Barrels of Horror, Lunacy, Hubris, Laughter, and Monkeys

Faye Dunaway joined us on this day 1941.

...

The Tadpole Galaxy, taken by Hubble. That tail is 280,000 light years long!

...

There are reports that some of the 197 Republican Congresspeople who voted against impeachment, did so out of fear for their safety and the safety of their families. Quite obviously some of Trump's supporters in the House would fight to the death for him, but the others have simply become the ideological hostages of the violent mob spurred on by the president. 

This underscores the seriousness of the charges. It's terrorism, i.e. violence or threat of violence to influence policy, and members of Congress are the ones being terrorized. We can all admit the fact that if a Republican member of Congress wanted to impeach the president, their own phyical safety must have factored into their vote. That is how far we've fallen. We will never know what the actual vote should have been. I wonder what a secret ballot might have told us. 

We have all heard the president with our own ears over the last several months, and we all saw what happened with our own eyes. Many have wondered how low he would stoop, and now we have an answer, at least to this point. 

To be clear, he incited violent mob to overtake the Capitol with the intention of overturning the election results. The fact that we can even parse the sentence is noteworthy. Nobody in his own administration is standing up for him against that charge. 

This is who he is, and this was was the logical conclusion of a guy who ignores the truth, always doubles down, recognizes no norm, is devoid of principles, and is only out for himself. This is how low he has gone to avoid being branded the loser that he is. Maybe all of that other criticism over the last five years had some merit too. It all pales in comparison to this plainly obvious truth. 

Forget for a second all the inflammatory rhetoric in the president's speech preceeding the riot. Do you happen to know what Trump posted four hours after the seige? 

"These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love and in peace. Remember this day forever!" 

Four hours after! Case closed.

January 14, 2021

...

Perfect breakdown of current events by Heather Cox Richardson:

https://www.facebook.com/241446929332714/posts/pfbid02JsvWqifRPfRGB3zLf6Zi4t3U5r1nkrhy8qVzxcNcoYwdAyYb53EJpbgUnRjJ2zCfl

...

Actors and actresses are fond of saying that there is no best actor or actress, that all top performances are great in their own right. Dustin Hoffman's Kramer Vs Kramer Oscar speech on this topic was one of the greatest in history. It crossed my mind though that as brain research and technology improves, we could wire up a thousand people, have them watch all the performances, measure their emotional responses, and have definitive, quantifiable proof of which performance was the greatest. No voting necessary!

January 14, 2020

...

Watching Return of the Jedi with her best Rancor buddy.

January 14, 2018

...

Civil rights icon John Lewis is calling Trump an illegitimate president, you know, just like Nazi Germany.

January 14, 2017

Postscript- At the time, Trump was saying things were, "just like Nazi Germany." He also said John Lewis was "all talk and no action." John Lewis had his soul cracked fighting for racial equality!

...

Trump Twitter Archive: 

https://www.thetrumparchive.com/#/

...

Dan Rather: https://www.facebook.com/24085780715/posts/pfbid031uik6pTDf3zgUnJ4yfDx5GeyfUadRGYVosftJPkqLj9vZAR8ofkrFDENJCykLvHpl

From the post:

Perhaps the conservative political commentator Bill Kristol said it best in one of his tweets: "It's telling, I'm afraid, that Donald Trump treats Vladimir Putin with more respect than he does John Lewis."

January 17, 2017

...

This so-called Republican debate reminds me of Roger Ebert's review of Freddie Got Fingered: 

"This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels."

January 14, 2016

...

It crosses my mind every once in awhile that Stephen Hawking thought it was extraordinary that we remember the past but not the future.

...

I read something that speculated that if we had a time machine and went into the past, perhaps we'd create a different past timeline, and that anything we do would lead to that future, not the future on our current timeline. That is a way around the time paradox.

...

Roman general and politician, Mark Antony, was born on this day in 83 BC. From Shakespeare:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;

The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones,

So let it be with Caesar ... The noble Brutus

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answered it.

And from Brando:

https://youtu.be/101sKhH-lMQ

...

Physician, philosopher, and Nobel Prize laureate, Albert Schweitzer, was born on this day in 1875.

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

...

Another notable birthday- Jason Bateman (1969)

...

Novelist, poet, and mathematician, Lewis Carroll, left us on this day in 1898.

Mad Hatter: “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”

“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

“No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “What’s the answer?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter

...

Anais Nin left us on this day in 1977.

"People living deeply have no fear of death."

...

Kurt Godel, famed logician, became obsessed with his friend being poisoned, and wouldn't let anyone other than his wife make his food, and when she went to the hospital herself, he died at starvation on this day in 1978, weighing only 65 lb at the time. Illogical.

"The more I think about language, the more it amazes me that people ever understand each other at all."

...

We lost the playwright Robert Ardrey on this day in 1980. Here's a powerhouse quote:

"We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses."

...

Other notable deathdays - Humphrey Bogart (1957), Ray Kroc (1984), Douglas Sirk (1987), Shelley Winters (2006)

...

Huffington Post- North Korea To Punish Mourners Who Were Insincere

Terrible.... I hope they soon get someone else to mourn. (But hey, let's face it, it's still nicer than God's punishment for worshipers who are insincere.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/13/north-korea-punish-mourners-insincere-kim-jong-il_n_1204377.html

January 14, 2012

...

Alternet- Donald Trump's Philosophy on Success Was Inspired by a 'Twilight Zone' Episode

Perhaps my all-time favorite article written on the Trump, a window into his soul. What happens to the guy who gets everything he wants? He's in hell.

https://www.alternet.org/2016/05/watch-donald-trumps-philosophy-success-was-inspired-twilight-zone-episode

January 14, 2018

...

Any Trump article in Atlantic by Bush speech-writer David Frum is always worth reading.

The Atlantic- Trump Just Told Us His Master Plan

Trump’s first term was mitigated by his ignorance, indolence, and incompetence. Since the humiliation of his 2020 defeat, however, Trump has been studying how to use a second chance if he gets one. The one abiding interest of his life, revenge, will provide the impetus. Next time, he will have the wholehearted support of a White House staff selected to enable him. Next time, he will have the backing in Congress of a party remade in his own image. Next time, he’ll be acting to ensure that his opponents never again get a “next time” of their own.

He may not succeed, but he’ll know what he’s trying to do.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/trumps-america-first-speech-revealed-a-plan-for-power/670963/

January 14, 2023

...

...

Jeselnik- "Our next judge was one of the greatest performers ever on Saturday night live, and he will not be truly appreciated until he is dead."

https://youtu.be/8BZyllDnAG4

...

Maxim Gorky- "When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery."

...

Plato- "He who does not desire power, is fit to hold it."

...

Galileo- "There are those who reason well, but they are greatly outnumbered by those who reason badly."

...

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn- "Evil people always support each other; that is their chief strength."

...

Aeschylus- "Nothing forces us to know what we do not want to know, except pain."

...

Robert Anton Wilson- "Human beings live in their myths. They only endure their realities."

...

Joyce- "A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery."

...

Asimov- "Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly."

...

Camus, The Stranger- "Since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter."

...

Hawking- "When people ask me if a god created the universe, I tell them that the question itself makes no sense. Time didn’t exist before the big bang, so there is no time for god to make the universe in. It’s like asking directions to the edge of the earth; The Earth is a sphere; it doesn’t have an edge; so looking for it is a futile exercise. We are each free to believe what we want, and it’s my view that the simplest explanation is; there is no god. No one created our universe,and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization; There is probably no heaven, and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that I am extremely grateful."

Did you make that point! Perhaps not quite as eloquently, but she's only seven.

...

Ricky Gervais- "Some people call me arrogant because I don't pray. But isn't praying the height of arrogance? God didn't stop the Holocaust, but he's going to help me find my keys?"