Kaitlyn Live
July 11, 2019
Good morning friends.
AND THEY’RE OFF: We should all care about animals, and horses are deserving of our attention now, as Breeder’s Cup officials have announced their November championships are still planned for Santa Anita, the Los Angeles-area track where 30 horses died this past racing season (December-June).
Now, thoroughbreds die regularly for our betting pleasure, but 30 is eight more than the track’s previous high, and most of them came before mid-March, causing no small amount of panic. And it’s true deaths fell to a more normal rate after Santa Anita halted racing for a couple of days in March, so maybe the industry will get away with it. Moving the Breeders Cup would have had a major, perhaps devastating impact on the sport. But boy, hardly as devastating an impact as even one horsie death at the Breeders Cup would have. Horse racing is dying anyway and closing out the year with a, some, high profile deaths might well close the coffin.
Running The Numbers: Our national debt as I write this is $22.4 trillion. and America has been at war for 10,796 consecutive days.
More Crap: Significant birthdays on this date include John Quincy Adams (1767), Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White (1899), and the (sort of) legendary Brett Sommers (1924).
You’re In For It: Checking your horoscope for today, no, you are not as big a pain in the ass as you think, but you are neither as cute or funny as you think you are, either. Which means be careful trying to talk yourself out of that ticket.
Can We Go Back To Politicians Dueling?: Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr murders former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey on this date in 1803. The two had long been bitter rivals and while accounts vary, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Hamilton intentionally shot into the air while Burr intentionally shot into Hamilton’s chest. Burr was charged with murder in both New Jersey and New York, but didn’t stand trial in either jurisdiction and completed his term as vice president.
Great Moments In Reading: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is published on this date in 1960. Keeping it light with topics such as rape and racial injustice. Lee evidently felt she had said all she had to say as a writer, because her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, did not come out until 2015 and it is generally recognized as the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird.
CHARTWATCH: #1 songs on this date in 1981:
Hot 100 – Bette Davis Eyes…Kim Carnes (8th of nine non-consecutive weeks)
Soul Chart – Give It To Me Baby…Rick James (5th and final week)
Country Chart – Fire and Smoke…Earl Thomas Conley (only week)
UK Singles Chart – Ghost Town…The Specials (3rd and final week)
Album Chart – Mistaken Identity…Kim Carnes (2nd of three weeks)
– Chart data courtesy of Billboard (US) and Official Charts Company (UK).
PHILOSOPHY 101: He had real intelligence…a working, persistent mind. – Saul Bellow
Ravelstein
Intelligence isn’t the ability to use big words few understand or the ability to rattle off mindless facts or impressive figures. It is not retaining knowledge force-fed you by an ancient text or an enlightened master or a famous school. Intelligence is nothing more than the ability to learn, something all of us have.
Sure, some learning is in a formal setting, but most of what we know comes from outside a classroom, from how and if we heed the lessons life is teaching us. We learn every day when we put our experience to work for us, withdrawing every possible lesson – both good and bad – from what nature and circumstance put in front of us. It’s using these lessons to build a foundation for knowing ourselves, from living the life we were meant to live, instead of merely conforming to what others expect from us.
…a working, persistent mind…
Our minds are like parachutes: they don’t do us any good closed. And it doesn’t matter what we choose to learn, either. All of us were issued assorted talents at birth and what interests me might well, probably will, bore you to tears.
What matters is that we put our minds to work for us and for this we need diligence and courage. We must follow our hearts to what interests us and we must be prepared to learn the lessons that are presented to us. We must do this every day, too: we can’t accept life’s lessons one day and ignore them the next. Each day we must put the work required into knowing what we want to know and what we should know. When we do this, we will know ourselves, life’s great prize.
Saul Bellow (1915-2005) was a Canadian/American writer. In 1976 he won both the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
TODAY’S KAITLYN BOOK EXCERPT: From my latest novel The Angel and The Captain
In today’s episode, Angel and her older man Captain are having their usual Sunday dinner at Angel’s mother’s house.
“Had you ever gone to church?” the Captain asked.
Mom shok her head as if she’d been asked if she’s ever sucked off a yak.
“Haw! My husband left us. I had a three-year-old to raise and a living to earn, both on my own. When the hell did I have time? Sometimes I worked on Sundays, but usually we just enjoyed our Sundays to ourselves, didn’t we sweetheart?
I smiled and nodded. Those were still pleasant memories.
“Sometimes we’d go to the diner for an early dinner. You know, the one you took me to on our second date.”
The Captain nodded and smiled. We still went there regularly, usually after one of his games, which pleased me.
“I really liked it when we went to the nice hotel and window shopped.”
Mom sipped her wine.
“Those were not easy times,” Mom said plainly. Then she smiled a genuine, warm smile I had seen from time to time, but never too often, over the years. “Having you both over Sunday makes up for an awful lot, though.”
Mom refilled our wine glasses.
“So, tell me, what church did you go to?”
The Captain told her and Mom nodded knowingly, which was funny because Mom knew as much about the local church scene as she did about applied physics. The actual church was irrelevant.
Mom, it turns out, was really interested in our journey. She said she wasn’t surprised we had set out on it, she had sensed we were out of sorts and while there was certainly no way in hell she was going on this journey with us, she was happy to see us shopping around for a spiritual life.
“Maybe there is a God,” Mom said. “I’ll tell you, sometimes I like to think there is. It’s awfully hard knowing you’re going at it alone in this world. Awfully hard.”
“I don’t know…” the Captain said. My Captain is such a dork! He always says this when he is about to disagree with you! My Captain is relentlessly pleasant when he disagrees with you, too. He is so agreeable when he disagrees with you it will annoy you sometimes. “…maybe we are going it alone. I’ve never minded going it alone. Of course, that was before I was plied every Sunday with meatloaf and macaroni and cheese and wine.”
We sat quietly for a while. I’ve always been comfy being quiet with my Captain. Well, maybe not always. I don’t remember much about our first date, but I do distinctly remember being scared stiff whenever someone wasn’t saying something. I knew immediately I wanted a second date – a lifetime, really – and I remember thinking he probably thinks I’m boring when I was quiet. I would learn, fairly soon, that the Captain does not require non-stop yapping. I would also learn, fairly soon, that I didn’t either, rare for a girl, I know.
Click here to read more from The Angel and The Captain.