Saturday’s S.M.U. Commencement

Saturday morning’s S.M.U. Commencement.

According to my brother, Saturday was the first time in fifty years that S.M.U. had held its commencement ceremonies out-of-doors.

The commencement speaker was Kay Bailey Hutchison, who gave a very serious and very dignified address.

Everything about the ceremonies was first-class—and very efficient, which we appreciated.

Andrew and I have suffered through more prolonged—and even obnoxious—graduation ceremonies the last seven years than we can shake a stick at, including our own, and Saturday’s was by far the best.

In my family, we already have a new line of patter: we are making predictions how Northwestern will manage to render offensive its graduation ceremonies one year from now.

The S.M.U. Class Of 2013

The S.M.U. Class Of 2013, in a photograph taken one week ago today.

My brother is part of the numeral “3”.

“The Laundromat Lady”

According to law-enforcement authorities, our stalker uses public Laundromats to launder clothes.

In consequence, my sister has taken to referring to our stalker as “The Laundromat Lady”.

Below is the daily record of our stalker’s visits for the week of December 3.

All stalker visits for the week originated from ISP address 71.36.205.124, registered in Cottage Grove, Oregon, and Elmira, Oregon.

All times are Pacific Standard Time, the time zone of our stalker.

Visits longer than twenty minutes in duration are noted.

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Monday, December 3, 2012

10:20 a.m. PST
3:52 p.m. PST ***
8:01 p.m. PST
9:40 p.m. PST
10:32 p.m. PST

*** This visit by our stalker was forty-seven minutes in duration.

________________________________________________


Tuesday, December 4, 2012

10:27 a.m. PST
11:19 a.m. PST
12:08 p.m. PST
1:49 p.m. PST
8:00 p.m. PST ***
9:54 p.m. PST
11:22 p.m. PST

*** This visit by our stalker was thirty-one minutes in duration.

________________________________________________


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

8:43 a.m. PST ***
12:08 p.m. PST
2:15 p.m. PST
4:22 p.m. PST
9:31 pm. PST
12:05 a.m. PST

*** This visit by our stalker was twenty-seven minutes in duration.

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Thursday, December 6, 2012

10:15 a.m. PST
1:22 p.m. PST ***
8:08 p.m. PST
9:07 p.m. PST
9:57 p.m. PST **

*** This visit by our stalker was twenty minutes in duration.

** This visit by our stalker was twenty-four minutes in duration.

________________________________________________


Friday, December 7, 2012

11:28 a.m. PST
12:03 p.m. PST
12:43 p.m. PST
6:17 p.m. PST
10:05 p.m. PST

________________________________________________


Saturday, December 8, 2012

9:34 a.m. PST
10:49 a.m. PST ***
4:54 p.m. PST
7:04 p.m. PST

*** This visit by our stalker was twenty-six minutes in duration.

________________________________________________


Sunday, December 9, 2012

1:55 p.m. PST
9:27 p.m. PST ***

*** This visit by our stalker was one hour and three minutes in duration.

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Our stalker is a middle-aged, mentally-ill woman from Springfield, Oregon, who works on a part-time basis for the Eugene Symphony and the Oregon Bach Festival.

Our stalker spends her entire day online—literally, all day, every day, eighteen hours a day, seven days a week—defaming and harassing the Minnesota Orchestra, entering hundreds upon hundreds of idiotic comments, day and night, all over the worldwide web, on any website that so much as mentions the Minnesota Orchestra in passing. Our stalker is neither an educated nor an intelligent woman; she writes the same mindless gibberish over and over.

Myself, I wish our stalker would learn the proper application of the word “disingenuous”, apparently the only multi-syllable word she knows. Our stalker has misused or misapplied the word hundreds of times, on countless websites—and her wholesale misuse of the word is always jarringly inapt.

In January, our stalker began to send us private messages (she last sent us private messages a couple of weeks ago), not a smart maneuver on her part. We shall publish all such private messages once we are cleared to do so.

A couple of weeks ago, our stalker created a new screen name at Minnesota Post: Andrew VanZ. (For those who click on the link: our stalker graduated from Centennial High School in Gresham, Oregon, in 1984, which explains her new user information—and persons will note that our stalker posted additional comments under her real name on the very same threads in which she also posted as “Andrew VanZ”.)

Our stalker is a sick, sick, sick woman.

She is also a very foolish one.

Curious persons may find photographs of our stalker on Sahil Kumar’s rather peculiar but undeniably hilarious Bangalore-based website devoted to fat, unattractive, down-market American women. To read Mr. Kumar’s accompanying texts in English requires installation of a complicated language pack—but the photographs of our stalker, of which there are two dozen on prominent display, speak for themselves. Texts are superfluous.

For anyone in search of hearty laughs, the photographs are definitely worth a look.

The Nightmarish Wasteland Of Armentières, 1918

The nightmarish wasteland of Armentières in April 1918.

Armentières was destroyed in ten days during The Spring Offensive that had begun in March 1918, a campaign the Germans had hoped would break the four-year stalemate on The Western Front. From April 9 to April 18, Armentières was subjected to unprecedented destruction.

Although there is scant evidence of such in the photograph, the area depicted had been a near-impenetrable forest, for centuries, prior to The Spring Offensive.

Once The Spring Offensive—initially successful—ground to a halt, Germany knew that the war was no longer winnable.

Quiz Time

Is the rather alarming creature second from the right male or female? I genuinely would like a definitive answer.

Andrew’s father is wont to say, “I could argue both sides of the case with equal conviction.” Such is precisely my train of thought as I ponder the photograph.

Andrew says the photograph was taken at Fisherman’s Wharf in Budapest—and not in Outer Space, as I had initially supposed.

Old Threshers

A Minnesota farm family in 1901.

Principles And Manners

A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.

Samuel Adams