Craig Jones: Simplicity Appreciation 101
You Don’t Know Me
Stand
The Effect of Your Practices
And you, credulous men, show me the effect of your practices! In so many centuries, during which you have been following or altering them, what changes have your prescriptions wrought in the laws of nature? Is the sun brighter? Is the course of the seasons varied? Is the earth more fruitful, or its inhabitants more happy? If God be good, can your penances please him? If infinite, can your homage add to his glory? If his decrees have been formed on foresight of every circumstance, can your prayers change them? Answer, O inconsistent mortals!
Aside
Tiny Buddha: 5 Reasons It’s OK to Not Know What the Future Holds
Better Than Everybody Else
If you would like to write better than everybody else, you have to want to write better than everybody else. You must take an obsessive pride in the smallest details of your craft.
Replace “write” with whatever it is you want to do better than everybody else.
A Dream that No One Has
From today’s Cal vs. Presbyterian preview in The Daily Californian:
CeeJay Harris is one of three Californians on the Presbyterian roster. He didn’t dream of playing football as a Blue Hose because that’s not a dream that anyone has . . .
Satan Takes a Message for Ted Kennedy
Kara Kennedy, the oldest child of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, died suddenly Friday evening at a Washington-area health club, NBC News reported.
Former Rep. Patrick Kennedy confirmed the death of his 51-year-old sister, adding “she’s with dad.”
She’s not here, Patrick, but I’ll pass the news along to Teddy.
Running of the Pugs
Diagnosis Please
What disease is indicated when a fecal sample smells of menthol?
I’m asking for whoever used the men’s room before me this morning . . .
The Thousand-Mile Road
Step by step walk the thousand-mile road.
Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.
An elevated spirit is weak and a low spirit is weak. Do not let the enemy see your spirit. — Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings
Aside
He in his madness prays for storms
And dreams that storms will bring him peace.
Look Out for the Blue Hose
My boy texted me this afternoon that one of the starting cornerbacks for the Cal Golden Bears is in a class with him.
In a masterpiece of scheduling, the Cal football team plays the Presbyterian Blue Hose this coming Saturday because apparently Bryn Mawr was unavailable.
(Presbyterian College is a church-affiliated college of 1,200 students located in Clinton, S.C.)
I texted back, “Tell him to look out b/c Presby is coming off a big win vs North Greenville. NORTH GREENVILLE!”
Aside
What is most easily put into words is not necessarily what is most important.
The Ruins
And now behold what remains of this powerful city: a miserable skeleton! What of its vast domination: a doubtful and obscure remembrance! To the noisy concourse which thronged under these porticoes, succeeds the solitude of death. The silence of the grave is substituted for the busy hum of public places; the affluence of a commercial city is changed into wretched poverty; the palaces of kings have become a den of wild beasts; flocks repose in the area of temples, and savage reptiles inhabit the sanctuary of the gods. Ah! how has so much glory been eclipsed? how have so many labors been annihilated? Do thus perish then the works of men–thus vanish empires and nations?
What Would People Say?
‘Spartacus’ star Andy Whitfield dies of lymphoma at 39
Whitfield’s wife, Vashti, in a statement called her husband a “beautiful young warrior” who died on a “sunny Sydney morning” in the “arms of his loving wife.”
Never heard of him. Also, his wife’s remarks are a tad self-serving, but they did get me to thinking what people would say in the event of my own untimely demise.
Best case: “He was a pain in the ass but at least he was interesting.”
More likely: “He was a pain in the ass. Once in a great while, he said something interesting. You had to wait for it.”
I Had a Threesome Last Night!
My owner and his wife both rubbed my tummy at the same time!
— Lightning 
Kids Can Be Good at Anything
If they want to. If it’s important to them.
For example: My kid has played hockey most of his life. We know some families where all the kids — boy or girl — play hockey, and almost all of them are good players.
I don’t know any families where all the kids play hockey and they’re all bad. Those families have decided for some reason that it’s important for kids to play a good game of hockey.
Another example: We live in a school district with a lot of Asian families. They don’t care about hockey. In Asian families, it’s important for the kids to be good at academics and music.
You don’t see a lot of Asian guys in the National Hockey League, but you do see a lot of Asian kids at our nation’s best universities.
It’s a parenting challenge — getting kids to assign importance to the right things.
Predictions
When did it become so imperative for sports pundits to make predictions on every goddamn game? Predictions are like assholes — everybody’s got one and they’re all full of shit.
Give me some insight if you have some, but spare me the fucking picks!
We may as well listen to people guess how many jellybeans are in the 10-gallon jar.