"Like the ouroboros, I believe Big Tech is eating itself alive with its component companies throwing more and more cash at investments in each other that are most likely to generate less and less of a return...."

"[T]hese companies... will one day disappoint those who view them as safe assets. And the self-cannibalization will not just reveal itself to be a mediocre investment but a shaky bet on an illusion propagated by a mythical and messianic belief in technology and these companies.... One need not look at ancient folklore to find depictions of the ouroboros. The economist Joseph Schumpeter...wrote of a cycle of industrial mutation' that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.'"

Writes Harvard law and business professor Mihir A. Desai, in "The Future of A.I. May Not Be as Revolutionary as We Thought" (NYT).

"Welp. I'm cooked.... I was just bit on the leg by a diamondback.... Let's get some pictures of it first."

NEW: Florida man accepts his fate after being bitten by a diamondback rattlesnake, says he is "cooked" but at least it will make a good meme.

Gotta respect his commitment to the meme game.

Social media influencer David Humphlett told the snake "good game" (gg) before he was… pic.twitter.com/Vmwh4ve3RT

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 31, 2024

We're told that this young man, a "social media influencer" named David Humphlett, made it to the hospital, but not before swinging his camera around and complimenting the snake: "Let's get some pictures of it first. We're already screwed anyways. Cool snake! Big diamondback!"

They're saving him at the hospital. He received 88 vials of antivenin. You may think he's an idiot, but is he? Hearing his words called to mind Seneca's "How to Die" (commission earned) which I happen to be in the middle of reading:

There’s no life that’s not short. If you examine the nature of things, even the life of Nestor is short, or that of Sattia, who ordered inscribed on her tombstone that she had lived ninety-nine years. You see in her someone glorying in a long old age. But who could have endured her, if she had filled out a full century? Just as with storytelling, so with life: it’s important how well it is done, not how long. It doesn’t matter at what point you call a halt. Stop wherever you like; only put a good closer on it. Farewell.

 We're already screwed anyways. We're cooked. This is it. This is death. It came by snake. And you have the presence of mind to proclaim: Cool snake.

"He has found snakes, and even a freshwater eel, in his pool, but the water is clear enough that he can spot animals before there’s trouble."

From "Come On Over, I Just Installed a Pond/Backyards that feature natural pools trade chlorine for plants, don’t need to be closed for winter and may feature kois with names like Cutie" (NYT).

I'm skeptical!  The "he" who "can spot animals before there’s trouble" is a man whose business is installing "natural" pools.

By the way, I love the subreddit, r/FindTheSniper, which features photographs where it's hard to see the snake (or other wildlife). I'm now convinced that I've walked by many snakes.

Anyway, let's say you do spot the snake before there’s "trouble," what do you do? I think you back off, and in the end, cede the pond territory to the wild things. Who is in the business of removing "natural" ponds (and their creepy denizens)?

"There were no gyms open... and so every day, I swam miles aimlessly in the lake. I'd put on a wet suit..."

"... and I'd jump in the boat dock and I'd swim down, by Johnny Cash's house, and I came back, and I did the same route every single day. Because... I knew that I had to if I wanted to continue this breakout season I was having my sophomore year into my junior year. Right? And the amount of snakes that I swam by and, like, dead catfish that are floating on top of the water that, like, hit you in your face while you're swimming is not pleasant...."

Said Riley Gaines, describing the difficulty of training during the Covid lockdown. That's part of a 2-and-a-half-hour discussion with Joe Rogan, which is mostly about her staunch opposition to allowing transgender women to compete against biologically female athletes. I've listened to the whole thing, and I think Joe is boldly risking his reputation with this material. He's very supportive of Gaines, and the two of them frequently declare that the world has gone crazy:

The most-read national stories at The Washington Post all speak to the fear of hidden evil.

"Koontz writes terrifying stories of murder and mayhem, yet is incapable of watching a gory movie. He hasn’t flown for 50 years..."

"... after a flight he was on encountered serious turbulence and a nun on board proclaimed, 'We’re all going to die.'... Mostly, Koontz stays put in Orange County. Easier, safer. He installed a towering fence, which partially obstructs the view, to protect his golden retriever Elsa from rattlesnakes. His 12,000-square-foot art-filled manse features the latest innovations to guard against wildfires....  'When the writing is working, nothing stops me,' he says. He worked 36 hours straight — twice.... Koontz... doesn’t read emails... and won’t open a browser, even to check facts or the news. 'I never go online. Never. I don’t trust myself,' he says. 'I know I’m a potential obsessive, and I don’t want to waste time.' Head down, nose to keyboard.... He starts with characters.... 'Life Expectancy'... opens with a deranged, chain-smoking, aerialist-abhorring menacing clown named Beezo in a 1970s maternity waiting room. 'I give the characters free will,' he says. 'The novel becomes organic and unpredictable and much more interesting to me.'"

 
From "What scares master of suspense Dean Koontz? Plenty. He’s sold more than 500 million books, writes two novels every year, lives like a prince and keeps his manuscripts in the fridge in case of fire" (WaPo). 

And that's how you write: You're afraid of everything and you plant yourself firmly in one rattlesnake-proof place, you posit a handful of traits for a character — scary/odd things (like the abhorrence of aerialists) — then you dig in and write write write. Never stop.

"Now that we know that this is here, we know what it looks like, we know there’s erectile tissue with nerves – we can’t help but think: why wouldn’t this be for pleasure?"

"I think it’s worth opening up those questions for snakes."

Said  Jenna Crowe-Riddell, a postdoc in neuroecology at La Trobe University, quoted in "Snakes have a clitoris: scientists overcome ‘a massive taboo around female genitalia’/Researchers say previous studies mistook the organs on female snakes as scent glands or under-developed versions of penises" (The Guardian).

What to watch from the Criterion's "80s Horror" collection?

 

You can see the huge set of titles here. 

We chose the one where Hugh Grant says "I hear you're having trouble with a snake."

Pagan vampires, a two-hundred-foot worm, and a profusion of phallic imagery collide in Ken Russell’s typically outré take on Bram Stoker’s most infamous novel. On an excavation in the English countryside, an archaeologist (Peter Capaldi) uncovers a mysterious skull that he comes to believe belonged to the D’Ampton Worm, a mythical snake-like creature thought to have been slain long ago by an ancestor of aristocrat James D’Ampton (Hugh Grant). The strange presence of the enigmatic Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe) and a series of unexplained disappearances soon hint that the legend of the D’Ampton Worm may be far from dead.

Did we laugh? Of course, we laughed!

Why didn't I see it back when it came out (in 1988)? I loved Ken Russell. "The Devils" was on my list of 5 favorite movies. And, as a law clerk, I'd worked on the case about "Altered States." But I was influenced by the reviews of the time. Which ones, I can't remember, but Roger Ebert wrote:

People expect something special from Russell, whose inflamed filmography includes such items as “Women in Love,” “The Music Lovers,” “The Devils,” “The Boyfriend,” “Tommy,” “Altered States,” “Crimes of Passion” and “Salome’s Last Dance.” Every one of Russell’s films has been an exercise in wretched excess. Sometimes it works. Russell loves the bizarre, the gothic, the overwrought, the perverse. The strangest thing about “The Lair of the White Worm” is that, by his standards, it is rather straight and square. 

Not enough wretched excess!

"Some of us have died off, of course, but the remnants of the legendary pig in a python generation are still wending our way through the snake’s entrails, tussling with each other as we pass through the intestines of the body politic."

That's a quote I'm reading at Instapundit this morning.

I must say that this is the first time in my life that I've wondered about whether snake intestines curl around like the intestines of a mammal. 

Of course, I've heard that pig/python metaphor used many times to describe my my my my my my generation, but I'd never thought about how winding the long road through the final part of the snake was supposed to be pictured.

"Apparently the feline decided that it rather liked what it had found because it came back for another snack three times that night."

"The next morning the bobcat returned to cache uneaten eggs in the ground to consume at a later date. That evening the bobcat returned again, but, this time, the python was back on her nest. Weighing about 20 pounds, the feline was clearly aware that the 115-pound python posed a serious threat and, rather than trying to eat more eggs, it padded around the nest at a safe distance for a few minutes before leaving. The next night the camera took a photo of the two predators in a face-off. Apparently, the bobcat felt the clutch was worth fighting for because it returned in the morning and aggravated the python enough to prompt an attack."

From "Bobcats With a Taste for Python Eggs Might Be the Guardians of Florida’s Swamp/Cameras captured the wild feline purloining a Burmese python’s eggs, giving hope that the state’s native species are responding to a voracious, invasive predator" (NYT).

20 pounds versus 115 pounds, but the cat is smarter, and the cat — like a wily human — is going after the next generation.

"Now Henderson, a single mom in Blairsville, Georgia, is facing criminal reckless conduct charges for letting her 14-year-old babysit."

"The charges carry a maximum penalty of one year in prison and fine of $1,000. The arresting officer, Deputy Sheriff Marc Pilote, wrote in his report that anything terrible could have happened to Thaddeus, including being kidnapped, run over, or 'bitten by a venomous snake.' (When Henderson protested that the kid was only gone a few minutes, Pilote responded that a few minutes was all the time a venomous snake needed.)... When I spoke with the district attorney, Jeff Langley, he said he felt the cops acted prudently... Langley said he believed the boy was 'wandering naked in a thunderstorm.' In reality, while the boy was wearing only a shirt, there was no storm. Langley added the officers informed him that 14-year-old Linley had 'some measure of learning disability'... Henderson told me that her daughter was previously diagnosed with ADHD. She has a GPA of 4.45, is vice president of the 4-H Club, broke school records in varsity track, completed the Red Cross Childcare program, and is certified in CPR."

From "Mom Handcuffed, Jailed for Letting 14-Year-Old Babysit Kids During COVID-19/'I almost don't have words for how low it made me feel,' says Melissa Henderson" (Reason).

"A sign at a playground in Moraga, a 35-minute drive from San Francisco, advises parents that rattlesnakes are 'important members of the natural community' and to give the snakes 'respect.'"

"Across the Bay in the San Francisco suburb of Burlingame, an animal shelter has rescued a family of skunks from a construction hole, a chameleon from power lines and nursed back to health 100 baby squirrels that tumbled out of their nests after their trees got trimmed. With the exception of the occasional aggressive coyote, the animals that roam the hills and gullies of the Bay Area — turkeys, mountain lions, deer, bobcats, foxes and the rest of a veritable Noah’s Ark — find themselves on somewhat laissez-faire terms with the humans around them. Not so for the rampaging feral pigs...."

From "The Rampaging Pigs of the San Francisco Bay Area/A proposed California law would make it easier to hunt feral swine, the voracious “super invaders” that are the bane of some East Bay suburbs" (NYT).

Scroll past the first minute to skip the bad new stuff and get to the good old stuff.

"During the fight—which Short notes was about nothing at all, as most relationship squabbles are—Nancy did something unexpected."

"She asked to speak with Ed [Grimley] rather than with Martin. Short immediately transformed into his alter ego. When Nancy asked 'Ed' what her boyfriend’s problem was, he suggested that Martin was 'jealous of your beauty and wisdom and saddened by his own tragic limitations.' He then added, 'Although his endowment has certainly been blessed by the Lord.' Nancy thanked Ed and told him to go away. Argument over."

Description of a fight that took place in 1977, found in "Martin Short Plays Bit by Bit/The seventy-one-year-old comedian on his early ambitions to be a singer, his circle of funny people, and the wisdom he’s gleaned from the likes of Joni Mitchell and Neil Simon" (The New Yorker).

ADDED: Something I learned reading that interview: This is the first appearance of Ed Grimley:

"Is a snake the Devil?"

"Bolton is extremely famous for his fervent hawkery, including on the Iraq war. If Trump bothered to do a cursory Google search on Bolton before appointing him..."

"... to the most powerful national security position in his administration, he’d have turned up headlines like 'John Bolton: No regrets about toppling Saddam.' Sadly, there was too much good stuff [on] television in the days leading up to Bolton’s nomination to do that search. Trump does not seem to realize how bad it makes him sound that he never bothered to ask what he later identified as the key question about the worldview of his own national security adviser."

From "Trump: I Didn’t Realize Bolton Supported Iraq War Until After I Hired Him" by Jonathan Chait (New York Magazine). Chait is reading the WSJ interview in which Trump says:

"Pvt. Triplett enlisted in the 53rd North Carolina Infantry Regiment in May 1862, then transferred to the 26th North Carolina Infantry Regiment early the following year..."

"... according to Confederate records. He fell ill as his regiment marched north toward Gettysburg and remained behind in a Virginia military hospital. He ran away from the hospital, records show, while his unit suffered devastating losses at Gettysburg. Of the 800 men in the 26th North Carolina, 734 were killed, wounded or captured in the battle Pvt. Triplett missed. Now a deserter, he made his way to Tennessee and, in 1864, enlisted in a Union regiment, the 3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry. Known as Kirk’s Raiders, the 3rd North Carolina carried out a campaign of sabotage against Confederate targets in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. After the war, former Kirk’s Raiders were despised in areas of the former Confederacy. Pvt. Triplett, by then a civilian with a reputation for orneriness, kept pet rattlesnakes at his home near Elk Creek, N.C. He often sat on his front porch with a pistol on his lap.... Pvt. Triplett married Elida Hall in 1924. She was 34 when Irene was born in 1930; he was 83."

Their daughter, Irene Triplett, was the last person to receive a Civil War pension (Wall Street Journal). Irene had mental disabilities, so as the "helpless adult child of a veteran," she qualified for government support. She has now died, at the age of 90.

Snake on the bike path.

Yesterday...



I got to talking with some little kids — who were doing this mountain bike path on strider bikes — and they had the idea of a snake on a bike. Their dad suggested a lizard. Yeah, a lizard on a bike makes sense... compared to a snake on a bike.

In the category of impossible things, some are more believable than others.

That makes me think of "Through the Looking Glass":

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!"

Are you trying to believe impossible things?  Have you had a lot of practice? Are you keeping score? Are you up to 6? What are you eating for breakfast? For me, it's snake bacon. Snakon.

"He grew up in Bethel, Connecticut, a poor rural village in which survival demanded cunning, wit, and ruthlessness—traits known collectively at the time as 'Yankee cuteness.'"

"Barnum was proud of his upbringing, which encouraged in him an insatiable appetite for wealth from the moment he learned to count.... At Barnum’s christening in 1810, [his maternal grandfather] 'gravely handed over' a gift deed to 'Ivy Island,' five remote acres that his grandson was to inherit upon reaching his majority. For the next decade, as Barnum tells it, he was 'continually hearing' about how he owned 'one of the most valuable farms in the State'—from his grandfather, parents, even his neighbors, all of whom warned him against the perils of immodest wealth. 'Now Taylor,' said his mother, 'don’t become so excited when you see your property as to let your joy make you sick.' When Barnum finally treks to his inheritance at the age of ten, he discovers that Ivy Island is a waste of muddy bogs plagued by hornets and snakes. He shrieks and runs home."

From "American Humbug" (NY Review of Books).

This is a review of a book called "Barnum: An American Life." The review ends:

The great danger to democracy today comes not from marks slow to spot a humbug but from a public made cynical to the point of believing that everything, and everyone, is a humbug, especially the humorless class of credentialed experts whom Barnum took such joy in ridiculing. In the end, though, it’s a distinction without a difference. Too credulous or too incredulous—you’re a sucker either way.

So... I guess... in a world of uncertainty, you've got to get your credulousness somewhere in the middle. That made me think — vaguely — of a famous quote that appeared in my head as He who will believe in anything believes in nothing. Google understood my groping and set me straight. It's the other way around! Those who believe in nothing believe in anything. I considered believing that it's one of those A = B so B = A situations, but that's the kind of mistake you can only make if you dabble in logic.

I kind of like my version. What's the bigger problem — believing in nothing or believing in anything? I say it's believing in anything. Nothing is a good start. (Better than nothing is a high standard.)

Anyway, the famous quote is about a specific belief in nothing: "When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing — they believe in anything." The quote tends to be misattributed to G.K. Chesterton.

Yesterday, I was listening to the car radio and this came on — Chris Cornell singing the old Prince song "Nothing Compares to You":



The singer's love interest is comparable only to nothing. It's intended as the supreme compliment.

Microphone riles snake; terrified reporter soldiers on.

"Hannah Rose Blakeley, 26 years old, says listening to stories about her late uncle led her to appreciate her family's resourcefulness in the face of adversity."

"A Vietnam veteran who once worked as a roughneck in rattlesnake-infested oil fields, her uncle donned thick leather work boots, wrapped them in burlap, tromped through the grass and captured any rattlers that thrust their fangs into his protective gear. Then he sold them to laboratories, where their venom was harvested for medicine."

From "The Secret Benefits of Retelling Family Stories/Children learn about family history and identity through stories told by older generations" (WSJ).

It's time once again for the annual fear-of-Thanksgiving stories, and I was glad to see a really positive one.

Intergenerational stories anchor youngsters as part of a larger group, helping them develop a sense of identity. In a 2008 study, researchers at Emory quizzed 40 youngsters ages 10 to 14 on 20 family-history questions, such as how their parents met or where their grandparents grew up. Those who answered more questions correctly showed, on separate assessments, less anxiety and fewer behavior problems. Parents who include in their stories descriptions of feelings they experienced at the time, such as distress, anger or sadness, and tell how they coped with those emotions by venting, reframing or calming them, help children learn to regulate their own emotions....

For those of us who are older, it's too late to hear our parents' stories. You may regret that the younger generation doesn't want to understand what makes you the person they encounter, but at least they've still got time to notice how much they don't know and to listen and even ask. I'm amazed at all the things I never thought to ask my parents that seem so glaringly obvious now. I'm almost tempted to write stories to invent detailed answers.