Diary (May 1, 2020)

Online diary of Karl Jones for Friday May 1, 2020.

Diary

My contempt for Alan Watts and Siddhartha Gautama

Alan Watts had good ideas but led a chaotic dissolute life marked by bitter ex-wives and abandoned children and alcohol abuse.

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, likewise abandoned his son to indulge personal gratification, and in consequence is at the top of my shit list.

• Comment @ Boing Boing

Only a few really groove on killing, and we try to keep them in prisons or armies

[Comment by user: "The US has a long and proud tradition of shooting its politicians, up to and including Congresswoman Giffords."]

Long tradition but I would not call it proud, that’s a very slim piece of pie.

Most people are appalled by killing, that’s majority human nature to my thinking. Only a few really groove on it, and we try to keep them in prisons or armies.

• Comment @ Boing Boing

Einstein, Steinbeck, and the Swifts (Jonathan and Tom)

In my fiction, I combine equal measures of Albert, Steinbeck, and the Swifts (Jonathan and Tom).

Michigan State House armed citizenry

Apparently the guns thing is legal and well established. From a comment on the Boing Boing bulletin board:

"People come to the Michigan Capitol with guns pretty frequently, and watch session from the balcony with their long (or short) guns. Legislators can also bring guns, as one did to the governor’s state of the state speech this year. There is a lot of trompe l’oeil paintwork (faux walnut panelling, faux marble) that they want to protect from being scuffed up, but this only rises to the level of prohibiting signs, not guns. I suppose an individual office could lock their door and refuse to let people in if they were obviously armed, but the state police and the sergeants at arms do not bar armed people from the buildings.

The Republican legislative majority has openly encouraged these demonstrators and today voted to sue the governor over the stay at home order. The nationwide astroturfed protest “movement” against public health measures is being coordinated out of Michigan with de Vos funds."

• Comment @ Boing Boing
• [TO_DO Comment] @ Facebook

Quibi Supreme

New Quibi Supreme – a full-size wide-screen HDTV monitor, wrapped in artisinal hand-butchered feral-hog bacon and drizzled with 91% cacao syrup, sprinkled with 24 karat gold dust from non-conflict gold mines operated by certified cooperatives.

• Comment @ Boing Boing

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Karl Jones (nonfiction)