Happy Halloween

It isn't often one comes across pure Philosophy in a Made-For TV show.  I got all goose-bumpy while watching Midnight Mass recently on Netflix.  I'm not much on Stephen King but there wasn't much else on and I decided to give it a whirl.  Some of it was very Kingish, and that's not so good, but some of it was very good.  One was the performance of father Pruitt by a guy named Hamish Linklater.  I didn't think I'd seen anything he'd been in until I researched his career.  I've seen him in a few things but he was forgettable.  But not in this show.  he was really really good.  The other thing I liked was the last 10 minutes or so.  A character named Erin gave us a master course in philosophy 101.  As the bad guys die while singing Nearer My God To Thee and the good guys live while becoming paralyzed again with the rising sun, she recites this little ditty that still has me a cold-sweat of cool.  That last sentence is a combination of Popeye ("I yam that I am and that's all that I yam" and Descartes' "I think, therefore I am." 

Who would have thought I'd get my philophical juices going from a kind of schlocky vampire anti-Catholic movie?  

     

Myself. My self. That’s the problem. That’s the whole problem with the whole thing. That word, “self.” That's not the word. That’s not right, that isn’t…How did I forget that? When did I forget that? The body stops a cell at a time, but the brain keeps firing those neurons. Little lightning bolts, like fireworks inside and I thought I’d despair or feel afraid, but I don’t feel any of that. None of it. Because I’m too busy. I’m too busy in the moment. Remembering. Of course. I remember that every atom in my body was forged in a star. This matter, this body is mostly empty space after all, and solid matter? It’s just energy vibrating very slowly why there is no me. There never was. The electrons of my body mingle and dance with the electrons of the ground below me and the air I’m no longer breathing. And I remember there is no point where any of that ends and I begin. I remember I am energy. Not memory. Not self. My name, my personality, my choices, all came after me. I was before them and I will be after, and everything else is pictures, picked up along the way. Fleeting little dreamlets printed on the tissue of my dying brain. And I am the lightning that jumps between. I am the energy firing the neurons, and I’m returning. Just by remembering, I’m returning home. And it’s like a drop of water falling back into the ocean, of which it’s always been a part. All things… a part. You, me and my little girl, and my mother and my father, everyone’s who’s ever been, every plant, every animal, every atom, every start, every galaxy, all of it. More galaxies in the universe than grains of sand on the beach. And that’s what we’re talking about when we say “God.” The cosmos and its infinite dreams. We are the cosmos dreaming of itself. It’s simply a dream that I think is my life, every time. But I’ll forget this. I always do. I always forget my dreams. But now, in this split-second, in the moment I remember, the instant I remember, I comprehend everything at once. There is no time. There is no death. Life is a dream. It’s a wish. Made again and again and again and again and again and again and on into eternity. And I am all of it. I am everything. I am all. I am that I am.

 

Apparently We Have More Money Than We Know What To Do with It

 We hear a lot about the widening wealth gap.  The wealthy, of course, don't want to be taxed any more than us poor folk.  But you've got the Republican Congressional leadership doing whatever they can to make themselves and the base richer.  Bezos is going to space with his wealth while many decry his unwillingness to help the poor.  Personally I love Amazon as it feeds my unwillingness to mingle in crowds.  But Bezos isn't the only one who has more money than God.  Many people have accumulated ghastly amounts of money, either through investing, inheriting or creating.  Nothing wrong with any of those.  After buying yachts, planes, multiple houses, fancy cars and land, what's left to buy?

I needed some new T's so off to Amazon I went.  This means that Jeffo will get another half drop of rocket fuel and that all my subsequent searches on the web will have T's somewhere embedded on the pages until the end of time.

I checked out quite a few T's ranging from Hanes to Gildan to, huh, Tom Ford?  never heard of Tom but little did I know Tom had caught onto a marketing angle I was jealous of.  

 Sure wish I'd made a T that was worth 25 bucks maybe that I could sell for a cool 300 buckaroos.  Lyocell seems like a good word for something that is obviously a lie and sold on the web.  Rich people can now spend their fortunes on underwear that will no doubt make them feel and cost like a million dollars.

When Did We Get So Stupid?

Just read another article about some stupid person.  It was a lady, presumably also a wife and mother, protesting mandatory vaccines.  Her poster read "I Would Rather Bury My Family Than Lose My Freedom".

When the Hell did we get so stupid?  Was it when Trump was elected and opened the door to racists, idiots and authoritarian wannabes?  It certainly didn't help but I think it was an event that happened earlier.  But before we dwell on that singular historical fact, lets look briefly at how stupid we really are.  Step by step this is what happened.  We elected an inarticulate, stupid man to the presidency and with it the ascendency of party.  Specifically in this case a Republican.  Pretty soon it didn't matter how stupid (or crazy) this president became, we put him on some kind of pedestal and proclaimed the Republican brand as almighty, supreme and, most importantly, in power.  The Supreme court was packed and salivating at the opportunity to undo laws that didn't suit them, regardless of how long these laws had been on the books.  Again, it didn't matter to the base how stupid or offensive the president got, they still worshipped him.  He called soldiers "suckers and losers", but the soldiers loved him anyway. Because he was Republican.  They even built a golden statue of him at the 2015 CPAC conference.  Evangelists loved him anyway.  After four years and a failed treasonous insurrection led by this president after a lost the lection didn't sway the Republicans.  They still oved him.  At this writing there is an ongoing coup d'etat that will presumably continue in 2022 and culminate in the actual elimination of American democracy on 2024.  

So, how did we get so stupid?  Anti-vaxxers, anti-democracy, Covid hoaxers, spineless Repubs too scared to go against Trump? 

Was it the election of Obama that got everyone crazy?  Was it the slow separation of Congress to the needs and desires of the people?  Was it the realization that democracy may be insufficient to help propel vital help to folks left behind?  Did America simply slide away from her moorings like other great civilations are bound to do?  Might be.  Might be all or none.

I personally think it was when the US failed to switch over to the metric system.  Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan passed laws to become metric but as yet we as a nation have stood our ground and stayed with the Imperial set of measuring.  Except for rocket building and car making we have stayed with the old system while the rest of the world goes metric.  Only Liberia, Myanmar and the US still use Imperial.  We were simply too arrogant, too lazy or too stupid to switch.

This is when we became stupid.    

       

Look here soon for a resumption of this blog after a great summer of fun up North. 

I'm Free

This week was kind of a wash as far as being lazy and getting some things tidies up.  One thing I was really excited about was my changing my political ties to "No party affiliation".  A pox on both houses. The Repubs are crazytown and the Demos are a pile of cats.  Screw them both.