Elennora German, and the Tralfamadorians

Did you ever notice that people who don't wear masks have faces that you wouldn't have wanted to see in the first place?

November 17, 2020

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We found the grave of one of Gretel and Zuzu's 7th great-grandmothers, Elennora German (1776-1844.) She's my great-great grandma's great-great grandma. I wonder what her life was like, and when someone last visited her grave.

November 17, 2019

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Big Think- Scientists turn nuclear waste into diamond batteries

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Squirrels cannot die from a fall. Their bodies are designed to reach terminal velocity in a couple seconds, so it doesn't matter if they fall from a tall tree or out of the stratosphere. They can glide a bit too which helps.

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Gretel just said the best thing. At the mall she looked down into the food court and asked, "Daddy, is that like what we saw on TV where the pigs were eating everything?" She was referring to Spirited Away, when Chihiro's parents turn into pigs and gorge themselves.  

It's not like I'm going to lie! "Yes Gretel, that's exactly what it's like."

November 17, 2018

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I'm ready for a snowball fight. They have no idea who they're messing with.

November 17, 2018

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There's a four-hour Jonestown documentary on Sundance tonight and tomorrow night. Fascinating topic... my mind is endlessly boggled to see the lengths to which people can go when wrapped up in personality cults.

November 17, 2018

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"It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close…"

-Hunter S. Thompson on... Nixon? Wait, that can't be right.

November 17, 2017

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A disembodied elephant head trophy is perhaps the perfect metaphor for what Trump has done to the Republican Party, and for what they've allowed themselves to become.

November 17, 2017

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I'd like to go to to the Women's March on Washington but I fear it would remind me a bit too much of the night Emma took me see Dirty Dancing in the theater on the 20th anniversary of its release.

November 17, 2016

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"Affordable health care is a human right, and if you simply can't pay, I'll chip in." -Jesus, probably

November 17, 2016

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Presidents sure have put together some great sentences over the years:

George Washington- "If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."

Thomas Jefferson- "Whenever people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government."

Abe Lincoln- "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

FDR- "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Obama- "If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress."

Trump- "Look, having nuclear—my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart—you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world—it’s true!—but when you're a conservative Republican they try—oh, do they do a number—that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune—you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged—but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me—it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right—who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners—now it used to be three, now it’s four—but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years—but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us."

November 17, 2016

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Huh...Rachel Maddow reported that Trump just filed a suit this week to have his DC hotel's value decreased from $98 million to $28 million, so he wants to pay tax on a hotel worth $70 million less. The person in charge of making the decision... wait for it... will be appointed by Trump.

November 17, 2016

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H. H. Holmes, one of the first modern serial killers, was arrested in Boston, Massachusetts on this day in 1894.

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The Twilight Zone episode, Midnight Sun, was released on this date in 1961. The opening narration:

"The word that Mrs. Bronson is unable to put into the hot, still, sodden air is 'doomed,' because the people you've just seen have been handed a death sentence. One month ago, the Earth suddenly changed its elliptical orbit and in doing so began to follow a path which gradually, moment by moment, day by day, took it closer to the sun. And all of man's little devices to stir up the air are now no longer luxuries - they happen to be pitiful and panicky keys to survival. The time is five minutes to twelve, midnight. There is no more darkness. The place is New York City, and this is the eve of the end, because even at midnight, it's high noon, the hottest day in history, and you're about to spend it - in The Twilight Zone."

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On this day in 1973, in Orlando, Florida, President Richard Nixon told the press, "I am not a crook." Turns out, he was.

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August Ferdinand Möbius joined us on this day in 1790. Here's Neil deGrasse tyson, talking for 15 minutes about Möbius strips.

https://youtu.be/vLgCq4ikl78

And here's directions on how to cut a bagel into a Möbius strip.

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Civil War historian, Shelby Foote, was born on this day in 1916.

"The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became, good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being, and it was a hell of a crossroads."

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Toto too? Yes, Toto too.

Toto (or Terry) was born on this day in 1933, about eight months after my grandma.

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Martin Scorsese was born on this day in 1942.

"The most interesting of the classic movie genres to me are the indigenous ones: the Western, which was born on the Frontier, the Gangster Film, which originated in the East Coast cities, and the Musical, which was spawned by Broadway. They remind me of jazz: they allowed for endless, increasingly complex, sometimes perverse variations. When these variations were played by the masters, they reflected the changing times; they gave you fascinating insights into American culture and the American psyche."

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On this day in 1944, Danny DeVito, Lorne Michaels, and Tom Seaver were born. And four years later it was Howard Dean, ten years later East Bay Ray of the Dead Kennedys, and six years after that, Mitch Williams. 

I don't blame Mitch at all for giving up the game-winning home run of the 1993 World Series to Joe Carter. Without Mitch, we never would have been there. He was totally worn out for pitching so much in the game's prior, and did the best he could do, which is all anybody has the right to ask of anybody else.

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JTA- New Trump ad features prominent Jews in deriding ‘global power structure’

Well-balanced article, includes both viewpoints. The recent talk of a registry, and a prominent Trump supporter's mention of Japanese internment camps as a model demands our vigilance.

From the article: "The National Jewish Democratic Council said in a statement that “Trump’s casual use of anti-Semitic memes and stereotypes in this campaign has been shocking and dangerous. What has becoming increasingly clear as the election is coming to a close, especially with this latest ad, is that Trump has made a strategic choice to continue employing themes long used by anti-Semites.”

http://www.jta.org/2016/11/06/news-opinion/politics/new-trump-ad-focuses-on-prominent-jews-in-deriding-international-bankers

November 17, 2016

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BBC- Post-truth' declared word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries

When feelings trump facts, we have a difficult road ahead.

Post-truth- "It is defined as an adjective relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600

November 17, 2016

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Yahoo- Romney To Meet With Trump: Report

https://www.yahoo.com/news/romney-meet-trump-report-184959614.html

Romney for Secretary of State? Did Trump not see his 18-hour diatribe against Trump during the primaries???

November 17, 2016

Postscript- Yep, he was just setting him up to try to embarrass him, which is certainly something that adults do. All this high school kids in Carrie, for sure, but probably some adults too somewhere sometime.

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Bill Moyers- Now’s Your Chance, President-Elect Trump by Lee Drutman

Critical to read. Ask yourself why racists have become emboldened.

And no, not all Trump voters are racists, and all can now choose to categorically be on the side against racism and call for Trump to give a speech condemning the hate crimes done in his name. Or you can quietly accept them.

Wait, would Bannon have to write that speech? Even better.

http://billmoyers.com/story/nows-chance-president-elect-trump

November 17, 2016

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New York Magazine- Trump isn't inciting violence by accident, it's on purpose. He just told us.

From the article:

“What scares the crap out of me is that, when you’re saying ‘enemy of the people, enemy of the people,’ … what happens if all of a sudden someone gets shot, somebody shoots one of these reporters?” Vandehei pleads. Trump replies, “It is my only form of fighting back.”

Watch the entire exchange, and take note of what Trump does not say here. The easiest answer Trump could give would be to deflect the concern as overblown. But at no point does he reassure the palpably frightened Vandehei that he is not inciting violence, and that his supporters understand that they should refrain from radical acts. Instead Trump lets the threat hang in the air, and justifies it as his only weapon against the slanders against him.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/trump-isnt-inciting-violence-by-mistake-he-just-told-us.html

November 17, 2018

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CNN- All adults should be screened for unhealthy alcohol use, new guidelines say

This might have inspired me to drink more! No more than four drinks in a day, and 14 in a week??? I could drink so much more and still be super-healthy.

https://cnn.it/2QRaHEm

November 17, 2018

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A map of the entire internet as of May 1973

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I played a woman in racquetball tonight who has this very strange quirk. Several times a game she takes a point off of your score. And she's very confident she's right. She thinks you're an idiot if you question her. It's so strange dealing with somebody who is 100% wrong with perfect certainty. She'd never get her score wrong, she just kept taking a point off mine. I don't let it bug me, I just figure after work a little extra to beat her.

November 17, 2023

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Listening to Olivia Rodrigo, I feel like I'm in a teenage girl's head. 

What a great song, Happier:

https://youtu.be/XwQ7lpnxj0o

Listening to Billie Eillish I feel like I'm in a teenage girl's mouth, triggers my misophonia.

I just looked it up, and underneath someone saying that she triggers them, someone wrote this: 

"DUUUUDE I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO GOT TRIGGERED OVER BILLIE-- Like all my friends love her music and play it all the time and I have to sit there and fester or leave the room. Literally any breathy singers like that just screw me up inside."

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Jean Genet- “If we behave like those on the other side, then we are the other side. Instead of changing the world, all we'll achieve is a reflection of the one we want to destroy.”

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Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow- "Dreams, memories, the sacred--they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles."

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Plato- “The greatest wealth is to live content with little.”

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Henrik Ibsen- "To live is to war with trolls."

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Donald H. McGannon- "Leadership is action, not position."

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Norm Macdonald- You know the funniest part of the one in the front of the office Conga line? You look back and you're alone, and you're not in the office, you're in a psychiatric hospital.

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Campbell, Reflections on the Art of Living- "One great thing about growing old is that nothing is going to lead to anything. Everything is of the moment."

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Manson- "If you're going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy."

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Sagan- "We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever."

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Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five- "The most important thing I learnt on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever. When any Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments."