Tool-Users, Moments, Retrospects, and Empathy Extending To Non-Reality

Looks like we'll pass 500,000 official Covid deaths today. When looking at the overall deaths above what would be expected in a normal year, it's apparently much higher. It takes me back to that quaint time when outlier projections showed 600,000 deaths if we acted like total dumbasses. For countries with 1000 deaths or more, we have the 7th worst deaths by population, meaning this was the 7th worst out of 91 countries to live in, if staying alive is important. I'm starting to think only an idiot would have wanted to downplay it once the threat was clear.

February 21, 2021

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Alright, alright, fine, not all of them, of course.

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Bloomberg Thoughts

I feel like sharing a smattering of thoughts on Bloomberg. Not that you asked! But like Hitchens says, "the grave will provide plenty of time for silence." 

- He's my least favorite of the top tier of the remaining candidates, but I agree with Elizabeth Warren that if he gets the nomination he has my full support. 

- The funny thing about the trouncing he took during that debate is that, assuming he doesn't get the nomination, he's pledged to give $2 billion dollars to help one of the people who did the trouncing! 

- Every candidate is criticizing Trump on policy, his incapability of performing at job, and his dictatorial aspirations. Not Bloomberg, though. HE'S TRYING TO DESTROY HIM AS A HUMAN! You know, like Trump does to everyone he disagrees with! Nice to see a bully getting his comeuppance. 

-He hired a comedy writer and a psychologist with expertise in narcissism in an effort to get under Trump's skin. The day after I heard that, someone "leaked" that he's considering Clinton for his running mate. Yeah right! I bet his ruse worked. 

-For what it's worth, it seems like Trump desperately wants to run against Sanders and does absolutely not want to run against Bloomberg or Biden. 

- We need to abandon the notion that whoever SHOULD win, WILL win. Every candidate has some rank between 1 and 10 on how worthy they are to be presidency, and how likely it is that they will win. I prefer to nominate someone with high likelihood of winning over someone who is idea logical pure. 

-An aside- maybe we could graph worthiness and likelihood on an x-y axis and the candidate whose graph takes up most area gets the nomination! Yes, yes, this is the exact method that asshole headmaster from Dead Poets Society used to rate the greatness of poems, you got me! 

- At this point I'm pretty well convinced that the Democrats inability to coalesce around a candidate will be there undoing, neglecting to truly appreciate how vastly superior the other candidate would be to Trump. Sure, Bloomberg is not releasing women from NDO's... that's bad... but if we're treating this seriously let's compare Trump and Bloomberg's full lists of malfeasance. Some things to keep in mind- kids in cages, Supreme Court picks, Dreamers, religious fundamentalism becoming state policy, veto power (congress can't do crap), profiting off the office, etc. Who do you think is more likely to use nuclear weapons? Do we really believe Bloomberg will operate as a king? Bloomberg is vastly superior to Trump, and like I said, Elizabeth Warren agrees. These Bernie-or-nobody people, hopefully they come to recognize this. We can't let a "not ideal" candidate become "equivalent to Trump." 

- Bloomberg is a capitalist, that's pretty obvious. And guess what, Sanders is a capitalist too... to my knowledge he does not support the state taking over the means of production. He's into expanding social programs. Bernie should be clarifying "democratic socialist" every chance he gets. The media does not help him, but if he's going to be the nominee, then I'm going to consider this his communication problem to fix. 

-So if it's Bloomberg or Bernie, and the polls show Bloomberg beating Trump in the battleground states close to the convention, and Bernie didn't clinch it, what do we do? 1992 came down to 4 words, "It's the economy, stupid." 2020 could come down to one word, and you know what it is. If Bernie fails to appropriately sway the battleground states by the convention... I don't know. What if Bloomberg picks Michelle Obama as VP? That almost feels like a lock, doesn't it? Sanders/Warren... it feels like if they pull out the battlegrounds they will squeak it out at best. 

-I like to remind myself of Adlai Stevenson's retort to a women who told him that every thinking person in the country would vote for him. He said, "I'm afraid that won't do — I need a majority." Do you remember President Stevenson??? 

-Well we don't need a majority. We need to win the battleground states. Again, it's worth repeating, we can't get caught up thinking that the person who SHOULD win, WILL win. They are not necessarily associated. 

-I love Bernie, and I hope he can do it. I've loved him since I can't even remember when. I love him like Trump loves Kim Jong Un. He's the only congressional candidate Noam Chomsky ever gave money to. I don't agree with him on everything, but why focus on minutiae? I'm all in for him if he gets the nomination. And the good thing is- Bloomberg is too, and we don't have to spend a dime! I don't know... just wanted to get this out and frame the analysis... let's wait until we have better data and use it to make our decision, like that asshole headmaster.

February 21, 2020

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Gretel just told me that if she had to listen to either Lizzo or Weird Al Yankovic for the entire day, she would choose Weird Al Yankovic.

February 21, 2020

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Funny to think that 2 of the top 3 Republicans running for president had parents living in Cuba when Castro overthrew Batista...and since 95% of the country supported the coup, their parents were probably Castro supporters.

February 21, 2016

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So the Republican field has thinned, and Rubio seems to be the rational one between the three...Rubio, who believes that if a 12 year old girl gets raped and becomes pregnant, that she has to have the baby.

February 21, 2016

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We have a tool-user! Gretel is now AT LEAST as smart as a crow.

February 21, 2016

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Some oppose state - sanctioned gay marriage citing religious freedom. Nonsense- they are perfectly free to practice their religion. What they desire is a right to force others to practice their religion. That's theocracy trying to disguise itself as democracy.

February 21, 2014

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I ate some outdated cinnamon goat milk yogurt today. This may be my final post.

February 21, 2014

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Last night Emma said she was sorry about something bad that happened to me in a dream. I told her there was nothing to be sorry about- it was only a dream. You know what she said? She said, "My empathy extends to non-reality." Wow.

February 21, 2013

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WWND... let's get this into the lexicon. As a rule of thumb when faced with a moral question I find it helpful to ask What Would the Nazis Do? Then do the opposite.

February 21, 2013

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A girl from the 1850s, I wonder what she was grumpy about.

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Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto on this day in 1848.

Marx- All I know is that I'm not a Marxist.

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On this day in 1972, Nixon visited China, normalizing relations. And on this day three years later, his Attorney General John N. Mitchell and top aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were sentenced to prison.

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Bottle Rocket was released on this date in 1996.

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Jeanne Calment was born on this day in 1875 in Arles, France, and died in 1997 at 122 years old. She was the oldest documented human being in history. She met Van Gogh when she was 13, started fencing when she was 85, road bike until she was a hundred, starred in a film about her life at 114, had hip surgery at 115, and gave up smoking at 117. 

Why did she give up smoking at 117? Well because she was nearly blind and didn't like having to ask someone to light her cigarette, of course.

When she was asked on her 120th birthday what kind of future she expected to have, she replied, "A very short one."

Here are the Rules of Life from Jeanne Louise Calment:

"I'm in love with wine."

"All babies are beautiful."

"I think I will die of laughter."

"I've been forgotten by our Good Lord."

"I've got only one wrinkle, and I'm sitting on it."

"I never wear mascara; I laugh until I cry often."

"If you can't change something, don't worry about it."

"Always keep your smile. That's how I explain my long life."

"I see badly, I hear badly, and I feel bad, but everything's fine."

"I have a huge desire to live and a big appetite, especially for sweets."

"I have legs of iron, but to tell you the truth, they're starting to rust and buckle a bit."

"I took pleasure when I could. I acted clearly and morally and without regret. I'm very lucky."

“Being young is a state of mind, it doesn’t depend on one’s body. I’m actually still a young girl, it's just that I haven't looked so good for the past 70 years."

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Anaïs Nin joined us on this day in 1903.

"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect."

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W. H. Auden joined us on this day in 1907. Ethan Hawke's Jesse quoted part of this song to Julie Delpy's Celine in Before Sunrise, and he votes this recording.

As I Walked Out One Evening

As I walked out one evening,

   Walking down Bristol Street,

The crowds upon the pavement

   Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river

   I heard a lover sing

Under an arch of the railway:

   "Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you

   Till China and Africa meet,

And the river jumps over the mountain

   And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love you till the ocean

   Is folded and hung up to dry

And the seven stars go squawking

   Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,

   For in my arms I hold

The Flower of the Ages,

   And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city

   Began to whirr and chime:

"O let not Time deceive you,

   You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare

   Where Justice naked is,

Time watches from the shadow

   And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry

   Vaguely life leaks away,

And Time will have his fancy

   To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley

   Drifts the appalling snow;

Time breaks the threaded dances

   And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,

   Plunge them in up to the wrist;

Stare, stare in the basin

   And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,

   The desert sighs in the bed,

And the crack in the tea-cup opens

   A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes

   And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,

And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,

   And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror?

   O look in your distress:

Life remains a blessing

   Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window

   As the tears scald and start;

You shall love your crooked neighbour

   With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,

   The lovers they were gone;

The clocks had ceased their chiming,

   And the deep river ran on.

https://youtu.be/0q__Z185H8I

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Philosopher John Rawls joined us on this day in 1921.

"Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous."

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Somehow Chuck Palahniuk and David Foster Wallace were both born on this day in 1962.

Chuck Palahniuk got beat up in real life and when he went into the office the next day he was obviously bruised and injured, but everybody just made small talk with him, nobody asked him about it. That's what gave him the idea for his first novel, Fight Club.

"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."

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David Foster Wallace- "If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.

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Other notable birthdays - Sam Peckinpah (1925), Rue McClanahan (1934)

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Philosopher Baruch Spinoza joined us on this day in 1677. 

"Peace is not the absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition of benevolence, confidence, justice."

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Malcolm X was gunned down at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem on this day in 1965. Preach violence, get gunned down, I suppose. In the case of Martin Luther King preach peace, get gunned down.

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Admittedly inexact, but estimates show he was on Twitter double the time he was in intel briefings, but maybe that's overshadowed by the fact that sometimes he's doing both. (WARNING: this article will break your hypocrisy gauge.)

https://wpo.st/Ng8d2

February 21, 2017

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Mother Jones- Anne Frank Center Unimpressed by Trump’s “Band-Aid on the Cancer of Anti-Semitism” Statement

You know you have a problem when you make an enemy with the Anne Frank Center...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/trump-anti-semitism-jewish-groups-anne-frank-center

February 21, 2017

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Believe it or not, this was perhaps the most even-handed look at Trump that I've seen... conversation between Sam and former Bush speech-writer and senior editor of The Atlantic, David Frum. Here's Sam:

"I've never seen even for a moment a real method to the guy's madness. I mean, people have been interpreting his boastfulness and his speaking style as a kind of stagecraft, as a kind of master level communication to the masses and a brilliant playing of the media. I have just been seeing the ejaculation of a disordered personality. I've seen someone who's so malignantly selfish and so uninformed, though occasionally he can string a few sentences together at bottom he's deeply inarticulate. I mean he has a sort of confabulatory mind where he will be tripped up by his own word choices and take garden paths through his own mind that he was clearly not intending but the words just came out and he’s off and running. And this goes to questions of policy, questions of where our country goes next."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17JLZsCm9CM

February 21, 2017

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Washington Post Opinion- Mainstream Republicans have tolerated extremism for years, by Fareed Zakariah

I am making the argument that when parties lose the ability to police their extremists, bad things happen not just to the party but also to democracy. Already, much of today’s Republican Party has been permeated by extremism. According to a recent American Enterprise Institute survey, 56 percent of Republicans believe “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” Thirty-nine percent backed an even stronger statement: “If elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves even if it requires taking violent actions.” These are not views compatible with democracy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mainstream-republicans-have-tolerated-extremism-for-years-can-they-finally-control-it/2021/02/18/f3c2cd72-722c-11eb-85fa-e0ccb3660358_story.html

February 21, 2021

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Seems important somehow to list Tom Waits' Top 10 favorite books.

1. The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake by Breece D’J Pancake

2. The Light The Dead See: Selected Poems by Frank Stanford

3. The Americans by Robert Frank

4. The Old West: The Gunfighters by Paul Trachtman

5. Pic by Jack Kerouac

6. The Last Night of the Earth Poems by Charles Bukowski

7. Hard Candy by Tennessee Williams

8. Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger

9. The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje

10. It Catches My Heart In Its Hands by Charles Bukowski

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Vivian Maier 

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Bertrand Russell, Dreams and Facts, The Athenaeum:

In the visible universe, the Milky Way is a tiny fragment; within this fragment, the solar system is an infinitesimal speck, and of this speck our planet is a microscopic dot. 

On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded.

They divide their time between labour designed to postpone the moment of dissolution for themselves and frantic struggles to hasten it for others of their kind.

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George Washington- "My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."

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Walt Disney- "I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I've ever known."

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H.L. Mencken- "School days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, brutal violations of common sense and common decency. It doesn't take a reasonably bright boy long to discover that most of what is rammed into him is nonsense, and that no one really cares very much whether he learns it or not."

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Steinbeck, Travels with Charley- "We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us."

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Lincoln- "There are no bad pictures; that's just how your face looks sometimes."

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Kant- "The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries."

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Galileo- "You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself."

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Jim Jefferies- "If you hate gay marriage, then don't marry a gay person."

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Oppenheimer- "It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so."

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Unknown- "How many emo kids does it take to screw in a lightbulb? None, they all sit in the dark and cry."

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Thompson:

"Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life.

His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man.

But is he a man?"

Addendum

Myspace Blog 

Haunted By Haunted

Do you like scary books? Yeah? Then I'd suggest that you do NOT read Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. It wasn't scary. It was horrifying. Horrifying. Horrifying. It's essentially a collection of short stories, the first of which changed my life. It changed my life for the much, much worse. It changed my life in ways I could never have foreseen- for if I could have seen, I never, ever would have given it the chance. Only the sickest of sick minds could have created this story. If I came up with it I would've kept it to myself, even though leaving it bottled up might have corroded my soul. I would have sacrificed myself to save the world from this horror. It's called "Guts." If you have them, read it. But do not take my warning lightly.

As I listened to the audiobook I could barely keep my truck on the road. I tried to hide my eyes, as if the story was unfolding on the road in front of me. My mouth was agape. I couldn't stop squirming. I gasped several times. I'm embarrassed to say there were involuntary head convulsions and face contortions. My insides honestly started to hurt. Anyone driving by would have thought I'd just found out my best friend died. And I was being forced to eat him. I sat in silence when it was over, and after 20 minutes I realized my stomach muscles were still clenched. The rational and irrational sides of my mind were having a argument:

Rational- It's just a story!

Irrational- You just heard it, right? Then it's fucking real!

Rational- It's a book. Somebody made it up.

Irrational- Nobody could make up shit like that! It's REAL! 

Rational (meekly)- ok.

True story or not, the horror is real. I'm not kidding around. If you're thinking of reading it, consider your actions wisely. Take a deep breath, cause I haven't yet.