Archive For The “Odds & Ends” Category
The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. – David Foster Wallace This Day In History Infinite Jest is published (February 1,1996) Wallace wrote about television…
I’m assiduously critical of people who want to start their American Dream and that journey and want to start it the wrong way. I think like this: the United States was created on immigration, it was created on immigration, on diversity. I strongly encourage people who want to come here to do it. But I…
Everything I know about morality and the obligations of men, I owe it to football [soccer]. – Albert Camus Soccer. Futbol (Headball?): A Critique by Tim McGarry The 2022 World Cup in Qatar was recently completed with Argentina defeating France. Pele, recognized as the world’s greatest player, died on December 22, 2022. It is called…
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Most of what follows is not true. By ‘true’, I mean real. When Ronald DeSantis talks about ‘freedom’, he doesn’t mean the word like you think. You are free to do whatever Ronald thinks is right for you to do. Don’t try to…
You would think life couldn’t possibly get more bizarre year after year after year after year. Written about weirdness myself for decades now. See https://www.jackdogwelch.com/?p=1407 This material is from 2017. Lost track during the Pandemic, which continues here in MAGA country. Five more dead this week. Part of normal life and they snicker right in our…
We celebrate the birth of one who told us to give everything to the poor by giving each other motorized tie racks. — Bill McKibben To all of my neighbors. I don’t mean to be a Grinch, however…. to those of you who decorate your yards for Christmas, would you please avoid anything that has…
When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be! – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Dark water rising…
Behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force is my religion. To that extent, I am in point of fact, religious. – Einstein I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the…
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,A light from the shadows shall spring;Renewed shall be blade that was broken,The crownless again shall be king.”― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring So, anyway, another dispatch from DeSantistan. If banners on local swag poles are any indicator, the natives are confused. Nuclear secrets hidden in the minifridge…
Here are 21 of the elected officials, candidates and other prominent figures who spread misinformation or cast doubt on the attack. In tweets, podcasts and TV appearances, these figures questioned whether the public was being told the full story of what happened and in some cases spread theories that were unfounded. The man alleged to have…