Category: American wilderness

Skip the sunscreen. Wear blinders.

Below the fold you will find what was said to be Kurt Vonnegut’s 1997 commencement address to undergrads at MIT. It begins, after an opening quote, with the words “Wear sunscreen.” It closes with “But trust me on the sunscreen.” It is clever and even contains good advice, like “Do one thing every day that scares you” and “Keep your old love letters, throw away your bank statements.”

The original piece, published in June of 1997 in the Chicago Tribune, was unsigned. Mary Schmich of the Tribune later claimed authorship. The whole thing was weird, as the piece went viral as a real Vonnegut commencement address. It seemed unprofessional to allow it to go unsigned and to print it without Vonnegut’s approval. The Tribune is a high profile outlet, so that practical jokes are beneath it. But only later did we learn that Vonnegut had never spoken at MIT. Schmich then tried to contact him to explain the situation, and when they finally spoke he said it was “spooky.”

“Two questions: Why use Vonnegut? And why sunscreen?

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“I tried to pray, nothing happened.”

I am reading a book, The Recovering, Intoxication and its Aftermath, by Leslie Jamison. When it came I did not remember that I had ordered it. I thought had ordered a book about how scientific papers had all become corrupt, and when this one came, I thought that was it. It was not. The one I ordered, Unreliable, by Csaba Szabo, is frightfully boring, so I am stuck now with two bad books … I’ll hang on with the Recovering, if only because I know the ending of Unreliable.

Books by recovering alcoholics can be tedious, self-involved, and boring. But I read a few pages in, and liked that she was talking about famous writers like Faulkner, Hemingway, and others who were also famous drunks. My own take is that these men, along with my own favorite, Edward Abbey, were crooked to begin with, so that both drinking and writing suited them fine. I seek no meaning in the fact that they drank, only the fact that they wrote. The same internal force that made them write might also have driven them to drink, but so what? That does not begin to explain all of the great writers who were not drunks.

Sidenote: This morning as I read she recounted reading the Stephen King book that became the Apollo 11 movie, The Shining. She’s not aware that with “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”, Stanley Kubrick, and not Stephen King, is using the word “All” to take the place of “Apollo 11”, where Kubrick was deeply immersed.

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Collateral Gammage

Former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end Ray Seals has reportedly passed away at age 59. Quietly. Too quietly.

There is, oddly, no specific date of death, no cause of death, no obituary with details. According to Sports Illustrated, “his friend” Nini Marie confirmed the news on social media.” That’s it. Just… confirmed.

One anagram of “Nini Marie” is:

“I Am In Rein”

A strange little phrase—perhaps meaningless. Or perhaps a coded signature. Especially when we remember the story of Ray’s cousin:

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61 years and counting …

Manhattan Contrarian, a site I like and follow, has unfortunately entered the world of the JFK assassination. The two posts have thus far spawned almost two hundred comments, and here we go again.

I might not post this, as I do not have anything original to offer. Here’s a comment I left at Fakeologist, a post about a Miles Mathis post on the latest release of documents:

I was glad to see MM walk back from his original idea that there was some kind of underground ruling council and that JFK left the scene to participate. That, to me, detracted from one of the best written and most important papers I have ever read, one that changed my life.

I would add one more fake presidential death to his litany of Garfield, McKinley, Lincoln and JFK: FDR. Speaking of using death of the office holder as a means of installing an otherwise unelectable person in office, Harry S. Truman qualifies. He got in on FDR’s death after wee hours shenanigans at the convention to get him installed as VP, and then the 1948 election had to be stolen to keep him in office.

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Some words, just words

I recently returned from Kenya with 464 photos on my camera, and as I said to friends and family, “one or two of them are actually quite good.” Of course, the essence of a good photo is to be there, and to snap the one above I had to be in a Land Cruiser, and the lion, while aware of us, needed to be indifferent. As noted by our driver, were I to get out of the vehicle, she would eat me. If this shot were taken from a helicopter above, you would see perhaps five Land Cruisers surrounding the beast. The lion’s attitude reminds me of what is the proper way to view American politics: Studied indifference.

I write a lot, and as with photography, now and then I write something I want to remember, even if no one else cares. Thus the paragraph beneath the fold here, a comment originally addressed to our friend Petra, and modified to include part of her wise response and to remove her personally from it, with respect.

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Is it a shifting tide, or signal from on high?

We all take note here of the Trump executive orders since his inauguration, and while I am not optimistic about Trump, welcome them nonetheless. He has removed us from the Paris Accords once again, and this time has gone after the endangerment finding, that goofy piece of agitation propaganda that set the stage for a host of administrative rulings shutting down fossil fuel activities that benefit all of us. In brief, that ruling says that CO2 is a pollutant. Such a grievous outcropping was the result of years of stage-setting by the people behind the climate change hoax. It was set in stone when a sitting president told an outrageous lie as follows: Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: Climate change is real, man-made and dangerous.

Obama tweeted that.

Presidents lie all the time – it’s right there on the job application: “Are you prepared to use all of the status and prestige of high office to tell egregious lies? If the answer is “Yes,” you have just a shot. If the answer is “YES!!!”, and you are young and handsome and well-spoken and able to control a forum, we’ll make you president. We’ll even dummy up a fake education and change your place of birth to make it happen. The job requires at its very soul a complete lack of character. Only exceptional criminals need apply.

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Mr. Overwrought

I’ve had quite a time since our return from Kenya. For one, I’ve suffered from what I am calling “Hakuna Matata’s” revenge, thinking that Hakuma was just a character in the movie Lion King, rather than a Swahili phrase meaning “no worries.” (I never saw the movie.) Enough about that. In addition, maybe part of the whole, I came down with respiratory troubles, aka head cold. Couple all of that with east-west jet lag (we traveled out ten times zones and back in two weeks), and I’ve been overwrought. The result is that I write long posts like the one (formerly) down below (now removed) about dieting, which occur at 2 and 3AM, and for which I devote considerable brain muscle, all for naught as no one reads them.

I have decided that a paragraph I inserted as an afterthought will be enough on the subject, and so unlike me, ’nuff said.

 

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Deserve’s Got Nothing to Do with It

The title comes from a memorable line in Unforgiven, spoken by Clint Eastwood’s character in response to Gene Hackman’s Little Bill, who, in his final moments, protests, “I don’t deserve this. To die like this.”

In a tragic real-life parallel, Hackman’s lifeless body was discovered in the foyer of his home, partially decomposed. Data from his pacemaker revealed that his heart had stopped nine days earlier. At 95 years old, there was no question of a staged disappearance—only the stark reality of time catching up. Yet, no one deserves to be left undiscovered for weeks, a poignant reminder of life’s quiet, often unceremonious endings.

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Intolerance is all about!

I came upon a post about Petra Liverani and the moon landings at Fakeologist. Petra and I have gone round and round on the subject until I decided just to let it be. I cannot change her mind. I won’t try. In the meantime, Petra came out with a post called 12 logical fallacies unmasked in the use of the terms “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist“. I like the post. Petra started out by naming 12 logical fallacies.

  1. The authorities decide which events are conspiracies – the Appeal to Authority fallacy
  2. Only the majority expert voice counts, the minority expert voice is to be derided and ignored – the Appeal to Common Belief fallacy
  3. Professionals do not make claims of conspiracy nor do they theorise – the Strawman fallacy
  4. Refuters use the more specific and appropriate term, “psychological operation” or psyop – the Definist fallacy
  5. Selecting the obviously invalid argument – the Cherry-picking fallacy
  6. OMG! You’re one of those tinfoil-hatted people! – Argument from Intimidation fallacy
  7. Your reasoning is based on bias, mine is rational – The Bias Blind Spot
  8. Is the fact of conspiracy the main concern? – no, it’s the Big Lie fallacy technique used for millennia to control our minds
  9. The sophisticated Big Lie – the addition of the False Dilemma fallacy
  10. If those in power had done it they would have … – Hypothesis contrary to fact
  11. That’s insane, that cannot be true – Argument from incredulity
  12. When the rule is that they must “tell” us the truth underneath the propaganda how is the rejection of the narrative in the realm of “theory”? – The Loaded Question fallacy

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About the post below

I like to write, and have even on occasion been paid for my written words. One time was by the Rocky Mountain News. I submitted a piece, it was accepted, and I was paid … the number that comes to mind is $600, but that seems a lot. Maybe more like $200. I don’t recall much about the piece (it will come to me later I suppose), but I do recall that when I read the published piece, the editor had inserted words I had not written.

He made it better, dammit. But I recalled then what my oldest daughter, trying to decide her future, had confided in me: that she could never be a journalist, because they are not allowed to think on the job (my words, hers were probably better). How did such a young person come upon such wisdom? I know what she said to be true, but at her age, not about me.

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