{"id":10813,"date":"2015-06-05T08:24:05","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T12:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=10813"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:43:04","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:43:04","slug":"thoughts-at-large-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2015\/06\/thoughts-at-large-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts at Large: 26"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2022\u00a0 My wife has been out of town for a few days visiting my daughter.\u00a0 I have not watched the news since then, and other than catching up on some old Daily Show<\/em> episodes, I have hardly glanced at the television.\u00a0 If it were up to me, I could pretty easily unplug the damned thing and save $1000 a year — once Jon Stewart departs.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0 After I took my wife to the airport, I stopped at the supermarket and bought myself two\u00a0 fried chicken breasts and a half-gallon of butter pecan ice cream.\u00a0 I mention this just in case you thought I was being smug about giving up television.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0 I have developed a smartphone app for readers of The 100 Billionth Person<\/em>.\u00a0 Whenever I post something new here, the app will scan it and notify you if there is anything worthwhile for you to read.\u00a0 A one-year subscription to the app costs $899.\u00a0 If I were you, I would just read the blog and save yourself a lot of money.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0 I go into a restaurant and take a seat at the bar to have a beer and a sandwich.\u00a0 The bar is pretty full but there is one seat left at the far end.\u00a0 I sit down, order a beer and start reading the book I brought along — I am not into small talk with strangers.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 This feels weird, I thought, and I redouble my attention to my book.\u00a0 Eventually, however, the vacant seats become occupied again and the weirdness dissipates.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0 \"Sad<\/a>In grade school, we were taught there were three degrees of adjectives: positive (good), comparative (better) and superlative (best).\u00a0 When we became old enough to buy albums of our favorite music, we found out there is a fourth degree: hyperlative (very best).<\/p>\n

The album shown here, The Very Best of Sad Songs<\/em><\/a>, does not include Hey Jude<\/em><\/a> by the Beatles.\u00a0 Apparently, they can take a sad song and make it better but not one of the very best.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0 One cannot live in the relatively sane part of the world without regretting that the rest of the world is so turbulent and crazy.\u00a0 But some try their very hardest.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0 I have been skeptical of the American Red Cross for years.\u00a0 Even so, the recent expos\u00e9<\/a> by NPR and Pro Publica on Red Cross rebuilding efforts (so to speak) in Haiti was eye-opening:<\/p>\n

Lee Malany was in charge of the Red Cross\u2019 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.\u00a0 Malany says the officials wanted to know which projects would generate good publicity, not which projects would provide the most homes.\u00a0 [He] resigned the next year from his job in Haiti.\u00a0 \u201cI said there\u2019s no reason for me to stay here.\u00a0 I got on the plane and left.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

My last donation to the American Red Cross was in the immediate aftermath of 9\/11\/2001.\u00a0 Within eight weeks of the attack, it had raised over $560 million<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0 A story about a dog whose muzzle had been taped shut<\/a> by its owner has been circulating on Facebook, prompting a storm of outrage.\u00a0 One commenter said, “This is the most heinous thing imaginable.”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 People are accustomed to humans treating other humans horribly but, oddly, the thought that humans also harm animals is a shock to many.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0 The last thing people want to see is the last thing we see.\u00a0 In that respect, we all get our wish in the end.<\/p>\n

\"Seats<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2022\u00a0 My wife has been out of town for a few days visiting my daughter.\u00a0 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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts-at-large"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10813"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28295,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10813\/revisions\/28295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}