Greetings! I am starting a new blog series called "Links from the Wilderness". Occasionally, I will post links to political stories and columns that intrigue or infuriate me, along with my best snark. Enjoy!
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2011/09/30/does-barack-obama-think-america-needs-viagra-his-malaise-moment-arrives/
Barack Obama really does not know how to be President. He doesn’t know how to lead. He’s doomed. What the hell is he thinking? America’s “gone soft”? That’ll go over about as well as Phil Gramm’s “we’re in a mental recession” comment did in 2008.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/09/euro-crisis-the-biggest-story-in-american-politics-and-nobodys-talking-about-it.php?ref=fpa
The political paralysis of seemingly every government in the world right now is beyond staggering to me.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/29/332152/perry-budget-cuts-teacher-financial-aid/
What a hunk! That Rick Perry! And people say conservatism isn’t an anti-intellectual philosophy. Perry will “teach” ‘em.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/29/332360/boehner-coli-food-safety/
What was it that Boehner said awhile back? “A stronger government is a weaker American people!” Objection: a weaker government is a sicker American people.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/29/331788/maine-student-voter-intimidation/
Many Republicans generally don’t believe in protecting the weakest and most vulnerable among us, but they do believe in protecting them from the right to vote.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/gingrich-argues-god-must-exist-because-peopl
If I believe in anything in this vast, indifferent Universe…I believe that this headline speaks for itself.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2011/09/30/is_christie_too_fat_to_run_for_president.html
Michael Kinsley and Eugene Robinson.
Answer? No. This is disgusting: not Christie’s girth, but the gall of these “reporters” for making Christie’s weight an issue. Kinsley and Robinson show their ugliness by rolling around in the muck in this story.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/29/1021379/-Charles-Koch:-Social-Security-for-me,-but-not-for-thee?via=blog_1
Charles Koch thought Social Security and Medicare were good enough for Friedrich Hayek, but apparently it’s not good enough for us.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/opinion/krugman-phony-fear-factor.html?_r=2
Paul Krugman’s still tired of trying to reason with you people.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendell-potter/the-affordable-care-act-w_b_987056.html
The Affordable Care Act: the law nobody knows about. :(
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/29/college-inc-top-harvard-o_n_985699.html
Income inequality tears at the fabric of universities. But who is surprised? Universities exist to serve an elite Establishment, not to teach people how to think and live for themselves, or even to “educate” people.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/29/1021400/-Wall-Street-executives-watch-protests-while-drinking-champagne-from-balconies-(literally)?via=blog_1
Let them eat cake! (Let them drink champagne!)
That's all for today, folks! Come back next time for another installment of "Links From the Wilderness". This progressive is outta here.
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humor. Show all posts
Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
The Prism of all Beauty
I must warn you, that I am not the type for revelations. But who is? Have you ever met someone who’s had a revelation who was the type for it? Or heard of someone? Of course not – revelation in its very nature is entirely unexpected. Archimedes never expected to solve calculus problems in his bathtub, as I am sure his neighbors never rightly expected to see a naked Archimedes running wildly through the streets. And yet, I have had a minor revelation. I was sitting in my bed, thinking about the movie “Up”, and how it hit me so close to home, when I realized something important.
Humor is distance. It is the distance between pain and reconciliation - it is the path a beam of light travels from emptiness to solid form. Humor is a prism – you can see the light running through it and view at first-hand all the colors of human emotion. In that emotional distance, you can see everything: tears and sadness, regret, happiness, betrayal, excitement, anxiety, joy.
Humor is a way to cover up the void, or at least, to cover up what seems to be a void. But the secret to humor is that there really isn’t a void there, after all. I mean, it may seem that way once or twice, or maybe a few times, but when you keep checking, the void disappears. I’ll show you what I mean:
There’s a void, and it could be empty. And you would say, why is the void always empty? And I would say, why does it matter – look how quickly it fills again. The void just fills and refills, the finite running through the infinite, the light running through the prism and allowing its reflections to bounce off of all objects.
Or you would say, why do you suppose there is a void at all? Isn’t there always something filled, so how could it be empty? What kind of a fool would you have to be to believe in an empty space? That’s the joke, really – the joke is that it doesn’t actually matter whether there is an empty space or not. It really doesn’t matter whether there is a void or not, at the end of everything, mostly because it’s always being filled…whether it’s filled with love or compassion or sympathy or understanding or brotherhood…it doesn’t really matter what was there before, but only what is going into it.
And I suppose that’s why I am a humanist. I see light pouring in from all sides – although I must acknowledge I do not know what was here before. For me, it is a mystery – and it is enough to say that there is a void and that it is being filled up, like the beginning of a joke followed by a punchline, or despair followed by consolation. And I see all kinds of beautiful strains of light pouring into the world, beautiful stained glass revelations from every creed and tradition, overflowing with wisdom and compassion.
Before I was here, there was nothing to tell you what I am telling you. Now I am here. That is enough for me. I know my family and friends will ask me, how can you see the light in this world and not acknowledge its beauty? Please believe me, I do. It is beautiful, and ghastly, and haunting.
I can imagine it with some difficulty, as is usually fitting for these sorts of experiences. I begin to imagine that everything which has ever been imagined does not exist. Then it exists, and it is incredible, and stunning - and then I realize, too, that none of it may ever exist again. I don’t know where it comes from, and I don’t know where it’s going. All I know is that I am surrounded by this beautiful light and I want to fill this seemingly empty and desolate canvass with all of its gorgeous shades and pastels, to pass something surreal through that great void and create beauty again.
Humor is distance. It is the distance between pain and reconciliation - it is the path a beam of light travels from emptiness to solid form. Humor is a prism – you can see the light running through it and view at first-hand all the colors of human emotion. In that emotional distance, you can see everything: tears and sadness, regret, happiness, betrayal, excitement, anxiety, joy.
Humor is a way to cover up the void, or at least, to cover up what seems to be a void. But the secret to humor is that there really isn’t a void there, after all. I mean, it may seem that way once or twice, or maybe a few times, but when you keep checking, the void disappears. I’ll show you what I mean:
There’s a void, and it could be empty. And you would say, why is the void always empty? And I would say, why does it matter – look how quickly it fills again. The void just fills and refills, the finite running through the infinite, the light running through the prism and allowing its reflections to bounce off of all objects.
Or you would say, why do you suppose there is a void at all? Isn’t there always something filled, so how could it be empty? What kind of a fool would you have to be to believe in an empty space? That’s the joke, really – the joke is that it doesn’t actually matter whether there is an empty space or not. It really doesn’t matter whether there is a void or not, at the end of everything, mostly because it’s always being filled…whether it’s filled with love or compassion or sympathy or understanding or brotherhood…it doesn’t really matter what was there before, but only what is going into it.
And I suppose that’s why I am a humanist. I see light pouring in from all sides – although I must acknowledge I do not know what was here before. For me, it is a mystery – and it is enough to say that there is a void and that it is being filled up, like the beginning of a joke followed by a punchline, or despair followed by consolation. And I see all kinds of beautiful strains of light pouring into the world, beautiful stained glass revelations from every creed and tradition, overflowing with wisdom and compassion.
Before I was here, there was nothing to tell you what I am telling you. Now I am here. That is enough for me. I know my family and friends will ask me, how can you see the light in this world and not acknowledge its beauty? Please believe me, I do. It is beautiful, and ghastly, and haunting.
I can imagine it with some difficulty, as is usually fitting for these sorts of experiences. I begin to imagine that everything which has ever been imagined does not exist. Then it exists, and it is incredible, and stunning - and then I realize, too, that none of it may ever exist again. I don’t know where it comes from, and I don’t know where it’s going. All I know is that I am surrounded by this beautiful light and I want to fill this seemingly empty and desolate canvass with all of its gorgeous shades and pastels, to pass something surreal through that great void and create beauty again.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
What I'd Say If I Used Twitter: Part One
I have a Twitter account. I don't use it. If I used it, then I would say things...
...like this:
I have failed the Turing test.
*
I got 99 problems. / Pointless math homework.
*
I have a dream / sicle.
*
Forgive them their syntax. / They do not know what they.
*
Yes we can / tuna
*
All your base / belong to Richard Pryor
*
We're all going to die / eventually
*
Caught in a bad romance. / Get a lawyer.
*
You bet your life / sentence
*
Necessity is the mother / word to Edison
...like this:
I have failed the Turing test.
*
I got 99 problems. / Pointless math homework.
*
I have a dream / sicle.
*
Forgive them their syntax. / They do not know what they.
*
Yes we can / tuna
*
All your base / belong to Richard Pryor
*
We're all going to die / eventually
*
Caught in a bad romance. / Get a lawyer.
*
You bet your life / sentence
*
Necessity is the mother / word to Edison
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Return of the Journal-i: the Literati Strikes Back
Who has two thumbs and hasn't written a post on this blog in two calendar years?
Me!
Okay, since that awkwardness is out of the way for now, here's something I wrote on Facebook that I would like to re-post here.
"Thoughts on Comedy, Grief, and Human Existence"
I'm taken with the idea of grief as a sacrament, something through which the sacred passes; a vessel for humans to connect with something deeper which can be found within each individual.
I have long felt the same way about humor: that almost all absurdity in life is in extension a commiseration, an empathy, which springs from somewhere deep within us all - that the catharsis of laughter and comedy itself is really a transformation of our isolated, personal pain into a shared, expanded empathy that radically connects us to other beings in a profoundly new and meaningful way each time it occurs.
We encounter a new understanding of each others' experiences, a new relationship of shared joy and wonder at the vast depths of empathy which can be found in any of us, summoned against the potential agony of deep suffering and trauma.
In these ways, comedy and grief are identical: each brings from the deepest wounds of life, astonishment at our shared journeys and our shared perspectives. They produce a sympathy internal to us which directs us externally, to a shared life which is common to us all. They produce a shared transcendence of suffering, where a dramatically altered and expanded understanding of human love and human experience is possible.
Humor and grief at their best are the shared sufferings of other people, reflected and redirected through the prism of human compassion. They are expressed as exceedingly passionate and raw realizations of our shared human predicament. These revelations of grief and humor are both somewhat profane and somewhat sacred. But most thoroughly of all, they bear witness as a fulfillment of the highest which can be expected from the human condition. They are a positive and enduring testament to the power of the most decent and kind stirrings within the human soul: empathy, sympathy, compassion, and understanding.
Me!
Okay, since that awkwardness is out of the way for now, here's something I wrote on Facebook that I would like to re-post here.
"Thoughts on Comedy, Grief, and Human Existence"
I'm taken with the idea of grief as a sacrament, something through which the sacred passes; a vessel for humans to connect with something deeper which can be found within each individual.
I have long felt the same way about humor: that almost all absurdity in life is in extension a commiseration, an empathy, which springs from somewhere deep within us all - that the catharsis of laughter and comedy itself is really a transformation of our isolated, personal pain into a shared, expanded empathy that radically connects us to other beings in a profoundly new and meaningful way each time it occurs.
We encounter a new understanding of each others' experiences, a new relationship of shared joy and wonder at the vast depths of empathy which can be found in any of us, summoned against the potential agony of deep suffering and trauma.
In these ways, comedy and grief are identical: each brings from the deepest wounds of life, astonishment at our shared journeys and our shared perspectives. They produce a sympathy internal to us which directs us externally, to a shared life which is common to us all. They produce a shared transcendence of suffering, where a dramatically altered and expanded understanding of human love and human experience is possible.
Humor and grief at their best are the shared sufferings of other people, reflected and redirected through the prism of human compassion. They are expressed as exceedingly passionate and raw realizations of our shared human predicament. These revelations of grief and humor are both somewhat profane and somewhat sacred. But most thoroughly of all, they bear witness as a fulfillment of the highest which can be expected from the human condition. They are a positive and enduring testament to the power of the most decent and kind stirrings within the human soul: empathy, sympathy, compassion, and understanding.
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