Truth-Tellers, and Lying Liars Lying about Lying

To see what will be, look at what went. 

The past gives the future a present.

(In consideration for my epitaph.)

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Finally, after several years, I once again agree with Trump! 

Back then he said that Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame. I know, I know, there's no betting in baseball, but I mean come on, it's Pete Rose! He's the Hit King. And he bet on his own team. We can agree to disagree if you like.

Now I agree with Trump again since he admitted to losing the 2020 election. He "lost it by a whisker," he said. Seventy-four electoral votes translates into a lot of whiskers, but I'll take what I can get in this case. 

That's kind of weird, isn't it? Just a couple days ago he said he "had every right to interfere in the election." I don't know if you read the news a whole lot, but interfere he did... quite a bit actually. 

Stick with me here. If you put those two quotes together, don't you get, "I had every right to interfere in an election I lost by a whisker."

For how much this guy hates prosecutors, judges and juries, he sure is making their job pretty easy. Is this guy OK?

September 5, 2024

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I wait for Allan Lichtman's presidential prediction each cycle. He has a simple formula that's correctly predicted 9 of the last 10 presidential elections. This prediction doesn't disappoint me.

Think about this too. The one that he got wrong, Bush versus Gore, he actually got right but the Supreme Court got it wrong. Come on, you have to count the hanging chads! As if you don't know who that voter was voting for.

USA Today- Historian Who Correctly Predicted 9 of the Last 10 Elections Makes His Pick For 2024 

September 5, 2024

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Werner Herzog was born on this day in 1942, in Munich, Germany, in the middle of WWII. "Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness."

Among my favorite Herzog facts- producers for Nosferatu were astonished when they saw he only budgeted $2 for the screenplay- for a pencil and 200 blank pieces of paper!

His advice to aspiring filmmakers:

"The best advice I can offer to those heading into the world of film is not to wait for the system to finance your projects and for others to decide your fate. If you can’t afford to make a million-dollar film, raise $10,000 and produce it yourself. That’s all you need to make a feature film these days. Beware of useless, bottom-rung secretarial jobs in film-production companies. Instead, so long as you are able-bodied, head out to where the real world is. Roll up your sleeves and work as a bouncer in a sex club or a warden in a lunatic asylum or a machine operator in a slaughterhouse. Drive a taxi for six months and you’ll have enough money to make a film. Walk on foot, learn languages and a craft or trade that has nothing to do with cinema. Filmmaking — like great literature — must have experience of life at its foundation. Read Conrad or Hemingway and you can tell how much real life is in those books. A lot of what you see in my films isn’t invention; it’s very much life itself, my own life. If you have an image in your head, hold on to it because — as remote as it might seem — at some point you might be able to use it in a film. I have always sought to transform my own experiences and fantasies into cinema."

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Some of the greatest moments of my life have been catching things that were bobbled by myself or others, and every time I remember this moment. I attempt to live my life in a constant state of being able to react to a bobble.

*fun fact... if Rose hadn't caught the ball and the Phil's lost, Bob Boone would be forever known as Bobble Boone.

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The Munich Massacre took place on this day in 1972. At the Munich Olympics, a Palestinian terrorist group called "Black September" killed two Israeli athletes, murdering nine hostages the following day.

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Muhammad Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, won the gold medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics on this day.

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On this day in 1969, Army Lieutenant William Calley was charged with six specifications of premeditated murder for the death of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai.

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Mother Teresa died on this day in 1997. She was a Catholic nun, and apparently an atheist. From her journals:

"Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The Child of your Love — and now become as the most hated one — the one — You have thrown away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want — and there is no One to answer — no One on Whom I can cling — no, No One. — Alone ... Where is my Faith — even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness — My God — how painful is this unknown pain — I have no Faith — I dare not utter the words & thoughts that crowd in my heart — & make me suffer untold agony. So many unanswered questions live within me afraid to uncover them — because of the blasphemy — If there be God — please forgive me — When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven — there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives & hurt my very soul. — I am told God loves me — and yet the reality of darkness & coldness & emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. Did I make a mistake in surrendering blindly to the Call of the Sacred Heart?"

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The liar who is lying about the time he told what he thought was the truth, is he lying or telling the truth? You might have heard of the Liar's Paradox. This is the Liar's Paradox of a Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma.

September 5, 2020

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I don't trust translated poems that still rhyme.

September 5, 2015

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Carl Sagan- "We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good."

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Ptolemy, on the beauty of ordinary moments- "I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral, but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia."

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Watched The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia last night, thanks to Olds Sleeper. Drank a touch too much of wine and woke up with "study the brain" written on my hand in sharpie.

September 5, 2011

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When you get drunk in the southern hemisphere does your head spin counter-clockwise?

September 5, 2011

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As a challenge Hemingway wrote a 6-word short story: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." What, you can write a better one?

September 5, 2011

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Emma has a package of "155 google eyes" sitting next to the computer. What sort of hi-jinx is she planning? And who's idea was it to put an ODD number of eyes in that package???

September 5, 2009

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I bought the complete set of 33 Mysteries of the Unknown books at a yard sale today. He said he paid $20 each for them. I gave him $15 for the lot.

September 5, 2009

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Herzog again:

"One thing my mother once told me was that I fell quite ill when I was five or six. We could not call an ambulance because even if we did manage to get hold of one, we were too deeply snowed in. So my mother wrapped me in blankets, tied me on a sled and pulled me all night to Aschau where I was admitted to hospital. She visited me eight days later, coming on foot through deep snow. I do not remember this, but she was so amazed that I was with absolutely without complaint. Apparently I had pulled a single piece of thread from the blanket on the bed and for eight days had played with it. I was not bored: this thread was full of stories and fantasies for me."

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Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse was bayoneted by a United States soldier and died on this day in 1877, after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska. 

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Jack Kerouac’s On the Road was first published on this date in 1957, thanks in large part to literary agent, Sterling Lord, who just left us two days ago, his 102nd birthday.

September 5, 2022

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Manson Family member, Squeaky Fromme, attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford in Sacramento, California on this day in 1975. (If you aren't aware, cults will make you do strange things.) Somehow she got within two feet of Ford, pulled the gun out of her robe, from a leg holster, and pulled the trigger, but it didn't have a bullet in the chamber. She was wrestle to the ground and said, "It didn't go off. Can you believe it? It didn't go off". Ford then met with Governor Jerry Brown, and didn't even mention the assassination attempt. When asked about it he said, "I thought I'd better get on with my day's schedule."

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Hall of famer, and former Phillies second baseman, Nap Lajoie, joined us on this day in 1874.

"You don't always need stars to win. You don't always need greatness. Sometimes spirit, determination, fight will do as well."

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Arthur Koestler was born on this day in 1905.

"Creative activity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual."

He escaped execution at the last moment, just like Dostoevsky.

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Bob Newhart joined us on this day in 1929. I have no idea why he thought his humor would work, or how it does. It was something totally new.

"I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'."

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Freddie Mercury was born on this day in 1946. He was part of the music group, Queens.

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Allen Funt left us on this day in 1999. Imagine earning your livelihood on hijinks and pranks. Life well-lived!

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Roger Ebert's letter to Werner Herzog, after Werner dedicated Encounters At the End of the World to him:

In Praise of Rapturous Truth

https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/a-letter-to-werner-herzog-in-praise-of-rapturous-truth

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The Onion- Guy in Philosophy Class Needs To Shut the Fuck Up

http://bit.ly/1lMctFP

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The Atlantic- ‘Hillary 2016’ Has Never Made Sense for Democrats

http://theatln.tc/1huj46c

September 5, 2015

Postscript- You know what, I might have on to something.

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NPR- Presidential Candidates Take Sides On Support For Kentucky Clerk

Great issue to separate the men from the boys. And the women from the girls. And, I suppose, those who believe in democracy from those who want us to be a theocracy.

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/09/04/437498552/presidential-candidates-divided-on-support-for-kentucky-clerk

September 5, 2015

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The Hill- Senior administration official blasts Trump in anonymous NYT op-ed

Holy crap. This is nuts. Now... you know Trump's response... but he wouldn't be in position to know whether it's true or not, now would he? And come on, you know it's all true! The person will come forward when the president crashes under the weight of his own ego, and the NYT will confirm. You can totally see Kelly doing this, or Kellyanne Conway... people who want an out. Or maybe a speechwriter we never heard of. The president would refer to the writer as a rat, but he'll fail to see the sinking ship.

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/405226-ny-times-publishes-op-ed-claiming-to-be-written-by-senior-trump-official

September 5, 2018

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The Hill- Kavanaugh Stumbles Over Two Tripwires

Must the president respond to a subpoena? Yes, of course. If someone says no, can they credibly state that Obama wouldn't have needed to respond to one? Of course not. It's a question of principal- the subtext asks, do you believe in the separation of powers? Or- do you believe the president is above the law? Or- should a president faithfully execute the Constitution? Or- if a president is shown to violate his oath of office, should he be expelled from that office? Good thing Kavanaugh deflected, Trump might have rescinded the nomination!

https://wapo.st/2wJcUJ7?tid=ss_fb-amp

September 5, 2018

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Politifact- Did Trump Call McCain a Loser?

Trump called McCain a loser on camera at a 2015 campaign event and afterward tweeted an article headlined, “Donald Trump: John McCain Is ‘A Loser.’”

But yesterday, he tweeted that he never said it, so which Trump should we believe???

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/sep/04/donald-trump/yes-donald-trump-did-call-john-mccain-loser/

September 5, 2020

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Herzog, again- "What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams."

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Koestler again, from Darkness At Noon, in case you were looking for the moral center of our current politics.

"The principle that the end justifies the means is and remains the only rule of political ethics; anything else is just a vague chatter and melts away between one’s fingers."

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Edward Abbey- "Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself."

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Newhart again- "There are a lot of questions I keep asking myself about why I do comedy. I guess I laugh to keep from crying. And I guess if you ever get me crying, I might not stop. This is the way I look at tragedy or else I'll cry."

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Johnny Depp- “I know that without these great writers’ holy words seared into my brain, I would most likely have ended up chained to a wall in Camarillo State Hospital, zapped beyond recognition, or dead by misadventure.”

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Have you ever heard of Bobby the Wonder Dog? His family left Oregon to visit family in Indiana, then lost him in Indiana. Six months later he showed up at their house in Oregon! He walked 2500 miles back to them, even crossing the Rocky Mountains in winter.

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

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Joe List- "Isn't it funny that a-hole and b-hole mean the same thing. Two letters but it's the same hole. Mother nature is a mad scientist."

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Howard Zinn- "He seems to almost suggest that we should go to war against countries that do not afford their citizens the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or at the very least, support their revolutions, which would mean participating in their civil wars."

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Stephen Fry- "Education is the sum of what students teach each other between lectures and seminars."

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Truman Capote, In Cold Blood- "Imagination, of course, can open any door - turn the key and let terror walk right in."

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William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways- "If a man can keep alert and imaginative, an error is a possibility, a chance at something new; to him, wandering and wondering are part of the same process, and he is most mistaken, most in error, whenever he quits exploring."

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe- "We know accurately only when we know little; doubt grows with knowledge."

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William Saroyan- "The writer who is a real writer is a rebel who never stops."

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William James- "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."

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Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons- "I look up to heaven only when I want to sneeze."

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Richard Wright, Native Son- "Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread."

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Herzog, yet again- "Look into the eyes of a chicken and you will see real stupidity. It is a kind of bottomless stupidity, a fiendish stupidity. They are the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creatures in the world."

Here are his eight favourite films of all time:

Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (Mark Lewis, 1988) (free on you tube)

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (Errol Morris, 1997)

Forest of Bliss (Robert Gardner, 1986)

Good News: Von Kolporteuren, toten Hunden und anderen Wienern (Ulrich Seidl, 1990)

Letter from Siberia (Chris Marker, 1958)

Les Maitres Fous (Jean Rouch, 1955)

Nanook of the North (Robert Flaherty, 1922)

Spend It All (Les Blank, 1972)

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There once was a clergyman's daughter

Who detested the pony he bought her

Till she found that it's dong

Was as hard and as long

As the prayers her father had taught her.

She married a fellow named Tony

Who soon found her fucking the pony.

Said he, "What's it got,

My dear, that I've not?"

Sighed she, "Just a yard-long bologna."