I watched an interview with Fred Rogers last night on Charlie Rose. It affected me more than I thougt it would…

I remember being a little kid and the only person who wasn’t critical of me was Mr. Rogers. I understood that my parents loved me, and that the barbs from my sibs weren’t intended to be lethal (or even to maim), but it was just so easy to be accepted by Mr. Rodgers.

Even other public TV kid shows had agendas for me. The fun was conditional on my effort at learning. But there was Fred, saying, “You’re you, and that’s perfectly wonderful.”

Whenever I saw him on TV, at any time during my life, he was always the same man wrapped in an ever-decaying shell. He was Fred, the American Zen Master who preached to children. The solid core of archetypal acceptance in our culture.

And now he’s gone, and we’re left with… no solid core of archetypal acceptance.

So I bow in the four directions and change into my sneakers, after Master Fred’s example. I raise my sacramental milk and cookies in your honor. I strive to bring all sentient beings to love themselves and each other.

I ask the sacred question of all of you: Won’t you be my neighbor?

Watch the virtual march on Washington as it happens:

Virtual March

RIP Fred Rogers.

* boggle *

Well, since I don’t want to break any laws or anything, and since it’s just kinda creepy to have Nazi swing music on mile23.com, I feel compelled to change the song of the day.

So now it’s Tenacious D performing the theme to TV’s Star Trek. It’s a bootleg recording, and my favorite part is in the middle when you hear a couple guys say, ‘It’s Star Trek..’ to some guy who doesn’t know it’s the Star Trek theme song.

Next Generation indeed.

I was going to add some rhetoric contrasting the Nazi propaganda with Star Trek’s attempts at writing a happy ending on to the Cold War, but it’s late.

This is an image, used without permission, from a promotional web site for a CD-ROM about Rene Magritte:



‘Problematic nature of the relationship between words and images..’?? Well, DUH. By the way, politicians sometimes lie to us, and, also, from time to time someone will say something you won’t be capable of truly understanding. Oh, and death and taxes and all that, too.

What a horrible thing. I hope that if I ever make any lasting art, it will be sufficiently magical that people who get it will realize they shouldn’t go around explaining it to other people.

Also, be sure and read the navigation links. I wonder if clicking on the word ‘bowler hat’ will take one to a picture of a bowler hat. I mean, as everybody knows, the relationship between words and images is problematic…

Molly Ivins, genius from Austin, on the recent spate of France-bashing

I was reading an autism support group on usenet, and I got to a message where someone, obviously the parent of an autistic child, said this:

Jake spends most of his free time dashing to and fro stimming and grunting. Ask him what he’s doing and he’ll reply, “making up videos in my head”.

And someone else, who is autistic, resopnded this way:

I’m glad someone else did that while running back and forth.

It got me thinking about the Winter Olympics.

Back in the early 70s some time, I was a pre-teen, and the Winter Olympics were on TV. I remember getting really excited about the downhill skiing, because it was so fast and thrilling. I could imagine my body being pushed around by gravity and momemtum, and pushing back against the skis and the wind.

I was so stimulated by this, that I took my little table into the front room. I pretended that its upturned wrought iron legs were the push-off point at the top of the mountain. I’d push off and feel like I was skiing down the mountain as I ran through the house. Down the long hallway and into my parents’ room, where I’d skid to a stop like a skier who just won the gold medal.

Then I’d ‘ride the lift’ back to the top and do it again. This happened three or four times, and then I’d go watch some more skiers on TV, get stimulated enough to go back to my little virtual ski slope, and do it some more.

I can’t recall anyone‘s reaction to all this, even though I know my parents were around.

If you read Tom Tomorrow’s ‘blog, you already know about this ‘blog, as well.

And you should be reading it.

Today’s music:

I’ve Got A Pocketful Of Dreams, performed by Charlie Schwedler and his Orchestra.

(Yes, this is Nazi swing.)