Schopenhauer

“The first forty years of life furnish the text, while the remaining thirty supply the commentary; and that without the commentary we are unable to understand aright the true sense and coherence of the text, together with the moral it contains and all the subtle application of which it admits.”

-- Arthur Schopenhauer, “Counsels and Maxims”

And now we are done with Schopenhauer. I cannot call myself a big fan, but we did get some of our best quotes from here.

Next-door neighbor

I hear the next-door neighbor screaming in the back yard. I assume that's for the dog. That's about all the dog gets in the way of human interaction from his family. It breaks your heart. That dog would have made a wonderful family dog.

Seniors' tour

Pop has left for another seniors' tour. This one goes to LBJ's ranch. I'm a little skeptical, though. Today is also Jack's birthday, and I wonder if they are going to Mexico's red-light district, or maybe a better version here in Texas. Not the seniors, but Jack, Pop, and whoever.

For my own purposes, since Pop no longer spends the weekends at Ms. Walker's home, this may be as good an opportunity as any to take care of some personal stuff, including cleaning the toilet. I think I'll shave. I already have a full mustache and beard, though it is not deeply grown.

Louis C. K.

I didn't know that Louis C. K. had so much Mexican in him. And this is the point he makes in his interview, about how 'race' still tends to be more about your skin color rather than your actual history. This is not news, but it is interesting to get a sensitive portrayal of the issue.

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Where does Louis C.K.'s off-kilter comic vision come from? Turns out the answer may be "Mexico." C.K. was born in California, but moved to his father's native Mexico at age one – he and his family didn't move back to the U.S. until he was seven or so. "Coming here and observing America as an outsider made me an observing person," C.K. tells senior writer Brian Hiatt in the new issue of Rolling Stone. "I grew up in Boston and didn't get the accent, and one of the reasons is that I started in Spanish. I was a little kid, so all I had to do was completely reject my Spanish and my Mexican past, which is a whole lot easier because I'm white with red hair. I had the help of a whole nation of people just accepting that I'm white."

"Race doesn't mean what it used to in America anymore," he continues. "It just doesn't. Obama's black, but he's not black the way people used to define that. Is black your experience or the color of your skin? My experience is as a Mexican immigrant, more so than someone like George Lopez. He's from California. But he'll be treated as an immigrant. I am an outsider. My abuelita, my grandmother, didn't speak English. My whole family on my dad's side is in Mexico. I won't ever be called that or treated that way, but it was my experience."

-- ONTD

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The New Toilets

I did manage to take care of both the toilet and the shave.  Not bad.  If I still used the 'mood' option on these e-journals, I would select 'accomplished'.

It occurs to me that I probably never got around to writing about the new toilets.  We've had them for at least a couple of months, a few months, something like that.  We can call it the winter, but I'm not sure if it was the very end of 2012 or the very beginning of 2013.  It has proven, so far, to be quite a windfall, and it came so unexpectedly.

The city actually offered up the new toilets for free, in the interest of conservation, in our desperate need to save water.  The government decided it was worth doing.  When Pop first mentioned it, I was actually skeptical.  What can you hope to get for free?  I had depressing visions of a toilet that would never completely flush out our shit, not even after ten flushings.  A nightmare.  My old toilet was bad, but I figured it could be worse.

But those fears proved unfounded.  The toilets are actually impressive.  They are a new level in technology.  Instead of a flush handle, there are two buttons we can press - one for number one and two for number two, you may say.  And it is very efficient and effective.  It has proven to be a big gift from out of the blue.  Now, if only I could get a new tub and shower!  Of course, we will have to see how these toilets are in a couple of years, but I no longer care to badmouth them with my stale pessimism. 

Daily Fun

(by Nomadic Lass)

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