Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
More Things I Know
Last summer I posted a list of twenty-five “Things I Know,” with the one-liner “My mind’s made up that these things are so, although why they are, is something of which I’m not always entirely certain.” A little bit of even-handed, critical reading will clear up the confusion caused by the muddled writing. They’re opinions, and they’re decided with substantial certainty, subject to no further significant question. Why these things are the way they are, may be a complete, or partial, enigma. But they are the way they are.
I don’t know why they are so. Not completely. Certainly not always. And what to do with the knowledge that they are so, to help yourself or others, is a matter on which I have no comment at all. But they are so.
An even more descriptive theme common to the twenty-five things, is that apart from the blog that nobody reads (which is this), very few people are ever going to take the time to tell you any of the twenty-five things, nor are you well-advised to put much weight on it if any outside source does see fit to tell them to you. You gotta learn ’em yourself. They’re things I know now, that I did not know when I was a little kid, nor could I have. We all have things like this, and although very few people comment on it, these things are priceless to us. After all the blood, sweat & tears we shed through the process of living, these things are all we have to show for it, apart from our material possessions…and when you die, they make you give up the material possessions.
Well, what can I say? We only learn these things by getting old, and I’m five months older now than I was five months ago.
I have twelve more things:
26. There really aren’t too many things in the arena of human existence louder than a pair of women recognizing each other at a Starbuck’s coffee shop.
27. Information has a tendency to flow one-way, which greatly increases the effort involved in noticing little details, while one is engaged in attention-whoring.
28. People who drive great big cars don’t mind following other great big cars, but they absolutely have to get out from behind a little itty-bitty car even if it involves passing over a double-yellow line.
29. There is substantial, and mutual, potential benefit to be realized from scrutinizing questions — unwelcome as they may be — anytime you’re advised “you are not supposed to” do something.
30. A lot of people who crusade against absolutes, employ absolutes quite frequently, especially while crusading against absolutes.
31. He who does a noble, brave, heroic thing, tends to draw a seething hatred from he who could have done the noble, brave, heroic thing — but chose not to.
32. There are a lot of people walking around among us who like to re-define the baseline obligations carried by others, particularly toward them, simply because they find it painful to say “thank you”.
33. If you see a lot of bugs crawling all over the computer lately, it might be a good idea to go into that room with the refrigerator and the sink and see if there’s something that hasn’t been cleaned for awhile.
34. We are a tribal species, and it comes much more easily to us to bear silly grudges against entire cultures, than legitimate grudges against individual persons.
35. The individual attribute ascribed to the aggregate entity, manifests a weak argument ripe for re-thinking.
36. The words “public good” are very, very rarely applied to self-directed criticism, certainly not as often as they are used in criticism directed toward others.
37. The first time someone asks you a question and then interrupts during the answer — from that point onward, you are best off smiling, nodding, and suddenly remembering you have something you need to go away and do.
Update 1/19/06: The news is piled high once again with ethical issues, and people loud-of-mouth and weak-of-mind peeling off with that word “should”, forsaking even the minimal foresight into the questions raised by that weighty word. Their insistence on selective morals, applied bumptiously to Target A but gracefully slithering over Target B, inspires yet another Thing I Know.
38. Where smoke of outrage rises from a fire of moral indignation, all targets presented as legitimate, must also be compulsory.
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