Category Archives: Thoughts @ Large

• What is energy?  I picture it as the distinction between existence and non-existence.  The dissipation of energy is the ongoing process of reconciling these states.

• When my mother made bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches, she always cut the bread on the diagonal.  She didn’t do this for baloney sandwiches or chipped ham sandwiches or any other type of sandwich except BLTs.  Naturally, I believe that the lunch world should do exactly what my mom did, and I am disappointed when I am served a BLT (or any other bacon-based sandwich) cut into rectangles.  It represents a lost opportunity in eating.

• Last week, I updated my article Why Frames Tilt Forward.  I had received comments on the original post as to how helpful it was, which got me to thinking: if people are actually reading this and relying on it, how sure am I that my math was right?  My doubts led me to tackle the problem all over again.  Luckily, I obtained the same answer as before but in a cleaner, more straightforward fashion, so I decided to edit the post and draw new charts.  And this time, I added a link to the solution so I would not forget it myself.

• I am pleased that Why Frames Tilt Forward is the first entry you will see if you search for why frames tilt and the third entry under frames tilt.  But you will not find it under tilt and please don’t ask why.

• I am liberal but not all liberals speak for me.  There exists a subset of liberals (as there are conservatives) who seem to be willing to parlay any promising but fragmentary set of facts into a narrative that advances their worldview.  Here I refer to the “clock invention” that 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed brought to his Irving, Texas, high school last month.  President Obama tweeted “Cool clock, Ahmed.”  Hillary Clinton weighed in with “Ahmed, stay curious and keep building.”  But when it was shown that Ahmed had simply stuffed the innards of a vintage clock radio into a pencil case, what did we hear from Obama, Clinton and the news media?  Tick tock.

• Some products do get better over time.  My new paper shredder did not cost a lot but it can shred credit cards.  I just did one.  I watched it get chewed up and I was fascinated.

• On the other hand, it is incomprehensible why Google Mail does not allow people to share and synchronize contacts unless you are business clients.  My wife and I have separate Gmail accounts but wish to share an address book.  I’ve found that the only way to sync contacts between two accounts is to make all the edits on the primary account (an inconvenience for both parties), then delete the contacts on the secondary account and import the list from the primary.  In the process, the secondary account loses all its speed-dial icons, since images are not exported with the rest of the data.  And this software is from the same company that wants you to ride in driverless cars.

• Network news is one product that has not improved with time.  You have a choice of CBS Evening Drama with Scott Pelley, NBC Nightly Drama with Lester Holt, or ABC World Drama Tonight with David Muir.  What these three shows have in common, besides the drama, is how deftly they move on to the next story just before the viewer is about to learn something.

• If you don’t have a good time at an amusement park, they should give you a refun.

• The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church visits the United States for several days and is treated like the hottest celebrity on the planet.  It is too bad that we elevate individuals to act as our moral exemplars without leaving it at that — no, we also insist that moral people buy into the belief-in-invisible-beings thing and some arbitrary set of superstition-based rules and practices that were enshrined centuries ago.  Why must our culture weigh down good behavior with bad dogma?

• I have not watched Trevor Noah on the Daily Show yet.  Nothing against him, but I have been more interested in Stephen Colbert’s new show.  Speaking of which, I am still waiting for Colbert to drop the “character” he said he would retire at the end of The Colbert Report.  Seems to me that the same high-strung, high-ego persona has simply switched jobs, from conservative pundit to late-night talk show host.  I’m ready for Colbert to get more real and play it down.  And one audience chant of Ste-phen Ste-phen per show is enough, please.

• On that note, I end with a Fresh Market grocery ad that would have made Jay Leno proud:

• Speaking from experience, a perfectionist should live in a small house with a tiny yard or  better yet an apartment.  For every mortal, there exists a horizon of perfectability beyond which lies insanity.

• An item in News on Japan asks, why did Japanese people stop performing seppuku?  “Seppuku, a highly ritualized form of suicide that involved cutting one’s own stomach, was once part of the bushido samurai code, and considered an honorable way to die and, until the 20th century, was quite common.  So what happened?  Why did this practice die out?” Evidently, News on Japan has not heard of Darwin.

• One of these is the biggest waste of time in the Free World.  Can you guess which it is?   (A) Shaving.  (B) Raking leaves.  (C) Reading internet comments.   Answer below.

• I love the Yiddish word schmutz.  It refers to that unidentifiable organic-based debris on your face or clothes that you didn’t know was there but that you need to remove.  What I like about schmutz is that it sounds both disgusting and insignificant at the same time.

• I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, the era of brands.  My parents had a CBS, Pepsi and Miracle Whip house.  Others lived in an NBC, Coke and Hellman’s mayonnaise house.  Before I got married, I thought Miracle Whip was mayonnaise.  It was the same color.

• My wife was interested in a spoonful of my ice cream one evening and asked what flavor it was.  I told her “Lizard Claw Delight.”  To my surprise, that did not dissuade her.

• Dinner conversation: I asked my wife what the spouse of one of our friends did for a living and she answered, “He does dog fencing.”  I said, “Like En garde, Rover?”

• If I had thirty million dollars to spare and inside connections with mass media big-shots, I would create a television awards show called The Palettes.  Artists in various genres would vie for honors such as Most Expressive Portrait, Most Pretentious Installation, Starkest Abstract, Least (or Most?) Minimalist, Most Inscrutable Work (Any Genre) and Outrageous New Artist with the Most Important New York Times Review.  It would be broadcast on PBS from a third-floor loft in a converted warehouse with a leaky roof in Soho in the dead of winter.  The award trophy would be a Pollock-spattered radiator.

• Help me God to see
but when I do not,
the blame lies with me.
American Christianity.

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* The biggest waste of time in the Free World: Footnotes.

•  My wife has been out of town for a few days visiting my daughter.  I have not watched the news since then, and other than catching up on some old Daily Show episodes, I have hardly glanced at the television.  If it were up to me, I could pretty easily unplug the damned thing and save $1000 a year — once Jon Stewart departs.

•  After I took my wife to the airport, I stopped at the supermarket and bought myself two  fried chicken breasts and a half-gallon of butter pecan ice cream.  I mention this just in case you thought I was being smug about giving up television.

•  I have developed a smartphone app for readers of The 100 Billionth Person.  Whenever I post something new here, the app will scan it and notify you if there is anything worthwhile for you to read.  A one-year subscription to the app costs $899.  If I were you, I would just read the blog and save yourself a lot of money.

•  I go into a restaurant and take a seat at the bar to have a beer and a sandwich.  The bar is pretty full but there is one seat left at the far end.  I sit down, order a beer and start reading the book I brought along — I am not into small talk with strangers.  Some time later, after my meal has arrived, I look up and notice there is no one sitting at the bar except for me and the guy next to me.  This feels weird, I thought, and I redouble my attention to my book.  Eventually, however, the vacant seats become occupied again and the weirdness dissipates.

•  In grade school, we were taught there were three degrees of adjectives: positive (good), comparative (better) and superlative (best).  When we became old enough to buy albums of our favorite music, we found out there is a fourth degree: hyperlative (very best).

The album shown here, The Very Best of Sad Songs, does not include Hey Jude by the Beatles.  Apparently, they can take a sad song and make it better but not one of the very best.

•  One cannot live in the relatively sane part of the world without regretting that the rest of the world is so turbulent and crazy.  But some try their very hardest.

•  I have been skeptical of the American Red Cross for years.  Even so, the recent exposé by NPR and Pro Publica on Red Cross rebuilding efforts (so to speak) in Haiti was eye-opening:

Lee Malany was in charge of the Red Cross’ shelter program in Haiti starting in 2010. He remembers a meeting in Washington that fall where officials did not seem to have any idea how to spend millions of dollars set aside for housing.  Malany says the officials wanted to know which projects would generate good publicity, not which projects would provide the most homes.  [He] resigned the next year from his job in Haiti.  “I said there’s no reason for me to stay here.  I got on the plane and left.”

My last donation to the American Red Cross was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11/2001.  Within eight weeks of the attack, it had raised over $560 million for its “Liberty Fund” but had distributed only $150 million of it, setting aside most of the rest for “future needs.” Since then, I have directed my support to CARE and Doctors Without Borders.

•  A story about a dog whose muzzle had been taped shut by its owner has been circulating on Facebook, prompting a storm of outrage.  One commenter said, “This is the most heinous thing imaginable.”  With due respect to animals, no it’s not, unless your imagination stops somewhere short of child abuse, assaults on women, hate crimes, terrorism and genocide.  People are accustomed to humans treating other humans horribly but, oddly, the thought that humans also harm animals is a shock to many.

•  The last thing people want to see is the last thing we see.  In that respect, we all get our wish in the end.