The Fries At the Pier, and Other Tidbits of Maximum Importance
We all have our individual fries at the pier.
Reminds me of the Black Elk thing, the provinciality of all religions.
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Excellent. Wow. Yes, who remembers the night before Wounded Knee? The lesson:
"One of the curses of history is that we cannot go back and change the course leading to disasters, no matter how much we might wish to. The past has its own terrible inevitability. But it is never too late to change the future."
Heather Cox Richardson on the night before wounded knee:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02DdeuLgFzeJP8nzv9iCDpvDhwXeDCkiC1o6AiwDvWQbMFVGUn1A6Tm9UmgT9bEpahl&id=241446929332714&mibextid=Nif5oz
December 28, 2020
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Lemmy died 5 years ago. I just did some quick math and I'm not sure what Jack Daniels did with the eight and a half 55 gallon drums he would have drank in the meantime, but I'm glad I sold my stock.
December 28, 2020
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Here's Gretel, posing a bit too casually at the grave of her 4th great-grandparents at Weaverland Mennonite Cemetery- Jonathan and Mary Martin. We have at least 27 direct ancestors buried there from 4th to 8th great-grandparents. We found 16 of their graves today.
December 28, 2021
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Feeling a little spacey after playing a serious hour of racquetball. Stopped in at Aldi, left my cart for a second to look at something, came back and started pushing the wrong cart. It had a baby in it. The baby's parents were not amused.
December 28, 2017
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From a meme:
Why is English so fun? Because this sentence makes perfect sense:
"All the faith he had had had had no effect on the outcome of his life."
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This thing with Trump bragging about a few thousand jobs here and a few thousand jobs there that he's keeping in the US. Wouldn't it be odd if Obama bragged every week for 416 weeks about the 36,000 job his economy created THAT week? I know, I know, but they were crappy jobs, right?Trump will make great jobs, the best jobs, really fantastic jobs.
December 28, 2016
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“We do not abandon ship. I say, as corny as it may sound, through the strength and spirit and fire and dare and gamble of a few men in a few ways we can save the carcass of humanity from drowning. No light goes out until it goes out. Let’s fight as men, not rats. Period.”
Maurice Gatto quoting Bukowski in a postcard he sent me.
December 28, 2015
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Know how much Lemmy drank a day- 46 beers. Just joking, that would be ridiculous... it was Andre the Giant who drank 46 beers a day. No... Lemmy only drank a bottle of Jack Daniels every day.
December 28, 2015
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I was skeptical when I saw The Nightmare listed on Netflix as both a thriller and a documentary. It really was though...a documentary on sleep paralysis, and genuinely terrifying. One of the scariest movies I've seen in recent memory. If you see it, let me know what you think.
December 28, 2015
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The Pope says there's no such thing as hell. What'll he say next, that the Bible shouldn't be taken literally, that its stories are simply metaphors? (This just in: Vatican City is whirring from all the past popes spinning in their graves.)
December 28, 2013
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Star Wars + Apocalypse Now + Dances With Wolves + Noam Chomsky + Three Dimensional Space + Things From the Ocean Living in a Forest = Avatar... perhaps the best movie-going experience of the year.
December 28, 2009
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Eight hundred years ago some filthy carpenter carved this guy high up in the dark roof at All Saints Church in Hereford in England. Recently they built an extra floor with bright lights for a restaurant and discovered it.
Makes you wonder how much we've actually changed over all these years. Not at all?
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On this day in 1835, Osceola lead his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the United States Army.
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Birth of cinema as commerce on this day in 1895, the Lumière brothers performed for their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines.
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On this day in 1972, approximately 300 men were not able to report for selective service, since Nixon had declared it a national holiday following Truman's death and the buildings were closed. The draft was not resumed in 1973, so they were never drafted!
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The Endangered Species Act was signed into law on this day in 1973. Thanks Nixon! Thanks Nixon??? (It's worth remembering that terrible presidents can still do great things.)
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Stan Lee was born on this day in 1922.
I let my kids dip their own ice cream for the first time the yesterday. I told them the lesson of Spiderman, that with great power comes great responsibility.
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Bill "Spaceman" Lee was born on this day in 1946. Why Spaceman? He was a kooky guy who did and said weird things.
From The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)- "Lee is known as a “flake,” a term that includes anyone who doesn’t give pat answers to pat questions or dares to admit to reading a book without pictures."
He is endlessly quotable.
"I think about the Cosmic Snowball Theory. A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won't matter if I get this guy out."
That's always been my theory! At least in essence.
I have a baseball card signed by him sitting on my desk. It is 1974 card, from the year I was born. He always signs his cards, "Bill Lee EARTH," which incidentally is the same planet I was born into.
They say that he never embraced his nickname, "Spaceman." He said that his first priority was always to Mother Earth.
Other quotes:
"I'm mad at Hank [Aaron] for deciding to play one more season. I threw him his last home run and thought I'd be remembered forever. Now, I'll have to throw him another."
"I would change policy, bring back natural grass and nickel beer. Baseball is the belly-button of our society. Straighten out baseball, and you straighten out the rest of the world."
"That was real baseball. We weren't playing for money. They gave us Mickey Mouse watches that ran backwards."
"The only rule I got is if you slide, get up." USA Today, October 25, 1989
"The other day they asked me about mandatory drug testing. I said I believed in drug testing a long time ago. All through the sixties I tested everything."
"You have two hemispheres in your brain - a left and a right side. The left side controls the right side of your body and right controls the left half. It's a fact. Therefore, left-handers are the only people in their right minds."
He one time irritated the California Angels when he said that they could conduct their batting practice in the lobby of the fanciest hotel in town, "and never chip a chandelier.”
He said that by sprinkling marijuana on his organic buckwheat pancakes, he was trying to become, "impervious to bus fumes" that he encountered on his jog to the ballpark.
A true character!
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Seth Meyers was born on this day in 1973. I love how Norm Macdonald calls him "Seth", somehow derisively.
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Other notable birthdays- German director, F. W. Murnau (1888), Hungarian mathematician, John von Neumann (1903)
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Theodore Dreiser left us in this day in 1945.
"How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes."
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Sam Peckinpah left us on this day in 1984. One of my favorite directors- Ride the High Country, Wild Bunch, Ballad of Cable Hogue, Straw Dogs, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Somehow I have yet to watch Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, one of Ebert's favorites.
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Novelist, essayist, critic, and playwright, Susan Sontag, left us on this day in 2004.
“The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes. It is equivalent to a sense of abusing the present."
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Phillips 66 Station.
Leamington, Utah.
Photo Titled: .37 Cents
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Huffington Post- Cheetah Dead: Chimpanzee Sidekick From 1930s Tarzan Flicks Dies At 80
He was alive until now??? I always assume all animals from black and white movies are dead. After all, almost all of the people are.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/28/cheetah-the-chimpanzee-obituary_n_1172283.html
December 28, 2011
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Huffington Post- Ramanujan's Mock Modular Forms: Indian Mathematician's Dream Conjecture Finally Proven
Some functions came to Ramanujan in a dream but he died before he could prove them. 100 years later they are proven and have practical application.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/ramanujans-mock-modular-forms_n_2371680.html
December 28, 2012
Postscript-
I have a book on him that I would love to read.
Reminds me of another Susan Sontag quote, "My library is an archive of longings."
What was going on in his brain???
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TED Talk- Tali Sharot, The Optimism Bias
Some pitfalls and benefits to optimism...
https://youtu.be/B8rmi95pYL0
December 28, 2012
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Ever see the Herzog documentary filmed in New Holland in the mid-1970's?
How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck?
https://youtu.be/hkcsz9QujmU
December 28, 2013
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Distractify- 18 Creepy Abandoned Hotels and the Tales of Their Demise
Love these! They really satisfy some strange part of my being.
http://distractify.com/culture/arts/the-most-spectacular-abandoned-places-in-the-world/
December 28, 2013
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Pulptastic- 80+ Rare Historical Photographs
http://pulptastic.com/40-rare-historical-photographs-must-see/
December 28, 2014
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Uhhh...experts place the probability of us surviving into the next century at anywhere from 9% to 50%. A wide range, but does anybody think it's less than that? Imagine that...a minimum one in ten chance that humans have seen the last century change.
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/torres20151213
December 28, 2015
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Oh no, Debbie Reynolds was just rushed to the hospital after suffering an apparent stroke, just a day after her daughter Carrie Fisher died. I told Gretel yesterday that Princess Leia died and she kept asking where she was, and if we could help her. I told her she was too far away and we couldn't help her. She asked if we could watch Star Wars. I said we could, and that she will always be alive in the movies. And the same is true with her mother. To paraphrase Yoda, twilight could be upon her, and perhaps soon night will fall. Even so, we'll always have a good morning.
Singing In the Rain, Good Morning:
https://youtu.be/GB2yiIoEtXw
December 28, 2016
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http://www.eagleman.com/sum/excerpt
There this great short book by David Eagleman... Sum: 40 Tales from the Afterlives. He presents 40 fictional accounts of afterlives, each one designed to make us realize something about the here and now. I really like this one. It begins:
"There are three deaths: the first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time."
December 28, 2016
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Huh... provocative, short review of Paul Bloom's book, Against Empathy, highlighting the problems with empathy. For one, it can drive focus toward the good of one over the good of the whole. He puts forth a "rational compassion" to take its place, and in my view he missed a golden opportunity to coin the word "compration." Hey, I just did, it's mine now. Trademark.
This article ends with, "It’s the sort of book that will legitimately change how you think about the world and your own sense of morality." Now THAT's a book I need to read.
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/12/paul-bloom-makes-a-weirdly-convincing-anti-empathy-argument.html
December 28, 2016
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Carrie Fisher on Debbie Reynolds, jeesh, both alive just a few days ago and now gone. So glad I remembered that this exists, and to find that it's on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/-h_xLVB8Mew
December 28, 2016
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Samuel Warde- 20 things guilty people do that Trump does daily
Everyone is innocent until proven guilty of course. But this guys motto at least seems to be- act guilty until proven guilty.
From the article:
Trump is one of those rare individuals who seems constitutionally incapable of being honest with himself. Deny, deny, deny, and then ask for mercy when all other options – 20 in this instance – run out.
Seth Abramson posted a mega-thread on Twitter detailing 20 behaviors Trump has in common with individuals who are guilty of having committed crimes, but are incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions.
As Abramson wrote, his list “applies only to the 5% of arrested individuals who a) did exactly what they were accused of, and b) refuse to admit what they did and then seek a just punishment via plea. Trump is in the tiny minority of criminals who won’t take responsibility for their actions.“
Below is Abramson’s list of “20 Things Guilty People Do That Trump Does Daily.” Be sure to check out his mega-thread for his full explanation of each one.
1. DEFLECT BLAME.
2. ALLEGE A CONSPIRACY.
3. COMPLAIN ABOUT LAW ENFORCEMENT.
4. TAMPER WITH WITNESSES.
5. DISTRACT ATTENTION FROM THEIR ACTIONS.
6. REFUSE TO ANSWER VALID QUESTIONS.
7. USE “EVEN IF” ARGUMENTS.
8. PLAY DUMB.
9. EXHIBIT UNUSUAL AGITATION.
10. LEVELING NEW ACCUSATIONS OF IDENTICAL CONDUCT.
11. OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE.
12. AVOID GIVING EVIDENCE UNDER OATH.
13. DENY SIMILAR PAST CONDUCT.
14. TELL UNNECESSARY, GRANDIOSE LIES.
15. DRAW OTHERS INTO THEIR COVER-UP.
16. TRUST ONLY FAMILY.
17. PLAY WITH LANGUAGE.
18. SEEK DODGY ALLIES AND PARALLEL INVESTIGATIONS.
18. EXHIBIT FALSE CONFIDENCE.
29. UNDERSCORE SUPPORTERS’ AFFECTION.
http://samuel-warde.com/2017/12/20-things-guilty-people-do-that-trump-does-daily/
December 28, 2017
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Steinbeck, Cannery Row- "It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."
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Huffington Post- People Are Torn Over Whether Grover Dropped The F-Bomb On 'Sesame Street'
So strange how you can hear both perfectly and switch back and forth at will.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/grover-f-bomb-sesame-street_us_5c26569de4b0407e90824f83
December 28, 2018
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Oh no, Sue Lyon from Lolita died. I was just thinking there aren't many people left from the early Kubrick movies, but then remembered that Kirk Douglas is still alive who was somehow 41 when Paths of Glory was released in 1957.
https://youtu.be/ihZ-aIJj6-g
December 28, 2019
Postscript- We'll always have Malcolm! Right?
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Nader and Constitutional Scholars Push for 12 Articles of Impeachment
Excellent rundown of 12 articles of impeachment put forth by Nader and company. Why did the democrats aim so low??? From the intro:
Among other things, you correctly underscored the danger of a Chief Executive who boasts, “Then I have Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” He has recklessly flirted with the ideas of slaughtering 10 million civilian Afghans, which, if acted upon, would violate the War Crimes Act, and initiating a nuclear war of aggression against North Korea, which, if acted upon, would violate the Declare War Clause. A clear and present danger that the President will subvert the Constitution should trigger impeachment. Indeed, at the constitutional convention George Mason insisted that attempts to subvert the Constitution should be impeachable.
Uniquely among wayward presidents, Mr. Trump is shattering our entire constitutional order as our proposed twelve (12) count Article of Impeachment documents . (See enclosure). Several of the counts are per se impeachable and need no more fact-finding: defiance of congressional subpoenas and oversight; spending billions of dollars on a southern border wall not appropriated for that purpose; continuing or expanding presidential wars not declared by Congress; exercising line-item veto power; flouting the Emoluments Clause; and, playing prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner to kill any person on the planet based on secret, unsubstantiated information. Hearings to educate the public about the alarming consequences of such per se violations is imperative to fortify the full constitutional legitimacy of the impeachment charges.
https://nader.org/2019/11/26/nader-and-constitutional-scholars-push-for-12-articles-of-impeachment/
December 28, 2019
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Hannah Stilley is believed to have been born in 1746 and died sometime in 1840, the year this picture was taken. She's believed to be the earliest born person who was photographed. H strange to think we are looking at someone who's grandparents were born in the 1600s.
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Rumi- "Run from what's comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I'll be mad."
Is it just me, or does that sound like terrible advice?
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Herodotus- "The secret of success is that it is not the absence of failure, but the absence of envy."
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Willie Nelson- "Your enemy is not the refugee. Your enemy is the one who made him a refugee."
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Kerouac, On the Road: the Original Scroll- “There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”
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Anthony Jeselnik- "I just got a blood test. Was told my blood type is O negative? Do you know what that means? Means I can donate blood to anyone in the world...who also has AIDS."
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Henry Miller- "Serenity is when you get above all this, when it doesn't matter what they think, say or want, but when you do as you are, and see God and Devil as one."
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Steven Wright- "I was born. When I was 23 I started telling jokes. Then I started going on television and doing films. That's still what I am doing. The end."
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Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli- "We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left."
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David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day- "When a hurricane damaged my father's house, my brother rushed over with a gas grill, three coolers of beer, and an enormous Fuck-It Bucket - a plastic pail filled with jawbreakers and bite-size candy bars. ("When shit brings you down, just say 'fuck it,' and eat yourself some motherfucking candy.")"
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Vonnegut, in the Paris Review- "I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.”
AUXILIARY BLOG
Here's a Hitchens gold nugget, said during a debate when his opponent asserted that atheism and belief in evolution lead to Nazism:
Atheism by itself is, of course, not a moral position or a political one of any kind; it simply is the refusal to believe in a supernatural dimension. For you to say of Nazism that it was the implementation of the work of Charles Darwin is a filthy slander, undeserving of you and an insult to this audience. Darwin’s thought was not taught in Germany; Darwinism was so derided in Germany along with every other form of unbelief that all the great modern atheists, Darwin, Einstein and Freud were alike despised by the National Socialist regime.
Now, just to take the most notorious of the 20th century totalitarianisms – the most finished example, the most perfected one, the most ruthless and refined one: that of National Socialism, the one that fortunately allowed the escape of all these great atheists, thinkers and many others, to the United States, a country of separation of church and state, that gave them welcome – if it’s an atheistic regime, then how come that in the first chapter of Mein Kampf, that Hitler says that he’s doing God’s work and executing God’s will in destroying the Jewish people? How come the fuhrer oath that every officer of the Party and the Army had to take, making Hitler into a minor god, begins, “I swear in the name of almighty God, my loyalty to the Fuhrer?” How come that on the belt buckle of every Nazi soldier it says Gott mit uns, God on our side? How come that the first treaty made by the Nationalist Socialist dictatorship, the very first is with the Vatican? It’s exchanging political control of Germany for Catholic control of German education. How come that the church has celebrated the birthday of the Fuhrer every year, on that day until democracy put an end to this filthy, quasi-religious, superstitious, barbarous, reactionary system?
Again, this is not a difference of emphasis between us. To suggest that there’s something fascistic about me and about my beliefs is something I won't hear said and you shouldn't believe.
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