[edit: zoom in and read the fine print]
According to his website, this relates to his fights over his fondness for smoking cigars all day. Here is his comment, from here:
“If you’re a social person, you live in the real world,” Moe says, “you learn to make compromises — even in the face of unreasonable attitudes. In Berkeley, there’s a problem of double standards. A person will tell you not to smoke cigarettes, but it’s alright if they smoke dope. I think the contradiction is ridiculous.”
Moe also scorns anti-smoker vigilante tactics. “This squirting people with water guns, accosting people and calling them names,” he complains, “that’s absolutely too outrageous!”
This, from 1977. Unbelievably. The tactics are the same now, but the big difference is that nobody in the upper echelons of the Democrat Party is even willing to denounce the brownshirt tactics. Hitler denounced his own SA. His promise to control them is what got him elected, and now that I think about it, that is not too different from Hillary saying that civility will return–the brownshirts will be leashed, at least for now–if their blackmail succeeds in getting Democrats elected.
Shit, shit, shit, though: I meant this to be a lighthearted post, and got distracted. I did not know the Moe’s story, and I am always like a dog finding new scents in the grass, and wandering wherever they go.
What I meant to do, is comment on this, that everything not prohibited is ALLOWED. And this includes pleasure in small things. You can be just as effective in a work day if you allow yourself frequent small breaks to enjoy small things, and over the long run, likely much more effective, because you will be more creative, calmer, and manage people and situations better than you would acting solely out of stress, barely managed anger, fear, and guilt.
So in my own case, I have decided I am really enjoying David Copperfield. I was looking at it as a task, as something to be gotten through, as a part of my on-going education, but I have realized that, although there is a great deal of sadness and tragedy in Dicken’s stories, they are really quite pleasurable. His use of language, the eccentricities of his many characters, the enjoyability of their names (which many of course have commented on): they make me smile, and smiling honestly is not something I really do a lot. And he has a lot of humor in there too. I laugh out loud regularly.
It’s not “serious” literature, but I will wonder aloud if, say, Crime and Punishment has ever really made anyone better as a human being. And if I am laughing, and I feel good, that alone WILL make me a better person. I brood much too much. There is nothing profound in it. God certainly does not command it: quite the opposite.
Thus far, Tommy Traddles is my favorite character. He’s not particularly bright, is extraordinarily unlucky, to the point of unfortunate comedy, but he keeps his good spirits through it all.
Yes, that was a bit of a meander. I do that. That’s my dog self. I’m by far at my best socially when I am channeling my dog self.
Well, off to watch “Dark City”. Should be, something.