Life Begins At Breath, Ends When We Live In Fear
I couldn't respect anyone more than I respect the journalist and commentator Bill Moyers, who we lost today at 91 years old.
He was Lyndon Johnson's chief aide, helping provide the idealistic underpinnings of his Great Society, and served as his press secretary until 1966, when they had a falling out over foreign policy.
I consider his 1987 interview with Joseph Campbell the greatest interview in the history of interviews. It changed my psychology. In my last semester in college, a friend told me I should watch it, and I genuinely consider it one of the greatest educational experiences of my life.
Walter Cronkite of all people called him "the conscience of the nation."
I bet you can't guess what Bill is short for. Wrong, it's short for Billy. When he shortened his name to Bill, he said it sounded more dignified. I think he might be on to something there.
He supervised drafting the legislation that became the Peace Corps, and it's leader called him, "that curious and very rare blend of idealist-operator.”
He was on Air Force One when Johnson took the oath of office after Kennedy was assassinated, working with Kennedy's speech writer to draft Johnson's first statement to the nation as president.
He oversaw Johnson's Daisy Girl campaign ad, probably the most famous campaign ad in the history of campaign ads.
A smattering of quotes:
"What's right and good doesn't come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does."
"War, except in self-defense, is a failure of moral imagination."
"For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington."
"Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow. And politics is the bow of idealism."
"As a student I learned from wonderful teachers and ever since then I've thought everyone is a teacher."
"Someone asked why I invited Jon Stewart to be the first guest on the 'Journal''s premiere in 2007. 'Because Mark Twain isn't available,' I answered. I was serious."
"Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of."
"When language fails, violence becomes a language."
"Democracy belongs to those who exercise it."
I don't believe in an afterlife per se, but I know that Bill Moyers lives on through the example he said with his knowledge, wisdom, drive, curiosity, and character.
June 26, 2025
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Why do people think conception is so important? It's not like it happens in an instant, it happens over a couple days. Why not the first breath? Whoever wrote the Bible thought the first breath was pretty important.
-Genesis 2:7, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and it was then that the man became a living being”
-Job 33:4, “The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
-Ezekiel 37:5 and 6, “Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live."
Sure, there are contradictory quotes (like the rest of the Bible), but one could just as well except these as truth.
To the ancient Greeks, breath was equivalent to life. It makes sense, and saves God from the crime of the responsibility for killing untold millions each year.
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Oh boy, a day until the first debate. Are you excited?
I've watched every presidential debate going back about 20 years, and after the 2020 debates I doubted I would watch them again unless the moderator had a mute button. Well somehow they do, so count me in. A few predictions:
-Biden just might stumble on some words. It's just a hunch.
-Trump won't stumble on any words, even the words he should keep inside his head, they'll just keep charging out, one by one, some relevant but most not, continuously and loudly, well after his mic is cut, perhaps straight through until he's allowed to speak again.
-Biden will try to appeal to the youth by his tried and true reference to "phonograph records."
-Trump will sniffle incessantly, the way he always does. And he'll blame it on the mics, the way he always does.
-Biden will continually struggle to keep from calling Trump a clown, conscious to not cheapen the whole proceeding. Trump will cheapen the whole proceeding every chance he gets, continuously acting like a clown.
There's one thing we should all be excited about though. In both 2016 and 2020, Weird Al Yankovic has released a song and video the following morning. He stays up all night with his production team and creates a song out of samples from the debate. I'm prepared for the debate to disappoint me, but if the song disappoints me, I'll be crushed.
June 26, 2024
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Nora Ephron left us on this day in 2012. Times haven't changed too much.
"Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy."
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Bertrand Russell- "I find myself in opposition to both (Communism and Fascism), and I can no more accept either alternative than, if I had lived during the great Wars of Religion, I could have been either a Protestant or a Catholic."
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Slings were a popular weapon in ancient Greece, used to throw rocks. Some rocks have been recovered with messages, such as, "Take that," "This belongs to you," "Eat this," "I hope this hits you in the dick," and "Fuck you."
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The Ultimate Warrior- LOAD UP THE SPACESHIP WITH THE ROCKET FUEL!
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Union General, Abner Doubleday, was born on this day in 1819. Branch Rickey famously said, "The only thing Abner Doubleday ever started was the Civil War." And he did too. He didn't fire the first shot, but he fired the first shot in defense, which as far as I'm concerned made it a war.
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George Carlin:
Don’t just teach your children to read... Teach them to question everything that they read, everything they hear. Children should be taught to question authority.
Parents never teach their children to question authority because parents are authority figures themselves, and they don't want to undermine their own bullsh*t inside the household. So, they stroke the kid, and the kid strokes them, and they all stroke each other, and they all grow up all fucked up, and they come to shows like this.
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Reminds me of the DFW essay, Federer as Religious Experience. Nadal as Religious Experience? That last rally couldn't have really happened.
https://fb.watch/lpWxYJDIat/?mibextid=irwG9G
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I didn't learn anything from this monument! It at least could have said "2nd WORST PRESIDENT."
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Elizabeth Warren... her greatest plan of all, is how to lose the presidency. You know her hairdo is two combstrokes away from Trump's? Klobuchar- Mean Mrs. Nice. Then there's Texas Loser, giving 3/4 if his first answer in Spanish. That will resonate. Cory Booker... I called the 2016 election for Clinton and him as VP back in 2013 but she must not have seen my post. Julian Castro... idea for a running mate, Fred Pol Pot. Tulsi Gabbard... more blah than de Blah-sio, more lame than De-lamey. Wait, did Delaney just say Obama gave him an award for something??? Ooooooohhh. Even if he was great, he's bald. I don't think America is ready for another bald president. Inslee... I glazed over when he was speaking. Tim Ryan, dead weight. Wait, Warren really does have plans for everything... best pair tonight, Warren/Booker.
June 26, 2019
Postscript- "Funny, didn't even think to mention Biden."
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There's no narration like Malick film narration. From Badlands:
"I'd stopped even paying attention to him. Instead I sat in the car and read a map and spelled out entire sentences with my tongue on the roof of mouth where nobody could read them."
June 26, 2017
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Sloth told me a great story today. He's been keeping an injured snapping turtle in his bathtub. He was carrying it outside when he came to a door and realized he had to figure out how to open it with no available hands. The snapper chomped on the door knob and Sloth turned it open. Perfect!
June 26, 2016
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Gay marriage was legalized by the Supreme Court a year ago today. Looking back I feel pretty foolish for supporting it, but what reasonable person would have expected all of those pro-bestiality and pedophilia laws to follow? The real surprises though were all of the people getting divorced to marry inanimate objects, and putting John Roberts on the $3 bill.
June 26, 2016
Postscript: Putting John Roberts on the $3 bill...that's good material, haha.
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Great news for supporters of traditional marriage- it's still allowed! And don't be downtrodden, you can still amend the constitution! My suggestion- try to amend it to only recognize forms of marriage accepted in the Bible. For instance Deuteronomy 22:28-29: "If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." It's worth a shot, right? Report back.
June 26, 2015
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Great day for the equality-lovers! For the equality-haters though... well, it was a rough one.
June 26, 2015
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Your work has just begun gay people. Now you must put all your effort into achieving a 50% divorce rate!
June 26, 2015
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Imagine this, it was only 2003 that the Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws are unconstitutional! That's a lot of progress in a short period of time. We are progressing in ways we now take for granted. It actually happened on this day in 2003. I guess the current Supreme Court of Theocracy would want to revisit that.
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Pearl S. Buck said, in The Good Earth, "You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings." She might as well have been talking about gay marriage. She was born on this day in 1892.
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If I had a nickel for every time I made the most delicious blackberry frozen yogurt I've ever tasted, I would have just received a nickel.
June 26, 2011
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On this day in 1963, John F. Kennedy gave his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, just 18 years after WWII.
Imagine us having that relationship with Russia in 18 years.
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Elvis's last concert took place on this day in 1977 at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, Indiana. Here's the setlist:
Also Spake Zarathustra (opening)
See See Rider
I Got A Woman/Amen
Love Me
Fairytale
You Gave Me A Mountain
Jailhouse Rock
O Sole Mio/It's Now Or Never
Little Sister
Teddy Bear/Don't Be Cruel
Release Me
I Can't Stop Loving You
Bridge Over Troubled Water
(band introductions)
Early Morning Rain
What'd I Say
Johnny B. Goode
(solos by band members Larrie Londin: drums, Jerry Scheff: bass, Tony Brown: piano)
I Really Don't Want To Know
(solo by the backing Joe Guercio Orchestra)
Hurt
Hound Dog
(Elvis introduces various people from the stage)
Can't Help Falling In Love
(Closing vamp)
Also on this day, in 1961, Elvis recorded one of my top favorites- His Latest Flame. That song gets stuck in my head for days.
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Buffalo 66 was released on this day in 1998.
“We’re taking pictures like we’re a couple. Like we like each other. Like we’re husband and wife. And we span time together. We span time together as a couple. Cause we’re a loving couple, spanning time. These photos are us in love, spanning time.”
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Tree of Life is too much for some brains to handle.
June 26, 2011
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My great-great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Haller was born on this day in 1845. He named my great-great-grandfather Isaac Newton Haller, and he fought in the Civil War. If Ancestry is to be believed, this is a picture of him.
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Shirley Jackson's short story The Lottery was published in The New Yorker magazine on this day in 1948.
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Aubrey Plaza joined the rest of us weirdos on this day in 1984.
"I'm not super comfortable in my skin. I have to make it work for me, and that usually amounts to making it uncomfortable for everyone else."
She had this to say at the Young Hollywood Awards in 2012:
“Thank you to the Young Hollywood Awards and to all the young people out there. Keep being young and fuck the old people. Old people can go fuck themselves. I’m going to live forever.”
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Other notable birthdays- Big Bill Broonzy (1903), Paul Thomas Anderson (1970), Peter Lorre (1904), Derek Jeter (1974), Jason Schwartzman (1980)
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The Onion, June 26, 2013- Gay Marriage Opponents Warn Supreme Court Ruling Could Put Nation On Slippery Slope To Rationality
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I don't speak David Lynch's language but I understand it fluently and knew what he was saying from the beginning. Who can argue with this advice he gives Trump?
"It’s not too late to turn the ship around. Point our ship toward a bright future for all. You can unite the country. Your soul will sing. Under great loving leadership, no one loses — everybody wins. It’s something I hope you think about and take to heart. All you need to do is treat all the people as you would like to be treated."
What could possibly cause that to happen though???
https://www.yahoo.com/news/david-lynch-rebukes-trump-causing-suffering-division-191859676.html
June 26, 2018
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Mike Schmidt, June 26, 2020, on the Covid rule-changes. “I don’t know how you can have a baseball season when you can’t spit. You have to be able to spit in baseball. I can’t imagine baseball without spitting.”
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Did you hear Biden accidentally said "120 million" died from Covid-19, instead of "120 thousand?" Add it to his list, then look at this list if you like.
LEST WE FORGET THE HORRORS: A CATALOG OF TRUMP’S WORST CRUELTIES, COLLUSIONS, CORRUPTIONS, AND CRIMES
THE COMPLETE LISTING:
ATROCITIES 1 – 1,056
by BEN PARKER, STEPHANIE STEINBRECHER, KELSEY RONAN, JOHN McMURTRIE, SOPHIA DuROSE, RACHEL VILLA, and AMY SUMERTON
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-complete-listing-atrocities-1-1-056
June 26, 2020
Note: Updated through January 21, 2021
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Full Metal Jacket was released on this day in 1987. Some people think of it as an anti-war film, but Paths of Glory was Kubrick's anti-war film. Full Metal Jacket was in film about the experience of war. You won't find a more perfectly ambiguous ending anywhere else in film. With the Marines marching and singing the Mickey Mouse theme song, Private Joker ends his voice over:
"My thoughts drift back to erect nipple wet dreams about Mary Jane Rottencrotch and the Great Homecoming Fuck Fantasy. I am so happy that I am alive, in one piece and short. I'm in a world of shit... yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid."
Stanley Kubrick, Full Metal Jacket:
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