1614: Prediction

I predict that, given the chance, Mitch McConnell will do alllll the stuff Democrats can’t get Manchin/Sinema to do. He’s drooling and making a checklist, I guaran-fuckin’-tee.

5 pillars update

Trying to establish the (5) pillars of movie quality/watchability.

Newest one (maybe not a core one): breadth of appeal. Marvel Comics, documentaries, etc., versus Dietland. Kinda subjective, but objectively measurable. Ish.

Stephen King “Insomnia”. Old man and woman save cosmic marked child from Chaos.

“Similarities between loneliness and insomnia – how they both were insidious, cumulative, and divisive, the friends of despair and the enemies of love”…

“Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else.” :: Stephen King

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We the Silver Lining

After listening to the first episode of the Constitutional podcast, I saw a silver lining to the way slavery was originally approached. (I think. I’m in a hurry and need to re-listen before being definite.)

See, they set a time limit before the idea of slavery as a yea or nay could be opened again. Not a very morally appealing idea.

But.

It means that they were definitely qualifying the Constitution as a living document; you don’t say “we’ll deal with this later” on a document which is to be taken as gospel from its inception.

So anyone who uses the term “originalist”, or whatever the hell it means when you say that the Constitution in its original form is the true law, stare at this concept until you can logically reconcile it.

This Title is 524% Better Without Context

I’m going to advocate a new, completely voluntary guideline for articles related to economics, budgets, any topic which requires numbers: They should include a reference to an unrelated statistic which is of comparable dimensions to the numbers within the article.

So I was reading about immigration, and statistics related to the upcoming election and its rhetoric, and was zoning out – as I believe many of us do. Not ignoring the numbers willfully, nor subconsciously; simply allowing the numbers to slosh around inside this little information bubble, not connected to the outside world at all.

Then I remembered a little factoid I had come across earlier in the week, one which I hope anyone who reads this will keep in mind: Americans spent $653 million on hot sauce last year (emphasized for memory aid, not for actual emphasis).

“Freakonomics” had an introduction with a great demonstration of this idea in action. After spending a few paragraphs discussing the various amounts of money spent during elections (at the time, at least), the section was rounded off with the (paraphrased) statement, “the total $1 billion spent on elections is equal to the amount spent on bubble gum last year”.

Doesn’t that add a little perspective?

Imagine being able to, at least somewhat, make the connection between isolated numbers and reality. It may sound silly – but picture being able to use trivia to get a handle on budget numbers, or to realize exactly how much/how little is being spent nationally on a very important issue. Imagine the average reader realizing, really internalizing, the average CEO salary – and doing so because they have an idea to connect to.

I’m going to leave the idea unfinished, and open for discussion; initial enthusiasm is being undermined by a need to stare at a wall and think about things. Talk amongst yourselves.

Feel free to suggest a hashtag. My best off-the-cuff idea was “#relativestats”, which doesn’t really pop.

Life is Fire

Is there fire?

There are reactions: matter oxidizing, so rapidly that the released energy becomes new light and heat, changing the universe.

Where in this is “fire” that we know? That we can capture, isolate, analyze and measure? Children know fire, but science is ill equipped to describe this simple knowledge.

Fire is change, change so powerful that it takes on a presence. Fire is chemistry so bright that it demands a name.

We – the part that knows “we” – are not the chemistry set which ambles; we are the space between atoms, the change in the pattern, which cannot exist without context – but, in that context, must exist.

We are not the piles of matter which contain us – we are the Athena which springs up when physics has its way with that matter. Inseparable, but a thing apart.

We are the name for the change our existence demands of the universe.