Mayor Says Seattle Will Move to Dismantle Protest Zone, After Second Shooting in Less Than 48 Hours — TIME It’s peculiar how leftist radicals get hold of a piece of ground and all of a sudden they love guns and border walls . . . Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Orwell: “You Can’t Say I Didn’t Warn You F*ckers”
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building had been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. — George Orwell, 1984 According to KMOX radio in St. Louis, a petition has been started with hopes of changing the city’s name and — wait for it — taking down a statue of Saint Louis IX in Forest Park. The petition creators say the city’s name is “outright disrespect” to Jewish and Muslim residents. A statue of Christopher Columbus in Tower Grove Park was taken away last week. Read more →
Joe Biden: 50 Million Americans Are “Not Very Good People”
Planet Berkeley: Strawberry Creek
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Wes Unseld
Wes Unseld was the second overall pick by the Baltimore Bullets in 1968. He was the only player other than Wilt Chamberlain to win the NBA Rookie of the Year Award and the Most Valuable Player Award in the same year. At 6-foot-7, he played center and averaged 14 rebounds a game for his career. He played in four NBA finals with the Bullets, winning one, in which he was voted MVP, in 1978. He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988. RIP Wes Unseld Read more →
Milwaukee Police Chief Accused of Being Inattentive. His Response May Surprise You!
What Does a Man Really Need?
Little Richard, 1932-2020
[Trigger warning for language :o] It’s very easy for people to forget what rock and roll really is. Look man, I’m forty-seven years old, and I grew up in Wyoming, and I stole cars and drove five hundred miles to watch Little Richard, and I wanna tell you somethin’ — when I saw this nigger come out in a gold suit, fuckin’ hair flyin’, and leap up onstage and come down on his piano bangin’ and goin’ fuckin’ nuts in Salt Lake City, I went, “Hey man, I wanna be like him. This is what I want.” — David Briggs, quoted by Neil Young in Waging Heavy Peace RIP “Little Richard” Penniman Read more →
Happy Mothers Day
I have so many dreams of my own, and I remember things from my childhood, from when I was a girl and a young woman, and I haven’t forgotten a thing. So why did we think of Mom as a mom from the very beginning? She didn’t have the opportunity to pursue her dreams, and all by herself, faced everything the era dealt her, poverty and sadness, and she couldn’t do anything about her very bad lot in life other than suffer through it and get beyond it and live her life to the very best of her ability, giving her body and her heart to it completely. Why did I never give a thought to Mom’s dreams? — Kyung-sook Shin, Please Look After Mom Read more →
Souplantation, 1978-2020
Souplantation is closing all of its restaurants permanently, a casualty of the coronavirus pandemic. I was probably one of their last customers . . . we had dinner at the Irvine location a few days before restaurants had to close for in-person dining. The place was at least 70 percent empty at that time. It is hard to believe we’ll never be able to go there again. Souplantation was one of our favorite family restaurants, maybe the number one favorite. This feels like the death of a family member . . . so many Souplantation memories . . . RIP Souplantation Read more →
I’m Going to Start Robbing Banks
Why do you rob banks? Because that’s where the money is. — Willie Sutton (probably apocryphal) I’m going to start sticking up banks. Not long ago, if you walked into a bank wearing a mask over your face, someone would immediately reach for an alarm or a gun. Now it’s required. I could walk in and clean out the teller before anyone suspects a thing. I think I’ll hone my craft first by knocking off a few gas stations and convenience stores. “Can you describe the suspect?” “I can’t, officer. He was wearing a mask.” Read more →
One Thing Is Certain
I used to write for a news magazine and most big analytical stories would end like this: ‘X might happen or Y might happen, but one thing is certain: things will never be the same.’ Then, once time had passed, things would be the same Over and over — Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) March 29, 2020 Read more →
Ship It
How the Media Completely Blew the Trump Ventilator Story
FEMA acted quickly — much faster than is possible in the regular process — to get so-called notifications to purchase to ventilator manufacturers, so they could start work and hold their inventory, which ensured it wasn’t lost to foreign countries. The Defense Production Act was invoked with General Motors to get production moving as quickly as possible, and not back-loaded later in the summer. “We are going to be swimming in ventilators.” Last year, according to administration figures, the country produced 30,000 ventilators. This year, it’s going to produce something on the order of 200,000, and they are already coming in. “The balance now is growing daily,” the White House adviser says of the federal stockpile. “We are going to be swimming in ventilators.” By any measure, that’s a success, certainly compared with where we thought we’d be less than a month ago. If the media weren’t so devoted to… Read more →
Goofus and Gallant on COVID-19
Goofus: I am stuck. I’ll never make it through this situation, and even if I do, I won’t be as successful as I was before. This is a downward spiral. Gallant: I am Growing. I am making progress – sometimes gradually and other times rapidly – with learning new skills and developing better habits. I am becoming stronger through these trying times, and so are many others in my work organization and community. Goofus: I am fragmented. I’m being pulled in too many directions to be truly helpful to anyone. Gallant: I am Integrating. I am drawing upon a broad reservoir of resources from my varied experiences, which can help me navigate new challenges. My authenticity and vulnerability can help me to build deeper connections and establish healthy boundaries with trusted colleagues during trying times. Goofus: I am incapable. I don’t have enough courage to meet this challenge,… Read more →
Benediction
I acknowledge my sadness and fear and anxiety. Grant me the courage to be a better version of myself, and the hope to be virtuous to others, to be resilient in the face of tragedy. Read more →
Anne Frank on Twitter
Whoa, I saw Anne Frank trending on Twitter and I thought something happened to her . . . Read more →
Nobody is Fine Anymore
How are you doing? Remember when you’d automatically say “Fine”? Now nobody is fine. We’re all programmed from our caveman days with a fight-or-flight system, but there’s a big difference between a predator stepping out in front of us and COVID-19. They’re both threats, but the predator is what we’d call an acute short-term threat. This is really what our system was developed to handle. There’s something there, I have to do something now and you do something. With COVID the threat is chronic. It’s there all the time. Not only is it chronic, it’s undefined, it’s ambiguous, and it’s not even just the virus. It’s the economic impact of the virus, it’s the lifestyle changes, it’s the isolation, it’s the not being able to hug people we would like to hug, that is all feeding into this threat system. We really evolved to take on short-term acute threats. We… Read more →
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Al Kaline
Al Kaline played all 22 years of his career as a right fielder for the Detroit Tigers, played in 18 All-Star games, won 10 Gold Gloves, a World Series in 1968, had 3,007 hits, 399 home runs, a .297 batting average and was a first-ballot Hall of Famer. He died today at the age of 85. On his 80th birthday, he said: “To this day, I can’t believe the life I’ve had. I wanted to be a baseball player — and do the one thing I was good at. “Even now, I love it so much.” RIP Al Kaline Read more →
Meditation
I’ve taken up meditation. Or rather I’ve taken to calling taking naps “meditation.” What’s the difference? You close your eyes, clear your mind . . . same goddamn thing. Read more →