A passenger jet skidded off a runway and got stuck in the mud on the edge of a cliff in northern Turkey. — MSN Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men. — Epitaph of Jalaludin Rumi
What Shall I Be?
I have again and again grown like grass; I have experienced seven hundred and seventy moulds. I died from minerality and became vegetable; And from vegetativeness I died and became animal. I died from animality and became man. Then why fear disappearance through death? Next time I shall die Bringing forth wings and feathers like angels: After that soaring higher than angels — What you cannot imagine. I shall be that. — Jalaladin Rumi Read more →
Integrity and Self-Respect
Forgive yourself for your mistakes and embrace yourself with all your character traits just as they are, believing that you’ve done the best you could with your available resources in the course of your life . . . Read more →
Why Not Enjoy a Snickers?
Our being is a being-towards-death, ending, not on the summit of actualization, but over the cliff in the abyss of annihilation . . . Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
Colleagues whose most conspicuous contribution to the workplace is to laugh irrepressibly at the boss’s jokes . . . Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of
One. Word. Sentences. Read more →
Soda Sticker Shock in Seattle
Seattle is trying to discourage its citizens from drinking sugary beverages by imposing a 1.75-cent per ounce tax on all sugary drinks sold in the Emerald City. A $15.99 case of Gatorade at the Seattle Costco now has an added tax of more than $10. A case of Coke is now $7.35 more expensive than the Diet Coke or Coke Zero. Sticker shock! What will people drink instead of sugary beverages? Coffee. Seattle drinks a lot of coffee. Is coffee good for you? What if you put sugar in it? Beer. At these prices, it’s cheaper than soda. Diet soda. Are artificial sweeteners better for you than sugar? Fruit juice. Not taxed but contains a lot of sugar. Should there be a tax on all-you-can-eat buffets? How about a tax credit for eating a vegetable? Or maybe — just maybe — the tax code was not designed for and shouldn’t… Read more →
Grounds for Dissolution
Divorce has traditionally been a fault-based proceeding, but California and most other states are now no-fault jurisdictions, and a divorce in legal terms is now called a Dissolution of Marriage. And yet we never hear anyone say “I’m going to dissolve you.” The primary ground for dissolution in California is “irreconcilable differences.” In a Regular Dissolution you are also allowed to use “incurable insanity.” Your spouse may seem crazy to you, but the insanity case is too complicated for you to present without an attorney, so if you want to keep things simple, go ahead and use “irreconcilable differences.” Read more →
EppsNet Book Reviews: Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Death on the Installment Plan is a fictionalized coming-of-age story based on Céline’s youth in pre-World War I France. Absent are heroism, transcendence, love and the possibility of love. Instead, there is a lot of human action that comes to nothing. Death is not ennobling. That said, hopelessness has never been described with more wit, energy and imagination or more droll, breathtaking language. Here’s a sample of the black comedy, as the narrator remembers a local physician (all ellipses in the original): “The most exquisite deaths, remember that, Ferdinand, are those that attack us in our most sensitive tissues . . .” He had a precious, elaborate, subtle way of talking, like the men of Charcot’s day. His prospecting of the Rolandic, the third ventricle, and the gray nucleus didn’t do him much good . . . in the end he died of a heart attack, under circumstances that were… Read more →
Is A.I. a Threat to Humankind?
Not with a bang but a whimper, as T.S. Eliot used to say. In some countries, the people are kept in a state of submission by violence and/or threats of violence, but here in America, the same effect is achieved via mindless entertainments and gadgetry. Read more →
Fake News Awards
I will be announcing THE MOST DISHONEST & CORRUPT MEDIA AWARDS OF THE YEAR on Monday at 5:00 o’clock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty & Bad Reporting in various categories from the Fake News Media. Stay tuned! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018 I’m looking forward to this! I find news media on both the left and right too smug and simplistic and agenda-driven. Read more →
Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them. — George Eliot, Middlemarch
Love Both
We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. — Thomas Aquinas (@AquinasQuotes) January 3, 2018 Read more →
2017: The Year in Books
These are the books I read in 2017, roughly in the order listed. Not as many as I would have liked but I spent the first half of the year having a mental and physical breakdown. I’m back on track now. The ratings are mine. They don’t represent a consensus of opinion. Books of the Year: Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Céline (fiction) and From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe (non-fiction). My Library at LibraryThing Read more →
Aside
A man can only be cosmopolitan up to a certain point . . .
Vignette
Sara, 48, suffers from breast cancer, diagnosed three times in five years. She has to stop teaching at school but engages actively in volunteer work. Her environment praises her for her courage. She helps other cancer patients in a respectful way to deal with their illness. This for her is also very rewarding. Still, from time to time, mostly when Sara does not expect it, an ocean of tears comes up . . . Read more →
My Worries Are Few
I have the ability to face up to the disturbing facts of life, except pain, sickness, death, poverty, rejection, loneliness, guilt, shame, confusion, doubt, imperfection, meaninglessness, futility and evil. Also fear of being laughed at and cruelty to animals. Read more →
Something I Learned About Time Zones
Something I learned about time zones on a visit to New Orleans: Louisiana is on Central Time, as are Mississippi, Alabama — and part of the Florida panhandle! Read more →
Jefferson Davis’s House
On a recent trip to New Orleans, we spent a night at the Beau Rivage Resort in Biloxi, MS. Biloxi is also the site of Beauvoir, the former home of Jefferson Davis, now a museum and historical site. Beauvoir is similar to a statue in that it’s a memorial to an eminent representative of the Confederacy, but surprisingly, even the most fanatical ideologue has not, to my knowledge, suggested that it be torn down . . . Read more →