Random Thoughts

1. Damned heterosexuals. Always flaunting their lifestyle in public. There ought to be a law, I say. There ought to be a law.

2. Ray Bradbury's short story "The Pedestrian" is set in 2053. So we're right on schedule with those driverless cars.

3. There is no god but Science and Darwin is his prophet.

4. I like big books and I can not lie.

5. La vida es cabaré y los cabarés, cabarés son.
(Life is a cabaret and the cabarets are cabarets.)

6. I was partial to dark comedy in my youth -- before experience taught me that life was quite darkly comic enough without my having to write about it.
--Burgess Meredith, Clash of the Titans (Alternative Universe Version) (1981)

7. Experience tends to trump ideology.

8. If they can do it to them, they can do it to you.

Random Thoughts

You know it has rained a lot when part of the route you take to work has become a lake. As well as the park a few miles away and the golf course next to that same park.

It's a lot harder to be a philosopher when your life experiences start getting in the way. And once you get over a certain age, life experiences are always going to get in the way.

The best way to keep one's illusions about any particular group of people is to have as little experience with them as possible.

If Donald Trump did not exist, some liberals would have found it necessary to invent him.

"Don't blame me; I didn't vote for Trump" is the new "me no Alamo."

The Big Bang Theory is the new Friends.

Quote of the Week

And I think experience tends to bear out, at least half the time, that famous people are not very pleasant people.
--William F. Buckley, as quoted by James Rosen in his essay "The Long, Hot Summer of '68," The National Review, September 7, 2015

My comment:

Heh. Irony.

Given the many unpleasant things that have been said about Mr. Buckley -- and the number of statements he had made during his life which weren't exactly politically correct -- it is hard to not see some unintended humor in this quote.

Even the essay this quote comes from hints at some unflattering aspects of Mr. Buckley's personality even though it was obviously meant to be a defense of his reputation.

And I must confess that I have reservations about Mr. Buckley myself. After all, he was not exactly a big fan of the Civil Rights Movement and his decision to side with the likes of President Ricard M. Nixon and Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daly would not have made him too welcome in my late father's house back in the days when my father was still voting for people like George McGovern.

Then again just because my father voted for McGovern did not make him a typical liberal. Nor did it make him immune to conservative values. For that matter, my own mother went from being a Kennedy Democrat to a Reagan Democrat because she felt that the values she grew up with were being increasingly mocked by the type of people who supported the Democrats. And the more I learn about politics, the harder I find it to fault her for this. (Then again, I am a bit biased in her favor.)

I could write a whole book on the various differences I have with both liberals and conservatives. After all, I'm a contrarian by nature and the fact that my late father used to conduct Socratic dialogues with me and my three siblings while we were growing up did not exactly encourage me to downplay this aspect of my personality. But I'll save that discussion for another time.

Movie Quote of the Week

I was partial to tragedy in my youth -- before experience taught me that life was quite tragic enough without my having to write about it.
--Burgess Meredith, Clash of the Titans (1981)

Random Thoughts

Almost any place can look exotic if you view at night from a hotel room that's high enough above the ground.

Is it wrong of me to breathe a sigh of relief every time I meet someone who doesn't need to be told how to pronounce my real-life Spanish first name?

People who don't find other people interesting usually aren't as interesting as they think they are.

The more expensive newspapers get, the fewer number of people who buy them which in return inspires newspaper publishers to spend less money on the type of people who fill the paper with the material that people want to read. Which, of course, results in even fewer people buying newspapers which in turn inspires newspaper publishers to raise their prices to compensate. And so it goes.

The only activity more dangerous to your pocketbook than taking certain women to a jewelry store is taking the same type of women to a pet store.

If you wish to know what status there is to be gained by wearing a suit in modern society, talk to someone who knows what it's like to work at a job in which one does not wear a suit.

The type of people who would not be impressed by the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls usually aren't worth impressing.

Few writers experience as much danger or hardship on the job as the average factory worker. But one would never know that from the way many writers talk.

Anyone else wonder how many of the people who like to kvetch about American puritanism ever wonder about the number of condom stores that exist in this allegedly puritanical country? Or should I consider it a symbol of American prudishness that such stores are so often called "condom stores" despite the large number of items they sell that obviously aren't condoms?

It's funny how often the injustices that most anger people are usually things that either happened long ago, things that happened far away or things that are committed by people whom we consider to be way different from us. Perhaps because getting angry about injustices committed by people like us that we actually have the opportunity to change is way too easy.