The Tower Anniversary, and Lisa Simpson's
Tragedy on this day in 1966, Charles Whitman killed 16 people from a tower at the University of Texas at Austin, before being killed by the police. I have an obsessive personality... not sure if you've noticed. I've been moderately obsessed with mass murder and this case in particular since I first heard about it. (I even visited the tower with a guy who I later saved from quicksand on the same trip.) I just watched Tower on PBS's Independent Lens... best film I've seen in ages. They didn't even touch on the aspect I find the most fascinating- Charles Whitman's note saying he couldn't explain why he felt so strangely compelled to do what he did. He donated his body to science so that maybe they could figure it out, and they discovered a tumor in the judgement center of his brain. (So where does responsibility lie, the person or the tumor?) They did focus on the personal stories. Simply unbelievable. One person mentioned the inscription on an entranceway to the main building- "Ye shall known the truth and the truth shall make you free." When I stood there myself, I remember reflecting on the inscription myself. The film was a catharsis for those involved who had not spoken about it. Maximum stars.
Note that on the 50th anniversary, a bill was signed into law allowing people to carry concealed weapons on Texas campuses. Honestly though, it would have made no difference.
August 1, 2022
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Gore Vidal- "Write something, even if it's just a suicide note."
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Have you noticed that Trump is pretending to be baffled by biracialism in order to score political points? With who, anti-biracialists? Meanwhile, his pick for vice president, who has biracial kids, referred to the whole thing as hysterical. These really are genuinely weird people.
August 1, 2024
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Lawrence O'Donnell just said that today was literally the president-shooting-somebody-on-5th-Avenue moment. He's talking about his public obstruction of justice. I disagree with Lawrence on this one though, I think the president-shooting-somebody-on-5th-Avenue moment could be him actually shooting somebody on 5th Avenue!
August 1, 2018
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On this day in 1944, Anne Frank wrote her last diary entry.
“I get cross, then sad, and ... keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be… if only there were no other people in the world.”
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On this day in 2023, Donald Trump was indicted on attempting to obstruct election proceedings.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America- "Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by their friends."
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Gretel caught a water snake the other day and we've been taking care of it. She named it Wally. It was feisty when she caught it. She kept yelling, "It's biting me! It hurts!" I asked if I should grab it. She said, "No, I'm OK!" Since then, they've become friends.
August 1, 2023
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Emma:
MISSING: This guy's hair
Have you seen it?
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I guess everybody dies of natural causes, except the people scared to death by ghosts. They die by supernatural causes.
August 1, 2015
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Does human nature tend toward good or evil? Or it it neutral? Or is human nature just an illusion we use to try to explain good or evil behavior? Or is it being defined and redefined moment-to-moment by our actions? Come on people, these are important questions and I need answers!
August 1, 2011
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On this day in 1876, Colorado became a state. It has 697 sides, which makes it a hexahectaenneacontakaiheptagon.
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George Lucas's American Graffiti was released on this date in 1973. The Hero With a Thousand Faces is strong with this one. Four overlapping hero journeys set in Sacramento.
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MTV aired its first video on this day in 1981- "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles. Those early days of MTV really take me back. I'm immediately transported to a second grade sleepover- pizza, soda, sleeping bags, sneaking out.
Funny thinking about sneaking out. At some point I became allowed to sneak out anytime I want!
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Herman Melville was born this day in 1819. I love Moby Dick, and every once in awhile I open it up and read a sentence, just to see how beautiful it is. One time I opened it up and this is the sentence I pointed to. What God was this written by again?
"Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord of the White Elephants" above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial colour the same imperial hue; and though this preeminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolisings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things-the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honour; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honourable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood."
Is that not proof that if the Bible is divinely inspired, then Moby Dick is too? More proof:
"There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seems to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like those fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St. John. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery prairies and Potters’ Fields of all four continents, the waves should rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by their restlessness."
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Singer-songwriter and guitarist, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, was born on this day in 1931:
I got these lines in my face
Tryin' to straighten out the wrinkles in my life
When I think of all the fools I've been
It’s a wonder that I've sailed this many miles
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Jim Carroll was born on this day in 1949, several months after my dad.
"It was a dream, not a nightmare, a beautiful dream I could never imagine in a thousand nods. There was a girl next to me who wasn't beautiful until she smiled and I felt that smile come at me in heat waves following, soaking through my body and out my finger tips in shafts of color and I knew somewhere in the world, somewhere, that there was love for me."
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Artis Leon Ivey Jr. Was born on this day in 1963. without him we wouldn't have the phrase, "Cool as Artis Leon Ivey Jr."
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Frances Farmer left us on this day in 1970 at the age of 57. I don't even want to talk about her tragedy. From the highest heights to the deepest depths.
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Paddy Chayefsky left us on this day in 1981. He wrote the evergreen Network.
"Television is democracy it is ugliest."
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In 1995 there was a Simpsons episode set way in the future where Lisa got married. Today would be her 12th anniversary!
August 1, 2022
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Mother Jones, August 1, 2017- Donald Trump Knows Nothing About Health Care, Taxes, or Trade
Leaked unedited Wall Street Journal interview excerpts.
"It’s like watching a middle-schooler trying to bluff his way through a book report on a book he hasn’t read."
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/08/505709/
August 1, 2017
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Politico, August 1, 2017- China rebukes Trump: 'Emotional venting' is not policy
Uh oh, this story will make the president SOOOOO emotional! And if I know him, he's going to need to VENT!
http://politi.co/2w1PDRA
August 1, 2017
Postscript: Trump's China policy was the same 2-word policy as the rest of his policies- Just Blather.
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The Atlantic- Donald Trump Is a Broken Man, by Peter Wehner
How does he want to be remembered? Apparently as a victim. Also...
"Such a disposition in almost anyone else—a teacher, a tax accountant, a CEO, a cab driver, a reality-television star—would be unfortunate enough. After all, people who obsess about being wronged are just plain unpleasant to be around: perpetually ungrateful, short-tempered, self-absorbed, never at peace, never at rest.
"But Donald Trump isn’t a teacher, a tax accountant, or (any longer) a reality-television star; he is, by virtue of the office he holds, in possession of unmatched power. The fact that he is devoid of any moral sensibilities or admirable human qualities—self-discipline, compassion, empathy, responsibility, courage, honesty, loyalty, prudence, temperance, a desire for justice—means he has no internal moral check; the question Is this the right thing to do? never enters his mind. As a result, he not only nurses his grievances; he acts on them. He lives to exact revenge, to watch his opponents suffer, to inflict pain on those who don’t bend before him. Even former war heroes who have died can’t escape his wrath."
Https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/trump-wallowing-self-pity/614434/
August 1, 2020
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Huffington Post- I'm An ICU Doctor And I Cannot Believe The Things Unvaccinated Patients Are Telling Me
The Hippocratic Oath should not apply when patients have taken a Hypocritic Oath of refusing or dawdling on the vaccine, then asking for medical care once they are sick. Anyone who has chosen to not take it yet, should not ask for help if they get sick.
From an ICU doctor:
"I thought when this pandemic began that we were all in this fight together, engaged in a war against a common enemy. Now, I painfully realize: Perhaps we were never on the same side and we never had a common enemy. Perhaps the war has been among ourselves all along. We have won many battles but unvaccinated America is choosing to let COVID win the war."
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/icu-doctor-health-care-workers-unvaccinated-patients_n_6102ad2ae4b000b997df1f17
August 1, 2021
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Alexis de Tocqueville- "History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies."
I'm putting Sinead and Paul Reubens in the category of originals.
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Sinead O'Connor- This Is the Last Day of Our Acquaintance (Pinkpop)
https://youtu.be/qiEcut07GrM
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Stanley Kubrick- "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
Everything that makes The Shining truly memorable is thanks to Stanley Kubrick.
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Karl Popper- "Our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite."
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Jim Carroll- "Most poets should face a rock 'n' roll audience for one night to keep them honest."
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