a vehicle drove up our long driveway. I had no clue who it was. So I went and got the shotgun we had, loaded it, went to the window and saw that the person or persons got out of the pickup truck. I could see that they were walking to the 3 acre pond that we had. So I went out the door, I had our German Shepherd dog with me. I stood there on the sidewalk by the porch and hollered out, "Identify yourselves, I have a shotgun and I know how to use it." They ran toward the truck. Then one voice yelled, "Don't shoot, it's me Kurt." It was a neighbor boy from around the corner. They wanted to go gigging for bull frogs. He and his buddies thought we'd be in bed at that hour and it wouldn't matter. After that my reputation in the neighborhood became legendary among the kids and I always got a phone call or a daytime visit if they wanted to go frog gigging.
Perfect! So glad to know some of you old style grannies are still around. My favorite elder used to say there is nothing like the sound of a shotgun being pumped behind the door to make a potential intruder think twice!
And I know where the scary grannies are .... they're in Wilmette, IL town green every Saturday at 11:00am, carrying their slogan/propaganda posters-of-the-week.
My poem actually referred to the old style scary granny who did not tolerate misbehavior. The ones who did not waste their time protesting, they just took care of business directly.
I remember reading that Janet Reno's mother was capable of wearing kid gloves and pouring tea with the ladies ... when she wasn't wrestling alligators.
I knew several southern ladies like that growing up. Butter wouldn't in their mouth at the church social, but you absolutely knew not to mess with them and I am sure they could have taken on an alligator or two.
That brings back memories of growing up in England in the 60s! Just like the recent posting of Boney M's Rasputin, which I hadn't heard in donkey's years. Thanks for the memories!
It’s definitely not a knee-slapper. Ugly seems to be the theme and we do seem to have a lot of that going around now. Let’s hope the spell gets broken quickly
At the risk of being Linus,* I wonder…If a witch could turn him into a worm, why couldn’t she do some magic plastic surgery on herself? Or on his perceptions of her? Why did it have to be bribery or wormhood? Is there some sort of moral to the story that I’m missing?
* I haven’t been able to locate the strip in question, but I recall a Peanuts episode in which Lucy had just finished reading The Three Bears to Linus. She asks him if he has any questions, and he replies that, yes, he does. It’s about cooling. Lucy looks at him quizzically as he continues to point out that if Papa Bear’s soup was too hot and Mama Bear’s was too cold, wouldn’t it make more sense that Baby Bear’s would be even colder? Next frame you see Lucy stalking off after having hit Linus, now lying on his back, with a thought bubble saying that that didn’t even raise the breaking and entering issue…
Now you've got me thinking...was Lucy the proto-AWFL?
She mistreated every male in her vicinity, including the one she was supposedly crushing on. She pretended to be a psychiatrist. She had no compunctions about her eternal lie about not snatching away the ball before Charlie could kick it.
Hmmm. I don’t recall a positive female character in all of Peanuts now that you mentioned it. Maybe the blonde little girl. Or the Sapphic Peppermint Patti and Marcie
Childer's Coffee and Covid is really interesting this morning. The section on the recent strange story of the political killings in Minnesota fills in the questions and info that MSMedia is NOT asking. It just gets stranger and stranger.
The big day is coming for the gold digger. And here’s the total scoop on how much it costs to be a Lauren Sanchez. The top photo sadly doesn’t include the cost of the watermelon boobs. PS she looked better before all the ahem enhancements. Bezos is such a fool. He better have an ironclad pre nup.
I love the pathetic fallacy often put to use in the Daily Mail's comments about her appearance: "Lauren's sheer dress struggled to contain her ample assets."
Steeleye Span? Was Pentangle unavailable? lMFAO 🤣 . As long as Fairport Convention is in the conversation how about Richard and Linda Thomason’s 1982 masterpiece Shoot Out the Lights (poster record for the “never date a band member” rule after Rumours).
ABCB rhyming throughout the stanzas until the end, when the pattern turns wormy.
I've always liked those old ballads.
Me too. Those old ballads tell some incredible stories . I like rhyming poetry best and have never understood why it fell out of fashion as most songs are basically rhyming lyrics anyway.
You know why, Rainbow. There isn't much left of education. Having a large vocabulary, creating rhymes with said vocabulary, and spending time having to think are just too much for the 30-second-soundbite/texting/snapchat generations.
You’ve just described why my Life’s Work is irrelevant nowadays. Lol
Sorry, Ken. I'm in the same boat.
I love Steeleye Span. Maddie Prior is lovely. She lives in Northumberland.
I see Israel are attacking Iran again and have apparently blown the doors of the notorious Evin prison where Iran keeps its political prisoners. Fingers crossed. https://x.com/MaryBanihashemi/status/1937083389565079835
And they hit some regime clock which was counting down to the destruction of Israel.
Lots of people cheered the BBC presenter and her eyeroll when she corrected 'pregnant people' to women. Hopefully she will not be forced to make the ritual apology. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/22/martine-croxall-is-a-heroine-bbc-jk-rowling/ or https://archive.ph/9cxgI
Palestine Action group are widely expected to be proscribed today. The Met Police have curtailed their ability to protest in front of Parliament today. They are now described as an extremist criminal group after causing 55mil pounds worth of damage at Brize Norton on Friday. Not before time. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/palestine-action-banned-from-parliament-protest-after-raf-attack-zpf03c26q or https://archive.ph/gJsxh
Good for her!
It irritates me to no end that my company recently “updated” our handbook to replace the words ‘nursing mother’ with ‘lactating employee’. Plus took all female references out of the paragraph.
The erasure of women and females in general also irritates me immensely. They never go after 'men' in this way (see prostate cancer info for example)
They should never have gone for 'mother' as it radicalized me and a number of other women
What they are going is discriminating against people whose literacy isn't great and/or who have English as a second language.
The general reaction has been cheering her on. So fingers crossed that this continues.
The problem is that the "they" who are fomenting this lunacy are almost entirely composed of the "you" - HR graduates of some Ivy league factory or their little sister finishing school such as Sarah Lawrence....
The growth of the HR (lanyard class) monster is well documented.
Yes they are high on their own virtue and superiority -- wherever they graduated from.
Jennifer Sey did a good article on why she refuses to have an HR department.
Honestly, I'd guess that there are non-believers among the HR tribe, but as with most employees these days, they go-along-to-get-along to keep their jobs. 😢
I'll fess up. I'm one of the lifelong HR types- formally in different HR verticals, and now consulting. As with many things, a lot of what people "blame HR" for is not exactly accurate. But I totally get why many people in the profession have the reputation they do.
I suppose if we ever want to talk about how HR actually works I'll chime in, but for obvious reasons I'm pretty slow to jump in and preface anything by providing my background. Currently having that as part of your resume is much like declaring yourself to be a leper.
I wanted to read that piece, but it’s paywalled.
The Sey piece? It is also in the NY Post https://nypost.com/2025/06/20/opinion/ive-ditched-hr-to-free-my-company-from-the-dei-police/
Bingo! Meanwhile, farmers and other good folks in Nebraska have no clue what this language means. Thank God! It exposes the raw stupidity.
The very idea that the word 'mother', of all words, would be demoted!
That was part of the point -- to destabilise the idea of the family and indeed the notion of parenthood. Mothers used be sacred.
iPhone asked for the gender pronouns of “Mom” this morning 😾
UGH.
Updating my phone this morning I was adding “Mom” and it asked for preferred pronouns 🤒🤡
God forbid your company should offend that one-person-ever (or never) in the firm's history those terms would apply to! I can't roll my eyes hard enough at this garbage!
It’s totally stupid anyway as we are a fully remote workforce. There’s no need to talk about accommodations for nursing mothers or otherwise when everybody already works from home.
OMG! Even stupider! 🤣🤣🤣
What are the company’s approved pronouns now?
“Faceless” and “Greed”
Hip Hurrah! Good News all around. About Damn Time. Thanks for sharing.
I'm rather surprised that your government is actually naming this group as a criminal organization. I guess attacking the military was beyond the pale.
They also used a sledgehammer on a policeman.
Their actions are getting more and more violent and disruptive. The defence industry is vital to national security. They crossed a line. FAFO
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g83l33wdeo
And it appears there has been a sea change in the BBC's thinking (I suspect the FWS ruling concentrated minds) BBC has stated that they welcomed the presenter's correction. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/media/article/bbc-martine-croxall-pregnant-woman-6mtvmg678 or https://archive.ph/yIkCy
And the globalize the intifada guy newly released from prison while his court case exPelling him from the country goes on, is now back in NYC globalizing the intifada and pimping for Iran!
A strange little tuna for sure! A reminder to never underestimate the wrath of a woman scorned and especially that of a witch who can turn you into a worm...........
Well, old tales are filled with women who turn men into animals. Look at Circe. Whole lotta swine milling about her island.
Different from poor old Hecuba who, upon learning that her trusted servant has murdered her child, turns into a dog. (Hence the word "cynic.")
Sorry -- a pedantic fit. It happens.
A most magnificent two-hour tour of Gettysburg battlefields yesterday afternoon. It's nice to have a Celia-made community of people who can advise one. Thanks, all.
Lots of dangerous women in those old tales.
I spent a lot of time at Gettysburg when I was in grad school 35 years ago, quite a place. I was doing deer and plant surveys, but was also interested in the history...and the tourists. I remember watching people with their camcorders recording lots of the monuments for as long as it took them to reach the inscriptions, they forgot they would have a pause button to read them later and not need 1-2 minutes of tape for some of them :-)
Why did he go to her bower? The word "trysted" suggests that he went there of his own free will.
Good question.
I never saw the lyrics written down and wasn’t sure what word was there. The song just pulls you in.
The character went to her tower to have an affair with her
Witch from North Country. And RMW thanks for the kind word about my post yesterday 👊
I was thinking that almost any of the ugly old liberal white crones throwing themselves around at no kings or illegal alien demos could give old Gross Alison a run for her money. Think saggy tattoos, too......
For a "true to life" visual, think stretched and sagging tattoos... 😂
Noooooooo.............!!!!!
Please JBell...the fresh ones disgust me.
Glad I didn’t read this thread before breakfast 🤢
You just reminded me of a poem I wrote years ago called- "Where Have All The Scary Grannies Gone' It involved Botox and looking glass mirrors and such........
You still have access to it?
Yeah I just found it. But it goes the other way with the scary granny motif. Ie the truly scary grannies I grew up with who had a shotgun behind the door! The question is asked as a refrain -where have all those kinds of scary grannies gone who never used to take any shit from anyone, least of all the entittled little pipsqueaks of today.
Humm, I am one of those Grannies. I was that way when I was young, as well. We lived on a farm way off the road. My husband worked 3rd shift. We had 3 little children all under 8. We had the shell of the house built and finished the inside ourselves. One night after we moved in a vehicle drove up our long driveway. I had no clue who it was. So I went and got the shotgun we had, loaded it, went to the window and saw that the person or persons got out of the pickup truck. I could see that they were walking to the 3 acre pond that we had. So I went out the door, I had our German Shepherd dog with me. I stood there on the sidewalk by the porch and hollered out, "Identify yourselves, I have a shotgun and I know how to use it." They ran toward the truck. Then one voice yelled, "Don't shoot, it's me Kurt." It was a neighbor boy from around the corner. They wanted to go gigging for bull frogs. He and his buddies thought we'd be in bed at that hour and it wouldn't matter. After that my reputation in the neighborhood became legendary among the kids and I always got a phone call or a daytime visit if they wanted to go frog gigging.
I didn't know it was called gigging. My daughter calls it frogging.
I am in Ohio and that is what they call it in my neighborhood 'O' (shrug of the shoulders) :'>
I've only known it as gigging, so at least this Texan calls it that!
The spear device used is called a “gig”. Also used for flounder etc
Would like to like this, but my red "like" turns black and disappears.
I hate Substack glitches!
Perfect! So glad to know some of you old style grannies are still around. My favorite elder used to say there is nothing like the sound of a shotgun being pumped behind the door to make a potential intruder think twice!
This is specifically why I got a pump shotgun. The sound is unmistakable.
Great title!
And I know where the scary grannies are .... they're in Wilmette, IL town green every Saturday at 11:00am, carrying their slogan/propaganda posters-of-the-week.
My poem actually referred to the old style scary granny who did not tolerate misbehavior. The ones who did not waste their time protesting, they just took care of business directly.
Similar to JD Vance's Grandmother.
Yes.
I remember reading that Janet Reno's mother was capable of wearing kid gloves and pouring tea with the ladies ... when she wasn't wrestling alligators.
I knew several southern ladies like that growing up. Butter wouldn't in their mouth at the church social, but you absolutely knew not to mess with them and I am sure they could have taken on an alligator or two.
Cool! Would love to read some of your poems
🤣🤣
Steeleye Span's acapella Latin rendition of Gaudete is one of my favorite Christmas tunes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTbq2pPLW6I
Mine too.
Thanks for the post, JD. I've never heard this and I really enjoyed it!
That brings back memories of growing up in England in the 60s! Just like the recent posting of Boney M's Rasputin, which I hadn't heard in donkey's years. Thanks for the memories!
May be their biggest hit on the charts.
It’s definitely not a knee-slapper. Ugly seems to be the theme and we do seem to have a lot of that going around now. Let’s hope the spell gets broken quickly
At the risk of being Linus,* I wonder…If a witch could turn him into a worm, why couldn’t she do some magic plastic surgery on herself? Or on his perceptions of her? Why did it have to be bribery or wormhood? Is there some sort of moral to the story that I’m missing?
* I haven’t been able to locate the strip in question, but I recall a Peanuts episode in which Lucy had just finished reading The Three Bears to Linus. She asks him if he has any questions, and he replies that, yes, he does. It’s about cooling. Lucy looks at him quizzically as he continues to point out that if Papa Bear’s soup was too hot and Mama Bear’s was too cold, wouldn’t it make more sense that Baby Bear’s would be even colder? Next frame you see Lucy stalking off after having hit Linus, now lying on his back, with a thought bubble saying that that didn’t even raise the breaking and entering issue…
Thanks for the laugh!
That’s why I’m here.
Now you've got me thinking...was Lucy the proto-AWFL?
She mistreated every male in her vicinity, including the one she was supposedly crushing on. She pretended to be a psychiatrist. She had no compunctions about her eternal lie about not snatching away the ball before Charlie could kick it.
Lucy was meanness personified. At her ~best,~ she was neutral. Pretty much zero in the milk of human kindness department.
Hmmm. I don’t recall a positive female character in all of Peanuts now that you mentioned it. Maybe the blonde little girl. Or the Sapphic Peppermint Patti and Marcie
Childer's Coffee and Covid is really interesting this morning. The section on the recent strange story of the political killings in Minnesota fills in the questions and info that MSMedia is NOT asking. It just gets stranger and stranger.
That was very odd, wasn't it?
It's even odder with all these new details. Something is just way, way off with this whole event.
The big day is coming for the gold digger. And here’s the total scoop on how much it costs to be a Lauren Sanchez. The top photo sadly doesn’t include the cost of the watermelon boobs. PS she looked better before all the ahem enhancements. Bezos is such a fool. He better have an ironclad pre nup.
https://archive.ph/iaaLr
I love the pathetic fallacy often put to use in the Daily Mail's comments about her appearance: "Lauren's sheer dress struggled to contain her ample assets."
Ms Sanchez is appropriate age, which is a credit to Bezos.
True but she’s a hideous fake human being from both looks and persona…though to be fair, I’ve never met her in person
Celia this was my favorite group in college! I have all their records. You absolutely need to have the music to enjoy it fully.
Steeleye Span? Was Pentangle unavailable? lMFAO 🤣 . As long as Fairport Convention is in the conversation how about Richard and Linda Thomason’s 1982 masterpiece Shoot Out the Lights (poster record for the “never date a band member” rule after Rumours).
Do you have her phone number? She sounds like my kind of woman.