This year to celebrate Women's Month of March, Amazon offers online games of gambling, bingo, other idiotic games that were created by women, but which contain nothing inherently womanly or exemplary. I looked at Amazon's three headliners (imaged below) and these games are not even worth reviewing. These games are worse than worthless, they are tutorials on gaming, gambling, and feeblemindedness. These games seek to lower one's expectations of what is a worthwhile use of time and money, and if successful are guaranteed to dumb down any portion of the human herd that succumbs to them. Celebrating women used to be looking to model oneself on women like former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Pi

Recently I was very happy to hear that a couple of years ago Arthur Andersen, LLP was sued into oblivion for its fraudulent practice of destroying records for clients who did not want those records to be revealed court cases; because I clearly recall in the early 1990s working for Arthur Anderson in a roomful of drones where our assignment was to delete blocks of text that contained certain key words, terms, and/or phrases from thousand and thousands of pages for one of Arthur Andersen's clients who was purging that content in order to hide it from a court in which they were being sued. I knew what was going on within the first hours of the first day, so I spoke to my supervisor to make sur

We are given no choice at birth, no one takes us through a check list of attributes, asking, "Would you like to be beige, brown, black, or something more exotic? Do you want curly hair, straight, or no hair at all? And what color eyes would please you most, the colors of the rainbow await your choice? Male, female, other, all-of-the-above? Tall, strong, slender, petite? Do you want a mind that is sharp or staid, sweet or sour, comfortable or edgy, what special blend of mind makes the perfect you? It is all your choice, just sign right here, and pass your soul on through the veils of birth into your perfect mind and body!" Not for us are those essential choices. Not even once, always we

Why is it that telescopes looking for intelligent life are always pointed away from Earth? (This is one of my all time favorite jokes.) Caption: Looking Outward For Intelligent Life by Annmarie Throckmorton 2019

I always drew, but this is the first acrylic painting that I ever did, I was twenty-three. My source for the image was a photograph of a mother bathing her children that was published in the Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota. I do not recall to whom I gave or sold the painting. I framed it, then placed it out there somewhere in the world, and went on to paint other things, many other things. Caption: Mother Bathing Children by Annmarie Throckmorton 1972 18" x 24"

John Mark proclaims on his website "Mark My Words": "Revolution Comes! “We are the the (sic) most important intellectual movement of the era – the Marxism of the 21st century – and it’s complete" As my avatar AdroitWaterBear I responded to John Mark's call to get rid of Big Government: John Mark. In your Propertarianistic world what provisions will you make for the elderly, the physically/mentally disabled, the intellectually ungifted? That vast group of unfortunates, and you or I would be one of them but for the grace of God/Luck, have been traditionally cared for by Big Government exactly because they have nothing to offer to a social contract. They are bereft of Goods to give. WARNING:

Half a century ago when I was a young woman just out of my teens, I had bright ambitions and goals. Thinking how best I might achieve good things for myself and society, I spun a globe of the world in my head and wondered where I should live to begin my life. Two places stood out, Alaska in the north and Australia in the south. So I wrote two letters, one to the Alaskan State Chamber of Commerce, the other to the American Embassy in Australia, asking for information on the best way to move there respectively. It was very exciting to wait for weeks to see what their answers might be. The answer from Alaska was insulting, so much so that I wish I still had the letter because it would be ev

Oh, oh, I am in the final age category. Usually it is easy for me to find words, turn phrases, and craft text, but this has me stymied. Not at all happy about this. Caption: Oh, oh, I am in the final age category.

CAUTION: The following is supposition, not quite allegation but very close to it. There is reason to speculate in view of the recently revealed scandal of $25 million in college admissions bribery in elite, first-tier American universities, such as Yale, Stanford, Harvard, and the University of Texas.* That scandal is probably just the exposed portion of a much larger and more dangerous problem of corruption in a bought-and-paid-for United States government that demonstrates time and again that it is independent of and contemptuous toward the citizenry whom it is mandated to serve. I earned my Master's degree at Ohio State University supported by student loans and two years of fully-paid t

I often read comments online bemoaning the fact that white culture is being "replaced", "stolen", "degraded". Interestingly in the 20th century the reverse was an often heard complaint of other cultures, from Native American Indian culture, from Black culture, etc., "Whites stole our music, they stole our style, they stole our culture", in a perceptual seesaw of who took what from whom. But what has been known since the mid-twentieth century when I studied demography at university is that white population rates are declining worldwide.* And, I suppose white culture is declining with it, our customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements. To be replaced with what remains to be seen

The LOUD music in public throughout the world is intended to distract and exhaust people so that we do not think to object to anything. Haven't you noticed the same loud songs have been playing in public since the 1960's, over and over and over again? SILENCE! Caption: Controlled By LOUD Music In Public Throughout The World. SILENCE! by Annmarie Throckmorton 2019

The largest city that I explored when I was young, was New York City, New York. I was poor and touring on pennies, unable to afford much more than the thrill of the big city sights that I was seeing. I recall vividly being invited into a small fur shop on one of the finer streets downtown. I had paused to gaze over the fur coats displayed in the window of the shop, when the proprietor came out to invite me in. I demurred by reason of being penniless, but he insisted most kindly that I come in. The furrier was a slender, fussy, little man. Today I would understand that he was gay but then I thought of him as innocent of desire. He gracefully brought out several fur coats for me as if I

Toward the end of high school, one of the boys heard about communism*, and went about from student to student, figuratively hopping up and down with his hair on fire, trying to recruit other students to form a communist student party. He said that it meant from each according to their ability and to each according to their need. That sounded too good to be true to me, but I wanted to find out more. I asked my father what he thought and his eye went wide, "Don't have anything to do with it, if you become involved it will ruin your life." Although he could not or would not articulate to me the whys and wherefores of the perils of communism, I heeded his advise. By nature I did not like the

While on a personal photograph safari at the Kansas City Zoo, I wondered if the hippopotamus in its little concrete pond was trying to get out, maybe even trying to attack me, because while I moved this way and that finding the best angles from which to photograph it, the hippopotamus was bumping into the edge of its pond directly below me. I was completely safe, but I was quite disconcerted nonetheless. Only later, when I began to work with the photographs at home, did I notice the blue ball in the foreground, and I realized that the hippopotamus had wanted to play. It had been trying to get me to throw its blue ball to it. I would have done so if I had been quicker on the uptake. I bou

Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day, the luck of the Irish to you all! Everyone can't be Irish on St. Patrick's Day, someone has to drive. Make sure your kilt is short enough to do a jig but long enough to cover your lucky charms—Happy St. Patrick's Day! May your troubles be less and your blessings be more and nothing but happiness come through your door. For each petal on the shamrock this brings a wish your way—good health, good luck, and happiness for today and every day. Q: Why did the leprechaun cross the road? A: To get to the pot of gold Q: What kind of bow can’t be tied? A: A rainbow! Q: Why do people wear shamrocks on St. Patrick’s Day? A: Regular rocks are too heavy. 19. K

I had never been downhill skiing so I wanted to at least ride the lift at Mt. Lemmon Ski Valley in the Santa Catalina Mountains just northeast of Tucson, where "lift rides with majestic views of the valleys below are available year around". However, a sign posted at the lift station quite clearly read "NO PETS ON THE SKI LIFT". I walked up to the ski lift operator with my little dog named Big on leash beside me and tried to wheedle that handsome young man into letting Big ride the lift with me, but he firmly said no. I usually, almost always, obey the rules, but...it was summer and even up there in the mountains it was too hot to leave Big in the car. Sooo...I stuffed Big into my sweater

The stars in the heavens have always been familiar to me. On many, many nights in my summer suburban childhood, I played under their glow and twinkle, at least until 8:00 PM when I was called inside at bedtime.* I knew some of the stars' names and some of the constellations, but for the most part I was content to see the stars sparkling overhead with their silver playmate the Moon, sometimes lying on my back in fragrant summer grasses to gaze up into the scintillating vaulted arch of Heaven. Then when I was grown well into middle-age, I went on an overnight campout with the Sierra Club. I do not remember which state I was living in at the time, either Arizona or California, but this Sierr

I first saw the word "library" on the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Quotient test* given to me when I started high school. Yes, my Intelligence Quotient was tested before I even knew that libraries existed in the world. Somehow everyone, parents, teachers, other students, had all failed to let me in on the wonderful secret of libraries. Still, I tested at well above average, not stratospheric, but respectably smart enough to qualify for the ordinary ranks of Mensa**. My parents were very upset after the school called them into an evening meeting to tell them my IQ score. In fact, timid mouse that I was, when they got home from meeting with school administrators my parents' attitude suggest

This is a sad story that time does not sweeten. The small festival of participating Amish farms open to the public was advertised something like: "See Amish working farms in the scenic Spoon River Valley of Illinois." I spent most of the day driving around western Illinois looking for something festive, and asking if anyone had seen anything going on. No one seemed to even know where the festival was. Some thought that maybe it had been cancelled due to low turnout in the on-again-off-again rain showers that day. I finally happened upon a farm that had a shabby "festival" sign out front so I turned in to see what was to be seen. This Amish farm family offered a free tour of their livin

Peons wear blue because that is predominately what the powers-that-be make available to us at the stores we can afford. Look in anyone's wardrobe, do you see an assortment of pretty peaches, sunshine yellows, fresh greens, or royal purples? Nope. We are trained to think that we like what we have, clothing in sky or water blue. Peons are color-coded blue, with a splash of blood red here and there. Take a look at people out and about, most of them are dressed in regulation blue, blue for peon. A peon is a person who does menial work; a mindless drudge. If you think that you might be a peon, chances are that you are. Peons are low-ranking persons who have little control over their work a