Year: 2005

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: ‘If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.’ It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” – Steve Jobs, in an unusually good and moving commencement address.

“On the very same page you praise Senators Santorum and Durbin for co-sponsoring legislation banning puppy mills, you also lash out at House Republicans who have warned MLB on allowing a Soros-sponsored group to buy the Nationals. I don’t understand why the House Republicans are being “nosy” while Santorum and Durbin are praiseworthy. Sure, banning puppy mills sounds like a nice idea. But is it really a job for Congress? If Pennsylvania has a big puppy mill problem, then why can’t the Pennsylvania legislature solve it? Do we really need a national solution to this problem? Can’t imagine that we do. Seems like you’ve been sipping from the same tank of federalism-hypocrisy that those in Congress have been feasting on for years (you know, federalism is great when your side wins).” Fair point. I’d rather the states dealt with this rather than the federal government. But I’m impressed when two ideologically opposed senators can agree on something. It’s a little antacid for the current atmosphere in Washington.

“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.” – Governor George W. Bush, June 5, 1999, on the troops deployed to Kosovo under president Clinton. I should say I disagreed with Bush then and I disagree with his critics on a timetable now. Kosovo worked because of military force and perseverance. For all our mistakes, perseverance in Iraq – and no timetable for withdrawal – is our only responsible option now. I just hope the president tonight outlines a credible strategy for victory; and begins to re-shuffle the team that brought us into the current mess.

Here’s a story on the full context of those hideous Phelps protesters at a military funeral. The fallen hero wasn’t gay; but some on the far religious right believe that 9/11 was a legitimate rebuke to America’s toleration of homosexuality; and so they picket these funerals out of some kind of deranged fanaticism. I like this detail, though:

On the corner of a narrow street lined with Colonial-era buildings, the Kansas contingent tried shouting its anti-homosexual message at mourners who overflowed from the church. But every time demonstrators spoke out, the 14-man Boston Police Department bagpipe band broke into thunderous sound. “I thought that was cool,” said Day Newburg, 34, who stood outside the church with her husband, mother-in-law and 2-year-old daughter. “Those bagpipers drowned them right out.”

Best use of public funds in a long time. Small factoid: Phelps is a Democrat. But his loyalties are to the fringes of the religious right.

Hitch delivers a spot-on retort to those who claim or seem to claim that those of us who are not actually in uniform or who do not have sons to send into battle are somehow illegitimate as commentators or supporters or critics of the effort. The whole ploy is ludicrous. We have a volunteer army, that is directed, as it should be, by civilians. The military is answerable to people who have no military experience, because it is answerable – and should be accountable – to a civilian democracy. This isn’t Burma or Cuba. The rest is cheap shots.

An emailer with even more time to waste than the rest of us explains the flash mind-reader:

No matter which two-digit number you pick, adding the digits and subtracting from the original number will result in a factor of 9: 81, 72, 63, 54, 45, 36, 27, 18, or 9. (Go ahead and pick any two-digit number – it’s just one of those neat mathematical factoids.)
Go to the site and look at the symbols next to the numbers I’ve listed above – they’re all the same. The smart part about the flash mind reader, however, is that the symbols change every time you click “try again.” Again, those numbers listed above will always have the same symbol next to them, although the symbols will change from attempt to attempt.
In short – yes, it’s a huge waste of time, but at least now you aren’t one of those people clicking and clicking and clicking, wondering how a computer can read your mind.

Spoiler.

Santorum and Durbin co-sponsor a bill – to protect animal welfare. Good for both of them.

I don’t agree with everything in this op-ed (I still believe the Iraq war was worth fighting and is still eminently worth winning), but I share his despair on fiscal and moral matters.

It worked for me. Major time-waster, though.

A classic English obit of a classically English fellow, William Donaldson, a sexual compulsive who, under the pseudonym, Henry Root, wrote famous people hilarious letters of sympathy, reproof and sheer right-wing nuttiness, many of which were politely responded to. Root’s persona was a kind of John-Derbyshire-meets-Hugh-Hefner. He loved twitting the self-righteous:

He had an unerring eye for the approach which would rankle most with his recipients. Writing to Harriet Harman, then of “The National Council for so-called Civil Liberties”, he began: “I saw you on television the other night… Why should an attractive lass like you want to confuse her pretty little head with complicated matters of politics, jurisprudence, sociology and the so-called rights of man? Leave such considerations to us men, that’s my advice to you. A pretty girl like you should have settled down by now with a husband and a couple of kiddies.” If she must work, he continued, she should consider a career such as “that of model, actress, ballroom dancing instructor or newsreader”, before enclosing a pound for her to buy a pretty dress and urging the future MP to get in touch with “my friend Lord Delfont”.

No evidence of a reply. He was also the producer of the first British concert given by Bob Dylan. Some might brag about such hipness, long before Dylan was famous. Not Donaldson: “He [Dylan] was sitting in my office one day when I came back from lunch. I couldn’t get rid of the fucker.”