I couldn't be a bigger fan of Honorary Doctor of Science, Dame Jane Goodall.

I learned about her as a kid. I think it might have been with a Schoolastic book or something. After that, I heard about her off and on for many, many years. Mostly in talk show appearances, which she continued to appear in until quite recently...

Wonderful.

It's remarkable to think about how she started her career over 60 years ago when she was 26 years old...

And never stopped. Becoming a legend in the conservation of chimpanzees and their habitats...

But what made me really fall in love with Jane was after Gary Larson made a cartoon around her in The Far Side...

Somebody from her institute lost their shit and fired off a scathing letter, incensed that Larson would dare to call Jane Goodall a "tramp." Which, of course, is not at all what's happening. But, well, you know... some people are easily set off.

But not Jane Goodall, who said that she found the cartoon funny. She said that it was her favorite rendition of her in pop culture. Which is probably why she wrote an introduction to one of Larson's The Far Side Gallery books.

And why Gary Larson visited Goodall's lab in Tanzania.

And why Gary Larson let Jane put the cartoon on a shirt and let her keep all profits for her institute...

It's difficult not to be saddened by her passing, but more difficult to not feel amazed by what she did with her 91 years on earth...

Rest in Peace.

Your humanity towards wildlife made you more human than most.

   
Why do I watch the news? It just keeps getting worse and worse.

The wildfire smoke was back with a vengeance this morning, which made for a miserable day. I masked up in a futile attempt to not end up with itchy lungs, which is the worst, but to no avail. I had to drive into the Big City after lunch and ended up pulling over on the way back to puke my guts out into my car's garbage bag. Doesn't get more fun than that.

After stopping by home to brush my teeth, I went back to work and felt like dying for two hours. Then I drove home and have felt like dying for four more hours.

The good news is that the Air Quality Index dropped from a hazardous 294 to a slightly less hazardous 257.

The bad news is that it will probably still be smokey enough to make me sick tomorrow.

Also the bad news... more misinformation bullshit has been unleashed upon an unsuspecting world... vaccines AND Tylenol causes autism now?!? God. I suppose not even the fact that the World Health Organization has declared there's no evidence of any of this will make no difference. Just throw it on the ever-growing pile of idiocy that's going to fuck over humanity. I mean, if people believe the earth is flat, they'll believe anything.

Meanwhile, I'm off to bed way too early in the hopes that I can somehow fall asleep so my lungs can clear out and not feel fuzzy and itchy any more. Where's my Tylenol PM?

Today's internet rabbit hole brought to you by... THE END OF DAYS!

It's supposed to happen, yet again, sometime tonight or tomorrow, assumably depending on which time zone you're in. This latest date for the Rapture is courtesy of a South African pastor who said that Jesus Christ told him directly when it was happening back in June.

And despite the fact that these things never come true, people are totally believing the guy.

I've watched a lot of their TikToks. All of the video creators claiming to be devout Christians.

Which I highly doubt, because if they had read their Bible they would have seen Matthew 24:36, which addresses the time for End of Days thusly...

"But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

Which is to say that the odds of God telling some pastor somewhere when the Rapture is coming before Jesus even knows he's coming back is laughably crazy.

Let's continue with Matthew 24:37-39, shall we?

"As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

How the fuck is that in ANY way unclear? God is not dropping by with a warning about the return of Jesus. To anybody. According to the Bible, you'll be out living your life and... BLAM! Heeeeeeeere's Jesus!

But anyway...

If you never hear from me again, it's because I've been Raptured and am chillin' in heaven at the Supper of the Lamb with JC.

I'm sure I'll be forgiven for not believing yet another random person claiming to have been told when the world was ending.

I am at such a loss as to understand how our toxic society became "anti-science" that I feel like I must be insane.

But then I saw something which put it in clear perspective for me...

And there it is.

Science has been such a huge fucking miracle in our lives that we can't conceive of what life was like before the discoveries we've been blessed with. And so kids are dying from preventable diseases and laws are in process to deny people from even having the option to get vaccinated.

Welcome to the death cult mentality which is fucking up the entire world.

It's gotten to the point where I'm afraid to read the news.

I keep adding key words to automatically delete the horrors of the day from my feed reader but, with new horrors arriving daily, it's a never-ending battle. Just when I think I've filtered out everything that sends my anxiety skyrocketing, heeeeeeere comes dread and despair!

The sad thing is that I usually pride myself on being up on current events and well-informed about what's going on in the world... but this? This?!??

Where is that world-ending giant meteor when you really need it?

Last night I tuned into the New Heights podcast while eating dinner. And, no, I didn't start listening to it because Taylor Swift appeared on the previous episode. I was a fan of the show long before they even started dating and have blogged about it many times.

But speaking of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce... they got engaged. And the first thing I thought of after seeing the news is "I wonder if they will televise the wedding like they did The Royal Wedding for Princess Diana?" Because, let's be real, this is about as close as the United States is going to get to something like that...

And back to last night's episode of New Heights... it was filmed before the news of the engagement. But Jason prefaced the show by acknowledging it. Then we went into the pre-recorded show. Where they talked about the jaw-dropping numbers that last week's Taylor Episode pulled. And it was made very clear that if the proposal wasn't soon after they taped the Taylor Episode, he was proposing very soon after this one was taped. The guy absolutely delights in her. Never trying to eclipse her. Never spilling her business. Never feeling less of a man because she's a massively huge star raking in billions of dollars. He is perfectly happy to stand beside and be her cheerleader, which makes him a far bigger man that so-called "alpha males" who think that domination is the only option when it comes to women.

It's a refreshing thing to see...

And a great example to young men.

I hope they make it. Not only because they seem like decent people, but because Taylor Swift has been shitted on her entire career for her relationships. And because of this...

So congratulations to the happy couple.

I guess all their haters can just go be mad about it.

OCTOBER 20, 2023: Michigan teen's suicide highlights growing dangers of online sextortion plots.

I cannot fathom what it must be like being a teen today. I'm saying that life was a total picnic back when I was in high school, but there's just so much... more... to growing up now. The internet has changed absolutely everything.

It's increasingly easy to target people with scams and traps that could end up in tragedy, but teens have it especially hard given what they're already going through in life. This story happened back in 2023, but a recent sextortion case involving a teen has the story being shared around again.

Having to talk to your kids about uncomfortable topics like "sextortion" cannot be easy. But since the consequences of not doing so can be so dire, parents really have no choice. The cautionary tale of what can happen when you talk with strangers on the internet... or send nude photos... or, heaven forbid, reveal your address... is almost as essential as reading in today's world.

It's a definite shame, but it's where we're at.

And I hope everybody takes the time to check on the kids in their life so they can be better protected.

I'm a vegetarian. I choose to not eat meat. So imagine for a minute that I am a cook at a vegetarian restaurant. One day, the owner decides that we're going to start serving meat. I refuse to cook it because it goes against my vegetarian beliefs. The owner says "Well, that's the job. You either do the job or you can't work here." I not only refuse to cook meat, I also refuse to quit. Then I refuse to leave the restaurant. So the owner calls the police to have me removed. I go to jail for trespassing for five days. The owner says that this entire ordeal has made them decide to fire me, and they tell me to never come back.

And you should know that the entire time I was working for the vegetarian restaurant I was moonlighting as a cook for Burger King, McDonald's, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. And I was eating at McDonald's while I was cooking at Burger King.

Seven years later I petition the Supreme Court to ban meat completely.

Because if I don't want to eat it, nobody should have the freedom to eat it!

I'm not saying that I rushed home from work to catch Taylor Swift on the New Heights podcast. But I totally rushed home from work to catch Taylor Swift on the New Heights podcast.

I have never understood the hatred that some people have for this woman. If you hate her music, then fine. I can wrap my head around that. But to hate her for being... talented... popular... successful? When she's done absolutely nothing to them except exist? It boggles the mind.

I guess it comes with the territory of being famous.

But should it? To this extent? There are people who have absolutely relished the fact that her attempts to find love have failed. They take joy every time she goes through a breakup. They lay in wait every time she starts seeing somebody new just for the opportunity to laugh at her when she gets her heart broken.

Which is why I was happy to see her and Travis looking so happy together. And I can't help but hope their relationship lasts.

Regardless of how you feel about either of them, the interview is worth a watch. They're hilarious. And charming. And interesting.

"This podcast has done a lot for me. I owe a lot to this podcast. This podcast got me a boyfriend, ever since Travis decided to use it as his personal dating app two years ago."

"This kind of felt more like I was in an 80s John Hughes movie and he was standing outside my window with a boombox like 'I WANNA DATE YOU! DO YOU WANNA GO ON A DATE WITH ME? I MADE YOU A FRIENDSHIP BRACELET!' And I was like, if this guy's not crazy, this is sort of what I've been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager."

They're also... weirdly normal. A huge chunk of the interview is Taylor Swift being obsessed with baking sourdough bread.

But anyway...

Watch the interview. If, for no other reason, than to have fun watching one of the most famous people on earth in an interview where she seems more herself than you've seen before...

I sure hope that The Life of a Showgirl is more "1989" and "Reputation" and "Lover" than "Folklore" and "Evermore" and "The Tortured Poets Department." It would be fun to love her music again.