Novel Thoughts?
If you want to appear smart, read a ton, forget where you heard things, and pass them off as your own.
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Oh my goodness. I just heard that Salman Rushdie was stabbed on stage today, and that he's on a ventilator with liver damage, likely to lose an eye. He's the living embodiment of the right to free speech. Wishing him well, and wishing that every one of us says whatever we like, without threat of violence or intimidation.
Rushdie- "It's no trick to support the free speech of somebody you agree with or to whose opinion you are indifferent. The defense of free speech begins at the point when people say something you can't stand."
August 12, 2022
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Every once in awhile it crosses my mind how absurd it is that a basic psychology class is not required to graduate high school. Logical fallacies, cognitive biases, hereditary factors that shape personality, nature versus nurture and the role of luck, ways we can be manipulated (like through fear), well-being, etc. Could anything be more fundamental to education than understanding the basics of how our brains work? (Or perhaps this oversight is proof that our brains don't work!)
August 12, 2018
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Henry Fonda left us on this day in 1982, star of my favorite film My Darling Clementine.
Clementine: There's so many things I wanted to say and now nothing seems appropriate.
Wyatt: Yes, ma'am, uh, yeah I know. The mayor says you might be stayin' here a while, maybe helpin' get a school started.
Clementine: Yes, I'm the new schoolmarm.
Wyatt: That's mighty nice, ma'am. Me and Morg are goin' out to see Pa, tell him what happened. I might come East again, get some cattle, maybe stop by here again.
Clementine: Stop by the schoolhouse?
Wyatt: Yes, ma'am. I sure will. [Wyatt kisses her affectionately on the cheek.] Goodbye, ma'am. [Wyatt extends his hand for a handshake.]
Clementine: Goodbye.
Wyatt: Ma'am, I sure like that name - Clementine.
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Well these are pretty good seats.
August 12, 2021
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Susan Sontag, At the Same Time- "Time exists in order that everything doesn’t happen all at once… and space exists so that it doesn’t all happen to you."
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Marilyn vos Savant joined us on this day in 1956.
"The length of your education is less important than its breadth, and the length of your life is less important than its depth."
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Joe Rogan joined us on this day in 1967. He's really not very funny anymore, but tell his fan base that and they go bonkers
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The last United States ground combat unit left South Vietnam on this day in 1972.
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The Egyptian queen Cleopatra died in this day in 30BC.
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Kyu Sakamoto died in a plane crash at the age of 43 on this day in 1985. It was one of the deadliest air disasters in history, with 520 people losing their lives. He was born in Kanagawa, Japan 3 days after the bombing of Pearl harbor. His song, Sukiyaki, is featured in Mad Men.
SUKIYAKI
I look up as I walk
So the tear won’t fall
Remembering those spring days
But I am all alone tonight
I look up as I walk
Counting the stars with tearful eyes
Remembering those summer days
But I am all alone tonight
Happiness lies up above the clouds
Happiness lies up in the sky
I look up as I walk
So that the tears won’t fall
Though the tears well up as I walk
For tonight I am all alone
Remembering those autumn days
But I am all alone tonight
Sadness lies in the shadow of the stars
Sadness lurks in the shadow of the moon
I look up as I walk
So that the tears won’t fall
Though the tears well up as I walk
But I am all alone tonight.
But I am all alone tonight
https://youtu.be/C35DrtPlUbc
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The Hill- Trump on North Korea: ‘Hopefully it will all work out’
Sounds like the decision has been made. His tough talk has brought back the Republicans who were disappointed in him after the health care failure, so I'd say it's going to happen. I'd love to see the end of KJU, but would prefer to not have South Korea destroyed in the process, which is the logical consequence.
http://hill.cm/xqal3Ew
August 12, 2017
Postscript- I think we played with fire and dodged a bullet. Pick your metaphor.
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Mother Jones- Trump Has Been Thinking About Nuclear War For Decades and That is What's Scary
From the article: "These days, his cavalier talk of “fire and fury” in response to Kim Jong-un’s reckless remarks about Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons show that Trump doesn’t bother to consider the difficult and vexing nuances of nuclear diplomacy. (Attack North Korea, and North Korea could well destroy Seoul with or without nuclear weapons.) Since the days of the Cold War, Trump has repeatedly signaled that he fears that nuclear war may be inescapable but that he also believes nuclear policy is an easy matter to master. At least for him. Each of these notions is frightening. Together, they can be terrifying."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/trump-has-been-thinking-about-nuclear-war-for-decades-heres-why-thats-scary/
August 12, 2017
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Mother Jones- Trump's Non-Stop Lies
From the article:
Trump’s chronic duplicity may be pathological, as some experts have suggested. But what else might be going on here? In fact, the 45th president’s stream of lies echoes a contemporary form of Russian propaganda known as the “Firehose of Falsehood.”
RAND: “Don’t expect to counter the firehose of falsehood with the squirt gun of truth.”
Why the technique works: RAND explains that “repetition leads to familiarity, and familiarity leads to acceptance.”
Some responses proposed by the researchers may also hold clues for media struggling to contend with Trump’s unprecedented behavior in the Oval Office. The researchers suggest making the first impression on an issue by priming audiences with accurate information, to get in front of a potentially misleading message. And they advise exposing the method: “Highlight the ways propagandists attempt to manipulate audiences,” they say, “rather than fighting the specific manipulations.”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/08/trump-nonstop-lies/
August 12, 2017
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Bill Moyers- "Hey, remember a year ago when the one candidate directly threatened violence against the other??? I'm glad we never heard from him again!"
August 12, 2017
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What is it with the president? EVERYBODY has condemned this as white supremicist domestic terrorism. Republican senators are urging him to call evil by its name. Nope, he'll only go so far as to condemn violence "on many sides."
Seriously, what is it with him? Can't afford to alienate the ultra-right portion of his base? Can't do the thing that's expected? Has no concept of decency? Enjoys violence? Just an asshole?
August 12, 2017
Postscript: Just an asshole.
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Vox- Betsy DeVos’s summer home deserves a special place in McMansion Hell
"I don’t know how much this house cost, but according to the topical website PriceyPads.com, the house has three bedrooms and 10 bathrooms, three kitchens, eight dishwashers, 13 porches, and an elevator. Something about that ratio of bedrooms to dishwashers seems off to me, but what would I, a mere wretch, too dumb and poor to avoid being exploited by the predatory cost of higher education, know?"
August 12, 2018
Postscript- Haha, something about that ratio of bedrooms to dishwashers...
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Scaramucci- "I would tell his loyalists, loyalty is not blind obedience unless you're supporting a demagogue, OK. You’re fracturing the institutions and all of the things that the country stands for, so that’s not worth the economic policies."
August 12, 2019
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Prescript: Remember when Trump had his postmaster general tear out all the high volume male sorting machines prior to the election? You know, the election where a huge percentage of the ballots were going to be nailed in, predominantly by democrats, by a deadline? Here's what I wrote at the time:
IF this is true, we're witnessing some bum literally trying to steal an election.
Even if somebody loves him... you know, like they think he would set a good example for their kids, they would want him to marry their daughter, etc... I don't see any way around admitting that he's THE TYPE of guy who would steal an election.
https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/mail-sorting-equipment-being-removed-from-post-offices-leaving-mail-to-pile-up-union-leader/
August 12, 2020
Postscript- I'm glad I put in the qualifier, "IF this is true." Of course it was true!
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Every once in awhile it crosses my mind how absurd it is that a basic psychology class is not required to graduate high school. Logical fallacies, cognitive biases, hereditary factors that shape personality, nature versus nurture and the role of luck, ways we can be manipulated (like through fear), well-being, etc. Could anything be more fundamental to education than understanding the basics of how our brains work? (Or perhaps this oversight is proof that our brains don't work!)
August 12, 2018
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Emerson- "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I'm persecuted whenever I'm contradicted."
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When asked on his deathbed by a priest to renounce Satan, Voltaire famously replied, “Now is not the time to be making new enemies.”
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After John Kruk's Wall of Fame speech, it's hot dogs for dinner.
August 12, 2011
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The last quagga died on this day in 1882 at the Natura Artis Magistra, a zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
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Hitler was born on this day in 1860. Klara Hitler, the regular Hitler's mother.
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The founders of the Guinness Book of World Records, Ross and Norris McWhirter, joined us on this day in 1925.
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Country stars Porter Wagoner and Buck Owens or born on this day in 1927 and 1929 respectively.
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Author of The Princess bride, William Goldman, joined us on this day in 1931.
"Life isn't fair, it's just fairer than death, that's all."
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Other notable birthdays- Christy Mathewson (1880), Cecil B. DeMille (1881), Mark Knopfler (1949), Pete Sampras (1971), Casey Affleck (1975), Ian Fleming (1964)
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Screen Legends Loretta Young and Lauren Bacall left us on this day in 2000 and 2014 respectively.
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Belgian-French mathematician and academic, Jacques Tits, was born on this day in 1930. That's all.
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George Soros was also born on this day in 1930. I guess if he didn't want all those conspiracy theories spouted off about him, he shouldn't have been born on the same day as Jacques Tits, which certainly means something, right?
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William Blake left us on this day in 1827. Apparently he was initially buried in an unmarked pauper's grave. How did he make it to this one, I wonder.
"I cannot consider death as anything but a removing from one room to another."
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Thomas Mann left us on this day in 1955. From Death in Venice:
"Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd."
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Pete Rose's career World Series batting average by Game Number:
.050 . . . Game 1s (1-20)
.130 . . . Game 2s (3-23)
.273 . . . Game 3s (6-22)
.333 . . . Game 4s (8-24)
.400 . . . Game 5s (8-20)
.417 . . . Game 6s (5-12)
.444 . . . Game 7s (4-9)
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A Short Documentary on Mitch Hedberg
https://youtu.be/VNdJXBSVNfQ
Mitch's wife tells how just sitting and daydreaming were very important to Mitch, time well spent. I couldn't agree more. I realize that's why I love watching baseball- it gives my mind time to wander, it's a form of meditation. Who knew I'd come to that realization while watching a Mitch Hedberg documentary?
August 12, 2012
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I think about this a lot... it's a very strange notion that crowds are smarter than individuals. If a thousand people guess the weight of an ox, for instance, the average guess will be very close to the truth. Get together with a bunch of friends and collectively you can guess the number of piano tuners in Lancaster County. They've used this strategy to figure out the next terror attack. Examples are endless.
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/08/06/wisdom-of-crowds/
August 12, 2012
Postscript: But what about mobs?
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Karl Pilkington- "Violence has always been about innit, like cowboys and indians; they didn't have Playstations and Tupac then, and there was still violence. Dyu know what I mean? So you can' t really blame it on stuff; it' ll always happen, that's the world innit, it's made up of different types and that. Even, y'know, dinosaurs; look at them. They caused a lot of trouble."
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Simply perfect. If I was a dictator, everybody would have to start ever day by watching the mirror scene from Duck Soup.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKTT-sy0aLg
August 12, 2011
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Director Samuel Fuller was born on this day in 1912. I forget the exact quote, but he had said something like, "If you want to appear smart, read a ton, forget where you heard things, and pass them off as your own."
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Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger was born on this day in 1887 Nobel Prize. I guess without him things wouldn't be what they are, and also what they are not, or something like that I guess. That was a key theme to many of Samuel Fuller's films.
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50 Of The Creepiest Things Kids Have Ever Said To Their Parents
I was sound asleep, and at around 6am I was woken up by my 4 year old daughters face inches from mine. She looked right into my eyes and whispered, "I want to peel all your skin off".
The backstory here is I had been sunburned the previous week, and was starting to peel. In my sleep addled state however, it was pretty terrifying for a few seconds. I didn't know if I was dreaming, or what was going on.
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Hitchens:
When the Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine's Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwah, I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying, and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship—though I like to think that my reaction would have been the same if I hadn't known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a civilian citizen of another country, for the offense of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. President George H.W. Bush, when asked to comment, could only say grudgingly that, as far as he could see, no American interests were involved…
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Flannery O'Connor- "Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it."
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Henry Miller- "I am done with civilization and its spawn of cultured souls. I gave myself up when I entered the tomb. From now on I am a nomad, a spiritual nobody... To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself."
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