To Become Immortal and Then To Die

French New Wave director, Jean-Pierre Melville, began his film, Le Samurai, with this quote:

"There is no greater solitude than that of the Samurai, unless it be that of the tiger in the jungle... -Bushido, Book of the Samurai"

That fits the zeitgeist, doesn't it? First, it has to do with solitude. Second, has to do with tigers. Third, it's bullshit. He just made it up and played it off as fact!

In an interview, Jean Seberg asked him to name his greatest ambition.

Melville said, "To become immortal and then to die."

Immortal words from a guy who proved his mortality on this day in 1973.

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I keep seeing Trump supporters post things to the effect of, "I sure could go for some mean tweets and $1.36 gas right now!" This sentiment stands in glaring opposition to Trump's race-based attack on his opponent.

First off, $1.36 gas? When was Trump president, 1993???

Second, the implication is that words have no effect, that we can say all the nasty things we like, but they are meaningless, as substantive as the air with which they are spoken. Nonsense. Words have meanings, which motivate us, causing real world effects, changing the culture for the better or the worse. 

We wouldn't have won the Civil War without Abraham Lincoln's words, and there wouldn't have been a World War II without Hitler's. 

So concerning Trump mocking his opponent's racial heritage, remember when that used to be political deal breaker? Think back through history and ask yourself if he's in good company. Woodrow Wilson was instrumental in the resurgence of the KKK, but even 100 years ago I imagine he wasn't ignorant enough to say the quiet part out loud, let alone making it the thrust of his candidacy. 

So why do people accept it? Trump is an absolutely jerk, and he acts like a lunatic, and sure, some Trump supporters like him for exactly those reasons. Many others though like him in large part because they can expect lower taxes. They'll except his garbage, racial or otherwise, because at the end of the day, what's a little hot air if they'll have more money in their pockets?

(It reminds me of what Roger Ebert once said of his occasional enemy Gene Siskel, standing up for him in a way- "Sure, he's an asshole, but he's my asshole.")

Since when should more money in our pocket trump basic decency? As a thought experiment, imagine if Trump were running for reelection right now. Can you see him heralding our improving inflation and stock market records as the envy of the world? Of course you can. But that's a different argument.

We may very well be on the cusp of putting someone who mocks the racial and cultural heritage of his opponent into the most powerful position in the world. Ignoring the fact that the president doesn't control the price of gas, what price of gas would make that worthwhile? How low should taxes have to go to justify his mean-spirited, ignorant blather?

I'm saying that no amount makes it worthwhile. He's too potentially powerful to ignore, yet he should be a pariah, judged by the destructive nature of his terrible words, if by nothing else.

August 2, 2024

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The Trump indictments are flying fast and furious these days. I'm starting to think that guy might be guilty of something. Maybe everything???

If I didn't though, I'd be compelled put my money where my mouth is and donate to his presidential legal defense campaign. He's a billionaire, and he's asking for it, so I assume he's telling the truth... you know, about him being totally innocent, and really, really needing my hard-earned money.

From The Lincoln Project- every accusation was a prediction: 

https://fb.watch/maG9Gsk43f

August 2, 2023

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From a meme

"Jesus died for our sins."

Okay, but he didn't exactly stay dead, did he? So what exactly did he sacrifice?

"Jesus gave up his weekend for our sins."

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Vin Scully, as Kirk Gibson stepped up to the plate in the 1988 World Series:

And look who's comin' up! 

(36 seconds of crowd cheering)

All year long, they looked to him to light the fire, and all year long, he answered the demands, until he was physically unable to start tonight—with two bad legs: the bad left hamstring, and the swollen right knee. And, with two out, you talk about a roll of the dice … this is it. If he hits the ball on the ground, I would imagine he would be running 50 percent to first base. So, the Dodgers trying to catch lightning right now!

Fouled away.

He was, you know, complaining about the fact that, with the left knee bothering him, he can't push off. Well, now, he can't push off and he can't land. … 4-3 A's, two out, ninth inning, not a bad opening act!

Mike Davis, by the way, has stolen 7 out of 10, if you're wondering about Lasorda throwing the dice again. 0-and-1.

Fouled away again. … 0-and-2 to Gibson, the infield is back, with two out and Davis at first. Now Gibson, during the year, not necessarily in this spot, but he was a threat to bunt. No way tonight, no wheels.

No balls, two strikes, two out.

Little nubber … foul—and, it had to be an effort to run that far. Gibson was so banged up, he was not introduced; he did not come out onto the field before the game. … It's one thing to favor one leg, but you can't favor two. 0-and-2 to Gibson.

Ball one. And, a throw down to first, Davis just did get back. Good play by Ron Hassey using Gibson as a screen; he took a shot at the runner, and Mike Davis didn't see it for that split-second and that made it close.

There goes Davis, and it's fouled away! So, Mike Davis, who had stolen 7 out of 10, and carrying the tying run, was on the move.

Gibson, shaking his left leg, making it quiver, like a horse trying to get rid of a troublesome fly. 2-and-2! … Tony LaRussa is one out away from win number one. … two balls and two strikes, with two out.

There he goes! Wa-a-ay outside, he's stolen it! … So, Mike Davis, the tying run, is at second base with two out. Now, the Dodgers don't need the muscle of Gibson, as much as a base hit, and on deck is the lead-off man, Steve Sax. 3-and-2. Sax waiting on deck, but the game right now is at the plate.

High fly ball into RIGHT FIELD, SHE I-I-I-IS GONE!!

(67 seconds of cheering and organ music)

In a year that has been so improbable … the impossible has happened!

And, now, the only question was, could he make it around the base paths unassisted?!

You know, I said it once before, a few days ago, that Kirk Gibson was not the Most Valuable Player; that the Most Valuable Player for the Dodgers was Tinkerbell. But, tonight, I think Tinkerbell backed off for Kirk Gibson. And, look at Eckersley—shocked to his toes!

They are going wild at Dodger Stadium—no one wants to leave!

Vin Scully left us today, August 2, 2022.

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Alexander Burns, quoted on Meet the Press: "Far from a strongman, Mr. Trump has lately become a heckler in his own government, promoting medical conspiracy theories on social media, playing no constructive role in either the management of the coronavirus pandemic or the negotiation of an economic rescue plan in Congress – and complaining endlessly about the unfairness of it all."

August 2, 2020

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From A Universe From Nothing, by Lawrence Krauss: 

"The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today."

Comment- The so called science of these days is B.S. Only hypothesis with no concrete evidence. So boring and so insane.

Me- You should read the book.

Comment- I read these books.

Me- You've read this book? What exactly did you disagree with?

Comment- No specifically Kraus' book, but I read several about relativity theory, bing bang theory, time dilation theory, string theory, and even experiments carried out to fill in holes in those hypothesis, and so forth. They are interesting, but still b.s. Relativity is more elaborate than those other theories. After all, Einstein got a Nobel prize for it after he came up with a unifying theory for gravity, space and time in 1905, but time dilation is also linked to this theory. The theory of multiple universes, however, is baloney.

Me- The book addresses all this stuff. He's an opponent of string theory for what it's worth. He presents quite a nice case for the plausibility (not the truth) of an answer of why there's something rather than nothing. Going back to your original statement, he has very interesting ideas, and it's not bullshit because he presents them as strong possibilities instead of facts. What does strike me as boring bullshit are most of the other ideas out there about why there's something rather than nothing...and you'll often notice that they put their ideas forth with no proof or evidence, and actually see faith in their ideas as a virtue.

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Attention ladies considering having a baby: when you are 8+ months pregnant, you might occasionally dump your coffee grounds into your cup instead of the coffee maker.

August 2, 2015

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I got a package of salt water taffy at Trader Joe's today, and I suggest that you do too. Except throw away the white ones. I don't know what flavor they are, but they couldn't be anything other than Andre the Giant's Boot.

August 2, 2015

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We're losing John Stewart this week, but we're soon getting Stephen back...and one way or another John will be back again too. I'm so thankful to each of them for helping me make a little sense out of the madness.

August 2, 2015

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On this day in 1790, we began our first census. I wonder how many direct ancestors I have alive at that time. Okay, I put a minute of thought into it and my estimate is about 700... approximately half of my 5x great-grandparents, all of my 6x great-grandparents, half of my 7x great-grandparents, and a tenth of my 8x great-grandparents, and going back that far, a bunch of them are the same.

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The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 passed on this day, making marijuana and all its by-products illegal, and raising the country's productivity immeasurably. 

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Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard wrote a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt on this day in 1939, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon. Well hell, it's not like we wanted Hitler to get it first.

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Lowell Blanchard- Jesus Hits Like an Atom Bomb

https://youtu.be/Bc2TzUWeEbw

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On this day in 1943, Jewish prisoners staged a revolt at Treblinka, one of the deadliest of Nazi death camps where approximately 900,000 persons were murdered in less than 18 months. I couldn't possibly have more respect for them. 

On the same day, the Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 was sunk by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri Lt. All but two of the crew were saved by... John F. Kennedy. 

It reminds me of what he said when some journalist asked if him being Catholic would make it difficult for him to become president. He quipped, “No one asked me my religion in the South Pacific."

Perfection.

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James Baldwin was born on this day in 1924. A quote of all time is attributed to him, perhaps a portent into the future eradication of the human species. "The most dangerous creation of any societies the man with nothing to lose."

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Carroll O'Connor was born on the same day. “I ain't no bigot. I'm the first guy to say, 'It ain't your fault that youse are colored.'"

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Kevin Smith was born on this day in 1970. I'm not sure if he's ever had anything important to say, at least in my opinion. I know one thing for sure though, he suffers from Quentin Tarantino Syndrome- the inability of a director to resist putting themselves in their own movies, despite the fact that Ed Wood was better at directing than they are at acting.

Also, Chasing Amy is one of the worst films I've ever seen.

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Another notable birthday- Hank Cochran (1935)

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"Wild Bill" Hickok left us on this day in 1876. He was in a poker game the night before and another player was losing pretty bad. Hickok convinced him to leave the game and offered him some money. He accepted the money but was apparently insulted because when he came in the next morning he shot Hickok in the back of the head at point blank range.

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Gore Vidal- "No good deed goes unpunished."

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Warren G. Harding's corrupt presidency ended on this day in 1923, along with him.

H.L. Mencken on Harding: 

He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.

Harding on Harding, on his deathbed: "I'm unfit for this place and never should have come here."

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The author Paul Goodman fell silent on this day in 1972. Here he is on the nine types of silence:

"Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of being in the world, and there are kinds and grades of each. There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy; the sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face; the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts; the alive silence of alert perception, ready to say, “This… this…”; the musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity; the silence of listening to another speak, catching the drift and helping him be clear; the noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination, loud and subvocal speech but sullen to say it; baffled silence; the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos."

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Fritz Lang left us on this day in 1976. You know what he said about sending Cinemascope? "It's only good for funerals and snakes."

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Thurman Munson left us on this day in 1979.

ESPN Writer William Weinbaum- "Thurman Munson never became an old-timer. The story always seemed so straightforward and accessible. Unshakable determination borne through years of unreasonable demands from his father. A Norman Rockwell family life in a dream house with his childhood sweetheart and their three children. An accelerated pursuit of a pilot's license to spend more time at home in Canton, Ohio. From a beer league mien to an indomitable persona, Munson's image and legacy are indelible. So, too, are the scenes following his death 25 years ago on Aug. 2." 

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William S. Burroughs left us one this day in 1997. I didn't realize you became a heroin addict while stationed in World War II. You know what he used to do for fun? Drive around the countryside shooting chickens from his car. From The Job:

"And what does the money machine eat to shit it out? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty and above all it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits out quantity. Now the machine is eating faster much faster than what it eats can be replaced."

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John Oliver- “Honestly, the main takeaway from these two weeks is that, incredibly, we may be on the brink of electing such a damaged, sociopathic narcissist that the simple presidential duty of comforting the families of fallen soldiers may actually be beyond his capabilities.”

August 2, 2016

Postscript: Such a quaint criticism!

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Politico, My Party Is In Denial About Donald Trump, by Jeff Flake

Republicans are becoming less and less afraid to come out against the president. If 19 Republican senators settle on an impeachable offense, it's curtains. A new poll that typically leans conservative has him down to 33% support, and the Republicans in Congress are weighing whether they'll have a better shot at the midterm elections with or without him. I'm guessing they'll decide they are better off without him, and I think they are right. I'll take my chances with Pence, the current president is an existential threat.

http://politi.co/2vZuabX

August 2, 2017

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While walking my dog this morning I passed a couple of fagots.

August 2, 2023

From Merriam-Webster:

fagot- noun- fag·ot ˈfa-gət 

: BUNDLE: such as

a. a bundle of sticks

b. a bundle of pieces of wrought iron to be shaped by rolling or hammering at high temperature

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Sinead O'Connor- I Am Stretched Upon Your Grave

https://youtu.be/dHNUrPzQYaw

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Karl Popper- "While differing widely in the various little bits we know, in our infinite ignorance we are all equal."

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Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America- "I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run."

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James Baldwin- “It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

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Stanley Kubrick- "Man isn't a noble savage, he's an ignoble savage. He is irrational, brutal, weak, silly, unable to be objective about anything where his own interests are involved—that about sums it up. I'm interested in the brutal and violent nature of man because it's a true picture of him. And any attempt to create social institutions on a false view of the nature of man is probably doomed to failure."

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Herman Melville, Moby-Dick- "There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own."

Fun fact- Jean-Pierre Melville named himself after Herman Melville.

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Addendum

1.

Letter to the Editor

August 2, 2007

I sent this letter to the editor to the Lancaster Sunday News. We'lll see if they run it...

Dear Editor,

Tom Tancredo, the Colorado congressman running for president, said recently that he would bomb Mecca in response to a nuclear terrorist attack in the United States. The moral equivalent of that would be if Pakistani president Musharraf were to declare that if the United States continues bombing civilians in his country, he will nuke the Vatican.

Tancredo is running his campaign on illegal immigration, and it should come as no surprise that his proposed immigration policies are characteristically heartless, or "un-Christian," if you prefer. He proposes that the clergy could be jailed for providing an illegal immigrant with any type of aid- which can be taken to mean food or sanctuary.

His comments concerning Mecca should open people's eyes to the fact that the terrorists hate us because of our policies, not our freedom. Our policies and actions show outright contempt for the entire Middle East, with the exception of Israel. Does anybody have any idea within (let's say) ten thousand, how many Iraqi civilians have been killed by us? It's the stated policy of our government that we don't do body counts.

This isn't just Tancredo. It's not rare to hear impractical idealists like Bill O'Reilly call for the complete destruction of Iraq and the entire Middle East. (Again, excepting Israel.) Somehow the irony is lost on these self-proclaimed pillars of virtue. They believe that "thou shalt not kill" and then call for the outright murder of tens of millions, based on their geographic location. (Let's not forget that Iraq was a secular state before we invaded.) Someone who calls for the destruction of Mecca, or wiping out the Middle East has no idea what freedom means.

They call Islam an evil religion, and then propose actions that could only be described as evil, in the Stalinist Russian sense. Again, the irony is lost.

Barack Obama has recently stated that as president he would support unilateral bombing inside Pakistan, against Musharraf's wishes if he had intelligence on a terror target. If his policies come to fruition, they'd be another example of our own un-principled exceptionalism. In his comments I hear, "It's OK for us to do it, but nobody else."

What if the president of Chile said he was going to bomb Henry Kissinger's house for his role in the overthrow of Chile's democratically elected government in the early 1970's? How fast do you think Chile would be added to the list of state sponsors of terrorism?

The heavy-handed statements of Tancredo and Obama (and the policies of the current administration) do nothing but throw fuel on the fire. They are simply telling many what they want to hear, and it's making us less safe.

If we want to claim the moral high ground, we should treat other countries and cultures as we wish to be treated. Sounds crazy doesn't it?

Believe it or not, there are candidates who do have principles. We need the courage to elect them.

Ben Kreider, Mountville

2.

More James Baldwin quotes

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.

Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the battle field.

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.

Anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.