Recycle Bin Dog, and Other Miscellany
Summer!
The mood can't be set more perfectly than with Percy Faith's Theme From A Summer Place.
https://youtu.be/zV0SuwqOTY4
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George Santayana- "To be interested in the changing seasons is . . . a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring."
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World Humanist Day
Bertrand Russell's response to the question if he is a humanist:
You ask me whether I call myself a Scientific Humanist or a Naturalistic Humanist. I am not in the habit of giving myself labels, which I leave to others. I should not have any inclination to call myself humanist, as I think, on the whole, that the non-human part of the cosmos is much more interesting and satisfactory than the human part. But if anybody feels inclined to call me a Humanist, I shall not bring an action for libel.
Yours, sincerely,
Russell
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Oh for Christ's sake... an applicant just applied with the email address "bumble-nuts" at something or another.
June 21, 2022
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Excellent podcast on wealth inequality and the current crisis with Daniel Markovitz. I like the idea of a one-time wealth tax, for people with over $2.5 million net worth, and a sliding scale above it. Or we could just keep printing money, right? At a certain point, more money doesn't lead to more happiness, and there could be a wealth tax where the wealthiest people's well-being could be totally unaffected, and the people suffering could get real relief. Do we believe that we're all in this together or not? A compelling case is made that the rich did not get rich on their own... not that they don't deserve to be rich, but come on, everybody's taxes we're used to help create the society in which they were able to flourish. Doesn't society deserve something back? Markovitz made the best argument I've heard against UBI, that there would be a mad dash for our borders, and how would we deal with it?
https://fb.watch/liFvyGc5OT/?mibextid=irwG9G
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Sure, Biden has had some gaffes! Did you hear when he said about people listening to the news on a phonograph? A ridiculous mistake.
Now I don't want to worry you, but the actual sitting president just had an hours-long gaffe last night! Seriously... actually lamenting Covid-19 testing (therefore explicitly celebrating it's spread), talking about his beautiful Confederate monuments, laser-focus on who likes him and who doesn't like him, intentional race-baiting, he referred to a few thousand screaming supporters as his silent majority... not technically a gaffe, but a wetter face than Nixon debating Kennedy in the middle if Hurricane Katrina.
What shocking thing will he do next? Mock Malala for graduating from Oxford? Declare that the rich will inherit the earth? Join ISIS? Shave his head? Turn to the good side? Any publicity is good publicity, right?
June 21, 2020
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Trump has come back to this again and again... information that he doesn't like is both classified, and a lie. "That's not true, and also it IS true but a SECRET!"
Is there a term for this? Bothsidesism? What else should we expect from a guy who claimed his election was legit if he won, but rigged of his opponent won?
June 21, 2020
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From a friend:
I heard a story from a coworker and thought of you.
I told him that we had a cat at the house who seemed fine but one night started spinning in circles and then started walking in an exaggerated manner, as if the floor were slanted. That night it died.
He one upped me. He said he had a cat that one day just started walking backwards, and continued to do so for a week, it would only walk backward. Until one day it walked backwards into the woods, and didn't walk back out again.
I thought of the Herzog line "It was a powerful metaphor, but for what I didn't know"
My response:
Haha, great! A cat walking backward into the woods, never to be seen again. A cat is a symbol of domestication, and a return to the woods is a return to wildness (wilderness.) Seems like a metaphor of humanity's never ending march towards more science and technology (hyper-domestication of ourselves) as the only way forward. To go backward would be to sacrifice our advantage and face certain death (through disease or war, some type of uncontrollable nature.) Yet at the same time, there is something positive to be said about living with nature and accepting our deaths.
June 21, 2022
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The Ultimate Warrior- "THE FAMILY THAT I LIVE FOR ONLY BREATHES THE AIR THAT SMELLS OF COMBAT!"
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From Skeptic Magazine
Top 10 myths of popular psychology
Myth #7: Opposites Attract
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Bad news, there was a spider in my coffee mug this morning. Good news, there were no moths.
June 21, 2018
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Gretel just told me a humorous story from school today:
"Miss Anita said she smelled something and Harper and I said, 'maybe you pooped your pants.'"
I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. I composed myself and she said it again with excellent comedic timing, "we said Miss Anita pooped in her diapers." I burst out laughing again. Gretel had the biggest smile, so proud of her hilarious joke and my implicit support.
I told her we'll laugh about it today but she shouldn't do it tomorrow. (Yeah right, it'll be just as funny tomorrow...but maybe I'll be able to keep a straight face.)
June 21, 2017
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There's something unsettling about Pepper hanging out in the recycle bin at work.
June 21, 2015
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Jake Lloyd is in jail this Father's Day morning after a high speed chase. Freud might say his identity is wrapped up in the character he's famous for playing, the young Anakin Skywalker. Born of a virgin, he had no father... and he grew up to become one of the worst fathers in history, and to kill his own father figure... so of course he rebels on Father's Day weekend. His only outlet as a youth was his participation is reckless races... his only possible escape from the slavery he grew up under. So it somehow seems to fit that he was arrested in Charleston this weekend. No worries for Jake though- he will be given an opportunity for redemption.
June 21, 2015
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Gretel drew picture of an Ewok for me for Father's Day. He's crying, she said, because he has a red nose. She made me frozen pancakes for breakfast, but she almost used chicken patties instead of pancakes. I would have just had to eat syrup-covered chicken patties with a big smile.
June 22, 2020
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In this day in 1898, the United States captured Guam from Spain. The few warning shots fired by the U.S. naval vessels are misinterpreted as salutes by the Spanish garrison, which was unaware that the two nations were at war.
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On this day in 1964, three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, were murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Recent.
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On this day in 1973, the Supreme Court established the Miller test for determining whether something is obscene and not protected speech under the U.S. constitution. From Wikipedia:
The Miller test was developed in the 1973 case Miller v. California. It has three parts:
1. Whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards", would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
2. Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law,
3. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
The work is considered obscene only if all three conditions are satisfied.
And on this day in 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Texas v. Johnson, that American flag-burning is a form of political protest protected by the First Amendment. For my money, one of the most important decisions. Forced patriotism is no patriotism at all. Scalia voted in favor.
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Jean-Paul Sartre was born on this day in 1905. He left us in 1980, and it seems so bizarre that I shared the planet with him for 6 years. Endlessly quotable, I'll limit myself here to just one.
"If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company."
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Jane Russell was born on this day in 1921.
"They held up 'The Outlaw' for five years. And Howard Hughes had me doing publicity for it every day, five days a week for five years."
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Rick Sutcliffe was born on this day in 1956. I love this story told by Mark Grace. A world-class zinger:
Rick Sutcliffe gave up back-to-back HR`s in Cincinnati. And in Cincinnati, they shoot off fireworks after a Red hits a HR. Sutcliffe was pretty intense on the day he pitched. So Eric Davis takes him deep & Paul O'Neill takes him deep right after that. So Sutcliffe is all mad, and pitching coach Billy Connors comes out to the mound & Sutcliffe yells at him "I know I gave up back-to-back home runs, but get your ass back in the dugout and tell Zimmer to settle down too!"
Billy looks at him & says, "I know you have everything under control, Rick. I just wanted to give that guy running the fireworks a little more time to reload."
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Happy birthday to Juliette Lewis, born on this day in 1973. One of the best actors of her generation. I'll take her over Meryl Streep any day.
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Family Ties is one of my favorite shows. I love it unapologetically. There's something about the theme song that takes me immediately back to my life at the moment it was on. It's hard to explain, just a general feeling that all was okay with the world.
The two stars of the show, Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter-Bernie were each born on the same day, June 21, 1947.
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Carroll O'Connor left us on this day in 2001. I love reading about the cultural impact that All in the Family had. You make an idiotic bigot the star of the show and put his idiocy on display. That's a way to make a difference. We're due for another Archie bunker.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing about President Nixon. He keeps Pat home. Which was where Roosevelt should have kept Eleanor. Instead, he let her run around loose until one day she discovered the colored. We never knew they were there. She told them they were gettin’ the short end of the stick and we been having trouble ever since.”
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Other notable birthdays- Benazir Bhutto (1953), Edward Snowden (1983)
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Scorsese vs Kubrick
http://vimeo.com/12432238
June 21, 2010
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25 Funniest 5 Second Films
Friends, please watch these. For your own sake. Please. Please watch these. And let me know which is your favorite.
http://www.cracked.com/video_18592_25-funniest-5-second-films-ever.html
June 21, 2013
Postscript- 10 years later, so many of these are still so funny! The best one is obviously "Getting Laid."
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Buzzfeed, 15 Drop-Dead Gorgeous Cemeteries From Around The World, by Erin Chack
Some real knockouts!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinchack/drop-dead-gorgeous-cemeteries-around-the-world
June 21, 2013
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I dedicate this to the fathers that nobody remembers.
https://youtu.be/Ew6ef3nE-E4
June 21, 2015
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Union of Concerned Scientists- Top American Scientists Urge Obama to Take Nuclear Missiles off Hair-Trigger Alert, More Than 90, Including 20 Nobel Laureates, Sent Letter to President Today, Published Jun 21, 2016
But when have scientists ever been right?
https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/top-american-scientists-urge-obama-take-nuclear-missiles-hair-trigger-alert
June 21, 2016
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Imagine you are up-and-coming filmmaker, David Lynch, and some film people tell you that they had just been invited to Stanley Kubrick's house to watch what Stanley calls "his favorite film." And it was Eraserhead.
Excerpt from Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch:
“Stanley Kubrick is one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, and he did me a great honor early in my career that really encouraged me. I was working on The Elephant Man, and I was at Lee International Studios in England, standing in a hallway. One of the producers of The Elephant Man, Jonathan Sanger, brought over some guys who were working with George Lucas and said, “They’ve got a story for you.” And I said, “Okay.” They said, “Yesterday, David, we were at Elstree Studios, and we met Kubrick. And as we were talking to him, he said to us, ‘How would you fellas like to come up to my house tonight and see my favorite film?'” They said, “That would be fantastic.” They went up, and Stanley Kubrick showed them Eraserhead. So, right then, I could have passed away peaceful and happy.”
June 21, 2019
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Leon Uris left us on this day in 2003. From QB VII:
Who here wants to be a writer?' I asked. Everyone in the room raised his hand. 'Why the hell aren't you home writing?' I said, and left the stage.
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Subhumans- Work Rest Play Die
I just got goosebumps listening to that song. One line of the lyrics really ment a lot to me back in 10th or 11th grade, and it still does.
"Are you prepared to die for your beliefs or just to dye your hair?"
https://youtu.be/eLs4w7dTvM8
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Viktor Frankl- "What a man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him."
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Sidney Lumet, Making Movies- “I once asked Akira Kurosawa why he had chose to frame a shot in ‘Ran’ in a particular way. His answer was that if he’d panned the camera one inch to the left, the Sony factory would be sitting there exposed. If he’d panned an inch to the right, we would see the airport–neither of which belongs in a period movie.”
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Richard Rodriguez- "I think sadness is not antithetical to happiness."
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Boethius- "Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it."
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Adam Smith- "Individual ambition serves the common good."
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Jung- "Deep down, below the surface of the average man's conscience, he hears a voice whispering, "There is something not right," no matter how much his rightness is supported by public opinion or moral code."
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Albert Einstein- "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly."
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