Unflipping believable

 I have bemoaned in the past that current youth interaction with the internet eliminated accidental reading but until I find the link to it, it will not be on the test. What I'm saying is that the entire nature of TV has changed so they will miss your jargon and cultural references or insist you are making stuff up. An important formative skill will be lost -- channel flipping.

From the earliest "remotes" (including younger siblings) to much more modern marvels you could move between channels with a relative consistency and efficiency. We developed favorites, and patterns. We anticipated plot twists and timed ourselves to be where we needed to be, when we needed to be there. We memorized numbers and combinations, often never knowing the actual name of the channel, just its letter or number. As the years progressed, we had to learn more and more numbers and combinations, but that is the price we pay for a free society. With tax. But this taught us how to retain important information.

But today, if I'm watching a football game on one streaming service but want to bounce to my cable company's cooking channel during the commercials. If I do that, then to get back to the football game isn't just a matter of hitting the "last" button because to open an app every single time is a onerous demand. Every time I do I feel like I have to solve a level of Zork just to get to the install screen. And when it finally logs you in, it takes you to the front page and you have to find your way to where you were tryoing to go initially. If he remembers. Then TV system does the same thing it does every time -- spinny circle, blank screen and then the proper feed. There we go, and....Dang. The ball game just hit the 2 minute warning. I want to check out that recipe and see how it ends! and repeat. No one will want to flip (a boon to advertisers who buy time and anticipate an expected loss of viewership at commercial -- now that bouncing is prohibitively annoying more eyes will stay on the ad) so maybe this is to encourage us to buy more TVs and computers? Go to sports bars? Maybe this is so the tech people can create a need that the nex-gen tech can solve! Yeah and they already have the solution in boxes, ready to be shipped at a premium.

I dunno but I'm pretty sure its a conspiracy.

A fan letter

 Sir -- 

I wanted to drop a note of thanks for your contribution to not just the dominant culture but to the dialect, the common cultural patois, the communication of the collective consciousness which comes from and touches our souls and the gestalt memory of our community.

I found myself late this evening lazing on the ersatz chesterfield adorning my parlor feeling a "mite peckish" as the Bard wrote. Living the solitary existence, I spend time oft stretched out, contemplating my childhood -- summers at the Y and a vacation cabin of Lincoln Logs, and I lack the companionship that would provide a steady and exploitable resource of creator and conveyance of comestibles when the pangs set in. I recalled an adventure of the previous even, when a chance encounter with a local butcherman (as he is commonly known in the market square) who presented me with a pre-shaped and seasoned mound of chopped meat for to be baked. It had been so and it sat in the safety of the icebox, awaiting application of heat to bring it back to the land of the edible.

So, sans a spouse for proxy retrieval (and as I am orphaned currently, bereft of parents both lost to the ravages of disease) and reluctant to arise from the repose and comfort furniture oft provides, I arched my back and, without engaging conscious thought, yelled, "Ma, the meatloaf!" And I sputtered a chortle at the inanity of my actions.

Though no delicacies appeared, I did achieve a moment of Zen awareness, looking at myself as if from the outside and realizing that I had somehow eternalized and internalized that creature of your wit and that phrasal child of your mind. You have won my respect and, dare I say, loyalty for your part in shaping my identity and comic field of experience.

So I tip my cap to you and say, "Thank you, Kevin Nealon!"

Sincerely and yours Etc,

Dan

In which I tell a joke

 

Imagine that there was a guy with the last name, "Chicken" and he meets a woman whose last name is "Nugget" and they get married. Then her last name would be "Chicken-Nugget" if they agreed to hyphenate their last names with his name first. And did I mention that her first name was "McDonald's"?

Hilarious, right?

The Cookie Review

 I'll start with background and a story.

The background -- I used to weigh less. I was more than a bit chonky in high school (all pizza and no girls makes Dan a fat boy) but I worked hard for the last year so that I could go to college and wear a pair of jeans like a normal person. For 4 years, I kept myself relatively slim, or even, dare I say, "svelte."

By the time I got hitched I was rocking a totally reasonable body. Then it all went to hell, but that's just because hell has a really excellent pizzeria. So I started packing on the el bee ess and went back to the primordial pleasantly plump. After the children came out I decided that I wanted to find a way to get back down to fighting weight. I anticipated fighting with the children, it seems. That might not have been the best attitude, but dagnabit, I am what I am. Usually.

I looked in to many different approaches to diet and settled on the one that made the least sense -- an Atkins-esque, low carb diet. And I stuck with it sort of for 20 plus years. Sometimes I was stricter on it than others, and I got time off for good behavior during vacations and holidays (and when I felt weak). But I always came back to it as my standard because, truth is, it has worked. I can get myself back to something around the lower end of my weight journey if I stick with the plan. Eat a cow everyday but god forbid I taste a single pretzel. There are rules about this.

A real deficiency is junk food. There are fake sweeteners and such but making stuff with them isn't easy. And fake flour? even harder. But I do it occasionally because a man's got to eat cookies sometimes. There have been attempts over the year but either they compromised on some necessary element of "food" or I compromised on my bottom line standards of what I was willing to eat. So when I found these "weighless cookies" that boasted zero net carbs, I was hooked. I bought a box and, that evening, scarfed them down like they were my business and thought, "well that was passable...I'll buy them again." So I go back to the store the next week and see them. Ever the optimist, I put two more boxes in my cart and went to check out. I get the sum and it seems way hi, so I look through the receipt and see that each of the boxes of cookies (6 each of three "flavors" with each cookie looking like a thicker quarter) is $25. Yeah. Well, I couldn't put them back so I figured I would save them for a special occasion and eat them slowly and deliberately. That was a mistake on every level.

Well, I ate another box recently but this time I took notes so I present to you my review:

I took a bite of the first group of cookies (the three flavors are "chocolate chip," "vanilla," and "marble." The last flavor was most authentic because you could really taste the marbles. After a bite or two, my mouth felt like it was engaged in 5 or 7 different allergic reactions at the same time. There was a weird bitterness and I'm not sure that cookies like this are supposed to be spicy. But it was a cookie so I persevered and ate all of them.

There are 18 cookies -- if that doesn't scream "single serving" then I don't know what does. Some of the bitterness was reduced by putting the cookies in the microwave (and turning the microwave on) for about 20 seconds. More bitterness can be removed by putting all the cookies in the garbage, forever.

As I continued to eat, the cookies became unpleasantly spicy and not in the good way. When I left them in the microwave for 30 seconds, they acquired a burnt flavor which was, considering the alternative, almost welcome. I kept eating, dreading each bite. Eventually, I took them out of the microwave and doused them with very low carb chocolate syrup. As delivery agents for the syrup, they were not complete failures. After finishing them all I realized that the three flavors are actually "painful," "Silly-Putty," and "angst." 

Anyone want a $25 box of cookies?

See me, hear me

 

I took some time yesterday to practice my "lying on the couch" skills. I put on some music to get me in the mood -- the particular streaming TV channel I found put the song lyrics up as the music played. I watched the lyrics go by, matching the music played and I realized just how stupid and poorly worded the lines often are. I also realized that the lyrics I apparently made up in my head years ago are actually better than what I found out the singer is actually singing.

The pedestal of "poetry" upon which I have consistently installed the musical verse as co-captain sets a standard, an expectation in my head of something that rises to the level of that ill-defined "poetic." The words are supposed to make some sense, even if that requires a poetic license when interpreting. But when Heart sings (in Barracuda, and I don't know which Wilson sister penned this) "you're gonna burn burn burn burn down to the wick" I must cry foul. Things don't burn TO the wick.

Some songs don't make any sense at all (semantically, syntactically, linguistically, contextually, conceptually, stylistically...) and in fact, if one were to separate the lyrics from the music and judge the words in that vacuum, the fact is that a lot of them are really, really bad.

I was under the impression that in certain cases, like in many songs by R.E.M., unintelligibility was the point, and if you could make out the words, there was no attempt to have them make sense. Good gag, fellows. Yay, Athens and all that. But when did Nirvana stop making sense? Sure, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder was using intentionally non-sensical lyrics for Yellow Ledbetter, the Beatles turned the vocals around in Rain, the "words" to the closing theme of WKRP are supposed to make no sense and the conversation in the midst of Everlong was studio-tweaked so as to be impossible to understand but the run of the mill lyrics, when the writer/performer is making no effort to mask them, should paint pictures, or tell stories or somehow express a strong emotion. They should do something poetic, that is communicative with an awareness of form, banking on a shared set of meanings and understandings with the audience. Heck, once we found out what the lyrics to Louie, Louie were we learned that they tell a clear story. It just seems that so many of them don't do that!

Now wait, you are no doubt saying -- aren't there equally insipid, illogical or otherwise offensive pieces of non-musical "poetry"? Why lay this at the feet of lyricists when generations of bad poetry have been written. Here's a reason. Yes, bad poetry exists but can you name it? (not some well regarded poem that you, personally, don't like, but a bad poem that everyone agrees is bad but everyone likes anyway)

In poetry, the word (most of the time) is intrinsically important so the poem's success, its rise and fall, depends on that word and very little else. Fame is achieved after the gatekeepers of word and culture pass judgement and call the poet by that title. It might be a fluke of timing, but that poem has to touch people in a way that gives it legs in the public eye. The musician has his music as a top priority and this redeems the existence and burden of poor language skills (Rick Springfield's "the question's probably moot" I'm looking at you, and no, "probably mute" is just as bad). The point is that the poetic inanities sink based on the poverty of their core purpose as a collection of words, therefore standing much less of a chance of achieving popular awareness and acceptance and much more chance of remaining mired in the murky depths of ignominy.  But a "great song" might be composed of a quality melody saddled with words of lead but it will still rise to the top and enter the public sphere and consciousness by virtue of its music. So bad poetry exists but we stand much less chance of hearing about it.

Therefore, Aerosmith can write nonsense as its lyrical approach and still produce a hit so hook-laden that a Dr. a Captain and Gordie Howe stargaze at it. I don't think Wooly Bully achieved fame on the back of its expressive turns of phrase. You let the music do the talking, I guess and the pseudo-poetry, the lacking lyrics that should be languishing in the refuse heap are there for us to suffer through on the shoulders of musical genius. But bad poetry ends up in the dustbin of history.

This presents the problem of how to approach those words. Are they still called poetry or can I find a way to dismiss them as something lesser so that I can remove that sense of obligation from them, and others can't throw them at me as examples of expression that, by name and genre, can be in the same sentence as the classics of our language and its expression in verse?

Don't know.

My brain is full.

 Last night was a very prolific night and I am surrounded by pieces of paper and self-sent emails which have discrete little thoughts, ideas and stuff like that.

I shall now empty my brain here (except for some stuff slated for elsewhere).

---------------

I watched the "Flamin Hot Cheetos" movie last night. Here are some reactions:

1. New game played when I go to the movies, "Is that Tony Shalhoub or not?"

2. Suddenly at one hour and 2 minutes into the film, the grumpy and grizzly older mentor-figure suddenly and magically becomes Dennis Haysbert!

3. As some one with very little appreciation for the spicinesses of the food world I was well prepared not to to like this movies. Well, as a famous US president once said, "mission accomplished".

-------------------

I'm looking for someone to make a Frank-Miller-esque origin story for Tevye. Maybe his life before Anatevka and how he married his wife. I would call it something gritty, like "Fiddler: Year One"

-------------

I heard a song last night (though I don't remember what the song was) and here's how I could explain it:

A band with a hit

that's a curious mix

of the Cure and the Clash

and some Kiss.

-------------

Just tonight I've not written more top ten hit songs than most people don't write over their entire life 

------------

He found himself in the unenviable position of one trying to make a weighty decision with the impaired cognitive faculties of one for whom closing a Ziploc bag felt like operating heavy machinery.

----------

Only when they hear the playback and

read the transcript of today will they 

believe me about what I claim I say.

-------------

"On the realization of how important the tongue is in eating successfully"

Meet the poor tongue

not glam'rous as the lung

but swallow much depends

on the buds and their ends

So chew you no chew

and drinks must dry out

since food will now kill you

the tongue has the clout.

False Flags

 Yes, another football post but before you skip it, realize that if I'm right, you could have gotten in on the ground floor. And what do you lose if I'm wrong? Nothing, right? So please send me like 10 bucks so that if you are wrong, you have lost something.

First, an apology. This post will be exploring adult themes and use language that will be relevant to those themes. I must use said racy words and phrases to illustrate the specific point I will be making. Now, on with the show:

The commentators read from their scripts not just in terms of the ebb and flow of the story line and the progress of the plot but in order to inject into our collective subconsciousnesseseses an acceptance of certain ideas. The massive number of football terms that are military in origin desensitizes us to the violence and we support the military complex because it connects to the glorification of the jocks, video games and the romantic notion of representing the home team and coming back from war. The other set of phrases is attempting to realign our thinking to accept erectile dysfunction as a perfectly normal condition. This will reassure the vast number of silent sufferers that they are not alone nor do they need to be embarrassed so they will be motivated to speak with their medical professional who will prescribe certain medicines. The resultant increase in demand will drive prices higher and stock values through the roof. No doubt the pharmaceutical companies, the military and the NFL will be rolling in the resultant dough.

The use of words and phrases like "penetration" (I heard the play by play guy last night speak about a running back who was good at "exploiting the smallest hole" and then said that the guy "has a bright future coming on"), the backfield, premature release, soft cover, wishBone offense and more -- there must be an agenda at work, and also at home here. Like, wherever!

During the commercial, I was told to "download the dick zap" (the uninitiated might think it was "the Dick's App" for the sporting goods chain, but who would download an app for a sporting goods store?)

another brain dump

 Scraps of paper pile up and I need a place to hide my stuff away, so here are some other things.

1. An idea for betting -- when you sign up for one of those online betting platforms, you declare a "home team". That's YOUR team, the one you root for. If, during the course of the season, you bet on the result of a game in which your team is playing, and you bet AGAINST your team and win, you get a payout with an extra 5% premium for your guts.

2. Watched more football and heard the following comments:

      a. of a place kicker, "he is among the top 5% in the league in successful kicks and that field goal shows you why." No, it doesn't show WHY -- it shows how he qualified for that statistic.

      b. The decision to challenge a call, to throw in that red flag and contest the on-the-field call voice of the expert. This is, you understand, not just a game -- this is the referee's workplace. You are watching him or her at work so now imagine if all those people watched, replayed and dissected everything you say and do and then you get challenged, in public. You just want to whisper "pssst, hey, coach, stop undermining my authority and making me look like an officious douche, you jerk."

      c. I just saw a receiver, in between plays, chatting with a defender. There is a challenge about whether the reception was a completed catch and I swear I just saw the defender say "it don't matter to me either way."

      d. Heard this comment about a player's improved play -- "He's dusting off the cobwebs of his old self." I have no idea what that means.

3. I think playing slot machines is sort of like sitting in front of a guy who keeps yelling "I'm thinking of a number! GUESS IT!" and no matter what you guess the guy yells "WRONG!" and slaps you in the face and then you both keep repeating this.

4. I did learn that Atlantic City has no supermarkets and has to have food bussed in in to be sold. That's insane.

5. Leo Sayer's "When I need love" is a really nice song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obC0MFHWJ0A

6. I watched the movie "No Body" again. I really, really like this movie. There is something so EARNEST about each of the characters/actors. The camera angle choices, the composition, it is all so balanced and intentional. It is understated and sincere but never taking itself too seriously. It just unfolds. There is an emotional depth and the movie unapologetic. Fantastic.

7. The music of my youth and adolescence is that elusive warm blanket for all me-kind; a patchwork of squares of sound, ragged edges and all, all holding me together in memories I should be able to access.

8. God doesn't let us understand the true nature of death because God doesn't want us to get too comfortable in this life or too certain about the next. We should never feel rewarded and clear on what's going on.

9. Sure, they say we have satellites in orbit that have cameras that can soo down to earth and read the license plate off of a moving car, and can look into the expanse of space and peer into the dawn of time, and yet, here in my world, I can't get a simple pair of binoculars that incorporate multi-spectrum sensitivities and magnification equivalent to an electron microscope with offensive weapons capability, and still be scratch resistant. Sheesh.

I watched a couple of movies

 So one movie I saw was called The Serpent. I have no idea what it was about. It was really bad but I took some notes. I don't think the context is necessary, so I'll just transcribe the snark as it happened:

1. Yes, but they're Company hot pants so it makes sense she would wear them on an op.

2. She steals 3 cars, kills 14 men including 2 CIA agents, makes a series of phone calls and raises a child from birth to 14 years old, all in the space of a 25 minute tracking shot.

3. It was so bad, I want someone ELSE'S money back.

The other movie was the new Indiana Jones movie (the Dial of Destiny). 

There was prodigious product placement for Pan Am Airlines. I am much more aware of their brand identity now and am very interested in availing myself of their product or service.

I have about a million questions about plot. How did the bad guys know to go to Sicily? The one bad guy watched a boat move away by using binoculars. He was able to discern the direction ("they're going west not east") but that should still leave a lot of planet to cover.

The whole issue with Schmidt and Voller and the same actor playing two unrelated roles makes no sense.

Indy gets shot. He is almost dead. A few scenes later, he is doing well. Then, he is collapsing and near death. Then he gets better.

I also saw "anon" last week (a Netflix original!) It is a Gattaca based movie that looks like parts were shot in Washington Heights when no one was in town.

Jets game, notes

 During the game Jonathan Vilma was discussing the holding calls that no one can see as there were calls that befuddled everyone. Then there was another strange call, "improper helmet use" but no player number was given and there was no replay -- instead, the camera switched so we can watch the guys in the booth chat. Eventually there is a replay and Vilma says, "he doesn't use his helmet at all" (which, I believe he says be cause he is assuming that the penalty was on a player involved in the tackle whereas I think the refs were finding something to call on a player off the ball and no one knew that that was what they were talking about because somebody was off book).

Despite the spate of questionable calls, no one thought to consult rules expert Dean Blandino until the 4th quarter. Greg Olsen had been complaining about the officiating since the 3rd quarter of the 49ers-Eagles game. Everyone sees it!

Coexistence Games

 So I had an idea. "Idea" is ancient Stupidic for "thought that keeps you from sleeping." So here's my idea:

Invite 2 representatives of every religious organization in an area (or every cultural group etc) to a get together to increase cultural sensitivities and knowledge. Each person should prepare by filling out a set of forms that have questions (what are the common misconceptions (or questions...) about your particular religious (cultural, political...) identity, what are three core ideas, what is one thing you have learned about another group today etc). Participants are invited to sign up to be "presenters" at scheduled sessions, in small groups, and those who aren't presenting can see the lineup of scheduled presenters and choose a group to join. The presenters explain whatever the topic is for that session/group, and then maybe take a question. Then there is food and milling about and then people sign up again, so many can choose to present and you can choose to whom you want to listen. Take a day and have 50 reps (25 groups) and 10 sessions of 15 minutes each, some lunch and snacks, and people leave fed and informed.

Someone run this up the flagpole and see who salutes. Now I try to go to sleep.

I confess

The following was written in real time, as it happened:

Today I'm going to admit something to you. Please don't think less of me for this -- accept me or reject me, there is no try, but here it is: I have never, never ever seen The Kentucky Fried Movie until tonight [ed. note, last night]. There it is.

I pride myself on my knowledge of trivia and cultural knowledge having consumed all and drunk from the fountains of communicative expression in all forms. I thought I'd seen it all and I acted like it. And I have seen a lot so I guess I somehow faked it and people just thought I had seen TKFM. But damn it, I'm watching it now [ed. note, then] and it is incredible! [ed. note -- I'd like to think that this is because of the movie, not because of any other variables which might have affected my mood at the time].

But if I haven't seen it, and I'm pretty sure I haven't, why do I feel such a crazy and constant sense of de ja vu as I watch? The scenes (the visual aesthetic and the familiar nostalgia), the plots, the actors...I somehow HAVE seen it but I have no ACTUAL memory of it, just the suggestion of memories.

I have to to have seen it. But I know I haven't. Or at least, I don't know that I have.

I feel guilty about this, having passed myself off as this flavor of fraud. I'm not sure that that's the wording I mean, but I'm trying to explain that I let and even led people to believe my encyclopedic knowledge of cultural touchstones and references (covering a particular range of years) and here it is, this perfect source code for 90% of modern day life on comedic earth and I have no conscious memory of ever having seen it. But it is triggering in my head a 24 frame per second set of technicolor de ja views and chains of thought that make simple memory look like a figment filmed in sepia tones.

I'm angry now -- at me and at the rest of the world. How did I miss this? How did the world let me miss this? I made it through all the banter and nodded sagely when the topic arose, and assumed that because wasn't called out for NOT recognizing all the bits and pieces, there was nothing so essential in the movie that I missed. I got everything the equivalent from somewhere else. I got by without it and nobody said a word so I couldn't have missed much. How unique and distinct could it possibly be?

I was a fool, a goddamn fool. I know that now and I'm not sure what to do with this new, little piece of self-knowledge. What else is the universe holding back or hiding from me, or me from myself. And why?

But maybe, somehow, in some alternate way, I DID see it, hear it and not just of it. Clips? Copies? I just don't know, but that film was a revelation.

There was no specific moment, no formal exam ever administered, nor any oath of loyalty required so no one knew that I hadn't seen it, but no one directly asked me and everyone just thought that, as it is a cultural imperative, I must have seen it and the world rolled on.

Brain Dump

 Another collection of things I have written recently that have no other home. Sift through them as you will.

-------------------

I was watching a football game and there was a camera shot of the defensive coordinator, the guy way upstairs, watching the game and some screens intently, and telling the guys downstairs what to do.

Every group of guys has at least one of these type -- always yelling at the TV set, telling everyone (especially the TV set) that he could do a better job of calling the game. "Put up or shut up" somebody said, and this guy said "try me."

--------------

I watched a documentary of Pink Floyd that clearly didn't have the permissions of the group members, nor any access to copyrighted material so it was pretty weak. But I realized that I like the song "Money" somewhat but I really like the song, "Time."

There was a string group playing a classical-type rendition of a Floyd song and I actually had this thought in my head, "I would have pitched that down and scored it for viola."

---------------

You know all those TV shows on which the host tries to conquer some restaurant challenge meal, some ungodly amount of food? I see those as menu inspirations for dinner.

-------------

Decisions....decisions!

I realized that I'm not actually aware of the decisions I make most of the time. Even if I do acts consciously, I can't pinpoint the moment when I flip that switch and decide to act. When did I actually choose that course of action?

--------------

Sometimes when I see someone pulling a rope that goes down a well, I wonder if that person is having a tug of war with someone in China.

-----------

there is more but the paper on which I wrote it is in the other room.

The Dallas Game

 

If you think I'm done with my NFL-is-Scripted theory, you're wrong. I watched the first half of last week's Thursday night game and, oh man, I have notes!

First Dallas possession. First down throw in the Red Zone. "Flag" on the play. Now, the announcers tell us, "We'll hear from the officials." The announcement comes, "There is no flag on the play" and we all repeat dumbly "there is no flag on the play" like hypnotized zombies. The official releases the mental hold he has on all of us and turns to two players who look at him confusedly and he says (yes, I heard him say this) "No, none -- we called it off, we called it off!"

The TV guy says, "Well, I guess. There's. No. (in a high pitched, squeaky voice) Flaaaag. Ontheplay."

Cut to commercial.

Later comment when something similar happens soon after, "That's the second time they've picked up a flag."

[the commentator knows something is hinky]

During the course of the game, I see, after more plays than usual, players lifting their hands after they make a tackle or whatever it is they do, as if to say "Not me, I didn't do anything." I've seen players being nice to each other, helping each other up and chatting between plays. All of this sends the messages to the officials that "we aren't your pawns tonight. We aren't going to give you ANYTHING to call us on and hold against us -- nothing to allow you to steer us. If you call a penalty, you will be seen as the corrupt force that you are."

At least that's what it looks like to me.

Nun with Fumbers

I'm not a historian but what I'm really not is a mathematician, so let's have some fun with history and math!

I'm also not a statistician so we can mix that in as well.

Some facts.

On Dec 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. 2,403 people, including 68 civilians were killed.

This number constituted approximately 6 tenths of a percent of Hawaii's population in that time (423,300).

This number constituted about 2 ten thousandths of a percent of US population. Feel free to check my math and counting of decimal places.

On October 7th, the number of dead when Israel was subject to a surprise attack was about 1,200. Out of a population of 9.4 million, that's 1 thousandth of a percent, or ten times the relative number of dead.

Of course, the numbers are skewed because at Pearl Harbor, no one was kidnapped, and it is hard to compare a military base and a music festival, but we soldier on (as it were). Also, on October 7, a significantly higher percentage of the victims were civilians.

Faced with a threat which was clearly not existential, aimed at the military, not the civilian public, nor was it on the mainland of the US (heck, Hawaii wasn't even a state until 18 years later!) the US responded militarily (and in other non-humanitarian ways).

So why didn't the US pursue a ceasefire and negotiations with Japan?

A Note to the NFL!

 

I know your game. I'm on to you.

Your plan is to have Tony Romo question the officiating and everything else in the game so that I think "this all must be real and unscripted because otherwise, why would they have one of their major commentators questioning it all?"

Well I'm not biting.

Yes, I like Tony Romo. Yes, I know that sometimes he comes off as an arrogant know-it-all. I also know that he is confirming my theory by asking all those questions! He's just proving that he had different expectations and that he sees the officials as pushing things in the "wrong" direction.

The commentators pointed out that the Bills had been penalized 9 times to the Eagles' once (while they were discussing non-calls and errors in officiating) thereby showing the attempt in the officiating to limit the success of the Bills. The Bills, though, persevered and made it through all the suspect officiating.

Then they missed a field goal. Sigh. The officials win again.

A few plays later, there was a fumble. Chaos ensues on the field but the guy in the booth with Romo (is it Jim Nance?) announced that the Bills had possession even before there was any call on the field. How could he know?

I think we all know the answer to that.

A Space for Music

So I was sitting, grading papers and I put a classical concert on TV so I could have some background music. I noted the bows of the various strings -- the vibrations created by horsehair against the strings moves teh air and we hear glorious music. 

The reeds of the woodwinds...air blown causes the reed to vibrate through the body of the instrument. The lips of the players of the brass, in their tight-pulled smiles raise and lower the pitch, and even the voice is air drawn past vocal chords causing vibrations.

And I then think of airless space. The massive vacuum of infinity can hold no vibrations or emotions. Imagine if I were to transport the entire of the philharmonic and put them up into space. Would there be music if there can be no air borne vibrations?

Dunno, but the music guys would all be dead anyway.

A Small Idea

Microhouses on Microplots

Take a plot of land and subdivide it into quarters. People can then buy 3 out of every 4 subplots (the fourth will be paved as communal parking for the 3 homeowners -- each can house 1 car on this section.

Each of the 3 owners will build, or have built a micro-house (that's a thing...look it up). Assume a one bedroom, one bath, living room/kitchen kind of house (available pre-fab and modular also). Maybe like an RV type house but fixed on the ground and built with township amenities like a regular house. The zoning will limit the lot coverage on the 1/4 plot so the house will have to be small. There will be walkways/stairs from the parking area to each of the three mini-houses and will be installed once the plans for the home are confirmed. Other zoning laws (setback, height groundskeeping) will be innovated  specifically to apply only to this community/system (possibly by creating a new zone) and both the laws and the enforcement of the codes will be strict so buying/building will be very limiting, but relatively cheap.

The question is, what is the tax base differential between a fiscal tax intake on a comp-based cost estimate for a single lot vs. on 3 of 4 lots of approximately 1/4 lots size. Would the community benefit from more residents and a larger tax base, or larger houses and fewer people? Would it raise or lower housing values?

Strategy

"But coach," Mackey piped up, "what if they say something that hurts my feelings? Can I be mean back?"

The coach stopped and his face took on an odd cast. It cleared quickly and he smiled and said, "No. There is no excusing it from anyone. How's about this - when he says 'Hey punk' to try and make you feel small, say, 'Hey balloon!" and walk away.

Mackey looked confused.

"He'll be as confused as you are now." The coach explained. "That should keep him distracted for a play or two. Then he'll try to get your attention; that means you control him. Ignore him a little and eventually, if he tries to get your attention, say 'What, balloon?' Keep it up and when he is good and angry and asks 'Why do you keep calling me balloon? Why balloon?' you look at him all nice and say 'Because you are full of hot air and I'm gonna pop you every change I get.' Walk away."

"Now he'll be enraged and that's when he'll make a mistake. That's when you win the battle that gives you the better chance at winning the war."

Why I am Angry at my Television

 So I was watching a wonderfully mediocre Netflix movie which seemed to be designed for old, single guys. Not too much dialogue, some good explosions, poor editing, an illogical and hard to follow story-line which is essentially unnecessary because there are some good explosions. Suddenly and over a period of an hour and a half, I decided that I'd like to have some dinner. This meant standing up and going to the kitchen to make said dinner. A quest if you will, and a nice break from the movie. I made sure to his "pause" so that I didn't miss one godforsaken moment, and off I went, then I walked to the kitchen.

I made me a mess o' food so nice they named it food. When I cook up my special brand of bland I know I'm living right. Fried protein with other fried protein, served with a side of cheese. All the food groups properly represented. While I am finishing up with the cookerie in which I am so engrossed, I glanced over at the TV and see the screen go black. Off. Done. Kaput. Wait, what? EMERGENCY!

I washed my hands properly and ran over to the TV to check its vitals. Screen? Black. Patient is non-responsive. I picked up the remote and pushed a button (while whispering a solemn prayer to all that is good and right in the world) and the TV turned back on! Huzzah. But this is a resolution without a solution and that leads to revolution and madness. So I waddled back to my computer and googled the situation and here's what I learned:

New televisions are very advanced. They collect what are known as "environmental demographic data points" which go well beyond the show that I watch and how long I watched it for. These TV's hack into your very lifestyle and correlate variables like my age, gender, occupation and other readily available public data with my viewing habits and timings to create a comprehensive idea of who I am and what I do. They can interface with my other devices and figure out my daily schedule. So my TV assumes that, based on the use of lighting, the oven, the change in the thermostat and other events, I have a particular sleep/wake cycle so if I hit pause and don't return to the movie within a specific period of time, I have fallen asleep on the toilet again and it behooves my TV to do the equivalent of drinking itself into a black out.

I find this horribly insensitive and judgmental. Are "they" saying that I lack the ability to make a meal and return to a movie? Are they saying that I am so predictable that they can make decisions for me? And who made them the boss of me, demanding that I use a "toilet"?

A quick thought about Parshat Toldot

 

Our story so far -- During a famine, Isaac heads to G'rar. At this point, he has fathered his boys and they have been named. The second one (who came out holding the heel of his elder brother) was named Ya'akov. The root here (ayin-kuf-vet) can be used to make the word "heel," the root of the word "trickery" or "deception" and "because."

In Bereisheet 26:5, as God reassures Yitzchak that he will be OK and his descendants will be numerous  Hashem says "עֵ֕קֶב אֲשֶׁר־שָׁמַ֥ע אַבְרָהָ֖ם בְּקֹלִ֑י וַיִּשְׁמֹר֙ מִשְׁמַרְתִּ֔י מִצְוֺתַ֖י חֻקּוֹתַ֥י וְתוֹרֹתָֽי׃

because Avraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws."

There is, of course, a simpler word for "because" or "since" -- ki which is used a huge number of times in the book of Bereisheet. But not here. Weird, right? In the book of Devarim (7:12) the word is used but it is explained as "reward". The Ibn Ezra writes (copied from the sefaria's translation) "Ekev (because) has the same meaning as ekev (reward) in For ever, reward (Ps. 119:112). It means the reward which will be given at the end." Clearly, it is used instead of the simpler word "ki" because it imports specific reference to the reward and isn't a simple causal indicator.

I would suggest, though, that there is a deeper meaning. Hashem is telling Yitzchak not to think that his son Ya'akov is a deceiver. He is planting the seed in Yitzchak to help counter any later feeling that Ya'akov has tricked anyone by showing that his name is tied to the reward for following the mitzvot. Isaac is going to be confused -- which of his children deserves the blessings of leading Hashem's people? Hashem makes it clear that the answer is "ekev asher shama" that Ya'akov is the one who listened to God's words. Saying "ki" would not allude to Ya'akov and would not prime Isaac's subconscious to think a certain way about Ya'akov's actions.

When Ya'akov has been blessed and leaves and Eisav shows up, Yitzchak describes Ya'akov's actions as "mirmah" which commentators (based on Onkelos) see as "wit" or "subtlety" (or as is reported by the Netinah LaGer though I haven't looked in Bereisheet Rabbah for the source, "בחכמת התורה" which the intelligence borne of Torah learning). As the Siftei Chachamim writes, "With cleverness. Otherwise, [if it meant deceit], why should he be blessed?" So it seems that what comes out of Yitzchok's mouth by way of judgment is that Ya'akov did something smart and infused with Torah, not deceit. Eisav's response is that his brother tricked him (ya'akveini) saying he has lived up to the name Ya'akov. But Yitzchak does not agree. He reiterates that the blessing has been given and he doesn't criticize Ya'akov at all, maybe bacuse he now realizes that, as he had been told in G'rar, Ekev is the one who listens to Hashem and Ekev is the reward. This is why in Chapter 28, Yitzchak blesses Ya'akov with even more instead of excoriating him or at all holding back out of any resentment.

A burst of creativity, captured

 Last evening I decided to write down a bunch of thoughts in real time (as opposed to the fake time I usually buy because it is cheaper).

Some of these are lines I might use some day. Some are observations. Some, I'm not quite sure. Filter's off and I apologize in advance for any inappropriate language or themes. I just wrote things down on a pad of paper and now I'm typing them up. They are generally unrelated to each other.

*****************

The memories easiest to remember are the ones that haven't happened yet.

-------------------------

Remembering something as a thousand thoughts flit through my brain -- not forgetting it as the ripples in my brain disappear as each millisecond passes, is like catching a hummingbird midflight, that most elusive finch. And each time I successfully remember when by all rights, the most recent thought should go the way of the myriads which bounce in and out of my brain, it feels like the first and only time I have done so, an effervescence of excitement runs through me, refreshing and I put a pin in the caught memory, sticking into it and holding it down to remind me of that moment, killing it but reminding me that it once existed.

-------------------------

Doing something "at speed" is a great construction, referring to something's happening at the maximum or optimal speed. I like that phrase.

-------------------------

I was watching Baa Baa Black Sheep (Season 1, episode 10, "New Georgia on my Mind"). Who plays "TJ"? Did he ever do other stuff? I need to rewatch the episode because I didn't see exactly what happened to John Laroquette's plane. I thought this was a "part 1" episode because there was so much unresolved with 4 minutes left but WOW they wrapped everything up so quickly! Poorly paced show. Intense characters and acting until the very end when it gets cartoony.

-------------------------

[The following was my reaction to an infomercial for cookware]:

"I'll show you a self-cleaning fry basket!"

-------------------------

When you have a Wisconsin game on in the background and aren't really listening, Tucker Ashcraft's name sounds like ass-crack.

-------------------------

I turned on Austin City Limits and might have developed an erroneous understanding of the explanation of the term "Austin City Limits" but it made me think of this --

4 hotels situated at the corners of a large swatch of land, and all connected by a wall or fence. The enclosed space becomes a "shopping village" of retail, entertainment and amusement, like a mall, accessible only to patrons of the hotels. The mini-city is like a Disney -- a self-sufficient neighborhood which allows entry to its elite shoppers only by virtue of their staying a hotel. In fact, we can have the 4 hotels exist at 4 price points. Each one awards a particular level of access or perk (the cheapest one might require that the people there work also), creating a social caste hierarchy among visitors.

I really need to see a set list of the ACL episode (Foo Fighters, season 49, episode 7). It was really good.

-------------------------

I'm anticipating the excitement I'll feel when I, reviewing these, actually do not remember having committed these ramblings to the pad.

-------------------------

I'm inventing and precipitating a simulated condition in which I lack control so I can enjoy the loss of control but know in the back of my awareness, that I still actually have control. Sort of like a holodeck scenario but I know that I set up the holodeck, so I'm safely in control but I can feel like I'm not. On a roller coaster, I'm truly not in control. When I read a horror novelization, I can put it down any time.

-------------------------

I sense that in my "love of music" category, there is a sound that I prefer. I have written in the past about specific songs that haunt me. For a while, I searched for that single defining thing assuming that it was a singular moment -- a chord magically speaking. I was in search of that lost chord, but no longer! The elusive sound is a progression, a series of moments that in combination affect me deeply. They have a specific relationship to each other which triggers a reaction in me (I need to look up a Foo Fighters' song with the line "Banging on the Ceiling").

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I need to hire a home health aide/secretary who can constantly monitor my health and also type up all my handwritten, half mad, half ramblings so I can decide how quickly I want to forget them.

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Here's a note about the Foo Fighters: even their songs that aren't remarkable are pretty damn good.

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I'm so intellectually out of shape that my heart races when I try to catch my own train of thought.

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Note to self -- type all this up as a stream of consciousness. It ensures the authenticity of its source material. [I have no idea where I was going with that]

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And so now I, haunted by the fact that I DID prefer the light brown M+M's to the dark brown ones, feel like a confirmed racist thank you very much.

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If you aren't interested in college football, while most of the year there is nothing on television on Saturday night, during the college football season there is really, really NOTHING on television on Saturday night.

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I did enjoy hearing the phrase "rapid unscheduled disassembly" used when the rocket blew up. Doublespeak FTW.

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Magee Hickey (I was watching the channel 11 news) almost called Kaity Tong "cutie". Hickey continued to report about the Young People's Concert and showed a clip of the musicians playing. She explained that they were playing "the theme from the Lone Ranger, also known as the William Tell Overture." I was under the impression, that the piece had a proper name and the use on television would be the "also known as". What does it say, sociologically, that the actual name is demoted to a position behind the TV usage?

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At first I thought she was an idiot but then it got worse and I realized that she was a social justice warrior.

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Three media presentations of reality:

Figment of the imagination (St. Elsewhere)

Simulation (Matrix, Free Guy)

Manufactured scenario (Truman Show)

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A short scene -- I am being questioned by an evil person.

Him -- Well, what do you say, MR. Rosen? Or should I say, rabbi! It is rabbi is it not. 

[Silence]

Him -- So you are a rabbi! 

Me -- as you are a man

Him -- In what sense? 

Me -- It depends on one's definition of the word. Some would say no. 

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A comedy skit I wrote

 

[Note -- with each "but" Joe's voice should creep higher in pitch]

Mike and Joe are sharing a beer and chatting in Mike's house.

Mike: and then the UN guy said that the Hamas attack on the music festival had to be considered in a context of how the Arabs have been treated. Can you believe it?

Joe: Well, it is important to consider the historical-

Mike: No. Stop right there. Hundreds were murdered. Any attempt to find a justification is wrongheaded and hateful.

Joe: But it is-

Mike: Nope. You can't try to find a way for the behavior of the invading terrorists to make any sort of sense.

Joe: OK, I get it. Hamas invaded and killed civilians and that's bad.

Mike: Exactly.

Joe: But you can't forget --

Mike: Again, stop. Are you going to bring up the "open air prison" thing? Ignoring the inaccuracy of the characterization, are you saying that if you live confined to place 1 then you are justified in going to place 2 and killing babies?

Joe: No, I'm just saying that...um...ok, I see your point. Killing babies can't be defended.

Mike: Good.

Joe: Buuut there-

Mike: Nothing! Are you going to talk about that phantom apartheid? Does that legal subtlety of non-citizens not being allowed the same rights as actual citizens rationalize murdering senior citizens?

Joe: Well, no. I see what you mean.

Mike: OK then.

Joe: Buuuuuuuut you -

Mike: Argh! What, are you going to do the whole "occupation" thing? Gaza isn't occupied. It hasn't been since 2005. There is a border between it and 2 other countries. Does the existence of a border explain why it is OK to throw grenades into shelters where civilians are hiding?

Joe: No, no. You're right. That's bad. Ca't support that.

Mike: Agreed.

[Pause]

Joe: Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut there --

Mike: No, No, No! There is nothing that can give a context where kidnapping people and torturing them is allowable. If you bring up the words "war crimes" (which can't be applied to the IDF, let alone to the individuals who were kidnapped) you end up giving prophylactic excuses to the next batch of murderers!

Joe: That's true. I don't want to give anyone an out which might allow future massacres.

Mike: Exactly.

[Longer Pause]

Joe: Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut if you --

Mike: WRONG. You can't start bringing up things like the war in 1948 and the supposed "nakba" (Arabs left for many reasons and an equal number of Jews were expelled from their countries) because that sets an arbitrary start date and ignores the rest of history.

Joe: Oh, I see that now. You can't claim that one moment in history is significant as a causal factor and discount the rest.

Mike: That's what I'm saying. Anyway, I have to go. Thanks for the beer.

Joe: No problem, and you're right -- an armed incursion, overrunning a humanitarian crossing, in which over a thousand people, including the elderly and infants, Muslims and Jews and Christians, civilians at a festival, people in their beds, children hiding are massacred and mutilated and in which over 200 people are kidnapped and deprived of all rights and humane treatment can't be given any "context" which might try to explain it as the result of rational behavior.

Mike: I'm glad we agree! Have a great day.

[Mike gets up, collects his things and leaves. The two shake hands at the door and Mike goes. Joe waits at the door for 5 seconds and closes and locks it. He goes to the window and peeks out. We hear a car start and drive off. A pause.]

Joe: Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut-

[BLACKOUT]

More NFL observations

 

I have fallen and hurt myself. Even as a late teen and twenty something, I knew the pain of falling down and having to get up. There is simply no way that football players can heal as quickly as they do (during the game, between plays, and after major bodily traumas). They aren't Wolverine or anything -- their bodies, after they crash into others, fall, bounce etc. can't simply "be OK" no matter what kind of condition they are in. The human body isn't made to bend or get thrown down that way. Either they are robots, the whole thing is highly choreographed (like wrestling) or it is all just AI.

I was watching a game and there was a call for "unnecessary roughness" on a punt return. The call was announced and the announcers immediately segued to a completely different topic with no explanation and NO replay of what happened. Why do you think that is? It isn't that the game was back underway, and they always seem to have a replay for every player all the time. Why didn't they discuss and show this play? Because it probably didn't happen -- that's my conclusion.

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New info:

The Washington Commanders' helmets seem to have a slight lip or bill on them that, along with their color makes them look like WWI German helmets. Coincidence? I think not.

Ideas for television scheduling

 So I was watching some cable channel that ran old shows (reruns of The Rockford Files and Baa Baa Black Sheep calm me in my dotage) and I had an idea for one of those "theme" blocks of episodes. You play an episode of a series which introduced a character or story arc that was the prelude to a spinoff (or the last episode of that arc if there is more than one), and then play the first episode of the spin off.

So you play the episode of Happy Days which introduced Laverne and Shirley, and then the first episode of Laverne and Shirley. Sure, you will need the rights to more shows, just to get to isolated episodes, but seeing George Jefferson on All in the Family and then the first episode of The Jeffersons would be interesting. You can probably make a whole list of pairs of episodes like this.

Next programming idea is movies and TV shows that have actors who are known for playing opposite each other in X context, in this new context. You saw Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson in Thor: Ragnarok? Well, also watch MIB:International. I'm sure that this has also happened a lot of times (especially with so many TV shows out there that had stars before they were famous) so there have to be a lot of examples of this. George Clooney -- on ER, did he ever have an interaction with someone who had been on Facts of Life? There doesn't need to be an explicit callback by the actors -- the audience should just know that when it sees Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman on screen together in the MCU, it has already seen them together in Sherlock (though I don't know if they share screen time in the MCU).

Making the right call

I have been accumulating more info and have worked on a complex conspiracy theory regarding the NFL. You can look back to my previous posts about the charge that the league is more footbal-esque entertainment, with some sort of either scripting or pre-recording going on than it is a real league of honest to goodness sports competitiousness and in this post I'm going to lay more details out for you.

Here's an opening point -- I find that it is impossible for the guys in the booth to have spotted, analyzed, annotated, researched and prepped the in-depth analysis which they present so quickly after each and every play. Any viewer would have to watch a play repeatedly and possibly in slow-motion to see the movement of multiple players, and crucial block or the critical slip but these guys have already called out the player and instantly had the playback at the ready so that they can confidently draw up exactly what happened because a camera happened to be focused on the correct player (out of 40+ on the field) who does something noteworthy. That point of view is already spliced and cued up, ready for replay. No one has to ask for a specific angle or shot, player or move. Somehow the guy in the booth and the guys in the editing truck are in complete simpatico and can read each other's thoughts. Not buying it. Go, watch a game and see if you can see, come to conclusions about, and have the exact angle ready in a matter of 3-5 seconds after the play's completion. Not gonna happen. Just saying.

Next, I'll relay a recent incident. In addition to the gaffes which I have catalogued and presented, there's this -- I was watching Thursday Night Football last week and the play-by-play guy who might have been Al Michaels said that there was a flag on a particular play. On the screen, the little "Flag" yellow marker went up. His co-host (or the color commentator...I don't know the PC term for it anymore) started anticipating a penalty call on a specific player which would negate a 78 yard run back for a touchdown. He started to explain who committed the foul and on and on. Then the game went to commercial. When it returned to "live" coverage, the extra point was being kicked. Al Michaels said, "Well, apparently we had no penalty." Clearly, someone was off the page in terms of what was supposed to be happening. The experts were already dissecting a penalty, the graphic indicated a penalty but there was none on the field. Hmmm. Something problematic about that.

[side funny thought: I envision a cartoon which shows a football player severely bloody and cut up, looking at the ref and yelling "You're flagging ME? For HOLDING?" and opposite him, in the uniform of his competitor is Edward Scissorhands.]

So here's what I have decided: the NFL is an expression of a coup d'état orchestrated by the industrial-military complex in cahoots with the league.

**Sinister and melodramatic interlude

they're outside right now. A dog is barking in the empty hallway as footsteps die. The silence which is somehow not silence echoing, holding the memory of noise and the promise of the unknown. The NFL has found me.

** end sinister and melodramatic interlude

I noticed while watching a game on Monday Night Football that all the coaches on both sides (!) were wearing identical brown coats and camouflage hats. Now, sure, you'll probably say something about how that makes sense because of Veterans' Day recently and you'll reassure me that the outfit will be gone by this coming Sunday but that misses the point! The league is testing out the outfit to see if America responds to it. The goal is to drive us into a state of war with anyone and everyone. We have to accept the military as essential and wish to adopt their clothing style as a show of mass acceding. And I think that Vegas knows all this and works it into the calculation of odds for any game. This is all why reviewing a call has been such a big deal and why some plays and calls are non-reviewable. 

The problem is that, recently, the calls have become more and more obviously at odds with reality. More and more booth guys are questioning calls which undermines the authority which the officials need in order to skew a game in one direction or another. I expect that in the upcoming weeks, refs will take a small step back and "let them play" and guys in the booth will second guess less often, so that the league can ensure its continuing storylines.

And if anythig happens to me, it was the NFL. They're everywhere.

That led to an important realization on my part: on every play, ten out of the eleven players on each side do something which can be construed as guilty in terms of penalty-liable offenses. On any given play, you can probably find SOMETHIG in the actions of almost every player that COULD be flagged. On practically every play, every lineman on either side of the ball holds his counterpart in some way. There is always contact between member of the secondary and a receiver. Somebody on the line always moves before the snap even if the movement is small. The bottom line is that the fix in the game isn't absolute and isn't the clear control leading to a predetermined victor. Instead, the point is to steer the game in a general direction but not with such complete control. This steering happens through the selective work of the officials. The specific script isn't written but there are cues and prompts and a general story arc, shaped by the choices of officials to call or not call a particular offense.

Thoughts on Football

 Position -- The Offended Line

The largest of the players were called in, primed for a final push towards a first down. In the huddle, tense seconds ticking, one man raised his head and said, "Hey Rob," for the quarter back's name was, indeed, Rob, "me and some of the guys on the line think it is offensive that you bring us in for these brute force and short yardage plays -- it perpetuates the stereotype of us that we are nothing more than troglodytic cyclopses, capable of some grunting and pushing, but not of finesse and beauty. That's hurtful, Rob. It isn't fair and it isn't cool to judge us and say that we 'have to know our plays.' We demand equal right and left tackles. We can contribute in our own way and help make what can become OUR way."

A Grave Diss Service

 I write the following to my sister not because anything in specific has to do with her but because she, by geographic virtue (and chronological vice?) is closest so these things will fall within her purview.

Dear Nomi,

You have done such a fine job setting up and taking care of mom and dad's graves so I have some ideas I wanted to pass by you. Please take care of these things at my convenience.

First, I noticed that at the cemetary, and at others, there is a lot of sunlight and in many graveyards, there aren't sublevels and overhangs, meaning even more sunlight. Can you please start selling solar panels that be affixed to graves so that the deceased can help us generate more electricity?

Next, I would like it if you could set up a Ring doorbell on mom and dad's gravestone. I would like to be able to watch and see who visits -- I suspect that when my kids say that they are going to visit the grave, they are actually at home, throwing a party. Also, it would be neat to speak to someone who comes to visit the grave. I might even throw that person for a loop! Maybe an Echo Dot or the equivalent would be good also. I am not sure how or why but I like saying "Echo Dot" because it means "echo law/religion" in Hebrew.

Can you arrange to attach a dry erase marker to the grave so people can write notes? You might have to install a dry erase board also. Get er done.

For my grave (which I shan't need for quite some time) I'd like to eschew the traditional mausoleum and just have some animatronics installed. 

Thanks,

Dan

scraps

 I have been starting a number of different things and then losing interest and moving on so I will just dump 3 separate entries here. If they inspire you to keep writing about any of these, then that's great. If not, that's great also.

1. I wanted to go on record as stating that AI is not writing any of this. A longer discussion of the plusses and minusses of chat-apps writing or revising work, making images or composing music needs to be composed but these days, I am so sidetracked with work that I am not doing it. Just be aware, though -- I'm real and I'm really writing this.

2. I am working on a wikipedia entry. I want to create a new historical event so this is what I have so far:

The Farmers' Rebellion of 1871

The Farmers' Rebellion helped galvanize congress to subsidize less capable farmers so that they could be guaranteed a living wage despite gross incompetence. 

The movement, unofficially considered to have begun with the destruction of half empty solos in 1871 (see "the Granary Murders") signaled the spread of unionization beyond urban centers, 30 plus years before it even existed. 

Driven by the work of local Kansan Fred "Hero" Israel the work stoppage which was participated in by upwards of 2 farmers convinced the government that it was 1871 and really, nothing much else was going on. The resolution, sponsored by Badadiah L. Brown (R, Illinois) passed by a vote of 4 to 3 with an unknown number of votes for "confused." 

Sporadic violence against a variety of inanimate objects inspired Americans to rally around the cause, singing anthems such as "Don't corn me no Corn" and "Till til we till again."

3. A musing on the cult of celebrity surrounding football players:

Football players are working to cultivate a brand and commercial identity so much so and so distinct of their position as teammate that teams tend to draw attraction, yes by a won lost record primarily but following a close second, as the extension of a media personality. Less successful teams are measured by a lack of a face pervasive in the consumers' collective eye. Thus the less successful teams are not unknown despite having statistically significant athletes but because their local base does not actually watch football. 

On not sleeping

 It is 4AM. At this time yesterday, it was also 4AM. I know because I was there. And to help you all out, I can confidently say that, at least this morning, there was also a 1AM and a 2 AM and a 3AM.

Some nights I sleep just fine and other nights, well, I can guard reality from the incursion of dreams. You're welcome.

Not sleeping is sometimes the function of food. Eat something which leads to indigestion, stay up indigesting. Sometimes it is because of drink. Though drinks might help one fall asleep, they often interrupt regular sleep patterns and cause wakefulness soon after. Medicines can do the same thing, even those designed to help one sleep. Sometimes, it seems, there is almost a rebound effect and when the medicine wears off, sleep becomes impossible. Stress and worry can also leave one up, playing life's scenes over and over, including not just what was, but what wasn't, might be and could never be. And then worrying about all of that. Light, noise or other variables can also destroy the potential for a night's sleep, good or otherwise.

I have also found that, at least for my night-time sleep cycle, sometimes I'm just done -- wide awake and raring to go at some unholy hour. And getting a little more makes me feel more tired. I don't know if this is a trick of the mind or a real physiological syndrome -- 3 hours leaves me more awake than 5 hours, or something like that. Regardless, I'm up and the world (at least most of this time zone) is at rest. The occasional car drives by and I wonder who else is in such a fix as to be awake? Someone coming home or someone going out. Is the day over or just starting. But for me, day and night become blurred. And tomorrow I might be sharp as a tack or dull as a tack that has been beaten down by lack of sleep.

They say that the similes are the first to go.

So here's to bad decisions -- a cup of caffeinated tea at 4:10AM, guaranteed to wreak havoc on my various systems, physical and mental. Then, when the time seems right, I shall neither rise nor shine, but just keep plugging until my body decides that sleep is a viable option.

Wishing all you night owls, morning glories and midafternoon muskrats a pleasant next wake-wake cycle.

Petty, please

 I used to be good at some stuff. In fact, there are probably things that I'm still good at. I taught myself to juggle and I'm pretty OK at that. I play a few instruments, some better than others. And though I never god "great" at any, there are some that I actually became reasonable at. I can do some basic cooking and baking (and eating...) and have a mind made for remembering trivia. I sometimes can generate Torah thoughts, and I can do basic math without a calculator. Sometimes, I even get the answer.

But there is always someone better.

I recall watching Dwight Gooden pitch for the Mets right around the time that I saw barely-teens being called over the hill as they competed in Olympic gymnastics. Yup. Better, younger and even better. And even now, I watch videos on the interwebz showcasing people who play musical instruments, write comedy bits, bake cakes, and change lightbulbs, all better than I ever could hope to. Part of me wants to yell "that's not fair" and stamp my feet and hold my breath until I turn blue. But I'm sure that there is someone who could do that better than I could anyway.

There will always be someone better, or someone aiming to be better. Someone working harder because he's number two and you can't keep a good cliché down. So if you think you're the tops, then watch out because there's a new tower of Pisa gunning for you. And we are all, therefore, tempted to live our lives running race after race, looking over our shoulders or at the back of the person in front of us, competing for some phantom of fame and fortune (alliteration is a strength of mine). We end up feeling a combination of jealous and resentful of anyone better and angry and afraid of anyone on our heels.

You want to know what the 9th of Av means to me? It means that we, as a people are so focused on the getting and having, and not as much on the being. It means that there was baseless hatred in the temple days -- what is baseless hatred? It is that same petty jealousy and resentment that drives us today to knock each other down in an effort to get ahead. The Ethics of the Fathers teaches that someone is rich if he is happy with what he has. But what is that "richness"? Are we really supposed to be measuring our success by richness?

No. In Tanach there are plenty examples of the "rich" person being portrayed negatively (just look up עשיר in a concordance...there's a lot). So why would being happy with what I have make me rich if being rich is a bad thing? Well, the Ethics of the Fathers clarifies by citing evidence for its claim of happiness -- it points out that we should equate עשיר (rich) with אשר (happiness). Think about the word as used in Psalms (ashrei, happy are they). When that word is used, it is in the context of happiness spiritually. 

Take a look at that selection from Ethics (chapt 4, mishna 1) -- Ben Zoma establishes the definition of 4 words, but they aren't random, nor is their order capricious: wise, strong, rich, honored.

Ben Zoma lived in the first and second centuries CE, so right after the destruction of the second temple. I believe that he was giving his understanding of what happened so that we could reverse the loss and establish a new temple. He starts by saying that we need not to be jealous of others, and see every encounter as an opportunity for growth and improvement. Who is wise? One who learns from others. I shouldn't get jealous -- I should see how I can get better, or at least understand better by watching others. Who is strong? Not one who defeats enemies or knocks down his opponents, but one who can conquer his own impulse to circle the wagons and resent others. It is difficult to accept that others are better but instead of lashing out, we have to accept that the world is what it is. Then we can become rich, because we can learn to be happy with what we have. And what do we have? Once we see learning as paramount and can conquer our evil inclination, we can see clearly that we have a connection to the divine. And how can you be any richer than that. After all that, we can see each other person as worthy of our respect because each person is struggling to be the best version of him or herself and we need to recognize that struggle. When we honor others, then we are deserving of being honored.

I may only be good at things, but I'm sure I'm better than others. Do I want them to resent me? Do I want them to try and knock me off my relative podium to make them feel better? If they can see that I accept that there is always room for growth and I don't begrudge anyone else his or her success, then maybe that will be passed along, and others will respect my struggles and decisions.

If we want to rebuild the temple, we need to be wise' we need to be strong; we need to be full of the richness of life, and we need to respect others.

Ben Zoma laid out that path for us. So watch those videos and be impressed. Clap for the person who gets the question right when you got it wrong. Accept that you are who you are and each of us is a link in a very special chain - we are not competitors but teammates. Give respect instead of demanding it from others. Then we might be on the path to redemption.

Have a meaningful fast.

John Wick is NOT a documentary

 I apologize to anyone who has heard me opine on the following topic but I feel it needs to be written down for the wider world.

I have begun to believe that the John Wick movie is NOT a documentary. This is not because I don't believe that our society is a pastiche of assassins, tied together by a network of old computers, pagers, gold coins, pierced lips and deadly pencils. My realization was inspired by an experience I had.

Recently I gave blood. In a John Wick universe, this is a very important practice because it seems that people are often bleeding. After I gave blood I ran some errands and then came home and decided to take a nap. So far, so alive. Julie came home a little later and said that one fo the bottles I bought was leaking. So I jumped up from the couch, ran over to the bottle, crouched down to inspect and then stood up again, all way too quickly. Now, maybe it was because I had given blood. Maybe it is because I am on medicine which gives me very low blood pressure. maybe it was because I hadn't slept more than 3 hours the night before. Heck, maybe it was because I was smoking crack. I dunno. A lot of people were yelling stuff.

But the bottom line is that I passed out. I could feel it happening and I recall checking the screen door to make sure it was seculrely closed so I could lean against it as I fell. It wasn't. And boom goes the Dan-o-mite. With Julie's encouragement and help I crawled my way to the sofa and climbed aboard. Though I had not hit my head, I was not without booboos. And here is where I started to doubt the veracity of the events in the John Wick movie.

In the John Wick movies, characters get thrown from cars, pushed down flights of stairs, and shot repeatedly (and that's all done before the conflicts develop). People beat each other with books, get bitten by dogs and engage in martial arts fights in which they end up on the floor and then they (get this) GET BACK UP (all without the help of Julie). And don't tell me it is because John Wick is a young man so he can do things I can't. John Wick has got to be at least in his forties and by the time I was in my forties, the snaps, crackle and pops of my joints made for a joyful chorus, punctuated by the chants of "ouch" and "oy" which framed the music of my bones.

I passed out briefly because my body decided that standing was too difficult and I have scrapes and bruises to show for it. My nemeses were gravity and his henchman "the ground" and I'm still feeling the effects 2 weeks later. Bruises have turned a series of fashion colors and scabs cover my shin. The union is unhappy but them's the breaks. How is it that someone in that John Wick universe can be stabbed, fight back and incapacitate a room full of baddies, then stitch himself up and go out for a rousing game of pin the bullet on the villain, a game held somewhere in the Alps, which he climbs himself.

So I'm going to have to call BS on the John Wick documentary. Stuff like that can't really happen. Also, no one ever goes to the bathroom.

Bite me, Nostradamus

 I have been working on being psychic and I have come to terms with the fact that being psychic, as a skill, is not something I will successfully develop. So instead, I have decided to creating the air of psychic by exploiting statistics and circumstances. Now, to be psychic, I am specifically talking (for the sake of this silliness) about foretelling the future. Some people, using inferences and technology, get paid to tell the future on the daily (weathermen) but if they are anything short of 100% correct we kick and scream and we don't call their forecasts "predictions". Weathermen are not psychic. Also, there are near certainties in our world (the sun will rise tomorrow) so "predicting" those is not a mark of a psychic, and the one time the sun doesn't rise, anyone who predicted that won't really be in a position to gloat.

So here's my plan. Baseball.

As of today, the Mets have played 85 games and Mr. Pete Alonso has, in the 77 games he has been in, had 286 at bats and has hit 25 home runs. Let's assume that from the beginning of the season, I made it a practice, before every at bat, to say with confidence "Pete will hit a home run right now!" I would have been right a touch under 10% of the time. In terms of predictions, being right 10% of the time isn't horrible. But it isn't great.

Add this in, though -- I make sure, for each game, to be in a different place with different people. That means that in 77 games, 77 different groups of people would have heard me make a singular prediction about each at bat. Let's say that Alonso averages 4 at bats (I can't work with 3.714285714). Also, he has had only 1 multi-home run game.(April 5 I think) which means that he has homered in 24 separate games out of the 77 he has been in.

So back to my prediction. In 53 game situations, I will pull a goose egg and those 53 discrete groups of people will see me as a non-psychic. But 24 groups will see me as 25% of a psychic (1 home run in 4 at bats) which is better than 10%. Better than that, if I reduce my prediction to "Pete will hit a home run in this game" then 24 groups will see me as 100% a psychic while 53 groups will see me as a non-psychic. I think this means that my psychic-rating among the populace would be 31%. Of course, if I predicted in each case "Pete WON'T hit a home run in this at bat/game" my rating would climb substantially.

I might just stick to "the Mets are gonna lose" because then I'd be running over 54%.

College

 Recent news inspires me to have a variety of opinions. Film at eleven. The film will be unrelated to my opinions, but if you are looking to watch something at 11, you can watch a film.

I received a college education. I did so because of my parents, and that is a truth on 2 distinct levels:

1. I got in to the school I attended because they are alums

2. They paid -- and while I worked multiple jobs, what I earned did not make a real dent in the total tuition.

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Item the first causes me no end of consternation. The recent move by the court to abolish race-based admissions policies seems reasonable to me (especially as I attended a university created to give opportunity to those who were excluded from other schools because of religion). But that's because I don't see college as an inherent right, nor do I see attending particular colleges as an extension of that right. College attendance is a privilege, and yes, this privilege has been available to only a small section of the population for a long time, and this section has developed, historically, along mostly racial lines. And that's wrong. But do we solve that by flipping the script and creating admission with a preference for those in a disadvantaged group in order to ensure representation by a diverse population? All that does is even the disadvantage, not create equity. Now the group which has gotten the breaks in the past suffers so that it knows how it feels to be passed over because of race. Is that a good thing? Does that advance society? I don't think so.

College admissions has become more and more problematic for a while now and it isn't because of race -- it is because we have stopped valuing college as a domain for the educational elite. In a society that wants everyone to be the same, we have turned college into High School+, an option for everyone because everyone wants to get ahead of everyone else. But at the same time, we are stuck with a system that rewards attendance at "elite" schools so everyone jockeys for a spot in the most desirable colleges. Let's all be equally special, we say! Otherwise, the system only reinforces itself by rewarding that same small segment of the population.

Then, and we can blame the pandemic or other social forces, colleges stop relying on standardized tests so the ability to compare the academic prowess of diverse applicants is cut off at the knees. You can't trust local grading policies, schools have different levels of rigor in their separate curricula, students can get help writing essays and recommendations create a scenario in which 75% of a school population is in the top 10% of their class. In other words, there is no way to compare students and ensure that there is a minimum academic competency when assessing applicants. The idea of academics was already in jeopardy because of grade inflation and perceived testing biases, but if we use non-academics as metrics (read: race) and are driven by a need to create a diverse population, instead of a capable population, then the intellectual potential is no longer the driving force at all. Eliminate the numbers AND eliminate the race, and what do you have by which to judge applicants? Here's an answer and an disquieting one: use what the NY Times wrote about on July 2, "Adversity Scores." Admit students based on how much hardship they have suffered through and by how much they have overcome. That should ensure that those who are at more disadvantage have a better chance of getting in to school -- voila, racial equity supposedly. But what population will you end up with? Will it be fully diverse if entire sections of the population have not been at a disadvantage? Is being rejected because of a comfortable life going to be the new disadvantage? What suffering will count? Splinters? Divorced parents? Not having the newest phone? And can we then guarantee academic success to a student body whose presence is less a function of educational experience? Aren't we setting them up for failure, or just demanding that schools attenutate their content and standards to as to make the diploma a foregone conclusion?

College is supposed to be advanced education -- learning. It should be about helpng students gain specialized training and/or more complex and critical thinking skills. And no, I don't know the best way to determine who will succeed or not, or who will end up being more capable, but the answer isn't "how much you suffered." Here is where I get into the first point I laid out above -- I got in to a school when my grades should not have gotten me in. I benefited unfairly. I did, however, succeed academically and graduated with honors. So maybe this just proves that the academic standards for admissions are flawed. Maybe. Or maybe, that the actual college experience is over rated if someone below the expected level of smarts was able to graduate. Maybe. But I think we can agree that there has to be some minimum standard (and that I met that minimum). Should we eliminate alumni preference? Yes. Would that have meant that I would not have gone to college? NO. I would have to apply to other schools that had a different standard and that might have made me sad, but not every student is cut out for every college. There are MANY colleges in this country (nearly 4,000) with a variety of standards and expectations (and costs). Maybe I don't want to go to one particular school but if that's my option, I have to decide how much I want a degree. I shouldn't get preference to a school out of my SAT score's reach for a non-academic reason. So yes, my admission is part of the problem, as is my relative success in school.

Should we say that suffering gains admission and schools shouldn't be working towards flushing low achievers out. In that case, the notion of elite schools disappears because my suffering is the same no matter what school I apply to so I deserve admission to any school that has a minimum suffering coefficient that I satisfy. What defines the Harvards as Harvards if not the intellectual performance and capacity of its applicants? How do we make a school selective if not by demonstrated academic skills? "Extra-curriculars"? Do we reward oboe players over violinists because of the scarcity of oboe players? Does climbing Mt. Everest at age 7 mean more than joining an ambulance corps? How many teams, clubs, groups or organizations (or invent) must I join to prove that I'm Harvard material? And do those memberships and experiences matter if they are borne of fiscal advantage? Maybe admission should be to students who were not in ANY club or group or never went to camp because that shows more suffering. Maybe, having backpacked through Europe would count against an applicant, and only those who held the right kind of after school job should be admitted.

We are destroying the educational system in the quest for some egalitarian vision of society. I don't believe all people are created equal. I want my lawyer to be the best and brightest (that I can afford), I want my policemen to be physically able to do their job, and moreso than the criminals. I want all the  service providers I rely on to be the result of the most rigorous training and equipped with the sharpest of minds and bodies. Maybe my wish for excellence is contibuting to the problem because I am valuing skills and knowledge bases that are outmoded but when I'm on the operating table, I would like to think that my surgeon is brilliant, not that he succeeded in group work, can use his phone effectively and overcame a broken household.

Now for the second issue -- the government has tried to eliminate (or reduce, or something) student debt. Students now owe (collectively) some huge amount of money to the government for grants and loans given for higher education. Of course, if the debts are forgiven then the government will either have less money to give in loans in the future, or taxes will rise to make up the shortfall so the government can continue to hand out money with no expectation of return. Or we can just ask the mint to print more money -- that should solve everything.

I graduated without debt. That happened because my parents found a way to pay for my education. They sent me to a school that cost a lot of money but they shouldered that because they saw value in it. I sent my kids to significantly cheaper options (we actually forbade our kids from applying to expensive schools because we didn't want to go in to debt for the diploma). Other people made other value calculations and now are stuck in a financial hole. I feel sorry for their predicament but the answer is not to ignore that they owe money. I know that some teachers are able to work off debt by getting jobs through Teach For America -- public service loan forgiveness ensures that teh teachers get a paycheck, underserved areas get trained teachers and loans don't have to be prepaid. Could a model like that be exported to other fields? Some, maybe yes. Some, probably not. But a blanket reduction or forgiveness as a gift from the government, while it sounds nice, is not reflective fo the real world (which education is supposed to be preparing people for). Banks aren't going to ignore loans just because so people should get into the habit of not borrowing or spending more than they can pay back. And if we forgive loans, what does that say to the people who suffered in order to pay their loans, or who make sacrifices so as not to have to take loans? Or the people who intend to take loans tomorrow? We create an advantaged class which just ends up hurting anyone not in that class. Is this an overly simplistic restatement of the situation? Maybe, but the plethora of complex questions and challenges indicates that the issues run far deeper than a simple solution affords.

There ARE many schools. Some are subsidized and some aren't. Some are expensive and some aren't. Some offer more perks, bells and whistles than others, but the same can be said about cars. Not everyone can drive a luxury car, or even a new car. Some have to borrow money to afford an old, used car. But they have to pay that money back. Does that mean that someone might not get the car, or house, or meal that he would like? Yup. Some people take the subway or bus, and eat a meal of pasta at home. And yes, before you say it, I, again, was of the advantaged class in that I graduated without debt. So I'm speaking out of privilege and I'm part of the problem. Yada yada. That doesn't change the facts or make what I have presented as concerns any less valid. We want to create a fiscally even playing field by changing rules in the middle of the game and ignoring the impact that the new rules have on society as a whole.

Maybe society is broken. Maybe a system of capitalism which rewards people who already have with even more is patently and inherently unfair. Maybe having a socio-economic schema in place which allows for the incredible stratification which we have to develop is a recipe for inevitable inequity. Maybe an educational system which perpetuates the deep divide caused by history and the economic superstructure will keep us in a spiral of oppression and failure. Maybe we have blossomed into a society that wants contradictory things (let's all be tolerant of everything except intolerance). But maybe you can't fix cancer with a Band-Aid.

The Cow and the Rock

 Rashi, in his commentary on the Chumash, often asks why certain sections were placed near each other if, as is often taught, the text need not be presented in strictly chronological order. Once the timeline is not the defining feature, there must be a reason why certain stories, laws or events are related in the text when and where they are. One such question is presented in the beginning of Parshat Chukat. The laws surrounding the Red Heifer are followed immediately by the story of Miriam's death. Rashi asks why they are contiguous and explains that it shows the power of the death of a righteous person to help bring about atonement in a way similar to that of the ashes of the heifer.

I'm a big fan of Rashi and I don't totally object to his point but I think he misses a bigger picture here. No offense Rashi.

The story of Miriam's death can't be taken in a vacuum. The text says nothing about atonement and the story, in fact, has significantly larger implications -- what Rashi should be discussing is the proximity of the Red Heifer laws to the events surrounding the consequences of Miriam's death which are the continuation of that section of the parsha -- Moshe's hitting a rock.

So first, let's set up the situation. The people have been in the desert for 40 or so years and are ready to take on the task of moving in to the land of K'na'an and worshipping God there, in the place that he has chosen. They have been raised from the servitude of Egypt and are now on a lofty height (thus the text has them say that God "lifted them up"). They know that their state of ritual purity is incredibly important and are ready to be pure and follow God's will (yes, I know that this overly charitable presentation of their collective personality ignores certain problems but hey, I'm just a guy with an idea). They/we are told of an important law which they learned 38 years earlier (according to notes in the Stone edition Chumash) - that of the Red Heifer. An essential component of this and other purification rituals is water but with the death of Miriam, the guaranteed source of water disappears. The people are disconsolate and complain -- the Ha'amek Davar says that this was Hashem's way of getting them ready to deal with normal and natural cycles of the year -- (and, again, being charitable, I would assume not that they lack faith and think they will simply die but that they fear they would die in a state of ritual impurity as all the functions of purification dependent on water would be impossible).

[I'm not expert in the Chatam Sofer, but he seems to be saying that not having water is equated to not having Torah and the fruits listed in Bamidbar 20:5 relate to specific commandments that are impossible to fulfill in the desert. And if I'm misunderstanding, well then, I'm gonna stick with my reading anyway.]

Now, Moshe had a little experience making water out of nothing at all. In Sh'mot 17:5-7, Hashem tells Moshe to hit a rock and bring forth water. There is no particular explanation in the text as to why hitting is the method chosen -- God says hit, you hit. The Malbim makes the case that, had the people been deserving, talking to the rock would have sufficed but they weren't on that level yet. That subtlety does not appear to have been given to Moshe, or else he would have known that Hashem's telling him to speak to the rock in Chukat was a compliment to the people, that they are on that higher level. So Moshe, without knowing a particular reason, does what God commands and hits the rock, and he does so in public. It makes no sense (the staff had been used to change the water of the Nile and Moshe lifted it up to bring about the splitting of the Reed Sea) but God says so, so that's what you do. You do it in public and you show that God's command is powerful. This will be really important in a moment -- stick with me.

So in Chukat, Moshe is told to speak to the rock. No reason why speaking is now the method, but that's God's will. According to some commentators, Moshe didn't know which rock was the right one so he spoke to a few and nothing happened so he fell back on the tried and true method of hitting. So now, what do the people see? They see Moshe second guessing God's command! Hashem's telling Moshe to speak or hit is a prime example of a chok -- a law that has no particular stated explanation or reason and might not even make logical sense. But we do it because God said so. So when Moshe hits the rock instead of speaking to it, he is undermining the authority of the chok, questioning it and replacing it with his own logical reasoning.

Why is this story told here? Because the driving point of the beginning, the Red Heifer section is that power and primacy of Hashem's laws even when we don't know the reason. By using his personal thinking and hitting the rock, Moshe undercuts the power of that chok, and by extension, every chok, as typified by the quintessential chok, that of the Red Heifer. When Hashem castigates Moshe and Aharon it is for not believing (accepting without evidence) and therefore not sanctifying Hashem in public. When they hit the rock all those years ago, they WERE sanctifying Hashem by doing what he told them to, in public. But now, in public, they tried to out think Hashem and rely on experiential evidence instead of doing what the current chok demanded. Why then, Hashem is saying, would anyone of the people listen to any chok, if the leaders don't? What's the point of teaching the Red Heifer laws and expecting compliance if the leadership teaches that it is ok to use personal and human reasoning to decide what laws mean and when we have to follow them?

This wasn't about water, but about a missed opportunity to do what Hashem commanded. The series of chukim are equivalent -- we are supposed to do them without questioning and trying to figure them out. When Moshe hit the rock, he set the faith of the people back and this compromises the value and authority of all Torah laws.

At least that's my take on why the stories are related next to each other.