So how bad has it gotten

So how bad has it gotten? 
The news coverage of our politics has gotten so bad that, trumpet players have taken up the cornet.

Don’t leave. I’m NOT going to write anything more on that sad subject.

extra charge for this guy's pedi

Instead let’s discuss fantasy characters and maybe a myth or two. Regular readers of A Few Clowns Short know the myth topic is seldom covered here. Really I don’t have the time to cover all the odd ideas that cross my synapses daily. Most of those odd ideas could be turned into a decent myth. I wrote about myths way back in 2011. (link )

Much like that 2011 post and many others for that matter, this post came about in a convoluted manner. Do you care? If no, then skip ahead.

I have in-laws who subscribed to the New Yorker (they would like the one liner at the top of this post). They started moving around frequently and decided to send the magazine to our house. They typically read it online anyway. You may know/experienced the high quality of writing in the New Yorker. I suspect some people may get it just for the cartoons.

I found this piece titled, “Fantastic Beasts and How to Rank Them” in Nov. 6 issue very thought provoking. (link )

I must say the first thing that caught my attention was at the very top of the page - Dept. of Speculation. 

Wow that’s exactly what I need here. I would certainly appoint myself as the first head of the department. Call myself Chief of Speculation. Enough about my organizational plans.

The author, Kathryn Schulz, writes, 

“One of the strangest things about the human mind is that it can reason about unreasonable things.”

The article centers around the workings of “willing suspension of disbelief”. I learned that idea goes back to the 1790’s. Even if you don’t belief in Spiderman or Wonder Woman you can still get very involved in their stories. How does this suspension of disbelief work? Ms. Schulz offers up various ideas about this ranging from the creature's biological makeup (size of Big Foot) to the physical nature of their powers (transformation of a vampire).

Within her discussion on judging the plausibility of fantastical beings there is a suggested game for your next party. Create a list of supernatural/mythical beings and ask your guests to rank their plausibility. I plan to try this and expect some interesting conversations. Now if it is a Christmas party, I suggest not including Santa or his elves.

Here’s my list:

• Wonder Woman
• Mermaid
• Big Foot
• Extraterrestrials visiting earth
• Angels
• Zombies
• Vampires
• Werewolves
• Flying fire breathing dragons
• Ghosts (do you agree an angel is not a ghost?)

Remember you do not need to actually believe in these creatures just rank them. If you are wondering, I rank mermaid as most plausible and flying dragons as least.

I agree with what she writes toward the end:

“Yet, in the end, what’s most remarkable is not that our fantasies contain so much reality; it is that our reality contains so much fantasy.”

And

“Better, perhaps, to know that what we feel in our happiest moments has some truth to it: life is magical.”

Unrelated to this speculation exercise - I found a TED talk that Kathryn Schulz gave on the importance of embracing our own fallibility. It was given in 2011 and still applies now as it did then. Maybe more so. Worth watching.

true or false

I bought a ticket to the world
But now I've come back again
Why do I find it hard to write the next line?

Bigly

Could it be the news, the chaos, fakebook postings, a snotty brat in an old man’s body?

Would the world be better if there were no partial truths or half-truths, just true or false?

In our complex emotional world only the very basic simple components of a story can be determined to be true or false. Taking the time to view the big picture with the confusing amount of details leads to reasons, causes, motives and other difficult concepts. The bigger the picture, the more open to argument and interpretation it becomes. Don’t bother me with details he says.

You’ve heard these words, “the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. What a different world it would be if we all had the integrity to admit making mistakes instead of resorting to deceptive behavior.

Here’s an 80’s tune called “True”. Takes me back to a better time.

pasta and rabbit holes

Disclaimer - Does it surprise you that this post has nothing to do with actual pasta or a rabbit hole? I didn’t think so.

The pasta refers to Pastafarians. While the rabbit hole is taken from an expression taken from my corporate days, “we don’t need to go down that rabbit hole.”

My Church of the Donut is referenced below

In tribute to Lewis Carroll, I’ll explain the rabbit hole expression first. Now some of you may have used this expression but I’m not sure it is very common. I have often heard it used during business meetings. The moderator/leader would use it to close off discussion on subjects not pertinent to the meeting. It’s not unusual that slightly related ideas/problems will distract from the main purpose of the meeting. Lewis Carroll’s Alice followed a rabbit down its hole and didn’t return for a long confusing time. Now my post is not a tutorial on how to have productive meetings, so let’s move on.

Have you heard about The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Taken from FSM site

I have heard of them but honestly forgot about them until a recent local news story (you might also forget about them after this post). The members of this church are called Pastafarians. According to the religion, the Flying Spaghetti Monster resembling a floating clump of tangled spaghetti and meatballs created the universe with "His Noodly Appendages".

The Flying Spaghetti Monster was first described by hammock enthusiast, Bobby Henderson, in a 2005 open letter to the Kansas School Board protesting the teaching of intelligent design. ( ding dong the witch is dead - oddly the wizard and his city of Oz are also related to Kansas)

report from Chicago Tribune site

The local news story -

Decision to ban colander from driver's license photo strains belief

(I enjoyed the headline before I even started reading the article by Eric Zorn)

This past June a young lady in Illinois requested to be allowed to wear a metal colander on her head for her official drivers license photo. Now this has been done successfully in other states and countries. I found a few examples on the FSM web site. (oh, I would have hated to be held up behind her in line as they debated the colander)

Even though the state employees said no at first, as you can see in the picture above this young lady was very insistent and got her way. Well that is, until the higher-ups in the head office found out. They told her that her license will be revoked at the end of July unless she gets a new photo sans head ornament. (hey it’s an ongoing story - future post material?)

My opinion on the photo ID -
I agree with the state. A legal photo ID should not have full freedom of speech rights. I think she has the right to wear her head strainer anywhere she likes just like political people can wear their Trump, Hillary, Bernie hats and shirts. But I don't think we should allow hats with any message we want on them in a legal photo ID.

Now the rabbit holes -
Many rabbit holes available in this story. There is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, evolution, definition of religion, definition of a myth, science, intelligent design, respect for others religion, and ones that you could think of that I missed. Important topics but NOT ones I wish to discuss here in this post. Don't lead me down a rabbit hole in the comments.

This story reminded me a post I did back in 2013 when the conclave of Cardinals had elected a new pope and I did a post about all the papal stuff in the news. Later I came across a picture (same one as the first one above) and thought it would be great to start the Church of the Donut. Here’s that post.

Now I would love to have a conclave of donuts (with good coffee) and get this church idea going. However, I would not encourage or expect to see followers holding donuts while their photo ID is taken.

Oh one last thing -
When I perused the FSM site I read this in their Q&A section:

"Let me make this clear: we are not anti-religion, we are anti- crazy nonsense done in the name of religion. There is a difference."

I understand the difference and agree with their view on that part.

typically skeptical

Back in 2010, I wrote about the intense confusion I felt just buying some shampoo (old post). I felt like I was at a fruit stand as I perused the shampoo selection. What is your favorite fruit smelling shampoo?

we need Cheetos shampoo to go with this lip balm

Given about 6000 plus years of cosmetic development, I suppose it should be expected that all types of concoctions are sold to enhance one’s looks. My skeptical side is always waiting to jump into my internal debate on the value of products. Those 6000+ years also provided lessons in refining the con-games.

Have I mentioned I trimmed up my shaggy head the other day? I imagine sheep being sheared when I go to the hair salon. This time I prepared an important question for the stylist: 
Does caffeine in shampoo provide any benefits?
(meaning benefits to the user not the manufacturer)

The background on this question was the recent bottle of shampoo the-one-shops-more-than-me brought home for my use. "... engineered specifically for men's hair. Enriched with caffeine ... gives a kick of active freshness" (what would dormant freshness smell like?)

I could tell the stylist wasn’t expecting my inquiry but I don’t work for 60 Minutes (I was a regular watcher of that show years ago) so I went easy on her. She did say it might have a skin tightening effect and is found in skin products. Her answers left me thinking more research is still needed before I post about it. (not that I promise any level of research for my posts. There are times I spin too much in my office chair and words are thrown onto my laptop.)

shampoo and time travel study

Well golly gee, this caffeine infused shampoo concept might not be flittershitters after all. (two months in a row with flittershitters used in a post - yes!)

Apparently there have been some real studies done on the efficacy of caffeine in shampoo. (just use the word efficacy in a paper and more people will pay attention)

A few words from that study abstract:

“...caffeine in concentrations of 0.001% and 0.005% were found to counteract the suppressive effects of testosterone on hair growth...”

Fortunately baldness has never visited my head so I doubt this caffeine will do anything for me. It might brighten my mind during my shower generating more cosmic questions for future postings. Hopefully, it doesn’t keep my hair up at night.

stack of pancakes

Hungry?

Although my wife makes the best buttermilk pancakes I've ever tasted, this post is not about pancakes or recipes. Do you remember me mentioning in the past that I don't cook? Unless you call microwave warming frozen food cooking. I don't.

found this at craftfail

This post is about conspiracies and their appeal.

First a bit of what I've notice:

• stack of pancakes - I've read that humans evolved into pattern recognizing beings. Animals in the clouds, mythical characters in the stars, man in the moon, Jesus on your pancake (lord I need a pancake quick). Our brains are pattern recognizers, which can useful. However, when we speculate about the meaning or predictive qualities of these patterns our thoughts end up in strange places.

• Flat Earth Society - You might not be aware but youtube is full of crazy "proofs" of a flat earth. I find it scary that these people will not accept any NASA evidence. According to them NASA is just a tool of the conspiracy to fool people with fake stuff. The main reason I include this one is because today I was reading thoughts about them being a joke or not on the forum Quora. Most conclude that they are not doing it as a joke. It's sad since our day to day surroundings (unless you are an astronaut in the international space station) fail to provide us any indication that we are standing on a sphere. This could be a great starting point for seeking out the science supporting our spherical shape and learning.
  

• youtube and other social media - I hope someday a vast majority of us will learn that social media is too easily commandeered by people/organizations with an agenda. Right now it seems the most bizarre ideas spread the quickest.

• Living through Watergate (another annoying thing - the use of "gate" on other scandals/conspiracies) - Corruption and scandals happens. The first big one to unfold in my life was Watergate. Events like that make you question your trust in organizations/government. But just because it happens doesn't mean it is happening everywhere all the time.

• No desire to research -  I initially thought that $5 bill trick was real and sorta funny. A quick internet search revealed this CraftFail website picture. Looking closer at the picture it does look fake. People (my brother for one!) so often don't bother to take a bit of time to check these strange ideas out. Ironic that they quickly mistrust experts and then even quicker trust an unknown conspiracy theorist.

Why?

I have some ideas having to do with our perceptions and difficulties understanding science. But there are many conspiracies which have nothing to do with science.

I found an interesting article about this at Salon.com. (link) In it, Professor of Cognitive Sciences, Stephan Lewandowsky, says that people hate randomness. A conspiracy theory gives them someone to blame.

Apparently, he doesn't see an end to it. He said, "...any extraordinary event will be followed by conspiracy theorizing. I can tell you that right now. Whatever happens tomorrow, there will be a conspiracy theory about it."

Would it help if conspiracy theories, propaganda and marketing schemes were discussed more in social media?

Should we stop folding our money in odd ways looking for future predictions?

Will I have pancakes this weekend? (I hope so) 

retro looking

Oh I could have titled this throwback posting or something more catchy. Here in a few months we will become the land of ice and snow again. But the reason for this post is not the season. Recently I enjoyed a PBS show about the brain which of course included findings about memory. This and perhaps the change in the weather gave me an idea or the reason.

What if I reread all of my 2012 posts would it bring back anything? Just rereading a few posts brings back memories and old thoughts. In my last post of 2012, I wrote:

when I was younger
so much younger than today
I never needed anybody's help in anyway

Any Beatle fan will recognize those lines from the song “Help”. (here’s the post link if interested) If you have followed this blog, you’ll know I’m often puzzled and inspired by lyrics.

Why am I soft in the middle now?
Why am I soft in the middle the rest of my life is so hard?

climb up see more but you still can't see the future

Some people look back much more than others. Some study the past and make a good career of it. Do you recall those few studying (actually I doubt anyone doing a serious study was involved, just new age book sellers) the Mayan calendar that predicted the big end for all of us would be Dec. 21, 2012? Little did the Mayans know that social media would latch on to this craziness since clicking likes and reshares have become so easy today. I’m so happy I posted my view of that. Now I can go back and reread it in 2015. (here’s the post link if interested)

we just had back-the-future day

Back in Dec. 2012 I wrote:

I just don’t get it. Had I gotten it, would I had known I did?

In that post I pondered the possibility of my old duffel bag becoming trendy. (here’s the post link if interested) 

She loves me like a rock

Throughout blog history man has marveled at the vast richness of A Few Clowns Short postings. Ok, it’s my blog history. But I do marvel that I was able to make a post from the phrase “in a world”. (here’s the post link if interested)

Oh BTW, going back and reviewing my posting while triggering memories also frustrates me with all the broken/removed youtube clips.

Having read this far, you are certainly qualified to leave a comment. 

This wasn't much about my photos (two of the above are mine) but if you like photos click the Unknown Mami button below

could be a fun conspiracy theory

Most conspiracy theories are upsetting to me.  However, the government concealing UFO's idea was not too bad and did give us a good TV show. 

Now we might have a new one.  Did you notice that on the same day NBC news anchor Brian Williams announced he will be off the air, Jon Stewart announced he will be leaving the Daily Show.

Is there a conspiracy to replace Williams with Stewart or maybe both will switch.  I think Williams could pull off the Daily Show.

Ok so I admit there are a few conspiracy theories that are entertaining to contemplate.

The Big Bird conspiracy. 

two questions for tuesday

If you could start a rumor about yourself what would it be?

If you were granted a superpower, which one would it be?

Please share in the comment section or keep it to yourself because why would you want to control rumors about yourself or grant yourself superpowers. Now if you are really quick thinking and efficient, you might combine the two answers and start a rumor about your superpower.

My answers:

• A rumor of my CIA agent days including fast cars traveling through the Alps.
• The superpower of being able to fly without any TSA security screening or confining airline seats.

Yes I know it’s still Monday in much of the world. But you see, now you have plenty of time to think about this and come back with your answer.

OR

Just leave something off the top of you head because what’s the hole in there for anyway?

another circus 

Myth Monday (Sunday edition)

My eyes were opened in a dream, a future’s dream.

Through a foggy mist the great African god Bumba appeared. In a voice that rumbled through the windows Bumba gave me a warning. His English was broken. I could only understand what appeared to be disconnected words.

Sunday, prime, noise, July, future

After deciding he was not telling me of an upcoming Sunday primetime show, I was puzzled about what was going to happen.

frequency, noise, polarization, broken, radar

So many technical terms - did my engineering background and interest in physics lead him to me? Why did he appear in my dream? These questions were not asked but he could read my mind. He was in my mind. He knew my thoughts. Yes was the answer.

“What frequency is broken?”, I bravely thought.

microwave, wi-fi

I woke with a message but unsure of details.  After scribbling these words down and doodling around them, a bleak prophecy seemed to form.

the day of primes - Fifth Sunday of the Seventh Month of the Eleventh year will bring a global event that kills microwave frequencies.

The Monday after -

• not I-pads but paper pads - pens and paper
• hotspots gone cold
• dead cordless phones
• bluetooth that's is just blue
• dead garage door openers
• garbled doppler weather radar
• noisy satellite TV
• Theft prevention RFID tags preventing nothing

Something touched me deep inside, the day the Wi-Fi died.

fabulous fabricated fricasseed friday fragments

Please visit the fragment hostess Mrs. 4444. Mrs. 4444’s moniker often inspires me to find stuff related to 4444. If you check my past FF posts (click the fragments tag) you’ll find a few 4444 things I’ve discovered.  With 4444 stuck in my mind I went searching on youtube (source of great information) and I found this clip titled (I’ll embed the video at the bottom)

4444 Toothpicks In My Hair, Doing Something Funny For Money For The Charity Red Nose Day.

I get this afternoon newsletter in my email called BizWrap. I got a laugh when I read the following:

Technical glitch hits some AOL e-mail accounts. In other news, there are still some people with AOL e-mail accounts

Stopped in Starbucks this afternoon.

Their Wi-Fi setup is so much easier now and completely free. I remember years ago when Panera Bread came out with free Wi-Fi but other places like Starbucks decided they needed to charge for it. A Few Clowns Short - Dumb. Everytime I’ve used a hotspot I have always purchased something.

Along with my coffee this afternoon I downloaded a free song from Amos Lee. The current offered song shows up on the landing page when you accept the wi-fi connection. This made downloading it very simple. A free song is like extra marshmallows in your cocoa (yes I was drinking coffee but I failed to think of a coffee related example).

As I look around I see about 4 laptops going here in the middle of the week middle of the afternoon. Don’t you agree typing on a laptop looks more serious than gazing at a smartphone?

Is it weird that I dislike it when comment sections require blogger approval? If I comment as a registered person do you really need to moderation my comment? What does seem weird is that I like to see my comment listed. Also when I reread it and find errors I know I’m still human.

New word for the week - comedogenic - sounds funny?

Bumba - god of vomit?

“Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum is a favorite classic rock song of mine. Brings back memories of nights filled with fun and vomit.

So I just finished this book, “The Grand Design”. I plan to post more about it later. The creation myth of Bumba is mentioned in the book. The short of it is Bumba was an African god that had a hell of bellyache and vomited up the sun. Talk about acid reflex.

This best part of the 4444 clip is the end when he quickly removes the toothpicks.