I was reading about the selling of a wedding chapel in Vegas for 12 million dollars. Who gets married in Vegas and at a place called “A Little White Chapel”? Famous people do and did tie the knot there in its 68 years of weddings. I was surprised by the first couple on the list of notables. The reason was that couple stayed together 50 years and were Hollywood A-Listers.
Continue reading “Married in Vegas”
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The title of this post is the conversion of 10-15-20-25-30 Celsius to Fahrenheit. It hit 20 degrees Celsius today which is 68 degrees Fahrenheit. It was wonderful! As you can see 5 degrees of Celsius is equal to 9 degrees of Fahrenheit. Just remember that 10 C is 50 F and conversions might go easier.
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There are two or three great anecdotes in this clip. I had no idea that Chris Mitchum, the son of Robert Mitchum, was black balled in Hollywood. He couldn’t get a job in the States.
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In the most corrupt state are the most laws.
I have heard this expressed as “Laws are for the lawless.” A law does not change a person’s heart. A law will make a bad person be more careful so they don’t get caught. In a sense a law is aspirational. It is how we hope society to be not how it is. How it gets to that good place takes more than a law.
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The most natural response for an animal in danger is to fight or flight. The cat backed into a corner hunches its back and starts to hiss. But if given an avenue of escape will often run away. I was thinking how does this happen online. Are you a fighter or a fleer?
My thinking is the Internet is an ever present danger. There have been high profile cases where a random tweet or uploaded video has caused a “storm” and job loss. They were not aware that in the world of triggered a China Syndrome Meltdown can happen and does happen. A few words can cause a seemingly global “hunching of backs and hissing”. It is a world that words mean what others want them to mean. The reader not the writer is in control.
I’ll stop* here and leave things for a lively discussion.
*BTW, are you someone who triggers or is triggered? Both? Do you know?
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I never knew about this company. It was the first company to sell ball point pens after the war and sold for $12.50 in 1945 at Gimbels. 5000 on the first day. Their famous catchphrase was “It writes underwater.”
(The video is in Hindi but you can make out the story. The company is in India now.)
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What is your dream trip? It can be a place you have gone to or wish to go to.
I would love to go to the moon for a short time. Seeing the earth from that distance would really make me think. Also it would be great to go somewhere without souvenir shops.
I would love to go to New Zealand again. I loved the food and driving on the “right side” of the road.
A few weeks back I would have said, “I want to go around the world on a ship.” but now I am not so sure.
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[I wish the photos were better.]
It is election day here. Before election day cars go around with loud speakers. The photos shows the cars of two candidates from the Jimintou Party. This is the same party as the Prime Minister Abe. The first picture is of Hirai Machiko. She is speaking across the street. She is the one in the sash. She is running for the city council and this is her third election. The second picture is for Kawabe Nobihiro. He is running for the Prefecture Assembly and is a new candidate. He is the one across the street wearing a sash. Both candidates are using their campaign cars’ loud speaker to amplify their speeches so I wanted to show you the set up.
(Sorry these web pages are in Japanese.)
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I was surprised (Well, I supposed not that much.) that a politician and acquaintance of one of our members would back away from the phrase “All Lives Matter”. See, that phrase got in the way of another phrase and that is a bad thing. As George Orwell so aptly put it to show this type of thinking.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
So when people are promoting “equality” one must remember to get “equality” right. Being equal is being racist. Fairness is injustice. And crazy is sane.
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I think the current generation doesn’t have the ability to be tolerant. Since they can’t handle different opinions they have to make anyone who disagrees with them evil. (Of course they don’t believe in evil but that is another post.) They quickly extrapolate things to the absurd.
Why are good people all of a sudden Nazi, racist, sexist, [blank]phobes, etc… ? I think it comes from a lack of maturity on the speakers part. It is the child saying, “I hate you.” because they didn’t get what they want. Or the child repeating words they have no idea the meaning of because they heard it some place.
This dumbing down of the pejorative comes from knowing truth matters less than optics. If you make your opponent have to explain they are not something they can’t explain what they are for. Time is wasted on their message. This is quite effective.
The final thing is people have a need to be noticed. If you don’t throw a tantrum and let loose all the bad words you know, you won’t be responded too. Tim Pool in a recent interview said, “Twitter rewards hate.” You will get more followers by shouting down someone than having a reasoned debate.
Hopefully, someday the pejoratives will not be used as verbal clutter like ahem, er, you know, and ah but be once again used to mean something. Maybe in the future a racist can be racist again not just someone you disagree with.
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It bothers me when people are kicked when they are down. People come out of the woodwork and say things that they were unwilling to say when the person was up. I guess it is time for them to even the score. It looks petty.
I sincerely doubt also when they write “I hope you get help” because I have the sense they are relishing the other person’s pain. It is a throw away line that seems out of place.
I understand that Bethany Mandel is an editor on a social media site. It saddens and angers me that she was not able to see what was meant to be a joke said tongue in cheek. To take things so literally is dumb. One has to read things in context and give the benefit of the doubt to the writer. One also has to check one’s biases. If you have had a run in with someone, it is easy to want to see things in the worst possible light. In other words, one can be a poor judge because of a personal conflict.
I think it is okay to go after a person. It is good to have a robust debate. Have it out in the open and let the other person respond. There is no need to kick someone when they are down.
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There are times in online discussions to step away from the keyboard and do something else. I think we all know this. (Usually after the fact.) I think we all know also that it can be very rude to tell somebody else to step away. Saying, “Calm down and chill out!” doesn’t usually help.
This post is different but somewhat related to what happened to Denise McAllister recently.
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I saw this show and saw it as a piece of history. “What’s My Line?” was special because the panel was more intelligent than the average show. There was a sense of taste with good manners. I laughed at the cheapness of the prize money and the “high tech” digital display.
Bennett Cerf was a publisher and one of the founders of Random House. I wonder how he ever landed a game show spot. He wouldn’t make it pass the focus group today.
The first guest was someone I knew about but had never seen in person.
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The title refers to Hanna-Barbera. I had no idea how much content this animation studio had put out till I saw this video. In the video there is a story of a would be killer of Fred Flintstone. I bet you won’t guess who that was.
(The video is about 20 minutes. For those who were hooked on these cartoons in youth it will be hard to stop watching it.)
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We live in a crazy time. People get triggered by such small things. Take for example “fireman”. Fireman is no longer the right word because it is not inclusive even though most fire fighters are men. That job requires strength which creation/evolution has given to the male of the species. No one expects line backers to be female, do they?
Why do people want to be Word Police. (Full disclosure, I am the guy on the site that wants to get away from coarse language.) I think there needs to be some minimal limits on the words we use but I am not for some “cop” writing tickets for going 4 miles over the speed limit. These “cops” are selecting enforcing these “4 mile per hour” tickets. It has more to do with “thinking wrong” and the “ticket” is an excuse to get rid of people.
I think these Word Police go after Hate Facts. If you state the facts and Word Police don’t like the facts, you are a hater. So the virtuous Word Police, brand people Haters because they want to have everyone be nice to each other. I wonder if they ever give Word Police an eye test or better yet an irony test.
“Open up! It’s the Word Police. You have the right to remain silent so shut up!”
Please share your ideas on what are rational and irrational limitations on words. Share any experiences of Word Police.
I think what most of these Word Police want is a neutered society and they will emasculate who they will. They hate Alphas.
I remember having an Internet fight about one should be careful about loaded words.
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