Category: FWIW

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Sloppy Thinking

For many years I have heard Donne dunning my ears, but his catchy lil blank verse really borders on stupidity, though it does have bearing on so many folks’ hyper-engagement in “news” reporting of current events (see above reference to “stupidity”).

‘No Man is an Island’

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Pardon me while I both gag and throw the bullshit flag. Sure, in some theoretical way, the death of someone I do not know and never would have known “diminishes” me, but in reality? If someone dies and they are not at least a close acquaintance, I have no connection to them, and their death is something for their friends, family, and close acquaintances to be impacted by, not me.

Folks who get all “het up” over events that happen to others they have never even met are just borrowing troubles not their own and filling their lives with fake emotions. It’s the same sort of unhealthy behavior as being devoted to a professional sports team or idolizing some entertainer.

It’s stupid.

BTW, Donne’s death in no way impacted my life. I never knew him (of course) and I really DGARA when or how he died. His life impacted me mainly through my irritation at his stupid verse reproduced here. I would not have been “diminished” one whit had he never written this drivel.

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MMP-Wha?

I’ve taken the MMPI and MMPI-2 at different times, for different reasons (does, “For a lark” count as a reason?) and when the scoring comes back, it’s always a “Huh?!?”

Yeh, that’s what “Undifferentiated personality disorder” and other interpretive remarks (different “Huhs” at different times) all mean. The MMPI cannot classify me, except as “not normal.” I actually had one experience where the score interpreter (a p-sych grad student) told me I had been disingenuous on the test. He asked me to retake it and “play it straight” but got the same results, so threw them out of his pool. I’ve gotten that more than once–being thrown out of sample pools because I did not fit a preconceived model, sometimes in physical–lab test–results (blood lipids pseudo research in the 70s).

I’m fine with that, because I had classified myself as “not normal” way decades ago.

Other less detailed personality/p-sych inventories stumble around and place me somewhere on some contemporary “spectrum” or another, but all that means (since different inventories all say something different) is “You don’t fit our classification system. Go away.” *heh*

If one takes a bit of time and just sits down and browses through the DSM-IV, one soon realizes that EVERYONE is just a bit crazy–including oneself. Because p-sych cannot really classify human behavior1 like biology can classify species within a taxonomic system, but the DSM is great for creating billing classifications for insurance purposes. . . .

And finally, I suppose my fascination with Soren Kierkegaard is because a majority of the voices in my head find him so. 🙂

(Most Norms are scratching their heads and thinking, “Where did that come from?” *heh*)

1OK, gross classification is possible. Some behavior is clearly crazy, such as delusional behavior that is harmful to the one suffering the delusion–and to others. Some behavior. Most “disorders” in the DSM can be reclassified as simply “This makes Norms uncomfortable,” though, or “I need a billing class so I can keep this person as a cash cow.” *heh*

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The “Detroit” of US Territories

Puerto Rico is broken. It’s the US’s “corruptocratic third world county” territory.

Of course, a large part of the infrastructure issues resulted from years of neglect and graft (“repairs” and “maintenance” that have been more graft than actually effective maintenance and repairs to previous damage) resulting from “well-intentioned” leftist kakistocrats who, very naturally, have seen most of the benefits of decades of “feddle gummint” paternalism.

Puerto Rico is broken.. . and broke. It’s a look at the future of “Left Coast” Kalifornication” and has only missed being America’s Venezuela by means of sucking funds from the mainland.

Puerto Rico has wonderful natural resources and a people who are not afraid of working (as those who have worked on the “mainland” have demonstrated for decades). It’s not quite the “beggar sitting on a gold mine,” as the one-time reference to Mexico’s natural wealth once put it, but it is choked by bad governance.

The feds “broke” Puerto Rico, and now we own it. . .

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PSA–You Are Hereby Warned. . .

Reminder: my “scanable” medalert bracelet lists a SEVERE allergy to being repeatedly asked the same question. I’m serious. Don’t do it. It chaps my gizzard, makes me irritable, and results in raucous mocking of whatever doofus engages in the activity.

Thatisall.

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Good Sense Is Really Easy. Mocking Good sense Is Easier.

For years you have probably seen and heard folks mock “Duck and Cover” as a stupid response to a nuclear attack. Yeh, mocking good advice is really easy to do.

What? “Duck and Cover” is good advice?

Yep. But it takes someone who’s willing to stop, do their own homework, and actually think to recognize that, which is why I won’t do your homework and thinking for you.

I will say that Dean Ing’s fictional account of surviving a nuclear attack in Pulling Through (also here) might be one of the easiest pills to swallow to combat the infection of stupid mockery from those who have NOT done their own homework and who cannot (or will not) think.

Meanwhile,

Duck and Cover

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The Orville

The Orville is the “Sad Puppies” TV show: character and story, fuggetabout SJW issues and just focus on telling a story folks want to read/see/hear. It’s also as though Seth McFarlane has, as PART of show prep, read Holly Lisles’ “How to Write Suckitudinous Fiction” and taken it as a cautionary, not a prescriptive, as do so many books/movies/TV shows nowadays.

The Orville is all about, “We work in space! Cool!” and that lets the writers/producer/actors tell an engaging story without cramming a SJW POV down watchers’ throats.

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Appropriate Technology

For years I have seen all kinds of neat lil gadgets and hacks to aid in driving nails without smashing one’s fingers, and I chuckle at them all. The problem with hammering fingers from a missed hammer blow is caused by two factors: poor hammer technique and holding a nail “pinched” between one’s forefinger and thumb.

The “appropriate technology” for preventing smashed finger/thumb is present on almost everyone’s own hands. Simply turn the hand used to hold the nail for starting palm up and hold the nail between the index and middle fingers. Even if one misses the nail strike, a starter blow (should be a light tap) will not hit bone and fingernails directly but a cushion of flesh.

In the decades I have used this technique, since being shown by my paternal grandfather, I’ve not even had any noticeable bruising in the few times I’ve missed an initial hammer strike.

And yeh, few times. PRACTICE MAKES PERMANENT (or nearly so, at least). Practicing holding a hammer correctly, striking correctly, holding nails correctly: all these make for a much better experience, and not just in lessening injuries from missed initial hammer strikes but also in lessening fatigue during long (whatever “long” is to the user *heh*)sessions hammering nails.

Sometimes, the appropriate technology is right at the end of one’s arms.

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Bush Hogging

About once a month (or so–depends), when it reaches the stage where vigorous brushing doesn’t result in a manageable mass of hair, The Beard begs to be trimmed back. (Yeh, I anthropomorphize the thing. You live with one on and off–but almost entirely on–for 40+ years and darned if you don’t, too. *heh*)

Below, just after stage one of trimming: bush hogging.

Note the “stragglies” (and the flat affect; this is after only one cuppa joe, so available facial expression is very limited). Stragglies require careful attention from barber shears. That’ll wait until after I am fully caffeinated.

BTW, this is as self-identifying as any photo of me anywhere available to the web gets, save for my DL, and it, at least, has some minor (very minor; almost non-existent) limitations on access. Other photos of me on the web (see my favicon for example) are less helpful to those seeking my face, not that anyone not suffering from some sort of traumatic brain damage wants to do so.