"Broadcasters Worried About Zero TV Homes."-A.P.

I personally know of no other human being who doesn't own a television. When people find out you can see the reaction on their faces before they say anything. Perplexity, they have never heard of it before, you can see their brains trying to comprehend the unknown. It happened most recently with my dentist. She stopped drilling, looked at me and then laughed. Eleven years it's been for me.  I truly am not in your face about it. It's not a crusade with me, it just comes up in normal conversation. Someone will mention a TV show they like. Sometimes I lie, "Yeah I saw that," but that, like all lies is dangerous if the conversation continues. "What's your favorite show?" and I'm outed. Friggin' DONE, man.

So this headline "spoke" to me and was as surprising to me as to most everyone else. Five million households are TV-less today, up from two million in 2007. My God that's alot. These are not poor people, TV's are cheap. These are people who have made a conscious choice. I feel less weird--I'm probably not--but I feel less Ted Kaczynski.

I think that's a good thing. I look like Ted Kaczynski, though. Ah, jeesh.

North Korea.

President Obama is taking the advice of China on this. It is the Chinese who have told him to delay the missile test.

Obama thinks he can trust China. He cannot. China does not trust Obama. Obama sees the responsible Chinese vote in the U.N. for sanctions against the DPRK as signaling a closer relationship with the U.S. and a more distant relationship with the DPRK. The Chinese U.N. vote did not signal either. China does what it does based on Chinese interests alone. The Chinese soul is survival. For centuries the Chinese soul has manifested itself in a well-known fear of encirclement. It has propped up the DPRK for decades out of paranoia that without it the U.S. and South Korea would be encircling it from the East. In the Chinese world view China needs the DPRK and needs it to be hostile to the U.S. But China knows this too: the DPRK is a failed state and would be obliterated in a war with the U.S. and the South. China knows, as does Fidel Castro, that this time the DPRK is going to make war. That is why China voted in the U.N. for sanctions against the North. China wants the DPRK to survive, and knows it can't in a war.

China knows what the DPRK'S tripwire is. They know when the DPRK will launch. China will tell Obama whatever is in their best interests to tell him about the launch date, whether it is true or not, in order to prevent war, the DPRK's certain destruction, China's "encirclement" and the thermonuclear obliteration of China itself should it intervene on the North's behalf.

Obama is listening to the Chinese. He should not be, he can't trust them. But the Chinese know they have Obama's trust. And so they talk, knowing he will listen.

Tonight the president took China's advice. Bad move for America.

"US Delays Missile Test To Calm Tensions With North Korea."-New York Times.

That is precisely the wrong thing to do. Now is the time for war with North Korea. The United States military is on the Korean peninsula conducting its yearly training with the South Koreans. Reports tonight are that some North Korean experts believe that Kim may have the ability to launch nuclear missiles at South Korea and Japan. Or he may not. The U.S. should not give him another year to find out. Kim has said he is ready for war, he has declared war. President Obama should be increasing the tension, to wage war now. Now is the time.

Dr. Cyclops (1940).

"You're right, Doc, the patient looks a little horse." 
                                            -Svengoolie (Rich Koz), METV.

Doc, you're breaking her waist!  Now totally cut her windpipe!

"You should break the waists of the crazy enemies, totally cut their windpipes." Kim Jong Un.

The Dear Leader going to deliver the Wolnae Exhortation. So heroic!

Dear Leader coming back from Wolnae Islet with a little help from his friends:

Both images from the Times of London.

"You should break the waists of the crazy enemies, totally cut their windpipes."

We have got to trademark that. Who amongst us knows trademark law?

I want a "Totally cut their windpipes" t-shirt. 

And coffee mug.

"You should break the waists of the crazy enemies, totally cut their windpipes..." Kim Jong Un.

Oh!  Oh! Oh my God!!!!!!! That is the most awesome threat I have ever heard! 

That's enough to make me turn Korean. Kim, you fat little shit, you are a poetic genius!

"Fidel Castro Urges Calm."-Stuff.co.nz.

Fidel...Castro...CASTRO?...Urges Calm...Fidel Castro Urges CALM? 

Just when you think you've seen everything.

The Top Banana in the banana republic of Cuba is worried about the Korean peninsula and soul-mate Kim Jong Un's declaration of war against the U.S. and South Korea. Fat Boy:

 has threatened to drop Fat Boys:

on the two countries.

Castro wrote an open letter about the situation, describing it as "incredible and absurd," and "one of the gravest risks of nuclear war since the October Crisis 50 years ago."

"We remind [the DPRK] of its duties to other countries who have been great friends and that it would not be just to forget that such a war would affect in a special way more than 70 percent of the world's population," said the great man.

Castro and China, North Korea's friends, are taking this more seriously than is the Obama administration. That's not good. The United States should attack: It should take out the DPRK's nuclear capability and decapitate the regime, that is Fat Boy and his generals.

Betcha can't eat just one.

In eleven years of writing for a blog named Public Occurrences I have wrestled repeatedly with the issue of whether a topic, frequently an occurrence, is of broad (that is, public) significance. As opposed to something of only personal interest. And thus only one gratuitous picture of my daughter. Great success.

One is also chary of the momentum that is begun when one decides to write about one of those wrestled subjects. Stare decisis. Precedent is established and precedent is a stubborn weed.

And so:

Andy Enfield, late of Figucu, has taken his talents, and his wife, to the Fort Myers of the Left Coast, Hollywood, California. Andy has been named the head basketball coach of the University of Southern California. Really, it had to end that way. That is a perfect fit. USC, welcome Dunk City. And Amanda.

And also:

I had been keeping an eye on the Mystery of Pittsburgh, had almost written about it previously. It was very strange. Another dreary finish and the (sporting) public speculation on whether southern California native Jamie Dixon would be taking his talents to...the University of Southern California or would stay (or be permitted to) on the shores of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, and then got his re-uppance for ten years, well, what could one do?  Comes now intelligence that two of coach Dixon's charges have blown that popsicle joint, one dreaming of debatable glory in the pros, one departing for parts unknown. Peut etre UNLV, Khem Birch?  Finally, finally, Pittsburgh's football joint suffered a simultaneous blow as its star player also announced his decision to transfer.

Birds have been hitting air pumps in Pittsburgh.

Anyway, stare decisis is met. Done.

Anybody wanna go back to Egypt?

He-he-he. See, hazy white like the sun through air pollution? Bishop's photo of Beijing a while back through an office window?  A little art humor there, see?  Arright, fine!  It was too early in the morning for my brain to attempt that. White over Red, Rothko, '57.

"Air Pollution linked to 1.2 Million Premature Deaths in China."- New York Times

Image: Sunset in Shanghai. Photo by Dan Bishop, Washington Post.

Seeking the Soul.

It is man's capacity for belief, the ability to hold to the truth of a matter which reason cannot prove, that constitutes the better part of mankind's soul.  For belief allows man to imagine and to dream: of things that are not, of ways of being that do not exist, and which are beyond reason's reach. Belief transcends reason and allows man to transcend the real. Man believes, he does not just think.

What religion does is free man from rationality.

That makes me feel bad.

Six years ago the proudest boast was "civis Alligatorus sum." Today, in the world of college basketball the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Figucuan."

All college basketball followers wherever they may live are citizens of Fort Myers. And therefore as a basketball follower I take pride in the words, "Ich bin ein Figucuan."

At halftime Florida leads Florida Gulf Coast 30-26. :(

 

-usdoj.gov, US Government, Department of Justice. Eeeck!  "amanda marcum enfield." Whew.

-Wofford College.

-Bellevue University. "wang guangmei." Bellevue University or Bellevue Hospital?

-San Diego State University. "wang guangmei."

-Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. "china's red legacy."

-Bowdoin College. Anthropology II post.

Today is a sacred day for Christians. This is what Stephen Greenblatt writes about them and the great religion of Christianity. From "The Swerve:"

What flickers through such moments of [Christian] abdication is a fear of being laughed at. The threat was not persecution--the official religion of the empire by this time was Christian--but ridicule...What was ridiculous about Christianity, from the perspective of a cultivated pagan, was not only its language--the crude style of the Gospels' Greek resting on the barbarous otherness of Hebrew and Aramaic--but also its exaltation of divine humiliation and pain conjoined with an arrogant triumphalism.
…

Christians could try, of course, to reverse the mockery. If such doctrines as the Incarnation and the resurrection of the body seemed absurd-"figments of diseased imagination," as one pagan put it, "and the futile fairy-tales invented by poets' fancy"—
…

The Incarnation, Epicureans scoffed, was a particularly absurd idea...Why should anyone with any sense credit the idea of Providence, a childish idea contradicted by any rational adult's experience and observation?...Christians are like a council of frogs in a pond, croaking at the top of their lungs, "For our sakes was the world created."
…

Some of the jibes were common to all of Christianity's polemical enemies--Jesus was born in adultery, his father was a nobody, and any claims to divine dignity are manifestly disproved by his poverty and his shameful end.

[Lucretius] would not have been surprised by...the endlessly reiterated, prominently displayed images of the bloody, murdered son.

 

Wang Guangmei died in 2006.  Why would there suddenly be this extraordinary interest in a 2009 post, 212 pageviews since Tuesday?  And only 12 from China. The vast majority from the U.S.  And so many hits from U.S. governmental agencies. I don't know. I have never seen anything like this pattern before. Mysteries of Wang Guangmei.

Today there have been 95 pageviews of "Anthropology II," the Liu Shaoqi post. Numero dos in today's top ten posts is "Costa Rica" with four. FOUR.

A trip. Maybe a nice trip. I think I'll take a trip somewhere.

snet.net, County of San Diego District Attorney. Hola. "Sexy Chinese Women Soldiers."

-senate.gov, U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms. :o Search keyword "wang guangmei." I think there is Chinese infiltration at the highest levels of the U.S. government. I demand a witch hunt.

-wa.gov, State of Washington Legislative Service Center. Clicked on the "Anthropology II" post on Liu Shaoqi.  And the State governments.

-state.tx.us, State of Texas General Services Commission. "wang guangmei."  The Eyes of Texas are upon me.

-army.mil, USAISC-Fort Benning. "Anthropology II."  And the military. USAISC, are they in the NCAA tournament? 

-state.gov, United States Department of State. Same post. Holy shit.

-va.gov, U.S. Government, Department of Veterans Affairs. Ditto.

-ecp.fr, Ecole Centrale Paris. Same frigging post.

That is freaky. And that freaks me out a little.

"Costa Rica Protests Loss Against United States."-New York Times.

What is their damage?  It was a little blizzard. USA! USA! USA! he-he-he. The ball's half buried! Look at that little Costa Rican guy. Bet they had to dig him out too. he-he-he.

Uh, no. That is embarrassing. Totally embarrassing. The game never should have been played.

"Social Isolation Increases Death Risk In Older People."-BBC

Funeral TBA.

China.

Mr. Personality, Xi Jinping, has escaped Beijing and the insufferable business of greeting Americans

and is on his first road trip abroad with his significant other Peng Liyuan. Here the PRC's First Laddie and First Lady are getting off a plane somewhere.

Somewhere cold. They went to Russia, maybe it's there. Is her hand bigger than his?  Xi looks panda bear-huggy there, Peng looks like she's taking some oath of office, like Pope Francis. Other right hand, Peng.

The media have been captivated by Peng, a former star singer in China. 
                                                                           

                                                                        So attractive.

Vivacious.

Glam.

It all reminds me of Wang Guangmei's trip to Indonesia with hubby/prez Liu Shaoqi in 1963.

Wang charmed President Sukarno in her form-fitting dress and pearls.

                                                     That glam came back to haunt Wang. Never forget class struggle, Peng.

 It reminds me of "the Jackie Kennedy of China," Gu Kailai.

                                                                        Ditto.

And, speaking of being in the dock, it reminds me of Madame Mao her ownself. Before:

                                                                          And after.

Hazardous job being First Lady of China, hazardous job. Take care, Peng. Avoid pearls.  

"China Pulls 1000 Dead Ducks From Sichuan River."-BBC.

You know, China is weird.

Raise your hand if you had heard of "Florida Gulf Coast University" before last week.

Now, this is why colleges and universities in America sponsor big-time athletics:

1. florida gulf coast coach wife
2. florida gulf coast
3. florida gulf coast coaches wife
4. florida gulf coast images
5. tiananmen square 1989
6. wang guangmei
7. amanda marcum enfield
8. andy enfield wife
9. andy enfields wife
10. are the girls hot at florida gulf coast university

Those are the top ten search keywords that landed people on this one tiny blog in the last 24 hours. It is called "the Flutie effect:"  the media exposure that a university gets when its high-profile, i.e. football or men's basketball, team accomplishes the extraordinary can lead to increases in applications, enrollment, donations. Doug Flutie's last-second, 63-yard touchdown pass in 1984 to beat the University of Miami resulted in a 16% increase in applications to his school, Boston College. And Boston College was known; Figcu was not known.

"Did China Just Declare War on Apple? Sure Looks Like It."-Forbes

Hit 'em again, hit 'em again! 
My noble Chinese comrades, I am with you.

Florida Gulf Coast is not the first 15-seed, of which there are four in every NCAA tournament, to beat a two-seed as Figucu did Georgetown. They are the first 15 seed to win a second game and advance to the round of 16. For our Chinese friends, who have a penchant for numerology, FLorida Gulf Coast has been in existence as a university for...16 years.

We are all witnesses.

There have been more pageviews of yesterday's post on Florida Gulf Coast than on any other post since February 10. After one day.