Cowgirls emailing cowgirls.

Neo-Neocon — a propos of my post showing me in cowgirl dress at age 4 — emails to show me her picture of herself at approximately age 4, dressed as a cowgirl:



She was inspired by Jane Russell (in "Son of Paleface"). I was inspired by... can you tell?... one of my readers could...



... Sally Starr.

"University of Colorado Boulder tells students to avoid costumes including cowboys, indians, white trash or anything potentially deemed offensive."

Reports the U.K. Telegraph. It's the U.K., so maybe something's lost in the translation. I see they don't capitalize "indians." (I'm offended!)

But what's offensive about cowboys?

A university spokesman called cowboy costumes a "crude stereotype."

Okay, I'll just go as a university spokesman.

ADDED: Here's a picture of me, back in the 1950s, before I learned about the horrors of crude stereotypes:

Strange ideas of the paranormal.

My Google alert on "roadside memorial" turned up this item at examiner.com:



I've already blogged about the underlying story (as another in my long series of posts about makeshift death-site memorials). This post is about the mistake of putting the story under the already stupid "astrology & paranormal" tag. Did somebody at the Examiner think actual ghosts — to the extent that makes any sense — were involved? Like, maybe it was some college town variation on the old "Ghost Riders in the Sky" legend:

"(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend" is a country and cowboy-style song [that] tells a folk tale of a cowboy who has a vision of red-eyed, steel-hooved cattle thundering across the sky, being chased by the spirits of damned cowboys. One warns him that if he does not change his ways, he will be doomed to join them, forever "trying to catch the Devil's herd across these endless skies."

Here's Marty Robbins singing the song. Or if you prefer: Johnny Cash. Or here it is by the singer who possesses the voice that is the first singing voice that I ever heard and thought: This is the greatest voice ever. I must have been about 4 years old at the time, considering the year that the greatest recording ever — as I saw it — came out (1955).

But back to "Ghost Riders." Here are the lyrics. I'd love parody lyrics applicable to apparitions of college-town bike riders.