Bill's Notes

A thought on the Northern Illinois school shooting. Some have suggested he's crazy, especially because he went off his meds.

Now, I know crazy. Crazy was my friend. And senator, that's not crazy. Why?

Because he brought a gun.

Crazy would've been to attempt the same kind of mass-murder, but without the gun or other weapon. Say, instead, he brought a bar of soap, jumped up on the auditorium stage, pointed the soap at people, and started yelling, "Bang bang bang you're dead."

That would be crazy.

Bringing a gun and shooting unarmed people -- um, that's not crazy. That's evil. There's a difference.

Won't you come to Florida for a vacation?
The tan developer beckons from the television
They know they got me because I'm an insomniac
Records, detergents, here's the latest Pontiac
The got me so conditioned now that
When they talk I just react
Why they throwing it all at me? (1)

OK, nasty bout of insomnia last night combined with severe deadline pressure but issue's done and I'm waiting on the proofs but I'm so punchy that I can't remember who am I.

I might be movin' to Montana soon
Just to raise me up a crop of Dental Floss Raisin' it up
Waxen it down
In a little white box
I can sell uptown
By myself I wouldn't
Have no boss,
But I'd be raisin' my lonely Dental Floss
Raisin' my lonely Dental Floss
Well I just might grow me some bees
But I'd leave the sweet stuff
For somebody else...(2)

So speaking of Vedanta, I'm riding this elevator coming up from having a smoke and it was cold inside but you know that's how it is in winter here. But I was having a smoke and occurs to me, you know, when you hurt someone, you screw up their future, you hurt them and it keeps hurting and it changes them and you can't really unchange it ... which is why the whole sin against God is a sin against an infinite being, that is, you've actually impacted His reality and there are consequences to that, His Being almight and all.

Tall building shake
Voices escape singing sad sad songs
Tuned to chords strung down your cheeks
Bitter melodies turning your orbit around (3)

Then I thought about someone who hurt me a long long time ago in this galaxy actually and it had nothing to do with taxes more like a really bad way of finding out something but I don't want to get that into it. And I thought how long I held onto the anger, you know, just held onto how what she did screwed up my future (now my past) and that really the forgiveness thing became really clear to me. Just really really clear, that is, the need to forgive. Just the whole cliched thing, but with clarity.

I pulled into Nazareth, I was feelin' about half past dead;
I just need some place where I can lay my head.
"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, and "No!", was all he said. (4)

And then it occurs to me, you know, if I weren't so damned tired I wouldn't have had that moment of clarity, and I remembered the Hindu teaching that when you're tired, not only are you weaker, but so are the evil spirits, too. If that makes any sense. That they weaken as you fatigue. Anyway, that's what them Vedanta wisdom-speakers say. And I think they're on to something because when I'm this tired I'm just not that into having a resentment. It's like, forgive everyone and why can't we all just get along and have some fun.

As the riders loped on by him he heard one call his name
If you want to save your soul from Hell a-riding on our range
Then cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride
Trying to catch the Devil's herd, across these endless skies (5)

Why all the stress you know? Why stress about it? Why can't we all just be cool, even us uncool? Wouldn't we all be happier if we could just take a nap?

Oh, it’s time for a nap now
Time for resting my head
Yes, it’s time for a nap now
Nice and comfy in bed
Feel my eyes getting drowsy
Time for counting some sheep
It’s such a perfect time to get some sleep. (6)

Footnotes
1. I'm So Anxious, Southside Johnny
2. Montana, Frank Zappa
3. Jesus, Etc., Wilco
4. The Weight, The Band
5. Ghostriders in the Sky, Johnny Cash
6. Naptime, Bert & Ernie from Sesame Street

From 2002 to 2004 I wrote a securities litigation newsletter. I knew the securities-litigation industry was a racket, but what I missed was all this backstory about one of the biggest securities-litigation firms. I even naively covered the story in my newsletter about William Lerach leaving Milberg Weiss.

Great. An analogous situation would be filing a story on Sept. 12, 2001 stating, "World Trade Center demolished." And leaving out the part about the airplanes.

Fortunately, my readers didn't care about this sort of inside-baseball. Still, I wish I'd had been aware.

Back in February 1999, I took a stand for all men: I refused to get my new girlfriend (at the time) flowers for Valentine's Day. I had several arguments, all of which are logical, coherent, true — and utterly irrelevant and wrongheaded.

Anyway, at the time, I was in earnest. I argued inter alia:

* Why are we celebrating one Catholic holiday (St. Valentine's Day) if not the others.

* It's a made-up Hallmark holiday

* "What's so special about Feb. 14? I can send you flowers on any day of the year, why should I have to get you flowers on this one day?"

That's when the women's union stepped up. Virtually every women in the office asked me, in utter disbelief, whether it was so. That I was NOT going to get J. flowers for Valentine's Day. That I was going to buck the women's union. That I really was going to grow old and alone and die after suffering a masturbation-induced heart attack. (Paraphrasing and reading between the lines a bit here.)

On the other hand, the men were completely sympathetic to my arguments, agreed completely, and let me hang out to dry. They all coughed up the cash for the flowers. Such sheeple, I thought. But they simply hinted, uh, you don't want to cross this line.

Boldly, across the line I went. Valentine's Day came and went and I didn't buy flowers for J., and she didn't dump me. So there, I thought. See? Women know who's boss. I am my own man, dammit, and no one tells IB Bill when to buy flowers.

The women didn't say anything ... just sorta looked my way as if to say, "Now you done it, boy. We warned you, we gave you the easy way out, but thou art truly pigheaded and must learn through suffering and tribulation what thou hath refused to hear with thine ears."

The consequences were not immediately apparent. Just a few comments here and there, peppered steadily through the year. J., to her credit, stayed on message, was never mean about it at all, just occasionally said in an innocent tone something along these lines, "I can get flowers any day of the year? Hmm, seems like that hasn't happened. Not today. Not last month. Not the month before that. They didn't seem to get here. Are you sure you can send me flowers any day of the year?" Drip, drip, drip, a maddening accumulation, and, well ...

The next year, I coughed up them flowers faster than anyone. Gladly paid the cash. I recognize a protection racket when I see one. But I didn't care. Call it peace insurance. Call it anti-sarcasm insurance. Call it anti-earworm insurance. Call it whatever you want. Just cough it up.

Bottom line: Realistically, women aren't asking that much. A dozen roses and a couple of inexpensive gifts in exchange for not turning into a harpy. Pay it, boys. Pay it and be glad. It's actually a pretty good deal for us.

I'm just saying.

Uno the Beagle wins Best in Show. My favorite comment is from Ace:
Uno the beagle doing the job most beagles won't do, which is sit still for 30 friggin seconds.

At Midwest Conservative Journal, Chris Johnson mentions the following statement as the epitaph for the Episcopal Church.

If this quote is accurate, the contest to determine what will be carved on the Episcopal Church's tombstone is officially over:

The Bishop of the Episcopal diocese of Los Angeles has issued an apology to Hindus worldwide for what he called "centuries-old acts of religious discrimination by Christians, including attempts to convert them" reports India Abroad. The apology was given in a statement read to over 100 Hindu spiritual leaders at a mass from Right Reverend J John Bruno. The ceremony started with a Hindu priestess blowing a conch shell three times and included sacred chants.

This meeting was the result of a dialogue, started three years ago, between Hindu leaders and Rev. Karen MacQueen, who was deeply influenced by Hindu Vedanta philosophy and opposes cultivating conversions. "There are enough Christians in the world," she said.

I left the following comment:

I, too, was deeply influenced by Vedanta Philosophy. To a certain extent, you can subsume a lot of Christian belief within it. That's one reason why it's extremely difficult to convert Hindus. Christ becomes an avatar of Vishnu, Christian faith becomes a yoga of devotion that leads to enlightenment, and all you have to do is focus almost entirely on mystical experiences.

I'm not explaining this well, but it is the faith that many liberal Episcopalians believe. It's important to note that they are not Christians in the traditional sense -- they are essentially Hindus working with Christian symbols and mystical practices. That's why I see this "liberal" Christianity as a separate religion altogether. It's basically hippie Buddhism (or Hinduism) dressed up in Christian clothes, and reinforces certain liberal precepts, especially tolerance.

Within this paradigm, Christianity is a much less sophisticated yoga (paths to God) than Eastern mysticism, but enlightened Westerners can increase that level of sophistication by removing certain benighted elements of Christianity.

Do you follow? Christianity is not Christianity because it's true, but because it tapped into a universal mystical spirit. In other words, God just went with it when Christianity was invented. In my case, I investigated Christianity, Christian mysticism, Christian mysticism within a Hindu context, a form of Hindu mysticism and eventually Zen Buddhism.

My conclusion was unexpected (for me): That the most orthodox Christian claims are true -- and that the rest, while containing powerful religious experiences, are coming from real spirits that are in opposition to the Spirit of Christ. I had to choose.

I think if liberal Episcopalians would really delve into both Vendanta and Christianity, they would find the same thing to be true. But instead they stay on the surface of both, without really investigating either. And as a result, they're patronizing and condescending to both. Does this make sense?

It can be difficult discussing this stuff since Hindu categories don't match up with Christian categories. For example, when Muslims and Christians argue, we are arguing for the most part in the same fundamental terms. But with Hindus/Buddhists and Christians, the categories not only don't overlap, Christian categories can be easily subsumed into Hindu ones. We are truly NOT speaking the same conceptual language in a dialogue with Hindus. My two cents.

Here's an interesting interpretation of a recent study that shows that Republicans are happier than Democrats.

I’ll propose another explanation: I think it’s likely that happy people are more likely to be Republicans, while unhappy people are more likely to be Democrats, for unhappiness gives one an incentive to seek change, and happiness an incentive to resist it. But the causal link goes in the other direction as well, for Republicans stress freedom and individual responsibility, which lead people to feel in control and take action that changes their lives for the better, while Democrats assign blame to institutions, which makes people feel powerless and discourages them from undertaking ameliorative courses of action.

I wouldn't push this reasoning too far or over-generalize. Dennis Kucinich, for example, seems like a happy guy, and he's as lefty as it gets.



That be his wife.

Overhead last night in a bar in rural Pennsylvania:

Clean-cut middle-age man: "Are Obama and Clinton the best the Democratic Party could do? They had all these good men running, and they picked the worst two. I mean, Obama? Are we really going to have a President Hussein?

"I haven't hurt Obama say one thing about what he'd do as president. Not one thing. It's all 'change, change, change.' Maybe what he really needs to do is change his shorts."

I laughed out loud.

As for the title. Obama* = Peron. (I'm half-kidding.)

Hopefully, the Obama mamas and the Clintonistas will destroy each other by or at the Democratic Convention.

* Obama's name calls for more amusing nicknames:
-- Supporters = Obama mamas
-- Bad Mama Obama
-- Phi Slamma Obama (need to repronounce the last name to rhyme with "slamma.")
-- President Hussein

It looks like Obama is gonna beat Hillary. Gulp. If he can take out the Clinton machine, he can beat us. I'm just saying ...

UPDATE: I guess what I'm getting at is Hillary, for all her flaws, will be a heck of a lot better president than Obama. Hillary is a bit lefty, but she's much more conservative than Obama. Barack would be the most liberal president in U.S. history. Look for really high taxes, lots of identity politics, much more welfare statism, and the support for abortion. Not to mention Obama would try things that Hillary would never try ...

God help us. Please let me be wrong -- 'bout everything.

Suddenly, I just got this sense that Obama's gonna win.

Hollywood still knows how to make westerns. 3:10 to Yuma -- great movie. One of the best I've seen in years. Lots of nuance, but plenty of tough guys lines worthy of Mickey Spillane. (That's a compliment.)

"And you just remember that your old man walked Ben Wade to that station when nobody else would."

Now, to see the original version.