Admitting Faults, and Other Miscellaneous Signs of Progress
Anne Frank's 91st birthday. Imagine her sacrifice for her own safety and others. Who among us could handle the same thing? Who among us could handle a fraction of it?
On this day in 1942 she was given a diary for her 13th birthday. In it, she wrote, "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again."
In spite of everything, somehow I agree with her! Unfounded? Maybe. But it's one of those strange beliefs that the very act of believing it (and letting people know you believe it) somehow in some strange way helps make it true. It's a model to follow.
Incidentally, Sarah Silverman quoted that first sentence, along with this picture of Anne Frank the day after the last presidential election.
June 12, 2020
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Kurt Vonnegut- "Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn’t meant to be reasonable."
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Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth (with Bill Moyers)- “Eternity isn’t some later time. Eternity isn’t even a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal terms cuts off. And if you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere. The problem with heaven is that you will be having such a good time there, you won’t even think of eternity. You’ll just have this unending delight in the beatific vision of God. But the experience of eternity right here and now, in all things, whether thought of as good or as evil, is the function of life.”
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Well we have two old guys running for president and one of them is going to win. The good news is that one of them is not an obvious psychopath.
June 12, 2024
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Trump said that Kim Jong Un "loves his people." You know, despite running the country like a concentration camp. It all of a sudden makes sense what Trump said during the DACA debate- that he had a "great love" for the Dreamers. Maybe Trump doesn't lie at all, he might just be using all opposite definitions!
June 12, 2018
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My philosophy on parenting is simple- relax, do your best, and anything you screw up will probably make your children extra-interesting.
June 12, 2016
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Sometimes it seems unbelievable that I have ancestors who lived in the 1800's, and then I remember that I have ancestors who lived in the sea.
June 12, 2011
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You can't use Trogdor in Scrabble! Didn't Alfred Butts ever hear of burninating???
June 12, 2013
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Got my dog so excited for a walk she started hyperventilating.
June 12, 2013
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If you're not making rhubarb ice cream, then you're not me.
June 12, 2011
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Dear Reader, you are one in a million! (There are 6920 people exactly like you.)
June 12, 2011
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I'm reading the Bible tonight.
OK fine, I'm reading R. Crumb's graphic novel of the Book of Genesis.
June 12, 2010
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My elbow's dead. If you want to pay your respects it'll be buried in my backyard.
June 12, 2010
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Gretel skateboarding:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0C8APXRSpRzdzi6F9uhdFENUedzeg1feoauSCGaZV3yRvHY3kuAyXGRPPCygfU8JQl&id=741063511&mibextid=irwG9G
June 12, 2021
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Benj Haisch- The most The Office thing to happen since the show ended.
https://fb.watch/l6PLF6ahme/?mibextid=irwG9G
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Fixing my TV. This shouldn't be too hard.
June 12, 2018
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Dalai Lama- “This is my simple religion. No need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Your own mind, your own heart is the temple. Your philosophy is simple kindness.”
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Taking these two goodies to the park.
June 12, 2016
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On this day in 1963, NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers was murdered in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi by Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith. Two trials in 1964, with all white juries, ended up with hung juries. The jury should have hung him. A new trial in 1994, based on new evidence, put him away.
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On this day in 1967, the United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia declared all U.S. state laws which prohibit interracial marriage to be unconstitutional. 1967!!!
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Bill Burr- "Interracial sex is probably some of the best sex on the planet. You know what that is? Because with interracial sex there’s like this whole added pressure to perform. ‘Cause it’s kinda like you’re not just humping for yourself. You’re humping for your race. You got to represent your people."
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Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison for sabotage in South Africa, on this day in 1964.
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George H. W. Bush was born on this day in 1924. Everybody forgets that he was the head of the CIA through a chunk of the seventies, when we were doing some pretty bad stuff, i.e., overthrowing democratically elected leaders.
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Psychologist and author, Jordan Peterson, was born on this day in 1962. I appreciate this interview with Jim Jefferies.
Jefferies- Making people bake a cake for a gay wedding?
Peterson- Making them do it?
Jefferies- Yeah.
Peterson- I don't think that's a very good idea.
Jefferies- So should they be able to deny making a cake for a black couple if they don't like black people?
Peterson- Allowed to? Probably. That doesn't mean it's right.
Jefferies- So then we have a civil rights movement where they said you have to serve black people in your restaurant. And it did work and it made our society better. Would you argue that that still wasn't right.
Peterson- No, that was right.
Jefferies- Why is that different then now if you didn't want to make a cake for black people?
Peterson- Maybe it's not. Maybe it's not different. Maybe I was wrong about that.
Admitting our faults is virtue!
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On this day in 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of O. J. Simpson, and Ron Goldman, restaurant employee tragically left us, setting up a series of events that would eventually lead to Norm Macdonald getting fired from Saturday Night Live. Or the so the Germans would have us believe.
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Gregory Peck left us on this day in 2003. His role of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the all-time great roles, voted the top hero of all time in an AFI poll.
"Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results."
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György Ligeti left us on this day in 2006. He created indispensable music for 2001, The Shining, and Eyes Wide Shut.
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Mark Twain, Notebook- "Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship God, & over these ideals they dispute & cannot unite--but they all worship money."
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On this day in 1970, one of the craziest feats in the history of sports took place. Dock Ellis of the Pirates no-hit the Padres while high on LSD. He was with a friend in Los Angeles and took some, lost track of time, woke up the next day and took some again, unaware that he was supposed to pitch that night. Sure, he walked eight and hit a batter, but a no-hitter is a no-hitter!
"I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate."
His name on the lineup card that day would have been, "Ellis, D." Just in case you are looking for proof that we're living in a simulation.
Great Johnny Cash video. I'm not sure when my shock over his death turned into wonder that he was ever here to begin with.
http://www.thejohnnycashproject.com/#/explore/TopRated
June 12, 2010
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Still perhaps the best 13 seconds on the internet. You have to love it when a trash can Halloween prank backfires.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVeKazbTxxE
June 12, 2011
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Opening of The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser:
Do you hear that horrible screaming all around? That screaming men call silence?
https://youtu.be/wWEVBf5xNcI
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