Category: Uncategorized

More on Niall Ferguson’s recent history book Doom

Of course a recently published book about disasters will eventually turn to Covid-19, and this one does.  From the text on [age 294:

“The problem in the summer of 2020 is that Americans all over the country acted in ways that simply ignored what was known by that time about the virus and the disease.”

No, disagree. Americans, especially the CDC and Anthony Fauci, hugely over-reacted, not under-reacted to the virus. I consider the virus similar to second-hand tobacco smoking risks: you are only at risk, at least mortally, if you are already badly ill. But, yes, vaccines when available, washing your hands, and not directly breathing on or being breathed from people you don’t know are good ideas.

I may be biased on this subject because I feel my personal life was badly damaged by the virus travel lockdown. Sometimes, as the old cliché goes, the cure is worse than the disease.

On Jordan Peterson

Just watched a bit of an interview from this psychologist from Canada who is avowedly religious and conservative and has a big following on the Internet.

The interview was about a month ago, and he has some health problems and looks a bit unhealthfully thin. He can seem a bit strident. But I like him because he emphasizes moral values, and psychologists often seem to be relativists.

There is this idea of “virtue signaling” now, which basically seems to mean hypocrisy. But my argument is what else is there to signal? “Everyone thinks they are right.” Right.

On Christopher Walken from a recent interview in The Irish Times

“I’m not disturbed. I pay my bills. I’ve been married for 55 years…”

Walken is one of my more favorite actors because he can play disturbed characters like the leads of The Dead Zone and The Dogs of War without seeming really crazy.

As someone who has not had children, I also identify with someone who has not but still been successful. Not everyone is meant to have kids; there is more to life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Just a brief post because I am busy with errands now

Watching Greg Gutfeld now. I know some of you may dislike Fox News, but he is well-educated, sharp, and funny, in my opinion.

I noted on social media that James Joyce said something like you will always insult someone with humor and art. Gutfeld seems to know this and not mind it.

I live in an area now where people don’t mind jokes as much as in my last city. My Dad has warned me I will get into trouble here too. I hope he is wrong; I am more conservative now.

More on Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald and a brief poem

The last paragraphs of the novel:

“‘Lingering side effects,’ he’ll tell me and tap my forehead gently. ‘Not to worry. I said I’d never leave you and I meant it. You know me, Zelda, I’m a man of my word.'”

And he was. Anything that didn’t happen–for us, for him–turned out that way despite his best efforts.

…

[Regarding her young daughter]: There’s no need for me to be present: I’m not saying good-bye.”

This is a nearly 400-page novel that is told in first person. As noted in a previous blog, Henry James didn’t like this style, but I think it helps you get inside the personality of someone who is mentally ill. I think insane people often feel they have been lied to and can only trust themselves. FS Fitzgerald had his own problems and pre-deceased Zelda while trying to start a new chapter of his life in L.A.

I like the pop band The Cure. Some don’t like them, and I think the reason why they don’t is that the band often deal with mental illness and that is taboo or distasteful for many. But for me, art is partly about making something beautiful or at least consoling from life’s pain.

“Transpires” by yours truly

As it transpires,

Most (if not all) of us are liars.

On mainstream media and word choice

I have already blogged about my objection to the use of the word “pandemic” when, outside China, it is a bad virus that apparently only really kills people who were already moribund. Media, just because the CDC and Anthony Fauci tell you something doesn’t make it true.

My latest annoyance from mainstream media is that in the recent Alec Baldwin accident reporters keep calling what he used a “prop gun.” No, if the gun fired things that could kill and badly injure two people, it was logically a real gun. I agree he didn’t mean to do what happened.

People have to be more careful with language. My Dad recently warned me about this. Last winter, I was tortured by legal authorities for non-violent and non-sexual jokes.

On a passage from the recent book “Doom” by historian Niall Ferguson

One of the case studies in the book (starts on page 258) is about one of the worst airline accidents in history, the 1977 collision of a Pan Am plane with a KLM one on a Spanish airport that killed 583 people, although some from the Pan Am plane survived.

Ferguson gives a detailed analysis of the reasons the accident happened including a terrorist bomb threat that had diverted flights to this airport and congested it and regulations that made the KLM pilot want to leave the airport fast,

My main takeaway from this is that it was a case of communal error. There’s a pop song called “No One’s to Blame,” but it seems to me almost everyone is usually to blame for disasters. I made the same observation in a past blog about The Great Gatsby; almost every character in the novel plays a role in what happens.

On Guyland, a song, and the accidental shooting in the news

“What it all adds up to is that guys–young  in their teens and twenties–are sick and tired of being sick and tired. One might expect this type of thing from middle-aged men who feel as if they’ve been sold a bill of goods and feel  ripped off by a system that cares not a whit about them.” –Michael Kimmel, Guyland

Just the cover photo of this book captures the happy energy of young men; I remember the feeling from hanging out with male buddies in college. But there can be a negative side to male friendship too. Male adulthood has to do in part with accepting solitude and loneliness. I think women are a bit different, a bit more social usually.

“Indestructible” by Robyn. This is one of the pop songs from this Swedish artist from a very prolific time in her life a few years back. A lot of young people can feel indestructible sometimes. I did at times in my youth. But Robyn also combines the feeling with love for a single other. It can be found on YouTube.

You may have heard of the actor/producer Alec Baldwin’s recent accidental killing/injuring of two co-workers on a film set in my adopted city of Santa Fe, New Mexico. I don’t really understand how a prop gun can kill someone. Baldwin did a good job in a few movies, especially a cameo scene in the film version of the play Glenngary Glen Ross. Anyway, there is a risk to dramatizing violence on film. When I was young, the film version of The Twilight Zone led to the real-life decapitation of one the movie’s actors in a scene that was about a helicopter landing in the Vietnam War.

There were also two Asian children killed in the incident in reality. It was especially sad because I think the point of the scene was that even though he had a serious drinking problem in his later life, he had been been a war hero. The scene is supposed to show him saving them from a battle.

Just a comment on a pop song and some more brief silly poems

“We’re in This Together Now” by NIN. As I recall, one of my ex-girlfriends liked this song in particular because even though she found a good husband, had a very successful  job career. and kids, I think she may have felt besieged for being bold and had to fall back on people closest to her emotionally. I think that is what is this song is about.

“Prism” by yours truly

See the prism.

End this schism.

No mysticism.

Just miss ’em.

“Dead Batteries” by yours truly

Dead batteries.

No matter ease.

Stop blather, please.

No need to decease.

“Meanders” by yours truly

Meanders.

Me and hers.

Belts and suspenders.

“Brat Worst” by yours truly

I like to eat bratwurst.

Don’t say I am the first.

But sometimes it feels I am cursed.

And don’t say I am first:

Brat worst.

On heroism versus evil

Charles Dickens began one of his novels with a narrator speculating whether he would be a hero or a villain.

It is a question many have to ask themselves: whether they have done more good or harm in life.

I suppose it is a question no person can answer by themselves. It may be one reason Henry James did not like long novels in the first-person. They are too one-sided. Can you say yourself whether you are moral or not?