Babies Laughing At Heart Attacks, Falling Stars, Falling Skies, and Other Snips

The Night the Stars Fell

The most spectacular Leonid meteor shower on record occurred on this night in 1833, and into the pre-dawn hours. There was an estimated 72,000 falling stars visible per hour. 

An Illinois newspaper reported that "the very heavens seemed ablaze." 

Alabama newspaper reported, “thousands of luminous bodies shooting across the firmament in every direction.”

The Lakota we're so mesmerized, they reset their calendar! 

Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman reported seeing it, among many others.

Joseph Smith was traveling with his Mormon refugees and saw it as a sign of the second coming of Christ.

Others saw it as Biblical end times, looking to the Gospel of St. Mark, which said, “And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.” 

At the time, meteorologists didn't know what shooting stars were.

Yale astronomer Denison Olmsted sought a scientific explanation, and issued a call to the public to provide data. Some call it the first scientific crowd-sourced data-gathering effort.

He concluded that the origin of many of the shooting stars originated in the constellation Leo, so he hypothesize that the Earth passed through a cloud of space dust.

Now we know that every November the Earth passes through the trail left by the comet Temple-Tuttle causing the Leonid meteor shower. 

This year it's going to peak the night of November 17th, but don't expect it to be quite as spectacular.

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Brad Pitt tells Adam Sandler his favorite Adam Sandler story.

Pitt- “This is my favorite Adam Sandler story that I heard from Bennett Miller. It was that you were at NYU, and it was an acting coach, I believe.” 

Sandler- “Acting professor.”

Pitt- “And he said to you, ‘I want to take you out for a beer.’ This is what I’m told. You guys went to a bar, and he kindly said to you: ‘Think about something else. You have to choose another path.’ Truth?” 

Sandler- "Truth."

Pitt- “There’s a second part to this story. This is why it’s my favorite Adam Sandler story, and I think it says a lot about you. That you ran into him at your height, when you’re getting the ultimate payday, and you’re with a bunch of friends, out at a bar. Anyone would think that’s the opportunity where you rub it in his face. And reportedly, what you did was you introduced him to your friends, and you said: ‘This is the only teacher to ever buy me a beer.’ True?"

Sandler- "True."

Perfect!

November 12, 2021

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My political predictions don't come true, so don't bother reading, but I'm going to make one anyway.

Recent polls have Biden trailing Trump in all of the battleground states except Wisconsin where Biden is up by 2%, which is within the margin of error. More and more Democrats are saying out loud that Biden should not seek re-election.

Here's my prediction: Biden is going to drop out between Thanksgiving and Christmas and Democrats will quickly coalesce around Gretchen Whitmer.

Bonus predictions:

-The polls won't change and if we keep on the current trajectory, Trump will win.

-If the Democrats run somebody with enthusiasm and vigor, they will destroy Trump.

-If the Democrats keep Biden, and the Republicans pick somebody other than Trump, the Republican will destroy Biden. (I imagine Desantis and Haley teaming up after the first big lawsuit goes against Trump.)

-If the race becomes something like Whitmer/Newsom/Shapiro vs Desantis/Haley, it will be a good race and a nice return to normality, a race where we can legitimately talk about issues versus general competence and and existential threats to the country.

But Biden versus Trump... I'm going to say it again. I'm going with the current polls and saying that Trump will beat him. You have to look at reality with your eyes clear.

Both are extraordinarily unpopular. If Biden backs out late, the Republicans could be stuck with the unpopular Trump, and lose in a landslide in an election seen as a generational shift even though it's through the same party.

If Trump backs out late for the good of his party... haha, yeah right.

Biden also has the chance to retire on a high note, effectively passing the torch. He can do that, or he can hold on to things too long like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Until then, or until someone else emerges, I'm with Dean Phillips as a placeholder. 

November 12, 2023

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It's kind of funny now thinking back to the primary, and the argument that there was no way that Biden could beat Trump.

In retrospect I think any upper-tier moderate candidate should have won. If he couldn't vilify Biden enough to beat him, Kamala would have won too. Pete too. I guess Klobuchar would have at least got Wisconsin and Michigan, and it's not like she would have lost Oregon or anything. 

Yang? I give him a greater than average shot. We're not good enough yet to deserve a philosopher president. He puts me in mind of Plato's philosopher king from the Republic, his ideal leader. (Sure, a philosopher thinks a philosopher king would be the best leader. Just like a plumber might think that a plumber king would be the best leader. Probably sees the country through the metaphor of a network of pipes.)

Bennett? Maybe if he didn't have the voice of the psychologist from South Park, m'kay.

I think Bernie and Warren would have been destroyed. I preferred them but don't see them getting 75 million votes. (The proof is in the primary.) Many of the people they are working for TEND to not vote. How do you give the hopeless enough hope to be hopeful? At best it was a risky bet, knowing now that Biden was going to go on to win.

At the time I thought Biden seemed like a safe bet, but that a safe bet against Trump was actually very risky, but I was wrong. So maybe I'm wrong about all of this too!

November 12, 2020

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Have you noticed........... the silence?

November 12, 2020

Postscript- Trump banned from Twitter

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What do you think the president will do tomorrow to win the news cycle? Or maybe a better question is, what wouldn't he do?

November 12, 2019

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The president just criticized others for their failed attempt to bond with Putin, while at the same time calling Kim Jong Un elementary school names. You see, earlier the North Korean state run media called him an "old lunatic." Apparently he took offense to them calling him "old." One can only surmise that he knew they were on the money with "lunatic." 

But this is just me. I'm sure I'd see things differently if I were a fat, old, ugly, dumpy, sensitive, clown-like, easily triggered, easily manipulated, lunatic president. Not that I'd ever call him those things. That would be flattering him by imitation.

November 12, 2017

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Inscribed in forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi is the ancient Greek aphorism "gnothi seauton," translated as "know thyself." You don't get better advice than that.

November 12, 2016

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Goethe- "Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away."

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One thing I think we can all agree on- if we happen to be visited by time travelers from the future between now and election day, let's just let them do whatever they think they need to do.

November 12, 2016

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There's legit criticism of Clinton- Trump was right that she did rig the primaries in league with the DNC. Wikileaks has proof. That is super-shady, and undemocratic. You needed to overlook that in order to vote for her. If that alone caused people to not vote for her, I understand. 

The email thing, unless you are willing to condemn Colin Powell for doing the same thing, there's no case. The fact that Comey tipped (or at the very least attempted to tip) the election for her, proves that he would have indicted her in July if there was a case. 

There were other reasons to not vote for her, there's no doubt.

But what did someone have to overlook in order to vote for Trump?

-He had an impending child rape trial, with an accuser and a witness, and the person he had these parties with is a convicted pedophile. (Not covered in the media because the accuser was still anonymous.)

-He was recorded in private, describing how he sexually assaults women, and that he can do it because he's rich. He was subsequently accused of doing just that. 

-Said at a rally that some of the women were not attractive enough to sexually assault.

-Bragged to Howard Stern that he can walk into the dressing rooms at pageants because he's the boss and needs to check things out. He was subsequently accused of doing just that.

-Suggested killing his opponent on multiple occasions. 

-Almost daily examples of pettiness, vindictiveness and vengeance.

-Racist, sexist, xenophobic comments and policy outlines throughout. 

-Anti-Semitic undertones as a campaign tactic, and an anti-Semitic campaign chief.

-Endorsement of the KKK.

-Obviously too unhinged to be in charge of nuclear weapons.

-Held his own ego in higher regard than the peaceful transfer of power.

-It's almost an afterthought to include the fact that he doesn't display knowledge of the issues.

Of course I could go on.

So what does this mean, that people who voted for him SUPPORT these things? Of course not, I really do believe that people are fundamentally good. I think most people were simply voting for change.

But let's be honest- it does mean that those who voted for him were capable of overlooking these things. 

Take away the email thing from Clinton, and add any of these items to her list, and that's the thing that would have been seized upon as the reason to not vote for her.

November 12, 2016

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Good times at the park yesterday.

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I was just writhing around on the kitchen floor with heartburn or possibly having a heart attack. Or maybe it was heartworms. Whatever it was, my baby found it HILARIOUS.

November 12, 2014

Postscript- It was heartburn, and people became obviously worried! Oops.

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I just noticed the symbolism of my tri-weekly runs- I leave my house (birth), run around the F&M campus (youth, intellectual and physical vitality), pass a few blocks of houses (adulthood), circle the retirement home (old age, intellectual and physical decline), and I return home (death.) Zen of running.

November 12, 2011

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I became an uncle today. Congratulations to Ang and Brent. How long do you think it will be until I can watch Star Wars with the little guy?

November 12, 2009

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On this day in 1941, in 10°F weather, the Soviet Union launched ski troops for the first time against the freezing German forces near Moscow.

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On this day in 1958, ateam of rock climbers led by Warren Harding completed the first ascent of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley.

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The Exploding Whale Incident took place on this day in 1970. The Oregon Highway Division attempted to destroy a rotting beached sperm whale with explosives! Good news, there's a news report.

https://youtu.be/V6CLumsir34

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Seymour Hersh broke the story of the My Lai Massacre on this day in 1969. A true American hero! Thanks for his service to the human race.

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Elizabeth Cady Stanton join us on this day in 1815.

"The bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling block in the way of women's emancipation."

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Persian spiritual leader and founder of the Baháʼí faith, Bahá'u'lláh, was born on this day in 1817.

"A thankful person is thankful under all circumstances. A complaining soul complains even in paradise."

"Religion without science is superstition. Science without religion is materialism."

"Be generous in prosperity and thankful in adversity, bee fair in thy judgment, and guarded in thy speech. Be a lamp unto those who walk in darkness, and a home to the stranger. Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light unto the feet of the erring. Be a breath of life to the body of humankind, a dew to the soil of the human heart, and a fruit upon the tree of humility."

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French sculptor, Auguste Rodin, joined us on this day and 1840.

"Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely."

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Jo Stafford was born on this day in 1917.

YOU BELONG TO ME

See the pyramids along the Nile

Watch the sun rise

From the tropic isle

Just remember darling

All the while

You belong to me

See the market place

In old Algiers

Send me photographs and souvenirs

Just remember

When a dream appears

You belong to me

And I'll be so alone without you

Maybe you'll be lonesome too

Fly the ocean

In a silver plane

See the jungle

When it's wet with rain

Just remember till

You're home again

You belong to me

Oh I'll be so alone without you

Maybe you'll be lonesome too

Fly the ocean

In a silver plane

See the jungle

When it's wet with rain

Just remember till

You're home again

You belong to me

https://youtu.be/zQfF84ackMM

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Grace Kelly was born on this day in 1929. How in the hell did she end up with Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window? That's crazy.

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Charles Manson was born on her 5th birthday, 

"You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody's crazy."

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Ryan Gosling was born on this day in 1980. What a performance in Drive! And what did he say, like 100 words?

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Percival Lowell left us on this day in 1916. Pluto was discovered at the observatory named after him, and when I visited I saw Saturn plane as day, through the same telescope.

"That Mars is inhabited by beings of some sort or other we may consider as certain as it is uncertain what these beings may be.“

Whoops, we aren't all right all the time.

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Stan Lee left this one this day in 2018.

"Thwip!" (Presumably.)

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Everyone's favorite- palindromes.

- A man, a plan, a canal – Panama!

- A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal – Panama!

- Now Eve, we're here, we've won.

- Solo gigolos.

- A slut nixes sex in Tulsa.

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Washington Post editorial- Trump voters will not like what happens next, by Harrison Keillor

"Back to real life. I went up to my home town the other day and ran into my gym teacher, Stan Nelson, looking good at 96. He commanded a landing craft at Normandy on June 6, 1944, and never said a word about it back then, just made us do chin-ups whether we wanted to or not. I saw my biology teacher Lyle Bradley, a Marine pilot in the Korean War, still going bird-watching in his 90s. I was not a good student then, but I am studying both of them now. They have seen it all and are still optimistic. The past year of politics has taught us absolutely nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada. The future is scary. Let the uneducated have their day. I am now going to pay more attention to teachers."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-voters-will-not-like-what-happens-next/2016/11/09/e346ffc2-a67f-11e6-8fc0-7be8f848c492_story.html

November 12, 2016

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New York Times Opinion- The Democrats Screwed Up

"In thrall to the Clintons, Democrats ignored the copious, glaring signs of an electorate hankering for something new and different and instead took a next-in-line approach that stopped working awhile back. Just ask Mitt Romney and John McCain and John Kerry and Al Gore and Bob Dole. They’re the five major-party nominees before her who lost, and each was someone who, like her, was more due than dazzling."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/opinion/the-democrats-screwed-up.html

November 12, 2016

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Postscript- Novel idea, huh? Facing your faults when you lose versus just pretending you won.

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Ted Talk- Can a Divided America Heal?- Jonathon Haidt

"We evolved for tribalism. One of the simplest and greatest insights into human social nature is the Bedouin proverb: "Me against my brother; me and my brother against our cousin; me and my brother and cousins against the stranger." And that tribalism allowed us to create large societies and to come together in order to compete with others. That brought us out of the jungle and out of small groups, but it means that we have eternal conflict. The question you have to look at is: What aspects of our society are making that more bitter, and what are calming them down?"

http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_can_a_divided_america_heal

November 12, 2016

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The Hill- Poll: 37 percent of Alabama evangelicals more likely to vote for Moore after allegations

They are now MORE likely to vote for [pedophile Roy Moore]. Yes, you read that correctly... more likely. I'll assume then that they'd be even more likely than that to vote for him if their own daughter was involved, still more likely if he killed their entire family, and somehow still MORE LIKELY to vote for him if his election ensured the complete and total destruction of all humankind.

http://hill.cm/POBuwmm

November 12, 2017

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The Hill- Poll: Nearly half of white Southerners feel like they’re under attack

I had an odd exchange with someone the other day... I was criticizing white supremacists, and he was convinced that since he was from the south, has a gun, shoots animals for food, and smokes meats (I love that he included that, haha) that I was saying he was a member of the KKK. I was criticizing white supremacists, HE was the one lumping himself in. Who knows, maybe in his life he's seen a very strong correlation between smoking meats and white supremacy! I don't have that experience. These types are creators of their own victimhood and don't even know it.

http://hill.cm/IHiYeNj

November 12, 2017

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Please share with your grammar Nazi friends, or at least those of whom up with which you can put.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/15/steven-pinker-10-grammar-rules-break

November 12, 2017

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The Onion- God Rewinds Time To Watch Man Fall Off Trampoline Again

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More Ebaum's World- 28 Things You've Probably Never Thought About

The person in charge of proofreading Hitler's speeches was literally a grammar Nazi.

There are more bacteria cells in your body than human cells.

We built an atomic bomb 20 years before we had color television.

Everything you see is delayed.

At some point you will be the next person on Earth to die.

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Oh Federer, you beautiful, beautiful thing.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2230160133860587

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A poem by Izumi Shikibu (976-1030), translated by Jane Hirshfield:

Although the wind

blows terribly here,

the moonlight also leaks

between the roof planks

of this ruined house.

Jane told Sam Harris that after she translated it, it changed her life. He she is talking about it for 5 minutes. Reminds me of Fight Club. 

https://youtu.be/zCPqAV_AZL8?feature=shared

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Herzog stole his first camera. He said in his memoir, "I refuse to look at it as stealing. I was exercising a natural right to put the camera to its intended use."

I stole a dictionary from a high school English class and thought of it the same exact way.

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Trump suggested that he'll take down his political enemies by weaponizing the justice department. Doesn't know that he isn't supposed to say the Banana Republic stuff out loud?

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Aristotle’s list of his Nicomachean Ethics:

Courage: The midpoint between cowardice and recklessness, a courageous person is one who is aware of the danger but goes in any way.

Temperance: This is the virtue between overindulgence and insensitivity. Aristotle would view the person who never drinks just as harshly as the one who drinks too much.

Liberality: The virtue of charity, this is the golden mean between miserliness and giving more than you can afford. 

Magnificence: The virtue of living extravagantly, it rests between stinginess and vulgarity. Aristotle sees no reason to be ascetic but also warns against being flashy.

Magnanimity: The virtue relating to pride, it is the midpoint between not giving yourself enough credit and having delusions of grandeur. It is a given that you also have to act on this sense of self-worth and strive for greatness. 

Patience: This is the virtue that controls your temper. The patient person must neither get too angry nor fail to get angry when they should.

Truthfulness: The virtue of honesty, Aristotle places it between the vices of habitual lying and being tactless or boastful.

Wittiness: At the midpoint between buffoonery and boorishness, this is the virtue of a good sense of humor.

Friendliness: While being friendly might not seem like a moral virtue, Aristotle claims friendship is a vital part of a life well lived. This virtue lies between not being friendly at all and being too friendly towards too many people.

Shame: The midpoint between being too shy and being shameless. The person who has the right amount of shame will understand when they have committed a social or moral error but won’t be too fearful not to risk them.

Justice: This is the virtue of dealing fairly with others. It lies between selfishness and selflessness. This virtue can also be applied in different situations and has a whole chapter dedicated to the various forms it can take. 

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Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray- "Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?"

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Campbell- "We're in a freefall into future. We don't know where we're going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you're going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It's a very interesting shift of perspective and that's all it is... joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes."

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Sagan- "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

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Carse, Breakfast at the Victory- "Can it be that by letting boundaries be boundaries they cease to be boundaries?"

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Blake:

Who binds himself a joy

Does a winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity's sun rise.

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Vonnegut- “There are too many of us and we are all too far apart."

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Kierkegaard- "If I could prescribe only one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence."

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Mary Ellen Kelly- "Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams."

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Sufi parable:

In one of the great court banquets, everyone was seated according to rank, waiting the entry of the King. In came a plan, shabby man and took a seat above everyone else. His boldness angered the prime minister who ordered the new comer to identify himself. Was a he minister? No, more. Was he the King. No, more. "Are you then God?" asked the prime minister. "I am above that also," replied the poor man. "There is nothing beyond God," retorted the prime minister. "That nothing," came the response, "is me."

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Addendum

Except from Sam Harris's podcast on the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict, The Bright Line Between Good and Evil:

Of course, the boundary between Anti-Semitism and generic moral stupidity is a little hard to discern—and I’m not sure that it is always important to find it. I’m not sure it matters why a person can’t distinguish between collateral damage in a necessary war and conscious acts of genocidal sadism that are celebrated as a religious sacrament by a death cult. Our streets have been filled with people, literally tripping over themselves in their eagerness to demonstrate that they cannot distinguish between those who intentionally kill babies, and those who inadvertently kill them, having taken great pains to avoid killing them, while defending themselves against the very people who have just intentionally tortured and killed innocent men, women, and yes… babies. And who are committed to doing this again at any opportunity, and who are using their own innocent noncombatants as human shields. If you’re both sides-ing this situation—or worse, if you are supporting the wrong side: if you are waving the flag of people who murder noncombatants intentionally, killing parents in front of their children and children in front of their parents, burning people alive at a music festival devoted to “peace”, and decapitating others, and dragging their dismembered bodies through the streets, all to shouts of “God is Great.” If you are recognizing the humanity of actual barbarians, while demonizing the people who actually worry about war crimes and who drop leaflets and call cell phones for days, in an effort to get noncombatants to leave specific buildings before they are bombed, because those buildings sit on top of tunnels filled with genocidal lunatics—who again, have just sedulously tortured and murdered families as though it were a religious sacrament, because for them it is a religious sacrament. If you have landed, proudly and sanctimoniously, on the wrong side of this asymmetry—this vast gulf between savagery and civilization—while marching through the quad of an Ivy League institution wearing yoga pants, I’m not sure it matters that your moral confusion is due to the fact that you just happen to hate Jews. Whether you’re an anti-Semite or just an apologist for atrocity is probably immaterial. The crucial point is that you are dangerously confused about the moral norms and political sympathies that make life in this world worth living. 

What is more, you don’t even care about what you think you care about, because you have failed to see that Hamas, and jihadists generally, are the principal cause of all the misery and dysfunction we see, not just in Gaza, but throughout the Muslim world. Gaza is only an “open air prison” because its democratically elected government is a jihadist organization that is eager to martyr all Palestinians for the pleasure of killing Jews. A rational government in Gaza that cared about the fate of its citizens could have made something beautiful out of that strip of land on the Mediterranean—or at least not awful. But Hamas has spent billions of dollars on terrorism. The suffering of Gaza is due to the fact that it has been run by a death cult, against which Israel has had to defend itself continuously. The line you keep hearing from defenders of Israel—that “if the Palestinians put down their weapons, there would be peace; if the Israelis put down their weapons, there would be a genocide”—happens to be true. 

But now we have college students at our best universities, tearing down posters of hostages held by Hamas—some of whom are Americans, and some of whom are children—imagining that they are supporting the Palestinian cause. It boggles the mind. We have LGBTQ activists supporting Hamas—when they wouldn’t survive a day in Gaza, because Hamas throws anyone suspected of being gay off of rooftops. They’re directly supported by Iran, where gay people are regularly hanged. 

We’ve got feminist organizations like CodePink going all in for Hamas and accusing the Israelis of genocide. Do they understand how Hamas treats women? Did CodePink support the women of Iran who were thrown in prison and even killed for daring to show their hair in public? Do they realize that women are treated like property throughout the Muslim world and that this is not an accident? Under Islam, the central message about women is that they are second-class citizens and the property of the men in their lives. Rather than support the rights of women and girls to not live as slaves, Western liberals support the right of theocrats to treat their wives and daughters however they want, as long as these theocrats are Muslim. 

Transcript: https://www.samharris.org/blog/the-bright-line-between-good-and-evil