This weekend I read Oliver Sacks’ tiny mini-tome, Gratitude. I really mean tiny. It’s a book you can finish in half an hour. It consists of four short essays, all written in the two years before his death. All four reflect on aging and dying as Sacks went from a robust 79-year-old who swam a mile a day to an invalid dying of liver cancer. He really says nothing new or profound. For that matter he doesn’t say much overtly about gratitude. The attraction is, of course, that Oliver Sacks is saying the rather familiar things about death. He lived…
Category: Books and Movies
Great movie! The Martian
Boy, have you guys seen The Martian? Holy cats!
I watched it on DVD a few days ago and was glad I didn’t see it on a big screen or, heaven forbid, in 3D. I’d have had a heart attack and not be here to write this at you.
Yes, even when ‘Netless, I manage to pick up some newses. Enjoy. Another absurdly too-good-to-be-true “gun control” study OMG, these people are reaching so far it’s almost funny. Legalization does what the drug war never managed: cartel busting. How very unsurprising. No, we do not need an “encryption commission. No way. Nohow. Just plain NO. How the obnoxious PC police helped create Donald Trump. I know you gunfolk already heard, but West Virginia — over its governor’s cop-surrounded veto — this week became the latest state go constitutional carry Unfortunately, some people who ought naturally to have and carry firearms…
During my nice, mundane days, I’ve begun a mega-tidying. Not a Marie Kondo-type tidying, mind you. I wouldn’t tuck my purses inside my purses, even if I owned purses, which for many years I have not (see the “head in the clouds” subhead at that link if you wonder what the heck I’m talking about).
I am, among other things, tidying my computer files and finding the best places to tuck various guns, knives, and power tools. Serious tidying, that.
Along the way, I found the backup files of both the job culture book (which I knew I had somewhere) and RebelFire (which I didn’t know I had). I foresee Kindle-izing in my future.
In the directory with the not-quite-final RF book files I found yet another forgotten piece of the history of Jeremy, Cedra, and the band RebelFire. A movie script.
Millennials don’t yet realize how fully the political system is rigged. (H/T Shel and jed in comments) Pop-Up House.. Low cost, quick build, pretty cool. But why when they tout these things do they always act as if plumbing, electrical work, and site prep don’t exist? “Are Pets Really Good for Us?” Heck, yeah! … as long as we don’t trip over them or become social outcasts. Well, this is depressing. Fear of punishment from a vengeful god turns out to produce social good. Not surprising, really. That’s probably why vengeful gods were invented (by those who wanted to define…
You and I both know there are a lot of reasons not to vote for Bernie Sanders. But it never occurred to me that fear of burning in hell was one of them. More madness in gender feminism? Or just desperation in Hillaryland? And speaking of madness, if you have to fight and maneuver to keep people from seeing babies in ultrasound images, you’re really not too secure in your pro-choice beliefs, are you? Gutsy wife crashes her own funeral, shocking the heck out of the “grieving” husband who’d paid to have her murdered. A new look at the State…
“This was all planned,” says former State Department inspector general, surprising no one but adding damning detail. Also not surprising: Project Europe is doomed. But did anyone anticipate it would happen this particular way? Do you sometimes feel you’re watching one of history’s major shifts here? Something like the barbarians crossing the frozen Rhine in 406, but in slower motion. Oregon launches its first drive-through pot shop. And in little old Gold Beach, yet, home of BHM. (H/T d) If Bernie Sanders wins, he’d not only be the first Jewish president of the USA, he’d be the first candidate honest…
The feds have broken the Oregon standoff with arrests and one killing. A remnant remains. Leaders were apparently lured out on the pretext of attending a community meeting and trapped at a roadblock. Why? Why not wait them out? (H/T db) David Codrea exposes and righteously blasts the latest junk-science study op-ed from “prestigious” anti-gun medical sources. “Does stupidity cause gun control, or does gun control cause stupidity?” Bear Bussjaeger speculates. I’ve never understood the mentality that official (or family) wrongdoing is fine as long as no one exposes it and that any person exposing the wrongdoing is somehow the…
Today we were between rainstorms. In the same way the Inuit are said (even if inaccurately) to have 200 words for snow, the NorthWet ought to have a word for this. Something like “interrainum.” Be that as it may, by late morning I was also between interviews for this cannabis article I’m working on. I’d just wrapped up one at the coolest retail store and didn’t have another until tomorrow. The day was already pleasant and just about then turned bright blue. I took the dogs walking on a river trail. We moseyed along in comfort, no fleece-lined jacket for…