I am Not a Teacup

It’s raining. The dog and I went for a walk before it started. It’s thundering and the dog is hiding under the bed (cot). I've now gotten the downstairs furnished. Upstairs that's another matter. I’m still sleeping on a cot. There was a Labor Day sale on mattresses. I don't feel like doing any more shopping right now. House warming in a week. I’ve got a to-do list. I’m beginning by cleaning the house. Bye-bye now, gotta get back to my chores.

Every morning a white truck drives by

A little dog hangs out the passenger window

            Going yap yap yap all the way
                     Down the hill

Every morning, white truck, old man,

            Little dog – yap, yap, yap
                     Down the hill

Same time, same truck, same dog
            Same hill

            Yap, yap, yap

Without fail – yap, yap, yap
             Man, dog, truck, hill

You can hear them coming

             A block away – yap, yap, yap
                       Top of the hill 
Here they come now – white truck,

            Old man, little dog – yap, yap, yap

 

Chili purists recommend never eating chili at places where it is not spelled correctly. W C Jameson – The Ultimate Chili Cookbook, 1999 p.5

It’s a bad thing to admit to knowing a little Spanish and then  to be talked downed to by a four year old

There is no carpet between concrete experience and abstract reality

And Davy Crockett is right on that – I mean he’s gonna shoot a bear, but he’s not gonna shoot a train, because the train is gona run right over him – Ted Berrigan – The Selected Poems, 2011

All of the cancer drugs approved in 2014 by the USDA were  priced above $120,000/year. The average cost for a cancer drug is above $200,000/year. Only one of the 12 new cancer drugs approved in 2012 helped patients survive more than two months longer. The drug industry claims to expend $1.3b a year on new drugs, but their actual expenditure is estimated be only about $125m

Ragged men cower / Under the doorways: / Umbrellas nod like drowsy birds. / Bat-umbrellas, / Teetering, balancing, / Where will you spread your wings to-night? -  John Gould Fletcher -  Goblins and Pagodas

There’s nothing more pathetic than the aged finding salvation via a renewed belief in religious dogma as they try to earn a few more brownie points before they cash in their chips.

Dominions of tutelage, opinions of bivalent dirigibles, grown dank and tender in the crisper, whisper for all the tempestuousness in a takers talons – Charles Bernstein – ‘Brain Side View’

The 7^th largest fresh water lake on earth is not in North or South America, Asia, Europe or Africa. Where is it? – It’s in Antarctica - Lake Vostok. In fact there may be more fresh water (in liquid form) beneath the Antarctic Ice shelfs than in all the rest of the world combined

1952 was the first year since 1881 for which there were no reported lynchings in the United States

Part of what academics do is generate ideas and teach. The other, perhaps more important part, is to play the role of “The Bu*l*hit Police.” Our job is to look at the ideas and plans interested parties put forward to solve our collective problems and see whether or not they pass the sniff test – Mark Blyth – Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea, 2012

In 1954 there were only 154 millionaires in the US and a family of four could live on $3,000 a year. Automatic coffemakers and newspaper vending machines were  first introduced in that year.

In 1956 there were 7,000 drive-in movie theaters in the US. The price for a ticket to a regular movie theater rose to $1.50 in Los Angeles

Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable – H L Mencken – In Defense of Women, p7

In 1500 only 5% of the English population lived in towns with 5,000 or more inhabitants. By 1600 5% of the population lived within  a single urban area. By 1700 10% of the lived in London.

It is a useful corrective to remember that 70 percent of the world’s population has never made a telephone call – N Katherine Hayles – How to Become Posthuman, 1997 p.20

For every person on Earth, there are 422 trees – in total, there are more than 3 trillion deciduous or evergreen growths with woody trunks greater than 10 centimetres at breast height. Before the rise of civilization there were twice as many trees on the planet (and a lot fewer people).

The larger the student loan the greater the potential earning power of the student ( students with $100,000 in debt have a potential earning power of $80,000). The opposite is also true – the lower the debt the lower the earning power (typically students with a debt of $10,000 will have an after school earning power of $40,000. Hence most of the student loan defaults are among those with low debts.