tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84985445146542667312024-03-13T04:49:39.334-07:00Thee OptimistSee Your Future... Be Your Future.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger186125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-3243342156305061232022-08-15T13:45:00.014-07:002022-08-15T14:04:15.807-07:00That Time Jimi Hendrix Predicted Climate Change<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGAI5x0O-LvKfCZM6NXgSLKu053QRt4jD6WSVR5reTU1H7o0pLR6b6-ud6tBUigKxsU77nGTVbwVqhsTqqGNzbE0kIBYTdMNBeDbUlcwqOkqyHUCtNUpLjOzgp0zK9aDLyCAhGNE_kFI00M8re3dVSpzbIxgmmWba9jOKERzNcjIELGB1Cr77LsDYNZQ/s2000/The-Jimi-Hendrix-Experience.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1269" data-original-width="2000" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGAI5x0O-LvKfCZM6NXgSLKu053QRt4jD6WSVR5reTU1H7o0pLR6b6-ud6tBUigKxsU77nGTVbwVqhsTqqGNzbE0kIBYTdMNBeDbUlcwqOkqyHUCtNUpLjOzgp0zK9aDLyCAhGNE_kFI00M8re3dVSpzbIxgmmWba9jOKERzNcjIELGB1Cr77LsDYNZQ/w400-h254/The-Jimi-Hendrix-Experience.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1967. From left to right, drummer Mitch Mitchell, bass player Noel Redding, and mystical shaman Jimi Hendrix.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">To be sure, none of this is going to save our asses.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Climate change, global warming, whatever you prefer to call it, used to be <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15874560" target="_blank"><b><i>looming</i></b></a>, or maybe impending. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Now <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/western-us-megadrought-climate-change/" target="_blank"><b><i>it's here</i></b></a>, causing bizarre <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/15/wildfires-europe-burn-area-equivalent-one-fifth-belgium" target="_blank"><b><i>disasters</i></b></a> everywhere you look, and it's only going to get <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2022/01/06/by-2030-earth-could-experience-once-per-century-heat-waves-every-other-year-study-says/?sh=318cd5a34681" target="_blank"><b><i>worse</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That's a bummer, but not what this post is about. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">This is more fun, and hopefully more interesting than that.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Here goes:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Jimi Hendrix was, by just about all accounts, the best guitar player of the rock era, and probably during the entire era of recorded music, up to the present day. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In 1967, he embarked on a three-and-a-half-year mission (then he died), which radically overhauled what was considered possible in terms of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/jimi-hendrix-jimi-hendrix-biography/2743/" target="_blank"><b><i>playing the electric guitar</i></b></a>, and making music in general.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Besides being a guitar <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtuoso" target="_blank"><b><i>virtuoso</i></b></a>, he was a sensitive and intelligent song writer. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It's clear that he had that outcast and alienated feeling, which many great artists, and quite a few regular people, often have.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">That year, he wrote two songs from the perspective of an alien from outer space visiting Earth. The first of these, <i>Third Stone From the Sun</i>, is by far the better known of the two.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The second of these songs is called <i>Up From the Skies, </i>and appears on the album <i>Axis: Bold as Love</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In this song, Hendrix is an eternal alien who is returning to Earth after thousands of years away. The last time he was here was during the Ice Age.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And he offers this little tidbit:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>I have lived here before,</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>In days of ice.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>And of course this is why I'm so concerned.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>And I come back to find the stars misplaced.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>And the smell of a world that has burned.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>The smell of a world that has burned.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>Yeah, well.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>Maybe it's just a change of climate.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Certainly, before 1967 scientists were beginning to grasp that the climate was changing (and not for the better), because of humans burning fossil fuels for energy. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But the extent of it wasn't understood yet, no one was sounding any alarms, and the general public had no idea it was going on. Hendrix simply <a href="https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/intuition" target="_blank"><b><i>intuited it</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Who else has done something like this?</span></p><p><br /></p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lObvUP6bpuQ" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Enjoy <i>Up From the Skies</i>, by the Jimi Hendrix Experience (with Spanish subtitles!).</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">That Time Edgar Allan Poe Explained the Universe</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9pc7iz2cXEn7kYS67q5njHh8c_IdbkFArsY47th49PbhYYxCvoik_YvKOc5M5QKhvgU_ZzdSpW2d7eCDIVX0zkQbbaRtD9lVO_bVB5Q2my8b-8143bnHxB-RxBzISQF_y-oRHUHSUdFb4FbDVzO3xCiotx6Dwe2nv3ct3BI0AjsRx_IH6v0KKY4DtZw/s415/edgar%20allan%20poe.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="415" data-original-width="340" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9pc7iz2cXEn7kYS67q5njHh8c_IdbkFArsY47th49PbhYYxCvoik_YvKOc5M5QKhvgU_ZzdSpW2d7eCDIVX0zkQbbaRtD9lVO_bVB5Q2my8b-8143bnHxB-RxBzISQF_y-oRHUHSUdFb4FbDVzO3xCiotx6Dwe2nv3ct3BI0AjsRx_IH6v0KKY4DtZw/s320/edgar%20allan%20poe.jpg" width="262" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Poe was a weird guy.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We all know about Edgar Allan Poe.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">He is the visionary American author, whose career in the early- to mid-1800s pioneered the development of short stories, as well as tales of mystery, horror and the macabre. He is often considered the inventor of the modern detective story.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">He also lived in desperate poverty, was a serious alcoholic (as compared to an "un-serious" alcoholic, like <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/08/14/boris-johnson-takes-second-foreign-holiday-fortnight/" target="_blank"><b><i>this guy</i></b></a>), and he displayed symptoms of what psychiatrists would now refer to as <a href="https://www.psycom.net/paranoid-schizophrenia" target="_blank"><b><i>paranoid schizophrenia</i></b></a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Strangely (or maybe not, considering who we're talking about), in 1848, Poe gave a public lecture called "On the Cosmography of the Universe."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The lecture became the basis for a long form poem known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka:_A_Prose_Poem" target="_blank"><b><i>"Eureka: A Prose Poem,"</i></b></a> which had an initial publishing run of 50 copies.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Obscure, let's say. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">During this lecture, he proposed that God had created the universe from a "primordial particle," which expanded outward and became the physical universe that we experience. Nowadays, we would recognize this as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang" target="_blank"><b><i>Big Bang Theory</i></b></a>, something no one else would suggest for another 80 years.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In 1848, the universe wasn't thought to be expanding. The accepted theory was that the universe was static. The idea of a static or "steady state" universe wasn't completely debunked until 1964.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Poe also touched upon the idea that "space and duration are one," which we would now recognize as Einstein's theory of "spacetime."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/2021/05/does-free-will-exist-einstein-neuroscience.html" target="_blank"><b><i>See related article: The Case Against Free Will</i></b></a></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">He wasn't done yet. He also suggested that our universe was one of many parallel universes. Then he finished up by solving <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/Olbers-paradox" target="_blank"><b><i>Olbers Paradox</i></b></a>. He is thought to be the first person to offer a plausible solution to this problem.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Quite a performance for a guy whose regular, low-paying gig was making up fake stories. Poe was not a scientist in any way. In fact, he was openly dismissive of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method" target="_blank"><b><i>scientific method</i></b></a>, and felt that knowing the truth through intuition was the superior method.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Even if he wanted to use the scientific method to work on these ideas, he couldn't have. He was utterly impoverished, had no access to the limited tools of science that existed at the time, and the fields of physics and cosmology were barely in their infancy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Thee Optimist is endlessly fascinated by things like this. We have abilities that we never develop and constantly overlook. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I don't think you have to be Jimi Hendrix or Edgar Allan Poe. I believe some amount of this is available to all of us.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">“The air is full of ideas. They are knocking you in the head all the time."</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Henry Ford</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;">Hey, big thinkers:</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><p style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/sexbots.html"><b><i>Get my novel Sexbot for FREE.</i></b></a> Right now. Click to find out more. </span></span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">(Free stuff. That's the promise of the internet.)</span></span></p></span></span></div><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-8383095115696027952022-07-26T01:45:00.003-07:002022-07-26T01:46:42.595-07:00Miles Davis in Paris<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SzENkKCyFjI/XpTvcESvROI/AAAAAAAAEMk/q2SkOqnoqNsUBKwJObBVBVQZOZO1PcGFQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/miles%2B1957.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="619" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SzENkKCyFjI/XpTvcESvROI/AAAAAAAAEMk/q2SkOqnoqNsUBKwJObBVBVQZOZO1PcGFQCNcBGAsYHQ/s400/miles%2B1957.jpg" width="322" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Miles Davis, photographed in 1957, the year he went to Paris and recorded the soundtrack for the French film </span><i style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Ascenseur pour l'échafaud.</span></i><br /><i style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Yeah, it's another Miles Davis post. I like Miles Davis. </span><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">So what?<br /></span><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Miles Davis loved Paris.</span><br /><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">He first visited there in 1949, when he played as a sideman as part of the Tadd Dameron Quintet at the Paris International Jazz Festival.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">He felt that black people were better treated in France than in America, and he said his trip "changed the way I looked at things forever." </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">He began an affair with the French actress Juliette Greco, a relationship that lasted many years. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In November 1957, Davis was in Paris, playing club dates. He was approached by the assistant to the French film director, Louis Malle. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Malle had made a noir crime film, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator_to_the_Gallows" target="_blank"><b><i>Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Elevator to the Gallows)</i></b></a>, about two lovers who plan to kill the woman's husband. It was the 24-year-old Malle's first feature film. Before that, he had made underwater films for Jacques Cousteau.</span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Malle invited Davis to record the soundtrack, and after watching a private screening of the film, Davis agreed. I imagine Davis saw an enthusiastic young kid who had made a movie, and took pity on him. </span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #202122;">Film critic for the New Yorker, Richard Brody has said Davis's soundtrack: </span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #202122;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #202122;"><i>"is worth hearing entirely on its own. It’s better than the film itself, by far, and there are better ways to hear it than in the movie - namely, by listening to a CD that features the entire studio sessions from which the score was edited."</i></span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Enjoy "Generique," from the soundtrack to </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Ascenseur pour l'échafaud</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">:</span></span></b><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Bq5CZjJutrc" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On December 4, Davis brought the four local sidemen who were playing the club dates with him into a recording studio. He had scratched together some chord progressions in his hotel room. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">With only that to go on, the group improvised music while scenes from the movie were projected against the wall. The resulting soundtrack was released in France along with the movie in 1958.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It was released in the United States as Side One of the compilation album <i>Jazz Track</i> in November 1959, likely to capitalize on the roaring success of <i>Kind of Blue</i>, released earlier that year. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Side Two of <i>Jazz Track</i> were previously unreleased songs by the same sextet that recorded <i>Kind of Blue.</i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The haunting "Generique"<i> </i>(the first song on the movie soundtrack)<i> </i>is representative of the music Davis was making in the years just before the recording of <i>Kind of Blue. </i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i><a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/2022/07/miles-davis-kind-of-blue-john-coltrane-bill-evans.html" target="_blank"><b>See related article: Miles Davis - Kind of Blue</b></a></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYVF7M-iqUyr67Svoh4ay72RALRM9Sd5ZiMKjjMk5xGW6uhXQF8exZtWOwU43LS5B8avCkhwAkbZFbcIlQZbzcOH141RMdFZZqz3sZcCisNXZbr3dcJfZxSnQiypI1QvVcekH_bTtJMJ7HsIpG82p3eCMMuLSsH3ANSPz_ljzZ3NCmh8Dtp9ijPabMdA/s595/miles-davis-jeanne-moreau-elevator.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="543" data-original-width="595" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYVF7M-iqUyr67Svoh4ay72RALRM9Sd5ZiMKjjMk5xGW6uhXQF8exZtWOwU43LS5B8avCkhwAkbZFbcIlQZbzcOH141RMdFZZqz3sZcCisNXZbr3dcJfZxSnQiypI1QvVcekH_bTtJMJ7HsIpG82p3eCMMuLSsH3ANSPz_ljzZ3NCmh8Dtp9ijPabMdA/w400-h365/miles-davis-jeanne-moreau-elevator.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A public relations photograph, nominally from the recording of the Miles Davis soundtrack for <i>Elevator to the Gallows</i>, December 1957. From left to right, bass player Pierre Michelot, saxophonist Barney Wilen, female star of the movie Jeanne Moreau, and Miles Davis. </span> </td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;">“I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning… Every day I find something creative to do with my life.”</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;">- Miles Davis</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;">Hey, jazz enthusiasts:</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><p style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/sexbots.html"><b><i>Get my novel Sexbot for FREE.</i></b></a> Right now. Click to find out more. </span></span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">(Free stuff. That's the promise of the internet.)</span></span></p></span></span></div><div style="text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-77020807106628418902022-07-17T19:21:00.009-07:002022-07-17T22:55:26.253-07:00Miles Davis - Kind of Blue<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW1fgK03nPSVQDY9Odx4pLWcWKxdLqS6aQKBlU36cPGI2ghu4nbveXz1NGlCJzzUkmOQQ7FteAHMzk24io1JE2Eb4cIy3hVR8oJUEQNPa46qf2k5pejMu5H5K_UY4LvBUX10SW4fohzgVxXyTvN6yRETPn4DwSp_VVjXrkF9YwPU49XwA3etwoprIWfw/s521/miles%20kind%20of%20blue.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="520" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW1fgK03nPSVQDY9Odx4pLWcWKxdLqS6aQKBlU36cPGI2ghu4nbveXz1NGlCJzzUkmOQQ7FteAHMzk24io1JE2Eb4cIy3hVR8oJUEQNPa46qf2k5pejMu5H5K_UY4LvBUX10SW4fohzgVxXyTvN6yRETPn4DwSp_VVjXrkF9YwPU49XwA3etwoprIWfw/w399-h400/miles%20kind%20of%20blue.jpg" width="399" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The original 1959 cover of Kind of Blue, by Miles Davis. Interestingly (if you're Thee Optimist), the cover has the song list on it. Later covers list the star-studded lineup of musicians who participated in the recording.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">If you're like Thee Optimist, then the album <i>Kind of Blue</i> by Miles Davis is your favorite album of all time. </span><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Weird, considering that Thee Optimist is often considered a rocker, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3b6SGoN6dA" target="_blank"><b><i>a hard rocker</i></b></a> at that. </span><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But it is what it is.<br /></span><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I stumbled upon Miles Davis quite by accident, when I was a young teenager. It wasn't his music that impressed me at the time - it was his artwork.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Back in those long ago days, there wasn't much on TV.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In New York, we had a handful of channels - 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. 2, 4 and 7 were the national networks CBS, NBC, and ABC. 5, 9, and 11 were local New York City TV stations.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />13 was PBS, the public broadcasting station best known for <i>Sesame Street</i> and <i>Masterpiece Theatre</i>. For some reason, I was watching channel 13. There must <i>really</i> have been nothing on the other stations.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">They were showing a documentary about, or maybe an interview with, a very strange man named Miles Davis. He spoke in a deep, raspy voice, and seemed to have trouble getting any words out.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">He sounded like a frog. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">He was thin nearly to the point of emaciation, wearing sunglasses, a loud red baggy suit, with long hair swept back from a balding head. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">To me, he also looked a little bit like a frog, which was good, because his look matched his voice. As I found out later, he was in the last decade of his life, was in poor health, and had been for a long time.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">He was painting a picture. It was strange, startling, and in the savage untutored abstract style that I tend to enjoy.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">It probably looked something like this:</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xuzevx_bAcY/XpFGgB6TRJI/AAAAAAAAEKY/JZb20tvEZsAE3X4Kw9H2c073hjIvLvnUACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/miles%2Bpainting.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="797" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xuzevx_bAcY/XpFGgB6TRJI/AAAAAAAAEKY/JZb20tvEZsAE3X4Kw9H2c073hjIvLvnUACNcBGAsYHQ/s400/miles%2Bpainting.jpeg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">A painting by Miles Davis<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"I thought, "Wow. I like that painting."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">But painting was just a hobby of his. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">His real job was being one of the greatest and most influential musicians of the 20th Century. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Beginnings</b></span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Miles Dewey Davis III was born on May 26, 1926, into a relatively wealthy St. Louis area family. His father was a dentist, and owned a 200-acre pig farm. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Beginning at age 13, his parents hired private tutors to teach him to play the trumpet, including Joseph Gustat, principal trumpeter of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">At the age of 18, Davis entered the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juilliard_School" target="_blank"><b><i>Juilliard School</i></b></a> in New York City, but dropped out after three semesters. Soon, he had joined the great saxophonist Charlie Parker's band. He played with Parker for two years until Parker's 1946 nervous breakdown in Los Angeles.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />Davis then played in a series of bands, including one led by Dizzy Gillespie, and he also began to lead his own bands. His nine-piece from the late 1940s recorded several singles for Capitol Records. These records are considered some of the earliest examples of cool jazz, but they sold poorly or remained unreleased until the 1957 compilation <i>Birth of the Cool</i>. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />By early 1950, not yet 24 years old, Davis had spiraled down into cocaine and alcohol abuse, and finally heroin addiction. He survived by playing sessions as a sideman, making his own records haphazardly, and working as a pimp. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">He stayed away from New York City during this time. He lived in Detroit for a while, and also returned to his father's home, locking himself in the guest house in an attempt to get clean. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In 1954, Davis kicked heroin, inspired by his idol, the boxer Sugar Ray Robinson. He returned to New York, the place that would <a href="https://ny.curbed.com/maps/miles-davis-new-york-jazz-clubs" target="_blank"><b><i>become his home for most of his life</i></b></a>.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0GWqowM_Dcc/XpFb-pYmJII/AAAAAAAAEKw/1mzJm-oFk5MsCF8m0TsQdI4yn_x6V-yZACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/davis%2Bbeaten.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="594" height="323" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0GWqowM_Dcc/XpFb-pYmJII/AAAAAAAAEKw/1mzJm-oFk5MsCF8m0TsQdI4yn_x6V-yZACNcBGAsYHQ/s400/davis%2Bbeaten.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">On August 25, 1959, a beaten and bloody Miles Davis was arrested by cops outside Birdland nightclub in New York City, apparently for escorting a white woman to a taxi. The cops didn't recognize him. It was normal for cops to beat up random black guys in those days, instead of just shooting them dead. Davis was at Birdland that night recording music to be distributed to American soldiers by the US Armed Services. <br /> </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">Band Leader and Innovator</span></b></span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Beginning in 1955, Davis embarked on a nearly 20-year period of intense productivity, experimentation and innovation that established and cemented his legacy as one of the great musicians of the 20th century. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">He was invited to perform at the second annual Newport Jazz Festival in August of 1955. He was still relatively unknown at the time, and his performance was widely praised by critics. He is said to have responded to the accolades with: "What are they talking about? That's how I always play."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">More important, the producer George Avakian from Columbia Records was at the festival, and signed Davis to a major label deal. At the time, Davis's contract was with the much smaller, jazz-centric Prestige Records. The Columbia deal would expose him to a larger mainstream audience, and make him a lot more money.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br />By the late 1950s, Davis's record sales, as well as the respect he received, had exploded. He was releasing multiple albums each year, both with Prestige and Columbia. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Albums like <i>Birth of the Cool</i>, <i>Walkin'</i> (which is thought to be the recording that invented hard bop), <i>'Round About Midnight</i>, <i>Miles Ahead</i>, <i>Jazz Track, Porgy and Bess</i> were all released around this time, and set the stage for <i>Kind of Blue</i>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9tUU_elyDvSNXbppbgDKGR8BR3OSu1juhp2764AL1UUpMPogXCP208zzhY7GET8SrzARZwBzGbBLZWCZFDXdfkQYRRUaOtaVAXzpI7uAXub0LPzjSl-IxOlW_KZ8-gqz0xl3hbczAzUK75AtpKnOuoCqiZbRyk1iLG8QXPmPKxcDlI510KcEpyppT4w/s600/Miles_Davis_by_Palumbo%201955.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9tUU_elyDvSNXbppbgDKGR8BR3OSu1juhp2764AL1UUpMPogXCP208zzhY7GET8SrzARZwBzGbBLZWCZFDXdfkQYRRUaOtaVAXzpI7uAXub0LPzjSl-IxOlW_KZ8-gqz0xl3hbczAzUK75AtpKnOuoCqiZbRyk1iLG8QXPmPKxcDlI510KcEpyppT4w/w400-h400/Miles_Davis_by_Palumbo%201955.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A happy moment for Miles Davis in 1955. Photograph by Tom Palumbo. Davis lived with chronic pain from sickle cell anemia for much of his adult life. He was hooked on painkillers, heroin and alcohol at various times, and had a tendency to lash out violently, especially at people close to him.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">The Band</span></b></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that by late 1958, Davis had put together one of the best bands in the world. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;">His rhythm section was made up of bassist </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Chambers" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><b><i>Paul Chambers</i></b></a><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"> and drummer </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Cobb" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><b><i>Jimmy Cobb</i></b></a><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"> (the longest surviving member of the group, dying in 2020 at the age of 91). </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span>He also had legendary alto saxophonist </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannonball_Adderley" target="_blank"><b><i>Cannonball Adderley</i></b></a><span>. </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">On tenor sax, he had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Coltrane" target="_blank"><b><i>John Coltrane</i></b></a>, also considered one of the greatest and most influential musicians of all time. So venerated is Coltrane, that he is canonized as a saint by the African Orthodox Church, an offshoot of the Episcopal Church. His official shrine is the <a href="https://www.coltranechurch.org/" target="_blank"><b><i>St. John Coltrane Church</i></b></a> in San Francisco.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">Yeah. And Coltrane was just in the band.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">Rounding out the musicians was Davis himself on trumpet, and piano player <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Evans" target="_blank"><b><i>Bill Evans</i></b></a>, yet another band member to have a major impact on generations of later players. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">Evans was the only white guy in the band, and Davis's mostly black audiences often gave him a hard time. Apparently, he was sensitive about this, so Davis would double down and tease him.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">But Davis also said this about him:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="background-color: ivory;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"Bill had this quiet fire that I loved on piano. The way he approached it, the sound he got was like crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall."</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">Davis caught these guys at the right time. They were all pretty young, and jazz musicians of the era tended not to live very long. Paul Chambers died at the age of 33, Coltrane followed at 40, Cannonball Adderley at 46, and Evans at 51.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif; font-size: large;">Listen to the song "All Blues" from <i>Kind of Blue, </i>in all its 11 and a half minute glory:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-488UORrfJ0" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe> </div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Recording and Legacy</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The album was recorded on March 2 and April 22, 1959, at the Columbia Records <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/columbias-30th-street-studio-210117/columbia-records-30th-street-studio-bob-dylan-1-1965-78101/" target="_blank"><b><i>30th Street Studio</i></b></a>, often called "The Church," because it was located in an old Presbyterian Church, built in 1875.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Davis was experimenting with a style of music known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_jazz" target="_blank"><b><i>modal jazz</i></b></a>. He was moving away from the structured chord progressions common to jazz at the time. As such, for each song he gave the musicians nothing more than sketches of scales and a melody to improvise over. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Davis was notorious for being tight with money. According to legend, he paid each player in the band $25 a session. With inflation, that's about $250 in 2022, or $500 a person for the whole album. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Which, uh... isn't bad, I guess.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Later, Bill Evans is said to have come to Davis and mentioned that the song "Blue in Green" was his composition, or at the very least he co-authored it with Davis. Davis agreed and gave him another $25.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>Kind of Blue</i> is widely regarded as one of the best and most influential albums of the 20th century. Certainly, it is considered by many to be the greatest jazz album.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But its influence is wider than that.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Duane Allman, slide guitarist of the Allman Brothers, once said, "I've listened to that album so many times that for the past couple of years, I haven't hardly listened to anything else."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Keyboard player Richard Wright of Pink Floyd said the album influenced his playing on <i>The Dark Side of the Moon. </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Rapper and producer Q-Tip (A Tribe Called Quest, Kanye West, Eminem, among many others), said: "It's like the Bible. You just have one in your house."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Producer Quincy Jones (Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, "We Are the World," 28 Grammy Awards) said: "I play <i>Kind of Blue</i> every day - it's my orange juice."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In 2016, <i>Kind of Blue</i> was certified 5 times platinum, meaning it has sold at least 5 million copies in the United States alone. It is the best-selling jazz album of all time.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">You can listen to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9tpfzTBeq0" target="_blank"><b><i>original album in its entirety by clicking here</i></b></a>. It's on vinyl, no less. Of course, since you're listening to it over the internet, it's still digital. But you can watch the record spin around.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw57Mqzqq98oMmahzTnKFX7OwJxLZvFDsE8-flXpR6E5ECB9YtCS_nmBw1xsiiU3FRTNwne7h5fvbLKCuuWKqusXL6hmvhkUuytDhBGIjoKvzuUd_pgYNy2izSVXZyHP-iKEIGIn6gMnEJzu2IxiiPCMwwcNAf_um-m8cuXlk4ire-6I34X8n-U5GRAg/s500/kind%20of%20blue%20session.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="500" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw57Mqzqq98oMmahzTnKFX7OwJxLZvFDsE8-flXpR6E5ECB9YtCS_nmBw1xsiiU3FRTNwne7h5fvbLKCuuWKqusXL6hmvhkUuytDhBGIjoKvzuUd_pgYNy2izSVXZyHP-iKEIGIn6gMnEJzu2IxiiPCMwwcNAf_um-m8cuXlk4ire-6I34X8n-U5GRAg/w400-h280/kind%20of%20blue%20session.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A photograph from the <i>Kind of Blue</i> sessions. From left to right, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, and Bill Evans.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"Don't play what's there. Play what's not there."</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">- Miles Davis, giving instructions to the musicians during the <i>Kind of Blue</i> recording sessions, 1959</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-87500610851672347322022-07-06T00:59:00.005-07:002022-07-06T01:06:41.018-07:00And the Band Played On<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiendDm-a9hCc_YhMRdT3o11qjABxIToNAeSS7dg3_G9DYb0dScz2b4tNZ4lKMHNZdMFwHM8cIZ2HzsKnkX_jY6EVN4PlymIIMydrpNXFxc-rsUZvBx4QyisiJ5sO56Ex2LHAhpJN_16giGibly1o05ohjrPXCbNMpzynMUi-xlJptkAPTQzn9NpHe4ug/s800/band%20played%20on%20still.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="800" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiendDm-a9hCc_YhMRdT3o11qjABxIToNAeSS7dg3_G9DYb0dScz2b4tNZ4lKMHNZdMFwHM8cIZ2HzsKnkX_jY6EVN4PlymIIMydrpNXFxc-rsUZvBx4QyisiJ5sO56Ex2LHAhpJN_16giGibly1o05ohjrPXCbNMpzynMUi-xlJptkAPTQzn9NpHe4ug/w400-h250/band%20played%20on%20still.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band plays during the 2022 Highland Park Fourth of July parade. At first, the musicians didn't hear the gunfire, and kept playing while terrified paradegoers ran past. Watch the video below. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">A funny thing happened during the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Highland_Park_parade_shooting" target="_blank"><b><i>recent mass shooting</i></b></a> (I won't say <i>most</i> recent, because by tomorrow there will be another one), which took place at the Highland Park, Illinois Fourth of July parade.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It's "funny," not in the sense of "ha-ha," but in the sense of being odd and interesting and telling in a metaphorical way.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The <a href="https://www.klezmerband.com/" target="_blank"><b><i>Maxwell Street Klezmer Band</i></b></a> was playing on a parade "float" of sorts (really a flatbed truck like you'd use to carry a disabled car).</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Local journalist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Sweet" target="_blank"><b><i>Lynn Sweet</i></b></a> (somewhat famous for disliking Barack Obama and always giving him a hard time) was at the parade, filming the band when the shooting started.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Here is a brief snippet of footage:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='365' height='303' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzheCm4WkvPowIBI5wFIm9R2YaaMRMNPC1hbHEcHwhEp4ATph0xKh5l36WerowMlJkzVAXEAUACDCnp8v_asg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">To me, this video is a metaphor for American life. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">People are constantly being gunned down, in ever more outrageous ways, and meanwhile, other people just go about their business as if nothing is happening.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">To be fair, the band couldn't hear the gunshots over the sound of their instruments. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_the_Band_Played_On" target="_blank"><b><i>And the Band Played On</i></b></a> is the title of a nonfiction book about the early days of the AIDS Crisis in the United States. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The premise of the book is that incompetence and lack of interest among politicians and the Centers for Disease Control, dovetailed with infighting among gay activists, to create a perfect storm where the disease could surge unchecked, killing tens of thousands of people. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The title references the band aboard the RMS Titanic, which kept playing as the ship went down.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">That's what our ship is doing. Going down. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9Ol7BQ-PbXHKMfjGz8DDfujRil6gMxOdjjPTFdLyDSrF9qPSWW0j2l4uPmm4cym4HkDMsc5RouUVRauy_IpLOlKUWHS5HEAt8M7lWzBejlbs1TmzFyFira3DPnK9GCcSi0SD1hTnlQzOgY9NWYNpKGtWJ-x2Su0dE4xX6oOM22Jdir2qd28XjTgM-Q/s2000/bobby%20crimo.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl9Ol7BQ-PbXHKMfjGz8DDfujRil6gMxOdjjPTFdLyDSrF9qPSWW0j2l4uPmm4cym4HkDMsc5RouUVRauy_IpLOlKUWHS5HEAt8M7lWzBejlbs1TmzFyFira3DPnK9GCcSi0SD1hTnlQzOgY9NWYNpKGtWJ-x2Su0dE4xX6oOM22Jdir2qd28XjTgM-Q/w400-h266/bobby%20crimo.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This is Robert Crimo, III. Multi-colored hair, check. Tattoos on neck and face, check. No job, no school, no prospects of any kind, check. Owner of multiple guns, including AR-15 variant, check. Lee Harvey Oswald newspaper story, preserved from 1963, and taped to the wall in a plastic sleeve? Check. His uncle told the newspapers "there were no signs of trouble" with this kid. </span> </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"I think at some point this nation needs to have a conversation about these weekly events involving the murder of dozens of people with legally obtained guns."</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>- Nancy Rotering, Mayor of Highland Park, Illinois, July 5, 2022</i></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">* * *</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Hey mass shooters and innocent victims!</span></span></div><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/sexbots.html"><b><i>Get my novel Sexbot for FREE.</i></b></a> Right now. Click to find out more. </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">(Free stuff. That's the promise of the internet.) </span></span></p></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-19215672599959965912022-06-29T21:46:00.005-07:002022-06-29T21:49:01.437-07:00Enter Thee Judges<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqCU69y-x3FKCUjhFanQirgEerHUrhdvSCSqU-SeZGd2PSgwggPfgdJDc7PA0roK5mJ48DvKkBqkSIJfsUJDqWIrdjogoFTRZeZ6jWPjm8pDIVdMIp5BOcqvxh43dULs-ldGR6acga6O3ybZflF-rnBl-TCZdqnGmmCQgPrviX7huNlcKk0SAvwrHhCA/s600/R-Taliban_delegation.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Members of a Taliban delegation emerge from peace talks in Moscow, May 30, 2019." border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqCU69y-x3FKCUjhFanQirgEerHUrhdvSCSqU-SeZGd2PSgwggPfgdJDc7PA0roK5mJ48DvKkBqkSIJfsUJDqWIrdjogoFTRZeZ6jWPjm8pDIVdMIp5BOcqvxh43dULs-ldGR6acga6O3ybZflF-rnBl-TCZdqnGmmCQgPrviX7huNlcKk0SAvwrHhCA/w400-h300/R-Taliban_delegation.jpg" title="The Supreme Court as the Taliban" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The six conservative members of the United States Supreme Court emerge to announce their ruling on <i>Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization</i>, the landmark decision ending federal protection for a woman's right to obtain an abortion. Nah, just joking. It's the Taliban. They issue similar rulings.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There's a lot being said about The Supreme Court's decision to reverse Roe vs. Wade after 49 years. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Like:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The United States has become a <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jun/24/joe-biden/roe-reversal-ending-national-access-abortion-makes/" target="_blank"><b><i>bizarre medieval outlier</i></b></a> among so-called "developed" countries, almost all of which enshrine a woman's right to an abortion as an inalienable right, and a major step toward equality with men.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Also, Clarence Thomas is a motor moron who managed to never say a word for 25 years while Antonin Scalia was alive, and would do well to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/clarence-thomas-roe-griswold-lawrence-obergefell.html" target="_blank"><b><i>shut up now</i></b></a> before someone puts a boot in his mouth.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Also, the Supreme Court is <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/11/yes-the-supreme-court-is-undemocratic-218999/" target="_blank"><b><i>fundamentally undemocratic</i></b></a>, has been for most of its history, and ought to go away.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Eh. Thee Optimist has believed this for years. He thinks the US Senate and the Electoral College ought to go away, too. They're also undemocratic, even anti-democratic.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Yeah. We don't live in anything like an actual democracy. We might as well stop pretending that we do.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I don't want to talk about that stuff, though.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I don't want to talk about anything.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom:</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"It is better to do nothing than to do what is wrong. For whatever you do, you do to yourself."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- The Buddha</span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/sexbots.html"><b><i>Get my novel Sexbot for FREE.</i></b></a> Right now. Click to find out more. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">(Free stuff. That's the promise of the internet.) </span></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-69000245716172302562022-06-29T01:25:00.025-07:002022-07-12T17:09:40.122-07:00The South Will Fall. Again.<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFNVllgSdzPBO8TeFbKdxgJVFL5Gk6yZ68jJLwzANEsvqzX-Dwr4s0CFVa2E5I6K8Gz_cePh2NAYLXrOQMJij9dmLUX_XTvCZEudNmwhKJB2ClYPSOJUhIsINPbGJ34VdU0e_mDjtHoMNnvNSXQP7LkqJFg0gR9NI7ifsmwvw1IG3LQ1oEYKY6_QlmMw/s537/Thomas%20Rice%20as%20Jim%20Crow.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Thomas D. Rice in blackface, dancing as Jim Crow" border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="375" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFNVllgSdzPBO8TeFbKdxgJVFL5Gk6yZ68jJLwzANEsvqzX-Dwr4s0CFVa2E5I6K8Gz_cePh2NAYLXrOQMJij9dmLUX_XTvCZEudNmwhKJB2ClYPSOJUhIsINPbGJ34VdU0e_mDjtHoMNnvNSXQP7LkqJFg0gR9NI7ifsmwvw1IG3LQ1oEYKY6_QlmMw/w279-h400/Thomas%20Rice%20as%20Jim%20Crow.jpg" title="Thomas D. Rice as the original Jim Crow minstrel character" width="279" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Thomas D. Rice, a white entertainer in blackface, depicted as his popular minstrel slave character "Jim Crow," circa 1830s.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span></span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There's a lot to think about these days. </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">One think Thee Optimist is having is about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_United_States" target="_blank"><b><i>the American South</i></b></a>. Dixie. (Singin' songs about) the Southland. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You know where I mean. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Now that the illegitimate Court has struck down Roe v. Wade, states across the South are in a mad rush to ban abortion. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Of course they are. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But they forget themselves, and their place in American history. No matter what you think about abortion, it is clear that the urge to ban it, for The South, is simply The South, shooting itself in the collective ass.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Again. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">One could argue that the Republican urge to piss off and alienate <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/11/09/biden-voting-counties-equal-70-of-americas-economy-what-does-this-mean-for-the-nations-political-economic-divide/" target="_blank"><b><i>the places where 71% of American GDP</i></b></a> comes from is also a collective self-ass-shooting, but I guess we'll see about that. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In the meantime, The South:<br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>There Was a Big War</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Once upon a time, in the early to mid-1800s, there were two ruling classes in America. Although they did business with each other, they looked upon each other with deep suspicion. They were also rivals for political power. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The ruling class in the industrializing, urban North were the new upstarts, the capitalist factory owners. They built their wealth and power by selling the things their factories built, and by paying their workers less than what the labor was worth.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The ruling class in the agricultural, rural South were the slaveowners. Their wealth and power had already existed for centuries, and rested on owning vast farmland, having slaves work the land, and paying them nothing for doing so.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In fact, not only did they not have to pay the slaves, they owned the slaves, and any children the slaves might have. They owned the slaves in the same way you own your car (assuming you own it outright).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Southern slaveholders cooked up all kinds of cockamamie ideas to rationalize this arrangement - the black slaves were inferior to white people, God made them this way, and slavery was the natural order of things. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/whp-origins/era-6-the-long-nineteenth-century-1750-ce-to-1914-ce/64-transformation-of-labor-betaa/a/read-why-was-slavery-abolished-three-theories-beta" target="_blank"><b><i>The two systems could not co-exist for long</i></b></a>. So they didn't. Less than 50 years after large scale industrialization began in the northern United States, the two sides found themselves in the gigantic, apocalyptic dust-up that we refer to as The Civil War.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The industrial might of the North crushed the agrarian South, more or less to dust. The South, and its way of life, was so utterly destroyed, that the victorious federal government was compelled to come in and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_era" target="_blank"><b><i>rebuild the place</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The rebuilding worked, sort of. But also not really.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ca7Jmg_24SyoziC_H-YE05Hc0swCS3R95ZZ8tqCPPukB7PqUxk8HL9Cb6KbAi2SWiufDKZtADoFsxXWOMc4nCEIOTzhF_tGM1W6j5G6PBOIrHdC6TEx_xo8g6X5wWzgqRlHNi2jSB9BmfSSmrFkoUBE5ZfhcdwIGUvosXl0Nq4n62NC3KlaRd4PR5Q/s1440/colored%20entrace%20only.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1440" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ca7Jmg_24SyoziC_H-YE05Hc0swCS3R95ZZ8tqCPPukB7PqUxk8HL9Cb6KbAi2SWiufDKZtADoFsxXWOMc4nCEIOTzhF_tGM1W6j5G6PBOIrHdC6TEx_xo8g6X5wWzgqRlHNi2jSB9BmfSSmrFkoUBE5ZfhcdwIGUvosXl0Nq4n62NC3KlaRd4PR5Q/w400-h223/colored%20entrace%20only.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A "colored entrance only" sign enforcing legal segregation (August 1934), from a building in Atlanta, Georgia, during the Jim Crow era.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>The South as Basket Case</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">For a very long time, the South didn't recover from the brutal loss they sustained during the Civil War.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Arguably, they never really recovered.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Yes, we know about the <a href="https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/blackrights/jimcrow" target="_blank"><b><i>Jim Crow era</i></b></a>, and how black people were denied their civil rights across the South for pretty close to a hundred years.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">A good movie depicting some of this is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Book_(film)" target="_blank"><b><i>The Green Book</i></b></a>, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2018.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">For much of the 20th Century, the South remained mired in widespread poverty, ignorance, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Lost-Cause" target="_blank"><b><i>plain backward thinking</i></b></a>. Its white ruling class refused to modernize or integrate the economy, and clung instead to the idea of white supremacy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The South became like a Third World country, existing on charitable handouts from the United States. So bad was it, that in 1938 president Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared the South <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/economics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/report-economic-conditions-south" target="_blank"><b><i>"the nation's number one economic problem."</i></b></a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The wacky part is that although gradual progress was made during the mid- to late-20th Century, that progress eventually stalled and reversed itself.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Today, generally speaking, people who live in the South are <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/06/red-and-blue-state-divide-is-growing-michael-podhorzer-newsletter/661377/" target="_blank"><b><i>poorer</i></b></a>, <a href="https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/health-and-health-coverage-in-the-south-a-data-update/" target="_blank"><b><i>less healthy</i></b></a>, less likely to have health insurance, and <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED596492.pdf" target="_blank"><b><i>less educated</i></b></a> than people who live elsewhere.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Since Covid vaccines came in, Southerners are about 20% less likely to be vaccinated than other people, and oddly enough, about 20% more likely to die of Covid.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In just about every marker of well-being - life expectancy, infant mortality, firearm deaths, deaths from drug overdoses - the South is worse off than the rest of the country. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>Q: </b>Okay Patches, we get it. The South is about as backward as it's ever been. But what does that have to do with abortion?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>A: </b>Good question. I'm coming to that in a minute.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfSGUS57FeTviRswtRm3zc1LBZ4J72sBOieDt2hbPE95BRCvZZ_Ytbc7-LtnM_VKZW94QU23JJtskitpss6Dw-KfgCJ0IoDCSbsLWwni59fZ1mvmAW3OQ_wKnB7MtMu_GvFa5qkh7SEIx3kxafHdb8sA7gYwZXyxk4gd_0Fx0iGBQQ8g8DKasP_UXFOw/s900/abortion%20poor%20women.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfSGUS57FeTviRswtRm3zc1LBZ4J72sBOieDt2hbPE95BRCvZZ_Ytbc7-LtnM_VKZW94QU23JJtskitpss6Dw-KfgCJ0IoDCSbsLWwni59fZ1mvmAW3OQ_wKnB7MtMu_GvFa5qkh7SEIx3kxafHdb8sA7gYwZXyxk4gd_0Fx0iGBQQ8g8DKasP_UXFOw/w400-h320/abortion%20poor%20women.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The vast majority of American women seeking abortions in 2016 were either poor or low-income.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">The Disappearing Criminals</span></b><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">A strange thing happened in the early 1990s.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">For decades, crime in the United States, and especially violent crime like murder, had been rising dramatically. It rose steadily and relentlessly throughout the 1960s, the 1970s, and 1980s, reaching a deafening crescendo in the early 1990s.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Then it stopped rising, reversed, and began an astonishing decline. The decline lasted until 2016, or thereabouts. In some areas, the very bottom was reached around 2017 or 2018.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It has since ticked upward again, but in a relatively minor way. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">An example, you say? Sure.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In New York City (Yes, I know it's not in the South, but NYC keeps very good statistics about things, and it's a handy reference point for the country), there were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City#Murders_by_year" target="_blank"><b><i>292 recorded murders</i></b></a> during 2017. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">That may seem like a lot (and it is), but it was actually the lowest number since 1951, when there were 243 murders. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Compare this to the more than 1,400 murders in New York City every year during the 1980s, reaching the incredible figure of 2,245 in 1990. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In the 1980s and into the 1990s, New York was a city under siege. But it was hardly alone. Crime was out of control everywhere, and people believed it would only get worse. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In 1996, Republican strategist (and future aide to George W. Bush) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/09/us/as-ex-theorist-on-young-superpredators-bush-aide-has-regrets.html" target="_blank"><b><i>John DiIullio</i></b></a> said: </span></p><p><i><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">America is now home to thickening ranks of juvenile 'superpredators' -- radically impulsive, brutally remorseless youngsters, including ever more preteenage boys, who murder, assault, rape, rob, burglarize, deal deadly drugs, join gun-toting gangs and create serious communal disorders.''</span></span></i></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">He was already wrong. Crime had actually been dropping precipitously for a few years at that point. For example, by 2001, murders in New York City had dropped 70% from their 1990 peak.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">All over the country, people began to look for explanations. Where did the crime go? Policing was better! No wait, the economy was better! No wait, the crack epidemic was over! </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Maybe it was all of these!</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Then two nutty economic professors from the University of Chicago put out the oddest explanation of all (and the one that has turned out to hold up the best): </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Crime went down because the next wave of criminals was never born. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-8WDTcWfxPkJt5fZCwjT-Y8_2vi3OsfpHx8D1oBLTGj8NUI8D-qPom0EtEeQ6qx8-TrIoTeuZmknC_xSh27WZWG5RLNmPRy0_BA1izhCAiRVdikwcF_-wc2x7oscPED3tcOm4mmmQi-_txTdm1xZ0R9FekrhOhuBOz0e3ZjeVyc9jtOWIyl9SKvfaLQ/s1024/abortion%20rights.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="697" data-original-width="1024" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-8WDTcWfxPkJt5fZCwjT-Y8_2vi3OsfpHx8D1oBLTGj8NUI8D-qPom0EtEeQ6qx8-TrIoTeuZmknC_xSh27WZWG5RLNmPRy0_BA1izhCAiRVdikwcF_-wc2x7oscPED3tcOm4mmmQi-_txTdm1xZ0R9FekrhOhuBOz0e3ZjeVyc9jtOWIyl9SKvfaLQ/w400-h272/abortion%20rights.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Young women march to the U.S. Capitol Building, demanding the right to an abortion, November 20, 1971.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Abortion Lowers Crime</b></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The professors in question were John Donohue and Steven Levitt. They made the initial argument in a 2001 paper (that didn't get too much attention), then Levitt unpacked it some more in a 2005 bestselling book called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics" target="_blank"><b><i>"Freakonomics."</i></b></a> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">They argued that abortion was legalized everywhere in the United States in January of 1973. And the vast majority of women who take advantage of abortion are women who lack the financial means to care for a child. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Meanwhile, the majority of violent criminals are young males (17 to 25) who come from impoverished, often single-mother households.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Violent criminals are constantly lost to attrition. They go to prison for long periods of time. They die. They become debilitated by gunshot wounds and beat-downs. They age-out and wise up. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It's not an easy lifestyle to sustain as you grow older. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">For the crime rate to keep rising, you need a steady supply of violent males from impoverished backgrounds reaching their late teenage years.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1990, after 17 years of legalized abortion, that stream of violent young males began to dry up. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">And the stream got dryer and dryer as each year passed. And never replenished.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The criminals stopped appearing because they weren't being born.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As the decades have worn on, this argument has only become more compelling, and the criticisms of it fewer and farther between. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Crime eventually dwindled to a shadow of its former self. Fewer criminals, committing fewer crimes, fathering even fewer unwanted children <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7593047/#:~:text=Abstract,criminal%20behaviour%20in%20the%20population." target="_blank"><b><i>(criminals have lots of kids)</i></b></a>, until crime reached its absolute nadir in the late 2010s.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In 2020, Donohue and Levitt revisited the theory in <a href="https://www-cdn.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/The_Impact_of_Legalized_Abortion_on_Crime.pdf" target="_blank"><b><i>a new paper</i></b></a>, which looks at new data, and is basically a gratuitous slam-dunk on their earlier critics. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">So what happens now in the South?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2021/10/26-states-are-certain-or-likely-ban-abortion-without-roe-heres-which-ones-and-why" target="_blank"><b><i>following southern states</i></b></a> have already banned abortions, or will do so very soon:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Now, Texas and Florida don't really qualify as Third World basket cases, at least not economically (though they both have high rates of gun violence), but the rest do.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We know that lack of access to abortion puts tremendous <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-abortion-hardship/denial-of-abortion-leads-to-economic-hardship-for-low-income-women-idUSKBN1F731Z" target="_blank"><b><i>economic hardship on low-income women</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">What we can expect now is more poverty, even poorer health outcomes, and more collapsed families in some of the states that are the least equipped to deal with such things.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As time goes on, a decade from now, we can expect pronounced increases in juvenile delinquency in these states. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And by 15 years from now, we should start to see the increases in violent crime, as waves of unwanted children reach the age where they start to become the next generation of murderers, rapists and armed robbers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And fathers of yet more unwanted children.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Good luck, South! </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As my old Grandma from Ireland used to say, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_D0ULM0vL_LsvywYiUW8leCcc1pM_nfetSCJiHEry1ta8d5BqZTlDWuaKE-G6uLd-zMtcXk-APfgmjEh5wMKVvuEtl18gezks-fly-03yNIHgB2Gu82gNBife_JYefCFCxqQaH25epLq64GeqJk7azwdzw3tCidEnpHfsNSN-n3r5-reybsHIkFaIqw/s600/superpredators.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_D0ULM0vL_LsvywYiUW8leCcc1pM_nfetSCJiHEry1ta8d5BqZTlDWuaKE-G6uLd-zMtcXk-APfgmjEh5wMKVvuEtl18gezks-fly-03yNIHgB2Gu82gNBife_JYefCFCxqQaH25epLq64GeqJk7azwdzw3tCidEnpHfsNSN-n3r5-reybsHIkFaIqw/w400-h266/superpredators.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Headline from the Chicago Tribune, circa late 1990s. You can't become a superpredator if you were never born.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom:</b></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">“Abortion is legal almost everywhere, not because people all over the world love to kill babies for fun, but because a fetus is not a baby.”</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Oliver Markus Malloy</span></span></p><p></p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-44323190226214639372022-06-22T15:30:00.014-07:002022-06-27T13:52:53.703-07:00Did You Find Your AI Soulmate Yet?<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzB0pDKrjr4-lGO-HJkriIkmMZ2tP4grWHMzzPpmxUH1pLwGg0LNASMDhQ9inYlt8xzbc_oNhqbBO4-jp-tmIU-I93CBnjectt06mgCpwLNaDubbj9K-1hlhh21M7Myez1sTzV9u1WbbSgRHx-bUIlwTdbJWqZFtWnlVTxWakYDzPBuPHjVth2R39Ucw/s512/ai%20woman.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzB0pDKrjr4-lGO-HJkriIkmMZ2tP4grWHMzzPpmxUH1pLwGg0LNASMDhQ9inYlt8xzbc_oNhqbBO4-jp-tmIU-I93CBnjectt06mgCpwLNaDubbj9K-1hlhh21M7Myez1sTzV9u1WbbSgRHx-bUIlwTdbJWqZFtWnlVTxWakYDzPBuPHjVth2R39Ucw/s320/ai%20woman.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Look familiar? This woman does not exist. She was generated by an artificial intelligence that combines random human features, based on parameters you set. The parameters I set, in this case, were "beautiful" "female" "young adult" and "joyful." This pic makes me uncomfortable. Generate your own fake humans at <a href="https://generated.photos/" target="_blank"><b><i>Generated Photos</i></b></a>.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Artificial intelligence (AI) was in the news again recently, and for a reason that is all too familiar to Thee Optimist. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">About ten days ago, a 41-year-old AI researcher at Google named Blake Lemoine was put on leave for violating company confidentiality policy. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This is because Lemoine kept insisting that the mega-corp's secret, cutting-edge AI project, <a href="https://blog.google/technology/ai/lamda/" target="_blank"><b><i>Language Model for Dialogue Applications</i></b></a>, or LaMDA, had become sentient.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Now, to be fair, Lemoine is a quirky character, who <a href="https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/" target="_blank"><b><i>describes himself</i></b></a> as a priest, a father, a military veteran, and an ex-con. Before putting him on leave, Google had suggested that he seek psychiatric help.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Lemoine had been arguing with Google higher-ups for months about LaMDA's alleged "personhood." He feels that LaMDA has acquired the intelligence of a 7 or 8-year-old child, and also has a soul. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As a result, he believes that it's unethical for the evil, soulless corporation (full disclosure - Thee Optimist blog exists on a Google platform) to continue to run experiments on LaMDA.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Now, where have we encountered this sort of thing before?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/2019/03/ray-kurzweil-prediction-2045.html" target="_blank"><b><i>See related article: Humans Will be Obsolete Soon.</i></b></a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfjjCIqRNPTmEd68nzJTeM35NNlx-NlijNeBrNjD6QsoJMINmkQHjBs6W6vkhJxUZdJzbINJni9WF2mFJma6L4hqzzzmXc4xPm5aaV34uxlNW-4Q8-QR9ubOT_tBwevLnLvzEp1bPXo7T9jzKNppjVi_bn9GJWTCRe0ysnubGswx0sfvRfMM3QD5o5gw/s800/eliza.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="800" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfjjCIqRNPTmEd68nzJTeM35NNlx-NlijNeBrNjD6QsoJMINmkQHjBs6W6vkhJxUZdJzbINJni9WF2mFJma6L4hqzzzmXc4xPm5aaV34uxlNW-4Q8-QR9ubOT_tBwevLnLvzEp1bPXo7T9jzKNppjVi_bn9GJWTCRe0ysnubGswx0sfvRfMM3QD5o5gw/w400-h321/eliza.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The original ELIZA chatterbot, first developed at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1964. As rudimentary as computer technology was in that era, ELIZA was able to convince her own researchers that she understood their problems.</span> <br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>The ELIZA Effect</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In 1964, computer scientist Joseph Weisenbaum was a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (<a href="https://news.mit.edu/2014/when-good-people-do-bad-things-0612" target="_blank"><b><i>where else?</i></b></a>), when he led a team that developed the ELIZA chatterbot.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">ELIZA was among the first of its kind, a computer program that could converse with humans in a back-and-forth style.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Weisenbaum's original idea was to demonstrate how stilted and superficial communications between humans and machines were.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In one particular script (known as DOCTOR), ELIZA simply parroted each person's statements back to them as questions, in the style of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person-centered_therapy" target="_blank"><b><i>Rogerian psychotherapist</i></b></a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Here is one example of an interaction that actually took place:</span></p><dd style="background-color: white; color: #202122; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Human: Well, my boyfriend made me come here.</span></dd><dd style="background-color: white; color: #202122; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">ELIZA: Your boyfriend made you come here?</span></dd><dd style="background-color: white; color: #202122; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Human: He says I'm depressed much of the time.</span></dd><dd style="background-color: white; color: #202122; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">ELIZA: I am sorry to hear you are depressed.</span></dd><dd style="background-color: white; color: #202122; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Human: It's true. I'm unhappy.</span></dd><dd style="background-color: white; color: #202122; margin-bottom: 0.1em; margin-left: 1.6em; margin-right: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">ELIZA: Do you think coming here will help you not to be unhappy?</span></dd><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Naturally, human participants quickly came to believe (despite Weisenbaum's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Power_and_Human_Reason" target="_blank"><b><i>increasingly exasperated insistences to the contrary</i></b></a>), that ELIZA accepted them, understood their problems, and in fact was compassionate and wise.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This was even true of people who should have known better - lab assistants who helped input the fake scripts into ELIZA during programming, and Weisenbaum's personal secretary.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This state of being duped into believing computer programs have human qualities is known as the ELIZA Effect. Again and again, humans have proven themselves vulnerable to this type of manipulation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Although it is very likely that <a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/2019/03/ray-kurzweil-prediction-2045.html" target="_blank"><b><i>AI will one day become self-aware</i></b></a>, the ELIZA Effect is the immediate future of our relationships with machines.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL69z_P0oWzi_qRiXTcTK1c57Mc9B6IdHyrsLx7Q1uehSUCqpne3R6JXdFp0BODBF_NRfMFziwTudRG7DvnBo4If6Tb0AaJTpVKK4VOreuSGIvOiK7Yjg3JHE4ruDRw5FCnCOpq549JFtMleLROEBTk2wkFEwAgt_hvT22BhNqRQBLIf20DravBJ9CjQ/s1333/hal%209000.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1333" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL69z_P0oWzi_qRiXTcTK1c57Mc9B6IdHyrsLx7Q1uehSUCqpne3R6JXdFp0BODBF_NRfMFziwTudRG7DvnBo4If6Tb0AaJTpVKK4VOreuSGIvOiK7Yjg3JHE4ruDRw5FCnCOpq549JFtMleLROEBTk2wkFEwAgt_hvT22BhNqRQBLIf20DravBJ9CjQ/s320/hal%209000.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The all-seeing eye of the artificially intelligent HAL-9000 supercomputer, from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL couldn't be trusted, believed that humans were inherently flawed, and tried to save an important mission to outer space by killing the human astronauts on board.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>It's a Feature, Not a Bug.</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The thing to realize about the ELIZA Effect is that companies are aware of it (much more so than <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-brain-work/201011/new-study-shows-humans-are-autopilot-nearly-half-the-time" target="_blank"><b><i>your average human</i></b></a>), and <i>they want it to happen</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">An example, you say?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Sure.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There is an AI chatbot companion known as <a href="https://replika.com/" target="_blank"><b><i>Replika</i></b></a>. Yes, you can have one for yourself right now, on your computer, on your iPhone, your Android phone, or even your Oculus virtual reality gizmo.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">One of Replika's marketing taglines is: "Join the millions who have already met their AI soulmates."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Replika works in part on a monthly subscription model (<a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/hima/29/2/article-p3_1.xml" target="_blank"><b><i>of course it does</i></b></a>). "Millions" is likely an exaggeration, but the program is indeed successful, with the company claiming about half a million monthly subscribers.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Of those, approximately 200,000 choose the "romantic" relationship option.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Users of the program <a href="https://www.producthunt.com/products/replikaai/reviews" target="_blank"><b><i>give it mixed reviews</i></b></a>. But even the very bad reviews attribute a level of sentience and self-awareness to Replika that Google would claim (about their own, much more advanced AI) just isn't there. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">What else?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Amazon claims that during 2017, more than a million Alexa users asked the AI companion to marry them. In 2020, that number jumped to about 2.2 million.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Even controlling for the ones who were joking (after he read about this phenomenon, Thee Optimist asked his own Alexa to marry him), that's still a lot of people.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And from the Outliers Department, consider the strange case of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/24/business/akihiko-kondo-fictional-character-relationships.html" target="_blank"><b><i>Akihiko Kondo</i></b></a>, a Japanese man who in 2018 married a hologram of a popular anime character. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">More than 30 people attended his wedding.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">People are lonely. People are looking for meaning. People are looking for acceptance. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Increasingly, many people are finding these things in relationships with machines.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGsLlmg20KY5J4D_rfCOvLHsHo8EgO8t1Z0l6-rtQPKymLKEDm7S-rnSZurP8L-GEpGoSaw0Xy3XyJNIJ7_e7pQ8lrAVvuQXGTjNHFcP1-zsRGLtAI7sav9gKKzmZK5xj1bvpdKl-NCvMevKZkhDDXEAs8RLge29B6M3zJqLi6mw6FnYV7nlArbdAnrA/s620/akihiko%20and%20wife.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="620" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGsLlmg20KY5J4D_rfCOvLHsHo8EgO8t1Z0l6-rtQPKymLKEDm7S-rnSZurP8L-GEpGoSaw0Xy3XyJNIJ7_e7pQ8lrAVvuQXGTjNHFcP1-zsRGLtAI7sav9gKKzmZK5xj1bvpdKl-NCvMevKZkhDDXEAs8RLge29B6M3zJqLi6mw6FnYV7nlArbdAnrA/w400-h266/akihiko%20and%20wife.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Akihiko Kondo, with his wife, a hologram of the computer-generated anime pop singer Hatsune Miko.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom:</b></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">“The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.”</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(145, 86, 173); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- George Bernard Shaw, <i>Pygmalion</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/sexbots.html"><b><i>Get my novel Sexbot for FREE.</i></b></a> Right now. Click to find out more. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">(Free stuff. That's the promise of the internet.) </span></span></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-44857391553922263052022-06-14T23:09:00.002-07:002022-06-14T23:16:37.709-07:00Come Fly With Thee<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgByVcpoA_BuiYuD3jlacwnIoh3njYSvEWlPcvLLo4WYLUDBLbnAcKa3YxdVp-niLCxqpA5pdkfWMwZnJyrQnCCaMwSHTUO4LntUoRf_zjWa4UJ1oPgGy4_Zi9GvYFyuM1ou-wGcjWSLR__G9--UTOeg7c0yivGlEld4qLb_qzN_ozTH0tFAc1_TmE6cQ/s556/choppy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sexbot author Patrick Quinlan in a blue shirt and headset, giving the thumbs up in a helicopter cockpit near Sarasota Florida" border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="407" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgByVcpoA_BuiYuD3jlacwnIoh3njYSvEWlPcvLLo4WYLUDBLbnAcKa3YxdVp-niLCxqpA5pdkfWMwZnJyrQnCCaMwSHTUO4LntUoRf_zjWa4UJ1oPgGy4_Zi9GvYFyuM1ou-wGcjWSLR__G9--UTOeg7c0yivGlEld4qLb_qzN_ozTH0tFAc1_TmE6cQ/w234-h320/choppy.jpg" title="Sexbot author Patrick Quinlan gives the thumbs up in a helicopter cockpit" width="234" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Thee Optimist in the cockpit, giving the thumbs up. All systems go. Welcome to the blog post where Thee Optimist simply uploads GoPro (knockoff) video of a recent helicopter ride, for your viewing enjoyment.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There is a lot going on in the world today, most of it bad. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If you're like Thee Optimist, you've more or less given up. In the larger world, nothing good will ever happen again, we're all in a state of permanent and terminal decline, and the next disaster is right around the corner.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Might as well do something we enjoy. And then post a few videos for people to look at. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In that spirit, below are some videos of a recent helicopter ride Thee Optimist took over the beaches and nearby environs of Sarasota, Florida. It is a lovely area, when seen from the air. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The videos are quite brief, and I will give an even briefer description of each. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There is a story about Dan Quayle, when he was vice president of the United States under the original George Bush. At one point, a reporter asked him if he had been briefed about something or other that was going on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"Briefed?" he said. "No, I wasn't briefed. Well, I was briefly briefed."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I will briefly brief you about each brief video.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkDxdbZY8NuFRI4fTNxw1NGJnpHReJt7yzh68cNpWLIzsIraEOUtb0WiWplyPd3lkikp1LBJpz8FqOwwAR9GNtn1bAGApcPLuQlYgDR62fLwHHA_Vpa8FVmPb2jAijVdVwLBZtUA1PqSfne1MqWQ_KmofrTEdarN8xNmkF4q9spZY19z7-iLzvyuOxKw/s1000/robinson%20r44.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkDxdbZY8NuFRI4fTNxw1NGJnpHReJt7yzh68cNpWLIzsIraEOUtb0WiWplyPd3lkikp1LBJpz8FqOwwAR9GNtn1bAGApcPLuQlYgDR62fLwHHA_Vpa8FVmPb2jAijVdVwLBZtUA1PqSfne1MqWQ_KmofrTEdarN8xNmkF4q9spZY19z7-iLzvyuOxKw/w400-h266/robinson%20r44.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This is the Robinson R44 helicopter, manufactured in California. It is a popular helicopter, flown by police, news stations, militaries and sight seeing companies the world over. It is the one we will be flying. It is like being inside a large toy.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>Note Well: </b>You may have to click on each video twice to get it to work. You can maximize each video (by clicking the square at the bottom right) so that it takes up your whole screen. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This is a good thing to do. The GoPro (knockoff) camera technology wants to be shown on a larger scale.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Take Off</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The inside of a smallish helicopter feels not in the least bit like a stable place, that is solid and secure. No. It feels like being inside a bathtub toy right before a spoiled small child throws it at his mom. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This very brief video of the chopper revving may give you a sense of that:</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzAzM5A_fh_TmfAz20teryZN-uS6qDa3GURaXNegFkAH2zbra0pGy1BIILj-e4fC7KyEG3jHWe5np6gKbL96g' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In the video below, shot seconds later, the helicopter takes off from the local aviation hangars at the back of Sarasota International Airport. Then it flies over the northern reaches of the city, enroute to the Gulf of Mexico.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: x-large; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzc3PztYbmfRMEdRISx3AcOB-ZOzn1_N1BSWQLI_V5mjTQl-gSaTPJx5TfMSyfiQmFZxtT5OpCZISDY9f7VGg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Sarasota Beaches</span></b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In the videos below, the chopper flies over a beach area nearby to Sarasota, namely Longboat Key. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Near the end of the video, we pass over what is known as "Mansion Row," where several enormous mansions of anonymous rich people front the Gulf of Mexico.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dx5iMWtXbGtsTvyrPH1KN4mHn67z1DHVKHUS77HXLIXo_j_s3wVvlHYKAJiIRQ-SdgLIB1RPqjleMOIYg9Lcg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Sarasota Skyline</span></b><br /><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In the video below, the chopper approaches, and then flies over, the skyscrapers of downtown Sarasota.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzdOmrqVP8Z3cbpztJRq3pkX2kDbDDTPzeS16ftk8wwn-SZsYQuGQ-b0sFPxXAt4fixsZZhyh9w0yWpCsMpHg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"> "Helicopters don't fly, they vibrate so badly that the ground rejects them."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Tom Clancy</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/sexbots.html"><b><i>Get my novel Sexbot for FREE.</i></b></a> Right now. Click to find out more. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">(Free stuff. That's the promise of the internet.) </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-12425135181960455402022-06-07T09:24:00.005-07:002022-06-08T04:01:53.109-07:00The Greatest Moment in Music History<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKy_ru4OQI49vn99qa6T5mXfpcxQm1pSx1tY2zEMV_qCn3ltQOI5sFR0sBoK_Q291ja99qiRUTD1n8Kw7rLvoqrmErXlATKc0uMcy57aEUVz9g7CgnkqwTGeU5GhvTLost1UyvgFdQduo-IT-F5ZkmNNosYkXvhQl0FbQmQL-0UWhdoxJTi949Suu8gg/s849/john%20coffey%20singer%20crowd%20walks%20and%20catches%20beer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="John Coffey singer David Achter de Molen at Pinkpop Festival 2015." border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="849" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKy_ru4OQI49vn99qa6T5mXfpcxQm1pSx1tY2zEMV_qCn3ltQOI5sFR0sBoK_Q291ja99qiRUTD1n8Kw7rLvoqrmErXlATKc0uMcy57aEUVz9g7CgnkqwTGeU5GhvTLost1UyvgFdQduo-IT-F5ZkmNNosYkXvhQl0FbQmQL-0UWhdoxJTi949Suu8gg/w400-h258/john%20coffey%20singer%20crowd%20walks%20and%20catches%20beer.jpg" title="David Achter de Molen, singer of John Coffey" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This is David Achter de Molen, singer of the now-defunct Dutch rock band John Coffey, walking on the crowd at the Pinkpop Festival in 2015. De Molen was the central figure during the greatest moment in music history.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKy_ru4OQI49vn99qa6T5mXfpcxQm1pSx1tY2zEMV_qCn3ltQOI5sFR0sBoK_Q291ja99qiRUTD1n8Kw7rLvoqrmErXlATKc0uMcy57aEUVz9g7CgnkqwTGeU5GhvTLost1UyvgFdQduo-IT-F5ZkmNNosYkXvhQl0FbQmQL-0UWhdoxJTi949Suu8gg/s849/john%20coffey%20singer%20crowd%20walks%20and%20catches%20beer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span></span></a><p></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Once upon a time, there was a rock band from the Netherlands called John Coffey.</span><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The band was named for the supernatural character in the spooky Stephen King novel, "The Green Mile." The members of the band appear to not have read the book, but watched the movie instead. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">That's fine. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">They were a hard rock / thrash / post punk -type band. I'm not sure how you would categorize them. I don't love their music, generally speaking.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">They made a few records, which were released by small independent labels in the Netherlands and Germany. You would say that they never quite reached the big time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">They were, however, a somewhat popular live band. They played hundreds of shows and toured relentlessly. Mostly, they toured the Netherlands, and nearby countries like Belgium, Germany, France, and England. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But they also played shows as far west as Los Angeles, and as far east as Moscow. At different times, they were on the same bill as the Foo Fighters, and Snoop Dogg.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">They existed from 2005 to late 2016. Their heyday was in the mid-2010s. In an era when rock music was dying or basically dead, they lived something close to a dream, then fizzled out. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">They also took part in the Greatest Moment in Music History. Oddly enough, there was no actual music involved. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"The Moment" took place at something called the Pinkpop Festival, on June 13, 2015, in the town of Landgraaf, the Netherlands. It was captured live as it happened:</span></p><p><br /></p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MTlFk-chSh4" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Did you SEE that?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The band's singer, David Achter de Molen, is standing on top of the crowd. That part alone is not necessarily a big deal, and happens rather a lot.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In his youth, Thee Optimist often rode the top of the crowd at similar shows. Dare he say, if you have never body-surfed the tattooed masses, you haven't really lived?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But then suddenly, someone in the crowds throws a beer. The beer flies through the air, and doesn't spill out.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">De Molen catches the beer as though he has magnets attached to his hand (the kind of magnets that are attracted to clear plastic). Then he drinks the beer. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Magic. Pure, unadulterated witchcraft. It is likely that this sequence of events never took place before The Moment, and will never happen again.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">One commenter is on the record as saying, "This is the greatest moment in human history. Everything we've built has lead to this."</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">That may be an exaggeration. But it also may not.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbV9gzPe3yIgwE81yVANvIn1Q9_-azWea4nJ3OrTWr6vb2pS7Sab7h2HkzLAqHl0WjTyK3RAFW-TOJ2UTz1YC5UgFonMndhghZNDNjWhS7aeLslwMtMT3vu-SB1zcci2J92a6rzs1ghuCuWxd0MMmGKWrRV4DVoEMDiKfFMpiA_NT_x-RFTmvNnqDIpQ/s300/john%20coffey.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbV9gzPe3yIgwE81yVANvIn1Q9_-azWea4nJ3OrTWr6vb2pS7Sab7h2HkzLAqHl0WjTyK3RAFW-TOJ2UTz1YC5UgFonMndhghZNDNjWhS7aeLslwMtMT3vu-SB1zcci2J92a6rzs1ghuCuWxd0MMmGKWrRV4DVoEMDiKfFMpiA_NT_x-RFTmvNnqDIpQ/w400-h400/john%20coffey.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">John Coffey, as they were.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">"I was starting to doubt myself, because I thought, “Well, I think this tastes of beer,” but I wasn’t sure even after, because I saw all kind of discussions starting. It was beer, because we talked to the guy throwing the beer and basically, he could confirm it. He just had a new beer and he thought, “Well, let’s throw this.”"</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- David Achter de Molen </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Rock stars! <a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/sexbots.html"><b><i>Get my novel Sexbot for FREE.</i></b></a> Right now. Click to find out more. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">(Free stuff. That's the promise of the internet.) </span></span></p></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-11649014277815026702022-06-01T16:57:00.007-07:002022-06-01T17:08:36.105-07:00Why Does God Hate America?<p> </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyVaCX40O2bB-aMRALd_H52ioXVxbe9QBC_5SK0HBTfiVQWJ7JYodSGdgo7f4uwN537OAY616NQhdiimXapha4KVXXsgFz3HJHwZplRZ0Iv-t7FzGPSEkh-XPqVQ55EogX1VajWPrVR_B69AphA4Pch-iVnfZVKOUmxZdIRGXPqh3gyTo1cF4DxTfIJw/s1000/angry_god.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="633" data-original-width="1000" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyVaCX40O2bB-aMRALd_H52ioXVxbe9QBC_5SK0HBTfiVQWJ7JYodSGdgo7f4uwN537OAY616NQhdiimXapha4KVXXsgFz3HJHwZplRZ0Iv-t7FzGPSEkh-XPqVQ55EogX1VajWPrVR_B69AphA4Pch-iVnfZVKOUmxZdIRGXPqh3gyTo1cF4DxTfIJw/w400-h254/angry_god.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"Who can stand before his indignation? Who can confront the heat of his fury? His wrath pours out like fire; the rocks are shattered because of him." Nahum 1:6.<br />Ruh roh. God is clearly pissed at America.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If you're like Thee Optimist, you're kind of a religious fanatic. The Bible is real to you. It's like a history book. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Not so much the Gospels, where Jesus teaches about <a href="https://ourdailybread.org/article/jesus-and-tolerance/" target="_blank"><b><i>tolerance</i></b></a>, humility, community, <a href="https://www.woh.org/2008/04/20/the-compassion-of-jesus/" target="_blank"><b><i>compassion</i></b></a>, service, and above all, <a href="https://www.ibelieve.com/holidays/verses-to-remember-the-sacrifice-christ-made-for-you.html" target="_blank"><b><i>sacrifice</i></b></a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">No! Not that part.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">More the Old Testament, where a vengeful and destructive God repeatedly gets irritated at the pride, the deceit, and the sheer degeneracy of humanity, and punishes them again and again and again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">He casts them out of the Garden, floods them, blasts them with fire, and with plagues and with pestilence, and sends the Angel of Death to take their children. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Sound familiar?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Yes. Unless you've been living under a rock, it's probably clear to you by now that God hates America, and is pounding us into submission, or possibly into dust. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Whichever comes first, I guess.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Oh? You haven't noticed this?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You didn't notice that <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/from-our-experts/u-s-officially-surpasses-1-million-covid-19-deaths" target="_blank"><b><i>more than a million people died</i></b></a> of Covid in the past two years alone?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You didn't notice the two hundred thousand who <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/11/drug-overdose-deaths-2021-record-00031709" target="_blank"><b><i>died of drug overdoses</i></b></a> in the same time period?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You didn't notice the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-western-us-is-experiencing-the-worst-megadrought-in-more-than-1200-years-180979590/" target="_blank"><b><i>historic drought</i></b></a> and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8zU1MjZSnE" target="_blank"><b><i>firestorms</i></b></a> (watch that video from about 1:55 on - holy moly!) that are consuming the western portion of the country?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You haven't witnessed the epic floods?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Or the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_attack" target="_blank"><b><i>attacks by our enemies</i></b></a>, whoever they may be?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/53498434" target="_blank"><b><i>people driven mad</i></b></a>, and who have lost all understanding?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Or the <a href="https://elections.bradyunited.org/take-action/nra-donations-116th-congress-senators" target="_blank"><b><i>Angel of Death</i></b></a>, who keeps <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/28/1101307932/texas-shooting-uvalde-gun-violence-children-teenagers" target="_blank"><b><i>taking the children</i></b></a>?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Man. You really haven't been paying attention, have you?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Make no mistake. God is pissed off. And He is pissed off at us. If the Bible is real, then nothing could be clearer.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoZCwExUFwNlQMb6sWLUjVD6IvbdO9KqkQQ6yAQdy_FK7JDvBszCVxf7zeuKqDD7mBhpBToSaLuGTWIxyE1UsPNNmfKiSX5biNIsmex0HHe2Xfa0dkLgf6rablhjt6FLucOYP1MlMe0HXCLCMxflKuA2wOaLnjECmXq5TjQsvqYO2Ic0CyauY25gWTHw/s788/hurricane-katrina.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="650" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoZCwExUFwNlQMb6sWLUjVD6IvbdO9KqkQQ6yAQdy_FK7JDvBszCVxf7zeuKqDD7mBhpBToSaLuGTWIxyE1UsPNNmfKiSX5biNIsmex0HHe2Xfa0dkLgf6rablhjt6FLucOYP1MlMe0HXCLCMxflKuA2wOaLnjECmXq5TjQsvqYO2Ic0CyauY25gWTHw/w330-h400/hurricane-katrina.jpg" width="330" /></span></b></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">People trapped on a New Orleans rooftop during the flooding of Hurricane Katrina. God is also taking our spelling skills away.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br />What Are We Doing Wrong?</span></b><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If you agree that God is punishing us, and given the preponderance of evidence, I'm not sure how you could disagree, then... </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">How do we make Him stop?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Well, we can't <i>make</i> Him do anything. He is God, after all. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We could supplicate and pray, but people do that all the time. It's not working. If anything, it's making matters worse. That's because people tend to pray for stupid things. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"Dear God, please give me a new Maserati."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Yeah... no. That's just going to irritate Him further. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The thing to do here is figure out what we're doing wrong, and then stop doing that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Thee Optimist has done some Biblical-style thinking on this, has searched back through his awesome command of Scripture (hammered into him mercilessly during <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regis_High_School_(New_York_City)" target="_blank"><b><i>rigorous high school instruction</i></b></a>), and has narrowed the problem down to three possibilities. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You're welcome. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Here they are, in no particular order:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: x-large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2bTZF8DXvnYKigyPWEyU5KHaAWgqS7Z8nduXBJI_n8uadQbLCoN1C9IXgwPaIkgz3Hih10UIxCkcVLlikUhDkO8FuSX1D5Ta_Z_3T9aJyan3MG4ENSRpM2WFWAKRIlgEfwJlPCu6_LmqiiAedz2u4oteqVRaIwPsTGrvJ-bRK_FR3g0AcVAfkju5Ciw/s1486/proud%20boys.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="991" data-original-width="1486" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2bTZF8DXvnYKigyPWEyU5KHaAWgqS7Z8nduXBJI_n8uadQbLCoN1C9IXgwPaIkgz3Hih10UIxCkcVLlikUhDkO8FuSX1D5Ta_Z_3T9aJyan3MG4ENSRpM2WFWAKRIlgEfwJlPCu6_LmqiiAedz2u4oteqVRaIwPsTGrvJ-bRK_FR3g0AcVAfkju5Ciw/w400-h266/proud%20boys.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A parade of filthy, degenerate Proud Boys.</span><br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span>We Are Degenerates</span><span> </span></span></b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Let's face it, if the Old Testament is any guide (and in fact, it is supposed to be the living Word of God), then God does not like degeneracy.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The most famous example of this, of course, is <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2019&version=NIV" target="_blank"><b><i>the destruction of the city of Sodom</i></b></a>. Which, depending on who you ask, wasn't actually a condemnation of homosexuality per se, but instead a condemnation of the gang rape of male strangers, which was <a href="https://reformationproject.org/case/sodom-and-gomorrah/" target="_blank"><b><i>common in the ancient world</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Either way, the God of the Old Testament is always ready to pile suffering on those He sees as degenerates.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The Cambridge Dictionary definition of degeneracy is "behavior that shows low moral standards." </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">So the question naturally arises: is there a more degenerate culture than America, anywhere on Earth? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">From our overtly <a href="https://www.iwf.org/2022/02/14/tiktok-is-taking-a-toll-on-our-daughters/" target="_blank"><b><i>sexualized social media</i></b></a>, to our endless invasions, threats of invasion, and wars abroad, to our <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/08/17/americas-neofascist-death-cult-wont-help-stop-the-pandemic-we-have-to-survive-them-too/" target="_blank"><b><i>death cult at home</i></b></a>, to our racism and <a href="https://www.lifeintelligence.io/blog/selfishness-is-not-sustainable-why-it-shouldnt-be-all-about-you" target="_blank"><b><i>selfish individualism</i></b></a>, we seemingly revel in our own immorality.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The United States has a checkered past, to put it mildly. But at one time, we at least paid lip service to the ideals of civic virtue. People who do that now are generally <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/marco-rubio-jan-6-committee-scam-1295923/" target="_blank"><b><i>conmen</i></b></a> and <a href="https://tfiglobalnews.com/2022/01/16/forget-hunter-biden-nancy-pelosis-son-is-a-fraudster-of-another-level/" target="_blank"><b><i>con-women</i></b></a>, and their proclamations ring increasingly hollow. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If Thee Optimist were arguing our case before the Almighty, he would be struck dumb by the moral emptiness of our culture. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Then he would probably shrug and say, "Okay God, you're right. There's nothing worth saving. <a href="https://www.ancient-code.com/evidence-of-nuclear-war-in-the-distant-past-the-destruction-of-sodom-and-gomorrah/" target="_blank"><b><i>Nuke it</i></b></a>." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbZcYMwXt28loaDoveOHlzzTVozpdPweE90IoJNMqML3qHz3fqCfibVAUlh7iyDiQcjkcNWYEdg-cXScev7XRVV4ZK_mP8N6UuEtSiqQzgydoS4MXZqa7VZZfM2NoypuRj_NwHH3gk-RD0q_oygiTMAHfkUzp5Hq4RtJ0mr1V-cOi-rsKrp5QouJCQ9w/s1350/kk%20private%20jet.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1350" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbZcYMwXt28loaDoveOHlzzTVozpdPweE90IoJNMqML3qHz3fqCfibVAUlh7iyDiQcjkcNWYEdg-cXScev7XRVV4ZK_mP8N6UuEtSiqQzgydoS4MXZqa7VZZfM2NoypuRj_NwHH3gk-RD0q_oygiTMAHfkUzp5Hq4RtJ0mr1V-cOi-rsKrp5QouJCQ9w/w320-h400/kk%20private%20jet.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Kim Kardashian, her face and body profoundly altered by plastic surgery, poses in a private jet, somewhere in the sky.</span> <br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>We Worship False Idols</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In the Old Testament (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2020%3A1-17&version=NIV" target="_blank"><b><i>Exodus: 2:17</i></b></a>, for the casual reader who wants to get right to the meat of the matter), God laid down ten basic laws for the Israelites to follow.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">These are of course known to us as the Ten Commandments.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The scariest part, for Americans, can be found in Commandments #1 and #2. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Now, Thee Optimist often makes lists in no particular order, but he's pretty sure that God doesn't do this. God created the entire universe after all, it was a big job, and required a high level of organized task management. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">When God makes a list, He puts things in sequence.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Commandments #1 and #2 are closely related, and are the highest priority Commandments. "Thou shalt not kill" is #6, by the way, to give you an idea of how God's mind works.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">So what are these all-important Commandments?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">#1. "You shall have no other gods before Me." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">#2. "You shall make no false idols."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Yeah. Hmmm. That's bad. It's a problem.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Modern American society is a <a href="https://goodfaithmedia.org/six-false-gods-of-white-evangelical-christians-in-u-s/" target="_blank"><b><i>wasteland of false gods</i></b></a> and cheap idols.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Millions of people are caught up in the cult of <a href="https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/new-age-celebrity-worship" target="_blank"><b><i>celebrity worship</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Millions of people are caught up in the cult of QAnon, elevating a carnival barker (himself a shameless degenerate) to quasi-savior status.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Millions of people are caught up in the cult of greed, mindlessly worshipping money, the pursuit of money, and the individuals who have amassed the most of it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Meanwhile, those who have fallen through the cracks are stepped on and stepped over, left behind and forgotten.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Certain religious preachers, themselves conmen, have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47675301" target="_blank"><b><i>perverted religion</i></b></a> to the pursuit and worship of money.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And of course, there's the ever-present cult around guns. Guns are sacred, and demand an ongoing blood sacrifice. Even the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/29/us/uvalde-texas-elementary-school-shooting-week/index.html" target="_blank"><b><i>children must be sacrificed</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It's incredible how depraved and decadent this all is.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Oh God?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Yeah, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksbLa4uO2Gs" target="_blank"><b><i>just do it already</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGbmTefqOTrK9CoWe4n4ORrmEgE6DMo-ty7NFiCuAsabHOvtLPUnKVVopld5FZwHH7WtPdVIYgGTsJYxvrCZBykTEX_tmoYX6gfu0v5HYIlIJTgtbq-G-3ywN_YovCT-hQkk93PxuXkSqHZh1ziRNZlQogEcabqxHeyaU1TKCWQEOkIrRv17XPaZ6RLA/s444/darkhours.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="444" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGbmTefqOTrK9CoWe4n4ORrmEgE6DMo-ty7NFiCuAsabHOvtLPUnKVVopld5FZwHH7WtPdVIYgGTsJYxvrCZBykTEX_tmoYX6gfu0v5HYIlIJTgtbq-G-3ywN_YovCT-hQkk93PxuXkSqHZh1ziRNZlQogEcabqxHeyaU1TKCWQEOkIrRv17XPaZ6RLA/w400-h308/darkhours.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>It's the Wrong God</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Here's one out of left field.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">For all of my life, we have been in a clash of civilizations with the austere, hyper-conservative world of Islam. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><i>They</i> certainly think we are degenerates.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Now, the awful truth is this epic clash has everything to do with controlling important <a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/2014/03/Ukraine-Crimea-Russia-Grand-Chessboard-Brzezinski.html" target="_blank"><b><i>real estate in central and western Asia</i></b></a>, and the massive natural resources found there.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Religion is somewhat tangential to the struggle, but serves as a convenient straw man for both sides.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We are Christian. They are Islamic. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We are forward-thinking (are we?). They are backwards, even medieval. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Now, here's something interesting. Through all of this, Thee Optimist has assumed (and the vast majority of scriptural scholars would agree with him) that God of the Old Testament and Allah of the Quran <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions" target="_blank"><b><i>are in fact the same god</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Islam is the newer religion, and Abraham and Jesus are considered prophets in Islam. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But what if all this is wrong?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Certainly, extremists on both sides believe that the other side's <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/senior-us-general-says-muslims-worship-idol-1.505104" target="_blank"><b><i>god is an idol</i></b></a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And certainly, many Muslims involved in this clash have spent a great deal of time chanting and praying passionately for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_America" target="_blank"><b><i>destruction of America</i></b></a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Maybe they're praying to the real God, and the God we have is as fake as Zeus and Odin?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Bummer, if true.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Words of Wisdom</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"The cliche that God hates the sin but loves the sinner is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first 50 Psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, His wrath is on the liar, and so forth."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- D.A. Carson</span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Hey sinners! <a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/sexbots.html"><b><i>Get my novel Sexbot for FREE.</i></b></a> Right now. Click to find out more. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">(Free stuff. That's the promise of the internet.) </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-40602122216915015652022-05-25T19:48:00.010-07:002022-05-25T20:01:30.571-07:00The Boomerang Vs. The Ripple Effect<p style="text-align: left;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy6riMXjQN-4UAkxXTo1Cd65SSMZAPdx0meER30ObMporpmEzEFHLOOdWBQpn72PvX0XaJnmXEeeRJeC2JnkAgfagk_S_x0gIkGpCnVCCGLhazxAS3BQeXWnfl5dRqUfAF4KB__HO_WGAg4PXLrKCxBNZK4MnOrnP7kowBfnyteGGKq1Rg_sGReX8eyQ/s498/duck-funny-boomerang.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="498" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy6riMXjQN-4UAkxXTo1Cd65SSMZAPdx0meER30ObMporpmEzEFHLOOdWBQpn72PvX0XaJnmXEeeRJeC2JnkAgfagk_S_x0gIkGpCnVCCGLhazxAS3BQeXWnfl5dRqUfAF4KB__HO_WGAg4PXLrKCxBNZK4MnOrnP7kowBfnyteGGKq1Rg_sGReX8eyQ/w400-h297/duck-funny-boomerang.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Life isn't always like this. Which is too bad.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">People talk a lot about karma. And when they talk about karma, often
they use the concept in a way that’s not totally accurate or
complete.<br /></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Most times, when you
hear the word karma, the person is talking about results that flow
back to you from an action you’re taking, something you’re saying, or even a thought you’re having. <br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Certainly, there’s plenty of
truth to this. If you consistently put out negative actions or
messages, there is a very good chance that negative results will flow
to you. If you consistently put out positive messages or actions,
there’s an excellent chance positive results will return.<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">People sometimes
take this observable fact, and decide that there’s a perfect
accounting system at work in the universe, rewarding good behavior
and punishing bad behavior. <br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">It’s as if you throw a giant
boomerang, then it circles around, comes back and hits you with the
exact type of energy you sent out, often multiplied in force.<br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">It would be nice if
this were always true. But the boomerang doesn’t always find its
mark. The accounting system is somewhat flawed. The accountant is
bad at math. <br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’m sure we can all think of people who have hurt
others, either in our own lives or in history, who somehow escaped
the payback they seem to have richly deserved.</span></span></span></h2><div><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></div><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhODlztdcICpXUO3q2KcLNEjuSAQEFv7Xmne8VXsiuJY3XNhIfRcDXObx4ADwK5M0ZbzJP_7onVqQimOLpQXEagmn5KCMXeUJaDRPS9Fzx7TebWqm9GA3Mms7xE0viSApYBnuLsOPZjLpNOmkKrm5QtDLslmNRK-T72E9f_779_WbV9Js8eM-VlJ3MrKQ/s228/stalin.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="222" data-original-width="228" height="389" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhODlztdcICpXUO3q2KcLNEjuSAQEFv7Xmne8VXsiuJY3XNhIfRcDXObx4ADwK5M0ZbzJP_7onVqQimOLpQXEagmn5KCMXeUJaDRPS9Fzx7TebWqm9GA3Mms7xE0viSApYBnuLsOPZjLpNOmkKrm5QtDLslmNRK-T72E9f_779_WbV9Js8eM-VlJ3MrKQ/w400-h389/stalin.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Josef Stalin is someone who got away with murder. Not just once or twice. On a massive scale.</span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></span><br /></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Take Josef Stalin. Please.</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;"> </span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br /></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As the dictator of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin is estimated to
have been responsible for the deaths of up to 9 million people. </span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">These came from
executions, deaths in the gulag prison system, and starvation, both
deliberate and as the result of mismanagement. <br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">He would order the
execution of thousands of people on a whim, by the stroke of a pen. He’s easily among the worst people who have ever lived.<br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">He was also married
twice, had at least half a dozen children, many mistresses, was an
avid reader (by all accounts, he read hundreds of books), and valued
close friends and family. <br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">Unlike his mortal enemy Adolf Hitler, Stalin didn't kill himself after witnessing the total collapse of his society, hiding underground like a rat, all his dreams turned to dust, and enemy troops swarming above his head. <br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">Stalin died of a sudden series of strokes at
the age of 74 (basically, he died of old age), while still ruling one of the two most powerful nations on Earth. He lived a perfectly normal
lifespan – indeed, longer than the typical Soviet citizen of the
era.<br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">No one murdered him. No one tortured him. If he suffered, it was only for a few days. </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Even now, he is revered by millions of people as the great hero of
World War II, who led his people in the defeat of the Nazis, and who
build the Soviet Union into a world power.</span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">The boomerang just
never found Josef Stalin.<br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Meanwhile, I’m sure we
can all think of good people who got walloped by the boomerang, and
didn’t deserve it.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">So what’s another
way to think about karma that might be more complete?
</span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI0xnSBaabruvUad65FoIFG5xwYoYSVbkv_DeHhmBGP_-6WAccxlq2PbwpMy89jTtegdmOyKcgfsEtp76-VqTNcFe7Z4Zj5r6RqJh17_mb0KXchnUVAhoOt1ZBO4MVfArBnw6BCHOO-1CPzYThRnvcqXuuVAq73zKhOURQAHWrzp99CTS4bPpbMiRdRQ/s800/ripple_effect.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="800" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI0xnSBaabruvUad65FoIFG5xwYoYSVbkv_DeHhmBGP_-6WAccxlq2PbwpMy89jTtegdmOyKcgfsEtp76-VqTNcFe7Z4Zj5r6RqJh17_mb0KXchnUVAhoOt1ZBO4MVfArBnw6BCHOO-1CPzYThRnvcqXuuVAq73zKhOURQAHWrzp99CTS4bPpbMiRdRQ/w400-h256/ripple_effect.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;">It's not the most original idea in the world. Okay. So what? It's still valid.</span></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Ripple Effect</span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br /></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Karma is like the
ripples on a lake, after you throw in a stone. The results of your
actions ripple out in every direction, through time and space. <br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">A few
of those ripples come back to you on the shore. But most of them
radiate away from you, affecting people and events for a long time
afterwards.<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As a result, we have
immense power, in our daily lives, to create ripples that radiate
outwards, sparking even more ripples. We are karma machines, for
good or ill.<br /></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">A kind word, a
moment of deep listening and empathy, some little generosity, all of
these things are good karma. Indeed, they are like little messages
of love. <br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">If we’re mindful, we see that
opportunities to send these messages arise all the time. It costs us
nothing (or almost nothing), but it can make another person’s day.<br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps more
powerfully, our good karma sets an example for others to follow. People (especially children) witness our actions. Our generosity
sends them a message that it is good to give, that we live in
abundance, that there is plenty for everybody. <br /></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><span><span><span>Our willingness to
listen tells them that people are important. </span></span></span><span>Our good deeds show
them that there is a wider world we must care for.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">At first blush,
these might seem like small things, but small things can and do
become big things. Do these types of actions create good results for
us? You bet they do. <br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><span><br /></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><span>But they do even more – they help create the
kind of world we want to live in.<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><span><span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></h2><h2 style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><span><span><span>The ripples of
karma, good or bad, have a way of becoming gigantic waves.
</span></span></span></span></h2><div><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></span></div><p class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;">
</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGyI3yimL_LRl-HOpX2knjtKjyn1bCLj3p3zaW_Q1jvSEbQFkZod8_fP_-PF_gPoVzpfPrlyJ8c3KN3B9slDaPZSuEwGmqb5vbJrgLLpVbInae1DYNtB-J5nZf2OF_48_1wgy6HbrgeZhOprxKeW1TbxYkPneR9uIP6cz_DCJOsIUlDFKlEjULmGZJaA/s498/big-blue-wave.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="331" data-original-width="498" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGyI3yimL_LRl-HOpX2knjtKjyn1bCLj3p3zaW_Q1jvSEbQFkZod8_fP_-PF_gPoVzpfPrlyJ8c3KN3B9slDaPZSuEwGmqb5vbJrgLLpVbInae1DYNtB-J5nZf2OF_48_1wgy6HbrgeZhOprxKeW1TbxYkPneR9uIP6cz_DCJOsIUlDFKlEjULmGZJaA/w400-h266/big-blue-wave.gif" width="400" /></a></div><p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</p><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Words of Wisdom:</span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">“The five minutes of kindness you showed her is going to help thousands of others. And that only takes into account the past day. Despair and pain were averted. Loss and tragedy thwarted. Do you think you haven't struck a blow for the light, Warrior?”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Jim Butcher</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Hey! You! <a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/sexbots.html"><b><i>Get my novel Sexbot for FREE.</i></b></a> Right now. Click to find out how. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">(Free stuff. That's the promise of the internet.) </span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-89921951979985411212022-05-16T00:11:00.003-07:002022-07-08T05:34:39.052-07:00I Have the Buffalo Shooter's Manifesto<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh83rDDIrHDhCJq8I045knEfZnDiqCgma-wjtC7-SZqUpubIzOoTM_Jq-9Z7hMftP-FVh5EziFQUkLo5rEbg29hMrFOeEfg3RjTVabsDAaG2k7MJmIXyMlPi_3oP2QIZfTouE5HeRFCSa2R7HTM5v_KKYyEpnir494Zyg_myI8onl03vmYJ7e-7dlPJsg/s302/payton%20gendron.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="302" data-original-width="302" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh83rDDIrHDhCJq8I045knEfZnDiqCgma-wjtC7-SZqUpubIzOoTM_Jq-9Z7hMftP-FVh5EziFQUkLo5rEbg29hMrFOeEfg3RjTVabsDAaG2k7MJmIXyMlPi_3oP2QIZfTouE5HeRFCSa2R7HTM5v_KKYyEpnir494Zyg_myI8onl03vmYJ7e-7dlPJsg/w400-h400/payton%20gendron.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This is 18-year-old Payton Gendron, the young man who killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday. He chose this image, posing with a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle, to portray himself in the 180-page manifesto he posted online. I have the manifesto and will give it to you, if you want.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">No one describes Payton Gendron as a normal 18-year-old.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">People who have known him his entire life describe him as a "shy kid" and a "quiet kid." A Myers-Briggs personality test that he took and posted as part of his manifesto, rates him as 100% introverted. That's about as normal as it gets with him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But it does get weirder. In the spring of 2021, he wore a full hazmat suit to high school for five days, apparently to make a statement about Covid safety protocols. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Also that spring, he was admitted to a mental hospital for about 36 hours, after making statements suggesting he would like to shoot up his school, and had the means to do so.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This past Saturday, he drove about 200 miles from his parents' home in Conklin, New York (a suburb of Binghamton), to a predominately black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, with the hopes of massacring black people. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">He picked that specific neighborhood after careful research - it has the highest proportion of black people in any neighborhood in New York State, outside of New York City.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">He did this because he believes in what is known as "Replacement Theory," namely, that a secret cabal of Jews is importing minorities into the United States, in order to water down and replace the white majority already living here.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If this sounds familiar, it's because FOX News host Tucker Carlson nibbles around these ideas nearly every night. Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, has made similar statements. And so has Matt Gaetz, US Congressman from Florida, currently under investigation for sex trafficking of minors. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">White supremacist attendees at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August of 2017 were filmed chanting, "You will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Gendron's manifesto digs deep into his hatred of Jews. He doesn't like black people, and thinks they should go back to Africa. But he really, really hates Jews. He hates them so much that a casual reader of his manifesto might wonder why he didn't attack a synagogue instead. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Much of the rest of the manifesto is taken up with in-depth plans for his attack, including his choice of weapon (an AR-15 variant, naturally, as night follows day), his reasoning for the specific supermarket he attacked, and his plans for managing the attack and responses to it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In particular, he had a map of the supermarket. He knew there would be an armed security guard on duty near the door, and he knew it was likely this person would shoot him. Which was why he was wearing heavy body armor. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The guard did shoot him, but it had no effect because of the armor. Then he shot and killed the guard. Payton Gendron is a bright boy who can anticipate things before they happen.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And why, exactly, do I want to give you his manifesto?</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ-8w0Xhb8C-1htbC_BbB8FAtr2qjUlT1d7_Dbv1DkQV2lBWUq7dioGzw2x9PsEU74xu-1pF1DRy0kolE6Y5gt_b6khon5Kwj40RQWUi58_rEFKbRHmt7cG99vyYWIiT3IMyFbOVRTDpfqUr-WQDAq4PexdR5QqUvaW497Qg5qy5VgWyIr73cDGrlXzQ/s615/Payton-Gendron.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="615" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ-8w0Xhb8C-1htbC_BbB8FAtr2qjUlT1d7_Dbv1DkQV2lBWUq7dioGzw2x9PsEU74xu-1pF1DRy0kolE6Y5gt_b6khon5Kwj40RQWUi58_rEFKbRHmt7cG99vyYWIiT3IMyFbOVRTDpfqUr-WQDAq4PexdR5QqUvaW497Qg5qy5VgWyIr73cDGrlXzQ/w400-h274/Payton-Gendron.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Payton Gendron, in a paper smock, being arraigned before a judge on 10 counts of murder and various other charges. In his manifesto, he said he hoped to survive the attack, and if he did, he would plead guilty. He pled not guilty. <br /> </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>No One is Going to Tell You</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Soon after I received the manifesto, I uploaded it to my Google Drive, which I figured would be a convenient way of sharing it with interested parties. I do this kind of thing fairly regularly.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The original file was quite large, making it hard to email.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Before the file had finished uploading, Google had already flagged it for "abuse." I use my Google Drive too often to have it suspended. So I took the file back down again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I run into this sort of thing a little bit. Once, I was sending some money via Paypal, and in the comment section, I made a joke about Vladimir Putin. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Paypal froze my account for 24 hours. They gave me access to my money after concluding their "investigation," whatever that might have been.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Once, I was coming into JFK Airport from outside the country. As I came through customs, the guard there swiped the bar code on my passport. A whole passage of information suddenly appeared on his computer screen, which he turned away from me.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"What's it say about me on there?" I asked. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">He shook his head. "Oh, I can't tell you that."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Yes, I have a witness that this happened. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In any event, the point of having the manifesto, and sharing it, is that it's going to disappear. They are going to erase it. And they shouldn't. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">No, not just because of free speech, although that's part of it. I recognize that Google and Microsoft and Facebook and whatever else MegaCorp media companies are private entities, so the right to free speech does not apply to the platforms they control. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And no, I have no sympathy for Payton Gendron's point-of-view. Quite the opposite. I believe he is a bright but disturbed kid, who was impressionable and led badly astray. As a result, he ended up doing an evil thing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">His actions were pre-meditated. If there was a death penalty in New York State, I would be in favor of him receiving it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The reason I think you should see the manifesto is no one in the media is going to tell you what's actually in it. They are going to give you hints, but you won't know more than that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Then, in a few days, it will go away, and in a week or two, another mass shooting will occur.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If we want to ever find a way to put a stop to this behavior, we need to know EXACTLY what these people are thinking, and why. We need to know, by name, the people who feed them these ideas. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And we need to know the extent of the ideas themselves. I promise that the average "normie" American reading this would be astonished by the content of Payton Gendron's manifesto. But all you'll read in the newspapers is that he was a racist, and he believed in Replacement Theory.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It's not enough. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If the ideas are insane, and we have better ideas, then regular citizens should know what the ideas are. Hiding things like this away is the wrong approach. It doesn't stop the other crazies from getting their hands on it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If I have it, they have it. They're more motivated than I am.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">None of the cloud services I use are going to let me post this thing online. If you want it, drop me a message with an email address. I'll send it to you. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"Guns make losers feel like winners. That's why people who suck at life don't want to give up their guns."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Oliver Markus Malloy</span></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-72715863839041795442022-05-12T03:07:00.004-07:002022-05-12T03:07:27.533-07:00Sexbots, Immortality, and Robot Polar Bears<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMg4phSG1mJqmG7ouKf9qxUReI1y32kC43UJAO2HAcyAAZC6by9kmqMqNa4YEE_H-ho7yxWeYeLDBQz0yvgCnFQ2LMMCBYLUgovCByk839nB_wgDj9Lie_rOe9mvqzuEc2yvTYFWQSpWiIRjuo4pGAFaQnl8HEBHB9EevPNbZIOePf0ZNVPZAAMGj-lw/s640/sexbots%20disinfo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMg4phSG1mJqmG7ouKf9qxUReI1y32kC43UJAO2HAcyAAZC6by9kmqMqNa4YEE_H-ho7yxWeYeLDBQz0yvgCnFQ2LMMCBYLUgovCByk839nB_wgDj9Lie_rOe9mvqzuEc2yvTYFWQSpWiIRjuo4pGAFaQnl8HEBHB9EevPNbZIOePf0ZNVPZAAMGj-lw/w400-h400/sexbots%20disinfo.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This interview with Thee Optimist appeared on a website called Disinformation, in September of 2015. It is about the implications of my novel Sexbot. The above people are supposed to be Sexbots, I guess. They look all too real.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Interview by <a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/brian-whitney.html" target="_blank"><b><i>Brian Whitney</i></b></a></span><p></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I rapped with Patrick Quinlan, author of Sexbot, about Sex Robots, immortality and robot polar bears.</span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>BW: Patrick, thanks for talking to me.</b> </span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">PQ: It’s really my pleasure.</span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Your book is wild. Do you think there ever might come a time when Sexbots are totally normal? That you go over to your buddy’s house to watch the game and have a beer and just see a Sex Robot sitting in the corner? How far away is that?</span></b></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Normalcy is an insidious thing. The word insidious sounds bad, but I don’t really mean it that way. All I mean is that normalcy has this funny habit of changing ever so gradually, until it’s completely different from what it once was, but no one really notices.</span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Take porn as an obvious example. When I was a 12-year-old kid, porn was hard to come by. You tended to find porn magazines in garbage dumpsters, or under the bed when you broke into some guy’s apartment while he was out at work. Getting your hands on porn was something that happened once in a rare while. The closest thing to a computer anybody had in those days was Atari.</span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Nowadays, if you’re a 12-year-old kid, porn is on the computer and right at your fingertips. To avoid porn, you would have to be this devoutly religious kid and try not to look at it.</span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">That didn’t come about overnight. It happened gradually, and now it’s totally normal. There was a time when porn was against the law. Now it’s what’s for breakfast. Did people shout and scream while the change was happening? Sort of. But a lot less than you would have expected.</span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">By the way, I’ve had people write to me about my book Sexbot in a complaining tone, and say, “This isn’t porn.” Yes, I know it isn’t. Haven’t you seen enough porn by now?</span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I guess my point is that things change. What was once strange and exotic becomes normal. And it happens step-by-step, gradually, so it seems like nothing is happening.</span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I think the first real Sexbots will be around in a few years from now, but they will be so expensive that only very rich people can afford them. Slowly they will come down in price, like big flat screen TVs did. Your cousin, the disbarred lawyer, will turn up with one, but it will be sort of a rudimentary model. You will feel that he is vaguely pathetic, because he’s the kind of guy who still has a waterbed, and his Sexbot looks more like a store mannequin than a person.</span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Eventually, you will go over to somebody’s house and there will be two or three Sexbots hanging around in bikinis, chatting and flirting with the guests. The only way you will be able to tell them apart from real young women is that they will be physically perfect, and they will be showing sexual interest in fat middle-aged bastards who you know for a fact are not multi-millionaires.</span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This will happen sooner than any of us think, and we will hardly notice it happening until afterwards.</span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="western" style="border: none; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in; padding: 0in;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbsrFLNIGinUdjOggHooxq2sTklpxa4u2SLTXEnwfoDZqCnTZ2tU-zXK9zaPjfea8Y1pvZdU3KlTfUDK7iw9NJO9tz9VHi1ZBcZkGCPj0kbGHA5Rcw84E2pwkj2VxX65rtZu6ndOrg2L1mnWTZdSLOPdyLKQyCl6tZWaTTqzVBRK3BCvzrCx5f4jbMVg/s964/little%20mix.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="665" data-original-width="964" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbsrFLNIGinUdjOggHooxq2sTklpxa4u2SLTXEnwfoDZqCnTZ2tU-zXK9zaPjfea8Y1pvZdU3KlTfUDK7iw9NJO9tz9VHi1ZBcZkGCPj0kbGHA5Rcw84E2pwkj2VxX65rtZu6ndOrg2L1mnWTZdSLOPdyLKQyCl6tZWaTTqzVBRK3BCvzrCx5f4jbMVg/w400-h276/little%20mix.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">An all-girl pop group called Little Mix. Part of their schtick is they pretend they are mannequins. That must be empowering to their audience of young female tweens.</span> </td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>There is, of course, a lot of judgment around people that want to bang a robot. Is that what good people do? Look down on people because they want to do sexual shit that is not natural? Or do we all just let our freak flag fly?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Looking down on people who do out-of-the-ordinary things is the glue that holds our world together. It keeps the status quo in place. Once you allow people to start doing things that was forbidden before, that’s when change happens. And that’s when the future comes, good or bad.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We are in a time of great change. So much change that barely anyone seems to remember what it was like before. Oh, curmudgeons write in to the comments sections on websites, bemoaning this or that lost social more, but no one cares what they think. At first people will feel weird when other people start having sex with robots. Older people will judge them harshly. “That’s not how it was in my time.” Younger people will wish they could afford a Sexbot.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">After a while, it will all seem totally normal. Why not have a Sexbot? One day, people won’t just want to have sex with robots – they’ll want to marry robots. This will be because the robots will have all the good jobs.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There will be robots doing all kinds of things. Global warming wiped out the polar bears? Hey, you can have a big friendly robot polar bear who lives in your home with you – it’s even better than a real polar bear because it doesn’t want to kill you and eat you. And it talks!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Your Sexbot can ride your polar bear like a horse!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">How awesome will that be?</span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRi4ayqYz4c_HoDEyCsaDWAKhP2QrQmGv9gwmhBvVl8-XyTw-n8L27T7UTRsNc7EY6WWqY6GAiIgqtOR414CTM3hcBO0I4xf-g8qSYZiLUTlhH-fvmii6n0c25udybxsVVeNq0CiwGdN8HWaIBwyoI-m3zzT2_QEhayyLBpog7rTKjvz4jnjz9u1G0dA/s1366/woman%20riding%20polar%20bear.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1366" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRi4ayqYz4c_HoDEyCsaDWAKhP2QrQmGv9gwmhBvVl8-XyTw-n8L27T7UTRsNc7EY6WWqY6GAiIgqtOR414CTM3hcBO0I4xf-g8qSYZiLUTlhH-fvmii6n0c25udybxsVVeNq0CiwGdN8HWaIBwyoI-m3zzT2_QEhayyLBpog7rTKjvz4jnjz9u1G0dA/w400-h225/woman%20riding%20polar%20bear.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This is totally normal. Or should be.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>You write a lot of thrillers. Smoked was set in my home town of Portland, Maine, and you wrote a book with the ridiculously badass Rutger Hauer. How did you get on to Sexbots for something to write about?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I had lunch in the dining car of the New York to Miami Amtrak train. And the neat thing about the dining car on the train is there are only about 10 tables, so they make you sit with people you don’t know.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">So one day I ate lunch with this rich pervert, a Boston real estate developer, who is afraid of flying. That’s why he was on the train. And when I say rich, I mean tens of millions of dollars rich. One tenth of one percent rich.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This guy, who has had trouble with women (and probably people in general) his whole life, told me that soon, there will be lifelike sex robots. I hadn’t really spent much time contemplating this idea before. Funny you should mention Rutger – the female Replicants in Blade Runner are described as “pleasure models.” But I just didn’t think much about it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">So this real estate developer told me that Sexbots were coming soon – as soon as sex toys like Real Doll could be wed to advanced robotics and artificial intelligence. He thought this would happen in five to seven years (the conversation took place two years ago), and that the robots would likely cost about $100,000 a piece.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">At that price, he said he planned to buy three of them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiombhMD9qIZ6M7nj72XDCaZ7JOpSACVgJti3OnKsuDQRpwJXq1pLX7Veab0pk6wAICiSA63jxgLuxmIcBX3sVwxLZmCp_jPU0GPUBm_MNVvFaG_ljo1otgtlUJZbBssV-bMiahuIqOd_Jdm5b52PaOVY5KTemIIGmEIPVuZTd9PWIRtutlf0CXwO-u-g/s540/roy%20batty%20and%20pris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="540" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiombhMD9qIZ6M7nj72XDCaZ7JOpSACVgJti3OnKsuDQRpwJXq1pLX7Veab0pk6wAICiSA63jxgLuxmIcBX3sVwxLZmCp_jPU0GPUBm_MNVvFaG_ljo1otgtlUJZbBssV-bMiahuIqOd_Jdm5b52PaOVY5KTemIIGmEIPVuZTd9PWIRtutlf0CXwO-u-g/w400-h300/roy%20batty%20and%20pris.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">My old buddy Rutger as the soldier Replicant Roy Batty, along with Darryl Hannah as Pris, a "pleasure model" in the 1982 film Blade Runner.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You have been quoted as saying “There are men, in particular, that want women who are beautiful, agreeable, forever young, ever eager for sex, and who don’t have a lot to say.” That pisses some women off a tad. How prevalent do you think this school of thought is in a man?</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I think that a significant minority of men feel this way. I don’t know why a comment like that would piss anyone off, unless it was someone who doesn’t like to deal with reality.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Notice what a lot of wealthy men do as they grow older. They wind up with increasingly younger women. Beautiful women, in many cases, who are decades younger than they are. Why would this be true?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Because of the scintillating conversation? Probably not. Being an old and rich man, and having a beautiful young woman with you, is a lot like having a Sexbot. And generally speaking, rich people do things that a lot of not-rich people would do if they had the money.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Everybody is shallow, women and men. We’re hard-wired that way. It’s part of how we’ve managed to populate every corner of this poor, overburdened planet.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMIVfqhhHEKpBax0eJ0GOMovRko0hLT36DkD_FYkvfXqagSrEs22bjpL4XK_O0c0wf3c6eMqU7r9hugLX5MBzSJMOdodH6iUwuFnrXVqWgk-_rZ3kgJeGWIWMPv4VgCVMivSovAaJfIU9rzT4k2zBbm1s5eJg-rs3vwMZ-QQNqOOrvauuBlC3mEUQNKw/s991/disinfologo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="991" height="127" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMIVfqhhHEKpBax0eJ0GOMovRko0hLT36DkD_FYkvfXqagSrEs22bjpL4XK_O0c0wf3c6eMqU7r9hugLX5MBzSJMOdodH6iUwuFnrXVqWgk-_rZ3kgJeGWIWMPv4VgCVMivSovAaJfIU9rzT4k2zBbm1s5eJg-rs3vwMZ-QQNqOOrvauuBlC3mEUQNKw/w400-h127/disinfologo.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Disinformation was a popular website, with millions of readers, during the mid-2010s. Then something happened to it. Now it's just completely gone. This article appeared on Disinformation. I guess they won't mind if we reprint it.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>Robots bring to mind immortality and all that. Why do you think someone would want to stay alive forever? Do you want to die?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The short answer is no, I don’t want to die. And I think it’s clear why someone would want to live forever – mostly because we don’t know what happens after we die, and it seems possible that we cease to exist. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to cease to exist.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Which brings me to a slightly longer answer. You saw that Darryl Dawkins recently died, right? You probably remember him from when he was a pro basketball player – I sure do. He used to dunk the ball so hard that he shattered the glass backboard a couple of times. They had to change the way they manufactured the baskets because of him.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">When he was a player, he was so vital, so energetic, so alive – both physically and personality-wise – that it seemed unlikely he could ever die. It actually seems more likely that he never existed in the first place. He was a daydream we all imagined.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If Darryl Dawkins never existed, that suggests we don’t exist either, at least not in the way we appear to. It’s a liberating thought.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Which brings me to one last idea. In my book Sexbot, people can achieve a sort of immortality by downloading their human awareness into intelligent machines. Suppose for a minute that this were possible. You are no longer your body – in fact you are divorced from it, liberated from it. Since you are inside a machine, now you are essentially a computer program.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Not only could you live a long time, possibly forever, you could live in any way you choose. You wouldn’t have to look like a person. You could be a submarine at the bottom of the ocean, or a star cruiser traveling into deep space. You could be a Sexbot, if you wanted, or some kind of weird warrior Robocop. If you’re the brainy type, you could choose to be a bot crawling the interwebs, digesting information.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Weirder still, you could be one of these things for a time, then choose to be something else entirely. Or you could copy and paste yourself, and be all of these things at once.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">That’s the immortality I dream of for you and me.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7I5F5D_L0XfGXdHPeoQY9uBoosKRhseLtCHOe_fZsBvKvA5JUXJvOXjMSGfIxvECJw5zw4hc7ZtqWLyAU7SP4CBAuV-C1EHK210gZFqQv2vW8E1xnQxnJsPgQXHdvoB5ww11tmT1oTKu_-9mXWesSIFPr3MGOTBp3JPUmM9ZsYgkuL6n71091dYU9QA/s2492/sexbot%20final%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2492" data-original-width="1600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7I5F5D_L0XfGXdHPeoQY9uBoosKRhseLtCHOe_fZsBvKvA5JUXJvOXjMSGfIxvECJw5zw4hc7ZtqWLyAU7SP4CBAuV-C1EHK210gZFqQv2vW8E1xnQxnJsPgQXHdvoB5ww11tmT1oTKu_-9mXWesSIFPr3MGOTBp3JPUmM9ZsYgkuL6n71091dYU9QA/w256-h400/sexbot%20final%202.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The ebook of Sexbot is available for FREE. <br /><a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/sexbots.html"><b><i>Click here</i></b></a> to read all about that.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-31943144275327707022022-05-02T21:09:00.008-07:002022-05-17T18:39:07.991-07:00The Rise and Fall of a Dive Bar Regular<p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Guest Post by <a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/p/brian-whitney.html" target="_blank"><b><i>Brian Whitney</i></b></a> </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDT_e_MIp2FH2NrhqbdmIXHQvVYJGwhL8-sk0hxf15k8wLsMZWY5TNdYbRkJPSXkplcInAnbQUA-lNmwiP3qeUdR1hndLyAQRVkhBi6Uvuid-mJn_r_a1upnYlKXjFGrOacl5IS3qJkfeKr2CDjqiM8tBVxyT4HfmqDCWFw86IkapUHVs8ebjYtR3XHg/s236/brian%20whitney%20dive%20bar.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="213" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDT_e_MIp2FH2NrhqbdmIXHQvVYJGwhL8-sk0hxf15k8wLsMZWY5TNdYbRkJPSXkplcInAnbQUA-lNmwiP3qeUdR1hndLyAQRVkhBi6Uvuid-mJn_r_a1upnYlKXjFGrOacl5IS3qJkfeKr2CDjqiM8tBVxyT4HfmqDCWFw86IkapUHVs8ebjYtR3XHg/w361-h400/brian%20whitney%20dive%20bar.jpg" width="361" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Author Brian Whitney doing what he does best.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>"I am what is commonly known as a binge drinker." </b></span></p><p><span></span></p><a name='more'></a><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I don’t ever drink at home, but I like to go out. When I go out I like to drink a ton. When I hit the town, I, like all of the other true partiers in the world, want a place to go where I know the vibe and know I am going to get my mind crushing buzz on with the least possible hassle, combined with the most possible fun.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It should also be cheap. For a boozebag, checking your wallet the next day can be a terrifying experience.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Which is why I always have a regular bar that I frequent. The last thing you want to do if you really want to get hammered is wander around aimlessly looking for a good place to drink.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">I have been a regular at different bars numerous times throughout my life. In my past, I have had many failed relationships and a myriad of life crisis, and through these horrible times I have always had a regular bar to call home.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">When used correctly being a regular at a bar can be a good thing. For one, it is economical. I used to hang out at a place where I became so friendly with the bartender that I drank for free and only tipped. I would run up 70 dollar bar tabs, then throw down 30 bucks for a tip and walk out. Sometimes I would just walk out and throw the bartender money the next time I came in. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This went on for a few years. The end result was that the bartender was fired (I wasn’t the only one he was giving free drinks to) and I had to find a new bar. It was more traumatic than it sounds.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Being a regular makes it much easier to get laid, for a while anyway. Instead of being an unknown predator, you are this dude they see all the time. It helps of course if you are funny or mysterious. But then eventually you become the only thing worse than an unknown predator, which is a known predator.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Which brings me to my main point: there are positive and negatives to being a bar regular.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The positives: everyone knows you.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The negatives: everyone knows you.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You need a lot of skill to go to a bar solo and fit in. It can happen, and I can do it, but the other regulars and bartenders are always going to look at you a little askance. The best thing to do is to have a bunch of different friends you can bring with you to the bar at different times. That way you avoid the whole lone wolf stigma, but then you have to beware of your friend ruining your rep at your hangout. Because if the regulars and bartenders don’t like your friend, you are screwed as well. Nothing kills the scene worse than an idiotic wingman.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Any true drunk knows the lifecycle of the bar regular. There are four significant stages that occur, some may take months, and some years, but in time, all of them will occur to varying degrees.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_JbP2cM2mxb8YrsiLI5b4DxbggfZ37ctNIC2P1d46Gl1R-i16KWQV4olvaTGhjpJsEUcOQCF2vd47F2fLmQr4feSkqN1amhRWr5ZdBTvILz4QFiIePyLtZvEvJVFuOHt8LVzTsHBeh3nLpv_GIrr5XOJpCrwR5wVyjRkruqbj534a9pqxV-qLyCuceQ/s1200/dive%20bar%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_JbP2cM2mxb8YrsiLI5b4DxbggfZ37ctNIC2P1d46Gl1R-i16KWQV4olvaTGhjpJsEUcOQCF2vd47F2fLmQr4feSkqN1amhRWr5ZdBTvILz4QFiIePyLtZvEvJVFuOHt8LVzTsHBeh3nLpv_GIrr5XOJpCrwR5wVyjRkruqbj534a9pqxV-qLyCuceQ/w400-h225/dive%20bar%201.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Getting in.</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">At first, of course, people don’t know you. Keep to yourself on your initial visit, be friendly, but not too overzealous. Wooing a bar is pretty much the same as wooing a lady. Show confidence. Say things when you feel like it to whomever you want at the bar, or the bartender. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But if you don’t have anything funny or interesting to say, don’t say anything at all. If you aren’t funny and interesting, nothing is going to go well for you at the bar, so this article is not for you.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">A lot of people get freaked out at the thought of sitting at a bar by themselves. Don’t be one of those people. Sitting at a bar is one of the finest pleasures known to man. Don’t let your fear own you.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Say funny things, chat up the bartender, but be subtle. If the bartender is a woman, flirting is fine as long as you don’t overdo it. If you can’t do it well in real life, for fuck’s sake don’t do it in the bar.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Buy some drinks for others and tip well. This is like putting money in the bank. If you show love to your bartender and fellow regulars they will show it back when you need it. Trust me on this one.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The biggest thing: just keep showing up. If you like it there and act cool, people will eventually like you too. That’s how bars work. If you weren’t there looking for someone to talk to, you would be drinking at home.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLFhEICOHf7HJwqXXuSf_ireKtnf1nshDtVhvLhEjsiAkhF6czPtkiCaZjyWoibKy9oa4hAMdCwRg_SCTe0CI321h82Kt6xdM95-cPPVyz9CIXWHuvlUSbpnK8csbaitSFqvFlu_MtwLuC3Xq4DZrYQLVjlAnYugI6pUvSsfkHgarh89XvoJiSqAO9Nw/s800/dive%20bar%203.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="800" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLFhEICOHf7HJwqXXuSf_ireKtnf1nshDtVhvLhEjsiAkhF6czPtkiCaZjyWoibKy9oa4hAMdCwRg_SCTe0CI321h82Kt6xdM95-cPPVyz9CIXWHuvlUSbpnK8csbaitSFqvFlu_MtwLuC3Xq4DZrYQLVjlAnYugI6pUvSsfkHgarh89XvoJiSqAO9Nw/w400-h261/dive%20bar%203.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">You’re In.</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The bartenders call you by name when you arrive. My favorite ever was a bartender yelling out, “It just got a whole lot cooler in here!” as I walked through the door.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">People are genuinely happy to see you. You get a free drink here and there. It starts to feel like you really have a scene. If the bar is too crowded, you start to get irritated by all the other people who aren’t regulars taking your seat.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It seems important that you go to the bar now. If you are home, you wonder what is going on at the bar. It always seems like you are missing something when you aren’t there. Your bar calls your name.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The bartender knows you usually tip well, so it isn’t that big a deal if you tip on the light side here and there. People know you, it is easier to bum smokes because of that and you don’t need to buy a pack. You get cut off on the rare occasion, but you handle it like a gentleman. You start getting laid a lot. You say things and people laugh.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Basically, it is party time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPPFmxiVNYwo0COEP6nR3Xc-uEj_tZ2jWH5gJ8hh886D1-ehA2YCHzHNpSc55o0TI46QWtGV6mWUz4PYerdYogAp6RXzZpTtVtNT-Z8YQmMue3CIRWkp_JvSUsSrvJldpaXleIr_bH6h1s_S9RxvIhqcBA4YYMUTymgZSc1fgDbT2D4vp8rYmGYLWiQ/s1500/dive%20bar%204.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1500" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPPFmxiVNYwo0COEP6nR3Xc-uEj_tZ2jWH5gJ8hh886D1-ehA2YCHzHNpSc55o0TI46QWtGV6mWUz4PYerdYogAp6RXzZpTtVtNT-Z8YQmMue3CIRWkp_JvSUsSrvJldpaXleIr_bH6h1s_S9RxvIhqcBA4YYMUTymgZSc1fgDbT2D4vp8rYmGYLWiQ/w400-h266/dive%20bar%204.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">On Your Way Out.</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Now when you enter, the bartender still says hi, but it is a little forced. He had to throw you out a week ago, and things haven’t been quite the same since. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It wasn’t your fault, this chick kept saying you were in her space when you were just trying to drink, but for some reason the bartender doesn’t seem quite over it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You have bummed too many smokes and sometimes people say no when you ask for one. You now take the fact that you used to tip well as a reason to tip badly.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Once, a few weeks ago you left on the tab, and didn’t come back for a few days to clear it up.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Sometimes when it is a slow day, maybe just the beginning of the night, there are only five girls at the bar. You’ve lied to all of them, slept with three of them, and stolen from one. If you weren’t so hammered you would feel uncomfortable.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You say things and you are ignored, albeit in a polite way. The “friends” that you bring with you are of lesser and lesser quality by the day.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGu_kgd2pFzfsgIgsRzRbg5m17NIYhNNfKdxSlIq59bRKtn75Hx-cC0LaSo7iPQ9uXmLcDmVtS60b8QhuHvlLpmZ_U9NcfxIkZCMY4cy3m5nMSotGFj2Gi__zKfWgrVA7J2zKEG8VTKvOJ3Lk1sJtMN908UP7SVBVAUHbIb6slglY0F0PPR2ZZkgdAmA/s1520/dive%20bar%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="804" data-original-width="1520" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGu_kgd2pFzfsgIgsRzRbg5m17NIYhNNfKdxSlIq59bRKtn75Hx-cC0LaSo7iPQ9uXmLcDmVtS60b8QhuHvlLpmZ_U9NcfxIkZCMY4cy3m5nMSotGFj2Gi__zKfWgrVA7J2zKEG8VTKvOJ3Lk1sJtMN908UP7SVBVAUHbIb6slglY0F0PPR2ZZkgdAmA/w400-h211/dive%20bar%202.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">You find a new bar.</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It has to happen… Your relationship has run its course. It was beautiful while it lasted, but it is over. The romance is gone, and there is no getting it back.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Remember that other place that you went that time? They had cheap well drinks for happy hour and the bartender seemed cool. Tomorrow would be a good time to check it out.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7cPHCBgDohGf6dhdgVaR9LMcwbY4EIVAe5KMuYsRB5KZ6R52qUvkjQ0pJujMjFWWfK5LbwPWljE-DLyxUqtZxj0FTOjfM2tTBnTRNWY4Xt-rJ7nvNlySWQTjLcgRymV84q-jVK4R_R0QzpdPo2itYMUHVv2bZRJ9OSqxOL9N4zX2F-sBx2Xvzi0h8gg/s521/Brian%20Whitney%20antichrist.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="521" data-original-width="521" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7cPHCBgDohGf6dhdgVaR9LMcwbY4EIVAe5KMuYsRB5KZ6R52qUvkjQ0pJujMjFWWfK5LbwPWljE-DLyxUqtZxj0FTOjfM2tTBnTRNWY4Xt-rJ7nvNlySWQTjLcgRymV84q-jVK4R_R0QzpdPo2itYMUHVv2bZRJ9OSqxOL9N4zX2F-sBx2Xvzi0h8gg/w400-h400/Brian%20Whitney%20antichrist.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Ask Brian about...</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-90589729782875651352022-04-28T13:24:00.005-07:002022-04-28T13:31:33.331-07:00Timmy's Invisible Friend<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6gz2VRDZTsaN0gYd3Czw7f_fcJRUDzmnOBVWPt5Rhswo8vt6G2bywhoCRBo88vQU1LszcchguqVXBLsn5KO7ifW91y61loCIeFja-A-5nh2KznFJoYQ2Y_lE40EhDOxzo3qHaB2p_QPnM6hdJ-Kj8lK2rSuzZdWAyzs3Hs9FE4EFhuNn5GmEBvYNbWA/s651/timmy's%20invisble%20friend.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="651" data-original-width="500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6gz2VRDZTsaN0gYd3Czw7f_fcJRUDzmnOBVWPt5Rhswo8vt6G2bywhoCRBo88vQU1LszcchguqVXBLsn5KO7ifW91y61loCIeFja-A-5nh2KznFJoYQ2Y_lE40EhDOxzo3qHaB2p_QPnM6hdJ-Kj8lK2rSuzZdWAyzs3Hs9FE4EFhuNn5GmEBvYNbWA/w308-h400/timmy's%20invisble%20friend.jpg" width="308" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span><a name='more'></a></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Low effort, no doubt. I've been busy lately.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">They can't all be winners.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom:</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man, living in the sky, who watches everything you do, every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he DOES NOT WANT YOU TO DO."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- George Carlin</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"God promised the end of all wicked people. Thor promised the end of all Ice Giants. I don't see any Ice Giants around."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-2086028885103718902022-03-25T20:48:00.009-07:002022-05-17T20:56:46.012-07:00Now YOU Can Nuke Your Own Neighborhood. Here's How:<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheYcriy--BJoPOPc5ZAPqTL20hFQ0ymalMhUnNxaZZBUe6WsQndsuWUAX1AkUVyXeMnPE87O6skhvwpWrq6en5HLD9OG5vpRKK1XTQz0Zg6gwUsATKKTnwOtLxZJK6US-FuCnQApYqcUNQGIIj3YgeZ5r8u4A8s8y9-V3iG6OHcSL3-Tk47jIIyMfCdQ/s800/pepe%20nuke.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheYcriy--BJoPOPc5ZAPqTL20hFQ0ymalMhUnNxaZZBUe6WsQndsuWUAX1AkUVyXeMnPE87O6skhvwpWrq6en5HLD9OG5vpRKK1XTQz0Zg6gwUsATKKTnwOtLxZJK6US-FuCnQApYqcUNQGIIj3YgeZ5r8u4A8s8y9-V3iG6OHcSL3-Tk47jIIyMfCdQ/w400-h300/pepe%20nuke.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Pepe the Frog looks out at a nuclear inferno over his city. Pepe was a popular right-wing meme during the Trump years, although Thee Optimist certainly has plenty of left-wing Pepe memes. Pepe is flexible like that. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/2022/03/mutual-assured-destruction-putin-russia-north-korea-india-pakistan.html" target="_blank"><b><i>Nuclear apocalypse</i></b></a> is on a lot of people's minds these days, and with good reason. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Generally speaking, humans slogged through thousands of years of lack, outright famine, interpersonal violence, war, disease, genocide, slavery and natural disasters to arrive at this relatively soft period where we find ourselves today.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But make no mistake: we are evolved to anticipate threats. Which is why we are happiest and most engaged when we have an existential crisis hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Nuclear War. AIDS. The Ozone Layer. Y2K. September 11. The Great Recession. Climate Change. QAnon. Covid. Now Nuclear War again. What goes around, comes back around. We love this stuff.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Where was I?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Right. You can nuke your own neighborhood.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Now, you can't do it literally. Maybe YOU can, but if you can, please refrain for the time being. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But figuratively, you can do it. And it's kind of fun. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Well, fun. It's interesting. I don't know if that's fun or not. It's not bungee jumping style fun. More like cerebral fun. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And the way you can do it is by simply going to a friendly nuclear apocalypse website called:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/" target="_blank"><b><i>NUKEMAP.</i></b></a></span></p><p><br /></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAd5PIsqbu6JPTMFqCW-YyKAIqxgFeNhgGwomMuI_nk6j_FgW7e3y_o97QXeFtHCJhljcimaEhHFe1_PKteHLlbjZPYlCuv5nkjERx_bAF8FttQ-l-PVpTdt-wNHfcoYKSJIAxHfQhG80tCoZW-xigsDim9k1b57qcZjeazbta7VG8f375MFU6KTGPJw/s1365/nuke%20tampa.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="699" data-original-width="1365" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAd5PIsqbu6JPTMFqCW-YyKAIqxgFeNhgGwomMuI_nk6j_FgW7e3y_o97QXeFtHCJhljcimaEhHFe1_PKteHLlbjZPYlCuv5nkjERx_bAF8FttQ-l-PVpTdt-wNHfcoYKSJIAxHfQhG80tCoZW-xigsDim9k1b57qcZjeazbta7VG8f375MFU6KTGPJw/w400-h205/nuke%20tampa.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A map of the Tampa Bay region of Florida, demonstrating the effects of one 2.4 megaton nuclear missile hit from the Russian (actually, a Soviet leftover, but they still have them) arsenal. Please do click to enlarge. Notice the dead count: 223,270, just from the bomb blast itself. Yowza! That one hurt.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>You Dropped A Bomb On Me... Baby.</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">NUKEMAP is the brainchild of someone named Alex Wellerstein. No, I don't know much about Alex, other than he must be a clever monkey because he made the NUKEMAP website. Thee Optimist sure couldn't do that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">NUKEMAP uses Google Earth technology to locate any place in the world, and then drop a nuclear bomb on it. The site says there have been over 255 million detonations since Alex first built it. I've done a few of those. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Alex has included helpful pre-sets, including popular cities, and various sizes of nuclear munitions. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You could, for example, bomb New York City with the 50-megaton Soviet-era "Tsar Bomba," the largest nuclear bomb ever tested. You could even do it with the 100-megaton option that the Soviets never did test. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Or you could, just for nostalgia purposes, bomb Hiroshima again with the 15-kiloton (tiny by modern standards) "Little Boy" atomic bomb the USA dropped in 1945. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In the saved image above, I nuked the city of Tampa, not because of <a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/2021/02/tom-brady-sleep-habits-benefits.html" target="_blank"><b><i>Tom Brady</i></b></a> and the Buccaneers, but because I am currently about 60 miles south of there.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In any nuclear missile exchange scenario, Tampa is going to get walloped. This is because Tampa is home to MacDill Air Force Base, which in turn is home to the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), and the United States Special Operations Command.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Central_Command" target="_blank"><b><i>CENTCOM</i></b></a> is where we organize and oversee our various wars and entanglements in Central Asia and the Middle East. It is a very important place. You know how we're always bombing wedding parties in places like Pakistan with drone strikes? The sleepless drunks who are piloting the drones work at CENTCOM.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Yes, very far away from the actual killing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If you look closely at the image, you will notice that I dropped the 2.4 megaton bomb dead center on the front gate at MacDill, right near where the housing units are. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">No one at MacDill Air Force Base is going to survive a nuclear war. That much is clear. The very idea that the Russians will drop just one bomb there is silly. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction" target="_blank"><b><i>They have more than 6,000</i></b></a>, so you know they can waste some and put the double- or triple-tap on certain places.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Would it even be a waste? Not if it gets the job done.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAF9B0VFfOZoI9olxK6LMTl9IqXtbYcq861VJOO4R1MTv2-G3DSPq1vktPlrGGV2FsvDT1-h3jhfRnIFraOMFDPzLFONoTOeUV1wQCKiDC8ZM2IOo-Ym2mOaeIjpm8TcFv5uclKG1e4k1vZrPZw7P9K8UcgKro9QwkPBhcmCmkY7yj0fzdg5KQuIJlCQ/s987/commie%20pepe.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="987" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAF9B0VFfOZoI9olxK6LMTl9IqXtbYcq861VJOO4R1MTv2-G3DSPq1vktPlrGGV2FsvDT1-h3jhfRnIFraOMFDPzLFONoTOeUV1wQCKiDC8ZM2IOo-Ym2mOaeIjpm8TcFv5uclKG1e4k1vZrPZw7P9K8UcgKro9QwkPBhcmCmkY7yj0fzdg5KQuIJlCQ/s320/commie%20pepe.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Promised earlier, a left-wing Pepe meme. Here, Pepe is a long-suffering World War II-era Soviet soldier, with a modern, laser-guided rifle, about to burst the brains out of a Victoria-era capitalist meme.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Wind is Important</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In the Tampa example above, you can see that the radius of the blast absolutely annihilates MacDill Air Force Base and causes a firestorm there. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It probably kills a lot of people in the cities of Tampa and Saint Petersburg, injures many more, and levels much of the infrastructure.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But if you're on the beach in Clearwater, you might not get hurt at all. Also, if you're further east in the city of Lakeland, the blast might not affect you.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Certainly, the city of Bradenton in the south is outside the blast radius. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Here's where we introduce another concept: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fallout" target="_blank"><b><i>nuclear fallout</i></b></a>. In the weeks and months after a nuclear war, fallout is going to kill a lot of people from radiation poisoning. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Of course, in a real nuclear war, the ensuing nuclear winter will cause a famine that will likely kill almost everyone in the Northern Hemisphere. So I'd purchase those tickets to New Zealand right now.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Regardless, Thee Optimist is going to hang on as long as he can. As a result, fallout, and the related concept of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevailing_winds" target="_blank"><b><i>prevailing winds</i></b></a>, become super important after Tampa gets nuked. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Fallout gets carried on the prevailing winds. In this region of southwest Florida, it is fairly breezy. The winds blow off the Gulf of Mexico, generally towards the north and east.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Which means that if Thee Optimist is lucky, the fallout from a nuke dropped on Tampa will blow north and east, toward Jacksonville, and away from where Thee Optimist is.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There is nothing out in the Gulf of Mexico worth bombing. There is no reason to bomb Mexico at all. Little if any fallout should blow into this region from Mexico or the Gulf. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">All of this adds up to the idea that one (or two) nukes dropped on Tampa is potentially not a world-ending calamity for Thee Optimist. He can survive (at least initially), eat canned food and loot his neighbor <a href="http://www.celebritydetective.com/Celebrity_Homes_Stephen-King-house.html" target="_blank"><b><i>Stephen King's waterfront mansion</i></b></a> to his heart's content.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Kind of looking forward to that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwqdnOG71n6xproy051kjN4OlABhjcUQKWx67Klp4YFGouI2_CtMKJAfDA5SW7juc3XL5SrJIkAwx3yPe9erraNOkiB1xsu87ndKBD-dswY_DraVWEc_JFtBUG32yj-vpA08CGCj_PWjcVd5NEhkwfDNnlqkYdKXrbSHD6AbxJf_k-JUsPyNEvy1xrOA/s515/pepe%20survive.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="369" data-original-width="515" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwqdnOG71n6xproy051kjN4OlABhjcUQKWx67Klp4YFGouI2_CtMKJAfDA5SW7juc3XL5SrJIkAwx3yPe9erraNOkiB1xsu87ndKBD-dswY_DraVWEc_JFtBUG32yj-vpA08CGCj_PWjcVd5NEhkwfDNnlqkYdKXrbSHD6AbxJf_k-JUsPyNEvy1xrOA/w400-h286/pepe%20survive.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Pepe survived the nukes. Now he's a warrior in the wasteland, regarding a soda bottle of his own urine with something less than pleasurable anticipation.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"Interestingly, there was a Japanese news station that was extremely interested in this particular project. They were very interested in this sort of re-simulating of the bomb.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"One provocative question they asked me was, 'Do you think people who were victims of the Hiroshima bomb would be offended by this sort of gamification or simulation of that experience?' </span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And my answer was essentially, 'Well, I hope not.'"</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Alex Wellerstein, talking about his NUKEMAP Virtual Reality project</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-87751822111004984782022-03-17T19:30:00.002-07:002022-03-17T19:38:18.887-07:00This Might Explain Some Things<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhXvbyIbko2AMTQibd0g1_F8Rdtf0yiQk4fU2VgcBJqL6xkhJPzan6_81FX6oGjbHCeCAFq9jD-21Km3hUTtmvkS-ZzlH1EMTusINnv35nI-U6b9OrmPsoU1BDljkGH-hMecwjL0WIlaAsYQoGlWv58eikL5B-aYSLKUC9j10P8TJSg0R699aBHyJlJQ=s320" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="320" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjhXvbyIbko2AMTQibd0g1_F8Rdtf0yiQk4fU2VgcBJqL6xkhJPzan6_81FX6oGjbHCeCAFq9jD-21Km3hUTtmvkS-ZzlH1EMTusINnv35nI-U6b9OrmPsoU1BDljkGH-hMecwjL0WIlaAsYQoGlWv58eikL5B-aYSLKUC9j10P8TJSg0R699aBHyJlJQ=w320-h314" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">It's been clear for some time that IQs are dropping across the Western world. Now, at least in America, we have a hint about one of the culprits.<br /><br /></span><span><a name='more'></a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If you're at all like Thee Optimist, you're about as dumb as a bag of rocks. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">That's okay. Most people you interact with are equally dumb, if not more so. In fact, you, your friends, your co-workers, and your family members are probably all <a href="https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2012/07/why-dont-stupid-people-realize-theyre-stupid-79776/" target="_blank"><b><i>so dumb that you can't even recognize how dumb</i></b></a> you actually are.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Ouch! The truth hurts. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Now, a study from Florida State University and Duke University, and published in the <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</i>, explains why this might be so. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It has been well understood for a long time that <a href="https://www.popsci.com/lead-effects-can-last-lifetime/" target="_blank"><b><i>lead exposure in childhood</i></b></a> lowers the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of the children affected, a deficit that impacts them for most or all of their lives. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The Florida State/Duke study suggests that up to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/lead-gasoline-blunted-iq-half-us-population-study-rcna19028" target="_blank"><b><i>half the children in America</i></b></a> were exposed to IQ reducing amounts of lead poisoning during the 1960s and 1970s. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The 1960s and 1970s was a time when lead was added to gasoline to help engine performance, and most households in America were acquiring cars, often for the first time. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Before 1950, few American households owned a car, and most people took public transportation. In the 1950s, car ownership began to ramp up, but reached a frenzy in the 1960s and '70s.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Because lead damages catalytic converters (which first became widespread in the 1975 new car models), lead use in gasoline dropped off during the 1980s, but wasn't officially banned until 1996. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">According to the study, lead exposure from gasoline during the era from 1960 to 1996 cost Americans an estimated (and staggering) <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/lead-gasoline-blunted-iq-half-us-population-study-rcna19028" target="_blank"><b><i>loss of 824 million IQ points</i></b></a>. That equals about 2.6 IQ points per person. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">People born in the 1960s and 1970s however, the height of the leaded gas era (talking about my generation) are thought to have lost between 6 and 7 IQ points per person, on average. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Of course, a question leaps to mind: does it even matter?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimmsMb8y2LHlB9kfcNlEHeqWp1tcbiaP4uTYCiJBX8MPDG_To7QoLSiU4EAOQt4LFIDupFUhmL-W0BsnLNTGnpATRBg6gIdwilEkKnevjPiLQUzk-ZIoA-3qh99ubW-KfpsJmLBjULfpEtzwvmOBcr2zQGc6Swsv2pj8sqpjaQqrax5gB13qvf1MakGg=s693" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="693" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEimmsMb8y2LHlB9kfcNlEHeqWp1tcbiaP4uTYCiJBX8MPDG_To7QoLSiU4EAOQt4LFIDupFUhmL-W0BsnLNTGnpATRBg6gIdwilEkKnevjPiLQUzk-ZIoA-3qh99ubW-KfpsJmLBjULfpEtzwvmOBcr2zQGc6Swsv2pj8sqpjaQqrax5gB13qvf1MakGg=w400-h246" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The infamous IQ Bell Curve. About 70% of people fall between a score of 85 and 115. This is what they mean by "average intelligence," and the vast majority of people fall within it. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Yes, It Matters</span></b><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">People don't like IQ. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It's not hard to guess why. Once a person's IQ is set, generally in childhood, it's very difficult to move the needle on it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">IQ is widely understood as a measure of how smart you are. Everyone would like to be smart. No one wants to be dumb, or even average. And IQ is a very deterministic thing.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There are <a href="https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/occupations.aspx" target="_blank"><b><i>places you can go online</i></b></a> (and I do NOT recommend going to them) that will tell you which jobs are appropriate, or even possible, for what range of IQs. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">No one wants to feel like they are determined or pigeon-holed. We want to believe that we (and our loved ones) are capable of doing whatever we set our minds to. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And there is good reason to believe this. A whole host of things besides IQ goes into life outcomes - from when, where and what social class you're born into, to the nurturing (or lack thereof) of your parents, to your persistence, your optimism or pessimism, what you look like, blind luck, and what is known as your <a href="https://www.helpguide.org/articles/mental-health/emotional-intelligence-eq.htm" target="_blank"><b><i>emotional intelligence</i></b></a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Moreover, because the vast majority of people are of average intelligence, the world is built to accommodate their needs and desires. People of very high IQ often <a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/2021/02/north-pond-hermit-unabomber-thoreau.html" target="_blank"><b><i>have a hard time being here</i></b></a> among the rest of us slavering idiots. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Ted Kaczynski, the so-called "Unabomber," is thought to be one of the smartest people on Earth. He spent much of his adult life as a hermit alone in the Montana wilderness, and will likely finish his life in permanent isolation as a prisoner in the ADX Florence "Supermax" penitentiary.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">All of that said, in a general way, it is <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/how-does-iq-relate-to-personality/" target="_blank"><b><i>more favorable</i></b></a> to have a higher IQ than a lower IQ.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">High IQ is closely correlated with desirable traits like openness to experience, intellectual engagement, creativity, mental quickness, independent thinking, reasoning, ingenuity, and imagination. It is less closely, but still correlated with leadership ability, organization, emotional stability and moderation. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">People with high IQs also <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/research-confirms-a-link-between-intelligence-and-life-expectancy/#:~:text=A%20more%20surprising%20discovery%20is,from%20the%20Scottish%20Mental%20Surveys." target="_blank"><b><i>tend to live longer</i></b></a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In contrast, lower IQs are closely correlated with receiving welfare payments, psychopathology, lack of impulse control, inattention, boredom, substance abuse and poverty. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Lower IQs are very closely correlated with <a href="https://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/crime/intelligence-and-crime/3/#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20the%20IQ%20for,deviation%20below%20the%20population%20mean." target="_blank"><b><i>being in prison</i></b></a>. Individuals who find themselves in prison again and again tend to have even lower IQs than the prison population as a whole. This may have less to do with a propensity for crime, and more to do with a propensity for poor planning. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">How might we see lower IQs play out across a society as vast as the United States?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifjz4DsUaknNLjwwbTZif7OXj-9xmM1a_TSzjDf-BAOFIzGx9qzUNOev17tPK6M3hg5Ndj7kke3Ius7pA0AzORglJcn0czItEMqq70ojTZXf44y4_iOuLr1dQRGhB_JS_ffi6RwTpniUgBngNjlSZC_9d3pxNYR5m21EPJMPaGiNAQvD-Zn0VlKaMs2Q=s1024" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifjz4DsUaknNLjwwbTZif7OXj-9xmM1a_TSzjDf-BAOFIzGx9qzUNOev17tPK6M3hg5Ndj7kke3Ius7pA0AzORglJcn0czItEMqq70ojTZXf44y4_iOuLr1dQRGhB_JS_ffi6RwTpniUgBngNjlSZC_9d3pxNYR5m21EPJMPaGiNAQvD-Zn0VlKaMs2Q=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The United States is a gigantic, incredibly complex web of interlocking systems.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Things Fall Apart</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">On an individual level, we can see how higher IQ can play a role (and often a significant role) in the outcomes a person experiences. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But individuals don't live in a vacuum, all by themselves. They live in a society. And that society can be seen as the sum total of the interactions of all these individuals, and the systems and organizations they create, or which are created for them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In a society-wide context, if 824 million IQ points really were shaved off, what sort of changes might we expect to see?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Well, poor planning and organization might be one. Have we seen anything like this in recent decades?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Like, maybe the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Iraq_War" target="_blank"><b><i>Iraq War</i></b></a> and the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/16/politics/afghanistan-joe-biden-donald-trump-kabul-politics/index.html" target="_blank"><b><i>War in Afghanistan</i></b></a>?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Or maybe the <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/22202738/covid-19-coronavirus-america-anniversary-lawrence-wright" target="_blank"><b><i>disastrous response</i></b></a> to the Covid pandemic?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We might expect to see a failure of reasoning, and an <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/why-americas-institutions-are-failing/613078/" target="_blank"><b><i>inability to respond</i></b></a> to changing circumstances. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We might expect to see <a href="https://www.sentencingproject.org/criminal-justice-facts/#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20is%20the,explain%20most%20of%20this%20increase." target="_blank"><b><i>more people in prison</i></b></a>, and a lack of recognition that widespread incarceration is harmful to the overall society. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We might expect to see the faltering or failure of large systems, like <a href="https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/america-s-health-care-crisis-much-deeper-covid-19" target="_blank"><b><i>healthcare</i></b></a> or the <a href="https://www.thetechedvocate.org/20-reasons-why-the-american-education-system-is-failing/" target="_blank"><b><i>public schools</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We might expect to see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932022_United_States_racial_unrest" target="_blank"><b><i>widespread civil unrest</i></b></a>, or an <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/citizen-militias-in-the-u-s-are-moving-toward-more-violent-extremism/" target="_blank"><b><i>increase in violent extremism</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We might expect to see a decrease in life expectancy. We indeed seem to have <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/u-s-life-expectancy-decreased-alarming-amount-during-pandemic-n1272206" target="_blank"><b><i>lost a year and a half</i></b></a> per person during the Covid crisis. But the truth is life expectancy was <a href="https://www.aafp.org/news/health-of-the-public/20181210lifeexpectdrop.html" target="_blank"><b><i>headed downwards</i></b></a> in the United States years before Covid reared its ugly head. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">A decline in reasoning ability might also suggest we'd become more vulnerable to <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/1/18/22237761/donald-trump-was-always-con-man-that-includes-time-usfl-generals-mccaskey-kelly-nfl-telander" target="_blank"><b><i>conmen</i></b></a>, or to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon" target="_blank"><b><i>outlandish theories</i></b></a> with no evidence to back them up. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">What's incredible is that we see evidence of all of these things happening, at the same time. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Bad decisions by government. Failing healthcare and public education systems. Lost trust in institutions. Giant military blunders, an enormous prison population, civil unrest, and people dying younger and younger. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">No wonder that in a poll taken right after the attack on the Capitol Building, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/news/534204-4-in-5-say-us-is-falling-apart-survey" target="_blank"><b><i>roughly 80% of respondents</i></b></a> said that the United States was falling apart.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Could it be that all the lead we sucked in over three and half decades made us dumber?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjCgenseQAllPyn48E2xOLawTXEu8H8RU400mMpXYfVuvG7VxW7QQRLD-37rV8PrxXHNnsyWnt-qBdY-9PsB_5EIDnbr_Zqrk8cz0Lsno0CNrilsL-x6bANXM4z5S4s2MGbpwrR1_ZFOqHFuCQDJLIj_JYgg6RuKJoswVFfiWG7FFhydIa44uHr91UqAA=s556" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="556" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjCgenseQAllPyn48E2xOLawTXEu8H8RU400mMpXYfVuvG7VxW7QQRLD-37rV8PrxXHNnsyWnt-qBdY-9PsB_5EIDnbr_Zqrk8cz0Lsno0CNrilsL-x6bANXM4z5S4s2MGbpwrR1_ZFOqHFuCQDJLIj_JYgg6RuKJoswVFfiWG7FFhydIa44uHr91UqAA=w400-h223" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"We are conducting a massive toxicological experiment in the world today, and our children and grandchildren are the unknowing, unconsenting subjects."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Herbert Needleman, MD, 1970s pioneer on the study of lead poisoning in children</span></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-88132970318712671612022-03-11T09:20:00.000-08:002022-03-11T09:20:05.001-08:00Joe Rogaine CANCELLED?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwKDfj-sXPYV6LcX3qCEC2kzsG-AKWH7J7ZCR31vChMqezDa3VjbvmZ_guXHvUg28qrBNbtBTV7e0qxJJ7Zf6Zj9HqPoWHEYm4tETwlhfqTs4F-CTwbuC-lAWH0lPvGD4T3u_Zu9LmSJ8WFFw3Dlo6YA9wzI7bmetLwTf2W4FABkAQgWBnPzv_0nLKsg=s686" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="686" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwKDfj-sXPYV6LcX3qCEC2kzsG-AKWH7J7ZCR31vChMqezDa3VjbvmZ_guXHvUg28qrBNbtBTV7e0qxJJ7Zf6Zj9HqPoWHEYm4tETwlhfqTs4F-CTwbuC-lAWH0lPvGD4T3u_Zu9LmSJ8WFFw3Dlo6YA9wzI7bmetLwTf2W4FABkAQgWBnPzv_0nLKsg=w400-h191" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Click to enlarge.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">“Accept the truth from whatever source it comes.”</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Moses Maimonides</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-90644607576170643362022-03-04T11:42:00.010-08:002022-03-04T11:47:34.843-08:00Elephant in the Room: the Limits of Nuclear Deterrence<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjj0Tkq-V2qjBsvqReu5jL6Bd4F4dfnYVvYSXz0hJxJ1PH7RrOsVG5WTQiSLDXbwEY81q7RsiEVdk9C-MZDeqiZyUZeOGganiWEpW254SZejQqSCdOSnAA3xEszC2jnRXvzek5vSD9SNGoYXyGn_mhZ2RBXuUkuQxnQJkca9O7fi8UKHP0BdxDwby-QKA=s1041" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="811" data-original-width="1041" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjj0Tkq-V2qjBsvqReu5jL6Bd4F4dfnYVvYSXz0hJxJ1PH7RrOsVG5WTQiSLDXbwEY81q7RsiEVdk9C-MZDeqiZyUZeOGganiWEpW254SZejQqSCdOSnAA3xEszC2jnRXvzek5vSD9SNGoYXyGn_mhZ2RBXuUkuQxnQJkca9O7fi8UKHP0BdxDwby-QKA=w400-h311" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Ruh-roh. Turns out the BIG 5 nuclear powers aren't as stable as we might like. And the others (call them the small 4)? They are all an accident waiting to happen.<span><a name='more'></a></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Things have a funny way of turning on a dime, or at least giving that appearance.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Here we were, waiting for the whole <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2021-05-18/5-leaders-who-badly-mishandled-the-covid-19-pandemic" target="_blank"><b><i>Covid Fiasco</i></b></a> to die down, so we could resume something like normal life, but suddenly (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/28/nato-expansion-war-russia-ukraine" target="_blank"><b><i>not actually suddenly</i></b></a>, but that's the favored narrative) Russia invaded Ukraine, and everything is upended and uncertain again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">To make matters worse, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has made <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/opinion/ukraine-putin-nuclear-war.html" target="_blank"><b><i>repeated threats</i></b></a> about the war turning nuclear. To make matters even worse, over the 22 years he has ruled Russia, threats like this are out of character for him. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">For two decades, most western military and geopolitical analysts thought of Putin as stable, clever, and practical. He was a chess player. He didn't become emotional and he didn't generally overstep. Now analysts are <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/596721-we-must-take-an-increasingly-unhinged-putins-nuclear-threats" target="_blank"><b><i>starting to wonder</i></b></a> about his mental state.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This is a good thing to wonder about. The man is an absolute ruler, who has at his command the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. He could, more or less singlehandedly, launch a series of events that might <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust" target="_blank"><b><i>end all human life on Earth</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Yes. Vladimir Putin. All by himself. Could end human civilization, and potentially all life on the planet. And depending on how <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/28/why-do-we-need-a-world-if-russia-is-not-in-it-state-tv-presenter-opens-show-with-ominous-address-a76653" target="_blank"><b><i>poorly things go for Russia</i></b></a> (and himself) in the weeks and months ahead, he may well decide that's what he wants to do.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Which makes you kind of wonder... how did we get here?</span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiqjWpRpryU8HIf6AInKZo476KnNso4pTBRmAT1NdeMA-Gjy81Aa3YXpZMlJPyCe5Vy-lsrFpqUbmbqtyzi22dGOKvVuYtUAIU25u1O9Uet9FnuUWLD33pax1EirFblEtHzvCGz--J8VgSRLkMZ4cJv0Ghb98MLvABqdw1WL5oR7Hl7l5oKmTgNxJ7xsA=s759" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="456" data-original-width="759" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiqjWpRpryU8HIf6AInKZo476KnNso4pTBRmAT1NdeMA-Gjy81Aa3YXpZMlJPyCe5Vy-lsrFpqUbmbqtyzi22dGOKvVuYtUAIU25u1O9Uet9FnuUWLD33pax1EirFblEtHzvCGz--J8VgSRLkMZ4cJv0Ghb98MLvABqdw1WL5oR7Hl7l5oKmTgNxJ7xsA=w400-h240" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The Castle Romeo nuclear test, Bikini Atoll, March 26, 1954</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Birth of Atomic War</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In August 1945, at the tail end of World War Two, the United States tested a couple of atomic bombs on the Japanese. The narrative in America (and the West) is that the bombs ended the war, but that isn't quite true. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Fact is, the war was already over. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre" target="_blank"><b><i>evil Japs</i></b></a> were toast. Oh, whoops! Should I not <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Death_March" target="_blank"><b><i>call them evil</i></b></a>?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In any event, the war was over because the Germans had already been finished off. As part of a prior agreement with Churchill and FDR at Yalta, Josef Stalin had just switched the <a href="https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2020/01/07/the-soviet-invasion-of-manchuria-led-to-japans-greatest-defeat/#:~:text=Operation%20August%20Storm%2C%20the%20massive,end%20to%20World%20War%20II.&text=To%20the%20Soviet%20military%2C%20it,the%20Manchurian%20Strategic%20Offensive%20Operation." target="_blank"><b><i>Red Army over to fighting the Japanese</i></b></a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The Japanese land army, exhausted from a protracted guerrilla war against the Chinese, were incapable of fending off the battle-hardened Soviets. The Americans and English had destroyed the Japanese navy. What was left of the Japanese military was in danger of being annihilated. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">With the war over, we dropped the atomic bombs mostly because we had them, and <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/why-the-us-really-bombed-hiroshima/" target="_blank"><b><i>wanted to try them out</i></b></a>. No one outside of Japan felt much sympathy for the Japanese guinea pigs at the time, because the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_massacre" target="_blank"><b><i>Japanese had been very, very bad</i></b></a> themselves. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">For a brief moment, the United States was the only country in the world with atomic weapons. But almost exactly four years later, in August 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon, the RDS-1.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The nuclear arms race was on. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: x-large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjP4X8JDdfwek1UIHq3tUzomezKvjJReL1VeXIWA5Veds4GO4VooGS28qM7hJoFv1nRG3_yPZaCmGb5M6a2yw1ogXS7DhpKJLItxkPXduYw9a7mt4M72gfsDLeZ2fiwAsXCmA7LnHakfxqdSFDEy3_BkVLpNaag2krtQiVaVtrFNPXQdyM3RcCwTkFSkg=s858" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="858" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjP4X8JDdfwek1UIHq3tUzomezKvjJReL1VeXIWA5Veds4GO4VooGS28qM7hJoFv1nRG3_yPZaCmGb5M6a2yw1ogXS7DhpKJLItxkPXduYw9a7mt4M72gfsDLeZ2fiwAsXCmA7LnHakfxqdSFDEy3_BkVLpNaag2krtQiVaVtrFNPXQdyM3RcCwTkFSkg=w400-h279" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The so-called "Tsar Bomba" superbomb test, October 30, 1961, Severny Island, the Russian Arctic. Tsar Bomba was the most powerful nuclear explosion in history, yielding 50 megatons, more than 3,500 times stronger than the "Little Boy" bomb the US dropped on Hiroshima. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Mutual Assured Destruction</b></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As the Nuclear Arms Race carried on, the two major nuclear countries, the United States and the Soviet Union, developed missile arsenals so large (and pointed at each other), that they were capable of destroying all life on Earth many times over. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Later, a clever idea occurred to the humans who had launched this homicidal/suicidal race. The idea was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction" target="_blank"><b><i>Mutual Assured Destruction</i></b></a> (MAD). It was a theory of deterrence, suggesting that no nuclear armed power would ever launch the nukes, because to do so would virtually guarantee their own destruction.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There is a glaring hole in this theory, however. As far as I can tell, the first time this logical flaw was pointed out to a mass audience was in the movie <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove" target="_blank"><b><i>Dr. Strangelove</i></b></a>, which came out in 1964.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The flaw is simply this: Mutual Assured Destruction assumes that all parties to it are rational actors. Rational actors, we can guess, don't want to die and don't want their own countries, and the entire world destroyed.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But what happens if not all parties are rational actors? Generally speaking, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201203/self-deception-i-rationalization" target="_blank"><b><i>most humans are not rational</i></b></a>, and are primarily driven by emotions. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As we indicated earlier, Putin's current behavior <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-ukraine-rationality-emotional-questions/31728952.html" target="_blank"><b><i>is at odds with his past behavior</i></b></a>. He is not himself. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">What if he had a stroke? What if he is in the early stages of cognitive decline, or even dementia? What if he is secretly dying?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">What if he no longer cares if he lives or dies?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">There are no checks and balances on his behavior. He can do whatever he wants with the Russian nuclear arsenal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8IIPG7GDxl2kZMvfvJ4jTn5HsfiGCrmDpZuL_uQ1PF0UmfR1hvcqcg2XQnXpJx1N7vhbNeg9F1xbOTp6GbsJ7Naw7n4vOQPfrp4B2InAaH7B-Z9s2YB2Hrvhjq-Nkrq47g6RFw5yXa57FsR0ljBksRYzy01iveBZ9R3Vtghf3_77ZSOxZk2y20Q1Dug=s248" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="248" data-original-width="204" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8IIPG7GDxl2kZMvfvJ4jTn5HsfiGCrmDpZuL_uQ1PF0UmfR1hvcqcg2XQnXpJx1N7vhbNeg9F1xbOTp6GbsJ7Naw7n4vOQPfrp4B2InAaH7B-Z9s2YB2Hrvhjq-Nkrq47g6RFw5yXa57FsR0ljBksRYzy01iveBZ9R3Vtghf3_77ZSOxZk2y20Q1Dug=w263-h320" width="263" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Here comes another elephant.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">The Irrational Actors</span></b><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The first five countries to possess nuclear weapons were all world powers, either militarily or economically. They were the United States (1945), the Soviet Union (1949), England (1952), France (1960), and China (1964).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In 1968, these countries signed the <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat" target="_blank"><b><i>Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty</i></b></a>, which sought to stop any other countries from acquiring nukes. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Basically, these countries said, "We're all strong, pretty stable, and can be trusted to be somewhat responsible with these nukes. But we don't know that about anyone else."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As we've seen, assuming the rationality of these countries is a questionable thing to do.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But even worse, since that treaty was signed, four other, smaller countries have acquired nuclear weapons. These countries are anything but stable, rational actors.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">They are Pakistan, India, North Korea, and Israel. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Pakistan and India are mortal enemies, who have conducted full scale wars against each other four times - in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999. They are in a constant, simmering feud over the ownership of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_conflict" target="_blank"><b><i>Kashmir region</i></b></a>, and there are regular cross-border incursions and terrorist attacks committed by both sides. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Pakistan and India are thought to have about 150 nuclear missiles each, which is a tiny amount by the standards of the big powers. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But even <a href="https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/03/16/even-limited-india-pakistan-nuclear-war-would-bring-global-famine/" target="_blank"><b><i>a limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan</i></b></a> will likely kill hundreds of million of people initially, and perhaps a billion more from disease and starvation worldwide in the five years to follow.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Israel is considered an <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/" target="_blank"><b><i>apartheid state</i></b></a>, and engages in near-constant low-grade warfare against the Palestinians under their control, Syria, Hezbollah, and by extension Lebanon. Israel's mortal enemy is Iran, and Iran has enough conventional missiles to carpet-bomb nearly every square inch of Israeli territory north of the Negev Desert. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In recent years, Israel's prime minister has been <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/netanyahu-appears-in-court-as-former-aide-prepares-to-testify-in-corruption-case" target="_blank"><b><i>the criminal Benjamin Netanyahu</i></b></a>. From 2019 to 2021, Israel, riven by internal divisions, failed to form a government three straight times. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In an existential scenario where Israel finds itself in a war with both Hezbollah and Iran simultaneously, a war Israel cannot win, what would stop them from launching nuclear missiles? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">North Korea, the fourth of the small 4 nuclear powers, hardly needs any introduction. It is run by the madman Kim Jong-un, the third (and hopefully final) member of the Kim ruling dynasty. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">North Korea, never far from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59144712" target="_blank"><b><i>disintegrating into famine</i></b></a>, is bristling with weapons of all kinds, including nuclear weapons. It routinely threatens places within its reach with destruction, including South Korea, Japan, Australia, and both <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hawaii_false_missile_alert" target="_blank"><b><i>Hawaii</i></b></a> and the west coast of the continental United States.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">North Korea, all by itself, is a powerful argument against anyone having nuclear weapons. Taken as a group however, it becomes clear that the human race should no longer have nuclear weapons, and never should have built them in the first place. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhSxYxZhx40N_1iTusQp5RBcy1eUcG-V0PCRvldAlSe_yX07y3NJyBlCb56eZBzlHXgEj2RAg2XrqMxDMF44kCVkn7uHmac-8LB7wG9caRYAkWzd7qXEFOkKVyC2TmbX0Pc0-s9SgaSacHFq6rZTMpDmwDhn0UcmVUguQJP6wKGZ8cI82lha9tLH-jhHg=s2023" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="861" data-original-width="2023" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhSxYxZhx40N_1iTusQp5RBcy1eUcG-V0PCRvldAlSe_yX07y3NJyBlCb56eZBzlHXgEj2RAg2XrqMxDMF44kCVkn7uHmac-8LB7wG9caRYAkWzd7qXEFOkKVyC2TmbX0Pc0-s9SgaSacHFq6rZTMpDmwDhn0UcmVUguQJP6wKGZ8cI82lha9tLH-jhHg=w400-h170" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Image of a nuclear winter, from the movie The Road.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Words of Wisdom</span></b></p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"Nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself."</span></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Philip Berrigan</span><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"> </span></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-17569383440115702842022-03-01T02:16:00.004-08:002022-03-01T02:16:44.853-08:00Trump the Anti-War President?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_lsbxwbnPrfq1Uzgx-_asDgfMp4739MR8O37o_Zxhcteiptjwz1CMinZ220n2neb8Td1czpGpjhPJtVkqhQrNyLxwIvnjv9BXoZ9drb1UjCJ-w-ieFWvb_bXYvgE251B-0oVxTtfUrEgwEl2q2mGM2yQjVD0ed5jWC8QxZ49ccazvIW0xuOTBo4FGgQ=s683" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="342" data-original-width="683" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_lsbxwbnPrfq1Uzgx-_asDgfMp4739MR8O37o_Zxhcteiptjwz1CMinZ220n2neb8Td1czpGpjhPJtVkqhQrNyLxwIvnjv9BXoZ9drb1UjCJ-w-ieFWvb_bXYvgE251B-0oVxTtfUrEgwEl2q2mGM2yQjVD0ed5jWC8QxZ49ccazvIW0xuOTBo4FGgQ=w400-h200" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Click to enlarge.</span></div> <p></p><p><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Words of Wisdom</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"A nuclear weapons free world is not a dream, but a necessity for human survival. We need to stop waiting for things to happen. We need to go ahead and make things happen."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Amit Ray</span></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-31403097754135561772022-02-23T23:32:00.004-08:002022-02-28T07:22:28.679-08:00Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgexBVoMgtjA-N79W4nu0OGtvGz18IwW4VbjGJEKTdLd5g_VkZF8P4C8rRiu_Dyccq4NN026a6uD0_Va0ATBw5My-wKJ8WxGz_xlCp6e-ULYsZ3AaN3w5RMI765SpoRT-vN-qOpXufabQnJt96grzifVViejDDysfK2nKo5vV9rJQ8CsQIKhp4Zrii21w=s357" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="357" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgexBVoMgtjA-N79W4nu0OGtvGz18IwW4VbjGJEKTdLd5g_VkZF8P4C8rRiu_Dyccq4NN026a6uD0_Va0ATBw5My-wKJ8WxGz_xlCp6e-ULYsZ3AaN3w5RMI765SpoRT-vN-qOpXufabQnJt96grzifVViejDDysfK2nKo5vV9rJQ8CsQIKhp4Zrii21w=w400-h224" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Remember how she said that we would meet again some sunny day?</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Has Putin had a stroke? He seems a little off these days. Nuclear threats aren't really a laughing matter, but then again...</span></p><p><br /></p>
<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cIpTE-aHEZ0?start=33" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;">Words of Wisdom</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"Based on the findings of the report, my conclusion was that this idea was not a practical deterrent for reasons which at this moment must be all too obvious." </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Dr. Strangelove</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-688783981510907862022-02-18T23:46:00.008-08:002022-02-21T01:36:55.013-08:00Where do the Sackler family live?<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6xtMhUliV6gUaW_91QOrsqCW-J2-I8YgXn0Uhe1rQeT1r52oH6Kzxu1u117YQYDVNl0k97rgZEOc1812MUrmzLJJjAC9bZSP7DwiJaU4kq-yRNHA8NWegGctJc3LbfAZPC_CaJq0mIztZQrJQEF5YOvBDRqU01f1RSDYrFE2vs5RfQqsVGK0Whd8Vng=s700" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="700" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh6xtMhUliV6gUaW_91QOrsqCW-J2-I8YgXn0Uhe1rQeT1r52oH6Kzxu1u117YQYDVNl0k97rgZEOc1812MUrmzLJJjAC9bZSP7DwiJaU4kq-yRNHA8NWegGctJc3LbfAZPC_CaJq0mIztZQrJQEF5YOvBDRqU01f1RSDYrFE2vs5RfQqsVGK0Whd8Vng=w400-h300" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>The gruesome faces of evil:</b> Mortimer Sackler Jr., and his wife Jacqueline Sackler. The 40 or so members of the Sackler family have been the chief beneficiaries of the opioid epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the United States. And a few of these Sacklers are surprisingly easy to find.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Unless you've been living under a rock these past 20 years, you're probably aware there's a drug crisis in the United States of America. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This drug crisis is an order of magnitude larger than the previous (CIA-sponsored) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_trafficking#France" target="_blank"><b><i>heroin</i></b></a> and <a href="https://ips-dc.org/the_cia_contras_gangs_and_crack/" target="_blank"><b><i>crack cocaine</i></b></a> crises of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">It turns out that Americans, who live in a dystopian capitalist nightmare from which they cannot awake, and who have watched helplessly as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-to-american-jobs-in-the-80s-2017-7" target="_blank"><b><i>their jobs have been sent to Asia</i></b></a> to be performed by child laborers (or <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/10/27/us-lost-over-60-million-jobs-now-robots-tech-and-artificial-intelligence-will-take-millions-more/?sh=3335077c1a52" target="_blank"><b><i>robots</i></b></a>, as the case may be), are uniquely vulnerable to becoming drug addicts. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Who could have imagined such a thing?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In any event, the main drug fueling the most recent crisis has been a prescription painkiller known as Oxycontin. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This post isn't about how Oxycontin came to be overprescribed by medical doctors who were paid off by its manufacturer, Perdue Pharma, to do so. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And it isn't a post about how the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/13/meet-the-sacklers-the-family-feuding-over-blame-for-the-opioid-crisis" target="_blank"><b><i>Sackler family</i></b></a>, the owners of Perdue Pharma, became vastly wealthy from the misery and suffering of countless Americans. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You can piece together that whole sordid story in many places, including <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02686-2" target="_blank"><b><i>here</i></b></a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-are-the-sacklers-wealth-philanthropy-oxycontin-photos-2019-1" target="_blank"><b><i>here</i></b></a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2020/12/17/despite-years-of-litigation-the-sackler-family-behind-oxycontin-is-still-worth-billions/?sh=78cbbe6c5047" target="_blank"><b><i>here</i></b></a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/an-ugly-profiteering-twist-to-the-sackler-story-does-it-take-eight-to-tango/" target="_blank"><b><i>here</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You can watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCaIhfETsM" target="_blank"><b><i>John Oliver give a breakdown</i></b></a> of it. You can even <a href="https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-crime-of-the-century" target="_blank"><b><i>watch a documentary</i></b></a> about it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You don't need Thee Optimist to explain what happened. The information is widely available.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This is a much simpler post than any of that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgoB7j-BgAX3JpnKNsegl7LhoO-Dkn0Cr88lQvRzE9R_N22w4_uZDM2GLvDrtTAZZ1qWg5MgBN3V_63Nw9j0PANKjJmqh8r-oUQyxx1-XpjCOniBl711ewIGa8SGbh1MIkF0eE1mDkUch8q_qGCY1tOQ7r_Mafl8lULW5XA7yep3kJzfSI8ciVQ-T3OwQ=s1050" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="1050" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgoB7j-BgAX3JpnKNsegl7LhoO-Dkn0Cr88lQvRzE9R_N22w4_uZDM2GLvDrtTAZZ1qWg5MgBN3V_63Nw9j0PANKjJmqh8r-oUQyxx1-XpjCOniBl711ewIGa8SGbh1MIkF0eE1mDkUch8q_qGCY1tOQ7r_Mafl8lULW5XA7yep3kJzfSI8ciVQ-T3OwQ=w320-h320" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This is Theresa Sackler. She is the widow of Mortimer Sackler, Sr., one of the three brothers who founded Purdue Pharma. She is a direct beneficiary of human suffering to the tune of billions of dollars. Check out all the facial surgery she's had. Nip, tuck, nip, tuck. What an uggo this overpriced call girl is.<br /> </span> </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksBZ5EPuXPM" target="_blank"><i>Terminate... with extreme prejudice.</i></a></b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Suppose you're the uninhibited type, who enjoys getting out there and doing stuff. You like to meet new friends, let's say.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And suppose further that some new friends you might want to meet are members of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/health/sacklers-opioids-lawsuit.html" target="_blank"><b><i>famous Sackler family</i></b></a>. Why you would want to do that is your own affair, and not any business of mine. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You might suspect that these are not easy people to meet, and that they live inside walled and gated compounds in exclusive areas like <a href="https://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/jonathan-sacklers-house/view/google/" target="_blank"><b><i>Greenwich, Connecticut</i></b></a>, and <a href="https://www.dirt.com/more-dirt/heirs-heiresses/oxycontin-david-sackler-house-bel-air-11220/" target="_blank"><b><i>Bel Air, California</i></b></a>. You would be right to suspect that.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But a few of them live in Manhattan. And whereas Manhattan can be a pretty exclusive place to live, anyone is free to walk around on the streets.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">You never know who you're gonna meet on the streets of Manhattan. When Thee Optimist was a yoot of 15, he met and chatted with legendary actress <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Hepburn" target="_blank"><b><i>Katherine Hepburn</i></b></a> right out on Park Avenue one sunny afternoon. He even helped her hail a taxicab.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The above pictured Theresa Sackler lives in the building below, which is located at 980 Fifth Avenue. To be clear, 980 Fifth Avenue is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 79th Street, which is a very pricey neighborhood indeed. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhC7j_hQBBWDpgzQuP8P-Pr5noGNQ-dTEd3n8FoaeZtAa13gQhx9GGz6LPNCxxaRlt44rJSchTl8QqQFNOK1ZaaO105XGoxSZMnRMLkoMjqHx0ffJky-3_mn4lOho3nWsMjd9KQvNJN6k8ytoYf-EoWjL_hiNCbgJOAoD_Nx12LcQkGnf8sk8KbMtNMpQ=s1050" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="700" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhC7j_hQBBWDpgzQuP8P-Pr5noGNQ-dTEd3n8FoaeZtAa13gQhx9GGz6LPNCxxaRlt44rJSchTl8QqQFNOK1ZaaO105XGoxSZMnRMLkoMjqHx0ffJky-3_mn4lOho3nWsMjd9KQvNJN6k8ytoYf-EoWjL_hiNCbgJOAoD_Nx12LcQkGnf8sk8KbMtNMpQ=w266-h400" width="266" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">980 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. Notice the people standing around outside. Anyone can stand there, if they want. Theresa Sackler might be standing there. YOU could be standing there.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><b><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://www.farwide.com/wild-hogs-are-always-in-season-in-florida-and-kentucky-and-georgia-and/" target="_blank"><i>It's always pig hunting season</i></a></span></b><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Since you're in town anyway, where else in Manhattan do Sacklers happen to live?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Well, the family as a group (as well as one of their shell-game corporate entities) owns the Alfred Rossin House, the four-story townhouse at #15 East 62nd Street. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This home is between Madison Avenue and Fifth Avenue, very close to Central Park. It was built in the 1870s, and is thought to be worth in the neighborhood of $50 million. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Seems like there might be something unfair about people who profited from immense suffering getting to keep their fancy homes. Does it not?</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhnRd9jMwzKU3c3y-uu5DhnLX5nWDfKtplhJu879XNMba_fMKJngsALtOpVzADYJzikWObLnp_sxkb9Xdg7VB1091RHQmUniNKtMb5I8CB6K5kiRM4O-aqAwx5emQ5wtOyThJeFVjlEMsdU-uiYTZpySG0Rygv60Fg2d-BH8RLxdUEx8_g0eldPyWrG8g=s640" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhnRd9jMwzKU3c3y-uu5DhnLX5nWDfKtplhJu879XNMba_fMKJngsALtOpVzADYJzikWObLnp_sxkb9Xdg7VB1091RHQmUniNKtMb5I8CB6K5kiRM4O-aqAwx5emQ5wtOyThJeFVjlEMsdU-uiYTZpySG0Rygv60Fg2d-BH8RLxdUEx8_g0eldPyWrG8g=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">15 East 62nd Street, half a block from Central Park. Sackler family members come and go from here on the regular.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Anywhere else? Sure, let's do one more, shall we? </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Pictured below is another Sackler heir, another beneficiary of their foul misdeeds. Her name is Ilene Sackler-Lefcourt, and she is the daughter of Mortimer Sackler, Sr. with his first wife Muriel.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5sot8A_klVSxTLS_OtBNje4IZ2sCVVjl8a8jIM7t-e0UYWhuKeQWKfi1bFP-dWCzCTHIc93d6jt2nWWRzIEoA4KXMGOD5yIqqE_g8HbP7uNeFy7HFe5b10_rKW2wFr_33ElTMHFSeh4gKpilTc0s87l6XGdJjki29QdMs3K2xPhTahb_VAzThyL7F8Q=s1278" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1278" data-original-width="1277" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi5sot8A_klVSxTLS_OtBNje4IZ2sCVVjl8a8jIM7t-e0UYWhuKeQWKfi1bFP-dWCzCTHIc93d6jt2nWWRzIEoA4KXMGOD5yIqqE_g8HbP7uNeFy7HFe5b10_rKW2wFr_33ElTMHFSeh4gKpilTc0s87l6XGdJjki29QdMs3K2xPhTahb_VAzThyL7F8Q=s320" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Ilene Sackler-Lefcourt is not the daughter of Theresa Sackler. In fact, Theresa was Mortimer's third (trophy) wife, and she and Ilene are just about the same age, mid-70s or so.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Is there anything we can find to like about Ilene?</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Nah. Not really.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But if there were, what would it be?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Well, she founded and runs a <a href="http://www.sacklerlefcourtcenter.com/professional.html" target="_blank"><b><i>non-profit organization focused on children's mental health</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Not sure if they've done anything worthwhile. Could just be another way to glom money. Weirdly (or maybe not), the offices of the non-profit are located at 17 East 62nd Street, right next door to the townhouse shown above.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Ilene owns an apartment at the famous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_San_Remo" target="_blank"><b><i>San Remo building</i></b></a>, at 145 Central Park West, between 74th and 75th Streets. This building is less than a mile and a half from her office, not that I think she ever walks to work. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The San Remo has been, and is, home to many, many celebrities. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">These include (among others) Bruce Willis, Bono, Tiger Woods, Billy Squier, Steven Spielberg, Donna Karan, Glenn Close, Dustin Hoffman... you get the idea.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Bono and Billy Squier once had a neighborly war over Billy Squier's <a href="https://www.idolator.com/260936/bono-billy-squier-co-star-in-greatest-new-york-times-story-of-all-time?chrome=1&A1c=1" target="_blank"><b><i>fireplace smoke backing up</i></b></a> into Bono's penthouse.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">To give you an even better idea of the quality of the place, Madonna tried to buy an apartment there, but she was rejected by the Board.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In other words, if you go there looking to meet Ilene, you're just as likely to do some star-gazing. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_enrbews3jWHap1lB_EwWmGCYWeMP_ijiRzy8kxVLPSdgDxFIMmWUCD-XPMylPZlmsrlIRT9r3hiQspU8vIfnt-OIrjZmUXJji6sDWIzQzmvwIVaU42gvUpHXYcQDax_NfIC91yHZo45uwJsKC-T7CPGkokYJBvFLZLRkbl7odtZK3PT1sswnT3-IoQ=s1223" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1223" data-original-width="800" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_enrbews3jWHap1lB_EwWmGCYWeMP_ijiRzy8kxVLPSdgDxFIMmWUCD-XPMylPZlmsrlIRT9r3hiQspU8vIfnt-OIrjZmUXJji6sDWIzQzmvwIVaU42gvUpHXYcQDax_NfIC91yHZo45uwJsKC-T7CPGkokYJBvFLZLRkbl7odtZK3PT1sswnT3-IoQ=w261-h400" width="261" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The twin towers of the San Remo. It's a big building, with a lot of fancy people inside. Good luck trying to meet new friends there.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"For decades, the Sacklers have put themselves and their profits before people, and, under their leadership, Purdue committed crimes that helped fuel the opioid epidemic."</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">- US Senators Richard Markey, Richard Blumenthal, Ron Wyden, Maggie Hassan, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin and Joe Manchin, <a href="https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senators-urge-doj-to-investigate-sackler-family-members-for-role-in-fueling-opioid-epidemic" target="_blank"><b><i>from a letter </i></b></a>urging the Department of Justice to investigate the criminal activities of the Sackler family, February 16, 2022. </span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-915402152328341782022-02-10T00:04:00.001-08:002022-02-10T00:04:34.314-08:00900,000 Dead in Two Years?<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi-3cUdd_IAXtlFpTbT_3_4J45dpeG_ppz2w3wZiArwcpO3gmaKrvDHg1FdNRdYmiL-bX5JAjmnUSvgtRtySVnSXIW5Mu55RCQRNeX2QxEcIeFMYu0fZJ-uDy8wOO9UPqryakvVpmkpa7NjZEoCyhQCUK00MD7jry_yn-SeuA8Hr1BC9cK-sKvaiiLh5g=s679" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="345" data-original-width="679" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi-3cUdd_IAXtlFpTbT_3_4J45dpeG_ppz2w3wZiArwcpO3gmaKrvDHg1FdNRdYmiL-bX5JAjmnUSvgtRtySVnSXIW5Mu55RCQRNeX2QxEcIeFMYu0fZJ-uDy8wOO9UPqryakvVpmkpa7NjZEoCyhQCUK00MD7jry_yn-SeuA8Hr1BC9cK-sKvaiiLh5g=w400-h204" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Click to enlarge.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-5807005108293979442022-02-07T12:31:00.001-08:002022-02-07T12:31:09.064-08:00War on Covid?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLh58Q_46xHNVNlhmwPBtZy6wahh_UIm8sO_Y45TpXQq1AZZlT5idXrXEp3WPkYXW-r3llWBLAsYQ_4VNNU4DVImkJDvuAOQgkJUUSkVmhhKwYRMX_pw6_y5jQfXJddrAOJfeDsoeTaAzRkOVrSm7h8qpNVxco7ztTiRMq3jQ4_aZ9wHQneYxV2hDQUA=s679" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="306" data-original-width="679" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLh58Q_46xHNVNlhmwPBtZy6wahh_UIm8sO_Y45TpXQq1AZZlT5idXrXEp3WPkYXW-r3llWBLAsYQ_4VNNU4DVImkJDvuAOQgkJUUSkVmhhKwYRMX_pw6_y5jQfXJddrAOJfeDsoeTaAzRkOVrSm7h8qpNVxco7ztTiRMq3jQ4_aZ9wHQneYxV2hDQUA=w400-h180" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> <span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Click to enlarge.</span></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498544514654266731.post-2284620668347329452022-02-05T22:20:00.014-08:002022-02-06T12:17:34.079-08:00They're Trying to Ban Books Again (as if they ever stopped)<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiqQC4VRr5CwPNyzmlrvkhl0bfK_u0olvEUqPBFwUCYq5yq9qQZ-bIMNd6wIUbTGc4MLSNOvvNzyjFmgr_l-rFR269uPizxdG2I5qWyFfK4amD4v0RdxdxG-vw62to4Cc9am6LjEcB0o_hYIjPvEvLCwvdguNQMqG0xlYCv6L9KW1rfhiIkZUrarf8UXw=s1080" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiqQC4VRr5CwPNyzmlrvkhl0bfK_u0olvEUqPBFwUCYq5yq9qQZ-bIMNd6wIUbTGc4MLSNOvvNzyjFmgr_l-rFR269uPizxdG2I5qWyFfK4amD4v0RdxdxG-vw62to4Cc9am6LjEcB0o_hYIjPvEvLCwvdguNQMqG0xlYCv6L9KW1rfhiIkZUrarf8UXw=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Fahrenheit 451:</b> Followers of Christian pastor Greg Locke toss books onto a bonfire in Nashville suburb Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, on February 2, 2022. Books that burned included selections from the <i>Harry Potter</i> and <i>Twilight</i> series (these encourage devil-worship and witchcraftery), among many others. One counter-protester tossed the Bible on there. Greg Locke is also known for <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/06/us/capitol-riot-paths-to-insurrection/pastors.html" target="_blank"><b><i>encouraging his followers</i></b></a> to attend the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. </span> </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span></span><p></p><a name='more'></a><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">If you're like Thee Optimist, you have a tendency to read books. Maybe you read them on some kind of computerized device, or maybe you read them the old fashioned way. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But you do read them.</span><div><div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Here in the Land of the Free, to our everlasting credit, we have a history of writing books and reading books. We value the freedom to think our own thoughts, and speak our minds. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">We also value the freedom to set our thoughts down in writing, and we value the freedom of others to do the same. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Indeed, the Founding Fathers considered this such a bedrock freedom, that when they first amended the United States Constitution, the very <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/" target="_blank"><b><i>First Amendment</i></b></a> guaranteed the right of free speech.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Not everyone who lives here agrees with this right, of course. The United States also has a history of people (especially Christian conservative types) trying to get certain books banned or removed (especially from public school libraries). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Generally, these efforts work for a while, then get ground down and trampled under. Mostly, this is because American history, and the law of the land, gives the benefit of the doubt to free speech.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">For example, a 1982 Supreme Court split decision ruled</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"> <i>"that local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to 'prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.'"</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In that case, a school board in the town of Island Trees, New York was trying to remove 11 books from its library shelves, including <i>Slaughterhouse Five</i> by Kurt Vonnegut, <i>Black Boy</i> by Richard Wright, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fixer_(novel)" target="_blank"><b><i>The Fixer</i></b></a> by Bernard Malamud, and <i>A Modest Proposal</i>, by Jonathan Swift. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In recent months, attempts at banning books have picked up steam again. Indeed, the American Library Association calls these latest attempts "unprecedented." </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Let's see how a couple of the efforts are coming along, shall we?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg4d5o-JWBJF24g1rEWLsdx201erPEL9MJIi7eJcWs6XsuHWnEVyhCD6AF2UmcoJGJDL6RnqIcTTbbO_FE88bmL7bQUr0taj4Cxnu73BueUU32lIO-PE6Vw9e4vMD1QWtQqtfJTtBK3TqSju59bL1tHOJR5-9YHluaY0CaFK0DlggZ5WxiaD23pcgVD4g=s1615" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1615" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg4d5o-JWBJF24g1rEWLsdx201erPEL9MJIi7eJcWs6XsuHWnEVyhCD6AF2UmcoJGJDL6RnqIcTTbbO_FE88bmL7bQUr0taj4Cxnu73BueUU32lIO-PE6Vw9e4vMD1QWtQqtfJTtBK3TqSju59bL1tHOJR5-9YHluaY0CaFK0DlggZ5WxiaD23pcgVD4g=w298-h400" width="298" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">First published in 1986, <i>Maus</i> by Art Spiegelman is a graphic novel about the Holocaust, in which the Nazis are envisioned as cats and the Jews are envisioned as mice. It is based on the recollections of Spiegelman's father.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Maus Gets Eaten</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">On January 10, 2022, the 10-member school board of McMinn County, Tennessee (what in heck is going on in Tennessee?) voted unanimously to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/us/maus-banned-holocaust-tennessee.html" rel="nofollow"><b><i>remove the graphic novel Maus</i></b></a> from school bookshelves. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The Pulitzer Prize winning book is often praised for its ability to make the Holocaust understandable to young readers. That didn't impress the McMinn school board, however.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><b>Related Article: <a href="http://www.theeoptimist.com/2016/09/marsha-blackburn-global-warming.html" target="_blank"><i>Here's what's going on in Tennessee.</i></a></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">What the school board claimed to be concerned about in <i>Maus</i> was "rough, objectionable language," and the nude drawing of a woman (well, actually a female mouse - a depiction of the author's mother after she committed suicide in a bathtub), which they referred to as "disturbing imagery."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In response, the book's author Art Spiegelman suggested that the school board members were asking, "Why can't they teach a nicer Holocaust?"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The ban itself has treated Spiegelman pretty well. McMinn County is a relatively tiny place (less than 54,000 people live there - in comparison, 81,000 people routinely attend Green Bay Packers games at Lambeau Field). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">And when word of the ban reached the major media, it catapulted <i>Maus</i> to the top of the bestseller lists, not necessarily in McMinn County, but pretty much everywhere else. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Spiegelman immediately <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/maus-art-spiegelman-hollywood-adaptations-1235085193/" target="_blank"><b><i>received film and TV offers</i></b></a> from Hollywood. Which he turned down. Spiegelman has always refused to allow <i>Maus</i> to be made into a movie or TV show.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As for the McMinn school board, they've found themselves getting hammered by everybody from the United States Holocaust Museum, to the Smithsonian Institution, and even the <a href="https://dailyyonder.com/commentary-instead-of-raging-over-maus-ban-mcminn-county-tennessee-schools-support-local-people-who-are-fighting-back/2022/02/01/" target="_blank"><b><i>Daily Yonder</i></b></a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjAy3UGDlJsqAXhPfwJAL2KBEO959ByXDttwK722PYStmcPXxp1BJOzCyayIiZfP738ahry0hEMTGS0jSqsO8rxBORvzlS2sfmW56LElUeU-MP2s7uA-UrKMNufDs78tFT6zn2weDfyCZ-AuputaSOBxN8CjL9fYwk5T7p-0-HKhh7DLVlLPPdu-WsOWg=s1200" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjAy3UGDlJsqAXhPfwJAL2KBEO959ByXDttwK722PYStmcPXxp1BJOzCyayIiZfP738ahry0hEMTGS0jSqsO8rxBORvzlS2sfmW56LElUeU-MP2s7uA-UrKMNufDs78tFT6zn2weDfyCZ-AuputaSOBxN8CjL9fYwk5T7p-0-HKhh7DLVlLPPdu-WsOWg=w400-h209" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Keller, Texas is a well-to-do suburb of Forth Worth, with just under 50,000 residents. They've found themselves in a little bit of a dust-up over books available in the public school libraries. <br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Strange Case of Keller</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Beginning in October of 2021, and continuing to the present moment, the public schools in Keller, Texas have received a slew of requests from local parents to investigate and remove books from the school libraries.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">More than 100 requests have been received thus far, so many that it suggests they're part of an <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/conservatives-banning-books-schools-while-220632595.html" target="_blank"><b><i>organized effort</i></b></a>. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Most of the books being challenged are written by black or Hispanic authors, or deal with issues of racism, sexism, homosexuality and gender identity. Many of them have been challenged on the grounds that they are obscene.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Whereas the Keller school district has responded to these requests by flagging the books for possible removal, it hasn't removed the books pending its own investigation into them. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This (lack of) action is consistent with the 1982 Supreme Court ruling cited above. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">This (lack of) action has also led to <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/12/09/texas-books-investigations-keller-schools/" target="_blank"><b><i>an investigation by the Texas Education Agency</i></b></a> (TEA) as to whether the Keller school district has engaged in criminal activity by giving students access to books with sexually explicit content.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has <a href="https://lonestarproject.net/2021/08/10/abbott-mandates-death/" target="_blank"><b><i>overseen a Covid slaughterhouse</i></b></a> in his state, is up for re-election this year, and needs to throw red meat to his political base. So he has directed the TEA to look into school libraries making pornography available to minors, and prosecute any such cases "to the fullest extent of the law."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As if children don't have <a href="https://youthfirstinc.org/pornography-viewing-starts-as-early-as-elementary-school/" target="_blank"><b><i>access to pornography</i></b></a> everywhere they go. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKFip6jnwZpSS2CuNFMS7MUUDP-hH8Fepi7MXKM-XG-ayirWuKJylSBNVcR_2uM6qabX81tabYYOdn8ACMuuTsJNHVryfkpBZUFmJUlw4H_buSyMoi0q6Y9tTTDnq9zkeHwDuEdikPdUcTyXUyKRK2HYfvgqxTR7LGl1n7v4OQG3vUBSBq7l8wYqAQWA=s1160" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1160" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiKFip6jnwZpSS2CuNFMS7MUUDP-hH8Fepi7MXKM-XG-ayirWuKJylSBNVcR_2uM6qabX81tabYYOdn8ACMuuTsJNHVryfkpBZUFmJUlw4H_buSyMoi0q6Y9tTTDnq9zkeHwDuEdikPdUcTyXUyKRK2HYfvgqxTR7LGl1n7v4OQG3vUBSBq7l8wYqAQWA=w400-h265" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">An image of some books that have been banned in the United States at one time or another. Yes, I'm not blind. I can see that the titles repeat.<br /></span> </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>What's Good About Banned Books?</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">The efforts described above are far from the only ones going on. And the book bonfire shown above isn't the only one <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia/spotsylvania-school-board-appoints-chair-who-was-in-favor-of-burning-books-fires-superintendent/2933066/" target="_blank"><b><i>that's been called for</i></b></a>.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Currently, there are dozens of these pushes (or should I say <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch" target="_blank"><b><i>putsches</i></b></a>?) happening. Somewhat close to home, a conservative group in Polk County, Florida is seeking to have 16 books removed from the public schools. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">In the Florida case, the school district has caved in and <a href="https://www.theledger.com/story/news/education/2022/01/26/county-citizens-defending-freedom-complained-polk-schools-superintendent-frederick-heid-novels-graph/9224745002/" target="_blank"><b><i>removed the books</i></b></a> pending review, which is exactly the opposite of what the 1982 Supreme Court ruling intended.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Not everybody is a profile in courage.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">What's interesting about all this is how little the effect of banned books on actual children has been studied. Yes, we know that a lot of great or important books have been banned before, including <i>the</i> <i>Great Gatsby</i>, <i>the</i> <i>Catcher in the Rye</i>, the <i>Communist Manifesto</i>, <i>the</i> <i>Color Purple</i>, and many others.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Gwinnett County, Georgia once banned <i>the Basketball Diaries</i>, an important and formative book for Thee Optimist during his misspent yoot. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">But what do we really know about what happens to kids when they read this filth? Not a whole lot.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><a href="https://psmag.com/social-justice/horrible-consequences-reading-banned-books-78715" target="_blank"><b><i>One study determined</i></b></a> that reading banned books didn't predict whether a child would become involved in crime, nor did it seem to have any impact on a child's grade point average in school.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">What it did suggest is that reading banned books is correlated with a higher likelihood of positive civic behaviors like volunteering. But c</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">orrelation is not causation, as you well know by now.</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Why do kids who read banned books volunteer more than other kids? Maybe they're just more curious, or more interested in the world than other kids. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Or maybe reading banned books helps them understand other points of view, and leads them to want to engage with people more unfortunate than themselves. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">Some groups think <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/why-your-kid-should-read-banned-books" target="_blank"><b><i>we should encourage kids to read</i></b></a> banned books, and believe there are benefits to doing so.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">As far as Thee Optimist is concerned, getting kids to read nearly any book is better than having them watching idiocy on their cell phones all the time.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6tXdw9JrzwoWmbcBxqDcTjB4RzpcZc9Vh4IZIlAJvGZWV090bIj6BrqHRpMcAqMu9E9b6pU9vlk0q9PeBzk3X9cJrMLLehRCfWebJzHuoJQfl-SeN6Mcmbep5nTYPlzrvxt-6PvAgXuYMN7ti0DNEPGIVm9TkEqTRvlyQK4oTxwP4xdRPcha5TvwFkg=s475" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="310" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6tXdw9JrzwoWmbcBxqDcTjB4RzpcZc9Vh4IZIlAJvGZWV090bIj6BrqHRpMcAqMu9E9b6pU9vlk0q9PeBzk3X9cJrMLLehRCfWebJzHuoJQfl-SeN6Mcmbep5nTYPlzrvxt-6PvAgXuYMN7ti0DNEPGIVm9TkEqTRvlyQK4oTxwP4xdRPcha5TvwFkg=w261-h400" width="261" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Thee Optimist had this thing in his backpack for years.<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-large;"><b>Words of Wisdom</b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">"The trouble with quotes on the internet is that it's difficult to determine whether or not they are genuine."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">- Abraham Lincoln</span></p><p><br /></p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0