One of my students says she was so frustrated with an assignment she was ready to throw her computer out the window. “What floor do you live on,” I ask. “Second.” “Oh, well that probably wouldn’t kill anyone, just a bump on the noggin. But you can’t say for sure if it hit them just right. Be sure you’re wearing a mask though when you do that.” She lives in New York. My son also lives in New York so I had to call to warn him to be on the lookout for falling computers. “Because I know someone who may be throwing one out a window. But only from the second floor so you’ll probably be able to see it coming and step out of the way.” If I lived in New York and it came down to being killed by COVID or by a falling computer, I’d take… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Death
COVID Vaccines
At the start of 2020, when COVID first came to our shores, we didn’t know anything about it, we didn’t have a vaccine, and by the end of the year 400,000 Americans had died from the virus. By the start of 2021, we had a year of research and a vaccine. We’ve been vaccinating people for a year, and yet we have more COVID deaths under the Biden administration than under Trump, every day more vaccinated people are getting sick, so while the vaccine may keep you out of the hospital or the graveyard, it doesn’t provide immunity, it doesn’t stop the spread, I’m not sure it even slows the spread, given that we have more cases and deaths than ever. For a long time now, anyone saying “I don’t think vaccines are stopping the spread of COVID” or something similar have been persona non grata in public discourse. Is… Read more →
And That’s the Truth: Sidney Poitier
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth — PE] God he was a handsome man. I seen that he died. He was described as a “legendary actor and civil rights activist.” Black folks got to get over the notion that all they problems are caused by other people. Nobody likes Jews but Jews done very well for theyselves. We had a Jewish man, Bernie Sanders, run for president two times and I never once heard him even mention that he was Jewish or that you was a Jew-hater if you disagreed with him. A black person run for some office, everything about race. You can’t disagree on the merits, you can only disagree because you a racist. I would like to hear someone explain Asian success to me in the context of white supremacy. America has always treated Asians very badly . . .… Read more →
If we were not afraid of death, I do not believe the idea of immortality would ever have arisen. — Bertrand Russell
What to Do in a Tsunami
JUST IN: The National Tsunami Warning Center has issued a tsunami advisory is in effect for the entire West Coast and Alaska in the wake of an undersea volcanic eruption near Tonga. https://t.co/6QAUay90w7 — ABC News (@ABC) January 15, 2022 The good news is that on the water side of Ocean Blvd in Santa Monica there is about a 100-ft high bluff, which should be a good tsunami barrier. But a good way to go out of this life would be sitting on the restaurant deck at the end of the pier (in the middle distance below) with a refreshing cocktail and speaking my final words just prior to being crushed by a wall of water: “See you in Hell!” Record the whole thing as a live TikTok. If that doesn’t go viral, I don’t know what will. Read more →
Betty White, 1922-2021
Enough is enough. RIP Betty White Read more →
Love One Another Or Die
We must love one another or die. — W.H. Auden Since we have to die anyway, shouldn’t the quote be “We must love one another and die” or “We must love one another then die”? It reminds me of another famous quote: “Go big or go home.” But again, I have to go home eventually so . . . well, you get the picture . . . Read more →
Joan Didion, 1934-2021
I was discovering that not all of the promises would be kept, that some things are in fact irrevocable and that it had counted after all, every evasion and every procrastination, every word, all of it. — Joan Didion, “Goodbye to All That” RIP Joan Didion Read more →
Annie Died the Other Day
annie died the other day never was there such a lay— whom, among her dollies, dad first (“don’t tell your mother”) had; making annie slightly mad but very wonderful in bed —saints and satyrs go your way youths and maidens: let us pray — e e cummings Read more →
See You in Hell, Kaepernick
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings mortals — Here is Colin Kaepernick’s opinion on the recent Kyle Rittenhouse verdict: This only further validates the need to abolish our current system. White supremacy cannot be reformed. Abolish our current system! What a great idea! What should we replace it with — a system that only renders verdicts that Colin Kaepernick likes? I’ll say one thing for this kid Rittenhouse, he was a lot more accurate under pressure than Kaepernick was during a 3-16 streak that got him replaced as a starting NFL QB by Blaine Gabbert. Blaine Gabbert! Of course, he blames that on white supremacy as well. Of the three people Rittenhouse shot, one was pointing a gun at him, one was trying to grab the rifle out of his hands and one was clubbing him in the head with a… Read more →
See You in Hell, Henry Ruggs III
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings mortals — A (now former) Las Vegas Raiders football player named Henry Ruggs III was driving around town at over 150 mph with a blood alcohol content twice the legal limit when — 150 mph?! God damn that’s a fast car! Where was I? Oh yes — when he smashed the car into another car, killing a woman and her dog. It’s my observation that Ruggs is not getting one percent of the nationwide vilification that another former member of the Raiders organization, Jon Gruden, has gotten. Gruden didn’t kill anyone but he did write some emails 10 years ago in which he used provocative language about homosexuals and people with big lips. To paraphrase Dave Chappelle, “You can kill a woman and nobody cares but you better not hurt the feelings of a gay… Read more →
The Four Thoughts
Maintain an awareness of the preciousness of human life. Be aware of the reality that life ends; death comes for everyone. Recall that whatever you do, whether virtuous or not, has a result. Contemplate that as long as you are too focused on self-importance and too caught up in thinking about how you are good or bad, you will experience suffering. Obsessing about getting what you want and avoiding what you don’t want does not result in happiness. Read more →
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Ray Fosse
Ray Fosse was a major league catcher from 1967 to 1979, a two-time All-Star for the Cleveland Indians, a two-time World Series champion with the Oakland A’s, and a two-time Gold Glove winner. It probably has to be said that Fosse may be best remembered for the final play of the 1970 All-Star Game, in which he was injured in a collision with Pete Rose at home plate. Fosse sustained a fractured and separated shoulder, which healed incorrectly, causing chronic pain that was never entirely resolved. It was a controversial play. Rose said that he was simply trying to win the game, and it was well known that he played the game as aggressively as anyone. I assume Fosse thought that even Rose wouldn’t try to bolo him in an exhibition game, or maybe he was just trying to make a good baseball play. It does look from the photo… Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Accidental Overdose
I hardly ever hear the word “overdose” by itself anymore, as in “so-and-so died of an overdose.” It’s always “so-and-so died of an accidental overdose.” Isn’t that redundant? If you want to put it that way, wouldn’t the only alternative be an intentional overdose? Which would be a suicide. The word “overdose” implies accidental. Someone tried to make themselves feel better in a high-risk way and miscalibrated. So it’s either a suicide or an overdose, not an “accidental overdose.” End of story. Read more →
Dirty Laundrie: How NOT to Commit the Perfect Murder
I have long maintained that the best way to kill someone and get away with it is to push them off a cliff. While hiking, for example. It’s simple, clean, no need to dispose of evidence, and proving beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law that the deceased didn’t just fall off the cliff accidentally is almost assuredly impossible. Unfortunately, the opportunity to push someone off a cliff is no longer on the table for me, having published in advance my admiration for cliffs as a murder weapon, but I’ve got other ideas as well. That said, the worst way to murder someone is to take them on a cross-country road trip, document the whole thing on social media, then drive home by yourself and disappear. Read more →
On the Infanticide Marie Farrar
Marie Farrar: month of birth, April Died in the Meissen penitentiary An unwed mother, judged by the law, she will Show you how all that lives, lives frailly. You who bear your sons in laundered linen sheets And call your pregnancies a ‘blessed’ state Should never damn the outcast and the weak: Her sin was heavy, but her suffering great. Therefore, I beg, make not your anger manifest For all that lives needs help from all the rest. — Bertolt Brecht, “On the Infanticide Marie Farrar” A translation of the entire poem is available here, among other places. Read more →
Is Christmas a Joyous Day? (A Movie Review)
SPOILERS AHEAD! The central character in this movie is a Buddhist monk who has achieved immortality, he looks about 50 but he no longer ages. There is, however, a prophecy that a girl born in the same town that he was born in, but 100 years later, will kill him. [SPOILERS START HERE] So for the last 14 years, he has had his disciples locate and murder every girl born in that city in the year 1999. In most cases, the bodies were disposed of so the cases were treated as missing persons, or in some cases, as accidents. (As I write this, it does seem like the police should have been able to connect the dots a little sooner.) When you see it in a movie like this, it seems grotesque and inhuman that a religious leader would order a mass murder of children in order to preserve his… Read more →
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: J.R. Richard
Houston Astros icon J.R. Richard, whose career was cut short by stroke in 1980, dies at age 71 — espn.com We had a couple of catchers, one came with his arm in a sling and another came on crutches. There was something called J.R.-itis which was an incurable disease when you’re scared of J.R. Richard. It was like J.R. was only throwing from about 50 feet. With his reach and he was all legs, you didn’t have much time to make up your mind. … You didn’t really feel comfortable at the plate. He was the toughest guy I ever faced. — Dusty Baker Read more →
That Is the Way to Get Attention
Divorces and separation — that is the way to get attention. Everyone examines his own state and some say: Strange, they were much happier than we are. There are streets in the East 90’s where youngish couples on the wave of success buy town houses and do them over at great expense, uncovering old wood, taking off the stoop so that drunks cannot loiter, making a whole floor for the children to be quiet on. The strain and the cost and the house, a mausoleum with both names on it waiting for the dates to be filled in, drives the couple to separation. The streets are called Death Row. — Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights Read more →
The 5 Strengths
The 5 strengths are: strong determination, familiarization, the positive seed, reproach, and aspiration. How you conduct yourself is important. When you are dying practice the 5 strengths. Read more →