Random Thoughts

[Rippon]

I borrowed that terminology from Dr. Thomas Sowell. ( Just got one of his books recently, I'll give a book report on that volume and others at a future time).

Basically I'll relate some thoughts on various topics in one consolidated thread instead of starting multiple ones.

Some Regrets

When I was younger --teens through 30's I used to do some stupid things. Not that I no longer do stupid things, it's just easier to identify certain actions long afterwards.

I used to "crack my jaw" --that's what I called it anyway. I could making a cracking sound with the right side of my jaw. Now my right jaw juts out in a pronounced way.

I used to "crack my ear --that's what I called. I could make a cracking noise from my left ear. Now I have ear problems with that organ on the ground and in the air.

I used to crack my knuckles. Well, no observable problems yet, but I expect that I will encounter some arthritic
difficulties in my future.

My Night Dreams

If we can call dreams movies of some sort, then I have a lousy director. Many times when I finally wake up and can remember bits of the "films" I witnessed I wonder about the lack of any kind of plot. I actually wait for the "actors" to deliver their lines. My hopes are thwarted. I want to help it along and yet I wait for someone, anyone to make the story proceed. It's so frustrating.

Bathroom Complaint (tune out if you wish)

Hopefully most of you don't experience what I do in China.

I am not speaking of the bathroom in my apartment, but in public buildings. Let's say their are five stalls. Are the occupants doing what one typically does in a bathroom. NO! The occupants are 19 or 20 year old who treat their stalls as their combination rec room/living room/entertainment center/smoking room.

They can spend 30 minutes or so totally disregarding the "needs" of others --namely me. When I finally enter there are puddles of spit on the floor with cigarette butts laying in the mess. It's quite disgusting. Sorry for being somewhat graphic here.
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It's free association time. You may weigh in.

 

[Rippon]

I mentioned borrowing Thomas Sowell's pet phrase :Random Thoughts in my OP.

Well, I having been going through a recent purchase by him called The Thomas Sowell Reader. He has a chpter devoted to random thoughts. Here are just a few:

All human beings are so fallible and flawed that to exempt any category of people from criticism is not a blessing but a curse. The intelligentsia have inflicted that curse on blacks.

Historians of the future will have a hard time figuring out how so many organized groups of strident jackasses succeeded in leading us around by the nose and morally intimidating the majority into silence.

Both the Sicilian mafia and the criminal tongs in China began as movements to defend the oppressed, so perhaps we should not be so painfully surprised that venerable American civil rights organizations have begun to degenerate into extortion rackets.

A recently reprinted memoir by Frederick Douglas has footnotes explaining words like 'arraigned,' 'curried' and exculpate meant,
and explaining who Job was. In other words, this man who was born a slave and never went to school educated himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today's expensively under-educated generation.

It is self-destructive for any society to create a situation where a baby who is born into the world today automatically has pre-existing grievances against another baby born at the same time, because of what their ancestors did centuries ago. It is hard enough to solve our own problems, without trying to solve our ancestor's problems.

If people had been as mealy-mouthed in centuries past as they are today, Ivan the Terrible might have been called Ivan the Inappropriate.

 

[JonC]

If people had been as mealy-mouthed in centuries past as they are today, Ivan the Terrible might have been called Ivan the Inappropriate.

My favorite so far.....and so true....