Everything is unprecedented until it happens for the first time.Tom Hanks as “Chelsey Sullenberger,” Sully
On Understanding Truth
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. Galileo Galilei
Phuket Disaster
There is a disaster on the horizon for Phuket, Thailand. Thousands dead and injured.
More Reporting on Sex-Segregated Toilets
A Basic Guide to Aesthetic Improvement
A man need not be “trans” or “metro” to want to present his most attractive self to the world. After all, men shave (or shape) their facial hair and style their hair in a manner that they see as enhancing their aesthetic. I do not want suggest that all men wear full-on cosmetic makeup, but having some knowhow in a back pocket and some basic tools in a gearbag can really prove useful! Who hasn’t had a important photo scheduled or a really big date planned or a really big presentation prepared only to see a giant pimple, an ingrown hair, or a boneheaded razor nick in the bathroom mirror?
All one really needs is a basic $10 concealer to hide discoloration and smooth unevenness. Start with clean skin and dab a tiny dot. Smooth it out with a finger until the concealer no longer stands out. Repeat if necessary. Optionally, brush a bit of $15 translucent powder to “set” it for longer wear. A person projects outeard confidence proportionately to inward confidence. If a very minor tweak eliminates any degree of stress, it is a no-brainer win.
Brow game is another minor tweak with major impact. Shaping one’s own brows takes time to learn, but a brow wax can be as cheap as $12. Most hair salons offer face waxing as do many nail salons (and there is probably one just a few doors past your barbershop). A $10 brow pencil can also darken blonde/gray hairs and fill any gaps or scars.
Then there is just basic skin care. Applying post-shower witchhazel ($2/bottle at Walmart) will shrink skin pores for smoother and less oily skin. Tightening pores also fights pimples and ingrown hairs. Finally, a non-greasy lotion, over time, will combat oily skin and fight natural aging.
The women in a man’s life can be a great resource, but there is much to be said for a simple $30 lesson from a professional cosmetologist at an all-jn-one locale such as Ulta or Sephora. The cosmetologist will show you how to apply any product so that it will not appear that you are wearing any makeup at all. He or she will point out the exact shade or concealer or brow pencil to use. After that, just buy the same items over and over. A cosmetologist can also demonstrate how to hide dark under-eye bags and/or side wrinkles.
In short, an extra 60 seconds in the morning can go a very long way.
Homo Sapien
Is being “sapien” homo’s Achilles’ heel? Homo sapien’s life might be an easier existence but is it a better existence? Shouldn’t it be preferable to live in a state of nature? So is our sapienhood a perversity of evolution or a cruelty of creation?
I know I wax of Milton and Thoreau, and I’m not saying that toothpaste and deodorant and contraceptives (and even the occasional laxitive) aren’t HUGE improvements to our existences–but do they outweigh the peacefulness and contentment of nature?
A Public Advisement for Iliana Rivera Sutton & Aha! Interpreting Solutions, LLC
I would caution the world against employing or contracting Aha! Interpreting Solutions, LLC of Arkansas. My personal experience has been that Its proprietress Iliana Rivera Sutton has serious financial and credibility problems. They are destitute as poor Geppetto and as truthful as Pinocchio.
Iliana Rivera Sutton breached her contract with me and at least three other contractors (though I suspect there are dozens more from Florida all the way to Michigan and perhaps beyond). Her payments to us four returned NSF on the initiation and all subsequent presentments. She refuses to make alternate payment arrangements.
More details (and proofs) will soon be forthcoming. Meanwhile, If you have experienced similar issues, please comment below and I will privately reply with an abundance of contact persons and venues to report her actions and to get restitution.
According to the Arkansas Secretary of State, the business was first registered in 2014 by “ILIANA JUDITH RIVERA MS” of “2700 PENNY LANE, ROGERS, AR 72758” and “3351 BELINDA LANE, SPRINGDALE, AR 72764” though her website (ahainterpreting.com) lists an address of “202 S Lincoln St, Lowell, AR 72745” which is actually just a United States post office location! Her Facebook lists an address of “p.o box 473 Lowell, Arkansas 72745” and provides an email address of “iliana@ahainterpreting.com“. Her cell phone is (479) 301-4902 and Google search links it to a “40 Hour Medical Interpreter Standard and Ethic Course” among other things.
More to come.
More Enthusiasm for Sport Than for One’s “Neighbor”?
I just stumbled upon a 1970s or 1980s Billy Graham crusade. He said: “here in this stadium when you have a football game, if you’re really for Texas Tech you’re really gonna shout loud when they make a touchdown and the man who loves his neighbor the most will fight all that hurts and deprives and oppresses his neighbor. Paul said, ‘who is offended and I burn not?'”
Continue reading “More Enthusiasm for Sport Than for One’s “Neighbor”?”
God Isn’t the Author of Confusion?
Many years ago someone whipped out the “God is not the author of confusion” line on me to justify her position. In the moment I disagreed with her application of the principle, but I could not soundly refute it either. I failed to recognize the logical fallacy; she failed to consider the implications of her statement. Continue reading “God Isn’t the Author of Confusion?”
One’s Middle Finger Is Protected Speech
Though already strongly suggested by Cohen v. California and Houston v. Hill, The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has now specifically recognized that a Michigan woman who flipped off a cop after receiving a traffic ticket was exercising her protected free speech pursuant to the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Continue reading “One’s Middle Finger Is Protected Speech”
The Story of the Women’s Restroom
Separate areas with sofas, vanities, and even writing tables used to put the “rest” in women’s restrooms. Why were these spaces built, and why did they vanish? Read City Lab’s story title The Glamorous, Sexist History of the Women’s Restroom Lounge
More Thoughts on Death Penalty
I just finished watching The Ted Bundy Tapes on Netflix and I am conflicted more than ever by the death penalty. How does homocide remedy homicide? To what degree is the death penalty entrenched in antiquated Judeo-Christian religiosity? And what do the evolved states of those religions say about the preciousness of life? Does the Talmud not teach that to save one life is to save the whole world? Did Christ not teach that even the most wretched life is still worth sparing? And to what degree is pronouncing the death penalty our attempt to vangloriously exalt ourselves to equality with God to decide who should live and who should die? I think that as a society the death penalty must exist as the ultimate repuditiation and condemnation of intolerable crime. But as a civilization, should we not then immediately commute that death sentence to exile (which is to say, prison)? We euthanize animals in the name of compassion, but we refuse that same compassion to those agonizing in the throes of slow natural death. Yet we force death upon those we condemn in the name of justice for the victims. Is that just a reverse–and a perverse–euthenasia? Using death in the name of compassion, not for the one dying, but for the one already dead? More death does not reverse the finality of the a priori death. And no, I haven’t been the victim of anyone like Ted Bundy, but I can say that the natural death of one who victimized me in childhood brought me no pleasure nor displeasure. It closed the cover of an open book, but it did not erase the contents of its chapters.