I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
February 11, 2014 - 12:53 p.m.
Not much has happened since I updated last night. Of course most of you seemed to have missed that so why not catch up now, Nice Guys Get Some Sleep . You want to read about me being a nice guy, right?
I got to sleep late today, 7:15. I actually woke up before 7:00 but since I went to sleep earlier than usual I am NOT sleep deprived. I got up so early I had time to make breakfast at home. I really should do that more often; it's healthier and cheaper.
I had time to fully participate in the WFUV Question of the Day and I particularly enjoyed it. The question was:
The best in show will be awarded tonight at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Will it be the the Irish wolfhound, the bloodhound, the whippet? They're all winners as far as we're concerned. We're celebrating dogs in song today in the WFUV Question of the Day. I didn't have to search songs in my library, I knew favorite songs by favorite people off the top of my head.
They weren't played of course but at least people in the Question of the Day Group got to hear them. And now you do too.
It's amazing what volunteering at WFUV does for my mental health. It is a lot more effective than therapy in helping me deal with anxiety. Most weeks I'd be obsessing over something at this moment but as it's the middle of a drive I'm just rolling with the punches. I'm also blogging which is the other thing that helps the most. I still have a bad apartment situation, I'm still lonely, but I'm feeling good.
So instead of going exploring my angst as I was tempted to do I'm going to play Mort Sohl and base today's Wise Madness on the today's New York Times.
Shirley Temple Black, Screen Darling, Dies at 85: Shirley was my first crush. It wasn't her as a child but the adult host of �Shirley Temple�s Storybook�. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The show ended its run in 1961 when I was four. It might have been in reruns a bit after that but that shows that I was attracted to women before I started school. I also had a thing for Julie Newmar. I still think they are hot. I had good taste as a kid. And so much for deciding to be gay. If I decided to be straight I was a baby when I did.
Totally separate from that was my love of her child star movies. All the kids in the neighborhood would stop what we were doing and watch when one was on TV. I was never one for movies about kids but these depression era comedies struck home. I wouldn't miss one. You call anyone else "plucky" and you're being sarcastic but you pretty much can't describe Shirley in those films, or apparently in real life without using the word. No matter what the obstacles she overcame them with a smile, as song, and a dance. My favorite was The Little Princess. I always had a thing for movies about the British Raj too. I remember the scenes where she finds her father and where she meets Queen Victoria like I just saw them yesterday. In real life adulthood she was a Republican fund raiser and she was for the War in Vietnam but I could never hold those things against her.
Panic in the Locker Room! By Frank Bruni. I always love Frank's columns. This one I found some fault with. It's about Michael Sam coming out before the NFL draft. What I object to was all the space he devoted to the people saying homophobic nonsense. There are 32 teams in the NFL. Teams are large. There's a couching and front office staff. They must average over 100 employees a team, that's 3200 people. If 5% of them are homophobes, that has to be a conservative number that makes 160 people who want to say something stupid. So that he could find a half dozen quotes is essentially meaningless. The news is that it's a minority opinion. 72% of the people in Russian find homosexuality morally wrong in Russia. Not that long ago it was the same here. Now it's a minority view. That's progress and that's the story. He should acknowledge that were aren't at equality, even a long way off, but let's just revel in the good news.
But that's quibbles. I love his writing. He reassured homophobes afraid of gays in locker rooms with this;
And you know what? He probably wasn�t checking you out. He certainly wasn�t beaming special gay-conversion gamma rays at you. That�s why you weren�t aware of his presence and didn�t immediately go out and buy a more expensive moisturizer and a disc of Judy Garland�s greatest hits.That put a smile on my face. Hey if I got special gay-conversion gamma rays by becoming gay I might want to become gay. Conversion gamma-rays are cool. What I really want is conversion rays that make women horvensexual. That's women sexually attracted to men whose internet user name is Horvendile. Now that I could use. How pedestrian are my desires? While it would be fun to have many women throwing themselves at me what I really fantasize about is using it on just one special woman. For myself all I want is a marriage between one man and one woman. And that might be why I strongly support same-sex marriage. I know I'm unhappy and frustrated not catching the happiness I pursue and I don't want others to be unhappy and frustrated too. We should all be able to enjoy the blessings of liberty, not just those that share the same desires as me.
Use Force to Save Starving Syrians: This is the column that made me base today's edition on the Times. It's back to my theme of thinking of the people worst off in the world. Read the article. Read about how people are suffering in Syria. It isn't easy but read it. The fact that it is so hard to think about paralyzes people. No one wants to empathize because it's so painful. So we sit and think of other things or concentrate on the reasons to do nothing. We want to avoid the subject. So people come up with "War is always wrong." That always reminds me of a scene in "The Once and Future King where the professional virgin knight, Sir Bors, refuses to have sex with a woman to save her life. He says that he shouldn't sacrifice his soul to protect her life. He chose his morality of another person's life. It's easy to make that decision when it isn't your life or the life of someone you care about. But it's bad moral philosophy. War is bad. So is people starving to death. So is war made by other people The bad thing is the war and the suffering not who is doing it. It means weighing bad options. The right answer is not "never make war" and it's not "always make war." And making the decision which is right requires thinking about things that are very unpleasant. There are very good reasons to not fight but avoiding unpleasant thoughts and moral responsibility are not among them. I'll be honest. I don't know nearly enough to properly weigh the different courses of action. I'm also pretty sure you don't either. I just know enough to know that what's best is not obvious. And I know that people who do know more don't know everything and will make mistakes. What we are doing now is not working. There is mass suffering going on. I don't want to think about that but I am.
Wow I'm done with more than an hour to go before class. That's great. Maybe it's because I had enough sleep last night. That won't be true tomorrow and I might not get a chance to write. I'm going to John Platt's On Your Radar tonight. That ends at 9 PM. Then I have to get up at 4:23 tomorrow morning and work a 12-hour-shift at WFUV. When I'm done I'm not sure if I'll feel up to writing. Of course I probably will.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018
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Horvendile February 11, 2014
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