Founding Farter, and Samurai Wisdom of Feces Concoctions

Fart enthusiast, Benjamin Franklin, joined us on this day in 1706. He was also a noted electrician, and a popular politician too (maybe my favorite?)

Letter from Benjamin Franklin to a Royal Academy About Farting (1781):

https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/to-the-royal-academy-of-farting/

My favorite quote of a serious nature:

"Many people die at twenty five and aren't buried until they are seventy five."

...

I started reading a book on Samurai wisdom 20 years ago and I just opened it to the page where I left off. A section was highlighted with a question mark next to it. Here's that section: 

"Furthermore, drinking a decoction of the feces from a dappled horse is the way to stop bleeding from an injury received by falling off a horse." 

I think I know why I stopped reading it. Simply not applicable to my life!

January 17, 2022

...

I've always subscribed to Sam Harris's analogy of the president piloting an airplane that we're all aboard. Nobody wants the plane to crash, therefore nobody should want the president to fail. It was true in 2009 and 2017 and 2021. The president is never above criticism, and certainly if the pilot is acting like a lunatic it's everyone's duty to do something. We're under no obligation to support any presidents' proposed policies, and we might want bad policies to fail, but we have complicated problems to solve and need to always want the country to succeed, no matter who is in charge.

Sam Harris- "We are on a plan piloted by Trump..."

https://fb.watch/i6pDVXFMJU/?mibextid=NnVzG8

...

If the phone call was shit, you must not acquit. (Look for Dershowitz to make the opposite argument.)

Let's think for a second about Dershowitz. Mixed up in the Epstein scandal, along with Trump, and wrote an article claimed statutory rape is an outdated concept. He's the best he can get to defend him? Alright...

January 17, 2020

...

Everybody always scoffs at the nuclear attack drills from the 50's where kids had to hide under their desks. Wait a second though. If you'd be disintegrated at ground zero and unscathed at 10 miles away, there's a range of distances where your life could potentially be saved by hiding under a desk!

January 17, 2019

...

Trump says his unpopularity numbers are rigged. So strange that they change in proportion to how awful he acts! He can follow through on "insurance for all," and see how unrigged they become.

January 17, 2017

...

I honestly preferred the Republican debate to the new Mad Max...both unwatchable versions of dystopias, but I have to say that the Republicans were on average the better looking bunch.

Comments

Monica- Are you a fan of the first two Mad Max films.

Ben- I'm a bigger fan of Mel Gibson's political and social views than I am of Mad Max.

January 17, 2016

...

Could it be that Wayne LaPierre doesn't want regulations to keep guns out of the hands of lunatics because... Wayne LaPierre IS HIMSELF A LUNATIC?

January 17, 2013

...

On this day in 1864, Mary Edgerton wrote this letter to her family in Ohio. She was the wife of Montana's first territorial governor, Sidney Edgerton.

“We had extremely cold weather here week before last. The mercury in the thermometers after going forty degrees below zero froze in the bulb. I never knew such cold weather or anything like it. I was so afraid that the children would freeze their noses and ears in the night that I got up a number of times in the night to see that their heads were covered. Their beds would be covered with frost. I saw their frozen breath. It is much warmer now.”

...

Alcohol Prohibition began on this day in 1920, when the Volstead Act went into effect.

...

Eleven thieves pulled off the Freat Brinks robbery on this day in 1950, stealing more than $2 million from the armored car company's offices in Boston.

...

On this day in 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered a televised farewell address to the nation warning against the accumulation of power by the "military–industrial complex" and the danger of deficit spending.

...

Capital punishment in the United States resumed on this day in 1977, after a ten-year hiatus, as convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah.

The Advert's- GARY GILMORE'S EYES

I'm lying in a hospital,

I'm pinned against the bed.

A stethoscope upon my heart,

A hand against my head.

They're peeling off the bandages.

I'm wincing in the light.

The nurse is looking anxious,

And she's quivering in fright...

I'm looking through Gary Gilmore's eyes.

The doctors are avoiding me.

My vision is confused.

I listen to my earphones,

And I catch the evening news.

A murderer's been killed,

And he donates his sight to science.

I'm locked into a private ward.

I realize that I must be...

Looking through Gary Gilmore's eyes.

Looking through Gary Gilmore's eyes.

I smash the light in anger.

Push my bed against the door.

I close my lids across my eyes,

And wish to see no more.

The eye receives the messages,

And sends them to the brain.

No guarantee the stimuli must be perceived the same...

When looking through Gary Gilmore's eyes.

Gary don't need his eyes to see.

Gary and his eyes have parted company.

...

Betty White joined us on this day in 1922.

"Get at least eight hours of beauty sleep. Nine if you're ugly."

...

Muhammad Ali joined us in this day in 1942.

"I’ve wrestled with alligators,

I’ve tussled with a whale.

I done handcuffed lightning

And throw thunder in jail.

You know I’m bad.

just last week, I murdered a rock,

Injured a stone, Hospitalized a brick.

I’m so mean, I make medicine sick."

...

Today is also Andy Kauffman's birthday, who joined us in 1949.

"I never told a joke in my life."

...

Pete LaCock was born on this day in 1952. (I know, I know, get your mind out of the gutter.) He is the subject of one of my favorite baseball stories.

LaCock hit his one and only grand slam off the fearsome Bob Gibson who was trying to finish out the game with a lead. They ended up taking Gibson out, he lost the game, and it was the last appearance of his career. At an old-timers game ten years later he was on the mound and once again faced LaCock. He hit him!

Bob Costas later asked Gibson about it and he said, "Robert, the scales must be balanced no matter how long it takes."

So happy birthday to Pete LaCock. We wouldn't have that story without him.

...

Susanna Hoffs was born on this day in 1959. Every Once in a while she posts a new Manic Monday. 

https://youtu.be/sJuVQQmU9BU

...

Jim Carrey joined us on this day in 1962.

...

Steven Hawking, discussing the downside of his condition- "I cannot go anywhere in the world without being recognized. It is not enough for me to wear dark sunglasses and a wig. The wheelchair gives me away."

...

Michelle Obama joined us on this day in 1964. I'm putting this in writing. I think Biden dropping out, and Michelle running, might be the only way to beat Trump in 2024.

...

Quite a day for other birthdays too- Al Capone (1899), Eartha Kitt (1927), James Earl Jones (1931), Zoey Deschanel (1980)

...

The popular and powerful Cree chief, Big Bear, left us on this day in 1888. He did not want to sign a treaty because it meant his tribe would no longer be nomadic.

...

Mary Oliver left us on this day in 2019.

"Things take the time they take. Don't worry."

I think that's terrible advice! Anxiety can be a great motivating force.

...

Other notable deathdays- Rutherford B. Hayes (1883), Bobby Fischer (2008)

...

Great TED talk on the nature of creativity. Kirby's Ferguson- Embrace the Remix

http://www.ted.com/talks/kirby_ferguson_embrace_the_remix

January 17, 2015

...

The Atlantic- Scientific Faith Is Different From Religious Faith

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/11/why-scientific-faith-isnt-the-same-as-religious-faith/417357/

January 17, 2016

...

AP News- Deceptions in the time of the ‘alternative facts’ president

Trump has lied consistently, over and over, about matters big and small, and that's the objective truth. These end-of-term summations are excellent.

"Attempting to explain her phrase, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said there are alternative ways of arriving at the truth. Two plus two equals four, she noted, but so does three plus one. That’s not, though, how Trump rolled. Two plus two would equal an astronomical number in his reckoning. Maybe the biggest number ever. At least that’s what they say."

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-capitol-siege-politics-coronavirus-pandemic-elections-69cafecdde291c5211daf9ffd0f2ad05

January 17, 2021

...

It's been said that a pun has not completely matured until it's full groan.

...

Solon- "Laws are like spider's webs: If some poor weak creature comes up against them, it is caught; but a big one can break through and get away."

...

Heraclitus- "Stupidity is better kept a secret than displayed."

...

Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human- "He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute."

...

Martin Luther King- “I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting.”

As true in 1963 as it is today.

...

Robert Anton Wilson- "Entropy requires no maintenance."

...

Camus- "I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world."

...

Asimov-"They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth; they want their traditions."

...

Chris Rock- On the one hand it's like, fuck the police. And on the other hand, I own property. If someone's breaking in, I'm not calling the Crips.