Professor Moore Is Dead

Posted on 22 Apr 2017 by Frank Moraes

Will H Moore was a professor of Political Science at Arizona State University. On Wednesday, he posted Punched Out on his blog Will Opines. It was a shockingly calm and rational suicide note. I wasn’t even sure it was for real, but Inside Higher Ed confirmed that he had, Professor Shares Suicide Note on Blog. A friend sent it to me saying that she feared that it read rather too much like me and that I might some day do this.

It’s interesting to read the blog post because it is neither whiny nor sad. I suppose there is a certain amount of resignation in it. But it shows how a person’s situation isn’t what matters but how they experience it. Professor Moore even seems to understand that his suicide is the act of a privileged man. The blog post would be less ambiguously titled “clocked out,” because that’s what he’s doing — he’s done with life in the same way that a factory worker is done with a day of work. (He is explicit about this.)

To Write Is to Live

But the suicide note itself shows how different Moore is from me. I can’t imagine writing a suicide note. If I still have the will to communicate, then I will keep on. Just the same, much of what he wrote was chillingly familiar. But it seemed to be more me of a couple of decades ago. I spent a good decade of my life trying to kill myself through other means. And I survived in a way that has made me, I think, a better person. At least I can say this: I like myself more than the man I used to be. And more important: I like myself more now than I liked myself then.

Professor Moore mentions that on the Meyer-Briggs test, he always scored (IE)NTJ. That is: he was sometimes introverted and sometimes extroverted. N stands for intuition (vs sensing). T is for thinking (vs feeling). And J is for judgement (vs perception). When I was younger, I was a solid INTP, but over the years, my T score fell to the point where I am now solidly INFP. But I feel certain that I would have liked Moore. I have had a lot of (IE)NTJ friends over the years. They’re more grounded than I am. I suppose I add a little color to their lives and they add a little stability to mine.

Why Did Professor Moore Do It?

Put simply, Moore’s reason for suicide is that he needs to produce or he falls into depression. But in order to produce, he must interact with people, which he finds painful. He said that he was borderline autistic — having great difficulty understanding why other people acted as they do. This is the one place where I feel most distant from him. To me, the abyss is my friend. I think I’m somewhat like Emily Dickinson. I’d love to be well known and widely read; but I’m fine just producing for me, and when I’m gone, the abyss.

Of course, I don’t believe that this is why Professor Moore killed himself. I don’t think there are reasons. The drive is there and then we make up the reasons. But it certainly doesn’t seem like this is a momentary fancy on his part. Whatever private suffering he was experiencing, it is gone now. It’s sad for those who loved him. But the old Christian platitude is one that I fully accept because I think that death is simply the absence of suffering: he is in a better place now.

Image cropped from Professor Moore’s faculty page. Licensed under Fair Use.

Parchment Paper and Delicious Healthy Enchiladas

Posted on 03 Apr 2017 by James Fillmore

I have a few things to say about parchment paper. And it isn’t just that it isn’t wax paper.

Those of you who’ve poked around this site long enough know that Mr Curious likes to cook. He seems to be pretty good at it. And, as he would tell you, anyone can be! All it takes is practice. The more things you try making, the better you will become. You will learn which methods and shortcuts work best for you.

If you want to learn to cook and don’t know where to start, find a cookbook one of your relatives has lying around. Try making some dish you want to eat, but have never made before. (Avoid recipes with complicated-sounding steps or equipment you don’t have.) If you follow the recipe, the dish will turn out perfectly edible. You might make a mistake — it won’t poison anybody. (Unless it’s undercooked meat or spoiled vegetables.)

I heartily recommend Better Homes And Gardens cookbooks — preferably older ones.

Over time, you will rely less on recipes, using them more for ideas than as strict guidelines. The reason cooking is easier than singing or writing? You’re your own food critic! You know when something tastes good, and you’ll learn how to adjust a recipe to your tastebuds and cooking style.

The Fightin’ Side Of Me

How to adjust a recipe brings up my know-it-all side. Mr Curious has an all-but-ideal recipe for Potatoes au Gratin. Which is much easier to make than scalloped potatoes, and just as delicious, if not more.

Our chef correctly notes that the problem with potato dishes is they can be a mess to clean up. Potatoes are very starchy, and often stick to the cooking pan’s bottom under oven heat. The above recipe provides an elegant solution to this problem.

Unfortunately, the solution is wrong. I have the correct one!

Embedding “The Fightin’ Side of Me” does not imply approval of jingoistic lyrics.

Parchment Paper Does Everything Right

Parchment paper is a thick paper which does not burn at regular oven temperatures. (Under 400-425 °F, but probably safe for higher temperatures if you keep an eye on it.) It is generally used for baking bread or dessert items, to prevent them from sticking in the pan.

But you can use it for so much more! It’s ideally suited for anything being cooked in a rectangular glass casserole dish. If your cooking dish has a reusable plastic storage lid, you don’t even have to take your leftover food out! Just wait until it cools, put the lid on, and stick your leftovers right in the fridge. It won’t get the parchment paper soggy.

I’m not aware of anything that sticks to parchment paper. So cleanup is a cinch. Your food comes out easily, and your cookware is easy to rinse.

Worried about the waste of throwing out paper? Worry no more! Parchment paper is easier on the environment than aluminum foil, and it doesn’t come from factory farms like dairy fats. Wax paper, which is often used instead, has a petroleum-based coating and doesn’t work any better. Besides, you won’t be using parchment paper all the time — and, let’s face it, most people throw away a lot of paper products they should be recycling. (You can’t recycle used parchment paper, but you can compost it.)

A Healthy Delicious Enchilada Recipe

Now that the lecture’s over, let’s cook! You will need a baking dish (I use one that is 8.5"×13"), parchment paper, and the following food items:

1 block firm tofu
1 packet MILD dry taco seasoning mix
8-10 soft whole wheat tortillas, almost as wide across as your baking dish
2 cups enchilada sauce (canned, or packet mix with tomato paste and water)
Reduced-fat cheese of choice (see recipe for amount)

Instructions

Drain the tofu by pressing it with a dry, smooth cloth. Crumble the tofu into a bowl and stir in the seasoning mix. (You do not need to heat it or add water.) Now cover the bottom and sides of your baking dish with parchment paper.

Put some tofu in a tortilla. If you like, add shredded or thinly sliced cheese strips. Roll up the tortilla to be shaped like a long pipe. You want enough filling so that the rolled tortilla looks full inside. But you don’t want so much that the tofu spills out the ends when you roll it.

(If it’s not full enough or the tofu spills out, just unroll, add or remove tofu, and roll it again.)

Place each rolled tortilla in the baking dish, with the tortilla flap on the bottom (so it won’t unroll). If your baking dish isn’t long enough, don’t be afraid to smush the tortillas in there so they get tall and skinny.

Cover the tortillas in that enchilada sauce. Add more cheese on top if you like.

Bake, uncovered, at 350°F for 20 minutes, longer if the cheese on top isn’t melted to your satisfaction.

Recipe Notes

My spouse invented this tonight! Start to finish, it took about 45 minutes. I think it cost about $12. Refried beans would be cheaper and just as delicious, with only a little more fat and cooking time.

The taco seasoning flavor is strong, which is why I suggest using a packet labeled, “Mild.” You can also add half the packet to start, then taste a bite of tofu before adding more seasoning. You can save any seasoning you don’t use for later.

Of course, you can go the less-healthy route. I’m preaching the virtues of parchment paper, not nutrition. White flour tortillas roll up fine (not corn tortillas, though). You can crumbled beef, shredded chicken, or pork, anything you want can go in the tortillas. Pre-cooked bell peppers, onions, or cactus would be a tasty addition. (They would require more tortillas and a larger baking dish.)

And if you absolutely loathe reduced-fat cheese, by all means use the regular kind. Do not use nonfat cheese! Nonfat cheese doesn’t melt at all. It just gets dry. That’s fine for some things — But not enchiladas (or pizza)!

Afterword: Mr Curious Responds

Frank responded:

“I will certainly use parchment paper in the future. But the point of my Potatoes au Gratin bottom was not to make clean-up easier — even if this is a bonus. The point is to make the cheese at the bottom easy to cut into bite-sized pieces.

“Also, enchiladas don’t have to go alone. Normally, I serve enchiladas along with my refried beans and Spanish rice. It’s true: doing this does create an enormous amount of food. But I like all of this so much that I don’t have a problem eating it for a week straight.”

Image cropped from Enchiladas Suizas by Steve Dunham. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The Modern Willy Loman Has Simply Yielded to Power

Posted on 02 Apr 2017 by Frank Moraes

Death of a Salesman is an amazing play. Formally, there are many things I don’t like about it. I’m not keen on the use of flashbacks, to start. And I don’t like the standard theatrical drama. Yet unlike most of Shakespeare that I now find boring, I never tire of Death of a Salesman. And I think the reason for that is that the play is as relevant to American life today as it was in 1949. The modern Willy Loman is more tragic than the original.

When people analyze the play, they tend to focus on Willy Loman’s delusions. But I don’t think he’s delusional at all. I think he understands the society that he lives in. And he understands that he is one of its losers. What makes him fascinating is that he tries to cover. His ideas about what it takes to be successful are really just bravado. After all, what does it mean to say, “He’s liked but not well-liked”? That’s an astrology-level of explanation — there to prove absolutely anything at all.

Willy Loman Was Self-Aware

But under this bravado is the understanding that Willy just hasn’t had the kind of luck that leads to the kind of life that he thinks would represent success. And here, my focus is not on Willy’s environment, but on who Willy is. He’s limited in his thinking. He’s leveraged his one talent — an appealing, outgoing personality — into a reasonably successful sales career. But with age, his charm has declined to the point where he is fired.

I come back again and again to something that David Foster Wallace (PDF) wrote:

There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship … is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things … then you will never have enough … Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. … Worship power — you will end up feeling weak and afraid … Worship your intellect … — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

The Modern Willy Loman Has Crammed the Truth Deep

What I fear most about modern American life is that the people who worship power are not self-aware enough to feel weak. The people who worship beauty don’t feel ugly. The people who worship intellect don’t feel stupid. Understand: they still act the same way. That’s why the millionaire is always a million away from happiness while the billionaire is always a billion away. But as a society, we manage to stuff these truths so deep that we rarely if ever grapple with them.

This isn’t some kind of law of nature. This is a law of our political, economic, and legal system, which is designed by the powerful to protect themselves.

Willy Loman spends all of Death of a Salesman grappling with this truth. Many people who analyze the play contend that he was never a good salesman. That’s nonsense. He’s been at the same company for 34 years. At the time of the play, that means, he’s been working for the same company since 1915 — that he managed to sell his way through the Great Depression. This is a man who was good at his job — maybe even great. But he’s forced to grapple with his idea that being charming and hard-working is all it takes to succeed as he gets older and therefore less charming and less able to work hard.

The Death of the American Dream

Today, people have turned against the idea of the American Dream — even as idiosyncratic as the idea always was. Now they see things the way pre-industrialism royalists did. You just are or aren’t a success. Of sure, as a society, we continue the pretense. We have people like Daymond John[1] to do a turn on the red carpet so that no one gets any ideas like that maybe all that really matters is who your parents were. But even though we’ve stuffed it really deep, we know the truth: all that really matters is who your parents were.

Willy Loman Has Given Up

This isn’t some kind of law of nature. This is a law of our political, economic, and legal system, which is designed by the powerful to protect themselves. The problem is the system itself. But Willy Loman at least reflects on his place in the system (regardless of how feebly). Today, people seem to be suffering from learned helplessness. They just accept their lot in life because they have no memory of a time when they had any control.

In 1949, it was Death of a Salesman. Today, it is “Salesman Becomes Walmart Greeter, Works Part-Time at McDonald’s in Retirement.” And it’s not a life-action film; it’s a Lego animation.

[1] And note that John was hardly the son of a crack addict. He grew up in a fairly stable household and went to a good high school.

Willy Loman on cover of Death of a Salesman taken from Wikipedia. Licensed under Fair use.

CGI: an Interface Not a Programming Language

Posted on 31 Mar 2017 by Frank Moraes

CGI is not a computer language, and you can date me by the fact that I’m going to rant about it for a few hundred words. That’s because I set up my first web server in 1993. It was on an IBM RS/6000 named Eeyore which sat right on the internet. It was a time when the internet was basically Usenet (eg, rec.arts.startrek) and annonymous FTP for people who knew anything and AOL for their parents. The funny thing is, for most people not much has changed. Then the internet was AOL and now the internet is Facebook. At least it is for most people.

In 1993, there wasn’t much you could do with web pages. It was cool. You could put pictures on pages. You could have section headers and paragraphs. Text could be bold and italics. And there were lists and forms. But there was no interactive content — except with CGI. CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface. And it was a way to run programs remotely through your web browser. In theory, you could create a content management system using CGI.

But what was really cool about CGI was that it was, as its name indicates, an interface. I wrote a bunch of CGI programs. Some of them were compiled C programs, other were shell scripts, and still others were Perl scripts. It didn’t matter. As long as the web server could run the programs, and the programs were written to receive and transmit data correctly, you were golden.

CGI: Time Waster

Now you might wonder why I was writing these things. There’s a simple answer: I was a graduate student. And unless you are less than six months from defending your dissertation, finding ways to not do your work is critically important. I did many other things along these lines: I wrote a graphic program for X-Windows, I wrote an editor in 8086 assembly language, and I did a lot of really destructive things what I will say with complete humility was due to my genius for digital electronics.

I didn’t know anyone who was running a web server for a few months. So messing around with CGI was just play for me. Truthfully, at the time, GNU/Linux seemed like a much more serious thing. And by the time Netscape came around and made the web a much more serious thing, I was finishing my dissertation and then teaching pre-meds physics. (That was a scarring experience because I now know that doctors are (1) mentally insignificant; and (2) soulless.)

People Don’t Know Anything

The world can be forgiven for thinking that CGI is a programming language. Because what we used to do with CGI we now do with programming languages like PHP. But it still annoys me. Most things about computers annoy me. What cars were to my father’s generation, computers are for mine. As simple tools, they’re fine. It doesn’t matter. I remember one time I was an undergraduate doing some work for a research faculty member. I couldn’t leave a note because I didn’t have a word processor, so I wrote a really rudimentary one that allowed me to output to the printer. It’s better to just have a word processor.

Just the same, if you’re into computers on a deeper level, it seems to me that you ought to know how a CPU works. You should know what the difference is between a heap and a stack. You should know what a line of Pascal code would look like in assembly language. But I know that’s asking too much. Almost no one knows why the moon has phases. We’ve all become so specialized that should there ever be even the smallest tremor in our social networks, we’d be doomed.

Meaning Requires Knowledge

It’s no wonder people struggle to find meaning in their lives. Every thing in their lives is a black box.

But I’m grumpy enough. Don’t tell me CGI is a programming language.

Image cropped from Black and White Box Fundal by Alex Borland. It is in the public domain.

How Do We Help the Mentally Ill? How About Ourselves?

Posted on 03 Mar 2017 by Frank Moraes

I had a very disturbing — and ultimately sad — experience yesterday with an young mentally ill woman.

A Family Walk

I was with my sister, and we were visiting my niece and great-nephew. We were taking a walk to the park where we were going to have lunch. Now, my niece lives in very poor area with a lot of recent immigrants. There’s also a lot of drug dealing and other illegal activities going on, if you want to look carefully enough to notice.

As we walked down the sidewalk, we passed by a young woman who was focused very intently on the street. I figured she was waiting for a connection or something. So I didn’t think much about her. But as we cross the street, I noticed that the woman was now following us.

The Mentally Ill Woman

This could have been just a coincidence, but the woman was following rather closer than made me comfortable. As we crossed the bridge that went over the nearby creek, my sister decided to stop and look at the water. As we all stopped — including me with the baby in the stroller — the young woman stopped and waited uncomfortably until we continued on.

Then she continued to follow us.

At that point, I stopped and motioned, in a friendly manner, for her to go around us. As our eyes met, I could see a combination of confusion and terror. She started to move past us, but then shook her head, turned around and left in the opposite direction. She never said a word, although as she left, she seemed to be asking for permission.

The reason I asked her to go around us was that I didn’t know what was going on. Having a baby, I figured it was best to confront the situation straight on. I was pretty sure I was dealing with a mentally ill person at that point. And it is generally better, if possible, to define the reality of the situation rather than to leave it to their minds.

Helping the Mentally Ill

But it was heartbreaking. The woman was lost in most senses of the word. And even though a mentally ill person can change on a dime from nonthreatening and needy to menacing and violent, I still felt that I wanted to do something to help her.

Most people are, understandably, afraid of the mentally ill. They are unpredictable. Just the same, they are far more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators. She not only seemed like someone who was likely to become a victim, she seemed like she had already been a victims many times before.

My Own Confusion and Fear

When we returned, she was gone. I hope that she has a caretaker and that there was just a temporary mix-up that found her confused on the street. I wish I had done more at the time. My focus was on the protection of the baby. But looking back now, it’s hard to see that this young woman wasn’t badly in need of protection, and in as much as she was capable, asking for it.

It’s hard to know what to do to help the mentally ill. Going back at least to “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” we know that when you don’t share the same reality, it can be impossible.

But all last night, her face — the confusion, the terror — haunted me. I was in a position to help her, but I didn’t — because of my own confusion and fear. There has got to be a better way for a society to work. There must be some way to encourage the best things in my personality and discourage the worst.

I feel that yesterday, the worst aspects won out without the best aspects even showing up for the fight.

Homeless Woman With Dogs by Franco Folini. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Observe the Writer in Its Unnatural Habitat

Posted on 26 Feb 2017 by James Fillmore

Anybody out there want a free vacation? Plane tickets, hotel room, and $80 per diem included? Plus a nice $2,500 check?!

Well, all you have to do is win the Mall Of America’s “Writer-in-Residence” contest.

The Mall of America — pride of Bloomington, Minnesota — is turning 25 this year, and they’re looking for writers to capture that undefinable “Mall atmosphere.” (Um, it’s a mall.)

Submit your 150-word proposal at contest page before 10 March 2017. No previous publishing experience is required. And be creative! As the entry page says, “Heck, if you can make the assignment work as a musical-comedy screenplay, by all means make it so!”

Selected semifinalists will advance to an elimination round, amping their proposal up to a daunting 500-800 words. That’s around 50 Tweets, but life is full of challenges. Be brave.

The Mall of America Gig

So what, exactly, is the “in residence” part? I’m glad you asked. That’s where the real fun begins. You get five eight-hour days hanging around the Mall, and you are supposed to write about it. Not in some corner office! Oh, no. Here’s how it works — from the Official Contest Rules page (PDF):

Winner’s workspace will be located in a common area space within Mall of America. The core daily work hours will be 11:00 am to 7:00 pm. While the Winner will be encouraged to take breaks from writing to explore the Mall, post on social media, eat and find inspiration, the Winner will need to be physically present at the writer’s desk for no fewer than four (4) hours per day. The Winner’s ongoing work may be displayed in almost-real time on a large monitor at the workspace.

The work product may scroll continuously throughout the day for passersby to view. Content will not be displayed on the monitor until it has been submitted by the Winner and approved by a Mall of America Marketing representative. The Winner must submit new content of no less than 150 words, to be displayed on the monitor at three (3) mutually agreed upon times each day. Winner’s written work must not be inaccurate, derogatory, incompatible with, inconsistent with, or otherwise contradictory to the Mall of America’s desired presentation of the Mall or the patrons, tenants, licensees, invitees, or employees of the Mall.

Essentially, it’s a zoo with one animal: the lone ad copy writer in its unnatural habitat. Parents can bring their children to observe the writer as it types, stares blankly, types, stares blankly. “Look, Billie, it’s going to forage for food!” I’m tempted to apply for this, but unlike a zoo chimpanzee, I would not be allowed to fling poo.

What Would Be a Good Mall Story?

If you didn’t have to write ad copy, there’s lots of interesting people at malls. The workers, for one: security guards, janitorial staff, those unfortunate young women working at Hot Dog on a Stick. Obvious tourists (although the Mall isn’t as big a draw for them as it was back when). Teenagers with nothing else to do.

There are also old folks, in almost every large shopping mall, who go walking in the morning before stores open. I don’t know which mall started this, but it’s pretty common. It’s a way for the seniors to get some exercise on a surface which is smooth, under climate controlled conditions, and without crowds knocking them over. They’ll usually finish their walk at some little store where they can get coffee and doughnuts. Those are interesting people; I’ve met a few.

Where Have All the (Ad Copy) Writers Gone?

But ad copy? Are ad writers so lousy now you need an open contest to find any new ideas? Malls are surrealistically creepy, and always were — that was their appeal, once they spread like gangrene. Ooh, check out the pus, it’s so strange! Capitalism made blatant, with only the feeblest attempts to resemble anything human — a sad tree here, some soothing music there.

To go biblical, these contest runners are desperately trying to pour new wine into old wineskins. Reanimating an abomination that never should have existed at all.

My Personal Mall Story

Naturally, being a Minnesotan, I have been to the Mall many times. One time, I went to go see a movie. Mall of America has got movie theaters, kiddie rides, bars, the whole deal — just like most mega-malls.

A while before, a friend had given me some marijuana brownies he’d made from homegrown weed. On my movie trip, I was riding the bus, planning on munching popcorn, and I thought this was the perfect time to eat those brownies.

I got to the Mall a bit earlier than planned, and the brownies were kicking in. Very strongly. So I decided to hang out in a sporting-goods shop. I like sports uniforms; they freak me out less than the garish stuff sold in most stores.

I saw a Minnesota Twins jersey I suddenly, really, wanted. I almost bought it. Then I remembered — there was another, competing sporting goods store about 300 feet away. I thought I should comparison shop. So I noted the price and headed for the other store.

The other store had a similar jersey, and I almost bought that one. Until I remembered I’d come there to comparison shop. What was the price in that other store? I’d forgotten.

You can see where this is going. I wandered between those stores — perhaps five times each. Finally I realized it was time for the movie, I was way too high to comparison shop, and I should just buy the damn jersey. Which I still have. Consumerism!

Think Outside The Box, While Inside a Box!

Come up with a musical-comedy screenplay. Or why not a comedy routine? A sarcastic, hipster slag on anyone insufficiently cool to realize how cool the Mall is? Everything is permitted. Nothing is forbidden. Assuming approval from Mall of America Marketing, of course.

I remember, during our high school graduation ceremony, the outgoing principal giving a speech about creativity. Don’t be afraid to dare new ideas, he said. Think different. Be a rebel. This contradicted every authoritarian ruling he’d decreed during my years at school, in a way. But in another way, it didn’t.

Think differently — for money. Be creative, dare to dream — for money. Change the world — for money.

So, have at the contest, folks! Be the zoo writer! Be innovative and new! Just keep in mind:

Contestant acknowledges and agrees that Sponsor may use Submission without the approval of Contestant throughout the world, an unlimited number of times, in perpetuity in any and all media, now known or hereafter invented.

That’s true even if you don’t win. But hey, you get a chance to write in your cage for five days.

Image derived from Mall of America by Alne. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Dark and Silent

Posted on 21 Feb 2017 by Frank Moraes

This is a prose poem I wrote back in 2010. It is the last poem that I’ve written. What I find shocking about it is that it isn’t bad. It isn’t great. I’m not a poet.

I don’t have the patience for it. Every poem I’ve ever written contains parts that don’t quite work. I think the change in tone of “It allows me” is too abrupt. But I could work days on that problem and never solve it. People think writing poetry is easy because there aren’t many words. It’s quite the opposite.

What I doubtless most like about this poem is how it sums up my intellectual loneliness. The people of my intellectual caliber are not interested in the things I am interested in, and the people who are interested in what I am interested in are so far beyond me that I can learn from them but not share with them.

On the plus side, I feel infinitely more cheerful than I did when I wrote this. But the questions do remain.

It is dark here. The moon but a sliver sharp enough to sew. I see it reflected clearly on the lake — its surface calmer than stretched linen. And silent. Even, it seems, the raccoons are gone. Field mice a distant memory. My only light — shining down on The Passionate Shepherd to His Love from page 18 of The English Reader — escaping my windows into the vacuum of night. It allows me to notice the missing sixth stanza; the different, inferior source; the modernized language. And I wonder: did I travel so long to get here? To reread poems I have memorized? To quibble dumb with editors over what every literate person needs to know? To accept the dark — the silence? This is where my long journey has led? My greatest hopes that wildlife return to scratching and the new moon to full?

Image cropped from Lake Night Boot Silent from Max Pixel. It is in the public domain.

Problem with Funny Business Names

Posted on 16 Feb 2017 by Frank Moraes

I hate “funny” business names. They are usually puns. For example, here in the Bay Area, we have Site for Sore Eyes Optical Store. Look: I get it. When I first saw there was an eye doctor named “site for sore eyes,” I thought it was amusing. And there are other ones that I’ve thought were fairly clever. There’s the sporting goods store (Guess what they specialize in!) called “The Merchant of Tennis.” Or the “Church of Cod” with a little Jesus Fish symbol. Or best of all a fish & chips place called “A Salt & Battery.” Clever names all!

And then there are names that while clever are just a bad idea. There’s the hair salon named “Cubic Hair.” And the ice cream shop called “The Sweet Dairy-Air.” And most of all, the fishing supply shop “Master Bait & Tackle.” In addition to these all being coarse, they don’t make sense. What exactly do pubic hair, derriere, and masturbate have to do with what they’re selling. (If you know, please don’t tell me.)

This all came up because Will told me about a routine by comedian Brian Regan. Here is the routine that someone shot off a TV:

The problem with these clever names is that they are only ever clever once. After that, at least for me, they become annoying. What’s more, it reminds me of a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They are all going to head to Camelot. Then there is a musical number with knights at Camelot dancing arm in arm. Finally, King Arthur says, “On second thought, let’s not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.” And that’s what I think of when I see an ad for Site for Sore Eyes. Do I really want to trust my eyes to such silly people? (Of course, I know intellectually that this isn’t the case, but gut reactions matter regardless of what many think.)

So if you come up with a really clever name for a dry cleaning business, I hope you are a comedy writer and not dry cleaner:

Afterword

There are, of course, truly great names that are clever, coarse, and effective. The best example is French Connection UK, better known as FCUK. But that works especially well because it flatters their customer demographic about offending their non-demographic.

Alternately, some names work as a pun or not. A good example of this is Book Passage, a book store just down the road from me. But notice, it isn’t meant to be funny. It is just meant to be taken in a number of ways, each of which are appropriate to the business. It is also a great book store.

Conservative Mum: Portrait of a Serial Troll

Posted on 24 Jan 2017 by Frank Moraes

Yesterday morning, I started getting a series of tweets from someone calling themselves Conservative Mum — who I assume is who she says she is. I ignored the first one. It was a link to Elizabeth’s most recent post about the Phoenix Women’s March. Conservative Mum added, “What a pathetic show of stupidity- NOTHING was stolen from you triggered freaks.” It’s bizarre. What does the march, much less the article have to do with anything stolen? And “triggered freaks” just scream, “I listen to hate radio! I never talk to actual liberals except to yell at them!” I know the type.

But I looked on her main page. The header is of a gaudy sunset with the sun’s light as God and “BLESS YOU” display (but cropped because Conservative Mum has important trolling to do and can’t be bothered to set up her page properly. The point is clear: she is Real Christian™. But in case you were wondering, instead of a picture of her, there was an image that tells us, “The only Difference Between a Radical and a Moderate Muslim is… The distance they place between themselves and the bomb..” (All formatting errors in original.) It is a terrible crop of a cartoon stolen from Conservative Papers.

Can you feel the Christian the love, brothers and sisters?! Can I get an “amen”?! Here is her Twitter description in full, exactly as it is formatted:

Historian/Archeology/Ancient Lit. Mum of 3, Libs don’t waste your Alinsky spew on me-Christian does NOT =Won’t fight tooth & nail against EVIL List=BLOCK

Conservative Mum: American, British, or Professional Troll?

There is no location listed, but she claims to be an America. She does, however, use words like “mum” and “arse” that are more associated with the British. This could certainly be an indication that Conservative Mum is a professional troll, but I think it is more likely just some woman who immigrated here. There are two obvious possibilities. Some people leave the UK because they think it is too liberal (socialist). Also: immigrants to this country are often trapped by conservative rhetoric, because it does sound good. The problem is that the Republican Party is not at all interested in what they claim to be interested in.

Twitter Trolling Expands

Despite my silence on her first tweet, she couldn’t leave it alone. I soon got this one:

Rats (and Richard Dawkins) Making Me Hate Men https://t.co/DEirIkFZSU via @CuriousFrankly Stupidity and insanity are "making you hate men"

— Conservative Mum (@tigjm) January 23, 2017

I don’t care that there are people out there who hate me or think whatever about me. One thing that age has brought is a very clear sense of who I am. I’m not stupid and I’m not insane. But I don’t care that Conservative Mum thinks I am. Just the same, I’m not keen on such people wasting my time. So I tweeted back to her far more politely than she deserved, “What did I ever do to you? Did I make you visit my site? Did I tweet insults at you? Please leave me out of your trolling.” Instead of simply going on her merry, she tweeted back:

I'm not trolling- YOU put disgusting LIES out there- So you opened the convo. Sweetie. Now don't cry- Go find your safe space Cupcake https://t.co/7extW5SGnU

— Conservative Mum (@tigjm) January 23, 2017

My Disgusting Lies

That made me a bit angry. What disgusting lies am I putting out there? This wasn’t a conversation, it was a rage therapy session for this pathetic woman. I tweeted back to her, “By your tweets, you’re a vile human being. I feel that Christian love radiating from you.” And then I blocked her. But she followed up with this, obviously not intended for me but just to get her rage out:

You got it pussified cupcake- Don't try the Alinksy it doesn't work with me- Being a Christian-doesn't mean backing down to feral evils https://t.co/hrnhjO3Fsx

— Conservative Mum (@tigjm) January 23, 2017

Real Men

This is actually why I am writing about this. I know what she means by “pussified.” She likely thinks it the ultimate insult. But what she’s clearly thinking is that “real” men are of the type so insightfully and brilliantly analyzed by David Futrelle. To me, the archetypes of real American manhood are Rick in Casablanca and Jake in The Sun Also Rises. These are men who are comfortable with themselves. They aren’t men who run around whining that they could get a girlfriend if only the feminazis hadn’t poisoned modern women.

I happen to be a rather typical male myself — much more Jake and Rick — but even more like Don Quixote, having something of an insane chivalric code that I live by. What I most definitely don’t share with the stereotype of the Real American Man™ is any need to prove my manliness. Because Rick, Jake, or anyone else doesn’t define what it is to be real man; I do; and so does every other man who is confident enough to be himself and not some meaningless stereotype.

The Hollow Life of Conservative Mum

I am truly sorry for Conservative Mum. She’s a Trump supporter. Good for her! But instead of being happy that her candidate won the election, her twitter feed is filled with bile. If you can’t be happy in triumph, when can you be happy? Of course, I’m sure that Conservative Mum would tell me she is happy — she’s just fighting the good fight, “Christian doesn’t mean backing down to feral evils”! But I don’t buy that. I analyze because it is my nature. She trolls because she has found a voice. The problem is, it is such a cliche that it can’t possibly be authentic.

Lou Reed wrote the following about heroin addiction, but it applies just as well to trolling addiction:

You know, some people got no choice, and they can never find a voice to talk with that they can even call their own. So the first thing that they see that allows them the right to be, why they follow it. You know, it’s called bad luck.

It Takes More Than 140 Characters

Bad luck indeed. Conservative Mum would be welcome to comment here. But I doubt she would have any more to say than the slogans and bile that fit so well in 140 characters. Two references to Saul Alinsky! His name has only showed up 3 times in 8,000 articles on this site. And every time his name did come up, it was in reference to conservatives’ obsession with him. I’ve never read Rules for Radicals. Of course, I’m sure Conservative Mum hasn’t either. Alinsky is just her favorite liberal boogeyman. What a sad, sad tiny world to live in where you don’t even know what it is you’re so terrified of.

But you know: some trolls have no choice…

Conservative Mum image created with Angry Zombie Rage Blood Halloween by English Like a Native. It is in the public domain.

The Great Snake Oil Sermon

Posted on 08 Jan 2017 by Frank Moraes

Yesterday, we had a service for my brother Eric “Randy” Shultz, who died on 21 December 2016 at the age of 59. We did it at his conservative Baptist church. And I thought it was perfect — for Eric. It actually annoyed me a great deal. But before I get to the Snake Oil aspect of the whole thing, let me tell you something a bit more personal about the Good Christians™ who spoke at the service.

They all made a point of telling this story about how Eric had told them on first meeting them, “My friends call me Randy, you can call me Eric.” And then after they got to know him, they could call him Randy. But here’s the thing: that wasn’t really true. Everyone really crying at the service called him Eric. Whether you called him Eric or Randy depended on when you met him.

Eric vs Randy

When the first person brought up this “his true friends and family called him Randy” nonsense, it caused a slight stir in the church because his caregiver (and really, effectively his mother the last decade of his life), my younger sister, and I had already spoken with great emotion while referring to him as Eric. I got the impression that the man who first said it realized that he had blown it. But then two other people told the same story. Not one of these pretenders showed a hint of any emotion.

I am very often struck at just how callous Christians are. They’ve found their entry into heaven so they don’t really have to give much of a damn about other people. Oh, they’re nice enough. When I talk to them, they treat me the same way I would a terrorist at the birthday party of their child. There’s really only one way that they “care” about others and that is to get them to buy into the bankrupt spirituality of easy redemption. And need I remind everyone that this would been seen as sacrilegious by the early Christians who didn’t actually believe in the “one weird trick” to get into heaven.

The Sermon

And that leads us to the sermon that the pastor gave. By the standards of these things, it wasn’t that bad. For one thing, it was only about 20 minutes long. And there was a fair amount about Eric in it. But all the Bible quotes were from the Book of Revelation. I’m not fond of that book. You will note when I wrote about my brother, I culled from Matthew — about the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the gentle, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Those are the things that sum up Eric. So why Revelation?

Well, part of it is the whole “salvation on the cheap” that I so hate about most modern Christianity: Eric is with God, just as Hitler is now if he let Christ into his soul in that bunker. But mostly, it was all a big sales pitch. Pastors know that most people who go to funeral and wedding[1] ceremonies are not Christians, so it’s a great opportunity to make the sales pitch. “Today I’m offering you such a deal: just “believe” and Tinker Bell will give you everlasting life!”

I don’t need to be sold on the concept that Eric is a better place. His life was painful. Death is the absence of pain except in the minds of evil theists who think that not “believing” means you will be tortured for eternity. And I don’t like the fact that Christians use these mournful occasions as sales opportunities. I especially don’t like it when I know that I’m expected to make a pretty sizable donation.

As the sermon went on, I kept adjusting the amount of money I was going to give. But in the end, I gave the amount I had decided to give at the beginning. That’s because it was a sermon and service that Eric would have liked. And ultimately, it wasn’t about me. But I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I should have been medicated.

Afterword: Ignorant People

At one point during the sermon, the pastor said, “Most people think that AD stands for ‘After Death,’ but it actually stands for…” And my younger sister and I said, in unison, “Anno Domini.” That is Latin for “year of our lord.” And after the service I heard some people talking about how interesting that was. It boggles my mind. Even at 8 years old (when I independently came up with the “After Death” idea), I understood that it would leave about 30 years that are in this no man’s that no one ever talked about. No one ever said, “Oh, that happened in 12 DL.”

Am I a sinner? Sure. But I’d rather be an arrogant bastard than a simpering idiot.

[1] As Rick says, “Weddings are funerals with cake.”

Eulogy for Eric Shultz

Posted on 07 Jan 2017 by Frank Moraes

[My brother’s memorial will be happening as this is published. I will read this at it — if I am able to. I have yet to be able to read much of any of it without breaking into convulsive sobbing. -FM]

I am not a Christian.

Having said that, I read the Bible an awful lot. I like the teachings of Jesus — in his calm reflections and in his fiery rhetoric. I would pick up a sword for him, because his cause was just. His cause was that of my brother Eric, who is, I think, a symbol for us all.

Please forgive me for quoting a bit of scripture from may favorite part of the Bible: The Sermon on the Mount. Even in translation, its poetry is unmistakably brilliant. But it is the content that I want to focus on. (This is from the New American Standard translation, which my seminary friends tell me is about as close to the Greek as one can find.)

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.

He opened his mouth and began to teach them, saying,

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied…”

It’s hard to know where to stop. I would like to continue on to, “You are the salt of the Earth” and then, “You are the light of the world.” And I could get very political as Jesus does later in Matthew 5 and throughout Matthew 6. But I’m not here to complain that it is the evil world that killed my brother with a thousand cuts.

Eric was the gentle. That, I always knew. But as I became reacquainted with him over the last several years, I saw that he was also poor of spirit, mournful, and starving and thirsting for righteousness.

Bonding With My Brother

We bonded over film, comic books, even sports. These were the few areas where he would still let me in. And it was with much pleasure that over the years — it was a slow process — that he allowed me more inside his inner world, which was rich.

We made a curious pair. Eric was extremely smart — as smart as I am but without the ostentatiousness, which is my shield as much as reserve was his.

This caused some annoyance on my part, although I look back on it now and see it as charming. We would go and see a movie together. And afterward, as we waited for the bus, I would ask, “So what did you think of that?” And his response was, “Good.” I would push it, “What did you think of the part where Iron Man has to fix a turbine and Captain American has to pull the red lever at just the right time?” “Good.”

But his whole approach to seeing a film was different than mine. When we sat down in the theater, I saw a film. Eric entered another universe. He became lost in the film — to the point where I often had to jab him to get him to stop talking to the characters. He was especially prone to scoffing at the hubris of evil characters. You know the kind of scene in a James Bond film where the villain explains his evil plan for world domination. Eric would mutter, “Yeah, right!”

Meanwhile, I was focused on the jump cuts, bad bits of dialog, poorly rendered CG, and theme — oh, how critical I am on that score. I was offended for all of Christendom by the film Man of Steel.

Eric’s Special World

But I envied Eric. He not only got lost in the films, he was also aware of all the technical aspects of the films. He was just far more forgiving. I know this because over the years, he had more to say. If he’d been given another five years, he might have turned into as big a blabbermouth as I am.

Indeed, our last conversation was the liveliest that we had ever had — just a few hours before he died. It was about how Jack Kirby was the true brilliance behind Marvel Comics and how Stan Lee was an evil hack. Okay, that’s my side of things. Eric was sympathetic to both men. But he was generally a nicer guy than I am.

I know that the gentle are blessed in a metaphorical sense. And I hope that they are blessed in a concrete sense. Eric deserves that.