Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. — Edgar Allan Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death” I’m picking up Lightning’s prescription at the vet . . . the new girl, Lauren, is at the desk. I can hear a woman weeping loudly from back in the hospital area. “That doesn’t sound good,” I say. “A husky attacked her dog at the dog park,” Lauren says. “A little Yorkie. Broke its neck.” “That’s awful.” I don’t even have the heart to ask her if she cut the pills on the lines. Read more →
April 2014
Rainy Day on Center Street, Berkeley, CA
Don’t Apologize
Good for her! I’m tired of people’s phony apologies for doing or saying something they damn well meant to do or say. In fact, not only did she not apologize, she added an additional zinger: “One of them has a book deal. Neither are in a psych ward. They’re okay. I bet you within 3 years one of them will be on ‘Dancing with the Stars.’” Read more →
Pope John Paul II Just Killed a Guy
Man crushed by giant crucifix dedicated to Pope A man has been crushed to death after a giant crucifix dedicated to Pope John Paul II collapsed, just days before a historic Papal canonisation in Rome. The 30-metre-high (98ft) wooden and concrete cross fell during a ceremony in the Italian Alpine village of Cevo, near Brescia. Another man was taken to hospital. The structure was dedicated to John Paul II on his visit to the region in 1998. — ITV News It’s clear to me that the Pope intended to kill this man. What’s the rule? Does this cancel out one of his life-saving miracles? If you believe that a dead person can be the agent of unexplained happenings on Earth, then you’ve got to take the bad with the good. If the Pope gets credit for a miracle when a woman’s health improves after seeing his picture in a magazine,… Read more →
It’s Not That Hard to Be a Saint in the City
Pope John Paul II is being canonized this weekend because of 667,302 prayers for divine intervention, he miraculously answered two, years after he was already dead. What sort of evidence is required to certify that an earthly phenomenon was caused by a dead person? William of Occam would have pointed out that there are simpler explanations for a sick person getting well, e.g., The disease responded to treatment. The disease went into remission. The patient was misdiagnosed and did not really have the disease in the first place. I assure you that if 667,302 people with diagnosed medical ailments prayed to my dog, in at least two of those cases (and more likely, thousands), something unusual would happen. Years ago, a lower GI series revealed that I had a golf ball-sized (4 cm) tumor in my colon. The doctor did a colonoscopy a few days later and the tumor was… Read more →
Just Wondering
Thank you for choosing Cox . . . Do you suppose these customer service gals ever get horny from saying “Cox” all day? Read more →
NYT Misrepresents California’s Affirmative Action Results
In reporting on yesterday’s Supreme Court decision to uphold a Michigan ban on the use of racial preferences in admissions to public universities, the New York Times looks at results in other states that have banned racial preferences. Here’s what the Times says about my state, California, which voted to ban racial preferences in UC admissions in 1998: Hispanic and black enrollment at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles dropped sharply after voters approved a statewide ban on affirmative action. Those numbers have not recovered, even as the state’s Hispanic population has grown. That is a misleading analysis for a couple of reasons: One: Affirmative action was banned at all UC campuses, not just Berkeley and UCLA. Ignoring all the other campuses allows the Times to say that black and Hispanic enrollment “dropped sharply” when there was actually only a 2 percent decline in… Read more →
Everything I Need to Know About Being a Successful Executive in the 1950s I Learned in Kindergarten
In 1957, The New York Times [published] two lists of skills. One was drawn from a corporate personnel manual, the other from a kindergarten report card: List A: Dependability; Stability; Imagination; Originality; Self-expression; Health and vitality; Ability to plan and control; Cooperation. List B: Can be depended on; Contributes to the good work of others; Accepts and uses criticism; Thinks critically; Shows initiative; Plans work well; Physical resistance; Self-expression; Creative ability. A successful executive in 1950s America, in short, was expected to have essentially the same skills as a well-behaved four-year-old. (B is the kindergarten list, by the way.) — Matter Read more →
Miss Marple
Really, I have no gifts — no gifts at all — except perhaps a certain knowledge of human nature. People, I find, are apt to be far too trustful. I’m afraid that I have a tendency always to believe the worst. Not a nice trait, but so often justified by subsequent events. — Miss Jane Marple Read more →
Gabriel García Márquez, 1927-2014
Gabriel García Márquez, the influential, Nobel Prize-winning author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and “Love in the Time of Cholera,” has died, his family and officials said. He was 87. — CNN.com CNN reported the death of García Márquez with more or less equal weightiness as the following “top stories”: CNN reporter faces claustrophobia Is it possible to live forever? 7 ways to be more interesting See Rosie O’Donnell’s 50-lb. weight loss Miley Cyrus tour postponed W.H.: No comment on Bieber petition I didn’t cherry-pick those stories, by the way. They were all listed as Top Stories on CNN.com. CNN is a “serious” news outlet. García Márquez’s death was also reported in the “popular” media, amongst reality show updates, celebrity pregnancies and Kardashians. Orwell wrote about a society in which books are banned. As it turns out, there’s no need to ban books because no one has any interest… Read more →
Defensive
I’m not being defensive! You’re the one who’s being defensive! Why is it always the other person who’s being defensive? Have you ever asked yourself that? Why don’t you ask yourself that? — Nathan Thurm Read more →
EppsNet at the Movies: A Serious Man
When the truth is found . . . to be lies. And all the hope . . . within you dies. What then? Life is bleak. If you try to lead a good life, bad things happen. If you yield to temptation, worse things happen. Religion offers no more wisdom, insight or consolation than a Jefferson Airplane song. P.S. I know the lyric should be “joy” and not “hope” but in the movie the rabbi says “hope.” Rating: A Serious Man Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen Cast: Michael Stuhlbarg Larry Gopnik, Richard Kind Uncle Arthur, Sari Lennick Judith Gopnik, Fred Melamed Sy Ableman IMDb rating: ( votes) Read more →
Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road. — Jack Kerouac
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
People who hijack the occasion of another person’s death to offer up long-winded tributes – to themselves: “My fondest memory of the deceased is the time many years ago when he fixed me with his penetrating gaze and, in that intense manner of speaking he had that brooked no dissension, he told me how great I am. What an inspiring moment! Blah blah blah . . . me me me . . .” Thank you, Professor Pompous. Read more →
Which Experts Predicted a UConn-Kentucky Title Game?
PunditTracker tracked March Madness 2014 brackets for 26 “experts” from ESPN, Yahoo, Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports, plus President Obama. Number of pundits who picked UConn to win the tournament: Zero. Number of pundits who picked either UConn or Kentucky to reach the final game: Zero. Number of pundits who picked either UConn or Kentucky to reach the Final Four: Zero. Number of pundits who picked either UConn or Kentucky to reach the Elite Eight: Zero. Read more →
EppsNet at the Movies: Gravity
As a kid, one of my hobbies was card tricks. When I started learning card tricks, I had the misconception that the quality of a trick was proportional to how difficult it was to perform. Hard tricks = good, easy tricks = lame. Today I can perform exactly zero card tricks. I don’t remember even one. What I do remember though is the general principle that the quality of a trick depends on the effect – what the audience sees – and not at all on how the trick is done. An audience doesn’t know or care if you’ve practiced a trick for years or if you just learned it five minutes ago. The principle applies to things other than card tricks. You can read on IMDb and elsewhere about the technological challenges that had to be overcome in making Gravity. The state-of-the-art cinematography and visual effects would not have… Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
If you don’t know me and I don’t know you, don’t call me up and shout, “Hey Paul! It’s Zach Flack with Equity Staffing!” as though I might have been sitting by the phone thinking “Wouldn’t it be a little slice of heaven if I got a call from Zach Flack over at Equity Staffing?” If I don’t know you, but I might recognize your name, then possibly some heightened level of emotion is warranted, e.g., “Hey Paul! It’s Bill Gates with Microsoft!” or “Hey Paul! It’s Pope Francis at the Vatican!” Otherwise, tone it down and stop annoying people. Read more →
Let it Bleed
At my piano lesson tonight, I noticed what looked like a streak of blood on one of the keys. The next thing I noticed was that the tip of my right index finger was bleeding — apparently a paper cut from a sheet of music, although I didn’t feel anything at the time. I didn’t want to ruin the piano so I stopped playing and tried to get everything cleaned up. I asked my teacher, “If you’re playing a concert and you start bleeding, what should you do? Just keep going?” “Yes.” “What if in addition to being a pianist, you’re also a hemophiliac and you might die? Would that alter your advice?” “Are you a hemophiliac?” “Fortunately, no.” Read more →
Neil Young Acoustic Show at the Dolby Theater
We were lucky enough to see Neil Young’s solo acoustic performance at the Dolby Theatre in LA last night. I say “lucky” even though we paid for the tickets because they did sell out rather quickly. Here’s the set list, to the best of my recollection. I may have some of the harmonica instrumentation wrong. He had the harmonica rack on for the whole show; some songs he played it and some he didn’t. First Set From Hank to Hendrix – guitar, harmonica. A good opener for this kind of a show: From Hank to Hendrix / I walked these streets with you / Here I am with this old guitar / Doin’ what I do. / I always expected / That you should see me through / I never believed in much / But I believed in you. On the Way Home – guitar, harmonica Only Love Can Break… Read more →
At Any Rate, That Is Happiness
Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep. — Willa Cather, My Antonia Read more →