Ghost Dance Ghosts Dance
Pelé left us today.
Andy Warhol- “Pelé is one of the few who contradicted my theory. Instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.”
He was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento, after Thomas Edison. Shortly before he was born, electricity had just come to his town. Nobody is sure how he got the name Pele.
He grew up in poverty, using makeshift soccer balls out of wadded up paper stuffed in socks, or grapefruits.
He was declared a national treasure by the president of Brazil when he was 20.
A goalkeeper who played against him in the 1962 International cup said, “I arrived hoping to stop a great man, but I went away convinced I had been undone by someone who was not born on the same planet as the rest of us.”
From The Washington Post obituary- "The genius of Pelé’s play prompted a 48-hour cease-fire in at least one civil war as Nigerians put their arms down to behold his mastery during a 1969 exhibition in Lagos."
He said in a 2001 interview- “Wherever you go, there are three icons that everyone knows: Jesus Christ, Pelé and Coca-Cola.”
It is said that people don't debate who the best soccer player is. They debate whether Pelé was invented for soccer, or whether soccer was invented for Pelé.
December 29, 2022
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Dick Cavett was eating lunch with Groucho Marx, when a man approached the table with his wife and asked Groucho to insult her. Groucho said, "With a wife like that you should be able to think of your own insults."
It was a different time! What would have Groucho said if the wife had asked him to insult her husband? Maybe, "Divorce him, and I'll tell you tomorrow over drinks."
That's the type of joke that Dick Cavett says that Groucho popularized. They seem so ubiquitous, almost that they must have come from out of nowhere.
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Fun at the park today.
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Gretel & Zuzu are watching The Wizard of Oz, I made them a little bed.
December 29, 2018
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The yearly TCM in memoriam is always an excellent short film in its own right.
https://fb.watch/hJfIIkzTNM/?mibextid=NnVzG8
December 29, 2018
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About 10 years ago I was driving on the interstate while at my job delivering brochures and I passed these two rough looking guys walking on the side of the road. I don't know how to explain the dread I had when I saw them... they just seemed evil, and with nothing to lose. It was their clothes, their body language, and that they seemed carefree but were kind of in the road a bit and they walked toward the traffic, sort of daring someone to either hit them or stop for them. They gave me chills.
I got to my rest area a mile or so down the road, did my job as fast as possible, got back in the truck and kept moving. I drove east to the next exit, then headed back west. At about the same place I saw them there were like 10 cop cars by this wooded area. Cops were getting out of their cars with rifles. I floored it!
That night on the news I saw that they shot those guys. I can't prove it but I kind of know they would have killed me and taken my truck if I had been dumb enough to stop.
Tonight on Columbia Ave, as I was leaving Everest, I saw two guys that perfectly reminded me of them. I was pulling out and they were walking on the other side on the street. One stared right in my eyes for too long as I pulled out. I was compelled to watch them in my rear-view mirror. They walked right into traffic, eliciting horns. They didn't care. The cars stopped and they slowly walked across.
It crossed my mind to head back but opted to drive home while sharing some sesame brittle with Gretel and Zuzu in the back seat. I checked the news for any local massacres. None. I'll check again later.
December 29, 2017
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Here's something fun...our cable cord apparently burst into flames overnight.
December 29, 2014
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The Onion
Melania Trump Stumbles Upon Dozens Of Husband’s Haunting, Macabre Self-Portraits
December 29, 2016
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TCM Remembers, 2014. A must watch for movie fans.
https://fb.watch/hJg290lrC-/?mibextid=6aamW6
December 29, 2014
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Full disclosure, I've correctly been accused of putting forth "nonsense" in the past. (Almost forgot I used to know another language.) He certainly had my number!
December 29, 2014
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The cats are all sitting on armrests like gargoyles.
December 29, 2011
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While cleaning and rearranging the house I smashed my thumb with a hammer and then stepped on a tack that went deep in my foot... yeah, like some sort of cartoon. I swear if I would have bumped my head, a foot-long Bugs Bunny lump would have grown up out of it.
December 29, 2009
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According to John Smith, on this day in 1607, Pocahontas, daughter of Powhatan leader Wahunsenacawh, successfully plead for his life after tribal leaders attempt to execute him.
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Tragedy on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on this day in 1890- the end of the Ghost Dance Movement as 300 Lakota were killed by the United States 7th Cavalry Regiment, including their chief Spotted Elk.
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On this day in 1998, leaders of the Khmer Rouge apologized for the Cambodian genocide that claimed over one million lives. Pol Pot had died 8 months prior.
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Ted Danson joined us on this day in 1947.
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Paula Poundstone was born on this day in 1959. Her famous Pop Tart routine:
Inside there are three pouches of two. This is what happens to me: I open the first pouch, and I eat one tart, and I enjoy it very much, as naturally I would. And then I feel, "Well, I have to eat the second one or it will go stale." Well, now I’ve eaten two, and it’s no longer just a snack, it’s a meal. I figure I may as well eat two more. And then finally I’m just like, "Well hell, I don’t just want two pop tarts hangin’ out in a box." I eat the last two just to tidy up, really.
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Mad Men's Alison Brie joined us on this day in 1982.
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Other notable birthdays- Andrew Johnson (1808), Jo Van Fleet (1915), Mary Tyler Moore (1936), Jon Voight (1938)
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Rainer Maria Rilke left this on this day in 1926.
"There is death in life, and it astonishes me that we pretend to ignore this: death, whose unforgiving presence we experience with each change we survive because we must learn to die slowly. We must learn to die: That is all of life."
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Andrei Tarkovsky left us on this day in 1986.
Ingmar Bergman speaking about him:
“When film is not a document, it is dream. That is why Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams. He doesn’t explain. What should he explain anyhow? He is a spectator, capable of staging his visions in the most unwieldy but, in a way, the most willing of media. All my life I have hammered on the doors of the rooms in which he moves so naturally. Only a few times have I managed to creep inside.”
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Chris Mooney- Scientists Are Beginning to Figure Out Why Conservatives Are… Conservative
I wonder why they didn't phrase this in a less abrasive fashion... like, liberals are liberal because they have less negativity bias. Nah, sounds the same.
http://billmoyers.com/2014/07/17/scientists-are-beginning-to-figure-out-why-conservatives-are…-conservative
December 29, 2015
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Alternet- Obama urged to take nukes off high alert as Trump takes office
Well damn, that DOES seem like a good idea for some reason. (Should have done it 8 years ago.)
http://www.alternet.org/world/obama-urged-take-us-nukes-high-alert-trump-takes-office
December 29, 2016
Postscript- I'm still pissed off about that! It makes me question how seriously he took the job. Put in some freaking checks and balances for Christ's sake.
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CNN- The 47 most outrageous lines in Donald Trump’s New York Times interview
Fake news is at it again... quoting him verbatim!
http://cnn.it/2zKyJYq
December 29, 2017
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The Hill- Resurgence of UFO stories in 2017 reflects growing American anxieties
Haha, I was just saying the same thing a couple days ago.
http://thehill.com/opinion/technology/366671-resurgence-of-ufo-stories-in-2017-reflects-growing-american-anxieties
December 29, 2017
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Cracked- 5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think
Should be required reading!
5. We're Not Programmed to Seek "Truth," We're Programmed to "Win"
"It's called the argumentative theory of reasoning, and it says that humans didn't learn to ask questions and offer answers in order to find universal truths."
4. Our Brains Don't Understand Probability
"It's called neglect of probability. Our brains are great for doing a lot of things. Calculating probability is not one of them."
3. We Think Everyone's Out to Get Us
"It's called the trust gap, and scientist see it crop up every time one human is asked to estimate how trustworthy another one is. In one study, subjects were asked to rate the likelihood that strangers would share pretend winnings with them. The subjects figured about half were trustworthy enough to share. When it came time to actually share, about 80 percent came through. The subjects thought the world was almost twice as corrupt as it actually is."
2. We're Hard-Wired to Have a Double Standard
"It's called the fundamental attribution error. It's a universal thought process that says when other people screw up, it's because they're stupid or evil. But when we screw up, it's totally circumstantial. Like if you notice a coworker showing up to work high on mescaline, it's because he's an out-of-control peyote hound. But if you show up at work high on mescaline, it's because you had a flat tire and you needed the distraction."
(Kipling- I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards.)
1. Facts Don't Change Our Minds
We just want to be on a team.
"That is why confirmation bias exists. We read a news article that supports what we believe, and we add it to the "I'm right about this" column. News articles that contradict what we believe are dismissed. We make up a reason -- maybe the source is part of the conspiracy from the other side or whatever it takes to make sure the "I'm wrong about this" column remains empty."
Very worth reading!
http://www.cracked.com/article_19468_5-logical-fallacies-that-make-you-wrong-more-than-you-think.html
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A 106-year-old Armenian woman guards her home in 1990.
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From Norm Macdonald's memoir of mostly lies:
"A picture hung on the wall of our parlor. In it, a woman was taking a shirt from a clothesline. She had clothespins in her teeth and it was windy and a boy was tugging at her dress. The woman looked like she was in a hurry and the whole scene gave me the idea that, just outside the frame, full, dark clouds were gathering. But that was not what it was. It was paint. So I decided right then and there to see the picture as it really was. I stared at the thing long and hard, trying to only see the paint. But it was no use. All my eyes would allow me to see was the lie. In fact, the longer I gazed at the paint, the more false detail I began to imagine. The boy was crying, as if afraid, and the woman was weaker than I had first believed. I finally gave up. I understood then that it takes a powerful imagination to see a thing for what it really is."
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Sophocles- "A short saying often contains much wisdom."
Case in point!
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Frederick Douglass- “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
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Susan Sontag- "The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions."
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Henry Miller- "If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having."
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Vonnegut's advice to the graduating class of Agnes Schott College, Decatur, Georgia, 1999:
"When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, ‘If this isn’t nice, what is?’"
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Steven Wright- "My mother is from another time - the funniest person to her is Lucille Ball; that's what she loves. A lot of times she tells me she doesn't know what I'm talking about. I know if I wasn't her son and she was flipping through the TV and saw me, she would just keep going."
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Hitchens- "The man who prays is the one who thinks that god has arranged matters all wrong, but who also thinks that he can instruct god how to put them right."
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David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim:
He took a sip of my father’s weak coffee and spit it back into the mug. "This shit’s like making love in a canoe."
"Excuse me?"
"It’s fucking near water.
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Sarah Vowell, Unfamiliar Fishes- "I guess if I had to pick a spiritual figurehead to possess the deed to the entirety of Earth, I'd go with Buddha, but only because he wouldn't want it."
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Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens- "Some societies tried to solve the problem [of exchange rates] by establishing a central barter system that collected products from specialist growers and manufacturers and distributed them to those who needed them. The largest and most famous such experiment was conducted in the Soviet Union, and it failed miserably. ‘Everyone would work according to their abilities, and receive according to their needs’ turned out in practice into ‘everyone would work as little as they can get away with, and receive as much as they could grab’."
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Let's end on limericks for a couple weeks!
There was a family named Doe,
An ideal family to know.
As father screwed mother,
She said, "You're heavier than brother."
And he said, "Yes, Sis told me so!"
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