Random Notes from a Crank

 Of the stemware that's out there, the martini glass has to be the most stupid one. The glass is designed almost on purpose to be easy to spill, especially for the cocktail it contains, the high-alcohol martini. When I drink martinis at home, I use a stemless wine glass.  

The other night I watched Jim Gaffigan's Amazon stand-up The Pale Tourist. There's only two episodes - one for Canada and the other for Spain. Both are solid, but I really enjoyed the one about Canada. It's hilarious. 

I'm reading The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think by Jennifer Ackerman. It's a good book. I liked The Genius of Birds better. Regardless, in a couple of chapters when she's describing the behavior of raven and keas, she cites the concept of "emotional contagion" among those species.  

So now I'm thinking of how that concept plays out with humans. 

And here's something from Psychology Today to chew on: "Protect Yourself from Emotional Contagion." 

A month ago, the Nasty family got a membership to Costco, which in the long run is going to save us a good bit of money. One of the grocery items we have consistently bought when we go there is Kirkland basil pesto. 

But I wonder at the terms. By nature, traditional pesto is made with basil, so why the need to use basil as an adjective? 

Random Notes from a Crank

Here's an "alternative fact": the Alabama Crimson Tide won the 2017 National Championship. 

I wonder when Moscow Don is going to establish a Ministry of Truth. I highly doubt he'll create Ministries of Peace, Love, and Plenty, however. 

As we're going to see time and time again, propaganda and shoddy studies are going to be the evidence this administration uses when dealing with the energy sector and environmental concerns. The study used recently was commissioned by the fossil fuel industry and not peer reviewed. Check out "Tossing Environmental Rules Won't Raise Wages, No Matter What the White House Says." 

Here's a petition worth signing. Yes, I want to see Moscow Don's tax returns: "Immediately Release Donald Trump's Full Tax Returns." 

If you're a reader of this blog, you probably know how I hate when people talk all kinds of nonsense about how the framers of the Constitution were Christian and how the U.S. is a "Christian nation" and all that bullshit despite the fact that many of the founding fathers were Freemasons who then strongly supported the separation of church and state. Another defense against the Christian nation stuff is the last part of the last ¶ of Article VI of the Constitution where it states, "but no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or Affirmation or public Trust under the United States." If the framers wanted the US to be Christian, why didn't they create a religious test to ensure the government is filled with Christians? In contrast, they clearly state that NO religious test should be used. 

I've been attracted to being a Mason, but I'd have to believe that there is a supreme being apparently, and I'm not willing to go there. I'm agnostic. Or another way to look at it is that I could be described as an atheist with hope or an atheist hedging his bets. 

For a good while I've been okay with what has been called "ceremonial deism," but this article in Psychology Today is making me rethink that comfort: "The Dangerous Fallacy of Ceremonial Deism." 

Random Notes from a Crank

I detest people who tell me that I "should believe in God" and people who want to insert all kinds of religious-based nonsense into politics and government. Now we have people wanting to put "In God We Trust" on cop cars and governmental buildings. As a curative to this crap, read "The Danger of Claiming That Rights Come from God" from Psychology Today. 

This happening is a bit of a surprise, but The Atlantic has endorsed Hillary Clinton for the presidency. That current affairs/cultural magazine has only endorsed a presidential candidate twice before with Lincoln and Johnson. Check it out: "Against Donald Trump." 

Here a some juicy quotations from the article: 

• We are impressed by many of the qualities of the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, even as we are exasperated by others, but we are mainly concerned with the Republican Party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, who might be the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American presidency.
• Donald Trump, on the other hand, has no record of public service and no qualifications for public office. His affect is that of an infomercial huckster; he traffics in conspiracy theories and racist invective; he is appallingly sexist; he is erratic, secretive, and xenophobic; he expresses admiration for authoritarian rulers, and evinces authoritarian tendencies himself. He is easily goaded, a poor quality for someone seeking control of America’s nuclear arsenal. He is an enemy of fact-based discourse; he is ignorant of, and indifferent to, the Constitution; he appears not to read.
• We believe in American democracy, in which individuals from various parties of different ideological stripes can advance their ideas and compete for the affection of voters. But Trump is not a man of ideas. He is a demagogue, a xenophobe, a sexist, a know-nothing, and a liar. He is spectacularly unfit for office, and voters—the statesmen and thinkers of the ballot box—should act in defense of American democracy and elect his opponent.

In light of Friday's bombshell from the Washington Post about Donald Trump, the Tic Tac company made some comments: "Tic Tac Denounces Donald Trump."