The Philosophy of Hans Moleman, Plus Odds, Ends, Evens, and Middles

Vulture- The Enigma of The Simpsons' Hans Moleman

From the article on Hans Moleman, nearly 30 years in the waiting:

“I like to use Hans Moleman to illustrate that even the most wonderful events have a downside,” Simpsons writer Tim Long said in an email. For example, if Springfield got a beautiful new shopping mall, Moleman would likely be “trampled by the excited crowd on opening day.” Long went on to explain how he sees Moleman in philosophical terms, calling the character “a symbol of the crushing anomie and loneliness of modern existence — but also of man’s indomitable will to confront those horrors. He’s straight out of Samuel Beckett, a man who can get out of bed in the morning but at the same time recognize his own crushing isolation.”

https://www.vulture.com/2019/03/hans-moleman-simpsons-character-al-jean.html

March 13, 2019

...

Russia hit a Ukrainian training facility overnight several miles from Poland. Concensus of many experts is that if they hit an inch of NATO territory, we're in WWIII. Closer each day.

March 13, 2022

...

The nineteen most terrifying words in any American political speech of the last 50 years might have been Reagan's:

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help."

That mockery of a central tenet of our society disillusioned so many people that they forgot that it's the federal government's responsibility to both promote and provide the general welfare. Seems crazy right? But it's right there in the Constitution. This type of defeatist attitude betrays the Constitution. 

The strength of any group is their ability to pool resources and work together to help the least fortunate ones. 

Anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked at a dinner party what she considered the first sign of civilization. She said it was a skeleton with broken femur that healed, proving that some in the group took care of those who couldn't take care of themselves.

The standard by which any society should be judged, is how well they take care of the least fortunate among them. Now the worst of us mock that notion in the best of us. Maybe they did then too.

March 13, 2021

...

Oscar Day used to be a holy day for me, but now I'm just going to watch it for the jokes, and to see how stupid it is. I never thought the awards meant much, but after last year I'm now viewing this whole spectacle as an odd, meaningless hominid dress-up ritual. Some random thoughts:

-I might have watched too many movies in my life, because now they almost all bore me to tears. They all follow the same formula outlined in Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces. You just plug in different details (not unlike Mad-Libs) and you have a new movie. Some film can be at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and I KNOW I'm going to agree with the bad reviews. To channel Norma Desmond, "It's the pictures that got small."

-I am 100% over the discussions of pigmentation and genitalia, and who deserves what because of them. Films and performances are things-unto-themselves and can be judged as such. Even beyond that, let's go back to Dustin Hoffman's Kramer Vs. Kramer speech, it's absurd to rank works of art. Let's take it another step, Sam Harris has said that through meditation he's learned it's not even good to associate yourself to your own face.

-I used to at least be able to count on them to vote correctly for best documentary. But then 50 Feet From Stardom won over The Act of Killing. Blasphemous!

-The In Memoriam, don't get me started. It goes so fast that there's not even enough time to read the names, let alone reflect on the person's contribution. They might as well play the William Tell Overture over it. TCM's In Memoriam is my go-to In Memoriam. They'll take care of all of your In Memoriam needs.

-They keep wondering why the show was unpopular each year. It's because of the terrible speeches and other miscellaneous bore! Alfred Hitchcock might have even done better than Dustin Hoffman when he accepted his lifetime achievement award. Here's his speech: "Thank you." 

-In short, the whole thing's just silly and not even worthy of the thought anybody puts into it, including myself. Happy viewing! 

(That said, I'm sure Jimmy Kimmel will be funny!)

March 13, 2023

...

I think a lot about Picard's blue whale thing... Is it moral to kill blue whales, since with every mouthful of plankton they unleash untold horror into the world? No, of course not. But why not?

...

Zowie, that's a review!

Guillermo del Toro, on Zodiac- “Every great movie works at many levels. Some are evident: the dramaturgy (writing, plot, character, structure), image crafting and sound as storytelling tools, staging/editing and acting, but then the truly great movies have deeper roots. In the case of ‘Zodiac,’ all the formal elements become quasi-hypnotic…it lulls you into a different world and takes what was real and makes it symbolic. It puts you in a trance-like state that makes everything operate at a deeper level.”

...

It's clear that Obama made a dreadful mistake while president. Every week for 8 years he should have bragged about the 26,000 jobs he added to the economy that week. It's one thing for people to HAVE jobs, they also have to FEEL like everyone has jobs.

March 13, 2017

...

Look what some jerk wrote on my calendar!

March 13, 2015

...

Response to my job listing for a route driver for an organic coop- "So how are you so different than any other business or corporation? Organic Smorganick- you still subscribe to the hierarchy of the American corporate state. I have experience driving box trucks delivering as an independent contractor, I owned and operated a health food store, studied yoga, meditation, and the ayurvedic system. You can take your job and &%$#@&*(@$ and let the black hole of American corporatism suck you in it."

March 13, 2014

...

If The Great Gatsby is such a great book, why is everybody always saying F. Scott Fitzgerald?

March 13, 2010

...

Haha forever, LOL never.

March 13, 2010

Postscript- Haha.

...

...

We have 300 trillion microorganisms in our guts. That means every second they live a combined 9.5 million years.

...

A good tidbit to keep in mind- after 150 years of British colonial rule, in 1950, the average age at death in Sierra Leone was 27

...

I love the Love at First Sight podcast on Anthropocene Reviewed. His friend was singing "I'm in LOVE." His new girlfriend and him were inseparable for several days after meeting, and then broke up a year later.

... 

On this day in 1591, at the Battle of Tondibi, Morroccan forces dealt the Songhai Empire a decisive blow ensuring their collapse. They defeated them despite being outnumbered five to one. How? Guns of course. 

Russia executed "Ants the Terrible" Kaljurand on this day in 1951. He was an anti-communist Estonian guerrilla fighter. 

Today Ukrainian civilians are battling the Russian army.

...

William Herschel discovered Uranus on this day in 1781, and the news of the discovery of Pluto was announced by Lowell Observatory on this day in 1930.

...

On this day in 1934, in Mason City, Iowa, Dillinger and Hamilton were wounded when the gang robbed the First National Bank of $52,000.

...

...

L. Ron Hubbard was born on this day I. 1911. Last night at the Oscars Jimmy Kimmel said how good Tom Cruise looks- "L. Ron Hubba Hubba."

...

Neil Sedaka join us on this day in 1939. I love the song Oh Carol. A real time capsule.

https://youtu.be/e72tG80LmsU

...

Susan B Anthony and Clarence Darrow died on this day, in 1906 and 1938 respectively. Impossible to imagine how quickly we've come this far- women can vote and it's not illegal for biology teachers to teach evolution. 

In fairness though to the past, women who opposed their right to vote maybe shouldn't have been voting, and biology teachers who don't believe in evolution maybe haven't evolved enough to understand it.

...

Joe Pepitone died on this day in 2023. I love this story from Baseball Almanac:

"When Joe Pepitone first came to the Cubs, he told manager Leo Durocher he was fast enough to steal. So the first time Pepitone reached first, Durocher decided to test him. First base coach Peanuts Lowery flashed the sign to Pepitone - a wink. Pepitone didn't budge. So Lowery winked again. Still, Pepitone stood pat. Again, Lowery winked. This time, Pepitone responded. He blew Lowery a kiss."

...

Speaking of how far we've come, I gave my kids Frankenberry for breakfast. The monster cereals were introduced in March of 1971, but back then Franken Berry had a pigment that would turn kids poop pink. It had a medical diagnosis- "Franken Berry Stool." Parents were taking their kids to the hospital thinking they were bleeding out of their asses!

...

Marty Stuart in Ken Burns' Country Music, putting it perfectly:

"It was almost badge of honor that you brought your culture with you to the table. That's why Bob Wills and his guys brought us western music. That's why Hank Williams brought the south with him from honky tonks. That's why Johnny Cash brought blackland dirt of Arkansas. Bill Monroe brought Kentucky bluegrass music. Willie Nelson brought his poetry from Texas. Patsy Cline brought her heartache from Virginia. I mean it was the most wonderful parade of sons and daughters of America that brought their hearts and their souls and their experiences and they gave us a great era of country music."

...

Stonewall Jackson's body is buried in Lexington, Virginia but his arm is buried in Chancellorsville, VA where it was blown off. It has its own gavestone. "ARM OF STONEWALL JACKSON MAY 3, 1863." He was accidentally shot by his own troops. Apparently someone dug it up and nobody knows where it is. Stonewall Jackson might have been in the army, but after that day he wasn't very army. He met the minimum requirement of being armed.

...

Do fish feel pain? Martha Nussbaum says that some cartilage fish, i.e sharks, have eaten parts of their own body, apparently without feeling pain. (I'm not sure how they would bend like that.) She said that bony fish are different, and are decisively sentient. Sam Harris disagreed. She believes that we shouldn't feel any different over the treatment of one sentient being versus another, i.e. a human or a mouse. Somehow I'm not convinced. Number one, in practice, everybody would always save the human. Also, there are more victims when the human dies, because we can't ignore all the people that care for them. I think no sperm is suffering from a rational version of Johnny Cash's So Heavenly-Minded You're No Earthly Good.

...

...

Michael Hurley- Slurf Song

https://youtu.be/NT4OqWAlbfw

...

Every time I put on my Penske hat I think of R. Crumb talking about cultural homogeniety.

https://youtu.be/FP7MovNH3DA

"Everybody is a walking advertisement. Adidas written on their chest. It's pathetic. The culture's one unified field of bought, sold, market-researched. It used to be that people created their own culture, it took hundreds of years, it evolved over time. That's gone in America. People now don't have any concept that there ever was a culture outside of this one, that's created to make money. Whatever is the biggest, latest thing, they're into. After a while, you get disgusted with humanity for not having more intellectual curiosity about what's behind all this jive bullshit."

But I also like Penske!

...

If you liked Exit Through the Gift Shop you need to see Style Wars. (The whole film is on you tube.)

Have you seen the Seen scene?

https://youtu.be/jbrGOFJ2KwQ

March 13, 2011

...

ABC- Bozo the Clown's Grandson Is Pitching for the Reds

https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/03/bozo-the-clowns-grandson-is-pitching-for-the-reds

Now there's a headline you don't see every day.

March 13, 2014

...

5 Eerily Human Things You Won't Believe Animals Do

http://www.cracked.com/article_20827_5-eerily-human-things-you-wont-believe-animals-do.html

5. Marmosets Make Polite Conversation; Chimps Will Fake Laughter

4. Rats Laugh When You Tickle Them

3. Cows have best friends

2. Jay Birds Hold Funerals for Their Dead

1. Pigeons Understand Statistics Better Than We Do

Pigeons are better at statistics than humans! Don't feel bad though humans, it's VERY HARD to make rational sense of the Monty Hall problem.

March 13, 2014

...

Rolling Stone- ‘Punk’: Johnny Rotten, Marky Ramone Spar at ‘Off the F–king Rails’ Documentary Event

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/johnny-rotten-marky-ramone-spar-epix-punk-804248/

Ugh... Johnny Rotten... intolerable. I prefered him in his butter commercial.

March 13, 2019

...

The Atlantic- Trump’s Dangerously Effective Coronavirus Propaganda

"Censorship by noise," I need to remember that. From the article:

It's not hard to follow Trump's line of thinking... downplay the threat ("hoax"), experts have been wrong before (just ask Iraq), maybe it'll pass, save the stock market, save the presidency.

But he gambled with public health and lost. One example- "trumping" the CDC's recommendation that the elderly shouldn't fly. It's not too hard to find a compilation of recent statements followed by contradictory statements by his own experts. Come on though, everybody knows that he thinks he's the only expert, guided by gut instinct, which always somehow seems to miraculously coincide with his own self-interest.

Perhaps a large swath of the public doesn't see through his censorship by noise, but when asked to put their money where their mouth is, investors see through it quite clearly.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/trump-coronavirus-threat/607825/

March 13, 2020

...

The Onion- Family Mercifully Pulling Plug On Grandfather Unaware They Sending Him Directly To Hell

https://www.theonion.com/family-mercifully-pulling-plug-on-grandfather-unaware-t-1819578965

...

...

James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander- "Sometimes Plan B is to work harder on Plan A."

...

Taoist wisdom from the fourth century BC, from The Book of Master Zhuang:

“Anything that smacks of exaggeration is irresponsible. Where there is irresponsibility, no one will trust what is said, and when that happens, the man who is transmitting the words will be in danger. Therefore the aphorism says, ‘Transmit the established facts; do not transmit words of exaggeration.’ If you do that, you will probably come out all right.”

...

Sir Martin Ryle- "By the time there are creatures on the earth who look as the sun expires they will not be human. It will not be humans who see this happen if our planet lives that long. The creatures that watch it happen will be as far different from us as we are from amoebae and bacteria."

...

Jean Paul Sartre- “With despair, true optimism begins: the optimism of the man who expects nothing, who knows he has no rights and nothing coming to him, who rejoices in counting on himself alone and in acting alone for the good of all.”

...

Charlotte Bronte- "Remorse is the poison of life."

...

Errol Morris- "Commercials are films, albeit little films. My job is to create something compelling in the time available, whether it's two hours or thirty seconds. Think of commercials as American haiku."

...

Aristotle- "A fool contributes nothing worth hearing and takes offense at everything."

...

Bertrand Russell, What I Believe- "If we were not afraid of death, I do not think the idea of immortality would ever have arisen. Fear is the basis of religious dogma, as of so much else in human life. Fear of human beings, individually or collectively, dominates much of our social life, but it is fear of death that gives rise to religion." 

...

Thomas Paine- "Nothing, they say is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the time of dying."

...

Penn Jillette- "Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby."

...

Aquinas- "We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it."

...

Robert Frost- "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence."

...

Mitch Hedberg- "If you're watching a parade, make sure you stand in one spot. Don't follow it. It never changes. And if the parade is boring, run in the opposite direction. You will fast forward the parade."

...

Hagakure- "In assessing the enemy's castle there is a saying that goes, "Smoke and mist are like looking at a spring mountain. After the rain is like viewing a clear day." There is weakness in perfect clarity."

...

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow- "The easiest way to increase happiness is to control your use of time. Can you find more time to do the things you enjoy doing?"

...

Bukowski- "We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing."

...

Bob Einstein joke: A man had been drinking at a bar all night and pukes down the front of his shirt. “Shit I can’t go home like this my wife will kill me." The bartender sees this and says “put a $10 bill in your shirt pocket and tell your wife some drunk puked on you and gave you $10 for dry cleaning”. So the guy goes home and his wife says, "What happened???" He replies “a drunk puked on me and gave me $10 to pay for dry cleaning”. His wife says “There's $20 here.” “He shit in my pants too.”

...