Jones & Smith on Global Warming

smith and jones huddle in a snow filled D.C. alley, conspiring on ways to get the concrete thinking vote.....i know, smith says to jones...let's continue to call climate change "global warming"...that way, the concrete thinkers who can only deal with the literal and the black and white of reality will decide a wicked snow storm disproves global warming instead of realizing it actually does prove climate change...shhh! jones says to smith, and don't mention the glaciers melting...we best be quiet...if they hear us thinking it may make them dizzy.

So, Thinking Makes You Dizzy?

Unfortunately, concrete, black and white, absolutist thinkers aren't really thinking. The synapses may be firing, but the connections aren't connecting. The small minded have always had problems with humor. To truly appreciate the multiple dimensions of comedy, it takes a mind that can handle the abstract without feeling that the sky is falling, contemplate the grey areas between polar absolutes without fearing the loss of equilibrium, and welcome the seemingly absurd as an opportunity to learn something new. To understand wit, one has to have wit, not be a half-wit.

The willfully ignorant don't understand satire or irony or sarcasm. These concepts are too demanding. Matter of fact, they can't even define satire or irony or sarcasm. But they'll belly laugh when a fellow ignoramus ridicules the intelligent, the complex, the unknown. They'll always giggle madly at a cruel insult towards that which they find difficult to understand. "Keep it simple, stupid" is their favorite mantra.

But that isn't us. No, we're brilliant. Sure we eat big macs, smoke cigarettes, toke meth, watch meaningless sports programs, never read anything but a fast food menu, and can't handle change, but we know we are the center of the universe and everyone else is just stupid.

Good for us. We're Americans after all! We don't need to think hard or read or do anything. Providence will protect us because we think we are the best, not only in the whole world, but in the whole universe! We're the real chosen people. Hooray for us!

Nah, we don't want a smart person running the country. Can't have that, you betcha! We need an oil rich boob, frat house bully and dry drunk failure who can talk macho and bankrupt the country or an anti-education boobette and irresponsible, opportunistic quitter who spouts empty cliches that make us feel good and superior.

That's what we like in a "leader," someone who appears as dumb as we are, but makes us feel happy, safe and secure in the status quo. It doesn't matter if they are rich and don't really understand the working person or if they are a political puppet who parrots the party line, we want someone who reinforces our ignorance dammit.

These cardboard heroes say what we want to hear and that makes us feel good without having to exercise our brains. After all, it makes us dizzy to think beyond a sound byte. We want our "leaders" to stick to their narrow minded positions even if new evidence proves them wrong. How can we believe in a "leader" who can change their mind? We don't even want to think about that.

We're too busy being overworked and underpaid to spend any time researching history or science. But we've accepted that and it has proven to be a good excuse. We can't learn from the lessons of the past to inform and equip our future. Nah, we prefer a nice slogan that seems to summon up what's in our empty minds. You betcha!

Artist Robert Rauschenberg Dead at 82

Robert Rauschenberg

October 22, 1925 - May 12, 2008

RIP

"The artist's job is to be a witness to his time in history."

Robert Rauschenberg - wiki

Neo-Dada - wiki

"Building on the legacies of Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Cornell and others, he helped obscure the lines between painting and sculpture, painting and photography, photography and printmaking, sculpture and photography, sculpture and dance, sculpture and technology, technology and performance art — not to mention between art and life.

Mr. Rauschenberg was also instrumental in pushing American art onward from Abstract Expressionism, the dominant movement when he emerged, during the early 1950s. He became a transformative link between artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and those who came next, artists identified with Pop, Conceptualism, Happenings, Process Art and other new kinds of art in which he played a signal role."

Robert Rauschenberg, American Artist, Dies at 82 - NY Times

Is Open Mindedness Dead?

I have had and have many friends and associates who are republicans and/or religious people. I am happy to be exposed to their alternate perspectives. I don’t enjoy true debate simply to experience the frenzied anticipation of the victory of my team. I do enjoy the authentic discussion of different points of view. For this, I have been continually rewarded with new insights from perspectives I have not formerly considered. Some insights advance my own beliefs; some help me sympathize with the other side.

Political pundits have nothing to say but the obvious. They parrot their side from cheat sheets drilled into their brains by their respective mad scientists. Third political parties are not allowed and their perspectives are ridiculed. There is little true discussion going on in these times of mass, mass communication.

Susan Jacoby’s op ed article in last Sunday’s Los Angeles Time addresses this situation - this blind point in history that we have come to, our new dark ages, where the open-minded are the oppressed.

TALKING TO OURSELVES

Americans are increasingly close-minded and unwilling to listen to opposing views.

As dumbness has been defined downward in American public life during the last two decades, one of the most important and frequently overlooked culprits is the public's increasing reluctance to give a fair hearing -- or any hearing at all -- to opposing points of view.

This spirit of inquiry, which demands firsthand evidence and does not trivialize opposing points of view, is essential to a society's intellectual and political health.

No one but a news junkie has the time or the inclination to spend the entire day consulting diverse news sources on the Web, and the temptation to seek out commentary that fits neatly into one's worldview -- whether that means the Huffington Post or the Drudge Report -- is hard to resist.

As long as we continue to avoid the hard work of scrutinizing public affairs without the filter of polemical shouting heads, we have no one to blame for the governing class and its policies but ourselves.

I yearn to live in a society that values fair-mindedness. But it will take nothing less than a revolutionary public recommitment to the pursuit of fairness, knowledge and memory to halt, much less reverse, the trend toward an ignorant single-mindedness that threatens the future of democracy itself.

Susan Jacoby is the author of "The Age of American Unreason," "Freethinkers," and "Half-Jew."

Talking to Ourselves - Los Angeles Times

Aldrich Responds to Marlowe

Mr. Marlowe and I agree that olives do not belong anywhere near martinis. We both prefer lemon peel or a slice. My wife enjoys olives and more than once, while dining with my wife, has my martini arrived, along with hers, with olives contrary to my order. This is always a horror show.

I cannot simply switch the olives to my wife’s drink and imbibe the erroneous martini, because I hate the stink of pickled olive juice! So every time I have to send it back with strict orders to not let an olive anywhere near my future cocktail. I warn you all, bartenders and waitresses alike, I can tell the difference!

Mr. Marlowe is not only like a brother to me. He’s like the dark side of myself unleashed. I’m an only child. I’d always wished I’d had an older brother, someone who could have learned the ropes first and interpreted them to me, like Edmund and Jamie in O’Neill’s LONG DAYS JOURNEY. Instead of an older brother, a dear cousin of mine was taken away by the temptations of adolescence, a buddy moved to a different school district, and an older brother type, another cousin, disappeared due to family troubles, never to be heard from again. He had protected me in my infancy. I have the pictures to prove it. Perhaps that’s why I turned to religion in my youth and fell victim to mythic meta-narratives?

Well, Marlowe is my Barney Fife. He’s also my Socrates. He’s my younger brother in emotions and my older brother in honesty. He spits out the venom and I guess I’m left to clean it up. Well, over the years, I’ve frequently cleaned up his vomit, but like those bits of chunks on the ground, there’s always a good bite to take away from what he says.

Forgiveness: What A Concept?

So, we're out in the high desert last spring and my wife takes me to the Integratron in Landers to check out the sound/energy thing. It turns out to be a relaxing experience, but after it's over I had to use the toilet. I'm standing in the men's room, relieving my bladder and I see this quote about forgiveness on a shelf.

Forgiveness:

Giving up

all hope

for a better past...

Now, it's not like I had a spiritual epiphany, but this simple statement made more sense to me than the entire New Testament. I would only change one word to better suit my not-so-unique sensibilities.

Forgiveness:

Giving up

all hope

for a PERFECT past...

Forgiveness - wiki

The Integratron Web Site

Favorite Dead Drunks: Dylan Thomas 54 Years Dead

Dylan Thomas

October 27, 1914 - November 9, 1953

RIP

AND DEATH SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through
the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

From Dylan Thomas: The Poems, published by J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London, 1971 Copyright © 1937, 1945, 1955, 1956, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1971, 1977 The Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas.

Dylan Thomas - wiki

The Life and Work of Dylan Thomas - undermilkwood

Absurd Alfred Jarry 1873-1907 RIP

Modernism was in transition. The end of the century was approaching. The Symbolist movement was all the rage. But French poet and playwright Alfred Jarry (September 8, 1871 - November 1, 1907) preferred the future. His experiments define the word "avant-garde." He is the grandfather of DADA, SURREALISM, and ABSURDISM. Like L. Ron Hubbard, he even invented his own religion, "pataphysics," but no one took that one too seriously. Like contemporary comedians Andrew "Dice" Clay and Stephen Colbert, Jarry adopted the mannerisms of one of his characters when in public. A man of small stature, but giant ideas, Jarry had his demons and fought them with the green goddess Absinthe. In manner similar to how young Hollywood sought out Charles Bukowski in San Pedro, young writers and artists visited their idol Jarry in Paris during his final years. Poverty and alcohol eventually led to his death from tuberculosis at 34.

Alfred Jarry - nndb

Alfred Jarry - wiki

Ubu Roi - wiki

Pataphysics - wiki

Symbolism - wiki

Modernism - wiki

Dada - wiki

Surrealism - wiki

Absurdism - wiki

Theatre of the Absurd - wiki

Avant-Garde - wiki

Absinthe - wiki

O.K. Corral - The MetaNarrative Lives On!

Metanarratives are altogether unavoidable. This is one of my favorite paradoxes. The legend preaches the Earps were the good guys and the Clantons were the bad guys. The reality is much greyer. They were both bands of opportunists trying to get rich. They had differences. The Earps were northern urban republicans (19th century somewhat progressive Republicans) and the cowboys were mostly southern rural democrats (pre-civil rights conservative Democrats). Doc Holiday was an enigma. In actuality, both groups had been acting in unison to pillage Arizona, but they had a political disagreement, followed by acts of treason against the criminal code. The Earps used their legal "duties" to stop the argument via the gunfight in the empty lot behind the O.K. Corral. But afterward the cowboys killed Morgan Earp and crippled Virgil. The Earps became the defeated and left Tombstone. Metanarratively, the ultimate victory must go to Wyatt Earp, because he used his civil authority as U.S. Marshall to track down most of his brother's assassins and kill them in the line of duty. That's what makes Wyatt Earp a legend. Right or wrong, in the popular imagination, he did something extraordinary and primal to mankind's soul.

The soul of revenge, or of power, or both?

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral - wiki

The Life and Trial of Wyatt Earp - The "O.K. Corral Trial"

Wyatt Earp - Famous Trials

Bat Masterson 1853-1921 RIP

On October 25, 1921, 67 year old William Barclay "Bat" Masterson, the former frontier lawman, limped to his desk at the New York Morning Telegraph. He'd had to use a cane since the 1876 gunfight in Sweetwater, Texas when he was shot in the pelvis by a man he had mortally wounded. Allegedly, the fight was about a woman. This morning, Bat sat his aging bones down on his chair and balanced the cane against his desk so it would be readily available, but not slide to the floor. The gunfighter turned sports journalist started to work on his next article. He wrote into his typewriter the following:

"There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in the winter things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I'll swear I can't see it that way."

Bat leaned over the machine and reread what he had written. Before he could relax back into his chair, he realized he needed to use the toilet. As he reached for his cane, suddenly all the air seemed to evacuate his lungs. His chest felt like he had received a double shotgun blast at point blank range. He couldn't gain his balance, even with the help of his cane. Then he collapsed.

Bat Masterson died at his desk of a heart attack. He'd beaten the odds. He didn't die trying to take some drunken cowboy's six gun away. He hadn't been scalped by Indians. He wasn't shot by a jealous husband. He died doing what he loved. He died writing.

Bat Masterson - imdb

Dodge City War - imdb

Bat Masterson - Find A Grave

October 24th in Time's History

1360 - The Treaty of Brétigny is ratified at Calais, marking the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years' War.

1648 - The Peace of Westphalia is signed, marking the end of the Thirty Years' War.

1861 - The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States is completed, spelling the end for the 18-month-old Pony Express.

1911 - Orville Wright remained in the air 9 minutes and 45 seconds in a glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina setting a new world record that stood for 10 years.

1917 - The day of the Russian revolution, The Red Revolution.

1926 - Harry Houdini's last performance, which was at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit, Michigan.

1929 - "Black Thursday" stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.

1931 - The George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic.

1945 - Founding of the United Nations

1947 - Walt Disney testifies to the House Un-American Activities Committee, naming Disney employees he believes to be communists.

1954 - Dwight D. Eisenhower pledges United States support to South Vietnam

1973 - Yom Kippur War ends.

1980 - Government of Poland legalises Solidarity trade union.

2002 - Police arrest spree killers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, ending the Beltway sniper attacks in the area around Washington, DC.

BORN:

1763 - Dorothea von Schlegel, German novelist (d. 1839)

1788 - Sarah Hale, American poet (d. 1879)

1901 - Gilda Gray, Polish-born American actress and dancer (d. 1959)

1903 - Melvin Purvis, American FBI agent (d. 1960)

1904 - Moss Hart, American dramatist (d. 1961)

1915 - Bob Kane, American cartoonist (d. 1998)

1915 - Roger Milliken, American millionaire

1930 - The Big Bopper, American singer (d. 1959)

1933 - Ronald and Reginald Kray, British gangsters (d. 1995; d. 2000)

1949 - Robert Pickton, Canadian charged with the first degree murders of twenty-six women.

1961 - Mary Bono, American politician

1972 - Scott Peterson, American murderer

DIED:

1537 - Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII of England (b. 1507/08)

1572 - Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of Derby, English politician (b. 1508)

1601 - Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer (b. 1546)

1655 - Pierre Gassendi, French philosopher and scientist (b. 1592)

1669 - William Prynne, English Puritan leader (b. 1600)

1852 - Daniel Webster, American lawyer and politician (b. 1782)

1935 - Dutch Schultz, American gangster (b. 1902)

1972 - Jackie Robinson, baseball player (b. 1919)

1991 - Gene Roddenberry, American television producer (b. 1921)

2005 - Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist (b. 1913)

2005 - Robert Sloman, writer (b. 1926)

Dr. Crippen - Another Death Penalty Mistake?

On this day in 1910, a jury convicted Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen (September 11, 1862 - November 23, 1910) of murdering his wife. A month later, he was hanged, still maintaining his innocence. Now, new DNA evidence casts doubt on his guilt. Was another innocent man executed by a blood thirsty justice system?

According to history, Michigan-born American Crippen brought his second wife Cora Turner (aka Belle Elmore) to London. She pursued a career as an opera singer and had numerous indiscrete affairs. One day Belle disappeared and Crippen the cuckold said she had returned to America and died. Afterwards, Crippen took up with a lover, Ethel le Neve, and moved her into his home. She wore the ex-wife's clothes and jewelry which caused suspicion. Eventually, the police investigated. Crippen and Ethel ran for it. They took a ship to Canada. Meanwhile, the police found a female corpse under Crippen's brick basement. Using wireless radio, the authorites contacted the ship captain and confirmed that Crippen and Ethel were on board. The police took a faster boat and met Crippen and Ethel when their ship landed in Quebec. (Crippen has gone down in history as the first fugitive criminal to be captured with the assistance of wireless radio communication.) Despite his pleas of innocence and his confession that Belle took off with a lover, Crippen was found guilty and hanged.

In October 2007, Michigan State University forensic scientists, using mitochondrial DNA studies, found that the body discovered under Crippen's basement was not his wife. Was an innocent man hanged by the government or did Crippen successfully dispose of Belle's corpse? Who was the woman under the bricks and did Crippen put her there? If Belle was not killed, what happened to her? Why did she let innocent Crippen be executed? Who owned the house prior to Crippen? Are the rumors that Crippen was an abortionist true? Could Crippen have been a serial killer and this corpse was the only victim found? Was Crippen innocent? All we now know for sure is that the woman under the bricks was not Belle and that Crippen's conviction and execution were wrong. Is this yet another death penalty travesty? This is yet another reason the death penalty is suspect. You can't reverse death, even if you made a boo-boo. There are no makeovers in real life. You can't fix it in post.

Hawley Harvey Crippen - wiki

Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen: Of Passion and Poison by Joseph Geringer - Crime Library

Dr. Crippen - Marconi Calling

Science Casts Doubt on Famous British Murder Case - Physorg

Crippen Mystery Remains Despite DNA Claim - BBC

Stephen Colbert is My God, Why Not My President?

"It's clear that the voters are desperate for
a white, male, middle-aged,
Jesus-trumpeting alternative."
--- Stephen Colbert as Stephen Colbert

Brilliant television satirist Stephen Colbert threw his hat in the ring, his junk in the trunk, and his balls in the fire, joining the ranks of mock Presidential candidates. I'm old enough to remember the sober antics of somber Pat Paulson on the SMOTHERS BROTHERS SHOW and still have some of those Mad Magazine "ALFRED E. NEUMAN FOR PRESIDENT" stamps in my storage compartment. I wouldn't mind if my wife buried them with me wrapped in plastic, unless I'm cremated. Then she can forget the plastic.

Stephen Colbert - wiki

Stephen Colbert (character) - wiki

Truthiness - wiki

The Colbert Report - wiki

Colbert Nation - ColbertNation.com

"Satirist Stephen Colbert runs for U.S. President" - wikinews

Pat Paulsen For President - official web site and archive

Pat Paulsen - wiki

Pat Paulsen - imdb

The Smothers Brothers - wiki

Antoinette Visits the Guillotine 1793

Her contemporaries Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Jefferson blamed Marie Antoinette for the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Some thought she was sweet and innocent. Others thought she was an indulgent, materialistic, narcissistic pig in the fashion of today's Paris Hilton.

But she was also a wife, a mother, and a Queen. However, the Revolutionary Tribunal needed her dead. They trumped up charges of treason and even forced her young son to accuse her of child abuse. After a two day trial, she went to the guillotine at the age of 38.

"If I make no reply, it is because I cannot,
I appeal to all mothers in this audience."
--- Marie Antoinette to the Tribunal

While stepping up to the guillotine, she stepped on the foot of her executioner Sanson. "Monsieur, I beg your pardon," she said, "I did not do it on purpose." He didn't seem to mind. After the blade did its job, he picked up her severed head and showed it to the crowd. Cheers!

Marie Antoinette - wiki

French Revolution - wiki

Reign of Terror - wiki

Marie Antoinette (2006 Kristen Dunst - Sofia Coppola film) - wiki

Marie Antoinette (1938 Norma Shearer - Irving Thalberg film) - wiki

Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser - wiki

Marie Antoinette Online - marie-antoinette.org

The Cellphone Bicyclist - Doing Her Thing For the Planet

Lenny Would Be 82 If He Had Lived

Happy 82nd Birthday!

Lenny Bruce

October 13, 1925 - August 3, 1966

RIP

"I really want the Supreme Court
to stand up and tell me that
fucking is dirty and no good."

"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago,
Catholic school children would be wearing
little electric chairs around their necks
instead of crosses."

Lenny Bruce - wiki

Lenny Bruce - imdb

Lenny Bruce - Ubqtous.com

The Complete Lenny Bruce

Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce

Redd Foxx's Las Vegas Grave

"You Gotta Wash Your Ass."
--- Redd Foxx

Redd Foxx

December 9, 1922 - October 11, 1991

RIP

Redd Foxx is buried with his mother, Mary Carson.

I'm not a big Vegas fan. I hadn't been in 17 years when I went last spring. I saw the new Vegas, the Disneyland that is now the Strip. My memory was of small casinos with huge sun-baked parking lots. Back in 1990, I came to Vegas for only the second time and attended a performance of Redd Foxx's nightclub act. Slappy White was on the stage with him. I knew I was seeing history. It was the first time I had heard him say, giving the audience sexual advice, "You gotta wash your ass."

Palm Memorial Park, Las Vegas - The cemetery is near the airport. They've plenty of room to grow. People have to die somewhere.

Poe Was A Mess, and Then He Died - 158 Years Ago Today

James Dean - 52 Years as a Legend

Kerouac's Lowell 1985 - French-Canadian New England Mill Town