Tales from Uncle Mike

I tried to use my T-mobile phone to automatically post to my blog, and this is the best (?) I could come up with. It sent the whole album page for the picture. Anyway, this is my dad. This is the only recent picture of him. We should take some together. View more photos from mikeburtner@gmail.com Hello (mikeburtner@gmail.com) wanted to share this great T-Mobile camera phone photo with you! - Leave a comment on my photo

 

I was searching YouTube for this video that I made with my webcam, to see if anyone had watched it. Here is what I found out. There have been 190 views of this video. There are also literally thousands of other webcam videos that look remarkably like mine. And there are over 50 of cats or kittens named "Grace" or "Gracie". I feel like such a dork.

A recent study , from a sampling of college students nationwide, finds that they tested higher on the Narcissistic Personality Index than previous generations. I am, admittedly, at odds with most of my friends over this very issue. A lot of people rebel against the way they were raised, and I am no exception. But after many years, I came to appreciate being raised with an almost casual indifference to my hopes and goals, being raised to understand that life is hard, short and brutal, and totally up to me, if it is to be any different. I was not praised because I was precocious and intelligent: I was told to apply myself or I would end up at the factory like my dad. We were not allowed to go anywhere we wanted, spend hours on the phone, talk or dress like the kids on TV, and basically have our own "lifestyle". We had rules that were arbitrary and designed mostly for our parents' peace of mind. And there's nothing wrong with that. Here's a quote: Twenge, the ...

"I don't even know where to begin." That's what a lot of people say when they are so mad, they don't know how to express it completely, rationally. Anger has a way of taking over your body, and in this case, my body is very much the issue. Let me say this first: I am a Libertarian, an atheist, a citizen and a patriot. When I say 'patriot', I don't mean in the current, jingoistic sense of 'nationalist idiot'. I mean that I love my country. I love what America stands for, the ideals and promises we keep safe for future generations. The Civil War makes me deeply sad. In my opinion, it is a wound that has never healed, and has kept us from being the great Nation envisioned by those who came before. I hate the word 'atheist'. But it is the most sharp division I can make, without going through a lengthy and probably futile explanation of a worldview that excludes the possibility (and the necessity) of supernatural explanations for natu...