I just got done (mercifully) doing a double-delete on a post I was writing about higher education. I was out of my depth. The post was completely derivative and based on a book I am reading called The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations by Christopher Lasch, first published in 1979 and said to be a “national bestseller.” It is a fun book, in fact, even exciting for me is it mentions so many names, movements, perversions and attitudes that I grew up in, through and around. (Just to name one, there is the mythical female orgasm. Trust me, it doesn’t happen.)
Author: Mark Tokarski
Just a man who likes to read, argue, and occasionally be surprised.
The odds that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826
American history says that two former presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both died on July 4, 1826, fifty years after signing the Declaration of Independence. I’ve long wondered about that. I took classes in college on the subject of statistics, but the problem was that I was having a testosterone storm centered on a certain girl, and my mental capacities were shut down. I eked out a C and remember very little.
Continue reading “The odds that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826”
Is climate alarmism racist?
My recent foray into the matter of climate change had many surprising features, one of which was how easy it was to grasp the underlying science behind the matter. Climate study is, for the most part, mere collection of data in search of trends. Below the fold, for example, is a graph showing precipitation trends in California over the last 100 years.
The legend of Buffalo Bill
On our recent trip up north to Yellowstone National Park, our grandson wanted to see a real dam. We had driven by Boysen reservoir on the way up, and he was disappointed when we got to the actual dam that it was just an earth-fill. So on the way home I headed up Highway 20 out of Cody up to Buffalo Bill Dam, the real thing, seen above. Of course, snow runoff this year is massive, so that the floodgates are wide open. The actual scene is not so serene as this photo. It is far more violent.
YNP
We are in the last day, a travel day, after spending the last week in Yellowstone National Park with our 12-year-old grandson. What a fun time we have had! A few observations.
- Over the years, especially when we lived in Bozeman, my wife and I have avoided the big attractions of YNP, Old Faithful, Lower and Upper falls and the Grand Canyon, and all of the geysers and mud pots and hissers. This time we made it a point to take the grand tour. We got to see those sites through the boy’s eyes. He was enthralled, as I was at his age. Our only regret, he did not get to see Morning Glory Pool … the day was waning, the drive ahead was long, it was two miles away. He offered to run there and back, as he is hockey-conditioned, but we had to move on. He’ll see it another day. Continue reading “YNP”
Wear sunscreen …
“Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who’d rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there’s no reason we can’t entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.” …
These are the opening lines of a newspaper column from the Chicago Tribune. It is very short, but I cannot reprint it in total due to copyright, only a snippet as fair use. Read the whole thing here.
John Denver: Digitally removing digits
“Annie, we are told, helped identify the body. She told investigators that John had lost two toes in a lawn mowing accident as a youth. If perhaps the leg that survived the crash were his right leg, and if the foot were still intact, well, that might just help identify the body. And it did! The Coroner later reported “…healed partial amputations of the right first and second toes” on the right foot. Annie’s song was the right tune, it appears.”
The above words are from my post, John Denver’s death: Another Hoax. Just recently I have received comments, here and here, that address the matter of the missing toes. Keep in mind that throughout his life, there was never any mention of his missing digits. The matter only came to life when he died.
Alone on a mountaintop
This exchange was enlightening, an honest and skeptical commenter stopped by and offered the following:
“I stumbled onto this site while researching John Denver’s death. While perusing several blog posts here, I noticed that it is common to question the authenticity of song writers. Why is this? Why suggest that ghost writers have more writing talent than the person who made the song famous? Also, don’t you guys realize that people actually do take drugs, abuse alcohol, and then suffer the consequences? Why is every celebrity death a hoax? Frankly, it isn’t possible for the required number of people involved to hide all the evidence of these so-called faked deaths. ‘Two can keep a secret, but only of one is dead.'”
Humana-scam
This post has to do with health insurance, specifically that offered to America’s senior citizens, and so will be of limited interest to younger people. Nonetheless, it does not hurt to understand the concepts behind private health insurance. It can and does work in other places, notably Switzerland. It does not work here.
Here’s why: In Switzerland, everyone must carry health insurance offered by private companies. Unlike here ( before Obamacare), insurers are not allowed to turn anyone away. Further, Switzerland mandates basic care offered by insurers. Swiss citizens are free to buy better care than basic, such as private rooms and better meals, but decent and affordable care is available to all.
A fatal accident almost claims a life!
As it turns out, rumors of his son’s death were wildly exaggerated. This email came to me today from “Chloe Natalie”, a name so odd it could belong to a fake school shooter or victim. He wants to buy a tonneau I had on my old Honda pickup, the one that I sold to a real person last weekend. Let’s not tell him. I am curious what fun awaits.
Piece of Mindful 