Speaking of the brilliant Regina Spektor, here she is singing the second prettiest song from Hamilton. Perfection.
Facebook Archive (Page 17)
I created a Facebook account in 2012 but didn’t really post much until 2014. In 2018 I deleted my account (for secret reasons). It was a relief to let it go, but also a little sad. I quickly lost tabs of friends and extended family. Of course we still talk now and again, but I am much less aware of what’s going on in their day to day lives. Nevertheless I’m glad I left.
In an act of unbridled vanity, I have archived all the old posts here.
My Posts
My current favorite from the new Regina Spektor… I very much love this song.
My credit card’s web site obscures my wife’s name so this is what it shows at the top of the page. It makes me happy every single time I log in.
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It’s always difficult to understand Donald Trump. Petulant and thin-skinned? Calculating and Machiavellian? Who knows. But this rings true:
Good heavens. Our new president is retweeting minor twitter trolls berating a journalist right now. Sigh.
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Speaking of the election, I’m pretty sure I bought this little container of allspice when Bill Clinton was still president.
I don’t want to alarm anyone but this is ready to go in the refrigerator now. In our gorgeous new casserole dish courtesy of Ashley and Wendel. [smiling face with hearts for eyes] Thank you!
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I’m a man and sometimes I like to explain things. This causes me lots of anxiety.
“On this day in 1963, C. S. Lewis died. John F. Kennedy was killed an hour later. 7hrs after that, Aldous Huxley also drew his last breath.”
Sometimes I make jokes in my recipe database, and then I forget about them, and then years later they make me laugh.
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Difficult to tell how it all fits together but when you hear the term “alt-right” keep this in mind:
This is a great time to share with you all what Rachel Ray told me when we were hanging out one time*. Put a blob of leftover stuffing in the waffle iron to reheat it. I took her advice last year and it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
* Don’t tell her I told you. She’s a very private person.
Sophia: I think yeasty is my favorite flavor.
Right there with you kid. I’m experimenting while she’s at rehearsal. Rye soft pretzels. What do you think? Sound good? Could be a disaster.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ this is what vacations are for.
It feels strange to remember what political leaders you don’t agree with used to sound like.
Thanksgiving Day 1:
6 quarts of chicken stock ready for various recipes. I love this time of year.
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I’ll never tire of discovering things actually published in the 21st century by our president’s chief strategist.
Sometimes it feels like the whole world has regressed 50 years in the last two weeks but wile it is little consolation I like to remember that the new Alexander Hamilton is still Puerto Rican, the new George Washington is still black, the new Luke Skywalker is still a girl, the new Sulu is still gay, and several recent Disney princesses still need no prince to be whole.
We took this fantastic beast to the movies tonight. First of two she’s been obsessing over for months. In a few weeks she sees Rogue One and then she can move on to frantically anticipating something new!
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Our new national security advisor posted this video to his twitter account in February. This is utterly unacceptable. How is this happening?
Warning: insufferable hateful islamophobic drivel behind that link.
Where do they find these people? “You can’t be citing Japanese internment camps as precedent for anything the president-elect is going to do,” says Megyn Kelly.
Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
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Nail on the head as usual.
News from my neighborhood.
[ed: The original article seems to have disappeared so I updated the link to point to archive.org instead.]
I just used Apple Pay on a web site on my laptop for the first time. It was a little bit slow, but boy is it nice to check out without filling out any forms at all…
Money quote:
“This salmon had become a metaphor for Silicon Valley itself. Automated yet distracting. Boastful yet mediocre. Confident yet wrong.”
Our president says he will incarcerate and/or deport 2-3 million people immediately. Note that the current US prison population, while staggeringly high, is currently “only” 2.2 million, and our prisons are widely reported to be over crowded. So we’ll need a place to put the folks awaiting deportation, or being incarcerated.
It is my understanding that it costs about $10,000 to deport someone, and more to incarcerate them, bringing the cost of these deportations to at least $20 billion.
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All my favorite music seems so relevant right now.
Link
We were blessed by the minister who practiced what he preached
We were blessed by the poor man who said heaven is within reach
We were blessed by the girl selling roses who showed us how to live
We were blessed by the neglected child who knew how to forgive
We were blessed by the battered woman who didn’t seek revenge
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It’s not the same thing.
I see so many of my friends making dismissive posts about those who express dismay, fear, or sadness about our new president, or those who protest against his election. The common thread is that this is a democracy, he won, and conservatives felt the same way about Obama, so people should stop complaining.
But it’s not the same thing.
If, during the 2008 campaign, Obama had said “White people, they’re not the best people.
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Smart commentary from Tim O’Reilly about Facebook and algorithmic news feed surfacing.
A people may let a king fall, yet still remain a people: but if a king lets his people slip from him, he is no longer a king. Abigail Adams
The reverend James Madison to his cousin, the James Madison, on the eve of his inauguration:
You will indeed have a stormy time to encounter, but that is the season in which the pilot discovers his superior skill.
Praying for skilled hands everywhere they can be had.
❤️ Leonard Cohen
I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch
He said to me, "you must not ask for so much"
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door
She cried to me, "hey, why not ask for more?"
Like a bird on a wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free
And similar reporting from the Independent.
Pro tip for election analysts: When the election is very very close, literally any even moderately large group can be used to explain how it ended up, and can be blamed or honored for “causing” the outcome. Which is nonsense because people don’t vote in blocks.
Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!
He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!
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Twice in 16 years the electoral college has advanced a president who won fewer votes than his opponent. If you feel this is a problem, please note that there is a constitutionally compatible non-amendment mechanism to change it at the state level.
Somebody please put RBG in some kind of stasis asap.
[ed: Ugh…]
America learned a lesson tonight. I think it is fair to say that Trump found a market for his populist appeal despite his hatefulness, and we who were so deeply opposed to his presidency should not ignore that. Many Trump supporters don’t trust their leaders to attend to their needs. That is real and important.
As a middle class white man not predisposed to worry, I have a strong, even optimistic, sense that where we go from here is to wake up tomorrow, wind the clock, and get back to the business of doing good, in our homes, our families, our communities, and our country.
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[ed: I had completely forgotten I posted this on the eve of the 2016 election. In hindsight it was worse than I could have imagined but I still find solace in EB White’s words. He’s as close to a hero as I have.]
I am very confident that Clinton will be our next president, and that we will tell Trump in a strong clear voice that his brand of hateful divisive rhetoric has no place in our shared America.
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Will the exit polling data be broken down by bad/good hombres and nasty/charming women? I need to know how they voted.
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship.
But it is not this day!
An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of Men comes crashing down.
But it is not this day!
This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand!
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More Tagore on election eve:
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
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Eating burned pizza for lunch which might sound like a bad thing but I’m weird that way. 😋