Explaining the Obvious

I wonder why these people would imagine that I would want to be Lori Way's mother? Just because I happened to overhear her arguing with her mother rather loudly about dancing. As if it matters one bit what that dance hall bimbo thinks about anything? Just because her Dad is a pilot and her Mom bakes some huge chocolate chip cookies, that does not mean that I should be forced to drag these obnoxious people around with me for the rest of my life. Do I owe you something? I am no longer accepting these invitations from rich people who only want a retinue, not a friend. I am just dittoing whatever I would say about Cori because I cannot really tell those two apart anymore. They melted together into one obnoxious broom witch who was fired from the position of "friend" long ago. I need those snarky back-stabbing people in my life like I need enemies

Ok, so Wicked Witch Lori married that sniveling little creep Al Moore, as if he were anything but some camerman working in video or something like all of those people. I have no idea what they do now just as I had no idea what they were up to back then and I really don't care.

Which Reminds Me

The U.S. government is apparently unable to protect us from the aggressions and territorialities of this network of "It" conspirators of which Thomas is apparently a willing  and wickedly snickering participant. As if we would ever want to hear from the Stricklands of the U.K. or Malta. We really could not care less about being exposed to their sinister intrigues. Only recently, in doing my geneaological research, have I discovered that the Stricklands in America may or may not be descended from Matthew Strickland who came to America in the 1600s. He was born at Sizergh Castle which was apparently the feudal headquarters of the Stricklands, but died at Lower Parish in Isle of Wight, Virginia. Oh, I didn't know that. I had no idea the Stricklands were anything but regular folks back in England. We just don't know these things here in America. It just doesn't matter. We do not have monarchy or aristocracy and could not care less about rebuilding that system over here.

The Stricklands who stayed in the UK and did not emigrate to America branch down to the Walter Strickland who married Barbara Huddleston Abney-Hastings, the 13th Countess of Loudon. Their son Michael emigrated to Australia and his heir is Simon, the 15th Earl of Loudon. Ok, so whatever. We don't know those people. It is sometimes amusing to hear about them on the news or read about them on Wikipedia but there is no personal acquaintance. We just have no idea.

Barbara is the one who is of Plantegenet descent, a family that has claims of being the true heirs of the English throne, as if history could ever be any different than it is now. Anyway, we are not in any way connected to the Plantegenets so we don't want to be hearing too much about that. We have our lives here in America and these distractions are just too much.

Thus there is no reason for myself to feel inferior to these Canadians — Dawn Saword, Linda Crawley, Rafael Carias, Michele. Just because they are Canadian, and feel themselves bound to pay homage to the British monarchy as Canadian Expats, that does not mean that their attacking me is going to change the course of history.

They will not be getting any medals, prizes or awards for being such ungracious bullies. Their opinions of me are not worth two cents when obviously all of them could also easily be buried in shame if all their friends and family were likewise induced to turn on them and deliver the goods. I am sure that I don't know the half of it.

Lost in Translation

I am not unaware of a huge list of Spanish-language books that have yet to be translated into the English language. Some people in Spain imagine themselves on the cutting edge of Reformed theology and think that we here in America are clamoring to read more of them. I am not saying that every book should not be translated into every other language eventually, but God has no need of translators. Who is your audience anyway? There is also a long list of English language books that never get translated into Spanish for various reasons, especially if they are too politically and culturally American so as to be not that meaningful to people in other countries. Sometimes things just get lost in translation, in other words.

I did translate five books into English from Spanish but only because the publishing company asked and was willing to pay the price for translation and book production. Publishing companies pay several thousand dollars to get a single book to market in their meticulous and quality controlled way so they like to know that the book translated into Spanish is from an author who is very popular and well known to the target audience, the Hispanic market of America, so that at the very least the costs of book production will be covered. Just some local pastor of a sleepy little village in Spain might not be known or heard of in America even if all his friends over there like him very much and highly recommend him.

I am just saying that the poor and under-capitalized translator is only going to do the work if paid and if no publishing company is going to pay then obviously the translator is not a publishing company by virtue of translation of alone. It takes several days, weeks, perhaps even months in some cases, to do a translation job. The rights belong to the author who gets the royalties and the publishing company who leases the rights and gets a commission also on future sales but the translator only gets the one-time translation fee. Thus there is no incentive for the pathetically poor translator to bother with translating books that may or may not sell a half-dozen copies now and then.

Thus there is no reason for some huge publishing company to be beating up on some poor little translator who actually does not know what happened or care that much. I just have no idea.

Which Reminds Me

For some mysterious reason my parents named me Candi but their second choice of first name for me was Nancy. However, that never happened.

Dutch vs. Danish

Yes, I don't want to hear another word about this so-called war between the Dutch and the Danish, as if the Nelsons were ever Danish and I was thrown to the Dutch. How utterly ridiculous. It would not be so hard for me to throw the Peter Nelsons to the Baptists, as if they were ever Pentecostal in the first place. Well, just because you were born in a Pentecostal family, that does not mean the only solution is to go Baptist. There could be plenty of other options other than Baptist if you really want to settle for something less. If you really cannot believe anything you could even be an atheist. I mean, that would be radical, but isn't radical an end in itself nowadays? Just be radical no matter how stupid that might be seems a common theme of our times. But when is stupid good or bad? Sometimes it is good to admit that we only started something, we only got something started and don't really know where it might lead in a few hundred years, give or take some, till Jesus comes. In the meantime, we cannot just pretend that we did not have something better than the Baptists. The Baptists were good but they were from Atlanta, Southern belle territory, so obviously we are not going to agree on every point of U.S. history and politics. They have their strongly voiced opinions but we never really cared that much about reenacting the Civil War. They just weren't that important to us. Of else if you are the Confederate Nelsons you might argue that the Baptists are from Detroit. Yes, it is just a straw man argument that just makes everyone confused about who is Dutch or Danish.

Which Reminds Me

When I did a three- or four-month internship at a newspaper I was required to sign some type of contract giving them exclusive rights to whatever I might write for them. The only thing I wrote for them were about 10 articles and also some little short items and calendar entries. And that only means that I cannot send those articles to some other magazine pretending that those articles are not already copyrighted by someone else. I cannot offer the right of first publication on those particular items, not that it matters all that much. I could still use the information in the article and rewrite it some other way and offer first rights on that. I just would not be able to republish the article as originally published. I could use those 10 articles as clips attached to my resume if I wanted to but I am not sure that I would want an editor to think that all of those assigned and heavily edited articles actually represent what I would think of doing without a gang of editors over my head.

No Deal

And what makes those Dutch dogs imagine that I would agree to pay for their stupid brownie tricks? No way! I will not! The trailer trash Asmuth girls will have to make their own explanations because there is no way that I am connected to all their garbage, all their rotten attitudes, all their harping about every little thing that was not really such a big deal.  In fact, at the time I did not know anything at all about Karen's other immoral ventures that came later. The wicked Dutch Asmuth girls may have a lot of explaining to do but I cannot be expected to do it for them. I suspect, in fact am fairly certain that I do not know the half of it so don't ask me. Ask them.