Reflections On Being Both In and Of the World

Trump was just asked if he trusts the election process this time around, and he shrugged, saying that he'd let us know in 33 days. Nobody needs to guess what he meant. It goes without saying, but I'll say it. All else the same, he'll trust it if he wins, and the whole thing was a sham if he loses. 

If somebody knows nothing about Trump other than that he refuses to commit to the peaceful transfer of power, and only believes in integrity of elections that he wins, you would think that would be enough for them to laugh him out of town.

Still not quite crazy enough for you? Just today a special prosecutor outlined an election interference case against HIM, a fact that Trump considers... you guessed it, election interference.

October 2, 2024

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Once again, we could be on the precipice of World War III. Putin seems to have declared World War III if we don't respect his annex of four regions of Ukraine, an impossibility.

October 2, 2022

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With today's Phillies win, and Brewers loss, the Phillies' magic number is down to 1. 

At the end of May when the Phillies were at their worst, I had a feeling they could still turn it around. I wore my Phillies hat to work, to the store, everywhere, just to make a point. People were teasing me, but I'm no fair-weather fan, I thought they could still do it. They changed managers, won like 15 out of 17, and were right back in it.

Yesterday when the Brewers pulled even with them after a ridiculous Phillies lost to the Nationals, people were counting them out. About 90% of the comments on their pages we're from so-called fans telling everybody to just forget about it. Not me! I still had the feeling they were going to pull it off.

The cognitive psychologist (and part-time economist) Amos Tversky, said that he willed himself to be an optimist, because the pessimist stands to be disappointed twice- first in the anticipation of the thing not happening, and second if it doesn't. He decided that pessimism was dumb.

To put it in the words of Tug McGraw, baseball philosopher and closer of the 1980 Phillies- "You gotta believe!"

I sometimes think that the Phillies never make the postseason because their fans don't believe in them, seeming to believe that booing them when they do bad is all the motivation they should need.

Do they deserve to be booed at times? Sure! Do those booing fans deserve to get booed at their own jobs? NO DOUBT! If they were, would that make them work better? No way, it would just sour them more. They'd think, "Why should I work for someone who doesn't even believe in me?" 

So why would the Phillies work for us if we don't even believe in them? Of course it's not this simple, but fans' pessimism certainly bleeds through.

For that reason and others, I do believe in them! They still might not make it, but the Phillies would have to lose all three to the Astros while the Brewers win all three against the Diamondbacks. Rightly or wrongly, I genuinely believe in them making the post-season and then going all the way, and it's possible that our collective optimism could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

October 2, 2022

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On the other hand...

Arthur Schopenhauer- “A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.”

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Or if you prefer...

Antonio Gramsci- “I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”

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Maybe most appropriately of all...

Oscar Wilde- "The basis of optimism is sheer terror."

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It's just a bizarre experience watching this Muhammad Ali documentary by Ken Burns. They go through racial issues, class issus, family issues, religious issues, and then two guys try to destroy each other's faces and brains for a while. Then back to the issues again and then back to the cranial destruction. Then some light-hearted taunting poetry, flat out racism on the part of Ali on a variety of fronts, and then he's married to two women at the same time somehow? Back to the barbarism, then racism again, sexism, class issues, and then of course beating on each other's faces again, trying to destroy each other's brains. Maybe the strangest documentary I've ever seen, when you really take a step back and think about it.

October 2, 2021

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Rodney Dangerfield- “My wife isn’t too smart. Our first date, I took her to a drive-in movie. I asked her if she wanted to go in the back seat. She told me she’d rather use the ladies room.”

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I grew a butternut squash in my backyard, but with too much butt.

October 2, 2021

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I was prepared for my trip to Indiana last week with seven audiobooks. Instead though I got a trial of Audible and listened to Norm Macdonald's autobiography the whole way out. What a gem! That might have been the funniest piece of genuine literature I've ever read. 

The chapter of the cat and mouse, as a symbol of the difference between the way things appear and the way things actually are, leading into his experience with the old man in the moonlight... I will read that chapter over and over the rest of my life. There was not one joke in that entire chapter. 

Somehow the chapter that followed was exactly two words long and had me laughing out loud for I have no idea how long. 

I didn't listen to any of these audiobooks on the way back home either... I listening to 10 hours of Norm clips instead. Time well-spent.

October 2, 2021

Strange, on my 2023 journey to indiana, I listened to that Oliver Sacks autobiography. Didn't even remember borrowing it prior 

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That's some strange news to wake up to, Trump has Covid-19? Perhaps best thing that could come from this is that the country could start taking this seriously and listen to experts, immediately, and we could save a couple hundred thousand lives, maybe millions. Perhaps the worst that could come from it is that after Trump recovers he acts like a macho man, and it could somehow become extra reason to not take it seriously.

October 2, 2020

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I'm not going to wish ill on an old man with a disease. I'm also going to hope that the old man didn't blather that disease all over the other old man the other night, while making fun of him for wearing a mask.

October 2, 2020

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Trump intentionally pulling Pence into the Ukraine scandal puts me in mind of this Trump quote from the primary:

“And you’ll find that when you become very successful, the people that you will like best are the people that are less successful than you, because when you go to a table you can tell them all of these wonderful stories, and they’ll sit back and listen. Does that make sense to you? OK? Always be around unsuccessful people because everybody will respect you. Do you understand that?”

October 2, 2018

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Ryan is my favorite Howard, just above Curly, Moe and Shemp.

October 2, 2011

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Stephen Colbert- "Why is it that the only things you can monger are fear and fish?"

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On this day in 1948, Bertrand Russell survived the plane crash off the coast of norway. He had this to say about it in his autobiography:

"Everybody showed me the utmost kindness and put me to bed while my clothes dried. A group of students even dried my matches one by one. Some amusement was caused when a clergyman supplied me with clerical clothing to wear till my clothes had dried, which I downed thankfully. Everybody plied me with questions. A question even came by telephone from Copenhagen: a hurried voice ask, 'Mr. Russell, when you were in the water, did you think of God and mysticism, of mathematics of logic?' 'No', I said. 'Sir, you are a philosopher. What did you think of?' the voice persisted. 'I thought the water was cold', I said and put down the receiver."

Here he is recovering in the hospital.

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Bad day for murder- the beltway sniper attacks began in DC in 2002, five Amish girls were killed in their school in Nickel Mines in 2006, and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in 2018, effectively by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

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Mahatma Gandhi was born on this day in 1869, around the time of my great-great grandparents. My favorite quote of his:

"Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth."

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Groucho Marx was born on this day in 1890, around the time of my great-grandparents. A perfect one-liner:

"I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member."

Dick Cavett- “If Groucho never existed, we would sense a lack in the world of comedy, like the planet in the solar system that astronomers say ought to be there.”

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Graham Greene was born on this day in 1904. From The Third Man:

"You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

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Tom Petty left us on this day in 2017. I wonder if he backed down when they stood him up before the gates of hell.

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We lost Bob Gibson in this day in 2020.

One of the greatest. He somehow had 1.12 ERA, and the next year they lowered the mound to tip advantage back to hitters. He'd remember specific pitches from regular at-bats decades later when reminiscing with former players. Somehow played with the Harlem Globetrotters too. The greatest of competitors, intimidating! How about this great story from the article:

McCarver, the Cardinals’ young catcher, grew up in Memphis as a White Southerner. He once boarded the team bus with an ice-cream cone. (Some accounts say it was a bottle of soda.) Mr. Gibson tested his teammate by asking if he could have a lick from the cone. McCarver stammered that he’d “save some” for him and later said the incident — and his subsequent friendship with Mr. Gibson — helped him overcome his “latent prejudices.”

That seems a little unfair! Who would want anybody to take a lick from their ice cream cone??? (And by the way, who would want to lick somebody else's ice cream cone to begin with?) I guess it just goes to show you... a great competitor.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/bob-gibson-intimidating-hall-of-fame-pitcher-with-a-blazing-fastball-dies-at-84/2020/10/02/36f9c09a-a8cc-11e9-a3a6-ab670962db05_story.html

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So sorry to hear that the iconic Sasheen Littlefeather has left us. Thanks to her activism, and Brando's, the plight of the modern day Native American was brought to the forefront.

“I’m crossing over soon to the spirit world. And you know, I’m not afraid to die. Because we come from a we/us/our society. We don’t come from a me/I/myself society. And we learn to give away from a very young age. When we are honoured, we give.” 

October 2, 2022

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Other notable birthdays- Nat Turner (1800), Annie Leibovitz, (1949) 

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Other notable deathdays-Gene Autry (1998), Nipsey Russell (2005)

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Mirror Review of Tree of Life

Friends, this is not just a movie review. It's a beautiful piece of writing... which somehow captures the tone and essence of the film it's reviewing. I knew it was magic at the first sentence- "I became aware of my mortality before we had a dining room table."

http://www.mirrorfilm.org/2011/06/03/the-tree-of-life/

October 2, 2011

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Friends, I guarantee this Rick Perry Bad Lip Reading will enrich your dat. Enjoy.

https://youtu.be/BhDhDRvHaGs

October 2, 2011

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Mesmerizing.

http://i.giphy.com/3oEjHEoLQ9un1R6zE4.gif

October 2, 2016

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Emma's mom just went on for maybe a half hour like Grandpa Simpson...

https://youtu.be/5Rzao52ndNA

October 2, 2017

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Mr. Show- Monster Parties: Fact or Fiction

They are a hoax!

https://youtu.be/zOtOTHgROC0

October 2, 2019

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The Guardian- Melania Trump tapes reveal complaints on Christmas and migrant children row

Today in Shit That Doesn't Matter:

The first shots in this year's WAR ON CHRISTMAS were surpringly fired by Melania Trump. It was reported that a few tears ago she complained, "Who gives a fuck about Christmas?" Maybe that was the year the White House's decorations looked like they were out of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Tune in again tomorrow for the next episode of Shit That Doesn't Matter.

October 2, 2020

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Confucius- "To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness."

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Voltaire- "Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.” 

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Rumi- "Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation."

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Michel de Montaigne- "Not being able to govern events, I govern myself."

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Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis- "Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires."

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Miguel de Unamuno- "Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not God Himself."

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Stephen King, On Writing- "When asked, "How do you write?" I invariably answer, "One word at a time," and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. That's all. One stone at a time. But I've read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope."

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Groucho once interviewed a woman with 22 children and he asked her why she had so many. "Because I love my husband," she responded. 

He said, "Lady, I love my cigar but I take it out of my mouth once in awhile."

There's no recorded version of him saying it. Myth or truth? Does it matter if he didn't say it?

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