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Callahan's February 2001 Bar Rag!"To Callahan's Warmth
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"To A Continuing Happy and Properous New Year For All!" *** SMASH *** -- Lou Hi all.. January was an exciting month at Callahans. Operation Butterball has just concluded and was another big success for our community, and our annual Valentine's Poetry contest is underway. Further, we've started a 'gateway' page on an off site area for everyone to use to access Callahans. It's located on the 50megs site. I urge you all to visit the page and bookmark it.. and use it whenever you come to visit us. All the links on that page bring you to us at Delphi..:) We've launched some recent polls on the board to help us select a time and place for our annual Gathering - and that subject is always welcome. We've had a few special conferences of late and are planning another with the Singles forum later this month. I've always liked the notion of special conferences and am very happy to see them return. Watch for announcements of more coming soon..:) I hope you all enjoy reading this month's Bar Rag. Beginning next month, we will start mailing it out again as we believe we can do so without sharing your email address with everyone else on the list. I'll tell you more next month. Delphi installed a new chat client at the end of December that's met with very mixed reviews. The old client was over 15 years old, housed on some very old equipment, had stability problems, and didn't work for all forums. The new chat client is less than two months old, is housed on brand new equipment, and has stability problems. ::grin:: Actually, while the new client is a pretty bare bones version, there are some nice features, such as the larger type, the list of names in the chat along the side, and button commands for moderators. There are definitely some drawbacks at this point, but Prospero has indicated that the second version should address some of the glitches, bugs, and *hopefully* return some of the robust features we've depended on for so many years. If you have any questions about the new chat, please feel free to ask, and we'll do our best to answer you. Special Conference on Herbal Remedies! We are very happy to report that Callahans had its first of the year special conference with a very special guest speaker this month! Hombre Verde, with help from Carol (LadyLaughing) and Lou (Rose8364), fielded question after question about herbal remedies and treatments on the night of January 19th. Hombre, aka the Green man, is a professional herbalist and gave advice on a variety of conditions and treatment alternatives while stressing that his advice should never be used as an alternative to sound medical treatment for medical conditions. Over 30 people attended the conference over its two hours and many questions were asked and answered. We look forward to having many more such special conferences in coming months. Here is a transcript of the event.
If you'd like to host a special conference you think our patrons
might enjoy, simply write to
Special thanks to Hombre Verde, host of the
Seekers of Old Knowledge forum on Delphi, and to our own Carol for
hosting the event.
And another very special thank you to Cstar and Silky,
who laboriously hand transcribed a log of the event to be published on
our Website. Silky also edited the log and posted it on our board..:)
From Cstar:
January was one of the most interesting months we've had on the board
recently. Our themes were King Arthur in Literature and Legend, Wales,
Lions.... we never really got around to the second two, but we
certainly found out that we have quite a few folks interested in King
Arthur. Bill Merritt (MERRITT9) posted some wonderful
accounts of the history and myth surrounding the legendary king of
Camelot, in
King Arthur - what a guy! Bill's storytelling abilities as well
as his lifelong interest in history made for fascinating reading.
Aunti Em, bits, Helen, Jim Crowley and others share Bill's
fascination for this legendary hero, we all appreciated the efforts he took
to give us the benefit of his researches.
Lou started a poll asking
where our Gathering should be this year. If you haven't voted, make
sure you stop by, give us your thoughts. We'll most likely hold it between
the last week of August, and the first two weeks of September. Do you have a
city you'd like to recommend?
Our poetry editor, Peter (PHDESMOND) spent the holidays in
Sicily, and treated us to
quite a travelogue in his usual droll style. We missed him sorely, and are
very glad he's back!
Past Conference Manager, Ken (DRANGD) revealed where he's
been keeping himself these days.
Contrary to popular belief lets us all know that he's not dead, and
hasn't been kidnapped by aliens, but he has become addicted to a very popular
online computer game, called EverQuest. Ken! Come out, come out, wherever
you are! ::sigh:: Looks like "Evercrack/Neverleave" has claimed a
victim... for now. We miss him, but he does still stop in now and again.
Carol (LadyLaughing) woke up one morning, and decided that she
was
Going South for the Winter. Well, of course she had to take Silky,
David, EK, Moby, Brigitte, Walt, Chris, Vickie, Robert, Kirwand, Tam_Za,
GreyLensman, Parrish..... and every single other Callahanian denizen
it seems! They all headed off to Florida, where kestrel, Lou, bits
and JP prepared a clearing for the eventual arrival. Come to
think of it, this road trip was worse than the one in Callahan's Key, when
the book's characters all headed to Florida. Talk about herding cats!
Sylphidine issued a challenge to all our web-researchers that
has not yet been met: Find a database that lists what short story is in which
anthology. "The topic came up in the car, on the ride home, that we
in America are losing more and more of our short-story heritage, because
anthologies seem to be amongst the first things to hit the 'discard'
bins. Out-of-date mystery, horror, and SF; no-longer-in-vogue [or in VOGUE ::g::]
authors; magazine fiction from long-defunct publications." Any help will
be appreciated, just click on the link and post a message if you have any suggestions.
The
folder-that-can't-decide-its-name was *very* active this month. What
started out as "Politics and Religion" became "The World at
Large", then morphed again into "noigileR & scitiloP,
seussI" to better reflect [groan] its true contents.
Discuss
Social Security with Lou (ROSE8364),
Education with Cortland (KA5S),
Proselytizing with Robert (IMAGINES),
Heros with bits (LBT1),
Political sensitivity with Allan (TUT_RA),
the Clinton-Ray agreement with Carol (LADYLAUGHING). Dozens
of other topics this month as well - check out this increasingly active folder!
Our fourth annual love poetry contest is in full swing, with the
winners to be announced on February 14th. We'll feature the winning
poems in next month's Bar Rag! December's IBPC contest winners were
announced in January, and our own Bee (RAWLINSON)
received an honorable mention for "Normandy." Great job, Bee!!
A special treat: read A Holiday Greeting From
Spider Robinson! The biggest treat, for me, was getting to meet Spider
Robinson in October, present him with two mugs, and hear him read. This
is pure gravy. :)
Bits was spurred to ask the question
Do We Still Have Heroes? after reading posts from other discussions.
Kotik thinks we do: "There are absolutely still heros
out there." Yolaxochitl provided us with the classical
definition of "hero." And Clurichaun misses the days
when we had public heroes. This discussion became quite lively. You can read
the responses and tell us what you think.
Books, Movies, Music Folder-January 2001
Fantasy fans are in for some movie treats in the coming year. TNT is producing
a mini-series version of Marion Zimmer Bradley's
Mists of Avalon, set to be released sometime in 2001, J.R.R. Tolkien fans
will be able to see the first of three movies based on his beloved books about
hobbits and middle earth when the
Lord of the Rings is released to movie theaters in December 2001.
Cstar provided us with several bits of the Arthurian Legend
in this thread, not to mention some excellent
web sites!
Claimsman has invited folks to offer their favorite WWII era
books, movies, and songs. Read his request and reply
here.
Have something you would like to say about our message board?
Drop me a line and let us know.
Staff
Birthday Greetings were heartily extended to:
Once upon a time, in a far-off land, there was a kingdom in which the
king was fond of history and ancient things. He would collect historical
objects, dress in royal threads from bygone eras, and generally try to
live ancient traditions.
One day the king issued a royal proclamation, as kings are wont to do
now and then. Of course, he wrote the proclamation in the language of
200 years ago, rich in antiquated spellings, obsolete words, now-defunct
verb forms, etc.
The general population, of course, could make neither heads nor tails of
the proclamation. A vast legal muddle ensued.
The courts, called upon to untangle the mess, pronounced a ruling that,
henceforth, all royal proclamations must be written in modern, currently
accepted prose.
Moral: We can't have archaic and edict, too.
-- Larry Adams (LATENIGHTLAR)
Poem of the Month - "Some Things"
There are things I just don’t understand
There are things I just don’t understand
There are things I just don’t understand -- Vickie (MIDUSTOUCH) January 21, 2001
Grief drives men into the habits of serious reflection, sharpens the
understanding and softens the heart.
- John Adams Letter to Thomas Jefferson May 6, 1816
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