Turning Defeats Into Victories, Victories Into Defeats, and Regular Defeats Into Epic Defeats

James Webb Space Telescope, Phantom galaxy:

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Here's something funny to think about... imagine Biden lost, claimed fraud, lost 60 lawsuits, continued to claim fraud even though his own attorney general said there wasn't any, held a rally he wanted to be "wild" followed by his supporters ransacking the freaking Capitol as Congress was confirming Trump, causing both chambers to empty and hide from the violence... you continue to support Biden, and that far-right friend of yours thought it was no big whoop. Laughable, right? They would think you are out of your mind. And let's be honest, they'd be right.

If those people would honestly put themselves on the other side of the equation they would literally think the way they are now acting is insane.

Now a not so funny thought- Trump's not done. He has one last chance and you might have seen some of your right-wing extremist friends post variations of this- they believe God granted this election to Trump and they want a military takeover. I've seen it. It's a significant percentage. Buckle up.

January 9, 2021

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That lunatic strikes again! They gave me another bumper sticker I didn't ask for.

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Quiet morning. Let me guess, Trump is going to nuke Iran this afternoon.

January 9, 2021

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My favorite documentary is Ken Burns' Civil War. It's maybe 12 hours long and I've probably watched it five times. The best scene is the reading of the Sullivan Ballou letter to his wife. He was killed at Bull Run a week after sending it. 

My second favorite scene is when the veterans reunite at Gettysburg 50 years after the end the war and shake hands across a farm wall that had separated them all those years before. It had taken them 50 years for them to recognize their shared values as citizens. 

We can skip the war and shake hands right now. The first ideal we have to recognize we share though is the truth, and if I'm being truthful, I don't know how we get there. How do you make a logical argument to someone who doesn't value logic? 

When someone's primary loyalty is not to the truth, but rather to a person, there's no starting point.

January 9, 2021

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Oh like you know the words to the Star-Spangled Banner! (Three verses people, three verses.) #neverforget #neverlearned

If the president would have kneeled down during the national anthem last night, that would have been one of the least confusing things he's done over the past year.

January 9, 2018

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Zuzu has an interesting way of playing with my Star Wars figures. She holds one in each hand, points them at each other, and says, "Oh my love, my love. Oh my love, my love." It might be IG-88 and an Ewok. It might be Bossk and Nien Numb. Doesn't matter. Seems sacrilegious somehow.

January 9, 2018

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Stay focused Kreider... it doesn't matter if this guy mocked a disabled reporter... what matters is that his plan to fight ISIS is torture, and killing the terrorists and their families, mentioned repeatedly. He also has a "secret plan." You get the feeling his secret plan might be worse than the war crimes he openly ran on? It's not bombing Mecca is it? Of course not, but what odds is Nate Silver giving? You know it wouldn't be zero.

January 9, 2017

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OK, if I'm forced to deal with this mocking-the-disabled-reporter thing head on I'll just Trump it:

Backwards Trump says he didn't mock reporter. Wrong (we saw it)! SAD!

January 9, 2017

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One of my favorite wines is whiskey and grape juice.

January 9, 2016

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My dog's breath smells like cat food.

January 9, 2015

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Pepper is stoically allowing Gretel to pet and yank her hair. If you look closely you can see tears rolling down her furry cheeks, all for the sake of human development.

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Heath Daniels: "Throwback Thursday… with the Fairmount boys."

Pic from 2005- Stephen Payne, Luke Williams, Curt Whirl, Ben Kreider, Heath Daniels

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A solution everyone can agree on- let's just use our guns to shoot all the guns. And then when there's only one left we can put it in the Smithsonian. Or the person holding it can use it to kill all the people. Either way, problem solved.

January 9, 2013

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The world's most powerful writing might come in limerick-form! I almost puked twice in the last minute. Name me any author who can write so viscerally!

January 9, 2010

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Twin Peaks debuted on this day in 1991.

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Simone de Beauvoir was born on this day in 1908. 

"If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat."

Love that!

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Richard Nixon was born on this day in 1913. Not a good guy, but a consummate politician, no doubt. 

"Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use."

You can imagine him getting elected today. 

Best part of his legacy- Clear Air and Clean Water Acts, Endangered Species Act, started the EPA, conceded to Kennedy although it was within half a percentage point.

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Bob Denver was born on this day in 1935. 

"Gilligan's Island is wherever you want it to be in your mind."

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Joan Baez joined us on this day in 1941. It's hard to believe that both her and Bob Dylan are still with us. One day they won't be. Her voice is often weird and off-putting, the musical equivalent of an experimental film with techniques that never caught on. I don't care though, I love her anyway.

500 Miles: https://youtu.be/B_K6z3HiRAs

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Paper Moon- Money Tricks

https://youtu.be/iqueZ1KNeT8

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Makes you wonder about a God who would let 45-80% of embryos spontaneously abort.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/why-right-wing-crackpots-duggars-kill-most-embryos

January 9, 2015

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For real, one of the best books I ever read, The Farmer and the Clown, and it has no words. I got it for Gretel (and Emma) for Christmas.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/12/11/the-farmer-and-the-clown-marla-frazee/

January 9, 2015

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CNN- Silently protesting Muslim woman ejected from Trump rally

"This demonstrates how when you start dehumanizing the other it can turn people into very hateful, ugly people. It needs to be known."

http://cnn.it/1S9ryiY

January 9, 2016

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New York Times Opinion- Trump, Trapped in His Lies, Keeps Lying. Sad!

Kellyanne Conway- "You always want to go by what’s come out of his mouth rather than look at what’s in his heart.”

Not quite. You need to start at his mouth, go down the esophagus, go right on by his heart, and just keep going and going and when you get to the end of the tunnel you're there- the true essence of Trump.

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/opinion/trump-trapped-in-his-lies-keeps-lying-sad.html

January 9, 2017

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Documentary footage of Trump leaving the White House, without his rage-outlet Twitter.

https://youtu.be/kFT083GhycM

January 9, 2021

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New York Times- Bob Saget, Comic Who Starred in the Sitcom ‘Full House,’ Dies at 65

Terrible news, and just a few short months since he was memorializing Norm Macdonald.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/09/arts/television/bob-saget-dead.html

January 9, 2022

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Saget, from The Aristocrats:

There's my friend Paul and right now I'm looking at his dinger. He's got a very huge wiener. It's about that big...

[indicates the length of his throat]

I believe that's Shandling's joke. When you lift something it better be a cock. Here we go. This family, mother, father, four kids. It doesn't matter if they're boys or girls they're gonna be used anyway...

[laughs]

- as nothing more than a hole. This is what this joke is about anyway, it's about using your kids. They've got a paper route, they go to school and then you fuck 'em. And the agent's like, "What do you do?" and the father goes, "Watch us." He rips off his wife's bra. Then he rips off her underwear and he takes some of her pubes with it. It's awful and some blood starts dripping down her leg. He takes the tampon and throws it at the window and it sticks. They start going down on each other all different kinds of combinations, there's 69, there's 29, cause the kids are young, there's 9. The father bends the kid over the guy's desk and starts taking him from behind, which isn't right. I just want to say now if any of you people who are watching this: if you're having sex with your family I don't condone it. I think it's wrong I've done a lot of PSA's... do NOT fuck your family. So they're all fucking each other right. All of a sudden the kid can't take it, diarrhea starts shooting out of his ass. It's like a hemorrhaging shit-ass. The kid starts spinning around in a circle cause he can't control it. It's like Curly in the Stooges. "Moe, Larry, the cheese!" The projectile shit is just flying out of him it's going all over the room it's like spin art. You don't know whether to shit or puke in this room. That's how...

[starts laughing uncontrollably]

What the fuck am I doing?

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Meme: "Shhh, let your gods speak for themselves."

There's actually a lot to that! Reminds me of the Louis CK joke... that God would be able to clear up a lot of misunderstandings by holding a press conference. 

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Franklin Roosevelt hated small talk and would often pepper it up with, "I murdered my grandmother this morning."

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The 43-57 ratio of talking versus listening seems to be optimum. A study of 20,000 sales calls showed that that was the best ratio for success. But what happens when two people aim for that ratio?

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David Bowie's answers to the Proust questionnaire (on the day between his birthday and deathday.)

What is your idea of perfect happiness? Reading.

What is your most marked characteristic? Getting a word in edgewise.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Discovering morning.

What is your greatest fear? Converting kilometers to miles.

Which historical figure do you most identify with? Santa Claus.

Which living person do you most admire? Elvis.

Who are your heroes in real life? The consumer.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? While in New York, tolerance. Outside of New York, intolerance.

What is the trait you most deplore in others? Talent.

What is your favorite journey? The road of artistic excess.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Sympathy and originality.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse? Chthonic, miasma.

What is your greatest regret? That I never wore bell-bottoms.

What is your current state of mind? Pregnant.

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Epictetus- “Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.”

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Noam Chomsky- "Optimism is a strategy for making a better future. Because unless you believe that the future can be better, it’s unlikely you will step up and take responsibility for making it so. If you assume that there’s no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there’s a chance you may contribute to making a better world. The choice is yours."

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Miyazaki:

Our lives are like the wind... or like sounds.

We come into being, resonate with each other...

Then fade away.

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Baruch Spinoza- "The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free."

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Anne Frank- “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

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Camus, the punk rock philosopher- "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

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Vowell, The Partly Cloudy Patriot- "As recently as fifty years ago my grandmother was picking cotton with bleeding fingers. I think about her all the time while I'm getting overpaid to sit at a computer, eat Chinese takeout, and think up things in my pajamas, The half century separating my fingers, which are moisturized with cucumber lotion and type eighty words per minute, and her bloody digits is an ordinary Land of Opportunity parable, and don't think I don't appreciate it." 

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Asimov- "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny...""

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Hitchens- "Nothing optional -- from homosexuality to adultery -- is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishment) have a repressed desire to participate."

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Hawking- "Quiet people have the loudest minds."

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There was a young sailor from Brighton 

Who remarked to a girl, "You're a tight one." 

She replied, "'Pon my soul, 

You're in the wrong hole; 

There's plenty of room in the right one."

ADDENDUM

1.

Excellent blog from conservative writer Andrew Sullivan, the whole thing highlight-worthy. I got this for free but I might need to subscribe to it. 

The Descent From Conservatism to Nihilism Is Now Complete 

For anyone with eyes not blinded by tribalism or ears deafened by denial, what happened in Washington this week was always going to happen.

Trump’s character and profound psychological deformation always, always meant he would not relinquish power without an almighty struggle. We elected an instinctual tyrant, preternaturally incapable of understanding the give and take of democratic politics, for whom losing in any contest threatens the core of his very being, and who has no effective control over the roiling emotions that course through his thickened arteries.

Some of us were ridiculed for saying from the very beginning that there would have to be some kind of violence to remove him, if he were to lose the next election. We still are. We’re called victims of TDS, or Trump Derangement Syndrome, as if this were not the only sane position when a delusional, malignant, tyrant-wannabe has an entire political party in his grip, aided and abetted by tribal media tools. For myself, from the very beginning, having examined Trump’s past and observed his plain-as-day pathology, I just couldn’t envision how this figure could psychologically, voluntarily ever leave the Oval Office. Every single day of his presidency has confirmed this. He has blown through every guardrail against presidential abuse that exists.

Trump is now and always has been delusional. He lives in an imaginary world. His insistence that he won the last election in a “landslide” is psychologically indistinguishable from his declaration on his first day that his Inaugural crowd was larger than his predecessor’s. For four years, the actual evidence did not matter. It still doesn’t. Any rumor that helps him, however ludicrous, is true; every cold fact that hurts him, however trivial or banal, doesn’t exist. For four years as president, any advisor who told him the truth, rather than perpetuating his delusions, had an immediate expiration date. For four years, an army of volunteer propagandists knowingly disseminated his insane, cascading torrent of lies.

And Trump really believes these fantasies. He is not a calculating man. He is a creature of total impulse. As I wrote almost five years ago now, quoting Plato, a tyrant is a man “not having control of himself [who] attempts to rule others”; a man flooded with fear and love and passion, while having little or no ability to restrain or moderate them; a “real slave to the greatest fawning,” a man who “throughout his entire life ... is full of fear, overflowing with convulsions and pains.” For the ancients, a tyrant represented the human whose appetites and fantasies had no form of rational control.

This is dangerous in normal times. In an emergency like Covid19, it turned catastrophic. For Trump, the virus could not exist or would disappear all of a sudden because it might threaten his re-election. Anything in the press that did not reflect his own reality was, in his mind, invented. Dozens of lawsuits that failed to prove any fraud in the election were simply proof that the conspiracy against him was even bigger. His own propaganda channel, Fox News, broadcast Trump’s delusions as if they were true for five long years. But as soon as their off-camera nerds reported actual election results, Fox too had to be anathematized as fake. His vice-president, the most shameless lackey of them all, eventually could not force himself to do something that was feasible only in Trump’s imagination — and so, he too became a traitor in the bitter, bunker end.

The storming of the Capitol this week to stymie, prevent or postpone the certification of the election results, was therefore, in some ways, a metaphor for the entire four years. It was both absurd and terrifying. It was a violent insurrection against democracy, but it was also a scene from a bad dream about Burning Man. Wild-eyed men wandered around carrying the Confederate flag; crazed fanatics talked of how to execute Mike Pence for treason; a Q-Anon crazy, dressed in furs and Viking horns, with a painted face, commanded the floor of the House. It was sedition as some form of cosplay. It was deadly, but also performative. It was as if the storming of the Bastille ended with selfies.

The pièce de resistance was captured, as so often, by Olivia Nuzzi, who reported that Trump, after cheering the mob on, telling them he would join them, refusing to tell them to call it off, and trying to hold off the National Guard, eventually soured on the rioters as “low class.” He didn’t mind the insurrection; he just objected to the aesthetics!

He is out of his mind. There has been no change in five years, except a faster version of the decline of sanity in anyone wielding that amount of power for that long. The hostage video he put out last night — which some of his followers, of course, believed was a deep fake — was obviously an insincere attempt to prevent legal liability for the insurrection he had just incited. Today, however, he is back to normal, repeating his claims of fraud and acknowledging he will not attend the Inauguration of Biden, his last act of contempt for democratic processes that help heal the divides from fiercely contested elections.

This is who he is. He will doubtless launch a never-ending campaign to delegitimize the next administration, to polarize us even more deeply, to render what’s left of liberal democracy a smoldering ruin. The people finally acknowledging that they have been enabling a madman for years deserve our gratitude for their late recognition, but can never be free of the shame they will carry for the rest of their lives.

There is a temptation to believe that this is finally over. But for as long as this man exercises the powers of the presidency, it isn’t. He has used the power of the pardon these past few years to obstruct justice, to prevent vital testimony in a legitimate investigation, and to reward friends and relatives. In recent weeks, we’ve been told, he has also discussed the possibility of a proactive pardon for himself and his own family that will only cement his legacy of a presidency beyond the reach of any checks and balances. The next ten days, as he is cornered, are among the most dangerous. He could do anything. I favor a second impeachment, swiftly executed. The goal at this point is to get him out of there before he does even more damage, to keep him on the defensive, and to bar him from running for office ever again. This is where we are.

It pains me to say it, but this week was, in many ways, the essence of American “conservatism” in 2021. It has morphed from a politics to a theological movement to a personality cult. It is a threat to the very foundations of liberal democracy. It is nihilist, performative, incoherent and bristling with the certainty of fundamentalists and the corruption of grifters. It has destroyed this country’s fiscal standing, wrecked this country’s international reputation, trashed the norms and practices of liberal democracy, perverted the rule of law, accelerated climate change, and now physically vandalized the most sacred civil place in America.

And for what? Ratings? Soaring and destabilizing inequality? A national debt previously unthinkable in peacetime? Thousands and thousands of viral deaths that might have been prevented by the simple act of a president wearing a mask in public and urging others to do the same? The eradication of a shared concept of truth? The embrace of Kim Jong Un? The delegitimization of the entire press? The rehabilitation of Putin? The wet dreams of Netanyahu? Or the acceleration of Iran’s nuclear bomb? Pick one or all of them. The last two Republican presidents have ended their terms with the country in ruins. We cannot afford another one until the GOP is razed and rebuilt as a viable, democratic party.

“Remember this day!” Trump declared even after the disgrace had happened. And we will, we will. It exposed the GOP for what it is. These were not fringe loonies. Even after the sacking of the Capitol, a majority of House Republicans voted to endorse the insane conspiracy theories of the seditionists and not to certify a legitimate and fair election. In a snap YouGov poll, a plurality of Republicans backed a violent assault to reverse an election result. A party that does this is not fit to exist in a liberal democracy.

My first desperate hope with this administration was that it would plummet so far in popularity so quickly it would cause a revolt within the GOP. Trump’s demagogic genius, the left’s radicalization, and the pull of tribalism soon put an end to that delusional hope. My second was a thorough repudiation of the GOP as well as Trump this past political cycle in what I hoped would be a landslide Democratic victory. The rhetoric of the far left and the burning of American cities last summer scotched that one, as the Congressional tally shows. So my third is simply that we will soon begin to treat these past four years as the quintessential cautionary tale in the narrative of America. In the future, if a president refuses to be accountable to Congress in any way, or obstructs justice or tells massive lies, or refuses to concede an election, he or she will be instantly stigmatized as being a version of Trump.

My hope is that those who knowingly enabled mass delusion, insurrection and Constitutional chaos — like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and Lindsey Graham — have no serious careers ahead of them; that those who served and enabled this president retreat from public life in the ignominy they so thoroughly deserve. My hope is that a Republican party emerges that is built on the anathematization of the last four years, a party that can address the deeper issues that Trump viciously exploited, and build a multi-racial coalition around actual conservative principles to address the clear needs of all Americans.

I can’t see this happening without a split, or an open internecine struggle. If the result is a deeper commitment to an ideology of stab-in-the-back neo-fascism inspired by a seditionist president-in-exile, then the GOP needs to be burned to the ground. But if someone can emerge who can marshal the ideas that helped the GOP make gains in the House last year, and excommunicate the seditionists and bigots and fanatics, then we have something to build on.

Joe Biden has a massive task ahead of him, but this week may help him find common ground with those Republican Senators who have begun to understand that the forces they have unleashed and enabled are deeply dangerous to the entire project of self-government in America. Since his election victory, Biden has struck the right note every time the country has needed him to. Steer us back toward a sane center, Mr President-elect. Save the soul of this teetering, torn remnant of a republic, before we lose it for good.

January 9, 2021

2.

Myspace Blog 

January 9, 2007

Thus Always to Tyrants

So I put a pile of items on the library counter, hung back and waited to be checked out.

Beep beep- The first two tapes of Ken Burns' Civil War documentary are mine for the next week.

My thoughts- "Civil War, AS IF Iraq isn't in a civil war. That Rumsfeld and his "I was just thinking about civil wars last night." So condescending. Now he has plenty of time to think about it."

Beep- A PBS Frontline documentary on the first Gulf War is mine. Glad I checked the library- I almost bought it.

My thoughts- "Jeez, good thing these librarians don't know I'm only getting this to learn about the "Highway of Death," the highway into Basra where we gunned down retreating Iraqi troops... and civilians, naturally."

Did you know? Timothy McVeigh was shocked to be ordered to shoot surrendering troops on the Highway of Death. Speaking of which...

Beep- I have two weeks to read the biography on Timothy McVeigh, "American Terrorist."

My thoughts- "Uh, maybe I should have thought about this a little bit better. I'm just getting this stuff to learn... you know, see why McVeigh did it, his motivations and such, and analyze why it was wrong. I'd call it doing my patriotic duty, but the makers of the PATRIOT Act might see things differently. I just hope..."

Beep- Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet

Thought- "Fuuuuuuck!"

Yeah well, looks like I'm going to disappear soon. Been good knowin' ya. (Wait, one more chance...)

Saddam Hussein is not a martyr. So what if Iraqis were shocked during the full moon to see his face on it. Saddam Hussein is not the man on the moon! It's Ronald Reagan.

If you miss me, just drive past my parents' house. You'll see me hanging in effigy from their frontyard flagpole.

Sic Semper Tyrannis!