Althouse: At the Serenity Cafe...

May 6, 2020

At the Serenity Cafe...

... you can talk all night.

(And shop through the Althouse Portal to Amazon).

213 comments:

1 – 200 of 213 Newer› Newest»

Ken B said...: Over 2500 dead yesterday, per Worldometer.; 5/6/20, 9:29 PM
traditionalguy said...: Keeping up with the kids in the time of Covid, we learned from the Dau and son in law they are watching a series on Amazon Prime called Yellowstone. They promised it was full of sex and violence mixed with Family Values. So we are halfway through watching season 2 and have finally figured out that it is as a Roman Empire with a Caesar in Montana. Glad we have the young folks to give us oldsters pointers.; 5/6/20, 9:30 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: Prescient Simpsons; 5/6/20, 9:32 PM
wild chicken said...: Welp, Bullock is polling ahead of Daines already. Close to flipping the Senate.

What other Senate races are close?; 5/6/20, 9:32 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I just saw the funniest meme on twitter.

Asking "which sold out faster this week... toilet paper or #MeToo?"

I cant link to it because the account is locked.; 5/6/20, 9:39 PM
Mark said...: Phht on your Spanish Inquisition.

Nobody expected the Prophets.

Goodbye Dominion fleet. All tens of thousands of them. Simply . . . gone.; 5/6/20, 9:40 PM
narciso said...: Why didnt the prophets interfere before,; 5/6/20, 9:45 PM
320Busdriver said...: In NY..... Some 83% of new patients are out of work or retired, and aren’t even leaving their home on a daily basis.

We’ve been locked down for 8 weeks and it’s still transmitting. Somethings gotta give.; 5/6/20, 9:45 PM
mandrewa said...: The Starship Assembly Timeline as of May 3rd.

The graph is by Wes Wilson.

This does not cover the three or so earlier versions of the Starship, the first of which SpaceX began to build about a year and half ago. But it does cover the last five. These last five have been built at a rate of approximately one per month.

They started building Starship SN 1 at the end of January 2020 and Starship SN6 was probably begun a week ago. SN6 doesn't even show on this graphic but here we are a few days later and they are already at least 2 steps into building it.

Now these are not complete vehicles. Each version gets more elaborate through time as they successively solve problems and verify their ideas. Starship SN4 just did a static fire last night and they had to build SN1, SN2, SN3, and SN4 to get to that point. It's learning by doing.

A roughly comparable rocket (but actually Starship is more ambitious) would be the SLS/Orion, which is in a more advanced stage of development than Starship at the moment, but then again the federal government has been working on SLS/Orion for well over ten years and they have also spent far more money than SpaceX has.

Except this isn't really a race because NASA has been helping SpaceX out behind the scene and NASA is hoping and anticipating that Starship will be successful.; 5/6/20, 9:45 PM
Andy said...: music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void Tolkien The Silmarillion
or better
Shall we mourn here deedless forever a shadow-folk mist-haunting dropping vain tears in the thankless sea The Silmarillion; 5/6/20, 9:46 PM
Mark said...: Why?

The Emissary hadn't said the magic word.

Plus, the Dominion fleet hadn't entered the celestial temple (the wormhole) before.; 5/6/20, 9:48 PM
J. Farmer said...: Over 2500 dead yesterday, per Worldometer.

Oh please god no...

...Oops. I'm doing the thing I was complaining about other people doing. I was going to complain about the topic when I could just simply ignore it. Oh well, I'm a hypocrite. Do I contradict myself? Very well then I...you know the rest.; 5/6/20, 9:49 PM
Mark said...: And so the Dominion fleet gets the Raiders treatment.; 5/6/20, 9:50 PM
Mark said...: And Dukat goes mad.; 5/6/20, 9:51 PM
Arashi said...: Everyone does know that worldometer is owned by a Chinese company, yes? And most likely with ties to the CCP as any company in China that has a presence on the web would - so obvioulsy they would not cook the numbers.; 5/6/20, 9:52 PM
Inga said...: There’s another epidemic...

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/what-are-we-doing-doctors-are-fed-conspiracies-ravaging-ers-n1201446?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR01UwGAe76tCn_kaL_i1Q_eFc8ByKQ7CZ3BDwuBTj58iCzSCs_rbW6_oA4&fbclid=IwAR2N7eCSI3wh7z58kAIO6fDu26toCsw5o3kOTkG87rR5rcRozwRyHi-JIx8&fbclid=IwAR0EUgkKr5fR8EGNiXI3ZBDf7M8L6BHcv7eoFiK42-VyvE9irgoEsvX87Bc

At the end of another long shift treating coronavirus patients, Dr. Hadi Halazun opened his Facebook page to find a man insisting to him that "no one's dying" and that the coronavirus is "fake news" drummed up by the news media.

And it's taking a toll. Halazun said dealing with conspiracy theorists is the "second most painful thing I've had to deal with, other than separation of families from their loved one."

Several other doctors shared similar experiences, saying that they regularly had to treat patients who had sought care too late because of conspiracy theories spread on social media and that social media companies have to do more to counteract the forces that spread lies for profit.

Organized harassment campaigns, lies and urban legends targeting doctors are a real-life symptom of what the World Health Organization dubbed the "infodemic" as the coronavirus started to spread throughout the world earlier this year.

We have to understand these [conspiracy theorists] are criminal organizations which really stop at nothing to get disinformation out," Fernando said.”; 5/6/20, 9:54 PM
Crimso said...: "Starship SN4 just did a static fire last night"

I watched that, it was about 3 seconds long. They're gearing up to do another right now, hopefully much longer. Anyone interested can search "LabPadre live" on YouTube and select the "Live 4K!" cam. It'll be a while before they fire it (last night was 45-60 min from Pad Clear callout, and they haven't cleared the pad yet tonight).; 5/6/20, 9:55 PM
Mark said...: Dukat was thoroughly evil and despotic, but Marc Alaimo played him as if he were a good guy acting for the best reasons (because in Dukat's mind, he was).; 5/6/20, 9:55 PM
Birkel said...: About 7700 people die every day, on average.

Other than causing political damage to Republicans, what the fuck is the point?
Concern Trolls are Concerned.; 5/6/20, 9:55 PM
Mark said...: Meanwhile, there was a story a couple of days ago how Virginia (and others?) are counting each positive test as a separate case of COVID, even if it is the same person who tests positive three or four times.; 5/6/20, 9:57 PM
Inga said...: “Over 2500 dead yesterday, per Worldometer.”

2nd day in a row now that’s it’s been over 2000 a day again. While New York is in decline the rest of the US is on the upswing in cases.; 5/6/20, 10:00 PM
Mark said...: Close to a million people have died in the U.S., Birkel, since the beginning of 2020. And close to another two million will die before the year is out. All from causes other than COVID.

But no alarmism for them.

Once again -- context and perspective.; 5/6/20, 10:01 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: re: lockdown enforcement by police

overall, does it seem like they went a little soft on their oath?
Does their commitment to it get over-estimated?
Is it believed that 'when push comes to shove', police/military
will not comply with constitution-violating orders?; 5/6/20, 10:01 PM
Meade said...: “Asking ‘which sold out faster this week... toilet paper or #MeToo?’”

*Cringe*
History will not be kind to the Dem Party.; 5/6/20, 10:02 PM
Lurker21 said...: The article about Trump's high school athletic career from Slate and the comments about Slate not being what it used to be got me thinking about the website, one I haven't looked at in a long time. I remembered a parody of Slate called Stale that raised a commotion. I looked it up, and found out that happened almost a quarter century ago, shortly after the website was founded in 1996. Felt quite old. Where does the time go?

Did I miss anything not reading or looking at Slate for what seems like a decade or more? I remember it was mostly about politics in the beginning, and intended to be "serious" and "thoughtful." Now it seems to be more about sex and pop culture and everyday life (as lived by the upper middle class), with articles like "Help! The Sex Resort We Wanted to Try Has a Racist Theme Night" and "I’ve Been Married 25 Years. We’ve Never Once Had Sex." Also, as with practically every website, there are those clickbait ads at the bottom. You know, "25 Once Famous Stars Who Now Work 9-5 at Ordinary Jobs" (usually they are entrepreneurs with their own companies and just aren't in show biz anymore). Slate really has come down in the world.; 5/6/20, 10:06 PM
narciso said...: Yes he was like the sympathetic goauld in stargate was it anubis.; 5/6/20, 10:06 PM
narciso said...: Sisko was a little too stoic, he had kirks drive but some of picards reticence.; 5/6/20, 10:09 PM
Michael K said...: We have to understand these [conspiracy theorists] are criminal organizations which really stop at nothing to get disinformation out," Fernando said.”

Inga has a lot invested in the left wing death cult.; 5/6/20, 10:10 PM
Lurker21 said...: I did not realize that the Cardassians were from Star Trek.

I thought they were from Babylon 5, or maybe they had a reality show on E!; 5/6/20, 10:10 PM
narciso said...: Stargate atlantis is where they lost me, as to universe. I wasnt a big fan of vovager, somewhat more of enterprise.; 5/6/20, 10:11 PM
narciso said...: The vorlons and the shadows played a aimilar role to prophets and the dominion; 5/6/20, 10:12 PM
Inga said...: “Inga has a lot invested in the left wing death cult.”

Michael K has a lot invested in conspiracy theories, naturally he doesn’t like hearing how is is part of the problem.; 5/6/20, 10:13 PM
narciso said...: The template was of primordial beings who wre the puppet masters for millenia.; 5/6/20, 10:14 PM
narciso said...: Early inklings of intelligent design, what von daniken had suggested decades before.; 5/6/20, 10:17 PM
Duke Dan said...: Sacrifice of Angels is one of my favorite DS9 episodes. The effects in the space battle still look good for being done over 20 years ago on a syndicated TV budget. In the documentary that came out last year that was some of the footage that they converted to high def. I saw it in a theatre as part of a Fathom every showing. HD on movie screen scale. It was glorious.; 5/6/20, 10:21 PM
narciso said...: Of course the way they retconned sinclair into valen made my head hurt.; 5/6/20, 10:22 PM
narciso said...: Michaek o hare had some issues that iccasioned his replacement by boxleitner; 5/6/20, 10:24 PM
Narr said...: Did you say Vogons? O.M.G.

Narr
Run away! Run away fast!; 5/6/20, 10:25 PM
Night Owl said...: Ok. Now you've made it hard. Between this picture and the previous one it's a tough call. But this one made me go "ooooo", so maybe this one is the winner.; 5/6/20, 10:25 PM
narciso said...: Vorlons a whole different animals, they were beings who im assuming were the analogs of angels on many worlds.; 5/6/20, 10:26 PM
J. Farmer said...: Apparently Jordan Peterson's new book is going to be called Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life. I smell a franchise.

One of the dopier criticisms Peterson got was how he associated order with "masculine" and chaos with "feminine." It's not even a Peterson insight. He lifts it directly from Camille Paglia's Sexual Persona. And it has long antecedents before that. It was all the rage in late 19th and early 20th century anthropology.

The story goes that pre-agrarian were more women-focused, egalitarian, and part of nature. Then along came the patriarchal Indo-Europeans who built cities, conquered nature, deposed the mother earth goddess, and installed their masculine sky god at the top of the pantheon and thus ushering in a man-focused, hierarchical city-state detached from nature. The ordered, rational masculine imposed itself on the wild, uncontrolled feminine. These events can supposedly be deduced by a particular reading of the mythological stories.

This is precisely why I see no benefit in Peterson's mythological, archetypal framework. Why doesn't he just say directly what he means instead of relying on these convoluted metaphors from ancient literature?; 5/6/20, 10:27 PM
bagoh20 said...: Those people that died of Covid the last couple days caught it roughly 2 weeks ago in the middle of the lockdown. How's that working? Is it worth the cost? Is there really any difference between the result of locked-down to not locked-down populations? You can't find a correlation.

In Nevada, we still are not even close to 50% of the deaths we had from the flu in 2018, and we have devastated the state economy top to bottom. If locking down is not getting the result we hoped, why pay for it? I know. If we don't, we'll all die, millions of us.

How should we have responded in 2018 when our deaths were more than double the rate we're seeing now? Should we have double super duper locked down with police shooting violators on sight? We were actually living life completely normal, and having a booming economy, filling hotels, restaurants, and casinos with happy people hugging and touching each other, living their lives, and expressing joys instead of living under the threats of a bunch of terrified Karens and their jackbooted enforcers. Back then we chose to sacrifice trying to accomplish the impossible foolish goal of preventing those deaths for having lives worth living. This new standard of foolishness either needs to be abandoned from now on or our lives need to be, becuase such contagions are not going away. Either this one will remain or others will take it's place, and we WILL live with that as we have before. It's just a question of how much we throw away before we face the fact. Our ancestors faced much worse, even just a couple years ago.; 5/6/20, 10:28 PM
Duke Dan said...: Poor Ziyal. She was such a good character. Played by three different actresses across the episodes she was in.; 5/6/20, 10:28 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: https://cloistersontheplatte.com/visit-the-stations/virtual-tour/; 5/6/20, 10:29 PM
narciso said...: When was the mythical female centered civilization 10,000 20,000 years peterson used recognizable archetypes parables to get his message across.; 5/6/20, 10:31 PM
narciso said...: Imagine if you will there two capitals one in washington and one riughly in denver, the one in denver fell to canadian hordes; 5/6/20, 10:35 PM
bagoh20 said...: Before the recent uptick in deaths the last couple days, the people all excited about this didn't have much to say about the rapidly declining (and positive) numbers at all, but a couple days of bigger death numbers, even after their prescription being employed, is now something to get very vocal about and site with enthusiasm. Some humility would be nice, but how about just some simple empathy. Thousands are dying and millions are being destroyed. At least try to hide your excitement about it.; 5/6/20, 10:37 PM
Francisco D said...: I sincerely hope that the thread doesn't devolve into Little Kenny B and Inga hysterics contest.

I am really done with this bullshit.; 5/6/20, 10:38 PM
narciso said...: The models were based on bad coding, amd their implementation created more errors, like with the steele dossier which should have ditched at first glance but it created its owm self sustaining narrativs apart from facts.

So you add to this incentivizing covid as cod so you create more errors which feed a narrative which the laziest reporter can lipsynch endlessly.; 5/6/20, 10:48 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: That's not fair!!

You Were Prepared For That!!; 5/6/20, 10:48 PM
StephenFearby said...: The nebbish Rod Rosenstein wrote this:

Washington Examiner May 06, 2020 09:20 PM

Mueller scope memo used claims from Steele dossier and Logan Act

"A newly declassified memo on the scope of Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation relied on allegations that appeared in British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier as well as threats to deploy the rarely enforced Logan Act.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham made the memo public on Wednesday as part of his investigation of alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance abuses and other actions taken by law enforcement during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

The August 2017 memo, written by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, authorized Mueller to specific investigate allegations against former Trump campaign associate Carter Page, former Trump national security adviser Mike Flynn, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.

The allegations against Page in the memo echoed claims made against him in Steele’s unverified anti-Trump dossier, which the FBI and Justice Department knew by 2017 had potentially been compromised by Russian disinformation. The claims leveled against Flynn reference the possibility that Flynn broke the law under the Logan Act during his discussions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the Trump transition period. That law was passed in 1799 and has only been used to indict someone twice, in 1802 and 1852, with no convictions..."

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mueller-scope-memo-used-claims-from-steele-dossier-and-logan-act

nebbish (Urban Dictionary):

Originally a Hebrew word, popularized in English by the cartoonist Herb Gardner. A `sad sack,' a loser, a person who can't make any thing or any situation work right for him or her; unassertive, shy, timid. Reference: `The Joys of Yiddish,' by Leo Rosten. His definition is "An innocuous, ineffectual, weak, helpless or hapless unfortunate."; 5/6/20, 10:49 PM
narciso said...: There is no incentive to tell the ttuth in fact the awards go to those who further the narrative from the 95 budget fight to the iraq war, to katrina and obamacare; 5/6/20, 10:51 PM
narciso said...: They plant a cretinous lie at the outset of the country the 1619 project and rarify it with a pulitzer and spread to the educational system; 5/6/20, 10:53 PM
narciso said...: They make the younger generation instantly despise the country or at least make them look askance at it. The same parties look at the oceans of blood that were spilled in china and the soviet union and make excuses for it.; 5/6/20, 10:55 PM
narciso said...: Is it q concidence that the times white washed stalin and mao from the holomodor to the cultural revolution, and look with a jaundiced eye against this countrys imperfections.; 5/6/20, 10:57 PM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: it's the subways!
Or not!

is Cuomo cracking?
Will a 'misunderstanding how the virus spreads' be a face-saving ploy?

'Shocking’: 66% of new coronavirus patients in N.Y. stayed home: Cuomo

“This is a surprise: Overwhelmingly, the people were at home,” Cuomo said during a briefing on Long Island. “We thought maybe they were taking public transportation, and we’ve taken special precautions on public transportation, but actually no, because these people were literally at home.”; 5/6/20, 11:00 PM
narciso said...: And they look askance at our industrial output at our vast agricultural harvests with contempt, because their operating system is corrupted like malware they cant see any good in this country.; 5/6/20, 11:02 PM
narciso said...: So they celebrate an obama who imbided this poison in the universities as the protege of a dissolute utilities scion who played guevara a mountebank preacher who slandered this country. Hence their further support for ocasio cortez; 5/6/20, 11:05 PM
Anne-I-Am said...: Francisco D,

We are completely in charge of what goes on in this thread. Night after night, when the dingbats are ignored, they go away--because they have nothing to add to any other conversation.

So! Pick a topic. Please not rap.; 5/6/20, 11:07 PM
narciso said...: This is the bigger picture i see, this outbreak is just another attempt to tear down this country by this paroxysm of overreaction, which is tempered by practically no instution not law not media not our possum congress; 5/6/20, 11:09 PM
narciso said...: So pelosi deliberately designed this procrustean stimulus that would not benefit those most in need individuals and businesses, having cleared a path for the outbreak to flourish in san francisco having done her best to throw a spanner in the works with her sham peach mint.; 5/6/20, 11:12 PM
Anne-I-Am said...: Another terrific jaunt through the streets and hills of Berkeley. We ran through the cemetery--the sprinklers were going; the grass was green; the sun glanced off the white marble. Some restaurants were sadistically pushing out their aromas as we ran by; my partner gasped, "Wow, I am SO hungry!" as we ran through a cloud of garlic and tomato sauce.

Lots of people were out, walking, running, riding, even skateboarding. No one wearing a mask--when it is warm and humid and sunny...seems some people understand science.

Everything is blooming now--a riot of colors surround me as I run by the yards of people who are far better gardeners than I.

Truly a lovely early evening.; 5/6/20, 11:12 PM
Anne-I-Am said...: And the moon as I drove home was HUGE! Bigly, even.; 5/6/20, 11:13 PM
narciso said...: So we see the solutions dont seeve the ostensible reason they were proposed, they just overwhelm the system at every level make the great machine of this country decay, torment the people fail to protect any vulnerable group. This doesnt rise to the level of placebo this is a slow acting poison upon the body politic.; 5/6/20, 11:15 PM
narciso said...: Maybe in the final analysis 'the sound and fury signifying nothing' doesnt mean anything but it was a costly detour.; 5/6/20, 11:17 PM
narciso said...: Maybe im making too much of this but i donr think so, the grand mal criminal hypocricy of dr. Ferguson technocolor dreamcoat puts this in sharp relief.

Any clever comeback, some canned bloomberg or cnn rejoinder.; 5/6/20, 11:21 PM
stephen cooper said...: but if you see through the nonsense your SMV rises greatly
future generations will understand and be thankful

"I can make sons of Abraham from the rocks on the side of the road" said someone so much better than me that I have almost nothing in common with Him; 5/6/20, 11:21 PM
stephen cooper said...: I hate hate hate adultery - it is one of the worst sins ----- but I gotta admit I Like the little Oxford "doctor" (what a laugh, he is just a PHD) a little more today than I did yesterday; 5/6/20, 11:22 PM
Inga said...: “We are completely in charge of what goes on in this thread.”

Oh boy. Napoleon Syndrome. It takes a dingbat to think they are in charge of any thread discussion, unless they are Ann Althouse. This is an open thread. At any given time there are numerous discussions of each commenters choosing. No one is in charge of directing the conversation, disavow yourself of that notion. Also has it occurred to you that there are commenters who post comments because they want to, not because they are trying to interact with other commenters? It’s called expressing an opinion, no one has to agree or make a conversation out of it.

Every single night you make a point of mentioning other commenters in a snarky manner and assume that they seeking attention. I’d say hold up the mirror lady. I haven’t seen a prima donna attention seeker like yourself since Fen last commented here, before he had his nervous breakdown.; 5/6/20, 11:23 PM
Inga said...: “Night after night, when the dingbats are ignored, they go away--because they have nothing to add to any other conversation.”

And Anne dear, people do tend to go to bed and sleep at night, not to pour salt on your tail or anything.; 5/6/20, 11:25 PM
stephen cooper said...: I feel bad for Dr Jill Biden, all that work to get her PhD, and now someone is credibly saying she married a rapist.

Can someone help me out here, I really do not get all those videos of Joe Biden creeping out on young women. Was it a Harvey Weinstein thing, where he did creepy things just to show everyone he could?

But why? Jill biden was an attractive wife, but Harvey had an attractive wife too.
Third eye blind indeed.; 5/6/20, 11:25 PM
narciso said...: No i dont because he makes rules that are impossible to rationally abide by. Tmahe fact that his other halfs job is too purge all dissident thought makes this particularly pungent

Church structures remain closed but molochs altars are essential hairdressers are jailed but criminals are freed, what in blue blazes is going on.; 5/6/20, 11:27 PM
Francisco D said...: We are starting to open up Arizona. My dentist's office called to set up a cleaning that was previously cancelled. Fortunately they were allowed to open for emergency work. I spent a good part of a day on a root canal and crown replacement. Ugh.

Now I need to get a haircut. I wonder when the salons will open.

Inga and Little Kenny B will be here to tell us that I am taking my life in my hands getting dental work.

It has been like a Black Plague here in AZ. With s population of 7.5 million we have had almost 400 COVID deaths since January. The bodies are piling up.; 5/6/20, 11:27 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: Flew today. Was weird, and sad. I love everything about aviation and it hurt my heart to see it in the state it is. But someday, those birds will be in the air again.

I was delighted to see that someone on my flight had a whole-face steampunk type weirdo mask. I mean, a mask is a mask, right?; 5/6/20, 11:28 PM
Anne-I-Am said...: stephen cooper,

I agree--I wonder what goes through her head? She is an attractive woman.

I read a description on-line by a woman whose hair Joe sniffed. She was mortified. (She hadn't washed it that morning!). And he planted a big, slow kiss on the back of her head. How weird is that?

I am not sure it is sexual for Joe. Not sure. Could be. Maybe he has the reaction some people have to puppies and kittens and babies. He wants to inhale them, gobble them up, merge with them--an atavistic engulfing.

Who knows.; 5/6/20, 11:29 PM
Anne-I-Am said...: In other news, someone flushed a toilet --- without muting --- during SCOTUS today. Oh, the indignities we put on ourselves in this unfamiliar world. Like the reporter who wasn't wearing pants! I think it makes us all seem more human, more touchable. We are sharing our humanity in unexpected ways.; 5/6/20, 11:32 PM
narciso said...: Its that line thaf fiction has to make sense but real life apparently does not, i didnt mean to be a downer, but i had to put down these thoughts of all the illogic being broadcasted

Have you been able to get in touch with your mother anne?; 5/6/20, 11:33 PM
stephen cooper said...: narciso - my church (in Northern Virginia) is open for prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, 10 people at a time.

The times I have been , it has been me plus one, me plus three, me plus five, and me plus nobody!

Inga, when my Dad lived in Maine in the 30s, he said that there was ice in the puddles in the front yard on cold mornings as late as early June.
I think you live in Maine, right? Lots of trees there, I guess. Ice in June? I really don't know. Sounds possible. Let's talk about something nice. Ice in June, lots of trees ..... but then again, El Paso has neither of those things, but has great Tex-Mex restaurants. So many issues ...; 5/6/20, 11:33 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: Francisco, I blew a kiss at Sun Devil Stadium this morning and said a little prayer that I’ll be watching my girl out there with the rest of the marching band this fall. I don’t know what to make of the news that Ducey asked his task force to “stop modeling.” Where do you think Arizona is headed?; 5/6/20, 11:35 PM
Anne-I-Am said...: Pants,

I bet that was weird. And sad. My son has a friend visiting. His first leg was pretty full; his second, not at all. My best friend's husband works for United, in dispatch. His hours have been cut. He is hoping to keep his job.

So much damage from this insane shutdown.; 5/6/20, 11:35 PM
narciso said...: I said the church structure because the church is the community, not the building these are heinleins crazy years on steroids; 5/6/20, 11:36 PM
Birkel said...: Topic:
Best (usually meaning most memorable) theme songs for television series
1) music only
2) music and lyrics
3) broadcast TV
4) pay TV (e.g. HBO)
5) most iconic

I would go with Hill Street Blues and M*A*S*H for music only.
I thought the Sopranos theme song was really memorable.
Cheers for broadcast TV, maybe.
I would actively vote against Friends in the w/ lyrics category.

Thoughts?; 5/6/20, 11:36 PM
stephen cooper said...: Anne - that was probably at the hospital. I met the husband of Justice Ginsburg several times, he was always polite, and even more than polite, he was always friendly. He was in the military when he was a kid,not because he had to be, but because nobody told him that he could have gotten out of it if he wanted. Of course his views on important issues were fundamentally unsound, but still, he was a human being like the rest of us. I feel bad for his wife, though, she cannot be enjoying life at all at this point in time.; 5/6/20, 11:36 PM
narciso said...: Well its the beginning of wisdom to stop modeling when they dont make sense.; 5/6/20, 11:38 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Can you beat Gilligan's Island for catchiness plus laying out the premise and introducing the characters?; 5/6/20, 11:39 PM
Anne-I-Am said...: narciso,

Oh! Thank you for asking. Yes, we face-timed this afternoon. (Afternoon for me; evening for her.). She was dressed and had her hair combed. But...evidently she gets nasty at night. A weird effect of the dementia, because she was never nasty pre-dementia. (A bitch? yes. Abusive? Yes. Gratuitously nasty? Never.). I told her I learned how to prepare and pour concrete (cement? I know there is a difference, but my feeble brain has never learned the difference) today. She said, "Well, that's stupid. That and 10 cents will get you....nothing."

Back in the day, my mother would have known how to do concrete. And rewire the house. It was weird. And I didn't know how to respond.

My sister says that she gets that way in the evening. It made me sad.; 5/6/20, 11:39 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: More crew and employees than pax. One flight a day between Houston and Phoenix, and it was a tiny little Embraer ERJ-175. Capacity: 76. Maybe 20% were deadheading crew.

United is going to lay off 1/3 of their pilots Oct 1.

I know it’ll come back; I just hope it isn’t years and years.; 5/6/20, 11:40 PM
Mutaman said...: "*Cringe*
History will not be kind to the Dem Party."

I predict history will be a lot less kind to Trump and his moronic son-in-law.; 5/6/20, 11:40 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Restaurants with outdoor seating are open here now. Man it feels good to be out again. No more PB&J. Beaches open as well. Now if I could just get a haircut!; 5/6/20, 11:40 PM
narciso said...: I didnt watch hsb that much, i probably saw too much of mash, the lyrics really outline the nihilismin the productionin the 80s one recalls jan hamers synth miami vice over another tableau,; 5/6/20, 11:41 PM
Anne-I-Am said...: I dunno...The Brady Bunch song pops up in my mind every time we do a stoopid WebEx with our cameras on. (I usually refuse to turn mine on. Just because I am a contrarian.)

Since I haven't watched network TV since I graduated from high school, all of my nominations would go to pre-1980 shows.

MASH certainly had memorable music.

I am flummoxed. I can recite a lot of commercials by heart, though.; 5/6/20, 11:42 PM
Birkel said...: Miami Vice a good choice.

Gilligan's Island no better than Beverly Hillbillies for laying out the premise. But I take you point.

All opinions welcome.; 5/6/20, 11:43 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: Anne, I am headed for evening prayers and will remember your mom.; 5/6/20, 11:43 PM
stephen cooper said...: "the church is the community"
I beg to differ

the communion of saints is a community ...
"the church" involves the church triumphant (people who are alive in heaven), the church militant , and the church penitent, the only real community is in the church triumphant, of course there are a few members of the church militant who would form a community if that were the sort of thing people like that did, but I have yet to meet one such person after almost a century on this earth.

cor ad cor loquitur (heart speaks to heart) and, in spite of my longevity and the vast amount of people I have met, I have met very very few people with a pure heart, and when I did I steered clear as fast as I could, they had better things to do than spend time with me, I knew they were not my community on this earth.; 5/6/20, 11:43 PM
Anne-I-Am said...: Churchy,

I hate you.; 5/6/20, 11:44 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: (The opening title songs for all three seasons of True Detective) are terrific.; 5/6/20, 11:44 PM
narciso said...: Can we agree that the building is not the church, yes there are gradations levels of commitment.; 5/6/20, 11:45 PM
Anne-I-Am said...: Pants,

Thank you. A lot. Enjoy our Lord.; 5/6/20, 11:45 PM
Birkel said...: Didn't Jesus say the church is where any two people meet in my name?
I don't feel like googling the exact verse.; 5/6/20, 11:46 PM
stephen cooper said...: Best story in a TV theme song - Hogan's Heroes. or The Beverly Hillbillies.

When I was a kid, the theme from Gone with the Wind was the theme music for what we called, in the NYC area, the Late Night Movie (it started at the same time as the Carson show, but it was on WPIX, which did not have the cash for a national talk show and just played old movies. The night I was born it was Rogue Herries, the story of a dashing Scottish highlander, taken from a novel written by a guy who was the favorite novelist of one of my pals half a century or so later at Centcom).; 5/6/20, 11:47 PM
Birkel said...: The theme song for The Wire is pretty good.
I like the version from Season One best.; 5/6/20, 11:47 PM
Yancey Ward said...: "Restaurants with outdoor seating are open here now. Man it feels good to be out again. No more PB&J. Beaches open as well. Now if I could just get a haircut!"

Scheduled to get my hair cut this coming afternoon. Was almost ready to do the Yul Brenner. Can't wait.; 5/6/20, 11:48 PM
Jon Ericson said...: Route 66
Rawhide
The Jetsons
Twin Peaks
The Adams Family; 5/6/20, 11:49 PM
stephen cooper said...: "Where one or more gather in my name, there I am with them".

"On this rock I shall found my church".

Different verses.; 5/6/20, 11:50 PM
stephen cooper said...: BTW, for guys who cannot get their hair cut ----- just the hold of a youtube video, cutting hair well is not easy, but cutting hair in a way that is acceptable is pretty easy.; 5/6/20, 11:51 PM
Anne-I-Am said...: The Church? You are nitpicking over what is the church? C'mon, guys.

The church is all who confess Christ, whether in this life or having moved on to what comes after. The church is whatever our Lord decides it is; we are His bride.

I think the salient point is that, unique among the monotheistic religions, Christianity is not tied to a place; although we have our holy sites. If the little tyrants who think they run things tell us that we cannot go to the church building to worship, we can meet in the parking lot of Home Depot, and Christ will be present among us.

Still, I feel an unsettling rage when I read things like that fat slob Pritzker telling churches it may be a year or more before they can hold services. Who do these people think they are? Then I remember that our Lord told us that this would happen.; 5/6/20, 11:52 PM
Birkel said...: Jon Ericson introduces another category: animated series.

Jetsons. Good call Jon.
Speed Racer?; 5/6/20, 11:55 PM
narciso said...: Yes but we didnt think ostracism would hapoen this way, but another entitled vogon scion would agree with a wine scion from the west coast and another dissolute dynast in gotham; 5/6/20, 11:56 PM
Birkel said...: Another good suggestion implied by Jon Ericson:
Old as hell shows.

And for that Rawhide is a good choice.; 5/6/20, 11:57 PM
Yancey Ward said...: "While New York is in decline the rest of the US is on the upswing in cases."

Not really true- New York was again responsible for 1/3 of the deaths yesterday- basically the way it has been from the start. The nine states with 2000+ deaths account for 75%+ of the deaths. The only state where deaths are growing by the 7-day moving average seems to be Pennsylvania.; 5/6/20, 11:58 PM
Clark said...: Here in NW Indiana it was sunny and beautiful today. I have been continuing my multi-year project of gradually expanding a no-dandelion zone from the house outward. I pull them up by the roots one by one.

I have been working from a home office for years, so I have not had to change my work habits much during these last two months. I have not had to leave our property more than a few times. But in preparation for Indiana opening up, I got some N95 masks from the basement. (I have them for sanding and painting. Most of them have valves for exhaling, but I found one without. That will be my mask.) I will be ok with wearing a mask in grocery stores, or in face to face business meetings. It's a way to put others at ease as well as providing me some protection, I suppose. Scott Alexander (of Slate Star Codex) had a pretty good blog post some weeks ago (before the don't-wear-masks/wear-masks flip-flop, I believe) analyzing all the studies he could find on the effectiveness of masks.

I have also been playing through all of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in order. I am on my third time through them. There is a world in those pieces.

The Baltimore Orioles, the Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks, and the Scarlet Tanagers (including a mutant orange one) have returned to our bird feeders.; 5/6/20, 11:58 PM
narciso said...: Yes the twin oeaks theme when i saw the revamped version on showtime i think they lost the plot; 5/6/20, 11:58 PM
Jon Ericson said...: Speed Racer?
After my time.

Twilight Zone?; 5/6/20, 11:59 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Twin Peaks had the best music of any television show ever done. I bought the soundtrack when it ran on ABC 30 years ago now.; 5/6/20, 11:59 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Birkel:

Best (usually meaning most memorable) theme songs for television series
1) music only
2) music and lyrics
3) broadcast TV
4) pay TV (e.g. HBO)
5) most iconic

1) Alfred Hithcock Presents or Twilight Zone
2) The Jeffersons (Movin' On Up)
3) Cheers. It's a great song completely independently of the show.
4) Game of Thrones? Don't really have one.
5) Hawaii Five O

Honorable mentions: Batman, Peter Gunn, Fresh Prince of Bel Air; 5/7/20, 12:01 AM
Ralph L said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/7/20, 12:02 AM
Birkel said...: I never watched the show Twin Peaks.
I don't mind the restaurant.; 5/7/20, 12:02 AM
Ralph L said...: Nothing better than original Hawaii 5-0.

Rawhide is a good choice
Cowpoke singer switches to gayest opera voice for the "Rawhiiiide"; 5/7/20, 12:03 AM
Yancey Ward said...: When talking about theme music, you can't ignore Mission Impossible- great opening theme.; 5/7/20, 12:03 AM
stephen cooper said...: Pritzker is from a famous and rich family, known for its great eccentricities.
God loves rich people too, and sometimes they are led into foolishness. God knows why.

Anne - seriously, did you think I was "nitpicking"?
No, the church is not "all who confess Christ" because many confess to Christ with falsehood in their heart. We need to teach our children that they should not trust people simply because they outwardly confess Christ.

The Church is not, as much as I wish it were, what the Lord decides it is - the Good Lord gave us free will. Everyone I know has free will, and most have used it badly again and again, including the people who are given honor in our churches.

"We are his bride" is pious, and has support from many medieval theologians, but it is not the most biblical view, despite the poetry of Saint Paul.

We are his sons and daughters, we are his heirs, that is biblical. First chapter of John, which every Christian should read every week.

I am only disagreeing with you because I care. Feel free to disagree, but trust me, "nitpicking" is not something I ever waste my time on.; 5/7/20, 12:04 AM
J. Farmer said...: Jon Ericson introduces another category: animated series

No contest. DuckTales. Whoo-oo.; 5/7/20, 12:05 AM
Anne-I-Am said...: Farmer!

You showed up!!! I knew if we managed to move the focus away from the tedious, you would jump back in. Makes me happy.; 5/7/20, 12:05 AM
Mr. Majestyk said...: Rockford Files and Hawaii Five-0. Hands down.; 5/7/20, 12:06 AM
Jon Ericson said...: Twin Peaks
I wrote a letter to Bob Iger imploring him to keep it on the air.
lol; 5/7/20, 12:06 AM
J. Farmer said...: I never watched the show Twin Peaks.
I don't mind the restaurant.

It had a good first season, but that was about it. After a while, David Lynch's surrealism bullshit just gets annoying.; 5/7/20, 12:07 AM
Ralph L said...: The Poirot theme gets stuck in my head too easily.
Room 222 was another.; 5/7/20, 12:08 AM
Birkel said...: The Animaniacs theme song was entertaining, in the animated division.

Grandkids, amirite?; 5/7/20, 12:09 AM
Anne-I-Am said...: stephen cooper,

I trust that our Lord can tell the difference between those who give Him lip service and those who truly confess Him.

And while we are created in God's image, and therefore have free will, that does not lead to the conclusion that He cannot decide what is the church. Merely that we can opt out, should we choose. Didn't you (or was it narciso?) note that He could raise up sons of Abraham from these stones? Perhaps I err, but I am of the opinion that God can do whatever He pleases, although fortunately for us, He chooses not to.

I thought you and narciso were nitpicking over silliness. Angels dancing on the head of a pin.; 5/7/20, 12:09 AM
Anne-I-Am said...: Room 222...now there's a show I hadn't thought of in....40 years?; 5/7/20, 12:10 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Twin Peaks was a mesmerizing show for the first 8 episodes- the miniseries that ran, but didn't come to a conclusion because the wanted to turn it into full run series the next year. Once David Lynch and Mark Frost turned it over to a different writing and directing team, it just became far less interesting.

I watched the Showtime continuation. I was very, very impressed. I was only irritated by the ending, but that irritation has faded. If someone was a fan of the show in the early 1990s, you should watch the 18 episode Showtime season three- it is worth it, take my word for it. As for ending, you don't get the typical wrapup from David Lynch that you regularly expect from other directors- it you go into it looking for a satisfying feel-good ending to anything he writes and directs, you are going to be disappointed.; 5/7/20, 12:11 AM
Susan in Seattle said...: I really like this photo; makes me think of a song called, 'Crayon Sunset.'; 5/7/20, 12:12 AM
Yancey Ward said...: "And you knew where you were then
Girls were girls and men were men.
Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again."

How many can guess this without looking it up?; 5/7/20, 12:15 AM
Clark said...: First Semester of law school. Waiting for Civil Procedure exam to begin. Somebody says to the room of 100 1Ls: "Can anybody remember how the theme song to Mchale's Navy goes?" The kid who did it was a good kid, though a bit of a prankster. (That is, I think he was trying to lighten the atmosphere, not to make people lose focus.) But it was hard to put the question aside and focus on the exam.

It's a pretty complicated theme song—tough to sing, tough to remember.; 5/7/20, 12:16 AM
Anne-I-Am said...: My Dog Has Fleas.

My cat snores. Can felines get sleep apnea?; 5/7/20, 12:17 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Blogger stephen cooper said...
. . .
The night I was born it was Rogue Herries, the story of a dashing Scottish highlander, taken from a novel written by a guy who was the favorite novelist of one of my pals half a century or so later at Centcom).

By Hugh Walpole. I've read a few of Walpole's Herries books. His writing is hypnotic, a still surface with huge undercurrents. A bit of a cross between Trollope & James. Walpole was gay in a way that was possible in those days, but is probably not possible now. Although everyone knew what he was up to with his "driver," he was discrete and did not force the issue.; 5/7/20, 12:18 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Clark,

As I was reading your comment, I was listening to The Appassionata- my favorite of his sonatas.; 5/7/20, 12:20 AM
Clark said...: Anne-bin-ich: Is your cat overweight or a Persian?; 5/7/20, 12:21 AM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: take the 'furry meatloaf' in for a Pet scan or Cat scan; 5/7/20, 12:22 AM
walter said...: Anne,
Sorry to inform you your cat might have a COVID related condition.
Off to the kitty ER.; 5/7/20, 12:23 AM
narciso said...: That was stephen cooper, of course it can be whoever god wills it to be, amd we are sinners so lets not pretend otherwise.; 5/7/20, 12:24 AM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Lots of memorable cartoon music, in fact there is a whole album of covers of those.

Warner's managed to come up with great songs for both Bugs Bunny & The Road Runner show themes, as well as The Merry Go Round Broke Down and Merrily We Roll ALong.

And of course, who could forget Henry Mancini, which leads us back into live action and Mystery; 5/7/20, 12:24 AM
Clark said...: YW: The second movement is sublime. Beethoven was a genius with the variation form. Opus 109 and opus 111—the variations become ever more masterful.; 5/7/20, 12:24 AM
Mr. Majestyk said...: Yancey, that was All in the Family.; 5/7/20, 12:25 AM
stephen cooper said...: Anne - well I am never offended if someone says I am wasting their time, but I was really really trying hard not to.
the concept of church is important, of course, I was saying I did not think it was what it has been claimed to be (nothing unorthodox about that - even Thomas Aquinas admitted that his ecclesiology and other theological works were mere straw compared to the truth, which he, a saint, had seen - I am no saint and I have not seen it, but I trust the young fellow) . When Jesus told of us about two or more of us being gathered in his name, that was not about church, that was about doing for each other what Jesus did for us - and that is not NITPICKING.
I understand that it is very important that good people, or people who want to be good, support their local churches, because we are all human, and we are rarely able to help each other as best we can without some sort of organization. I myself am a member of a local church, although, trust me, I am not the most popular member.; 5/7/20, 12:27 AM
J. Farmer said...: Dave Rubin is tweeting out lots of fire emojis to announce his book is a New York Time's bestseller. I'm guessing he doesn't understand the of role bulk purchasing. The title of the book is Don't Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason. Dave Rubin is going to teach you think for yourself. And who better. Some chapter titles: "Think Freely or Die," "Don't Worry, You're Not a Nazi," "Check Your Facts, Not Your Privilege." I hope Rubin is just being an opportunist and cashing in rather than thinking any of this is fresh or insightful.

Dave Rubin is the perfect shallow, gay nitwit to play masters of ceremony to the "intellectual dark web." You get a copy of this and Peterson's 12 Rules, and you've pretty much got the world in the palm of your hand. As a bonus, grab a few Sam Harris books, where he wraps up morality, free will, and "a guide to spirituality without religion." If that all sounds a bit ambitious, don't worry. These guys are skeptics and free thinkers and they make arguments with FACTS and LOGIC. So you've got that going for you.; 5/7/20, 12:29 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Stephen Cooper and Anne-I-Am, I strongly recommend Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy. It is very different from the awful BBC series that was made from the books. It is one-third memoir, one-third anthropology, and one-third literature. Thompson was elderly when she wrote it, and it describes the late 19th century English small village life that Tolkien based his Hobbiton on.

A little later, remembering man's earthly origin, "dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return," they liked to fancy themselves bubbles of earth. When alone in the fields, with no one to see them, they would hop, skip, and jump, touching the ground as lightly as possible and crying, "We are bubbles of earth! Bubbles of earth! Bubbles of Earth!"; 5/7/20, 12:32 AM
stephen cooper said...: to be fair narciso, I have known a few old geezers who had outlived theirs sins

and a couple other people who I cannot imagine committing a mortal sin

so yes, maybe we are all sinners, if we includes "ME", but let us not fool ourselves, there are some really saintly people alive right now - well most of the best people I met died long ago, but one or two or more are still alive

and I GUARANTEE YOU THEY DO NOT READ MY COMMENTS

it is late, and they are probably asleep, and as is my wont, I will pray to God to sent them the good dreams they deserve; 5/7/20, 12:33 AM
narciso said...: Its no triter than other work, rubin is useful occasionally, whose a profound thibker you recommend even slightly to the right of the zeitgeist.; 5/7/20, 12:33 AM
Lurker21 said...: Can someone help me out here, I really do not get all those videos of Joe Biden creeping out on young women. Was it a Harvey Weinstein thing, where he did creepy things just to show everyone he could?

Joe is a tactile guy. He likes touching people. There's no way of knowing what really goes on behind closed doors, but he probably thinks of what he does in public as innocent and no problem at all. As I said, he has border problems: he's not sure where he ends and other people begin and doesn't have the idea that other people have inviolable personal space. I wonder how Biden would react if somebody got "handsy" with him. It could be that he carries on as he does because nobody ever behaved towards him as he does to other people. And now, with the secret service protection, if you want to touch Joe or smell his hair you are risking your life.; 5/7/20, 12:36 AM
Anne-I-Am said...: stephen cooper,

Thank you for your insight. You give me a lot to think about.

And ALL OF YOU OTHERS,

My cat is just old. He is not fat (anymore). He is not Persian (Egyptian Mau). Maybe he has always made noises when he sleeps, and I never noticed. I find it amusing. He is 16 years old, and I am not going to perturb his latter years with tests and such that will lead to .... nothing. He is an excellent cat. Not much of a predator, but he does all the right things where I am concerned...sits on my lap, cuddles with me when I sleep, tries to lick my face (which I, in turn, try to avoid).; 5/7/20, 12:36 AM
stephen cooper said...: Lewis I will give it a try. I used to subscribe to the Folio Society and I remember when they reissued an illustrated version of that book, but I did not give it a try back then, but I like the bubbles quote,so I will try again.; 5/7/20, 12:37 AM
Joan said...: Stephen my church also has adoration but I have not been able to go because the hours are during my work hours. We also started distributing communion, drive up, immediately after the daily and weekend masses.; 5/7/20, 12:37 AM
eddie willers said...: I watched the Showtime continuation. I was very, very impressed. I was only irritated by the ending, but that irritation has faded.

Agree wholeheartedly. I say it was 17 of the best 18 hours ever broadcast.

After episode 8, I just sat and stared at my TV for fifteen minutes. I'm not sure I even breathed.; 5/7/20, 12:38 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Clark,

It has been a long time since I listened to either of those, but will do so tomorrow.; 5/7/20, 12:38 AM
stephen cooper said...: Anne, you are welcome, and right back at you, and at the other commenters (ALL OF YOU OTHERS).

Believe it or not, I work 40 hours a week, so I have to go to sleep soon. (40 paid hours, not counting hours spent taking care of animals et cetera).; 5/7/20, 12:39 AM
Yancey Ward said...: "After episode 8, I just sat and stared at my TV for fifteen minutes. I'm not sure I even breathed."

Yes, that episode was just astounding, beginning to end. I actually rewatched it immediately.; 5/7/20, 12:40 AM
Lurker21 said...: Bush made up nicknames to establish his dominance. Biden touches people. If somebody touched him in the same way, he'd feel like he'd been put in a subordinate position. It's not really conscious though. He's not that deep.; 5/7/20, 12:41 AM
Anne-I-Am said...: J Farmer,

I find Jordan Peterson refreshing and necessary. YOU are not his intended audience. People like my youngest son are. Young brains full of mush, as Rush would say, who won't listen to common sense from their parents (because, duh), but who might let a scintilla of reason in if it comes from somebody else. And that's all we need, really...a germ of an idea about responsibility, about discipline, about dedication, about productivity and what makes a human truly happy.

What he says may seem blindingly obvious to you...but, c'mon...how old are you? Have you learned what he preaches along the way, or were you preternaturally born with it?

Make your bed. Show up. Stand up straight. Be respectful. ... Just you wait, Mr Farmer....hahahahaha. You are going to have a kid, no? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. (Stops for breath.). Bwahahahahahahahahaha.; 5/7/20, 12:43 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: BTW, you can read the _Lark Rise to Candleford_ trilogy for free at http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks09/0900911.txt
It is in the public domain in Australia. Walpole's _Herries_ series is there as well.; 5/7/20, 12:44 AM
Lurker21 said...: Dave Rubin is the perfect shallow, gay nitwit to play masters of ceremony to the "intellectual dark web."

He's homosexual and married to a guy, but he doesn't come across as "gay" on camera. Post-gayness is now becoming a thing, I guess.

I hope Rubin is just being an opportunist and cashing in rather than thinking any of this is fresh or insightful.

Maybe it's neither, and he thinks he is performing a service for people who need it.; 5/7/20, 12:45 AM
J. Farmer said...: Sincere question for Christians: how do you reconcile your conception of God as revealed by Christ with the god of the Old Testament?

While granting the uniqueness of monotheism, doesn't the god of the Old Testament strike you as a fairly conventional Bronze Age god? Rather provincial, frivolous, prone to negative emotions, etc. Making a deal with a chosen people? Laying down a huge list of laws and rules?

I don't intend to sound flippant, but Yahweh and Jesus sound like very different characters. I understand that this has always been a tension, since Christianity basically became a religion of gentiles and not Jews. It seems like it takes a rather complicated theology to square that circle.; 5/7/20, 12:46 AM
J. Farmer said...: @Lurker21:

Maybe it's neither, and he thinks he is performing a service for people who need it.

Oh god, earnestness would be the worst of all. Seems that the person most likely to read such a book is one who already agrees with everything in it.; 5/7/20, 12:49 AM
PJ said...: Can you beat Gilligan's Island for catchiness plus laying out the premise and introducing the characters?

How about The Patty Duke Show?

More generally, no love for The X-Files theme here?; 5/7/20, 12:53 AM
eddie willers said...: Sincere question for Christians: how do you reconcile your conception of God as revealed by Christ with the god of the Old Testament?

I keep hoping the Muslims get a New Testament for the Koran.

God knows they need one.; 5/7/20, 12:55 AM
Anne-I-Am said...: J Farmer,

That is a question likely not suited to this format, but here is a stab at a beginning of it.

The Orthodox see the OT and the NT as a continuity--as God revealing Himself to humans as they were able to grasp and deal with His nature. IOW, He trims his sails in accordance with the spiritual maturity of his "audience." So, we see in Genesis, the proto-Hebrews moving from the god of a physical location to a God who transcends geography. We see God giving the Law, not for Himself, but because that is what humans were ready for.

And remember, Scripture is the story of God's relationship with man...written from the perspective of men. God may indeed seem capricious and cranky and unpredictable to us. That doesn't mean that is what He is. His ways are not our ways, after all. I am sure that the things I did often seems incomprehensible to my kids. I remember the things MY parents did seeming stupid and inconsistent and inexplicable. What did I know? I was five years old.

Anyway...Scripture is an ongoing story, in part, of humanity's spiritual maturation. And remember, again from a Christian perspective, God's plan is far beyond our entanglement with time and space. So...God chooses a people (the Jews). And...His plan was and has always been to expand His people to all who encounter Him and confess Him.

And he is NOT primarily the God of the gentiles. What people miss is that Peter was the apostle to the Jews and Paul to the gentiles. Because Paul's letters are canonical, it is easy to think of the Church as only comprising gentiles. But the Jews who followed Christ--those living in Judea and Samaria became .... Christians. Israel is full of Christian holy places and indeed, Christians.

Finally, Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets. He did not sever the connection between the old and the new...he fulfilled the old. What He did do was mind-blowing--because he made the law superfluous. But superfluous only because He fulfilled it in our place, relieving us of the obligation, which was impossible, anyway.

It isn't really complicated. It does require education.; 5/7/20, 12:59 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Y'know, J.Farmer, I have questions about the OT & how it relates to the NT myself.
It is odd that the Bronze Age Collapse occurred about the same time as Rameses & Moses began their conflict. Greco-Roman mythology ends about the same time that Moses starts, 1200 BC. The ancients have the gods directing human history from the beginning of the world until the fall of Troy. Then you have epilogue. The gods retreat to Olympus and stop interfering in human affairs. And then the story of Moses and the Jews escaping from Egypt begins. Very strange.; 5/7/20, 1:01 AM
J. Farmer said...: @Anne:

Make your bed. Show up. Stand up straight. Be respectful. ... Just you wait, Mr Farmer....hahahahaha. You are going to have a kid, no? Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. (Stops for breath.). Bwahahahahahahahahaha.

I don't take issue with the fact that I am not Peterson's audience or that his material is "blindingly obvious." My objection is that his worldview is incoherent, and his self-help advice is selling a bill of goods.

Peterson's PhD is in clinical psychology, and he claims to have maintained a clinical practice. When you work in the field, you can tell pretty quickly who has actually been in the trenches and who has spent most of their time in academia. Clinical psychology is a rather polite profession. You sit in your office and your clients come for their scheduled hour, leave when the time is up, and their health plan or EAP pays you a fee. Social work is a much different beast. Go into the homes, the schools, the residential facilities, the rehabs, the corrections' institutions, the group homes, the foster homes, the domestic violence shelters. Spend some time trying to help extremely dysfunctional, self-destructive people cobble together something resembling a stable life. Then come back and tell me you have 12 rules for life.; 5/7/20, 1:02 AM
J. Farmer said...: @Lewis Wetzel:

The gods retreat to Olympus and stop interfering in human affairs. And then the story of Moses and the Jews escaping from Egypt begins. Very strange.

And never mind what was going on in the Indus Valley or China. Or the tens of thousands of years spent in bands of hunter-gatherers.; 5/7/20, 1:06 AM
Lurker21 said...: Seems that the person most likely to read such a book is one who already agrees with everything in it.

Not everybody is fully formed in their political opinions. The readers are likely to be people who lean in that direction, but think they don't have strong enough arguments to support what they feel in the face of opposition. I only know the guy from his appearances on Gutfeld, but there are probably a lot worse political books out there.; 5/7/20, 1:09 AM
J. Farmer said...: @Anne:

It isn't really complicated. It does require education.

I still find it curious that the people most familiar with the Old Testament, including in the original language it was written, are the ones least likely to accept that interpretation. And since there's no way to verify Paul's claims, you pretty much just have to take them at face value.

Just to be clear, I am not attempting any kind of "debate." I think those believer versus atheist debates are pretty useless but occasionally interesting to listen to.; 5/7/20, 1:15 AM
Anne-I-Am said...: JF,

Sure, there is a chasm between the chaos that you describe and the disordered order that Peterson addresses. I am not sure he claimed that his approach was meant to be a panacea. The group of kids that don't meet the criteria of dysfunctionality that you describe still is not really functional.

I see this in your commentary. You are deeply aware of the obviously desperate--those in groups homes, foster homes, shelters, etc. You seem--and I may be wrong--oblivious to the middle children. The middle children are the kids who aren't the golden ticket holders, the driven offspring of driven parents, the kids who know they want to be doctors from the age of six, etc, etc, etc. We have a shit ton of kids who are floundering--not enough to end up in juvie, or whatever, but enough to be stuck in neutral, not moving on with their lives, not growing, not maturing. I think this is Peterson's audience--and I think you are blind to this.

As I noted, you are planning to have a child. Chances are that child will never end up in the dire circumstances with which you are so familiar. But he may not end up in the golden meadows you imagine. He may end up in a sort of limbo, stuck in neutral, not moved to become, to mature into his full self. The non-meritocratic who gets left behind in a world focused on achievement and meritocracy.

These kids needs help, too. I have two sons who fall into this category. One, my oldest, has matured into productivity and discipline, with large doses of tough love from me. Thank God. The other, my youngest, is struggling. I try to offer advice, but....I am his mom. What do I know? He isn't going to end up homeless, or in prison (my middle son, sadly, is there), but he might never really launch.

Jordan Peterson speaks to him. That you seem unaware of this need--or dismissive of it?--I think is because you have not yet been a parent.; 5/7/20, 1:21 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: And never mind what was going on in the Indus Valley or China. Or the tens of thousands of years spent in bands of hunter-gatherers.
Yes it is very odd. Tens of thousands of years in the paleolithic, maybe a thousand or two thousand years spent in the mesolithic, a few thousand years in the neolithic, then -- BOOM -- ages of bronze, and iron, and then modernity.
Something odd is happening. I don't know what it is. But the universe is not supposed to have a direction. We shouldn't be able to progress, any more than bears or starfish should be able to progress.; 5/7/20, 1:22 AM
J. Farmer said...: @Lurker21:

I only know the guy from his appearances on Gutfeld, but there are probably a lot worse political books out there.

Rubin seems like pretty much a charlatan to me. He worked for The Young Turks and did the "Why I Left the Left" shtick and has been monetizing that ever since. I doubt Rubin has much of a political identity outside of hating a certain segment of the social justice left. It's everything I hate about personality-based politics. If Rubin wants to go around calling himself a "classical liberal" (a term I'm almost certain he doesn't understand), he should go out there and find the strongest, best articulated arguments against his position and confronting those. Instead he marches a merry bandit of misfits on air, all of whom share his hate of the social justice left. And he prances around like a brave truth teller.; 5/7/20, 1:23 AM
Anne-I-Am said...: JF,

You keep trying to approach faith with reason. It just doesn't work that way. And what you call the people "most familiar" with the OT. How are they necessarily most familiar? A Jew today is not necessarily more familiar with Torah than a Christian. It's not like maybe speaking Hebrew gives you special dispensation. And remember--the Jews don't read the NT. How can they see a continuity between OT and NT when they have never read the NT?

And of course there is no way to verify faith. Your preoccupation with this is odd. Of course faith can't be verified. Have you read Kierkegaard?

You seem to approach those of us who believe as lab specimens. How curious these people are. How unlike me. Stop it. It is unseemly. I could equally dissect you as a specimen, an object. How strange, this man, who is oblivious to what God has made obvious. Instead, I see you as human, fully human, and thus not a thing to be examined.; 5/7/20, 1:27 AM
J. Farmer said...: @Lewis Wetzel:

Something odd is happening. I don't know what it is. But the universe is not supposed to have a direction. We shouldn't be able to progress, any more than bears or starfish should be able to progress.

The argument from personal incredulity. I'll gladly admit it's a total mystery. I prefer "I don't know" to leaping to the conclusion that it must be for my benefit.; 5/7/20, 1:28 AM
Anne-I-Am said...: Off to bed all. Great conversations...and I have a new book to seek out, thank you Lewis.

I will make a recommendation in turn: Honeybee Democracy. Bees are fascinating creatures. Let us hope they can fend off the murder hornets who would decapitate them all.; 5/7/20, 1:35 AM
Lewis said...: I'm bored of all last years windows
And this years, too -
I'll smash them -
How about you?; 5/7/20, 1:37 AM
Lewis said...: I am like Samuel Johnson, ripped up and discombobuliated, thrown on the scrap heap, I had to collect my soul among the rats and the discarded supermarket trolleys - I found it, but to clean it was 50 year work - still not done, perhaps, never will be done. To be eviscerated? Oh, that's fun.; 5/7/20, 1:39 AM
J. Farmer said...: @Anne:

You keep trying to approach faith with reason. It just doesn't work that way.

I completely agree with that. That's why I think debates on the topic are "pretty useless." The empirical method is not the way people arrive at their worldview. I think it's a lot more subliminal and intuitive than that.

A Jew today is not necessarily more familiar with Torah than a Christian. It's not like maybe speaking Hebrew gives you special dispensation. And remember--the Jews don't read the NT.

I meant more the long history of Rabbinical commentary. Agree about the New Testament, but it still seems like quite a leap to make the Old Testament the prologue to the New.

And of course there is no way to verify faith. Your preoccupation with this is odd. Of course faith can't be verified. Have you read Kierkegaard?,

I agree with this as well. It isn't anything that can be proven. It's a matter of conscience.

You seem to approach those of us who believe as lab specimens. How curious these people are. How unlike me. Stop it. It is unseemly. I could equally dissect you as a specimen, an object. How strange, this man, who is oblivious to what God has made obvious. Instead, I see you as human, fully human, and thus not a thing to be examined.

Lab specimens is a bit much. But the only way I can understand someone's perspective on something is if I inquire about it. You seemed rather free discussing your religious convictions. I apologize if I'm being overly intrusive. But to be quite honest, you have sort of treated me in the manner you describe.; 5/7/20, 1:39 AM
Lewis said...: I'll tell a you story, a horrible story, about the Yugoslav wars - a couple of 'UN' soldiers entered a cottage in Croatia and there was a nine your girl, dead, naked, her arms flayed to the side, splayed, naked on a kitchen table - this has destroyed my dreams for years so I share it - a note pinned on her chest "If you want her eyes, there in the glass jar". I pass it on so I wont think about it, any more. Or, at least, you know the beastliness of man.; 5/7/20, 1:40 AM
Lewis said...: Long before Martina I knew that and when I saw her I wanted to 'rescue' her - I was subtle about it but not 'subtle' enough and she knew it.; 5/7/20, 1:41 AM
Lewis said...: I loved her for an 'idea' - she loved me for my soul - isn't that the way of men and women!; 5/7/20, 1:48 AM
Inga said...: “I have two sons who fall into this category. One, my oldest, has matured into productivity and discipline, with large doses of tough love from me. Thank God. The other, my youngest, is struggling. I try to offer advice, but....I am his mom. What do I know? He isn't going to end up homeless, or in prison (my middle son, sadly, is there), but he might never really launch.”

From the woman who seems to think she has the power to direct everything and thinks she controls other people’s conversations, she couldn’t raise two out of three sons to be productive adults.

I guess I have much to be proud of in how my four children turned out, being raised mostly by myself after my husband died. I had very little time to navel gaze. My focus was on keeping a roof over our heads, food on the table and raising decent and productive human beings. None of my kids ended up floundering or in prison, thank God.

I stayed up late to watch a good movie and stopped by to see how the queen bee was furiously laying eggs and directing the worker bees to groom her.; 5/7/20, 1:54 AM
Lewis said...: I keep thinking Dh and Frieda Lawrance - the ' Nightmare' when he was hounded by the British bobby, his judgement on 'us', but, his love, for her - read his letters or hers - it's passionate, it's real, it's beautiful. When people knew time was only temporary. Time is meaningless!; 5/7/20, 1:58 AM
Lewis said...: Snake
By D. H. Lawrence
A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough
before me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over
the edge of the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second-comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused
a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels
of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.

The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold
are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink
at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?
Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?
Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,
But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders,
and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into
that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing
himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed
in an undignified haste,
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross,
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Taormina; 5/7/20, 2:02 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: I wrote: The ancients have the gods directing human history from the beginning of the world until the fall of Troy. Then you have epilogue.
But I should have written differently. Before Troy, you had the gods in intimate relations with human beings. Helen was supposed be the daughter of Leda, a woman raped by Zeus in the guise of a swan. The battle for Troy drew humans and gods even closer. They took sides. Gods were wounded and felt pain. The relational behavior of the lesser gods towards Zeus was similar to the way a bronze age family related to their father-king. Venus, when petitioning Zeus to intercede on behalf of her beloved Trojans, kneels before Zeus and puts her head upon his knee, a gesture of both submission and supplication.

Troy falls, it is plundered and raped, and the Argives are scattered. Of their descendants, some become Romans, some become Britons, etc.
But the gods never again intercede in human activity as they did during the Trojan War.
And at this time, during the Mediterranean Dark Age, the infant Moses is delivered to the Pharaoh's daughter.
It is a weird story.; 5/7/20, 2:05 AM
Mark said...: So I got caught up in karaoke videos on YouTube. It's good they show the words, but for some of these songs I hadn't heard in a while, it would have really helped to also see the musical notation.; 5/7/20, 2:05 AM
Rocko said...: One has to be of a certain age, but the seldom heard lyrics to the theme song for the long-running (1959-1973)
Bonanza were best kept obscure. The twangy musical version for the show was certainly heard a zillion times in those pre-fast-forward times.
http://ponderosascenery.homestead.com/lyrics.html; 5/7/20, 2:17 AM
Mark said...: Sincere question for Christians: how do you reconcile your conception of God as revealed by Christ with the god of the Old Testament?

Ask again tomorrow when it's not 3 in the a.m.

But there is only one God. Any apparent differences are in our perception, not in God.

More tomorrow.; 5/7/20, 2:19 AM
Lewis said...: Ing, you dont know a mother who productively produces destruction - I think sentimentality about 'mothers' is overblown - think, among the destroyed working-class, were I live, 90% are one parent families (white - ex- working - in this case), therefore, what you call 'domestic' abuse' must include the abuse to the child by the mother? Does it fuck! When mothers abuse ther children it's 'justified' - it doesn't matter if your mum wants to kill you - it's good and lets give you therapy - 'Munchausan by proxy'- so if they beat you, treat you like shit, who gives a fuck - especially if your a boy, that's doudle down shit; 5/7/20, 2:43 AM
Lewis said...: You are autistic because your mum is an 'artist' - while she beating in the back room - if that is how 'art' is produced give me crap, everyday!; 5/7/20, 2:50 AM
Lewis said...: No one knows what is 'truth', no one goes to the 'ground', - I know.; 5/7/20, 2:55 AM
Lewis said...: If you look clearly - 95% of all domestic cases are between mother and son - mostly in a black context - in all context rested all abuse (99.9) are of a mother against her child. Therefore, domestic violence is not man beating woman, very rare, or woman beating man, less rare, but of parent beating child . Think.; 5/7/20, 3:07 AM
Kai Akker said...: --- We have to understand these [conspiracy theorists] are criminal organizations which really stop at nothing to get disinformation out," Fernando said. --hard-working doctor quoted in Inga's post 9:54 pm

Criminalize everything. That's his platform.

Easy to resort to during tough times. So we are going to keep hearing more of this. The doctor means well, sort of. But shutting off speech and criminalizing anyone who disagrees with you is the route to permanent disruption and in every way contrary to our founding principles. Maybe on reflection he will realize that too, but meanwhile the eager-beaver totalitarians will be glad to seize on any momentum that comes their way to take more control over us.; 5/7/20, 4:48 AM
Kai Akker said...: Stock futures up and presenting more opportunity to reduce market exposure. This rally, coupled with deteriorating earnings forecasts, has made the American stock market even more overvalued than it was at the top in February.

The mania the Federal Reserve so carefully built up over the years might not be over until Apple makes one more new high, but the historical results after markets have reached this degree of extreme valuation multiples shows major averages falling 80%. There are only two such cases, and the metrics at the Feb top were higher than in either 1929 or 2000.

Maybe it will be different this time?; 5/7/20, 4:53 AM
Lewis said...: I raillise people have taste - I think, the other day, I showed you Nick Kave - he was supposed to be the new B D - fuck that, one more disappointment in an ally of my graf, looking, looking, looking; 5/7/20, 5:02 AM
Lewis said...: realise -sorry; 5/7/20, 5:05 AM
Mr. Forward said...: Biden: Gender confirmation surgery is ‘medically necessary”

So it is going to be Andrew Cuomo for VP?; 5/7/20, 6:25 AM
iowan2 said...: Oh! Thank you for asking. Yes, we face-timed this afternoon. (Afternoon for me; evening for her.). She was dressed and had her hair combed. But...evidently she gets nasty at night

The staff at the nursing home explained that to me. The call it Sundowners syndrome. Lot's of dementia patients have the same change of character, in the late afternoon, heading for sundown. (I was lucky, the head nurse stood up with us at our wedding, so honest candid talk came easy between us.); 5/7/20, 6:32 AM
grackle said...: I guess I’m finished with this poem. I believe it’s the 3rd revision.

Corona Blues 5

A risky sky slides by out there
I haven’t seen it for awhile
I really don’t know how I’d fare
Should I allow it to beguile

Haven’t bought home a salary
And it puzzles the pundits’ minds
There’s bird shit on my balcony
I can see it through the blinds

I need to take a trip downstairs
(My mail’s fate I cannot foretell)
As quick as a sinner’s prayers
I’ll tap dance through Hell for a spell

Of free will I know this fable
Without it life would fall apart
We boost loot that’s available
And are pursued back to the start; 5/7/20, 6:33 AM