August 22, 2017ramble

Was playing with the idea that all our energy for action - ALL of it - comes from emotion, not from thought and cold rationality. We can shape ourselves so that we have emotions that support rationality so that we act in ways that are in accordance with it, but it's not the logic itself driving things.

One of the occasional participants in my UU "Science and Spirituality" is a therapist who describes her practice as Freudian, and of course she's well aware of the issues with some of his views, and how that kind of practice can seem oddly quaint and out of step. But based on my layman understanding of Freud's ideas, I think there really is something to the Id/Ego/Superego division - a division that is often under the radar of everyday life, but that emerges with sufficient introspection as seeming likely to be an accurate and useful model. (In much the same way you can kind of shove your way into some level of grasping "the self really is illusion" concepts of Buddhism through thinking along side the more traditional practices of meditation.)

For me there's a tie in to Superego and the sense of Objective Truth. Though I guess Superego provides a host of "shoulds", while Objective Truth just says what is. And you can't get ought from is directly. But in my life, one of the highest moral goods is pursuing the most accurate level of shared understanding of Objective Truth, foregoing judging of the should levels. "Whatever works!", objectively, is generally ok by me. I guess that view is what cost me my simple religious faith; the multiplicity of beliefs was on the whole incompatible with singular Objective Truth, and my duty towards that (and my humbleness in thinking 'what were the chances that the faith I was born into was THE one that was correct? Pretty small') caused me to drift from the church of my youth.

But I dunno. I guess there's an obvious parallel in that emotion/thought divide as there is with faith and then the cold dispassionate description of the Objective Truth - that I'm incorrect in thinking I have a pure method for aligning my life with being correct in the objective sense, because it will always be tempered by my subjective experience, what I was taught, and what I feel...

---

"If only one person in the world had a sense of humor, it would probably be labeled a mental illness."
--/u/shercroft

---

"One of the essential qualities of liberalism is that it always disappoints. To its champions, this is among its greatest virtues. It embraces a realistic sense of human limits and an unillusioned view of political constraints. It shies away from utopian schemes and imprudent idealism. To its critics, this modesty and meliorism represent cowardice. Every generation of leftists angrily vents about liberalism's slim ambitions and its paucity of pugilism. Bernie Sanders and his followers join a long line of predecessors in wanting liberalism to be something that it most distinctly is not: radical."
--Franklin Foer, "Why Liberalism Disappoints"

---

"If you're OK with Waltham... you're OK"
--Proposed City Slogan by Johnny Boom-Boom and me

August 21, 2017

The clip I didn't know I needed: Cookie Monster meets Animal:

---

making the rounds...

August 20, 2017tuba

---

Random Memory: St. Patrick's School in Salamanca was changing "Fathers", and to the outgoing one they had us students sing "Hasta Manana / 'Til We Meet Again / Don't Know Where / Don't Know When / Father Our Love is Much too Strong to Die / We'll Find a Way to Make a New Tomorrow".

Turns out that's a slightly tweaked Abba song. But that's a... pretty generous translation by the second line of the first... guess they just went for the sound and not the sense of the Spanish.

---

"These people are doing it right.

Violence allows Nazis to pretend to be victims.

Tubas just make them look like the dumbfucks they are."

--http://twitter.com/Mikel_Jollett

August 19, 2017

Darn fine time play with BABAM, thousands of peaceful and enthusiastic counter-protesters.

---

Dammit, thanks to Islamic terrorists and alt-right dingbats - also terrorists - it's going to be harder to enjoy watching the Blues Brothers drive the Bluesmobile through the parted crowds and then over the bridge making all in the Illinois Nazis jump in the water.

But I still hate Illinois Nazis.

August 18, 2017

---

At around 1:50 they are doing some great Sousaphone flips-- I remember in high school, the older guys could do that one thing where in one fluid motion you lift up the horn, flip it around your back and replace it... never learned how to do it. Not sure if it's possible with my brass horn Scheiny, and potentially expensive (in repairs or medical bills) for this 40-something to find out!

---

TIL: Trump frickin' made up a Civil War battle so he could put up a plaque about it on his golf course.

Telling quote: "Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot" - an earlier form of that "both sides" shtick we've heard from him lately.

FAKE HISTORY. Awesome.

August 17, 2017

I remember growing up in upstate NY and we'd have those Lender bagels, the ones in a bag... I figure we must have had them with blueberry jam along with the cream cheese, because this Greek Yogurt w/ Blueberry brings back such strong sense memories it's kind of uncanny...

---

Another take from the Economist on a response to that leaked Google discrimination memo

August 16, 2017

"We're all just future cadavers, right?"
--Emmett FitzGerald on 99% Invisible's Episode on the Stethoscope. (Inventor René Laennec worked with sick patient before and after they died to learn more about what the sounds could tell us...)

---

Was thinking about doing a snarky comparison with Trumps "I like winners" view on McCain set against his tolerance for statues of Robert E. Lee. Skimmed the wikipedia page on Lee. I guess the case is made that he, himself, wasn't a big defender of slavery. I mean, I'm not sure it matters; this cultural fight takes place about a lot of really important ideas, ideas that go down to the roots of what this country stands for, and how we must treat each other if we want humanity to thrive, with liberty and justice for all; but maybe it's sometimes useful to remember that sometimes specific fights are mixing up the map with the territory.