Conspiracy Theorists

A lady I've seen a few times at work told me that there is only one explanation for the fact that there are two sets of water pipes under each house.  Clearly, the government is going to kill us all.

She says she knows this because governments lie.  Look at the Kennedy assassination cover-up.  Look at 9/11.


I don't know anything about plumbing.  But I think she is right that governments lie.  Of course governments lie.  You know why?  Because governments are made up of people.

People do what they think they have to do.  And after they feel that they've done that, people do what they think they can get away with.  After that, they might occasionally do the right thing.  But everybody is looking out for number one, even if they are looking out for everybody else.  If they're looking out for everybody else, it's because they think that's what they have to do, or they don't think they can get away without doing that.  Or, you've caught them at a time when they are actually willing to do the right thing.  Everybody does the right thing some time.

Just now I heard about a proposed smoking pan for public housing.  This makes me angry.  I hate the smell of smoke.  But how can a government keep people from doing something that is legal?  Things should be legal or they should be illegal.

For some reason, the word limit now means recommended minimum- when it comes to speed limits.  People all over the world break this law every single day.  I don't like speed limits.  But I think things should be either legal or illegal.  A 45 mile an hour speed limit shouldn't really mean that everybody should go at least 45.  But I think that's what it means to most people.

There are laws on the books against all sorts of things.  I don't understand a law when I read it, and I don't believe that legislators do either.  And they don't always read them.

A government should be about trying to do what's best for most of the people.  Who would benefit if pipes under our houses were filled with poison?  I'm not sure.  Don't the people in power need the people who aren't in power to pay their salaries, earn money for them, buy stuff from them and so forth?

I've heard that there are plans to poison the people with fluoride and various carcinogens.  And I've heard that pharmaceutical companies are in business to make more customers, not to cure them.  And it is very curious that a product filled with sugar, made up of many ingredients from around the world that were shipped and processed beyond recognition, then packed and shipped again around the world can be more expensive than something grown and merely shipped to the closest market.  But I've heard many things.  I guess there might be one group of people who want the poor to smoke- maybe those who own tobacco stocks- and one group who wants them to not smoke.  Maybe there's a group of people who profit from prisons and they think that illegal smoking in one's home would be a real easy way to fill up some more prisons.  Then there are the race baiters who want there to be a race war.

Who are these people?

And does each group know about the other?

I once was offended when someone told me that the Church had kept people from learning to read for hundreds of years.  I was taught that those hardworking scholars kept literacy alive.  But what's the difference?

I don't picture peasants banging on monastery doors demanding the knowledge of writing.  But I don't picture the issues people are up in arms about today as being the most important ones of our time, either.


Yes, there are people that want to come and take your guns.  There are also people who want to sell everyone guns.  And there is probably somebody who wants to give one out with every birth certificate.  We let so many people drive cars.  Those could certainly be effective weapons.  Every once in awhile somebody uses car crash statistics to tell us that something is really safer than it seems.  But I've yet heard anybody say that the oil industry is set up to keep the population down by providing traffic fatalities.  Hmmm.... I may be on to something.

Notes on Josephine Hart's The Stillest Day

I had no idea that an architect mentioned in Josephine's little fable was a real figure.  What a great name: Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.  I assumed she made it up to illustrate the layers of thought upon which the world of her story, like ours, is built.

There's the foundation of it, formed by Augustus- which once seemed so formal and stable.  The mighty empire- that was Rome and is now the West- was actually our veneer, not a solid base, but at the bottom of the whole thing like a carpet one rests the furniture upon.  It is really Greek thought seen through the eyes of Roman respectability tempered by Medieval piety distorted by looking back and calling it Christendom; having nothing whatever to do with Christ.  

Then there's Welby.  To some, that's the respectable doctor.  To others it's clearly a name that says London, rather than Londinium.  As a new Rome, and certainly not Constantinople- an errant excursion to the Orient takes you there...    you'd be better off near London.  Oversee the heathens you rule over from good 'ole jolly England.

Northmore- well, it's North- cold, covered in the hides of animals and protected from the dangerous sun of the tropic south where flesh is revealed outside of the bath where one keeps a towel on.  And it's more. Winter is here, where it should be.  Things are as they are.  After all, it has always been thus.  Or has it?

And then there's Pugin.  To me it sounds as dangerous as the flesh colored salmon; which is only okay for others, but not for oneself.

My Little Trump Tower

I was listening at TTB.org today, and catching up on yesterday's content.

Politics is making the rounds of casual conversation, since we are in debate season.  Two colleagues had actually listened to all that blather recently, or wanted to, but I can't watch it.  It makes me ill to hear people talk so much and say so little.  I can't stand being told that someone cares for our country when it's so obvious that they only care about themselves.  And last night I actually dreamed of Trump.  He wasn't in my dream, but I was so excited to go to his house.

In my dream, we received invitations to see the house that I've wanted to see since childhood, and there was an image of it on the envelopes and the invitation inside.  And in indisputable dream logic, I knew that if we returned our responses and accepted the invites we'd get back some golden ones, to keep as keepsakes forever and ever, and then be able to see the mansion itself.

We walked through the front door, and were shown in and ushered off to the left to see what we were told was Trump's room.  I was vaguely interested to see how he lived; much more interested in the mansion itself, and walked around what was actually his three-room suite which was so ordinary it could have been part of a duplex or motel room.  Everything was freshly painted grey or beige and looked as spartan and antiseptic as a mid-grade apartment a Realtor is showing you while smiling wanly.

Growing up across from Palm Beach, we would drive along the beach and look at the water on one side and the Mar-a-Lago tower and gates on the other.  Sometimes the gates were open, but I never got a good look at the house and I've also wanted to always see inside, and go up inside the tower and look out over the grounds and the ocean.

I've seen images of inside but only the gates and the tower show very well from the road.  I always liked the idea that up off the ground there are two statues of men pulling the gates open, and I wanted to see if they moved when the gates closed.  They were an interesting version of those ridiculous lawn jockeys that other poorer people used to mark their entrances.

When Trump bought it, I was a little surprised, because the home represented to me old money, and I didn't think of him in that way, but as nouveau riche; even though he, Saddam Hussein and Marjorie Merriweather Post could have shared a decorator.  But in the land of sound bytes, 30 years ago is old so he might be seen even as olde money now; having been rich for decades.

People see Trump as an outsider.  But I don't.  Politics and media and tv and everybody following make up a system in which he is a character.  But so are all the politicians.  Having been gone for years, J. Vernon said that the media brainwashes, whether it was behind the Iron Curtain or not.  "If you look at Washington today, you'll feel like giving up, or throwing up."  Boy do I ever.  I wonder what McGee would say today.

"I don't know about you, but I'm tired of the panel discussions of politicians, educators, military and athletes and the movie colony.  I don't think they have any message for us right now.  Perhaps you can hear the still small voice of God."

The problem with Christians is that they are confused when the laws of the land don't follow what they believe.  That's because we're all in the world and we don't want to have to work to not be of it.  I'm sure the world will turn out differently depending upon whom we elect to lead the United States.  But I don't think any of them will make it better.  We know Who to turn to if we want peace or justice or prosperity or true freedom.  

Lisa Blount as Chrystal

I recently watched Great Balls of Fire again, and I was struck by how well Winona Ryder played someone who she wasn't.  That's acting.  Some performances are overlooked because we don't know the distance between who an actor is and the role that they are playing.

Winona was once quoted, expressing this useless thought of critical audiences, by asking what the public wanted of her.  Did they want to see a girl play a Supreme Court justice?  Of course all her roles were girls, when she was one.  Now, she can play women.  But I doubt if she'll ever go back to playing girls.  Is that odd?  No, that's effective casting.    

Lisa Blount caught my eye in that movie, and then again as the star of Chrystal.  Thanks to imdb.com, I realized they were roles played by the same actress.

In the context of the film, time stops when she stands up and sings beautifully.  In the isolated clip, some of the luster isn't noticeable because this wasn't a music video, but part of an entire starring role that deserves to be appreciated and seen.

As often I do when I see a movie about the South or the country, I try to determine if the characters are being celebrated or scorned as bumpkins.  Chrystal is no bumpkin.

I noticed the accurate touch I can attest to that the pronunciation has a slight "sh" in it; inexplicably.  For some reason many same something like Kristchal.  Yes, they do.  I have no idea why.

Lawless (2012)

I'll resist the urge to call it Flawless, but I loved it.

What's up with the hair?  These guys have some serious haircuts, dude.  I don't know or care about accuracy- because they all have a great look.

I couldn't find pictures that show just how much contrast there is between the sections of their hair that are short and the sections that are long.  It gets to the point of ridiculousness when you see them from the back. They've taken the "put a bowl on your head and trim around it" idea to a new level.

The ladies on the other hand, don't spend nearly as much time on their hair.

The guys seem to have had an electric razor available after every take.  If only I still had a discernible hairline up front I could try something similar.  Is this remotely like hair was in the 1930s?  I think a lot of license was taken with the short in the back and on the sides look.

Since Thomas Hardy is one of my favorite authors, I'm not about to say that Tom Hardy is one of my favorite actors.  I'm just figuring out who he is.  But I'll say this.  Gary Oldman is one of my favorite actors and Tom Hardy did just as well in this film.  All the acting was great, in my opinion.


As long as we're talking about guys' hair, including Guy's hair, I'll mention Nick Cave.

The music was great.  The story was also.  I loved instantly recognizing Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson, thinking they weren't from that part of the country, and dismissing the thoughts as soon as they materialized because their voices were perfect choices.  When I heard Ralph Stanley, I knew we had a winner here.  The music carried the movie along, heightened the humor- and even created it; distilled the plot into legend and brought the tone to a true level.  I don't mean a realistic tone; but a true and artistic one.  The scenery was great too- even the kudzu which is too interesting to edit out of a movie, I suppose.  Like moss in the trees- it looks great and the only people who know it shouldn't be there won't care.

With one viewing, I didn't find an acting misstep.  I think it's extremely rare for me to feel that way, and it's not just because I like all these actors.  This movie has brought several of them to my attention.

I noticed an attempt to have the characters speak hillbilly, and not a more generic Southern accent or a country one.  It worked for me, but I know there are actors from all over who were attempting this.  They didn't fool me, but I'll go with it.  The film was shot in Georgia, and it shows- not that that's a bad thing.  But the accent wasn't Georgian.

Interesting to me, the music was spot on, just like in American Hustle- which didn't even play The Hustle, I don't think.  That film used songs I knew to bring me back to a world I remember, while this one brought me to one I had never seen.

Notes - 2 Quotes - From Edith Wharton's The Reef

p.43

That, among the people he frequented, was the usual attitude toward such opportunities.  There were too many, they were a nuisance, one had to defend one's self!  He even remembered wondering, at the moment, whether to a really fine taste the exceptional thing could ever become indifferent through habit; whether the appetite for beauty was so soon dulled that it could be kept alive only by privation.




This quote makes me think of today's rush toward the next thing.  We really do value our opinions and tastes as if they are not so easily shaped by opportunity and repetition.  We value them so much that we think we need to share them and even legislate them.  But our tastes are so malleable.  I often think of what I would have eaten if in the Olde World before the Age of Discovery without chocolate, tomatoes and potatoes. Well, obviously, I wouldn't have missed those thing and I would have liked others.  If you want to bring back the thrill of anything, just go without it for awhile.  The best cook is a hungry appetite.








p.180

"Don't think, please, that I'm casting the least reflection on Anna, or showing any want of sympathy for her, when I say that I consider her partly responsible for what's happened.  Anna is 'modern' - I believe that's what it's called when you read unsettling books and admire hideous pictures.  Indeed," Madame Chantelle continued, leaning confidentially forward, "I myself have always more or less lived in that atmosphere: my son, you know, was very revolutionary.  Only he didn't, of course, apply his ideas: they were purely intellectual.





Once again, I enjoyed reading about the characters' white lady problems.  The more cultured a person is, the bigger difference between what they say and what they mean.

I find myself skipping descriptions and moving on toward the dialogue when reading either of my three favorite authors.  Then I catch myself and go back to the descriptions.  Should I read plays?

In this quote we see a gulf between thinking and doing.  I wonder what the world was like when the only book was hallowed.

A Woman Who Changed the World

I was reading through a book that went through all of history and all around the world and listed the women who have changed it.  The usual suspects were there.  I saw Cleopatra and Queen Elizabeth I.  And there was a decided effort to add people who weren't Western.  One woman was in the book because she designed one building and then couldn't make it as an architect.

There are world-changers and then there are the rest of us.

Please, authors, just because you have a point of view, don't look back into history and find some obscure detail and pretend like it is important.  


The one film actor chosen was Greta Garbo.  The one pop singer was Bessie Smith.  I'm not sure who I would have chosen if I was writing this book.  As far as First Ladies go, there were two.  Jackie Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt were in the book; but after thinking about it, I think maybe Betty Ford changed the world more.  Many successful women have helped the cause of women or inspired others, but until Betty Ford, no one talked about addiction and now nobody can shut up about it.