The Over-Examined Life

No matter what flag we fly, we are all capable of doing great, horrible and/or mediocre things. No one has a monopoly on anything despite what Disney might say.

I live according to one simple rule: Don’t make downstage turns.

@Benedick: The only rule I consciously follow during the course of a typical day is Don’t rush that fucking photo-enforced traffic light.

That Instamatic is going to haunt my dreams.

The Instamatic is my madeleine.

@nojo: Necklaces of ears?

@SanFranLefty: On Carson? In 1967? I need to see documentation. (And who? Lenny? Already dead. Carlin? Still skinny-tie standup.)

@nojo: First heart transplant was December 67

@SanFranLefty: Aggies won the Jan 1968 Cotton Bowl.

OH GOD ROGER’S JACKET.

@SanFranLefty: January 1968? Third grade. Assassinations coming.

@nojo: And how about Harry?

@nojo:
Anchorman!

@mellbell: Under the hair?

@ManchuCandidate: I’m charging AMC for frying half the pixels on my TV.

I’m so happy to have grown up before manscaping.

@nojo: didn’t they move awfully quickly to smoking grass openly in the office?

PS Nice upgrade on the mobile page. Love the drop down…

@Beggars Biscuit: I did wonder about the dope, but they were just considering the second floor at the end of last season. So there’s time to develop Creative Habits.

Also, (a) got tired of the canned mobile plug-in, and (b) figured out how to make automatic iPhone layouts work reasonably painlessly.

Oh! Spoilers! Awsum!

@JNOV: Spoilers presume a plot.

My rule of thumb is that you’ll get my best shot on the first draft, and then I’ll fuck it up any way you want.

That fondue pot is the first wave of avocado about to crash the party.

Oh, Peggy, don’t.

Of course.

At least it didn’t end with a Key Party.

WTF are you all talking about?

@Dodgerblue: Popular dramatic re-creations of American life before the Tet Offensive.

Not yet confirmed, but the Internets have a lead on the Ear Joke: Milt Kamen.

Not an easy find: Someone at Slate had a week to look into it (preview screener), even talked to Carson’s nephew (who runs the archives), and still turned up dry.

@mellbell: WTF with that conversation in bed with Francis about raping the 15 year old friend of Sally? And WTF making goulash with the druggies in the flop house? Betty’s character was already a caricature of herself, now it’s crossing the line into absurdity. With all the death and dying foreshadowing, I’m putting my money on either her or Francis dying, or both of them, and Don and Zou-Zou having to raise the kids.

@SanFranLefty: Bizarre as it was, it all kind of worked for me. Betty has a way of riling up the men in her life to her advantage, and pushing that weird fantasy on Henry certainly got his attention in a way that, let’s be honest, she might not otherwise be capable of anymore (though he’s obviously loving in other ways). She is also clearly still working through the loneliness/mothering issues that manifested with Glen back in season one, which Sally, rightly or wrongly, wants no part of. And how Betty was it to walk off with the violin but then feel guilty about taking it, because that would be stealing, and then she would be no better than them.

/snark temporarily disabled/ “Faith” is believing something w/o evidence or, in spite of evidence to the contrary. Is that a good or virtuous thing? 9/11 was a faith-based act. So was the Bush-led Iraq invasion in ’03. IMHO, religions: judeo-christi-islam-anity, Scientology, Hinduism, etc have all done much more harm than good. /snark enabled/ go Cards! Or Wolverines!

@jkiel: The greatest crimes of the twentieth century were committed by an atheist and a lapsed Catholic.

Religion and the lack of religion can be twisted to whatever ends you seek. Blaming either for your Crime Against Humanity of Choice misses the point: We’re violent critters, and we’ll justify our violence by any means available.

Is faith a good or virtuous thing? It is, quite honestly, irrelevant.

This reminds me of the great insight of 2001: It had been a commonplace that Man was the Tool-Making Animal. But we didn’t just create tools: We created weapons.

@nojo: The greatest crimes of the twentieth century were committed by an atheist two atheists and a lapsed Catholic.

I’d say Mao and Stalin are neck-and-neck in that race.

@flippin eck: And here I thought I’d get caught for overlooking Pol Pot.

@nojo: And the significance of the camera Don gave the doctor:

That Leica M2 Don gave the doctor? The photographer Nick Ut used that model to take the Pulitzer-winning “Napalm Girl” photograph in 1972. Since Dow Chemical’s napalm is also handled by Don’s ad agency, it’s horrifically ironic.