A Fantasy World Ended In 2011

Big day on this day in 2005: David Foster Wallace's This Is Water speech to the graduating class of Kenyon College.

"Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness."

That's the type of quote that, as I like to say, lights the top of my head on fire.

The worst 2 years of my life were spent teaching at my former high school. First I graduated in 1992, and then I graduated from teaching in 2005, the same year, incidentally, that Wallace gave his speech. I didn't know it at the time, but it was exactly because I lost sight of the themes of Wallace's speech.

Incidentally, years later, the superintendent of my high school made the local newspapers by plagiarizing parts of Wallace's speech.

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I volunteered to help set up the big Lancaster Library book sale today. After it's set up, volunteers get the first shot. I kept myself in check. It doesn't help though that I keep reading articles on why it's good to have more books than you can ever read. 

The argument is that your bookshelf should be aspirational, versus a monument to the books you've already read. 

Apparently there's a Japanese word for it- tsundoku- the habit of letting too many books pile up without reading them. One of my books that has piled up without me reading it, happens to be titled The Japanese Have a Word For It, and I'm not even sure if tsundoku is in it.

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Jess King is a Democrat running to be our congressperson. I assume she believes in the separation of church and state but I came up with a tagline that might play well in our conservative area: "JESS KING- I Need U to Make JESUS KING."

May 21, 2018

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Hey, the president put on his big boy pants to read a speech about terrorism but his base has to be furious for leaving out the old classics- kill the families of the terrorists, Saudi Arabia should pursue nuclear weapons, ban the Muslim refugees from the US until we figure out what's going on with Islam, let's bring back torture... you know, all the great stuff he ran on.

May 21, 2017

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Pepper sat on Gretel's lap to protect her from the cats, and in return Gretel decided to not pull her hair and ears.

May 21, 2014

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The guy I'm playing racquetball with just hit me in the face with the ball. Either that or Mike Tyson time-traveled from 1990, snuck into the court, and punched me.

May 21, 2013

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Think of that stuff Macho Man used to wear. More like Closet-Homosexual Man. I hope he found peace.

May 21, 2011

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Washington Post- Conservative Okla. Lawmakers Face Dilemma: Will They Support Tornado Relief Funding?

A vote for that, is a vote for socialism! I'm sure they turned temp-commie.

May 21, 2021

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David Blaine did a magic trick at Harrison Ford's house, pulled something out of a piece of his fruit.

Harrison Ford bacame irate- "Get the fuck outta my house!"

https://youtu.be/LxrYalHT_fw

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There Is Only One Trump Scandal

By Adam Serwer

May 21, 2018

Excerpt:

"There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal. Singular: the corruption of the American government by the president and his associates, who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the American people, and their attempts to shield that corruption from political consequences, public scrutiny, or legal accountability."

https://theatln.tc/2IDDBrp

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Trump was impeached in part for demanding that Ukraine do him a favor in exchange for congressionally-mandated aid. Based on this woman's testimony, I remember asking people at the time if it would have been okay for Obama to withhold congressionally-mandated aid to Texas, if they were just hit with a hurricane, unless the governor did Obama a favor such as investigating shady Romney business-dealings. The only possible answer is that no, that's not okay.

What Trump is doing now is identical in spirit. I saw someone mock his mafia-like leadership style- "Nice state you got there. It would be a shame if something would happen to it."

May 21, 2020

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Sartre is smartre- "Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.”

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Jefferson to Adams- "Good government demands that we follow truth."

Opposing a commission of 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats coming together to write a report on an insurrection that happened at the Capitol exactly as the winner of the election was being confirmed, killing several and injuring dozens is pure tribalism, pure evasion of the truth.

You know they all supported 87 similar Benghazi investigations.

May 21, 2021

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Albert Einstein- Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.

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New York Magazine- Does Donald Trump have a fully developed theory of mind?

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/05/does-donald-trump-have-a-fully-developed-theory-of-mind.html

May 21, 2017

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MSNBC- Trump fulfills 'cartoonishly evil' hypothetical; threatens states

Wow, I was just thinking about this today! Trump was impeached in part for demanding that Ukraine do him a favor in exchange for congressionally-mandated aid. Based on this woman's testimony, I remember asking people at the time if it would have been okay for Obama to withhold congressionally-mandated aid to Texas, if they were just hit with a hurricane, unless the governor did Obama a favor such as investigating shady Romney business-dealings. The only possible answer is that no, that's not okay.

What Trump is doing now is identical in spirit. I saw someone mock his mafia-like leadership style- "Nice state you got there. It would be a shame if something would happen to it."

https://on.msnbc.com/2zVk7Ls

May 21, 2020

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Daniel Defoe was arrested for seditious libel on this day in 1703 for satirizing the high church in, The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church. Don't say there's no such thing as progress.

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On this day in 1936, Sada Abe was arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover's severed genitals in her handbag. Her story became one of Japan's most notorious scandals.

This is the type of thing that crosses my mind when people say, "Yeah well, it take all kinds." It doesn't take psychopaths!

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In Miami on this day in 1998, five abortion clinics were attacked by a butyric acid attacker. It's easy to think that that person was a psychopath, but they could have been acting perfectly rational. The problem with the rationality is that it rests on the faulty premise that he was in effect liberating Auschwitz.

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On this day in 1992, Johnny Carson hosted the last episode of his Tonight Show, after 30 seasons. He continued writing jokes for David Letterman until he died in 2005. 

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On this day in 2011, radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the world would end on this date. There's nothing better than falsifiable religious claims! When they don't come true, a false prophet is exposed. That's the problem with all these religious people who think Trump was anointed by god. He lost! If they admit it, they are admitting that they are false prophets.

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Actor, writer, and producer, Richard Hatch, was born on this day in 1945. In addition to being an actor, writer, and producer, he's a great guy to be with if you ever get stuck insideva man's genitals.

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Al Franken was born on this day in 1971.

"Mistakes are a part of being human. Precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from."

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Lawrence Tureaud was born on this day in 1952. I pity the fool who doesn't know who that is.

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On this day in 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed in Long Island, NY, completing the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. On this day in 1932, Amelia Earhart accomplished the same feat, landing in Ireland. Glorious moments in two lives marked by tragedy.

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Other notable birthdays- Albrecht Dürer (1471), Henri Rousseau (1844), Judge Reinhold (1957), Jeffrey Dahmer (1960)

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Switching gears...

There was a young man named McBride 

Who could fart whenever he tried. 

In a contest he blew 

Two thousand and two,

Then shit and was disqualified.

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John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism- "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question."

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Agee- "And no matter what, there's not one thing in this world *or* the next that we can do or hope or guess at or wish or pray that can change it or help it one iota. Because whatever is, is. That's all. And all there is now is to be ready for it, strong enough for it, whatever it may be. That's all. That's all that matters. It's all that matters because it's all that's possible."

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Henry David Thoreau, Walden- "I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude."

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Stephen Jay Gould- "The most important tactic in an argument next to being right is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without an embarrassing loss of face."

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David Hume- "Heaven and Hell suppose two distinct species of men, the Good and the Bad. But the greatest part of mankind float betwixt vice and virtue."

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Balzac- "All happiness depends on courage and work."

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Ralph Waldo Emerson- "All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients."

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Anaxagoras- "The seed of everything is in everything else.”