The Universe Inside and Out, With Cookies

Japanese Buddhist author, D. T. Suzuki, was born on this day in 1870.

"Who would then deny that when I am sipping tea in my tearoom I am swallowing the whole universe with it and that this very moment of my lifting the bowl to my lips is eternity itself transcending time and space?"

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Public Service Announcement. Stock up a year's worth of toilet paper now and you are being prepared. In 2 months you'll be called a hoarder for trying to stock up for one month!

October 18, 2020

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Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America (1835)- "The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults."

Let's prove him right!

October 18, 2019

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I enjoyed reading about Mattis's ribbing of the president. You'll notice on a lot of conservative sites everybody criticizing him- telling him to keep his mouth shut, and to keep his unsolicited opinions to himself. Why don't these people lead by example???

October 18, 2019

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I was trying to decide how one would sum up Trump's defining principles, what this era would be known for if he were a true leader. Grab all you can? Truth doesn't matter? Anything you can get away with is fine? Then it hit me, I read it this morning- it isn't "America First", it's "ME FIRST!" Not a principle we can all follow, by definition. Imagine the chaos at the grocery store if we all followed Trump's example!

October 18, 2019

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Trump said "I captured ISIS." Remember when all those people thought Al Gore was delusional for saying he invented the internet, when he didn't even say it? It's even worse than that though, Trump could truthfully say, "I allowed ISIS to escape, but only into Europe." What's the equivalent, Al Gore destroying the internet and being proud of it?

October 18, 2019

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First I had breakfast. Then at work we had breakfast for lunch. I had a late meeting and there were leftovers, so I had breafast for lunch for dinner. There was still a lot left over so tomorrow I bet I'll have breakfast for lunch for dinner for lunch.

October 18, 2017

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During the debate I'm going to pretend that every negative thing Trump says about Hillary is something he secretly knows is true about himself. (Think, "I have hatred in my heart, and that's bad, so I'll say she has hatred in her heart.")

October 18, 2016

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Gretel ate her dinner so she got a cookie, but she wasn't allowed to have another so she was sad. Did it take more willpower on her part to not cry, or more willpower on my part to not give in.

October 18, 2015

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Pepper is keeping watch.

October 18, 2015

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After catching the end of Cool Hand Luke last night I told Emma that Luke would have been a good name to choose if we had a boy. She agreed. I had no idea it would have been that easy to trick her into naming our child after Luke Skywalker! (Although, Cool Hand Luke might have been a better role model... he never even flirted with the Dark Side.)

October 18, 2015

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Whole Foods comes to Lancaster in 2017, Wegmans in 2018, do I have to tell you what that means for 2019?

October 18, 2015

Postscript

It"s 2023 and still no Trader Joe's. Aldi and Lidl are OK though.

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Emma's mom said, "In reality, Jack Nicholson has a giant forehead." 

I added, "In fantasy, it's even bigger."

October 18, 2014

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Do you ever get the feeling you're living in the past of a future in which you don't exist?

October 18, 2014

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Sad that nobody's referred to to as a bimbo anymore. That was a good word.

October 18, 2014

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There's a new Monty Python documentary coming out, and it's 6 hours long. Fresh Air's movie reviewer said the only problem with it is that it could have been longer. That's exactly what it takes to make it to the top of my netflix queue.

October 18, 2009

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I guess we brush the tops of our bottom teeth and the bottoms if our top teeth.

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The Greek philosopher, Pappus of Alexandria, observed an eclipse of the Sun on this day in 320 AD, and wrote a commentary on The Great Astronomer (Almagest), a treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths.

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Moby Dick was published on this day in 1851. The Marginalian calls this paragraph one of the most insightful things ever written on the mystery of who we are.

"The mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause: — through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescence’s doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more?"

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Anne Frank taped this picture in her diary on this day in 1942, and wrote this: 

“This is a photograph of me as I wish I looked all the time. Then I might still have a chance of getting to Holywood. But at present, I’m afraid, I usually look quite different.”

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Russia received plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on this day in 1945. That's why it's called "fuching something up."

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The French philosopher Henri Bergson was born on this day in 1859.

"Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning. They begin sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers. Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begins their journey of awakening. Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of following the crowd and by choosing knowledge over the veils of ignorance."

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Pierre Trudeau was born on this day in 1919. Once he got word that President Richard Nixon had called him an asshole after the two had met. He said, “I’ve been called worse things by better men.”

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Chuck Berry was born on this day in 1926, but really he'll live forever. Carl Sagan was instrumental in getting Johnny Be Good put on a gold record and sent out of the solar system on Voyagers 1 and 2. Here they are commemorating the Neptune fly-by.

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Klaus Kinski was born on the same day, and it seems impossible that he even made it to 50.

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Dawn Wells of Gilligan's Island fame was born on this day in 1938. She was also Miss Nevada 1959.

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Martina Navratilova was born on this day in 1956, best female tennis player ever? Nah, probably Steffi Graf. Either way, she made the best shot in Wimbledon history.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/715724736555229?s=yWDuG2&fs=e&mibextid=Nif5oz

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Colin Powell left us on this day in 2021, simultaneously a symbol for bowing to pressure and standing up against pressure. The 13 rules he lived by:

1. It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.

2. Get mad, then get over it.

3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

4. It can be done.

5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it.

6. Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.

7. You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.

8. Check small things.

9. Share credit.

10. Remain calm. Be kind.

11. Have a vision. Be demanding.

12. Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers.

13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

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New York Times- Police Killings of Blacks: Here Is What the Data Say by Sendhil Mullainathan

I wouldn't have figured this to be true. Steven Pinker's analysis: "Data: Police don't shoot blacks disproportionately. Problem: Not race, but too many police shootings."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/police-killings-of-blacks-what-the-data-says.html

October 18, 2015

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The New York Times says Bob Dylan isn't a writer. Nonsense! Here's proof. Joan Baez singing while Bobby D types.

https://youtu.be/i06LbpM-ccc

October 18, 2016

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The Hill- Fox News legal analyst: Trump’s move to host G-7 at Doral resort ‘direct’ and ‘profound’ violation of Constitution

It's such a clear violation of the Constitution that it could mean only one of several things:

-He wants to be impeached.

-He actually believes what he says about the Constitution. ("Article 2 says I can do whatever I want.")

-He wants to put himself above the Constitution.

-His #1 goal is to make money at any cost, even at the expense of violating the Constitution. (Even at the cost of Kurdish lives ("no angels") in in order to protect his admitted conflict of interest in the Turkey Trump Tower in Istanbul. Speculation, but why pull out so abruptly after a call with Erdogan the night before when no advisor thought this was a good decision?)

-He just spouts off and does what he feels like regardless of the consequences and whether it's right and wrong.

http://hill.cm/KlmxuEG

October 18, 2019

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CNN- McConnell slams Trump administration for Syria withdrawal

Quite possibly the most significant headline since Trump took office.

https://cnn.it/2J6MoAy

October 18, 2019

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New York Times Opinion- There’s a Word for Why We Wear Masks, and Liberals Should Say It

Freedom goes two ways? Huh. From the article:

The word I mean is “freedom.” One of the key authors of the Western concept of freedom is John Stuart Mill. In “On Liberty,” he wrote that liberty (or freedom) means “doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow, without impediment from our fellow creatures, as long as what we do does not harm them even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse or wrong.”

Note the clause “as long as what we do does not harm them.” He tossed that in there almost as a given — indeed, it is a given. This is a standard definition of freedom, more colloquially expressed in the adage “Your freedom to do as you please with your fist ends where my jaw begins.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/opinion/covid-masks-freedom-democrats.html

October 18, 2020

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Chris Farley, dressed up for an 8th grade dance in 1977. I'll bet that was a fun dance!

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James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility- "Strength is paradoxical. I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish as a result of my play with them, but because I can allow them to do what they wish in the course of my play with them."

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Daniel Gilbert- “Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.”

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Confucius- "Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star."

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Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century- "The best words not only pinpoint an idea better than any alternative but echo it in their sound and articulation, a phenomenon called phonesthetics, the feeling of sound."

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Lucretius- "Constant dripping hollows out a stone."

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Friedrich Nietzsche- "In heaven, all the interesting people are missing."

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Oscar Wilde- "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."

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Norm Macdonald:

Just the other week I had someone move next to me. Original neighbor died of cancer about a three month ago. So as the great neighbor I am I go to greet my new neighbor I say, “Hey there uhh neighbor just dropping by to say hello, say what do you do for a living?”

He says, “Nice to meet you. Im a professor of logic down at the University of Science.”

I say, “Logic now what the hell is that?”

He says, “It’s a series of inferences and uhhh, let me give you a example. Do you own a doghouse?”

I say, “Yes, yes I do.”

He says, “So you have a dog meaning you probably have a family too?”

I say, “Yep."

He then says “So you probably have a wife and kids meaning your a straight heterosexual man?”

I say, “That’s correct."

He then finishes by saying, “That’s logic. Just from knowing you have a doghouse I figured out you were a straight male.”

I say, “Well damn, isn’t that something. Well I gotta go catch a bus, talk to you later uhh neighbor.”

So I walk to the bus stop there’s around four people standing there.

Guy lights up a cigarette says, “Y’know once you lit a cigarette the bus comes.”

He smokes the whole cigarette the bus doesn’t arrive, I say, “That theory really worked huh?”

He reply’s, “It’s works every now and then. What’s new with you?“

I say just meeting my new neighbor, “I learned about logic.”

He says, “Logic? What hell is that?”

Knowing what I know now I say, “It's a series of uhhh, let me give you a example. Do you own a doghouse?”

He says, “No I own no doghouse.”

I say, “So your one of those gays.”

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