Nostalgia, Poo-Throw Hitler, and Heidegger Vs Dogen

Stopped by a little antique store in New Holland that happens to be in the building that used to be New Holland Meat Market. That was my first job, and I worked there for two years, from 1989 until 1991. I took a picture of the sink in the back where I may have washed thousands of dishes.

I don't know what it is, but when I drive through New Holland I could just disintegrate with nostalgia.

December 11, 2022

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Playing racquetball the other night, I hit two perfect serves in a row to start the game. I hit them both as hard as I possibly could with the second bounce an inch from the lefthand corner, each skimming the wall landing near the center line. Pure joy. And I almost got a third. 

December 11, 2023

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I loved Sam Harris's podcast on the subject of time with Oliver Burkeman. Time management, the boringest topic imaginable, right? But isn't it the exact most important topic there is??? Without time management, our lives become nothing. All we do is manage time, and if we do it poorly we live our lives poorly. A life well-lived is one that considers the subject. 

Sam commented on how life can't simply be about getting through your day on a never-ending treadmill. There's a sense it's leading to something. Oliver rejoined: 

"You're right, and we sort of forget this for years and decades at a time. It's also sort of immediately obvious that if it's all leading up to something, it's all leading up to what? A single moment on your deathbed? Obviously that makes no sense." 

That is exactly one of the ways I always imagined my moment in time! That if you get one moment on your deathbed to reflect on the fact that you lived a wonderful life, that is indeed the culmination. I still like that thought. But if you don't get that moment, what then? He continued: 

"I don't know if I can articulate this properly, but it has something to do with our fundamental misunderstanding or illusion of what time is. There's this idea that time is a resource, this thing that you use, that you have to get the most out of, the portion of time that you've been given. All of these things imply a separation between time, and you. I tried to go through it in the book, that I think it would help us to think that we ARE time. You ARE a portion of time. And that speaks to the fact that this is not a dress rehearsal, that it has to matter now. The idea that you're using this resource to get to some place in the future stops making any sense if you adopt the idea that you are time. Well then you obviously have to be in the present. Meaning is found in... and I attribute some of these ideas in the book to..." 

He hesitated just a second and I thought, "Heidegger!" 

"...Heidegger, who grappled and tried to understand this." 

I was jogging through the streets of Lancaster listening to this podcast and I swear to God I shouted out- "Heidegger, I fucking knew it!" 

Anybody sitting on their porch as I ran past must have thought I was a raving lunatic! He continued: 

"I found some strikingly similar things in the books published by Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen. He wrote an essay which is translated as Being Time. This idea that we just ARE time, for me anyway this triggers this kind of bodily shift into the feeling that it has to matter now. I don't know if that makes sense when I put it into words." 

Sam: "Yeah, and Dogen has the virtue of never having joined the Nazi Party." 

Haha, true! 

This whole thing is unbelievable, I remember studying Heidegger in college at the same time I was reading Zen books outside of class and saw a bunch of similarities. I also remember a professor talking about how incomprehensible it was that Heidegger could have been a member of the Nazi Party, and somehow never renounced it! 

I just looked it up and there's a book on that exact combination of subjects- Heidegger, time, identity and Zen- Echoes of No Time, by Nico Jenkins. 

I considered buying it, then reconsidered on the basis of improving my time management. I just looked up the essay by Dogen- just a few pages that I've already printed. I'll read that next!

December 11, 2021

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THIS JUST IN: Trump Appointees Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett Now Part of Deep State. 

Reached for comment, Q said, "Well, maybe Biden actually won. I mean, it's not like it was impossible or anything, right?"

December 11, 2020

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There was a pretty neat natural science experiment in Kansas. There was a statewide mask mandate that some counties respected while others didn't. The counties that respected it had rates that dropped after 2 weeks. The counties that didn't respect it, you guessed it. There's no perfect solution, but we would not be where we are if people respected guidelines. (That does not equal a lockdown.) Yet you still see people pushing this absurd notion that it's about control vs health... as if breathing their covid breath in each other's faces isn't starting a chain reaction that kills people before their time.

December 11, 2020

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An incomprehensible yet unavoidable fact for Trump- he is a loser. 

How will the guy handle this? Remember he's the guy whose own former Chief of Staff called, "the most flawed human being I've ever met." I guess we'll have to wait and see.

December 11, 2020

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Sophocles- “Rather fail with honour that succeed by fraud.”

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The president said today that in order to preserve the Constitution, the Supreme Court must overturn the election. What the heck country's Constitution is this guy using???

December 11, 2020

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Lincoln- "Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."

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So much of the thrust of Democrats' argument against Trump focuses on Ukraine, and it should be, based on all the damning testimony. But what about the second article, obstruction? If someone is innocent, why obstruct to the point of refusing to even participate. Trump declares his innocence and expects that to be the end of it. Not a controversial fact. That's cool?

I'll have to keep that in mind if I ever get accused of murder. "I'm totally innocent and I'm not participating in the legal proceedings!" Then apparently I should just scream "witch hunt" a bunch, and hello freedom.

December 11, 2019

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I just told Gretel to name her stuffed chimpanzee and she asked me for good monkey names. (I know, I know, chimps are apes, not monkeys... but she asked me for good monkey names.) The first one that came to mind was from John Oliver's interview with Jane Goodall- Poo-Throw Hitler. Jane didn't think it was a good chimp name, John did. John was obviously right. But I think Gretel needs to get a little bit older before I can divulge the best chimp name on the market.

December 11, 2019

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Ricky Gervais- "Name one subject that should never be joked about."

One person wrote- "the death of David Attenborough when it happens." 

Good answer!

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That little kid who said the emporer had no clothes... actually the emporer was fully clothed (with beautiful clothes, the best clothes) and that little kid had no clothes. And also, never criticize the emporer.

December 11, 2016

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Borowitz- "An inability to attend daily intelligence briefings would seem to conform to the definition of incapacitation that the 25th Amendment requires to remove a President. Over to you, Congress."

Postscript- Legit! The guy never took the job seriously.

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Bundled up for fun at the park.

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Haha, of course Trump would think that winning the Electoral College by the 44th biggest margin in the last 54 modern elections is one of the biggest margins in history... the same way that now facts are false, up is down and Trump is smart.

December 11, 2016

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Claire McCaskill on This Week... "I call it the 3 G cabinet- Goldman, Generals and Gazillionaires." 

Jesus, can the new DNC chair please hire someone to come up with punchy criticisms? What would Trump come up with if he was against Trump??? 

"More Dumb Don appointments! These are bad people. The worst. BAD!"

December 11, 2016

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Come on people, let's call a Christmas tree a Christmas tree! And let's call every other tree a Pantheist tree.

December 15, 2015

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Cat Christmas.

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Everybody can afford to make a $10,000 bet... you just have to know you'll win. (Romney believes corporations are people, why not pile on him for that instead?)

December 11, 2011

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The other day Emma's mom told us that, "In reality Jack Nicholson has a giant forehead." I added that "in fantasy it's even bigger."

December 11, 2010

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Che Guevara spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on this day in 1964.

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On this day in 1972, 50 years ago today, Eugene Cernan and Jack Schmitt sang Strolling On the Moon One Day, on the moon.

https://youtu.be/pdrrh6jrjXI

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Rushmore was released on this day in 1998.

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Bernie Madoff was arrested on this day in 2008, and charged with securities fraud in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. 

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The poet, Jim Harrison, was born on this day in 1937.

“I probably wouldn't have been a poet if I hadn't lost my left eye when I was a boy. . . . A neighbor girl shoved a broken bottle in my face during a quarrel. Afterward, I retreated to the natural world and never really came back.”

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Angelo Badalamenti left us on this day in 2022. David Lynch declared in his weather forecast- "No music today."

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It's a sad and beautiful world...

https://youtu.be/ZP2tqJTSfgU

December 11, 2010

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Other notable birthdays- Maila Nurmi (1922), Big Mama Thornton (1926), Tom Hayden (1939)

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Other notable deathdays- Sam Cooke (1964), Bettie Page (2008)

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Huffington Post- Rats Show Empathy And Altruistic Behavior, New Study Claims

I'll guarantee one of the test subjects was named Ayn Rat.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/10/rats-empathy-altruistic-behavior_n_1140130.html

December 11, 2011

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Christmastime Is Here, the saddest song on planet Earth. Gloomy Christmas everybody!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPG3zSgm_Qo

December 11, 2015

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They really should have bought her the cha cha heels.

https://youtu.be/6cYZXyh7y6I

December 11, 2015

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/us/politics/trump-russia-democrats.html?mwrsm=Facebook

Oh this guy. Remember this for next "Osama bin Laden Determined to Attack US" moment. From the article:

He also indicated that as president, he would not take the daily intelligence briefing that President Obama and his predecessors have received. Mr. Trump, who has received the briefing sparingly as president-elect, said that it was often repetitive and that he would take it “when I need it.” He said his vice president, Mike Pence, would receive the daily briefing.

“You know, I’m, like, a smart person,” he said. “I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years,” he said.

Updated Dec 11, 2016, 11:01 AM

Dec 11, 2016, 11:01 AM

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The New York Times- What Donald Trump Learned From Joseph McCarthy’s Right-Hand Man

Don't think Trump plans to rule by instilling fear? Do you know that Joseph McCarthy's aide was Trump's lawyer for 13 years? The Senate is 52-48, which somehow is going to cause me to say (don't puke... don't puke don't puke don't puke) McCain, Graham, Collins and Paul are poised to become American heroes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/us/politics/donald-trump-roy-cohn.html

December 11, 2016

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Alternet- Is Donald Trump funny? A media expert explains the president's humor impairment

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/is-donald-trump-funny-a-media-expert-explains-the-presidents-humor-impairment

December 11, 2019

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Cherophobia- the fear of happiness

I think I have a touch of that! Sounds like what Fran Leibowitz described in Pretend It's a City. 

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Voltaire- "If you have two religions in your land, the two will cut each other’s throats; but if you have thirty religions, they will dwell in peace."

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Kinison- "My favorite president, John F. Kennedy. Charming guy, great president. Fucked Marilyn Monroe. President of the United States and fucked Marilyn Monroe. What do you want?! I know some people give him shit about that, yeah like you wouldn't have. No you'd have been too busy studying the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Yeah you wouldn't have wanted a piece of Marilyn, not you, no. Yeah you're too patriotic, fuck you, you'd have done her. You'd have been just like JFK. You'd have been there in the Oval Office, Marilyn across the desk, your dick up her ass, lookin' out at the Washington Monument going: "You know, it doesn't get much better than this, does it? President of the United States. Dick in Marilyn Monroe. My finger on the fucking button telling the fucking Russians to get their missiles out of Cuba in twelve hours. It doesn't get better than this.""

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Woody Allen- "I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia."

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Twain- "The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also."

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Merton- "The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most."

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Giraldo, on Jeff Ross: “You’re fattening faster than you’re aging. You’re like the Curious Case of Benjamin Glutton."

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Dickinson:

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

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Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle- "Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns."

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Sagan- "There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any."

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Steven Wright:

Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before.

I was in a job interview and I opened a book and started reading. Then I said to the guy, "Let me ask you a question. Suppose you are in a space bus traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights. Does anything happen?" He said, "How should I know?" I said, "Forget it, I don't want to work for you."

Why don't they just make mouse flavored cat food.

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

You know when you put a stick in water and it looks bent? That's why I don't take baths.