What I Believe

All of these "shall-not-be-infringed" gun people completely forget that that phrase is prefaced by a "well regulated militia." Quote their favorite amendment, and they accuse you of "spouting off lib talking points." Huh???

The 2nd Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Do they consider themselves a well regulated militia? Could a militia be constitutionally regulated from having nuclear weapons at their disposal? If so, then there is a certain level of deadliness to the weapons that we allow. 

Perhaps semi-automatic assault rifles surpass that level of deadliness. Seems so to me. 

I was having a friendly back and forth with a gun person the other day. I try not to be too cocky with those guys because they do teach me things from time to time. No, not at the barrel of a gun. Through conversation.

One thing that surprised me about them is that the people who really believe in the second amendment, seem to really believe it... meaning, they believe it applies to all citizens, regardless of race. Of course there are racist exceptions, but they seem to be in the minority, so to speak. 

My interlocutor was parading around the greatest hits, "shall not be infringed," "good guy with a gun beats a bad guy with a gun," "more people are killed by drunk drivers," etc. He said that in Wyoming they have open carry laws and they don't have this happen. 

I asked him if it might have to do with the population, and he changed the subject. 

I asked him if their open-carry laws are any different than Texas where this happened, and he changed the subject. 

I told him I didn't know the answer to this question, but asked hypothetically, if it is true that more innocent people are murdered by semi-automatic weapons than bad guys are taken down by them, would prove that they do more harm than good? He didn't answer anymore.

Too bad too, because I had him at checkmate. If more innocent people are killed by semi-automatic weapons, which seems to be obvious, then they need to be banned in the interest of public safety, the same public safety that gun guys claim they are improving. 

They could say that outlawing them won't stop outlaws from having them. Well we still have drunk drivers, does that mean we should legalize drunk driving? 

Take it a step further, if murder still exists, does that mean we should legalize it too? We create laws to improve public safety based on data. Does that need to be stated outright?

I'm not anti-gun. We needed guns to kill Hitler. We could need them again to kill the next Hitler. And I've heard stories that people really do kill deer to eat them.

If I understand Finland's anti-Russia strategy correctly, they are ready to load up their citizens with guns. The citizens don't battle anybody until they come out of their armored vehicles, at which time they get blown away. Any attempt they make to run the country on the ground, smithereens. 

That sounds like a massive well regulated militia, if you ask me. The Founders would be proud of Finland. What we have is a poorly regulated myriad of lone wolves.

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Do you know about blue zones? Those are the somewhat isolated areas where people have an above average lifespan. Researchers study the diet in those areas for clues on how everybody could extend their lives.

One study suggests that people who eat 15 to 30 walnuts a day live 3 years longer on average. I did the math, and if it's true, each walnut extends our lives 5 minutes. Wow!

So I bought a big bag of walnuts, and I'm just hoping that my life doesn't end in unendurable pain. I'll be cursing every last walnut I ever ate!

May 25, 2024

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Oh dear God. How is this a thing that exists? Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder seeing each other for the first time since their breakup, in 1991.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/674117693871716

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At Steve Martin's concert comedy shows he used to get the crowd too repeat the non-conformists oath.

SM- I promise to be different.

Crowd- I promise to be different.

SM- I promise to be unique.

Crowd- I promise to be unique.

SM- I promise not to repeat things other people say.

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I typed the word "unconvenient" today. It didn't pass spell check and I simply couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.

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I was talking to Gretel about English class on the way to school today. I asked her if they studied any poetry and she said they did. She said the least favorite type of poetry to her is the limerick. Which she pronounced like lime-rick. 

I told her I could make one up. "There once was a girl named Gretel, who smelled like a flower petal. She did a dance, and peed her pants, and banged her head on some metal."

She freaked out, started thrashing around! 

All I could do to get her to stop was to make one up about myself. It's not good.

There once was a dad named Ben, 

That's Ben, should I say it again?

He did a dance,

And peed his pants,

Then somehow he did it again.

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Great news- I found an unopened pack of pistachios in my car!

Terrible news- after I got done eating them, I discovered that the dust at the bottom of the package was riddled with dead ancient bugs!

May 25, 2021

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Many Trump supporters believe two contradictory things. Number one, and most unnerving, is that they think it's impossible for him to lose in November. Number two, they love him for intentionally pissing off the other side for years. You can't have it both ways! Piss enough people off, see your reelection chances decrease. 

It reminds me of that Halloween Simpsons episode where Homer cannibalizes himself. He finds himself so delicious he just can't stop cooking himself up, pushing it right to the limit. Homer could teach Trump a lesson that he seems unable to learn- when you cut off essential support, don't expect to stick around too long enjoying yourself.

May 25, 2020

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I was telling Gretel & Zuzu about some of our ancestors who fought in wars. They were excited to hear that we have an ancestor who was in World War II. 

Gretel- Did he kill Hitler?

Zuzu- Hitler is bad. And he killed a lot of people. That is all that I know about Hitler.

Me- He did not kill Hitler.

Gretel- One of our relatives killed Hitler though.

Me- Oh yeah?

Gretel- Yes, we are all related, so whoever killed Hitler was one of our relatives.

That's true I suppose... I nearly completed the thought for her, but I'll let her figure that out later.

May 25, 2020

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The right and left are holding their leaders to two separate standards. Biden was roundly criticized by making the dumbass assumption that black people have to vote for him, and he apologized. But do you remember what Trump said at a meeting of Jewish leaders back in December?

"A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well. You're brutal killers, not nice people at all. But you have to vote for me, you have no choice."

So they are Jewish, so they care about money above all, so the only option is to vote for Trump, huh?

It's a parallel gaffe (or is it worse?), but blends in with his daily myriad of gaffes. This may or may not surprise you, but he didn't apologize, and why would have anyone even bothered to ask him to?

May 25, 2020

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I researched my direct ancestors' graves going back 10 generations, and found where 355 of them are buried. That's going back about 300 years. Somehow 338 of them are buried in Lancaster County, 12 are buried just outside of Lancaster County, and only 5 are buried significantly further away. Man, I have some deep ties to this area.

May 25, 2019

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Trump, on white protesters promoting racial supremecy- "some fine people."

Trump, on black protesters promoting racial equality- "fine some people."

May 25, 2018

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16 Cognitive Distortions, Positive Psychology, by Courtney Ackerman

4. Disqualifying the Positive

On the flip side, the “Disqualifying the Positive” distortion acknowledges positive experiences but rejects them instead of embracing them.

For example, a person who receives a positive review at work might reject the idea that they are a competent employee and attribute the positive review to political correctness, or to their boss simply not wanting to talk about their employee’s performance problems.

This is an especially malignant distortion since it can facilitate the continuation of negative thought patterns even in the face of strong evidence to the contrary.

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Solo solo.

May 25, 2018

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After Trump's budget calling for $700 billion in cuts to Medicaid, are more of his voters beginning to feel conned? I mean he took out TV ads as president promising he wouldn't touch it. How can the cognitive dissonance be ignored?

May 25, 2017

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Oh how miserable it would be to be happy all the time.

May 25, 2011

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Neil DeGrasse Tyson- "If you removed all the arteries, veins, & capillaries from a person's body, and tied them end-to-end...the person will die."

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On this day in 240BC was the first recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.

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"Thus the sacrifice of Jesus is illogical. It violates justice to have an innocent person pay a penalty for a guilty person.If the Biblical god wanted to forgive us for something, he could simply have done it. No savior needed to die in order to accomplish this." 

I'm unsure where that quote is from. Sounds like Dawkins.

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The Onion headline- Elderly Man Hailed As Alert

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Huh... in the last 5 years, 8% changed from believing God created humans in their present form to believing that either humans evolved and God just played a part, or humans evolved without God's help. Who says there's no progress?

http://ow.ly/qlHF30bYe1X

May 25, 2017

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Bertrand Russell, from What I Believe

"We also cannot suppose that an individual’s thinking survives bodily death, since death destroys the organization of the brain. All the evidence goes to show that what we regard as our mental life is bound up with brain structure and organized bodily energy. Therefore it is rational to suppose that mental life ceases when bodily life ceases."

This was considered blasphemous in 1925. Who says there's no progress?

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On this day in 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint session of the U.S. Congress:

"I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth."

And then you know what, we did it! It took eight years, what could we do in the next eight years?

Incidentally, sixteen years to the day after that speech, Star Wars was released.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on this day in 1803.

"There can be no excess to love; none to knowledge; none to beauty, when these attributes are considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always affirms an Optimism, never a Pessimism.

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Pulitzer prize winning photographer, Robert Capa, left us on this day in 1954, at 38 years old. He spent a month traveling through Russia with John Steinbeck, who had some good words to share in memorializing him.

"He could photograph motion and gaiety and heartbreak. He could photograph thought."

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At the conclusion of the Scopes Monkey Trial on this day in 1925, John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching human evolution in Tennessee on this day in 1925.

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The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, was dedicated on this day in 1968.

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Other notable birthdays- Tom T. Hall (1936), Frank Oz (1944), Mike Myers (1963)

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The second Muhammad Ali / Sonny Liston fight took place on this day in 1965, which means that the Mad Men episode, The Suitcase, took place 60 years ago today as well, into the following morning. It has my vote for the greatest TV episode of all time.

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Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston on this day in 1965. I think this picture was taken by a teenager, and the person who stole his preferred seat is seen between Ali's legs.

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In 1925 Air Force general Billy Marshall returned from Asia and submitted a report saying that there would be a war between the United States and Japan sometime in the future. Japan would attack the United States at Pearl Harbor at 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday, then attack the Philippines at 10:40. Sixteen years later the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor at 7:55 and the Philippines at 12:30.

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Uproxx- Reading Too Much Into ‘Mad Men’: 7 Fascinating Theories On This Week’s Episode, ‘Crash’

Great reflections on last week's Mad Men, one of the best episodes of the series.

http://www.uproxx.com/tv/2013/05/reading-too-much-into-mad-men-7-fascinating-theories-on-this-weeks-episode/

May 25, 2013

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The science of what motivates us, animated

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/09/daniel-pink-drive-rsa-motivation/

May 25, 2013

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"Thus the sacrifice of Jesus is illogical. It violates justice to have an innocent person pay a penalty for a guilty person."

http://augustberkshire.com/2011/03/28/jesus-not-die-sins/

May 25, 2014

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Dylan- "The loser now will be later to win."

What a strange way if phrasing that!

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Lawrence Ferlinghetti - "Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the hearts of everyone."

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John Stuart Mill- "An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence."

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Henry David Thoreau- "On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend's life also, in our own, to the world."

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George Carlin:

"At the end of the '70s someone wrote a column that said, "The 70s are over. Say goodbye to lava lamps. Say goodbye to wide lapels. Say goodbye to disco. Say goodbye to George Carlin." Then in another column Cheech Marin said, "George Carlin is obsolete. He's talking about peas now." 

"I see that and I think to myself, "I'm going to make these people pay, by getting better and learning how to be a fucking artist. And it gave me an inner resolve to be terrific, to go to a new level, to really show the world what was fucking inside of me."

Addendum

1.

Albert Einstein- "Your question is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things."

2.

Myspace Blog

May 25, 2007

Hey, Those Are My Apples: The Wizard of Oz as Metaphor for the War on Terror

Dorothy- the perfect symbol of naiveté. We act very naïve- completely separate from the fact that we are responsible for much of the violence in the world. The Wizard of Oz is the story of her coming to accept her responsibility, the same as we must accept our responsibility.

What is she associated with from the very beginning of her time in Oz? The ruby slippers. I don't want to repel you by getting into the color red and its significance to a girl's transformation into accepting responsibility… and honestly, I don't want to repel myself, but there'll be more on this later.

The tornado is 911- destruction. Things turn to color, we see things in a different way.

Remember Dorothy teetering on the fence and falling into the pigpen? That's the current president going on vacation for a month and missing all of the intelligence. She was helped out of the pigpen by the guy who was the Scarecrow in her dream. The current president- hand-in-hand with a symbol of no intelligence. Fitting.

Glinda- the conscience of the country. We know what's right and wrong and that the power to change is within us. We just have to learn to act on it, as Dorothy must decide to act on Glinda's advice.

Munchkins- extension of what's good in us… it's still small, yet to be actualized.

Follow the yellow brick road- the road to Oz, a fanciful place… like heaven, which itself is a metaphor for a fanciful, perfect place. Want to get to heaven? We must be good, accept our responsibility. The only way to free ourselves (rising above via balloon) is by following what we know is right, exposing hypocrisy and finding the strength within ourselves. The only way to live in everlasting bliss (or bliss in-the-moment, which itself is an eternity, timelessness) is by accepting responsibility and recognizing our true strength.

Scarecrow- no brain, our foreign policy lacks intelligence, in several ways.

Tin man- natural resources, the building block of our economy. He's become stagnant (rusted solid), and what is it that frees him? Oil. An oil can. Our economy needs to have a heart, and once it does we can accept our responsibility for invading countries (in part) for their natural resources. Without a heart, he's kept from chopping down those angry old trees- a symbol of American selfishness- all for us and nothing for anybody else, "Hey, those are my apples."

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Hussein, Ahmadinejad, and Kim Jong-Il oh my! The axis of fear. All we have to fear is fear itself. What does it say that we're terrorizing ourselves, the same as Dorothy? An adolescent nation? The concept of fear brings us to…

The Wicked Witch- Osama bin Laden (or the current president, if you prefer. The only significant difference is the number of innocent people they're responsible for killing.) In Iraq, first there were sanctions on chlorine and now there's no electricity for pumps that clean the water, and a study showed there's a correlation between lack of good drinking water and support for the insurgency. To get Iraq up and running, they need safe water and then we'll effectively crush sympathy for the terrorist cause, thus crushing bin Laden. We'll melt away his influence, if you will. Similarly, throw some water on the witch and she melts away. Her broomstick then is obviously the 911 memorial. Right?

"How about a little fire scarecrow"- anthrax attacks? Back to the yellow brick road…

Lion- false courage, useless and even harmful displays of might. We would be better off facing problems head-on but we go after the symptoms (terrorism) rather than having the courage to go after the root causes (oppression, for one). We're mighty but it's all show, just like toppling that Saddam Hussein statue was all show.

Toto, how have we missed him? He's the good side of our animal instincts- we give kindness, we receive kindness / we give meanness, we receive meanness… as seen in his relations with Dorothy and the Wicked Witch.

Blue monkeys- evil, terror, perversion of our natural, deeper selves- our base, animal instincts- the corruption of our souls as a result of the constant presence of evil… shall I go on? Many of these people are under indictment, have resigned, or think laws against torture are "quaint" and are about to resign.

Other bits:

The gang fell asleep in the field of poppies- the taliban's cash crop. Accident or prophecy?

Lollipop guild- AFL-CIO

That "Oh wee oh" song- God Bless America

Man behind the curtain- too obvious to mention.

The Wicked Witch's hourglass- a symbol of Freud's penis, slowly turning to dust inside his coffin. He died a month prior to the premiere. It also symbolizes that we don't have forever to decide whether or not to be good.

The time has come to go back to the ruby slippers. Dorothy leaves them behind in Oz (again, the fanciful image of the world) once she finally accepts responsibility. Red is a symbol for blood- the blood in Iraq. We must leave behind our fanciful, adolescent world of just-kill-all-of-the-terrorists and accept that we kill many times more*** innocent civilians. We must lose our naiveté, become smart, grow a heart, and our leaders must discover genuine courage.

Bottom line: we must accept responsibility and return to the real world in all of its glorious brown and white.

*** The last I heard, we've claimed to have killed a few thousand terrorists, but we might have killed up to a few hundred thousand civilians, and a country that destabilizes a country is responsible (not solely responsible, but responsible nonetheless) for the deaths that follow.