this week i

transferred the birdfeeder to the holly tree by the kitchen window, see my best friend?  if the white pine capsized, would it fall toward the camera?


ran into ben at c&o lock ten, visiting mary and michael with iris and gwen from kansas city.  i stocked the weber with logs, he tossed me a nanticoke nectar, we talked sorbonne, santa fe, one day crathie lane ban, three thousand year cultural dialogue, golf with gordon, northern italy, camaraderie

consider sacha baron cohen the leading chronicler of human hubris

♪ dramatic music ♪

i heard one time while hunting, there was a man who tried to attack you, and you had to shoot him in the face?

no. [laughs] well, that’s a bit of a, uh, distortion. we were hunting, um, quail with shotguns.

you were hunting the vice president quayle?

well, it wasn’t vice-presidential quail. it was… there’s vice president quayle, whose name is q-u-a-y-l-e, and then there’s quail, and it is the birds that we hunt

and which one were you trying to kill?

birds.

okay.

watched rocco and his brothers, immigrant cain and abel.  milanese subtitle for italian "encore" said "again?" but should have been "once more?"

read the doomsayer speculators.  we might have this level of predictive power next decade, probably not this one

historians have not, as a whole, accepted turchin's terms of surrender graciously.  since at least the 19th century, the discipline has embraced the idea that history is irreducibly complex, and by now most historians believe that the diversity of human activity will foil any attempt to come up with general laws, especially predictive ones.  (as jo guldi, a historian at southern methodist university, put it to me, "some historians regard turchin the way astronomers regard nostradamus.")  instead, each historical event must be lovingly described, and its idiosyncrasies understood to be limited in relevance to other events.  the idea that one thing causes another, and that the causal pattern can tell you about sequences of events in another place or century, is foreign territory

read the amalgamated interviews of kurt vonnegutliterature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.  thank you

12/3

this week i

rented a uhaul to havre de grace to center city to blackwood to brigantine.  aunt ro traded her guest bedroom furniture for the set joseph morinelli bought my mother on his cutter's salary, i passed out after the first pinocchio cuckoo clock scene with a stomach full of cheese steak and root beer

what do you want to do tonight?  recline.

did we tell you about the girl who dresses as a mermaid every day?

where's mauritania?
south of morocco, it was the last country to make slavery illegal
i guess someone had to be the last

 lit a morning bonfire in the weber

11/26

this week i

updated our estimates of the uninsured

spotted a dark-eyed junco

 

live through this convulsion of technology.  for 999,500 years, our species had been playing in the dirt.  we'd all been peasants and pursuants.  in the past 500 years, we've transitioned from a society where everybody hunts or harvests their own food into this new age of cultural complexity.  in the past 500 years, we've let go of thoughts about our next meal.  in this modernity, the security of a full belly has broken loose of our ability to fish or to farm.  for 999,500 years, humanity focused on solving one problem.  suddenly we've shifted to start solving all the others.  exciting to be here

read about mathematizing human behavior and psychographics.  to conquer humanity, artificial intelligence only need be smarter than humanity 

 everything, one day, might be predictable, and everyone, every human mind, simulated, each act anticipated, automatically, and even driven and directed, by targeted messages as unerring as missiles

if you're reading on a device, your reading behaviors will be correlated with those of multitudes of other people.  if someone who has a reading pattern similar to yours bought something after it was pitched in a particular way, then the odds become higher that you will get the same pitch

overlapped magellan's voyage at three points so far.  columbus visited the americas twice before western europeans confirmed a seaway to india

believe teeth the feature of our anatomy most likely responsible for our first realizations that the human body does not last forever.  if a manhattanite born 150 years ago walks fifth avenue today, they'd be less shocked by the crowds and bright lights than the share of the elderly

saw my father's obituary in print

Rocco D'Amico, child-welfare specialist

Rocco D'Amico, 77, a specialist in child-welfare systems who ran a consulting business as president of the Institute for Human Services Management, died Aug. 25 at his home in Bethesda, Md. The cause was hypertensive cardiovascular disease, said a son, Anthony D'Amico.  Mr. D'Amico was born in Philadelphia and had lived in the Washington area since 1964. He was a welfare systems specialist at what is now the Department of Health and Human Services, the Urban Institute and the American Rehabilitation Foundation before going into business for himself in 1981 as a consultant in such child welfare issues as foster care. He retired in 2008. 

 

11/19

this week i

published on the health of next year's privatized medicare and prescription drug marketplaces

answered gettysburg college alum brendan's call, he said thank you, we spoke 52 seconds, glad he called.  impersonal campaign, our smiles masked

ask to turn off the fire hydrant.  the american media gave this president the space for his voice to amplify.  throw him out of office, then off of the front pages.  our society hasn't yet figured out the guardrails needed for electronic dialogue, and so corporations driven by click metrics created this diseased deluge.  de-escalate the presence of disinformation in our daily media algorithms.  remove the liars, the bullshitters from the front pages.  never hold microphones in front of someone who you don't believe unless you're allowed to ask questions after every statement.  no god above truth

enjoy a life born of the american experiment.  "bronx" sounds like the contestant lost a gameshow noise.  birds of mid-atlantic childhood sound like

recall my parents' cocktail hour restaurant in the etcetera nightclub.  benson ordered lunch, my father confused hollandaise sauce with vichyssoise

cooked salmon tacos, in town for the coda of their first life outside portland.  do you have a rolling pin?  if not, we'll use a bottle of wine

paraphrase mitch hedberg: "i used to be awkward.  i still am awkward, but i used to be, too"  will aliens wrap up 2020?  cooper's hawk hello

read about silo trespassers in university and our transactional world

harvard economist raj chetty..demonstrated that at elite universities there are more students today from the top one percent than from the bottom 60 percent

much of the chinese labor force is close to slave labor.  free unions are not permitted, and norms of compliance bind workers to enterprises; a troublemaker who protests abusive working conditions risks dismissal or arrest

as louis brandeis was said to have remarked, "we may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both"

11/12

this week i

drove to harrisburg to knock on doors.  can't spell patriot without riot. mtk on c-span saturday night, h.r. mcmaster more personable than expected

every thirty seconds, a young latino becomes eligible to vote

saw lon chaney walkin with the queen.  this configuration keeps me up at night, maryland the original swing state.  curiosity the healthiest emotion

hiked hawk rock, where the juniata joins the susquehanna.   autumn the best season for the same reason friday afternoon the best time of week




tried out a laptop replacement.  unlikely my grandparents were born into homes with electricity, my father's first home lacked telephone

11/5

this week i

drove to the home of the peppermint pattie to knock on doors.  "fight test" by the flaming lips sounds like "father and son" covered by johnny cash




10/29

this week i

published the 22nd report on employer-sponsored health benefits plus journal article, coverage by wsj and nyt. share my birth year with the ppo

wonder how the human mind will evolve if we manipulate the body to live 1,000 years.  has there ever been a generation who were not existential?

celebrate huseyin's name on the home page of the british medical journal

spent an evening with jay, his work keeps showing up in my morning newspaper

watched catch me if you can - you're not a lutheran? and the enviable parties of the rich middle-aged in breakfast at tiffany's

 watched bicycle thieves to see the poverty my grandparents left behind

watched the great dictator.  charlie chaplin wore eyeliner and, in common with mugabe, a toothbrush moustache


10/22

this week i

published on vaccination rates among elderly americans, among white-breasted nuthatches, tufted titmice, madame downy woodpecker de la glycine

stayed with ben et laura for my father's southern new jersey memorial

flamingoes aren't native to rehoboth

a pear is halfway between a glass of water and an orange

never seen a bong at goodwill

you're petting the cat like he's a dog

veterinarian:  friskies?  you might as well feed her mcdonalds

vinegar is the first stage of fermentation, so apple cider vinegar is from the early stages whereas hard cider is later in the process

"fiber: solution dried polyester" free sample squares from home depot make excellent hipster household coasters

you'll come back in ten years and that orchid will be alive

if a giant just picked me up, i guess i would start licking their hand




read italian renaissance but rembrandt my favorite.  the first human we know what he looks like

an illusion of depth

every well-educated gentlemen should know how to draw

semicircular apses

resting on a lofty drum upheld by pendentives

the drunkenness of noah, detail of the sistine chapel

the epileptic boy



10/15

this week i

published on proposals to change to the affordable care act

re-watched in a lonely place.  there is no sacrifice too great for a chance at immortality

consider obsession at an early age the only way to alter human history.  ginsburg the first woman to lie in state at the capitol

read a short essay on advances in archaeology: against the portrayal of pre-1492 america as an untouched paradise..substantial evidence of indigenous landscape modification to argue that the human presence was perhaps more visible in 1492 than 1750

read oscar wilde's the soul of man under socialism.  felt of huey long's every man a king

property is really a nuisance

a few men who have had private means of their own, such as byron, shelley, browning, victor hugo, baudelaire, and others, have been able to realise their personality more or less completely

let the dead bury the dead

authority, by bribing people to conform, produces..over-fed barbarism

if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all

read the libertarian socialism page, our species currently testing the limits of culture, how societies cohere in new technology.  some answers ugly

libertarian socialism tends to deny the legitimacy of most forms of economically significant private property, viewing capitalist property relation as a form of domination that is antagonistic to individual freedom

a mistaken association of capitalism with libertarianism in the united states

against bolshevism

maximize free creativity in a society in preference to free enterprise

libertarian philosophy generally regard concentrations of power as sources of oppression that must be continually challenged and justified.  most libertarian socialists believe that when power is exercised as exemplified by the economic, social, or physical dominance of one individual over another, the burden of proof is always on the authoritarian to justify their action as legitimate when taken against its effect of narrowing the scope of human freedom.  libertarian socialists typically oppose rigid and stratified structures of authority, be they political, economic, or social

in opposition to jacobin centralisation of power

to date, the best-known examples of social anarchist societies are the free territory after the russian revolution, the korean people's association in manchuria and the anarchist territories of the spanish revolution

the limitation of property to individual needs

georgist ideas heavily influenced the politics of the early 20th century.  political parties that were formed based on georgist ideas include the commonwealth land party, the justice party of denmark, the henry george justice party and the single tax league.  several communities were also initiated with georgist principles during the height of the philosophy's popularity.  two such communities that still exist are arden, delaware, which was founded in 1900 by frank stephens and will price; and fairhope, alabama, which was founded in 1894 by the auspices of the fairhope single tax corporation.  christian anarchist leo tolstoy was enthused by the economic thinking of henry george, incorporating it approvingly into later works such as resurrection, the book that played a major factor in his excommunication

gandhi also had letter communication with christian anarchist leo tolstoy and saw himself as his disciple

groucho marxists

read izidor's story

served nearly inedible, watered-down food at long tables where naked children on benches banged their tin bowls.  he grew up in overcrowded rooms where his fellow orphans endlessly rocked, or punched themselves in the face, or shrieked.  out-of-control children were dosed with adult tranquilizers, administered through unsterilized needles, while many who fell ill received transfusions of unscreened blood.  hepatitis b and hiv/aids ravaged the romanian orphanages

christmas day..public execution..firing squad..communist dictator

read skinks lizards as pets

myth: skink bites reopen on the anniversary of their occurrence

you should absolutely avoid feeding your skink things like iceberg lettuce, which many people refer to as crunchy water.  instead, choose leafy greens that are full of nutrients, like romaine lettuce, spinach and collard greens.  if you have them available, your lizard will also enjoy things like kale and bok choy.  these vegetables are fairly high in iron, something that your lizard does need.  if you have issues remembering which vegetables are best, simply remember that the more colorful or dark the vegetable is, the more likely it is to be healthy for your skink.  you'll also find that your skink adores squash of all kinds, whether you are looking at acorn squash, stringy spaghetti squash or butternut squash

when it comes to fruit, there is a wide variety that your lizard will love.  basically, any fruit that you can pull out of the pile at the grocery store will work for you.  if you want to keep things basic, remember to offer your lizard a few grapes with each meal, or diced bites of apple or chunks of melons.  for something a little more exotic, look around for kiwi, papaya, and mango.  juicy fruits will also help you keep your lizard hydrated

never put a frozen mouse in a microwave.  due to the way the microwave heats water, it is possible that it will heat ice that may be inside a frozen mouse to the point where it can actually burn your
snake.  on top of that, you will also discover that mice warmed in a microwave can explode, causing an unpleasant mess

10/8

this week i

rented a weekend cabin at sugarloaf mountain






grilled a meal in my ancestral home



learned the word secondment.  jay de will be res rep ideally in 2020

remember that your enemies and your opposition do not have free will either 

read bill barr's first bush administration lame duck memo: the case for more incarceration.  be at peace, this fight never ends

  • lots of easy-to-agree-with statements that don't prove the thesis
  • switches between criminals and violent criminals
  • fails to compare the cost of incarceration against the cost of educational investment
  • snuffs out the symptom with a sledgehammer rather than addressing the cause

 i don't know anyone that goes to prison on their first crime

  • i don't know anyone that goes to prison, because i'm part of the 85% of the country with an active role in the legal economy
  • 1992 uniform crime reports defined rape victims as female only

 


10/1