PUNCHING, Morals, and Miscellany
Karl Wallenda, the 73 year-old patriarch of The Great Wallendas, plunged 100 feet to his death when hit with a 30mph gust of wind while tight-rope walking between two hotels in Puerto Rico.
The Great Wallendas were a family of tightrope-walkers consisting of the father, children, grandchildren, cousins, nephews, and nieces, and they always worked without a net. Four other members of the family had fallen to their deaths before Karl. You know what he used to say? "The dead are gone, and the show must go on."
What's the moral?
Just keep doing that stupid-ass thing you're doing, and don't worry about any consequences, because what could possibly go wrong???
January 11, 2021
...
Watch out, this one just got a sticker at karate for PUNCHING.
January 11, 2017
...
Huh, armed protests are planned at all 50 capitals on Inauguration Day. Is there one person out there who could stop it? The truth is that Trump would like to see them overrun if it means there's a chance of him staying in power. Let's judge him by his efforts toward tempering the impending violence between now and then. The evidence is that his grudging hostage-style video didn't do it. Only a Law and Order President would take the next 10 days focusing on it. We have a Chaos President.
January 11, 2021
...
Thanks Maurice Gatto for sending a pic of my Montreal doppelganger. I don't see how that's not me!
January 11, 2020
...
Once upon a time, a shoe company sent two salesmen to Africa to determine the market potential for their products. One salesman was sent to the east coast of Africa, while the other salesman was sent to the west coast of Africa. Both the salesmen completed a basic survey of the target market and called back to the office. The salesman sent to the east coast of Africa reported “No one here wears any shoes, there is no market for us here!” The other salesman sent a message “No one here wears any shoes, there is a huge market for us, send inventory fast!”
The moral: our president is a shithole businessman.
January 11, 2017
...
Trump likened the leaking of confidential material to Nazi Germany? Does he mean when the Nazi intelligence leaked all that anti-Hitler stuff to the press? Or is Trump the persecuted Jews in his analogy? I think this was a Freudian slip. I think what he meant was, "I hate the free press just like Hitler did." So maybe he's right, it's just like Nazi Germany.
January 11, 2017
...
This is my dear daughter Gretel enjoying her first movie, Bride of Frankenstein. She watched the whole thing. (More entertaining than a mobile I suppose.)
January 11, 2014
...
The Nika riots in Constantinople erupted on this day in 532 at the Hippodrome. A quarrel between supporters of different chariot teams, the Blues and the Greens, lead to the violence.
...
Muhammad and his followers conquered Mecca on this day in 630.
...
The first recorded lottery took place on this day in 1569, in England.
...
On this day in 1759, the first American life insurance company, the Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Presbyterian Ministers and of the Poor and Distressed Widows and Children of the Presbyterian Ministers (now part of Unum Group), was incorporated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
...
On this day in 1787, William Herschel discovered Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus.
...
Percy Shelley's Ozymandias was first published on this day in 1818. It's lesson- the rulers of the past who have imagined their vast kingdoms to be permanent would be in for an awful surprise today if they were to awake. The third to last episode of Breaking Bad was titled Ozymandias. Hubris is ephemeral, whether you want to rule the Albuquerque meth world, or Greenland. I'll guess that the wisdom contained in the poem will outlast the kingdoms of all rulers alive today.
Ozymandias
“I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
...
Teddy Roosevelt established Grand Canyon National Monument on this date in 1908. Once when I was there, my life might have been saved by a California condor! I hiked down, and didn't bring enough water, which is my trademark. I was in rough shape coming back out. I was near the top but I laid down in this touristy area, and was fading into sleep, when from out of the sky, a California condor swooped for something and woke me up. It sounded like a missile. All of the tourists were oooh'ing and ahhh'ing. There was a kid there who saw that I looked like I was in desperate need of water and offered me his. I took it, thanked him, and made it out. I've always wondered what would have happened if that condor didn't wake me up.
Bob Dylan ended Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie with this:
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital
And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sundown
...
Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California on this day in 1935. Sounds easy, it's the other way around that's hard!
...
Alexander Hamilton was born on this day in 1755. He was the first Secretary of the Treasury... and somehow wrote this in the Federalist Papers a couple hundred years ago???
"When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits—despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.""
I can't believe that this is a real quote, and not something written today. Trump was foreseen.
...
Sagan- "Gullibility kills."
...
Psychologist and philosopher, William James, was born on this day in 1842.
"The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook."
...
American historian, conservationist, essayist, columnist, teacher, editor, and reviewer, Bernard DeVoto, was born on this day in 1897.
“Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerves give to wisdom.”
...
Apparently this is the day in 1974 that Large Marge died.
...
The futurist Robert Anton Wilson became of the past on this day in 2007. He was also an author, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic.
"So in conclusion, there is no conclusion. Things will go on as they ever have, getting weirder all the time."
...
Mountaineer Edmund Hillary left us on this day in 2008.
"You don't have to be a hero to accomplish great things---to compete. You can just be an ordinary chap, sufficiently motivated to reach challenging goals."
...
Anita Ekberg let us on this day in 2015, although a case could be made that she'll live forever.
https://youtu.be/7_hfZoe9FHE
...
Another notable deathday- Eric Rohmer (2010)
...
The Observer- Legendary Cartoonist Robert Crumb on the Massacre in Paris
http://observer.com/2015/01/legendary-cartoonist-robert-crumb-on-the-massacre-in-paris/
January 11, 2015
...
The Hill- Ex-White House press, military officials call on Grisham to restart regular briefings
If they can't answer the hard questions, they are simply up to no good.
http://hill.cm/B6onP3K
January 11, 2020
...
New York Times- The Disqualification Question
Barely scratches the surface. At any point during Trump's presidency you could accept every single thing that came before, and whatever happened in the previous week alone would have been disqualifying. From the article:
It’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on how radical a figure Trump is. He rejects basic foundations of American government that other presidents, from both parties, have accepted for decades.
He has tried to reverse an election result and remain in power by persuading local officials to commit fraud. He incited a mob that attacked the Capitol — and killed a police officer — while Congress was meeting to certify the result. Afterward, Trump praised the rioters.
This behavior was consistent with Trump’s entire presidency. He has previously rejected the legitimacy of election results and encouraged his supporters to commit violence. He has tried to undermine Americans’ confidence in the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the military, Justice Department prosecutors, federal judges, the Congressional Budget Office, government scientists, government health officials and more. He has openly used the presidency to enrich his family.
In the simplest terms, Trump seems to believe a president should be able to do whatever he wants. He does not appear to believe in the system of the government that the Constitution prescribes — a democratic republic.
Yet there is a significant chance he could win the presidency again, in 2024. He remains popular with many Republican voters, and the Electoral College currently gives a big advantage to Republicans. If he is not disqualified from future office, Trump could dominate the Republican Party and shape American politics for the next four years.
If he is disqualified, it’s impossible to know what would happen, but this much is clear: A singularly popular figure who rejects the basic tenets of American democracy would no longer be eligible to lead it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/briefing/trump-impeachment-plane-crash-florida-coronavirus.html
January 11, 2021
...
Why A Stoic Wakes Up Early by Ryan Holiday
https://ryanholiday.medium.com/why-a-stoic-wakes-up-early-e52fd67c39c1
I've had lots of jobs where I had to wake up early and work very hard the entire day. I often think about that early in the day, how nice I have it now. But like Marcus Aurelius said, is it really so good to have it so nice? I think I should start waking up earlier.
...
A friend's bumper sticker:
...
Hamilton again- "Those who stand for nothing fall for everything."
...
David Bowie- "Speak in extremes, it'll save you time."
...
Hippocrates- "Before you heal someone, ask them if they are willing to give up the things that make them sick."
...
Miyazaki- "Problems begin the moment we're born. We're born with infinite possibilities, only to give up on one after another. To choose one thing means to give up another. That's inevitable. But what can you do? That's what it is to live."
...
Sedaris, Theft By Finding- “At lunchtime he said he was so hungry he could eat a horse dick fried in tar.”
...
Camus- "In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion."
...
Hitchens- "Faith is the surrender of the mind, it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other animals. It's our need to believe and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. ... Out of all the virtues, all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated."
...
Hawking- "I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look both ways before they cross the street."
...
Asimov- "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time."
...
Norm MacDonald- "This is something you never hear, "He made love to me in the ass.""
Comments
Post a Comment