e. l . wood is a native of birmingham, alabama. he grew up on the urban streets of dallas, texas before attending
college at houston baptist university where he earned a b. a. in english and psychology. after a year of teaching high school english in the public schools of houston, e. l. wood attended sam houston state university where he earned a master’s degree in english. after bouncing around the deep south for several years, he finished his ph. d. in american literature before 1900 at the university of southern mississippi. e. l. wood has been teaching in some capacity since 1992 and has taught for a local community college since 1995. in his spare time, e.l. wood enjoys reading, movies, and the outdoors. he is personally acquainted with several search and rescue teams around the southeast. he is married to the lovely and gracious a. c. they have a daughter (special k), and one dog. They reside in h'burg, deep south. in addition to being the sole proprietor of the gandy dancer billiard parlor, e. l. wood dabbles in folk art and the occasional cultivation of a handlebar mustache.
ezra taft benson was the secretary of agriculture in the eisenhower administration. i’m not sure how popular he was then, but i wish there were more wise politicians with some cajones like ezra’s around today. i understand he actually was a prophet in the lds organization. i think that's what the bookend weirdness of the second clip is all about. after listening to a few of his words, it seems maybe he did have a touch of the sight. certainly, he was on the mark politically.
america - how much more can you take? when are you going to listen and realize what's going down? wake up out there. the wool is being pulled over your eyes as the following quote and clip illustrate.
from the press conference last night, obama says: "I know that there are a lot of folks out there who've been saying, 'Oh, this is pork, and this is money that's going to be wasted,' and et cetera, et cetera. Understand, this bill does not have a single earmark in it, which is unprecedented for a bill of this size. ... There aren't individual pork projects that members of Congress are putting into this bill."
the bold italics are mine for emphasis in light of the following clip.
of course one of the benefits of watching the super bowl is the commercials. however, one commercial in particular was quite haunting.
initially, this commercial made me think of mike judge’s idiocracy (which is a great satire on what happens to a culture that abandons literacy). in the imaginary future of idiocracy, the number one show on television in the year 2506 is owww, my balls. the fictional sit-com revolves around a single theme: how the protagonist’s testicles are assaulted and abused as he carries out his daily routines. after thinking of judge’s vision, i recalled reading neil postman’s great book, amusing ourselves to death: public discourse in the age of show business. in the book, postman reminds us that television’s entertainment value is a type of huxleyian “soma” which lulls folks into a blissful ignorance which translates into a voluntary relinquishment of their rights to the government. if television is a gateway drug and the internet is crack, what sort of drug is hulu? the future is now. and we need to detoxify ourselves. we’ve medicated ourselves into a state of consciousness from which we might never awake. before it's too late, turn off the visual media and read chris van alsberg's the wretched stone to your kids.
