Lists

I seem to recall, from 1985, that Professor McClintock had a fascination with lists in books, because the printing press made the compilation of lists more feasible than in previous manuscript culture, where long lists (and such things as astronomical tables of ephemerides) were at best problematic for error-prone scribes to copy. I seem to remember he particularly cited one or more lists in Rabelais' "Gargantua and Pantagruel".

Herewith, some lists, from me (BMcC):

America's show stopper problems (2022)

Most destructive first. Political, financial and other material malefactors not included.

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• Abortion

• Antibiotics no longer working due to target microorganisms becoing immune
• Covid & other other infectious diseases, known or emergent
• "Global warming" &amo; induced weather catastrophies
• Human migration / refugees
• Political correctness / Wokism
• The population explosion / overpopulation
• Social Security &anp; Medicare going bankrupt dur to aging population (ponzi schemes)
• Trump "Stop the Steal" & Civil War threat
• Zelensky & World War III

American Culture criminals

Most destructive first. Political, financial and other material malefactors not included.

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• Educational Testing Service Princeton, New Jersey (ETS) (501)(c)(3)
• Abraham (+William and Alfred) Levitt
• Robert Venturi, AIA
• The Franklin Mint
• Andy Warhol

Ads

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works' (Matt 5:16)

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The good....

• We never sleep (Pinkerton's National Detective Agency)
• Ask the man who owns one (Packard Motor Company (automobiles))
• Every owner a salesman (Packard Motor Company (automobiles))
• Relocation and remediation made simple (IPC Movers NYC: Whatever "remediation" is, the trauma of relocation certainly often begs for some of it)
• It's made right (Audi (automobiles))
• Accuracy under adverse conditions (Ball (wristwatches))
• [Prepare together. Enjoy together.] Stronger together (Tractor Supply (farm supplies))
• Don't buy junk! Get a Carpet Cat! (Carpet Cat (floor sweepers))
• A song can change your day, so that you can keep changing the world (WFUV, Jesuit radio; 90.7FM, NYC)
• An intimacy to share (Réalités (magazine; from 1960 became part of the Hachette group; Merde!))
• Wise men fish here (Gotham Book Mart (bookstore, NYC))
• Class in carryout (Harley's (submarine sandwich shops; Baltimore, Maryland))
• Svensk testad [Tested in Sweden] (Masury (house paint; Frank Connelly))
• We answer to a higher power (Hebrew National (frankfurters))
• It's built like a brick shipyard (Revox (audio tape recorders))
• It takes a licking and keeps on ticking (Timex (wrist watches))
• It's only data until you make it something more. (Dataiku)
• Minds over networks (System Management Arts (computer software))
• If the picture matters, the camera matters (Nikon (cameras))
• If you do something very well, you simply cannot do it for everybody (The Bank of New York)
• The cheapest alternative is not always the least expensive (Wausau Insurance)
• You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely take care of it for the next generation. (Patek Philippe (wristwatches))
• The quality goes in before the name goes on (Zenith Electronics)
• The company you keep (New York Life Insurance Co.)
• THINK (International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) (computers))
• Take away the risk and you can do anything (The Ace Group of Companies (insurance))
• Notice everything (Salvatore Ferragamo (fashion house))
• Shut down your computer. Restart a friendship. The conversation is waiting. Go there. (Grand Marnier (liqueur, aka cordial))
• When it's right you know it; when it's good you feel it (Schlitz (beer; This slogan does not, I believe, apply to its promulgator))
• Is it real or is it Memorex? (Memorex Corp. (digital computer media))

The dubious....

• If it is comparable, it is no longer Bugatti (Ettore Bugatti)
• [Where] An educated consumer is our best customer (Syms (discount clothing))
• Cover the earth! (Sherwin-Williams (house paint))
• When better cars are built, Buick will build them (Buick (automobiles))
• Progress is our most important product (General Electric Company (GE))
• A Patek Philippe doesn't just tell you the time, it tells you something about yourself. (Patek Philippe (haute horlogerie))
• Who will you be in the next 24 hours? (Patek Philippe (women's "Twenty-4" wristwatch))
• Think different! (Apple Macintosh (personal computers))
• All the news that's fit to print (The New York Times (newspaper))
• All the news that fits (Rolling Stone (magazine))
• [Where] The best surprise is no surprise (Holiday Inns (motels) [on reflection, this may actually be a good one, because there are so many bad things, surprising or other, in USA social world in 2020])
• Where do you want to go today? (Microsoft (computer software))

The bad and the cynical and worse....

• You don't know how good it is, 'til you eat some place else (Ponderosa (steak houses))
• Have it your way.... (Burger King ("fast food"))
• We do it all for you (McDonald's ("fast food"))
• At the back of your mind, what you're hoping to find, it's the real thing... (The Coca-Cola Company (beverages))
• Come alive! You're in the Pepsi Generation! (PepsiCo (food company))
• Clean smoking! (Mild Seven (cigarettes; Japan))
• You've come a long way, baby! [To get where you've got to, today: You've got your own cigarette, now, baby! You've come a long, long way!] (Virginia Slims (cigarettes for women))
• See the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet! America is asking you to call! Drive your Chevrolet through the U.S.A.! America's the greatest land of all!... Life is completer in a Chevy!.... (General Motors Corporation (automobiles); 1953)
• A diamond is forever (Forevermark Diamond Jewelry® / De Beers Group: "Building Forever" (Note that as of 2020, gem grade diamonds can now be artificially produced in industrial quantities))
• Where your love $tory is the most important love $tory of all.... We believe nothing $hould $tand in the way of love. Love is un$toppable.^[1] (Jared/Kay/Zales jewelers (Sell: commercial diamond jewelry) "Love can't wait." What might that mean?)

In a class by herself:

• Laika (Cigarette brand name; named after the 1st sentient being to be launched into earth orbit: Laika the dog. She had no means of return. Laika was launched to be lost, by the U.S.S.R. Laika trusted her handlers.)

Famous people

"Don't look up to people, don't look down on people. Look at people: study them all, including oneself." (BMcC[18-11-46-503])

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Lives I envy....

• Hermann Broch (What he wrote ("The Sleepwalkers", "The Death of Virgil", "Notes on the Problem of Kitsch"...): If I was who I wish I was, I would have written many of the words he wrote.)
• Edmund Husserl (What he thought ("Philosophy and the Crisis of European Humanity"...). Showed how to go beyond equivocal "scientificness" of Galilean sciences of nature, to self-accountability in all areas of life. Also a decent human being.)
• Thomas Mann (Born to a "comfortable" life. Lived long and happily and honorably. (Example that one does not need to suffer to be socially constructive or personally creative.))
• George Steiner (Ditto Thomas Mann.)
• Hans-Georg Gadamer (Another deep humanistic philosopher (founded modern phenomenological hermeneutics). Still working at age 100 years.)
• Giovanni de Dondi (Spent 14 years, in the mid 14th century, constructing an astronomical clock so advanced he had to invent many of the tools to make it. He also thoroughly documented his work, so that, although his clock was soon destroyed for scrap, reproductions of it could be reliably done in the 20th century.)
• Frank Lloyd Wright (Not an ideal "family man". But right in assessing: "Early in life I had to choose between false modesty and honest arrogance. I chose the latter and have never regretted it.")
• Prince M. Masud R. Khan (Unconventional psychoanalyst (incl.: being D.W. Winnicott's literary secretary), deeply cultured, and who used his wealth to help resolve some of his patients' "psychological" problems (when the environment is making the patient sick, change the environment).) 01 September 2020 Note: May have been a fraud?
• Wanda Landowska (Played the harpsichord magisterially.^[2])
• Marcel Duchamp (Would have been good wholesome fun. "Why not sneeze?" "R. Mutt" "With hidden noise" "L.H.O.O.Q."....)

The good....

• Donald W. Winnicott (Gave infancy a voice ("Playing and Reality", "The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment"...).)
• Mike (house cat 1909-1929; Guardian of the British Museum)
• Louis I. Kahn (Believed architecture should nourish persons and designed accordingly; died like a stray dog in NYC Pennsylvaina [train] Station.)
• Albert Gore (Patrician United States Senator who would have brought dignity to the United States White House and worked to save the earth from global warming; he did not, however, understand that the way to get ahead in The United States of America is to be a sleaze and therefore he lost 2000 Presidential election beause he would not stoop to asking William Clinton, whose [lack of] character he found distasteful, for help.)
• Roger Boisjoly (Engineer who tried to prevent The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.)
• Oskar Schindler (Saved Jews in WWII ("Schindler's List") – but did not pretend to be or try to make anyone else feel guilty about not being "a saint".)
• David Hume (Skeptical philosopher who tried to live consistent with his ideas, and was a good person all the way through a painful death.)
• Elliot Richardson (Publicly resigned as Attorney-General rather than carry out Richard Nixon's Watergate coverup orders.)
• Sun Tzu (Military theoretician. ("The great general wins without fighting."))
• General Curtis Lemay (may have saved hundreds of thousands of both Japanese and American lives by saturation fire-bombing Japanese cities in World War II.)
• General William Tecumseh Sherman (Cleaned up Georgia and South Carolina in the American Civil War. Also earned the loyalty of his troops.)
• USAF Col. John R. Boyd (Military theoretician (jet fighter dog fighting). Based himself on Sun Tzu. Said way to win a guerilla war is by offering the people a more appealing life than the guerillas offer. I would feel good about America if all its military leaders were Boyds!) However, died due to not getting a timely colonoscopy.
• Joseph Needham ("Science and Civilization in China". Great, genuinely humanistic [socialist oriented] scholar.)
• Edward R. Murrow (News reporter who brought Joseph McCarthy's terrorization of the American people to an end, and exposed other social injustices.)
• Joseph Welsh (Lawyer for the United States Army who ended Joseph McCarthy's terrorization of the American people.) 01 September 2020 note: I am not sure how to split credit for taking McCarthy out between Murrow and Welsh; but the two of them together were still not enough to put enough stakes through the heart of this career assassinating political vampire; in McCarthy's case, there could never have been overkill.
• Henry Heimlich (Physician who invented "the Heimlich maneuver", which saves people from choking to death, but costs nothing (better than a high rate of return on investment, does not require investment).)
• Johannes Kepler (Galileo's contemporary. Another great scientist; but apparently more decent person than Galileo.)

The irrelevant (Dep't of Boohoo!s)....

• Elian Gonzales ("Lightning rod" for United States - Cuban anamosities.)
• Kim Kardashian West (Poster child for inane people with money.)
• Lori Berenson (Middle-class American who seems to have thought she could play "guerilla sympathizer" in a right-wing third-world country (Peru), but then doesn't want to pay the price (a long jail sentence, probably in unhealthful conditions).)
• Charles Lindberg (Flew an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean (somebody else would have done it soon after if he hadn't).)
• Amelia Earhart (Stunt woman who finally paid the price for taking unnecessary risks; she should have stayed home in the kitchen or gone to college and studied aeronautics)
• Tiger Woods (Preternaturally adept at hitting a golf ball where he wants it to go.)
• Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi (Saudi Arabian dissident journalist who got himself killed for trying to get an early Valentine's Day card 💗 for his girlfriend in the Saudi Istanbul Consulate when he could safely have lived in sin with her on New York City's upper East Side or wherever; aroused sympathy of many bleeding heart liberals.)
• Brittney Griner 6'9" lesbian of color (a winning woke combinaton!) adept at making money from playing basketball in Russia. Entered Russia with small amt of cannibas in her luggage +2022.02.17. She got a 9 year sentence in a Russian penal colony. Why don't they quickly kick her out of their country with her tail between her legs as an undesirable instead of letting all the anti-Putin hotheads here in USA make hay while the sun shines out of her "martyrdom" by "Putin"? She was either "entitled" or stupid or both. America has a president who is capable of grinning; Russia has a president with a Ph.D. See also: here.
• Tawana Brawley and The Reverend Al Sharpton (Miss Brawley, a black teenager, claimed she had been assaulted and raped by six white men, some of them police officers, in Wappingers Falls, New York. She was found in a garbage bag, "smeared with feces" (Wikipedia). The Reverend Al Sharpton, a black activist, made a lot of publicity for himself by defending her. "A grand jury was convened; after seven months of examining police and medical records, the jury found 'overwhelming evidence' that Brawley had fabricated her story.... Sharpton [and two others] had accused the Dutchess County prosecutor, Steven Pagones, of racism and of being one of the perpetrators of the alleged abduction and rape. The three were successfully sued for defamation, and were ordered to pay $345,000 in damages, with the jury finding Sharpton liable for making seven defamatory statements about Pagones... Sharpton refused to pay his share of the damages; it was later paid by a number of black business leaders including Johnnie Cochran." (Wikipedia))

The dubious....

• Leon Trotsky (Real revolutionary or just another would-be dictator? (see Robert Capa's "fractured" photo of Trotsky lecturing in Copenhagen, 1932))
• John F. Kennedy (Asked people to ask what they could do for their country and not what their country could do for them, without first asking whether their country had done enough for them (and not just for him...) to deserve this.)
• (POTUS №42) William Jefferson Clinton (Bright, well-intentioned ("socially progressive") product of a dysfunctional childhood, who rose to become President of The United States, but could not control his personal impulses, and thereby gave his adversaries the means not just to defeat many of his policies, but also to enhance their own positions.)
• (POTUS №43) George W. Bush (Not bright but maybe well intentioned scion who became President of The United States, who was duped by neo-Conservatives and probably other persons into an unnecessary and hopeless war against Saddam Hussein and also into tanking the United States economy.)
• Socrates (Did a good PR job of dying for what he believed in, at an age when he may not have had much longer to live anyway. Made people look foolish by asking them questions he knew beforehand they couldn't possibly answer. Feigned ignorance.)
• Plato (Great philosopher. Invented universal "pure ideas" to help preserve the particular aristocratic form of life he was part of. Tried to rewrite history to make his philosophical adversaries ("Sophists") look far worse than they were, and succeeded.)
• Aleksander Solzhenitsyn (Made a lot of "moral hay" out of a relatively not so bad stint in Stalin's Gulag. Believes in authoritarianism, just not the kind he doesn't like (Stalin's).)
• Martin Luther King (Another equivocal "martyr"; indulged in silk shirts, wore a Rolex, philandered, may have plagiarized on his doctoral dissertation, as well as in working for social justice.)
• Mother Theresa (Seemed not just to love the poor, but to love them for being poor, as opposed to helping them be poor no more.)
• Martin Heidegger (Moderately great philosopher, but no Edmund Husserl, his teacher whom he abandoned if not betrayed to Nazism. Socially defective (probably did not understand what Nazism was; thought he could teach Adolf Hitler the real meaning of National Socialism...). Hypocrite (ranted against "technology", but liked to fly in commercial airplanes, etc.). Had a lederhosen, faux-peasant life fetish.)
• Sigmund Freud (Hermeneuticist or psycho-physicist? Prig.)
• Franklin Roosevelt (Prevented capitali$m from self-destructing in America in the early 1930s, by alleviating much of the human suffering that process was causing (but not fixing the root cause, i.e., capitali$m itself: the form of social life which by its very nature is always out of control). May not have tried as hard as he could to prevent "Pearl Harbor" (thousands of innocent American military personnel lives lost), to help get America into World War II.)
• Theodore Kaczynski (aka The Unabomber) (Murdered innocent people to try to stop technology hurting us.)
• Galileo Galilei (Invented modern exact mathematical sciences of nature. Prevented this "science" from including critical reconstruction of social life, via example of cowardly abandonment of truth when threatened with torture by The Holy Office of the Inquisition, of The Roman Catholic Church, after having "asked for it" by making a fool of the previously friendly-to-him pope, in a book comparing Copernican, Tychonic and Ptolemaic cosmologies. Demanded persons accept more of his new ideas than he justified to them. Dogmatic Copernican?)
• J. Robert Oppenheimer (Great manager of scientific research ("father of the atomic bomb") and highly cultured person, but who betrayed a friend (Haakan Chevalier) when he felt threatened by "The powers that be" (American anti-☭communist "witch hunting").)
• Edward John Smith (Captain of the Titanic ("I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that."). A sense of honor is good, but it is not a substitute for good sense. White Star Line's chairman, J. Bruce Ismay, was more likely the criminal-in-chief and he escaped in a life-boat; Thomas Andrews, chief naval architect, and Smith, both went down with the ship.)
• A. Bartlett Giamatti (Bad: Set bad example for children by leaving Presidency of Yale University to become Commissioner of Baseball, as if a sport was more important than a great university. Good: As Commissioner, brought high ethical standards and culture to the sport of baseball.)

The bad and the worse....

• John Akers (Helped the sun set on IBM (could, instead, have recognized his incompetence and led the company to seek a more able leader with better prospects to help it through difficult times).)
• Joan Baez (anti-Vietnam War profiteer; rich girl who made money out of playing virtuous when real men and women were dying in the brutal war she was making money tweeting about; smiling face)
• Lieutenant General Henry Shrapnel (3 June 1761 – 13 March 1842; inventor of the shrapnel shell)
• William Turner (Captain of RMS Lusitania: "At 8.00am speed was reduced to 18 knots to secure the ship's arrival at the bar outside Liverpool at 4.00am the following day, in order to catch the high tide." Good idea for getting sighted and targeted by U-boats! Wouldn't want to be late for a very unimportant date!)
• Jeremy Bentham (Invented the "panopticon" (cost-effective technology for universal surveillance and social control).)
• Frederick W. Taylor (Invented "time and motion" studies.)
• Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ("AOC"; rabble rousing "in your face" troublemaker)
• (POTUS №40) Ronald Reagan (De-ment-ed (Sorry, I meant: "deregulated"...) everything he could get his hands on. (See also his friend: Margaret Thatcher))
• (FLOTUS №40) Nancy Reagan (famous for advocating: "Just say no".)
• Ralph Nader ("Progressive" who gave (POTUS №43) George W. Bush the U.S. presidency in November 2000 election, and still doesn't feel any responsibility or guilt about having done so; this Nadir(sic) of American politics should have stuck to outing bad automobiles)
• St. Paul (née: Saul of Tarsus. Father of institutionalized intolerant Christianity; should have had medication for his epilepsy)
• Pablo Picasso (Misogynistic probable sociopath. Man or monkey?)
• Jeffrey Skilling. (Enron.)
• Robert Venturi (Pioneer of cynical architecture (postmodernism); decorated sheds.)
• Karl Abraham (Freud's lackey. Believed that working class persons whose reported symptoms were due to their feeling oppressed or an attempt to escape their oppression, should to learn to live with their oppression, and not escape it. As a doctor reviewing miner's disability claims, he had ample opportunity to implement this conviction.)
• Adolf Eichmann (Followed orders.)
• Andy Warhole (Liked being famous for being famous.)
• Ayatulla Ruhollah Khomeini (Freed the Iranian people from freedom. Major force in rise of Islamic neo-fundamentalism. Was succeeded in this role by Ayatulla Ali Khamenei)
• Marie ("Madam") Curie (Knew X-rays cause cancer but didn't tell anybody, because she feared the bad publicity would impede their acceptance.)
• Francis Crick and James Watson (Beat all other competitors to make a big scientific discovery first, by any means necessary. Tried to get others going down blind alleys: Linus Pauling. Denied others credit: Rosalind Franklin.)
• Alois Hitler (Adolf's father. The only member of the family he did not mistreat was the dog.)
• Joseph McCarthy ("Tail gunner Joe" (who never got in a military plane except for publicity photos on the ground...). The man behind the word "McCarthyism". Fittingly died from "drinking".)
• Mahatma Gandhi (Made his family enjoy(sic) voluntary poverty they didn't want. May have used nonviolence as way to get others to do violence and then deny responsibility for it.)
• Werner Herzog (Makes great films, but doesn't care if people get killed in the process.)
• Jodie Foster (Actress who played a teenage "slut" in a movie and then said she saw absolutely no connection when an obsessed fan (John Hinckley) tried to assassinate the President of the United States to impress her.)
• Pete Rose (Major league baseball player who may have killed baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti with voodoo.)

Recent United States Presidents (Least worst first)

• Franklin Roosevelt. Saved capitalism by providing benefits to the American people in the Great Depression instead of just throwing them to the invisible hand.
• Jimmy Carter. Friend of the envirionment, humble, peace loving.
• Dwight Eisenhower. Seemed a relatively sane person.
• Barak Obama. Seemed to set a higher tone for the Presidency than hormonal Bill, far more intelligent than "W".
• Harry Truman. Rose to the occasion when Franklin Roosevelt died.
• Lyndon Johnson. If not for Vietnam he was relatively constructive.
• John F. Kennedy. Did not live long enough to see how bad (or good) he would have shown himself to be.
• George H.W. Bush. [I don't know enough about him to have much of an opinion of him.
• Richard Nixon. Paranoid. Otherwise not one of the worst.
• William Jefferson Clinton. Uncouth man who could not control his hormones. Albert Gore, as Vice President, had to put up with him.
• Joe Biden. Emotionally immature, mentally limited; likes to honor dead heroes instead of trying to not make more of them.

The bottom of the barrel

• George W. Bush. Stupid. Puppet for the Neocons to pull his strings. Albert Gore should have been President instead but selfish Activists and a partisan Supreme Court did their dirty work.
• Ronald Reagan. The great ignorancer of the American people.

In a class by himself except maybe with Mafia Dons

• Donald John Trump. Vengeful, self-serving would-be autocrat whose main presidential interests were playing golf, Twitter tweeting. The enemy within.

Foods & beverages

"You are what you eat" (ref. lost; Alternatively: "Tell me what a person eats, and I'll tell you what they are." (BMcC[18-11-46-503])

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Foods I like....

• Tuscan [white] beans in garlic and olive oil
• Plain Greek yoghurt (esp.: with granola, or: honey and walnuts)
• Aged Gouda cheese
• Very old, very sharp Cheddar cheese
• Gorgonzola cheese
• Familia (Swiss Muesli cereal)
• Asparagas
• Raw [optional: ground] beef (After 'mad cow disease', I don't eat this any more... Note: As of September 2020: back to eating raw beef occasionally)
• Flank steak (preferably horse meat)
• Liver (medium rare; not: 'smothered under fried onions')
• Sardines in olive oil
• Most kinds of sushi, sashimi and chirashi
• Plain tofu (with some soy sauce to dip it in)
• Oatmeal (with honey)
• Dannon coffee yoghurt (esp.: with granola or uncooked oatmeal on top)
• Oatmeal-raisan cookies
• Homemade bread ('heavy' and still gooey in inside)
• Chocolate mousse
• Homemade vanilla ice cream
• Scungili and calamari fra diavolo
• Tuna salad on whole-wheat bread sandwich (with tomato and raw onion)
• Bruschetta (very lightly toasted)
• Risotto

Beverages I like....

• Sparkling water (seltzer; preferably Italian naturally carbonated)
• Green Chartreuse (liqueur)
• Glenkinchie Single Malt Scotch
• Suntory Excellence whisky [Messenger's letter case in collection Suntory Museum, Tokyo, gave me idea for design of: my Signature seal icon.
• Any good full-bodied rich bouquet red wine
• Auslese Riesling white wine
• Greek coffee
• Expresso (preferably with brandy in it)
• Chimay beer (in Belgium, not imported to U.S.A.!)
• Kronenbourg, Carlsberg and other hearty beers (IPA good)
• Pussers British Navy Rum (God save the Queen!)
• Prune juice (preferably with pulp)

Foods and beverages I hate or despise....

• Incinerated (aka: charred, grilled...) anything: hamburgers, steak, 'veggies'....
• Burnt toast
• Bacon
• Iceberg lettuce. (Is this what really sank RMS Titanic after cash-strapped White Star Line served it to passengers as a cost-cutting measure?)
• White rice (brown rice good)
• Pickles ('dill', etc.) [Japanese pickled vegetables are something different and generally OK.]
• Olives (esp.: pits left distastefully exposed to public view after supposely well-mannered people have eaten them!)
• Kix, Trix and other so-called cereals that don't even look like food
• French fries
• Coca-Cola®
• Miller High Life beer [In college, I drank some, and that caused me to not drink alcoholic beverages until I learned better existed.]
• Velveeta
• M&M'S
• Pizza ("Let them eat..."; grandma/Sicilian style with lots of crushed tomatos and no cheese OK – in other words: bruschetta)
• Maraschino cherries^[3]
• How about Princess Diana Flora margarine tubs (above left)?

Acronyms

KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. (U.S. Navy, 1960; Also: Kelly Johnson)

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From epidemiology and nuclear power industry....

• TMTC. Too Many To Count (E.g., multiplying tuberculosis bacilli)
• GKW. God Knows What (Stuff that we can't figure out what it is → but it's probably not good)
• MUF. Material Unaccounted For (E.g., missing weapons-grade uranium ☢)
• Unk-unk(s). Unknown unknown(s) (Problems we don't even know we have; contrast with problems we know we need to fix or be prepared for or at least are aware of)

To see a lot of U.S. military acronyms: Click here

Generic....

From Lockheed Martin, NYSE* LMT....

• LOSAT. Line-of-Sight Antitank Weapon System
• KEM. Kinetic Energy Missile
• SDB. Small Diameter Bomb
• WCMD. Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser
• JASSM. Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile
• PQT. Production Qualification Test
• SDD. System Development and Demonstration phase
• LRIP. Low-Rate Initial Production
• PMO. Project Management Office

Names I'd like to have, seriously (Call me: ____!)^[5]

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"Names are character strings." (BMcC)

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• Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
• Carrington Event ("Carry", for short)
• Federico Fellini
• Sándor Ferenczi
• Cat Stevens (or: "Cat", or: "Catfood")
• Maine Coon Cat ("Just call me: 'Coon', Teach.")
• Rrose Sélavy
• Z
• Ima Polack
• Wanda Landowska
• William Tecumseh Sherman
• Whirlaway (I'd be up with the times!)
• Gin Rummy
• Politically Incorrect ("Polly")
• Packhard Patrician
• Luxe Calme-&-Volupté
• Hikari Genji
• Edith Piaf
• dada (I am currently trying this one out for a nickname)

Names I would like not to have

Things I'd like to have

"If wishes were horses then beggars would ride." (Jay Unger)

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General....

• Any family business that makes something very, very good. Domain Romanee Conti. Patek Philippe SA. Controlled Demolition Inc. RTL (Robinson Transportation Limited). The New York Times.... (So I could wholeheartedly devote my self to *my* work.)
• A gourmet vegetarian dinner from the nuns at Daitokuji most nights. [In exchange, I'd never eat meat again.]
• My own internet server. (With redundant connectivity in case Lower Manhattan gets hit again; redundant backup electric generators, etc.) [at least I have had my Cloud9 website for 6+1/2 21+ years, including a UNIX command line.]
• "Zen" garden like Ryoanji. Less is more (and no grass) [At least I have my Kakumi Seiho sake cup (here), and the Ise-inspired garden I designed in my front yard.] I do not want a suburban development lawn to mow!
• A Wassily Kandinsky painting. i.e.: One of my favorites, but I could probably adapt to any one.
• To see the Northern Lights. [Lux in tenebris....]
• Romanée Conti with dinner at least once a week. (I'll "settle" for BV Cabernet Sauvignon every night)
• Home designed by Mario Botta. (Louis Kahn's student) e.g.: Bianchi house at Riva San Vitale.
• pet Guigna. 5 pound South American wild cat (presuming they are tameable) [At least I have my 2 Maine Coon cats.]
• A summer house overlooking Santa Fe, New Mexico. [If I could buy my deceased teacher's house, or his b-tchy neighbor's....]
• Ability to read and speak German, Japanese, French and Chinese. (in that order...)
• A tenured professorship. (So I could spend my days pursuing my intellectual interests, and sharing them with aka teaching others)
• Philippe Dufour Simplicity wristwatch. Believed by many to be the highest quality simple wristwatch ever made [If I had known about this in Jan 2000, I could have afforded one.]. Breguet ref. 7027 hand-wind also OK.
• Abraham-Louis Breguet pocket watch. "To wear a Breguet is to have a genius in your pocket." [An acceptable one sold for US$12,500 in 2001.]
• Mercedes-Benz 300SL "Gullwing" coupe. Over-engineered, e.g., the valve actuators didn't even use springs [desmodromic valves], direct fuel injection. [A mint, "loaded" BMW 318ti would be good, and the 2003 Toyota Corolla I really had was OK, too.]
• BMW 2000CS (1966), or 3.0CSi (1971). [See immediately preceding item, above....]
• A real Andreas Palladio villa. [A small but well designed house in the spirit of AP was for sale near where I live, a few years ago.]
• Dual citizenship. [Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Iceland, Germany, Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Monaco. I'm tempted to say "any place but here", but there are lots of places that are not good, incl., Bolsonaroland, Lukashenkoland, Lebanon.]

Totally unrealistic....

• Personal jet with mid-air refueling capabilities and a license to fly it. A government surplus SR-71 might be one option, but a B-52 would be far more practical.... [King Hussein of Jordan had a Lockheed L-1011 which he himself piloted.] How about a Tupolev Design Bureau (designed by zeks) TU-95?
• To be Monica Vitti. (Dulce et decorum sit....)
• To be Hermann Broch. [at least I knew his son; I think I can speak for him.]
• To be Edmund Husserl. [at least I've read some of his writings. I think I can speak for him, too.]
• A copy of Giovanni de Dondi's Astrarium [This was/is a great achievement of technological innovation and documentation.]
• To be Amanda Lear. (Are you question or answer?....)

Things I'd like to have only so I could sell them for the $$$ (but that I would not want to have around)....

• Any edifice built by Robert Venturi $hould fetch a fetishistic high price among postmodernist architects, who worship His Gospel of Decorated Sheds!
• Robert A.M. Stern MacMansion. $hould fetch a good price.
• Large yacht. The bigger the better the price should be biggger too.
• A very large diamond. Ditto, again.

Things I would not want to have, no matter what....

• A back-yard swimming pool. (You can't even sell it!)
• Macho musculature. (I do not aspire to be Godzilla or The Minotaur)
• A visit to Disneyworld, or, even worse, a water park.
• A bottle or can of Lite beer (Why bother? Air is even Liter. But that is not true: If I was dying of dehydration in the middle of Death Valley in July in mid-day, I'd take a few.)

Apocryphal automobile models

"America has taken the automobile into its heart, and the automobile has taken over America." (Eric Sevareid)

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• Dodge Objet D'art
• Isuzu Storm Trooper (Drive with confidence to your neighborhood Bodega)
• Crosley CoBra (real automobile, 1946-49; per Wikipedia; great support)
• Citrëon DeceaSed (models: 19, 21 & 23)
• BWV 315 (Also: 318, 325, 335)
• Tesla Coil (Deluxe model:Recoil)
• Kaiser-Frasier (seats 6; bring some Friends)
• Chrysler Airfoil (1934-37) (Also: Aeroflot, for the Soviet market)
• Chia Pet
• Musk Rat
• Ford Siesta
• Mercury Marquis de Sade (Brougham)
• Mercury Meteor (Apologies: That was a real car)
• Lincoln Caprice (Oops! That's a Chevy...).
• Lincoln Carpaccio
• Chevrolet Carapace
• Alfa Romeo Juliet
• KiA Soul (this one is real)
• Chevrolet Corvair Frigidaire' (specially for the Arctic market)
• Mercury Mongoose
• Pontiac Michigan (special price incentives for General Motors workers)
• Toyota Forerunner (Also: Tartlette)
• Toyota Crown Prince (Also: Princess)
• Toyota Priapus (LGBQ?)
• Zil ch
• Ford Fungus (Buy two: Fungi), Also: Fission)
• Mercury Links (for golfers; Deluxe model: Hole in one)
• Packhard Caliban (Also: Politician)
• Fiat Panis
• Nissan Altamont
• Plymouth Voyeur (seats 8)
• Dodge Dingo (made for Australian market. Also: Polaris, Matador, Maldoror)
• Chevrolet Taco (SUV. Made for Mexican market.)
• Toyota Tora Bora (Taliban recommended)
• Chevrolet Monad (In honor of Gottfried von Liebnitz; 1953-54, above right)
• Volkswagen Beatles (Four seater)
• Chrysler Imperious
• Ford Victorian (Also: Falco, Futurama)
• Plymouth Prince Valiant
• Oldsmobile Tornado (For Spanish market: Tournedos)
• Chevrolet Supernova (Also: Capricious)
• DeSoto Firestorm (Also: Fireball, Firefight)
• Oldsmobile Aurora Borealis (Also: Australis)
• Facel Vega 8½ (Special built for: Federico Fellini)
• Mercedes-Benz 300ETS (Special pricing for high school teachers and principals)
• Yugo Slavia (Special models: Tito and Broz)
• Cheka Marathon (Also: Superba, Lubyanka; luxury model: Sharashka)

Some Marianne Moore suggestions for Ford Edsel marque name:

Folkways of American Life

"In the land of the blind, the one eyed man has his eye surgically removed so that he will be normal." (BMcC[18-11-46-503])

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Some computer generated dada poems by Julia

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N.b.: I (BMcC) occasionally consult the: I Ching. Call me: Dada. People should: start making sense! Below are some computer generated dada poems based on Wilfred Owens' poem: "Dulce et decorum est pro patris mori". Enjoy:

Source code for the program(s) is at: here.

Some of my favorite curse words and phrases

[Are you sure you really want to know? (BMcC)]

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I will not list these here, out of consideration for Professor McClintock. I will happily provide them (actually, unhappily, for I wish the things that are done to me that trigger them never again happen), on request: bradmcc@bmccedd.org.

I will, however offer some clues: (1) There is one particular familiar obscenity that I try to avoid using because, understood literally, it may be a blessing. (2) I try to tailor my curses to be "spot on" to impingements I suffer from my social surround. (2a) Some of my curses concern important figures in the history of Christianity. (3) I claim to have PTSD, but not, I think, Tourette's syndrome, although I would not feel negatively about it to find out I did. (4) I propose that any person who can adroitly deploy polysyllabic words thereby earns the right also to use monosyllables. (5) Nobody should ever even suggest doing anything to me that would make me even think of a single curse word; everyone should always make me think and say genuinely felt (not sarcastic!): "Thank you for so graciously helping me so very much!" (6) As a pointed blessing, I etymologically invoke the name of the Islamic Prophet(PBUH): Ojala!

Open secret: My very worst maledictory epithet is something that's no George Carlin word or that any Bowdlerizer might notice. It's what's inside the following double-quote marks; I invite people to stew in their own juices. Bon appetit!

"[fill in the blank]"

And there are also punishments that would be far worse for white-collar creeps with doctoral degrees than a death sentence and apparently are not prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and would not cost the taxpayers anything, either: Can you imagine getting a state licensed Psy.D. educated psychologist's license revoked so they would have to spend the rest of the life flipping hamburgers in a McDonald's Fast Food restaurant, or some other you-waste-your-life low wage job instead of sitting their two self-satisfied couch potatoes in their cushy leather chair running their taxi meter on clueless patients, and consequently them having to default on their snooty big house mortgage and then maybe needing public housing but never making it off the waiting list? That would serve such a perp right, and "it would leave no marks".

Notice some Invisible Elephants in the Room. Stop by my office.

Check out: list of BMcC favorite music  Look around my BMcC Quotes closet  Read some BMcC maxims —————  Enjoy puns & riddles  Check out some BMcC current books  Read some Just So stories  List of Haikus

Invenit et fecit