A Gallon of Blood In Your Car

"He not busy being born is busy dying." 

Bob Dylan was born on this day in 1941, still busy being born. Still 10,000 miles from the mouth of a graveyard.

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August Landmesser joined us on this day in 1910. He's the guy in the Nazi crowd not hailing Hitler

Anytime you feel forced or coerced to join some movement, and you resist for any reason (maybe simply because you don't like being forced or coerced), you can remember August Landmesser.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/andrewkaczynski/the-german-guy-who-refused-to-give-a-nazi-salute-w

Emerson- "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

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Another school shooting today, in TX. 14 kids dead, along with their teacher.

Mark Twain, speech from October, 1907:

"We build a fire in a powder magazine, then double the fire department to put it out. We inflame wild beasts with the smell of blood, and then innocently wonder at the wave of brutal appetite that sweeps the land as a consequence."

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Oh my god, I laughed so hard at this! It's only like 2 minutes long, but I would have watched the whole thing if it went on for hours.

Amusement Park Seatbelt Pranks

https://youtu.be/NyoSrkR1Sic

May 24, 2024

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Every time we hit asparagus season I remember the old Far Side cartoon with the guy driving the asparagus truck through town, hoping for customers. There's music coming out of a loud speaker and on the side is written, "I cuss, you cuss, we all cuss for asparagus." It was first published on this day in 1993.

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The pastor, Harry Emerson Fosdick, joined us on this day in 1878. From As I See Religion:

"Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat."

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Rosanne Cash was born on this day in 1955. "Loss is the great unifier, the terrible club to which we all eventually belong."

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Jean Paul Marat was born on this day in 1743.

"God has always been hard on the poor."

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Albert Einstein- “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

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Firecracker-thrower, Alfred Molina, was born on this day in 1953. John C. Reilly, who was unsettled by the firecrackers, was born on this day in 1965.

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The other day a guy said to me, "If I were you I would..." 

My first thought in these cases is always- "if you were me, you would do whatever the hell I'm going to do, because I AM me and that's what I'm doing."

Someone might say, "If I was Hitler, and I killed 5 million Jews, I'd just stop." No you wouldn't. Not if you were Hitler! If you were Hitler you'd think killing a million more is one of the best ideas anyone ever had.

Also if you were Hitler, one day you would think it would be a great idea to kill Hitler, and you'd do that too.

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I was just buying cat litter at Giant. The cashier told me that they were out of her normal brand and asked if I was buying the kind I normally use. I told her that I don't use it at all, that I buy it for the cats.

May 24, 2021

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Strange how our minds work.

Stephen Pinker, How the Mind Works: "If there's a bag in your car, and a gallon of milk in the bag, there is a gallon of milk in your car. But if there's a person in your car, and a gallon of blood in a person, it would be strange to conclude that there is a gallon of blood in your car."

May 24, 2020

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Before Midnight was released on this day in 2013.

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Spicer- The Pope was not frowning with Trump, he was standing on his head and it was the biggest smile ever known to mankind.

May 24, 2017

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Plato- “The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

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Nicolaus Copernicus left us on this day in 1543. In my life there are two significant things I associate with Copernicus.

-He upended the Catholic church and Christianity in general by figuring out that we revolve around the sun versus the other way around. We are not the center of God's universe. 

-Once in Trivial Pursuit, the question was who came up with the heliocentric theory. My friend said, "Cornucopius," and I laughed for about an hour and a half.

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The French mathematician, Sylvestre François Lacroix, left us on this day in 1843, but there's a crater on the moon named after him in remembrance.

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I just wrote a paragraph that had the term "x axis" in it. When I looked back over it, I saw I actually wrote "next access." There was no auto-correct in that program, my brain did that! How could, and why would, my brain convert what I intended into a near-homonym??? I'm bothered by this.

May 24, 2015

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Watching Madonna: Truth or Dare with my baby...a legit great documentary. Madonna's mother died when she was 5, there's a scene of her lying at the grave asking, "What does she look like now, just a bunch of dust?" Madonna is a human being???

May 24, 2014

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Rosanne Cash again, "For me, art is a more trustworthy expression of God than religion."

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Priscilla Presley was born on this day in 1945. Elvis's first number one hit, Heartbreak Hotel, was released on January 27th, 1956, when Priscilla was 10 years old. She met him when she was 14, married him when she was 21, and after she had a baby with him, he told her that he would never have sex with her again. That's Heartbreak Hotel for you.

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Roger Deakins' Iconic Career in 20 Legendary Shots: http://bit.ly/2fMonzz

He was born on this day in 1949.

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Other notable birthdays- Tommy Chong (1938)

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You might want to watch Mortified Nation on Netflix...a documentary on a traveling production of people reading embarrassing passages from their high school journals. A joy to watch!

May 24, 2014

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From this day in 2011, a few months post-Achilles surgery:

I played an hour of racquetball by myself and emerged victorious.

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If Pete Rose and Dee Dee Ramone had a baby, that baby would be Johnny Damon.

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New York Times- How Trump’s Budget Would Affect Every Part of Government

This is the budget equivalent of the time Homer's brother had him build that car. Rack and peanut steering? Cutting $18 billion from the Center of Disease Control and Prevention?

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/23/us/politics/trump-budget-details.html

May 24, 2017

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Michael Shermer:

"A scientific explanation for the world does not diminish its spiritual beauty. In fact, it enhances it. Science and spirituality are complementary, not conflicting; additive, not detractive. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades. I am deeply moved, for example, when I observe through my Meade eight-inch reflecting telescope in my backyard the fuzzy little patch of light that is the Andromeda galaxy. It is not just because it is lovely, but because I also understand that the photons of light landing on my retina left Andromeda 2.537 million years ago, when our ancestors were tiny-brained hominids roaming the planes of Africa. That is awe inspiring in its contemplation."

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Great article!

Cracked- 5 Ways to Spot a B.S. Political Story in Under 10 Seconds

5. Headline Contains the Word 'Gaffe."

4. The Headline Ends In a Question Mark

3. The Headline Contains the Word "Blasts"

2. The Headline Is About a Lawmaker Saying Something Stupid ("In every single group of human beings, you have a certain percentage of crazy shitheads.")

1. The Headline Contains the Phrase "Blow To"

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-to-spot-b.s.-political-story-in-under-10-seconds/

May 24, 2015

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Thoughts on the Mother Jones article, Donald Trump Really Likes to Drop Military Secrets Into His Conversations, by Kevin Drum, May 24, 2017:

What are the top 3 things we know about this guy? He brags about being rich, he brags about being smart, he brags endlessly. It's too bad we couldn't have foreseen him bragging about military secrets, and to the worst people in the world.

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The Brooklyn Bridge opened on this day in 1883. The following year PT Barnum took 21 elephants across it to prove it was safe. people died and people survived leaping off it into the East river. One guy jumped off it to impress his girlfriend. I don't know if it did, but there's probably a reason that the article didn't say that he jumped off, thus impressing his future wife. Twenty people died during its construction, presumably to impress their wives by being able to provide food for their table.

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John Brown and his men killed five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas on this day in 1856. Slavery in itself is a form of violence. Even if no violence is involved, the threat of violence is omnipresent. What level of violence is acceptable to combat it? In fighting evil, you cannot become your enemy. In retrospect it seems clear that John Brown was just in killing slave owners, because it helped lead to the greater good. I wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. thought about John Brown.

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16 Cognitive Distortions, Positive Psychology, by Courtney Ackerman

3. Mental Filter

Similar to overgeneralization, the mental filter distortion focuses on a single negative piece of information and excludes all the positive ones. An example of this distortion is one partner in a romantic relationship dwelling on a single negative comment made by the other partner and viewing the relationship as hopelessly lost, while ignoring the years of positive comments and experiences.

The mental filter can foster a decidedly pessimistic view of everything around you by focusing only on the negative.

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I always feel left out when a celebrity dies who everybody adores when they didn't mean that much to me.

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Marcus Aurelius- “The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.”

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John Stuart Mill- "It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify."

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Agee- "And somewhat as in blind night, on a mild sea, a sailor may be made aware of an iceberg, fanged and mortal, bearing invisibly near, by the unwarned charm of its breath, nothingness now revealed itself: that permanent night upon which the stars in their expiring generations are less than the glinting of gnats, and nebulae, more trivial than winter breath; that darkness in which eternity lies bent and pale, a dead snake in a jar, and infinity is the sparkling of a wren blown out to sea; that inconceivable chasm of invulnerable silence in which cataclysms of galaxies rave mute as amber."

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Henry David Thoreau- "I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite - only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next ten thousand years, and exhaust it. How sweet to think of! my extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment."

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David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature- "For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception…"

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Emerson- "Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss."

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Rosanne Cash, yet again, "The key to change is to let go of fear."

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Bob Dylan- A Man of Constant Sorrow

https://youtu.be/xCipKmyngLY

Addendum 

Bob Dylan:

"There are those who worship loneliness, 

I'm not one of them

In this age of fiberglass 

I'm searching for a gem

The crystal ball up on the wall 

hasn't shown me nothing yet

I've paid the price of solitude, 

but at last I'm out of debt."