Thinking About Glory Days, and Nothingness

My first solo trip to Fairmount, Indiana, during a hiatus from college, 1995.

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Made it to Fairmount with Gretel. We were listening to music on YouTube on the way and I voice-to-texted "Beatles Don't Let Me Down." Gretel said, "Beetles let Zuzu down. Remember when she saw the stink bug and started screaming?" I sure did remember that, but for a few seconds that seemed like the craziest non-sequitur I'd ever heard in my life, until I figured out why she said it.

September 27, 2019

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Mike Schmidt was born on this day in 1949.

"I don't think I can get into my deep inner thoughts about hitting. It's like talking about religion."

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Everybody's split on this Kavanaugh thing, but at least there's one thing that everybody can agree on- if you were Kavanaugh and believed you were innocent, you would welcome a lie detector test to prove your innocence.

September 27, 2018

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Cheer up everybody- when clouds obscure your view of the moon, well that's type of eclipse too!

September 27, 2015, during a super moon

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After reflecting on the Papelbon/Harper fight in the Nationals dugout during the Phillies game, it hit me... it could have been a worse season.

September 27, 2015

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I'm wearing a 3 Stooges t-shirt, and Gretel just smiled and pointed at one of the guys. I said, "that's Curly." An important night in anybody's life!

September 27, 2015

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So this neurosurgeon believes a Muslim shouldn't be president because they'd be beholden to Sharia Law above the constitution. He must also believe then that a Christian shouldn't be president because they'd be beholden to Biblical Law above the constitution- death to adulterers, death to gays, death to disrespectful children, death to tattooed people and shellfish-eaters, death to infidels, etc., etc. (A lot of Sharia Law type stuff, btw.) Or is he just disregarding the fact that the vast majority of all religious people are moderates?

Taking it a step further, is he ignoring the fact that religious moderates are generally moderate in proportion to how far their views are removed from the law of their holy books?

September 27, 2015

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The Pope told Congress they should act on the golden rule- only do unto others as they would have others do unto them. Sadly he overlooked the obvious- that's not a good rule for sado-masochists!

September 27, 2015

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Hands up, who's into cockfighting! 

Nobody of course... but Hal Herzog's book "Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat" makes the rock solid argument that if given the choice, every one of us would choose the life of gamecock (including its gruesome end), instead of any factory farmed broiler hen (and its perhaps equally gruesome end), millions of which are killed each day.

September 27, 2014

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On this day in 1066, my 20-times-or-so-grandpa, William the Conqueror, and his army set sail from the mouth of the Somme river, beginning the Norman conquest of England.

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On this day in 1777, Lancaster became the capital of the United States for exactly one day, after Congress evacuated Philadelphia. 

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The rail disaster that inspired the ballad, Wreck of the Old 97 occured on this day in 1903. Eleven people were killed. I think my favorite version of the song is Vernon Dalhart's:

https://youtu.be/PKN1_yN3sgs

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On this day in 1962, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published, inspiring an environmental movement and the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?

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Coat of Many Colors was released by Dolly Parton on this day in 1971.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1zJzr-kWsI

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On this day in 2019, over two million people participated in worldwide strike to protest climate change, led by sixteen year old Greta Thunberg.

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Arthur Penn was born 100 years ago today, in 1922. Bonnie and Clyde- a perfect film. 

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Will Sampson was born on this day in 1933, in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. You might not know his name, but you likely know his face, and stature. Symbol of friendship and freedom.

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A snake oil salesperson named Gwyneth Paltrow was born on this day in 1972.

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Hugh Hefner left us on this day in 2017- he was the catalyst of the sexual revolution, and a symbol of its excess. Complicated figure.

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Another notable birthday- Martin Ryle (1918) 

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Another notable deathday- Clara Bow (1965)

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Schmidt again- "Any time you think you have the game conquered, the game will turn around and punch you right in the nose." 

Good metaphor for anything.

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http://www.alternet.org/belief/why-are-so-many-christians-so-un-christian

"In practical terms, the word “Christian” is an empty term that can basically mean whatever the believer wants it to mean. Christians decide what they want to believe first and then, after they’ve chosen their beliefs, search for any excuse, no matter how thin, to claim that their belief is consistent with their chosen religion. It’s a process called rationalization or motivated reasoning, and to be perfectly fair, it’s how most people think about most things most of the time: They choose what to believe and then look for reasons to explain why they believe it."

https://www.alternet.org/2013/09/why-are-so-many-christians-so-un-christian/

September 27, 2013

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This stuff seems important to know. Once I dyed my hair with a mix of peroxide and bleach... just a fluke that it wasn't one of the combinations that could have killed me.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/16-common-product-combinations-you-should-never-mix

September 27, 2013

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http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/spinal-cord-stimulation-allows-completely-paralyzed-rats-walk-again

Nice work science! You certainly beat the hell out of...out of...what exactly is the opposite of science? Faith, I guess.

September 27, 2014

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It's 20 years since my first trip to Fairmount, and very nearly 60 years since James Dean's death. Seems fitting that I came across this video this morning about the German philosopher Heidegger's ideas on waking up in your daily life to the idea of nothingness. The culmination- at a lecture in the 60's someone asked Heidegger how we can live more authentically. Heidegger responded tersely- "we can aim to spend more time in graveyards." That's true!

https://youtu.be/JpenjeR6BXE

September 27, 2015

Postscript: I am irresistibly drawn to graveyards. I could go into any town or city in any state (or country?) and just hang out in the graveyards.

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Friends, Ken Burns' Civil War could be the pinnacle of film-making, and if so, this clip is the pinnacle of the pinnacle. I'm feeling myself irresistibly drawn back to watching the whole 12 hours.

https://youtu.be/1VK1KcZoDu0

September 27, 2016

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

You see this a lot! People push responsibility for wrongdoing away from the person they like by saying that someone else did the same thing. Someone criticizes Trump of being a womanizer and another says Bill Clinton was too. Newsflash- they are both wrong!

Currently, Trump has 100 recent statements attempting to undermine the integrity of the election. (Believe him, btw.) Many Republicans are pushing the responsibility- pointing to Hillary Clinton saying a few months ago that Biden shouldn't concede under any circumstances. That is an unequivocally stupid thing for her to say! And that's easy for me to say. Biden should drop out if he agrees with her. I've only heard Biden supporters criticize her for saying that.

Many Trump supporters though seem to be excusing him, because someone they hate said something similar. Absurd! Think about this- they're pointing out something she said, that they think is wrong, yet excusing their guy for saying the same wrong thing, over and over. It makes no sense. I get the sense though, that sense it's not the point!

If Jim Jones were on trial his defense can't be, "Sure I did it, but look at Manson!"

There's an even more absurd example of whataboutism, and I still CAN'T BELIEVE it didn't disqualify Trump last election in the eyes of Republicans. O'Reilly (of all people) pressed Trump on his support if Putin, said he's a killer. Trump rebutted, "There are a lot of killers. You think we're so innocent?"

The future president stood up for Putin by whatabouting us!

Am I making sense?

September 27, 2020

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New York Times- 18 Revelations From a Trove of Trump Tax Records

Because who has hours to read the whole expose???

Riveting. Hypothetical question, if your assets lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and you're hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, how rich are you? Another question- when a pretend billionaire lives a billionaire lifestyle, who's actually paying for that lifestyle?

Remember when Comedy Central did the roast of Trump? His only stipulation was that the comedians were not allowed to make jokes that he wasn't as rich as he said he was. Huh!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/27/us/trump-taxes-takeaways.html

September 27, 2020

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The Hill- Third judge orders Postal Service to halt delivery cuts

Odd that this would be necessary. Unless... you don't think... it has anything to do with the massive discrepancy between Republicans and Democrats planning to vote by mail? And Trump's recent promotion of one of his insiders to Postmaster General? Nahhh, couldn't be. The high volume sorting machines they ripped out were probably using too much electricity or something.

http://hill.cm/9QAAPN1

September 27, 2020

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The first sentence of A Good Man Is Hard To Find, by Flannery O'Connor:

“The grandmother didn’t want to go to Florida.”

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Schmidt yet again- "You're trying your damndest, you strike out and they boo you. I act like it doesn't bother me, like I don't hear anything the fans say, but the truth is I hear every word of it and it kills me."

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Ending on the Trump summation to end all Trump summations, by Ralph Nader

Trump—Will He Implode with Lies Before He is Impeached?

Donald Trump said he believes the Constitution lets him do “whatever I want as President.” In over two and a half years, Trump has been a serial violator of the Constitution, unmatched by any president in American history. Just about every day he is a constitutional outlaw.

Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein has documented twelve categories of major constitutional transgressions. Some are also statutory crimes. Many of these involve Trump overpowering the critical separation of powers that our founders rigorously established to assure that the president does not become a monarch like King George III.

The framers were very clear that Congress and only Congress can appropriate monies for the Executive branch to spend; that only Congress can declare war; that the president must faithfully execute the laws; and that the Congress has the full authority to investigate the executive branch for abuses, irregularities, illegalities, or the need for new laws. Trump totally defies Congressional subpoenas for documents and witnesses. That grave overthrow of constitutional government is alone enough for eviction from office.

When he is not openly violating the Constitution, Trump lies and commits impeachable offenses.

The most recent violation was in seeking from a foreign power—Ukraine—assistance in influencing our presidential election in his favor by investigating a major challenger—former Vice President Joseph Biden and his son. He dangled a $250 million military aid package (maybe more) to Ukraine by suspending it before speaking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the telephone.

This “betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections,” in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s words, finally moved the reluctant House leader. After being AWOL on all the other serious, repeated flouting of constitutional behavior, she is now focusing on Trump and Ukraine.

Much has been reported about Trump’s chronic lying. He lies daily, sometimes hourly, with his tweets and public blather. The Washington Post has catalogued over 12,000 prevarications and false statements since January 2017. Not enough, however, has been made of the aggregate effects of such lying as a living. Trump creates illusions about himself, about his alleged achievements, and about conditions in the United States and world. He spreads constant lies and transmits the lies of others. Often these are monstrous lies, which slander innocent people and trick his supporters into believing him because they think no president could possibly lie like that to them. These are dangerous obsessions for a president.

Trump says he wants everyone to have “beautiful” health insurance, yet he pushes Congress to change Obamacare, stripping twenty million people of health insurance without any substitute program.

Trump brags about consistently defying Congressional statutes by dismantling federal agencies established to protect all Americans where they live, work, and raise their families.

Trump says we have the cleanest air and water ever, yet his henchmen are running these agencies into the ground and repealing or weakening life-saving pollution controls. The result is more toxic air in your lungs, more child asthma, and dirtier drinking water.

Trump lies about voter fraud, about not using his office to enrich his business, and about all the new factories coming to the U.S. He even lies about the weather, damaging the credibility of the National Weather Service. He denies his sexual exploits and hush money payments. He rejects without evidence ten serious obstruction of justice actions documented in the Mueller Report.

Trump denies that his cuts in food stamps will leave over half a million children without a free school lunch. He denies that his tax cut overwhelmingly benefitted the super-rich and major corporations.

Trump says his nominees are extremely qualified. In reality, whether it is the EPA, the public lands agency, the Department of Labor, or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Trump has chosen lawless people whose main qualification was urging the abolition or weakening of these federal law enforcers against corporate crimes and abuses.

Trump falsely says that climate disruption is not scientifically established, but a “Chinese hoax,” while our country in plain sight is being battered by record breaking heat waves, hurricanes, floods, droughts, and tornadoes.

Trump says coal, oil, and gas are better for America than wind power (which he says causes cancer) and solar energy, which are cheaper and safer.

Trump is actually increasing deadly greenhouse gases as a result and worsening the climate crisis that the Pentagon calls a national security risk.

Trump keeps promising to control soaring drug prices while refusing to get that job done.

Trump lies about the massiveness of his wealth, yet opposes any release of his tax returns.

Trump says brutal dictators are doing great for their people, ignoring the obvious facts.

Trump operates in a vast cocoon of falsity and refuses to read and consult with people who are not sycophants. This is an egomaniacal, narcissistic illusionist who could start wars, has his hand on the nuclear trigger, and believes he is about the law and Congressional controls.

Trump regularly calls legislators investigating him “sick,” “treasonous,” “crooked,” and “low-IQ.” Truthfully these are descriptions of him.

Trump, unlike Clinton who was impeached by the House in 1998, has successfully resisted testifying or being questioned under oath. He is a many sided fugitive from justice, one or more steps above of the law.

Pelosi is making a mistake if she doesn’t go forward with the full articles of impeachment against Trump. Relying on the Ukraine betrayal is not enough to counter the attack by Trump’s avalanche of lies, phony distractions, and possibly a “wag the dog,” desperation overseas.

September 27, 2019

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Stephen King- "Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

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Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works- "The supposedly immaterial soul, we now know, can be bisected with a knife, altered by chemicals, started or stopped by electricity, and extinguished by a sharp blow or by insufficient oxygen."

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Michel de Montaigne- "He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his reason is weak."

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George Santayana- "A child educated only at school is an uneducated child."

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Martin Heidegger- "The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking."

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Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree- "Once there was a tree, and she loved a little boy."

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It has often been said

there’s so much to be read,

you never can cram

all those words in your head.

So the writer who breeds

more words than he needs

is making a chore

for the reader who reads.

That's why my belief is

the briefer the brief is,

the greater the sigh

of the reader's relief is.

And that's why your books

have such power and strength.

You publish with shorth!

(Shorth is better than length.)

Dr. Seuss

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Freud- "Time spent with cats is never wasted.”

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Louis CK:

"Pamela, I’m in love with you. Yeah, it’s that bad. You’re so beautiful to me. Shut up! Lemme tell you. Let me. Every time I look at your face or even remember it, it wrecks me - and the way you are with me - and you’re just fun and you shit all over me and you make fun of me and you’re real. I don’t have enough time in any day to think about you enough. I feel like I’m going to live a thousand years cause that’s how long it’s gonna take me to have one thought about you which is that I’m crazy about you, Pamela. I don’t wanna be with anybody else. I don’t. I really don’t. I don’t think about women anymore. I think about you. I had a dream the other night that you and I were on a train. We were on this train and you were holding my hand. That’s the whole dream. You were holding my hand and I felt you holding my hand. I woke up and I couldn’t believe it wasn’t real. I’m sick in love with you, Pamela. It’s like a condition. It’s like polio. I feel like I’m gonna die if I can’t be with you. And I can’t be with you. So I’m gonna die - and I don’t care cause I was brought into existence to know you and that’s enough. The idea that you would want me back it’s like greedy."