tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226967002007-04-02T15:04:40.220-04:00RobertaBlogger191tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-57747718645000532812007-04-01T13:26:00.000-04:002007-04-02T14:47:14.366-04:00

When I launched this blog, my purpose was to free myself from the pernicious habit of not writing unless I was being paid by the hour. It worked. Lately, whenever I have a block of unfilled time, I turn to the blog. It seems I always have something to say, although I'll admit my subject matter has no particular focus. This seems to have fallen out of favor in the bloggers' world. Most of the

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-23495598080432891912007-03-27T11:10:00.000-04:002007-03-29T01:01:22.068-04:00

I've already noted a story about mice hurling themselves from a cliff and cows felled in a chicken coop, but I can't resist this strange and wonderful animal story from Israel. JERUSALEM: A woman was caught with three crocodiles strapped to her waist at the Gaza-Egypt border crossing after guards noticed that she looked "strangely fat," officials said Monday. The woman's odd shape raised

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-23068971429370910582007-03-28T20:23:00.000-04:002007-03-28T20:46:48.773-04:00

In Chapel Hill, when the UNC basketball teams are in the final stages of a tournament, everyone in town wears blue. It's hard to say exactly what true Carolina blue is. Most of what you see hereabouts is an innocuous light blue; it's on the busses, the fire trucks, and seemingly every T shirt in town But the paint on the court at the Dean Dome is slightly different, with a tinge of turquoise.

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1147826961816655082006-05-16T20:43:00.000-04:002007-03-27T20:57:28.876-04:00

Posted on debka.com, May 16, 2006, 9:19 PM (GMT+02:00) Palestinian projectile which struck Kibbutz Netiv Ha’asara hen-run and greenhouses from Gaza Tuesday was a 122mm Grad rocket. The damage included 30 dead chickens.

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1153619480315251032006-07-22T21:50:00.000-04:002007-03-27T20:56:50.027-04:00

Today, with projectiles flying from Gaza to Beirut, my most immedite previous post (from May) does not seem amusing.

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1153621290189403852006-07-22T21:53:00.000-04:002007-03-27T20:56:16.941-04:00

Nothing can better illustrate the passage of time than the knowledge that you're now on your third domain. But even if your hard disk has crashed, taking with it the remnants of sites past, all is not lost! There's still the WayBack Machine, the amazing internet archive. Sure enough, most of my first site, Me and My Bright Ideas, was captured and is still readable, if you don't mind missing

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1156015552778802302006-08-19T15:24:00.000-04:002007-03-27T20:55:42.449-04:00

Where has this month gone? Into the history books, I guess. Nothing good will have come from this chapter of what seems like an eternal saga of war, except this headline, from the online edition of the Jerusalem Post: Aug. 8, 2006 19:11 7 rockets hit Nahariya chicken coop, 2 cows die This tops my all time favorite bit of news from Israel, usurping the position of an article reporting that

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1167703846471657302007-01-01T20:48:00.000-05:002007-03-27T20:55:03.915-04:00

I went to see the Tarheels play (basketball, of course) last Thursday. On Saturday I went to what was being billed as the John Edwards " homecoming rally," which was held in the town common of one of the planned communities hereabouts. About 5000 of the most cooperative, pleasant, and patient people you can imagine turned out for this, and waited a good two hours before Edwards and his merry clan

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1167710370948070902007-01-01T22:45:00.000-05:002007-03-27T20:54:25.551-04:00

A post on the diary section of the John Edwards blog with the unlikely title defining trait of Middle Eastern Jews and Muslims," caught my eye. I'm all in favor of free speech and the rise of the citizen journalist, but to see this piece of crap on the Edwards site is what we Jews call a "shanda" (roughly, a shame to the community). So I responded to it, and I'm posting my response here too.

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1167716538120555302007-01-02T00:35:00.000-05:002007-03-27T20:53:30.866-04:00

Now that I have a bit more time to blog, I might as well attract some readers. So I've just signed onto Technorati, which gives blog freaks tools for tracking their favorites. You do this by putting a little bit of code into a post, which produces a link like this: Technorati Profile When I see this sort of thing, it seems like a million years ago (actually it was 1994) when I built my first

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-57017379190830218312007-03-06T16:56:00.000-05:002007-03-27T20:52:47.166-04:00

By now, Anne Coulter's idiotic comment about John Edwards has probably been blogged to death. But I think I know what, outside of her general hatred for liberals, might have prompted such an assumption. It's his hair.Men in the South, particularly the upscale ones (lawyers and such), all have the same haircut. It's parted on one side or the other, fairly short except on the top which sweeps

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-47995933921733743802007-03-11T12:13:00.000-04:002007-03-27T20:50:49.620-04:00

I live in townhouse in an area called Colony Lake, which is in the not-upscale part of Chapel Hill. My place was a real find; it wasn't even on the market when I convinced the owner, who had suddenly up and moved to Chicago, to sell it to me. The place was a disaster. Ms. Islam, the former owner (yes, that was her real name, which seemed unfortunate just after 9/11) had put the condo on the

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-65429718000084742442007-03-16T22:41:00.000-04:002007-03-27T01:44:53.764-04:00

Contemporary technology poses an anatomical challenge. I've been thinking about the interplay between my ears and my eyes lately. Sometimes I wear contact lenses, sometimes I don't. If I'm wearing contacts, I still need to wear sunglasses or reading glasses or reading glasses that morph into sunglasses. That's one set of temples atop my ears. No problem. If I'm wearing glasses, it gets a little

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-63327840646482668102007-03-09T22:15:00.000-05:002007-03-09T22:19:40.524-05:00

Yup, it's hair spray, all right. Take a look.

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1140669979400536102006-02-22T23:33:00.000-05:002007-01-01T20:08:04.416-05:00

I moved here three years ago, one of those "damned Yankees" who comes here to visit and stays. Slowly I'm learning to become southern - to slow down, quiet down, watch college basketball games. Basketball qualifies as a religion in Chapel Hill. One doesn't schedule a dinner party without checking to see if there's a game. All normal social life ceases during the ACC tournament. The Super Bowl is

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1140403502575307192006-02-19T21:33:00.000-05:002006-08-07T18:58:49.696-04:00

I have no idea why I watch the Daytona 500, but it's two years in a row that I've done this. I suspect that I'm trying to figure out why this racing business has become the biggest sports attraction in the country. Perhaps it's that, for many people, it seems accessible. You don't need a perfect body; you don't even have to train. You just have to know how to drive a car real well and find

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1146617199228171592006-05-02T20:40:00.000-04:002006-05-02T20:46:39.243-04:00

Mexico is about to decriminalize possession of small amounts of heroin and cocaine. So here's the deal. We send Mexico our addicts, so they can get a legal fix. They send us their patient, hardworking men and woman, looking for a better life than Mexico can provide them. It's a win-win, but only on one side. Ours.

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1142483431910345312006-03-15T23:28:00.000-05:002006-03-15T23:30:31.920-05:00

Some people have an awful lot of time on their hands. Take a look at these politicians in drag.

Robertatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22696700.post-1141581347971775062006-03-05T12:42:00.000-05:002006-03-05T12:55:47.983-05:00

I'm watching CNN, where Wolf Blitzer (clearly Jewish) is interviewing the economic minister of the United Arab Emirates. She is a Sheikha, well spoken, beautifully made up and groomed, her head covered in a way that can only be described as chic. In the middle of the N&D sports section you'll find three entire pages of coverage of the ACC women's basketball championships. Back in the 60's, having

Roberta