Truth Defeats Personality Cults

Is it a coincidence that many of those who think Biden should be tougher on Russia were totally stoked when the last president was threatening to withhold congressionally-mandated aid from Ukraine to help protect themselves from Russia? 

Maybe Biden should be tough on Russia by standing before the world with Putin, after a closed door meeting, telling us all he trusts Putin over our own intelligence. 

Do you get more pro-Russia than that? Sure! You just keep praising Putin right up through the present. Some have this imaginary idea that this wouldn't be happening under the last president, as he applauds Putin's genius in real time.

But forget the past; now's our chance to all be on the right side of history.

The authoritarians can't win. The fight for democracy is a win in itself. Much respect to the Russian protesters in St. Petersburg, doing the hard work.

February 25, 2022

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A brilliant moment. Larry David as utilitarian. This type of thing constantly runs through my mind. This joke was made for me.

February 25, 2020

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Has there ever been a person who became literate and regretted it? Literacy is a fundamentally good thing. You could say that the opportunity to become literate is now a human right. As if the news couldn't have become more bizarre, people are arguing the opposite.

February 25, 2020

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This will be the first White House Correspondents Dinner without the president since Reagan was recovering from being shot. But the current president is hurt too, the press hurts his feelings every day. And department stores hurt his feelings with their business decisions. And Rosie O'Donnell. And election numbers. And inauguration numbers. And negative poll numbers. Really all numbers, and truth, and facts.... and you might say, life.

Andy Borowitz- "First, Donald J. Trump hid from the media, and now he's hiding from jokes. Mark Twain said it best: "Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand."

February 25, 2017

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From Hannah Arendt, German-Born Jewish-American political theorist and philosopher, who escaped the Holocaust and became an American citizen:

"The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows.

And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please."

February 25, 2017

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Isn't it odd, the right looks for Supreme Court justices that have had Christian-based rulings, and the left, in part, looks for justices whose rulings support people's rights over corporate rights. That's one of their main complaints against Gorsuch. Take a minute and ask yourself whose side Jesus would be on- an individual's right to clean water, or a corporation's right to pollute water due to their obligation to increase profits for their shareholders.

February 25, 2017

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America first? Why not state first, or county first, or town first, or my block first, or my house first, or me first? Even better, how about humanity first?

February 25, 2017

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Alright...finally time for me to read The Satanic Verses.

Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science- Salman Rushdie: Iranian state media renew fatwa on Satanic Verses author with $600,000 bounty

February 25, 2016

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I had a conference call with a guy today who said he came up with something by using "mythological numbers." I assume he meant "hypothetical numbers", but I prefer the way he said it.

February 25, 2015

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My life expectancy is 75 years which means (if I'm that lucky) that I could be expected to die in 2049. But in 2049 wouldn't life expectancy be a lot higher, like maybe 85 or 90? And wouldn't that mean that right now my life expectancy is 85 or 90?

February 25, 2011

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I think everyone should be required to create and maintain a list of their favorite 100 movies.

February 25, 2011

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On this day in 1336, 4000 defenders of Pilenai commited mass suicide rather than be taken captive by the Teutonic Knights.

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In his speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences, which he gave on this day in 1956, Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin. It was so shocking for the time, apparently some people had a heart attacks, and later some people committed suicide. The Russian people had believed that's Stalin was perfect, and couldn't comprehend the fact that he was personally responsible for so much horror.

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Anthony Burgess joined us on this day in 1917.

"Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?"

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Fay Fife of The Rezillos was born on this day in 1954. 

FLYING SAUCER ATTACK

There's a threat approaching from the stars

All the horrors from Venus and Mars

Everybody better be on guard

When the Flying Saucers land

Watch the skies above the horizon

For the spies who have no flies on

When they appear through the stratosphere

Better lock yourself inside

Flying Saucer Attack

I'm never coming back

Oh, oh oh

Until it's over

Laser beams and gamma projectors

There'll be nothing on earth to protect us

When they arrive out of the sky

They'll be frying us alive

Call out the Army and United Nations

Alert the Police and Airforce Stations

Tell everybody to run and hide

Because the end is near at hand

Flying Saucer Attack

I'm never coming back

Oh, oh oh

Until it's over

(Instrumental)

There's a threat approaching from the stars

All the horrors from Venus and Mars

Everybody better be on guard

When the Flying Saucers land

Watch the skies above the horizon

For the spies who have no flies on

When they appear through the stratosphere

Better lock yourself inside

Flying Saucer Attack

I'm never coming back

Oh, oh oh

Until it's over

Oh, oh oh

Until it's over

Oh, oh oh

Until it's over

https://youtu.be/IgmbfXld3z8

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Other notable birthdays Jim Backus (1913), Faron Young (1932), George Harrison (1943)

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Mário de Andrade's 1st and 2nd lives ended on this day in 1945. He was a poet, novelist, essayist, musicologist, and one of the founders of Brazilian modernism.

“I counted my years and realised that I have less time to live by, than I have lived so far.

I feel like a child who won a pack of candies: at first, he ate them with pleasure but when he realised that there was little left, he began to taste them intensely.

I have no time for endless meetings where the statutes, rules, procedures and internal regulations are discussed, knowing that nothing will be done.

I no longer have the patience to stand absurd people who, despite their chronological age, have not grown up.

My time is too short: I want the essence; my spirit is in a hurry. I do not have much candy in the package anymore.

I want to live next to humans, very realistic people who know how to laugh at their mistakes and who are not inflated by their own triumphs and who take responsibility for their actions. In this way, human dignity is defended and we live in truth and honesty.

It is the essentials that make life useful.

I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch the hearts of those whom hard strokes of life have learned to grow with sweet touches of the soul.

Yes, I'm in a hurry. I'm in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.

I do not intend to waste any of the remaining desserts. I am sure they will be exquisite, much more than those eaten so far.

My goal is to reach the end satisfied and at peace with my loved ones and my conscience.

We have two lives and the second begins when you realize you only have one.”

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Mark Rothko left us on this day in 1970. 

"The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience that I had when I painted them."

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Daily Mail- Pope cuts penalties for paedophile priests - including one let off with just a lifetime of prayer for abusing five young boys 

And he's the cool Pope. The moral arc does bend toward good, but in spite of religion.

http://dailym.ai/2lldsy4

February 25, 2017

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Vivian Maier 

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David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest- "I'll say God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style I'm not crazy about. I'm pretty much anti-death. God looks by all accounts to be pro-death. I'm not seeing how we can get together on this issue, he and I..."

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Epictetus- "A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits."

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H. L. Mencken, Minority Report- "Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right."

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George Washington- "If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter."

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Publilius Syrus- "From the errors of others, a wise man corrects his own."

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Lincoln- "No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar."

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Unknown- "When ordering food at a new restaurant, my wife asked the waiter what they do to prepare their chicken.“Nothing special,” he explained. “We just tell them they’re going to die.”"

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Hunter S. Thompson- "So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?"

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Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club- "I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom."

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Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Literature- "Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of ones own."

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Mitch Hedberg- "The Kit Kat candy bar has the name "Kit Kat" imprinted into the chocolate. That robs you of chocolate! That's a clever chocolate-saving technique. I go down to the factory, "You owe me some letters!""

Addendum:

Excerpt from Stephen Pinker's book, Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Have I mentioned how much I love it? Here are two powerhouse paragraphs explaining the decline of religious persecution after the Inquisition: 

What made Europeans finally decide that it was all right to let their dissenting compatriots risk eternal damnation and, by their bad example, lure others to that fate? Perhaps they were exhausted by the Wars of Religion, but it’s not clear why it took thirty years to exhaust them rather than ten or twenty. One gets a sense that people started to place a higher value on human life. Part of this newfound appreciation was an emotional change: a habit of identifying with the pains and pleasures of others. And another part was an intellectual and moral change: a shift from valuing souls to valuing lives. The doctrine of the sacredness of the soul sounds vaguely uplifting, but in fact is highly malignant. It discounts life on earth as just a temporary phase that people pass through, indeed, an infinitesimal fraction of their existence. Death becomes a mere rite of passage, like puberty or a midlife crisis. 

The gradual replacement of lives for souls as the locus of moral value was helped along by the ascendancy of skepticism and reason. No one can deny the difference between life and death or the existence of suffering, but it takes indoctrination to hold beliefs about what becomes of an immortal soul after it has parted company from the body. The 17th century is called the Age of Reason, an age when writers began to insist that beliefs be justified by experience and logic. That undermines dogmas about souls and salvation, and it undermines the policy of forcing people to believe unbelievable things at the point of a sword (or a Judas’s Cradle).

February 25, 2015

Addendum

Myspace Blog

February 25, 2008

Presidential Pickles of Principle

This is long as hell, and I really just wrote it for a personal catharsis, but go ahead and read it if you want.

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I quit my job as a brochure delivery man to become a transportation manager for a local organic produce co-op.

Originally my brochure job gave me a big raise for me to stay, so I stayed, but then two weeks later the co-op offered me a dollar an hour on top of that so I left. Imagine that- a bidding war for me! But get this- when my next brochure paycheck came after I worked two weeks at the higher rate it didn't have the raise on it. I figured there was a mistake so I called them and told them.

The Company Manager: You were given the raise to stay and you didn't stay, right?

So I leave weeks after getting a raise and they take it away from me??? I was on fire. I summoned all of my will and focus and said clearly and coolly, and collectedly, concisely and precisely, and directly, with very deliberate urgency:

"I just worked here for two weeks under the assumption I got the raise you said you gave me."

The Company Manager: OK, I'll make the adjustment. That's fine.

Silence from me.

The Company Manager: OK, bye.

Me: Bye.

I only get that mad once every several years. They just completely tried to screw me out what will end up being about $200. The fact that I left two weeks after they gave it me is trivial. I could have been a jerk, waited until the checks were printed and then gave my two week notice. I was giving them several extra days to find someone and I got punished. Or rather, they attempted to punish me. The entire time I worked there I've gotten along with everyone 100%. I guess they were mad and thought I wouldn't stand up to them, that I was pushover, that my laid-backness was a symbol of my lackadaisicalness. Guess again.

I hung up and drove, like all of those bumper stickers tell everybody to do. You want to know a shitty job- driving while you're pissed. You have nothing to do but fume. After Abe Lincoln's death, an angry letter he had written was found in his desk. He never mailed it because he knew that when you're angry you should wait to communicate. Abe Lincoln had a will of steel and I don't. I called back. Luckily nobody answered so I just left a message:

"Ben again, I'm wondering what happens to my vacation days after I leave because if I'm not going to get paid for them I want to take them. Let me know."

The implication- today could be my last day. I drove along to each of my stops and just sat in the truck for awhile, god-damned if I was going to do any work!

Finally I got a call. I let the voice mail get it. It was the Company Manager telling me that yes, of course I get paid for my vacation days. I'm not going to delete that message anytime soon.

So the next day I had to work in the warehouse, and first thing the President of the Company (he's the president of ten employees but likes to be referred to as the president of the company) summoned me into his office. He reminded me that we've had a great relationship over the last few years and it would be terrible if we left it on a sour note. I agreed. My anger had subsided overnight. Yep, Abe Lincoln knew what he was talking about. Of course the President rethought his position and realized he was wrong- I can accept that.

But I wasn't given the chance. The President told me that we have a "disagreement," there must have been a "miscommunication," and we should talk about it.

The President: My position is that we gave you a raise to stay and you didn't stay.

I was hot again but I maintained composure. You can't make a logical argument when you're angry.

Me: When you gave me the raise I did decide to stay. Later, another offer was made and I took it. You and I still had an agreement.

The President: The agreement was that you got a raise for staying.

Me: I told you their offer and you beat it. You knew that otherwise I would have given notice that day. If I didn't stay then why am I still here?

The President gave an exasperated sigh with a hint of a wince. "But you only stayed two weeks. We would have at least wanted you to stay a few months."

Me: But where's the point when my higher wage should begin? Seems like it's when we made the deal.

Silence from both of us.

The President: I think we're going to have to leave it as a disagreement.

Me: But do you understand my argument?

The President: I understand it. Do you understand mine?

Me: That you wanted me to stay?

The President: Yeah.

Me: Yeah, I understand it.

I might have been too obvious when in my head I added "I just don't agree with it." Yeah well, he did it to me too.

The President: I'm still going to pay you the raise because I want you to stay for the next two weeks. So I guess we can leave it at that.

Somehow I'm still made to feel like I don't deserve to get paid what I'm getting paid. No, we won't quite leave it at that. I thought-"You decided to pay me more because you said I worth more to you! Are you saying that now I'm not???" No, don't say that. Help me withhold my anger Abe Lincoln... whew it passed. But I still have to say something, right?

Me: One other thing- I found out on a Tuesday that they offered me a dollar more and I told you immediately to give you some extra time finding someone to replace me. If I wanted to I could have waited until Friday when the checks were printed and told you then. I would have been a jerk but I didn't think there'd be a need to do it.

The President: (light-hearted) Yeah, but you don't deserve praise for not being an asshole. I could be a real asshole. There are all kinds of things I could do but I don't, and I don't think I deserve to be congratulated for it.

I thought, "I did you a favor and you retroactively took back my raise... I was nice and you actually were the asshole"...

I thought, "Maybe I should have got this whole deal in writing… you know, that I needed to stay for months for it to take effect… but that would have seemed unnecessary at the time, right? Because it was obvious that I could accept your word, right?"

I thought, "You told me that my raise was a matter of confidentiality, so I suppose I'm free to talk with my co-workers about the raise I didn't get, right?"

I thought, "If I'd take this to court I would win without doubt, based on the 16th amendment outlawing slavery. Requiring me to stay without a contract is indentured servitude."

Again, I have Abe Lincoln to thank for that one. I could have blown his argument to smithereens, shredded by an array of diamond-tipped logic bullets, but the better angel of my nature stopped me.

Me: I know exactly what you're saying.

The President: So I guess we can leave it at that.

Me: Yep.

So we "see each others points." I can guarantee that at a moment of quiet reflection he'll actually see my point.

When we formulate beliefs we have a multitude of arguments to consider, but we almost always settle on adopting the argument that benefits us. That's a statement so simple it hardly seems to be worth mentioning, but I think it illustrates a dichotomy between our true inner beliefs and our actions and arguments. If we created our arguments based on principles, they would tend to contradict our wishes about half the time, or whenever our moral intuition was wrong. Let me give an example.

During the 2000 election, Gore supporters thought all of the votes should be counted and the will of the voter should try to be determined from the voter cards. Bush supporters chose the arguments that the election was over, the votes were counted, the Supreme Court can trump state election laws, and we have a new president so get used to it. The only reason the Bush people believed in them was because they benefited their predetermined belief. Yep, they were dead wrong- in a democracy you do everything in your power to try to determine the will of the voters.

But maybe the Gore people were only lucky to be on the side of virtue. How many of them have I heard say "Gore won the election because he won the popular vote"? Huh? When did you make up that rule? Classic example of choosing a belief before you choosing an argument. It's easy though, otherwise you might have to change beliefs.

So to sum up, the problem with the presidents is that sometimes what they should do and what they can do are two different things. Our actions should be decided according to principles rather than our wishes.

Now back to the thrust:

So the President didn't want to leave on a sour note. Hmmm. Since he tried to rip me off for $200 maybe I should try to rip him off for the same. Or maybe I should accept that he thinks I already did.

No, I'm dead right and he's dead wrong. But I guess I should bury the proverbial hatchet. Maybe in that way I could even learn from the President. I guess you can learn from some presidents and others you can't. I think I'll just keep philosophizing of the best retaliation until my last day, after which I'll never have to see him again. Anything I do until then would be done out of anger… so better to leave it undone.

I'll tell you one thing I've learned in all of this- that Abe Lincoln was a fucking genius, even though he used to poo in a box he kept beneath his bed (true story.)