Ephemeris of Miscellany

Gore Vidal left us on this day in 2012. "The unfed mind devours itself." Endlessly quotable.  ... Can we just be done with Trump and his endless race-baiting? He entered the public political consciousness with his Obama birth certificate nonsense, which he clearly knew was phony, but he went on about it for years. (Hey, any publicity is good publicity, right?) That was like 14 years ago, and a year doesn't go by without him intentionally throwing some of his garbage into the public stew, consistently downgrading the country's level of conversation. Now enthusiasm for Kamala is at its height, and he's calling her race into question. It was only a matter of time. All the attention needs to be on him. Is she black, is she Indian? What did he want to get out of his meeting today with black journalists? He didn't want an honest exchange of ideas. This is what he wanted, us commenting on another racial controversy of his own creation. This type of thing can't be...

We lost the inimitable Pee-wee Herman on this day in 2023. Doesn't seem possible, does it? How did he pull this off??? https://youtu.be/XIKHgpnylc8 ... Oh God, July 30... the day the USS Indianapolis was hit by a torpedo in 1945, sinking in 12 minutes. Eighty or so crew members were devoured by sharks- tigers and blues. Karmically, it had just delivered uranium and other components to the island of Tinian, set to be assembled into Little Boy, the world's first atomic bomb to be used as a weapon. It would level Hiroshima days later, with the bones of the USS Indianapolis's crew still littering the floor of the ocean. ... Apparently Trump is getting near the end of his online Dictatorship 101 class. I hate to even bring up his suggestion to delay the elections... it was so inevitable and his transparent attempt to shock just came across as BOOOOORING. The Supreme Court would fast-track it and strike it down 9-0... just another distraction, another wind-up, and more evidence h...

If you can believe it, today Li Zhihao of China solved three Rubik's cubes while juggling them, in 3 minutes and 29 seconds. ... I'm 49 years, 5 months and 2 days old today, which means I have lived through exactly 20% of United States history. July 29, 2023 ... ... Never more prescient: Isaac Asimov- "Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" I'd add, "my prayers are better than your action." July 29, 2020 ... On this day in 1989, Ricky Henderson went 0-0 against the Mariners, stealing five bases and scoring four runs. ... Bill Burr:  "I’m trying – I want to find an honesty guy. You know what I mean, some guy who’s just going to get on TV and be like, look in order for this whole thing to work at least two-thirds of you need to just go to the beach and walk into the ocean. T...

I woke up this morning and saw a post that said the year 1816 was known as The Year Without a Summer, and an estimated 10 million people lost their lives. Maybe that's something that happens every 200 years or so, and we're due.  Before covid hit, I was figuring we were due. Pandemics hit every 100 years or so. I thought about that fact every time I was asked if I wanted a flu shot. "Of course I do!" Covid could have been orders of magnitude worse. Almost exactly 10 years ago a solar flare missed the Earth by nine days. If it would have hit us, it would have destroyed over 3 trillion dollars worth of electronics. My mind first goes to phones and DVD players, but what about the world's hospitals. I often think that we're living in quaint times, humanity's halcyon days, the days we will wistfully look back upon (if we're able), and wonder why we didn't even notice that we had it so good.  It took all this work to get to where we are, but it would be ...

Every once in a while I like to remind all of you that we have a genetic predisposition for diarrhea.  It runs in our genes. ... 10 Short Rules For a Better Life, From the Stoics 10. Memento Mori "You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you say and do and think." -Marcus Aurelius Maybe the most important lesson! Thank you Stoics. ... Some people want to abolish the police. Sure, they have their problems but I actually prefer them to the roving mobs of murderers and rapists that we'd have without them! One thing everybody can agree with- a few bad apples is preferable to a greater number of bad apples. "The police" get a bad rap on somebody gets killed, but "the cop" should get the bad rap.  There are 330 million of us. Face it. Bad stuff is going to happen, because we are humans.  Same with illegal immigrants. Sometimes they murder somebody. Humans occasionally murder somebody. It doesn't mean they are all bad. They actually co...