Obama became president, then I got laid off, therefore Obama cost me my job.

D’Antoni resigned, then Knicks won. Therefore, D’Antoni was the problem.

The Rooster crows, then the sun rises. Therefore, roosters cause sunrises.


Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "after this, therefore because of this," : a logical fallacy of the questionable cause variety…


...and you’ll find it all over the place. At work I sit in meetings listening to similar illogic to explain why certain shows aren’t doing well. We showed it at 10:30, then ratings were low, therefore 10:30 is a bad time slot. Rarely however, do you hear this line of reasoning: The show sucks, therefore no one watches it.


Fictional characters I’ve enjoyed spending time with over the years…with select examples as to why:



Philip Marlowe- Multiple Novels by Raymond Chandler

"You're Marlowe?"
I nodded.
"I'm a little disappointed," he said, "I rather expected something with dirty finger nails."
"Come inside," I said, "and you can be witty sitting down."






Bugs Bunny—by Tex Avery, Ben Hardaway, Chuck Jones , Mel Blanc and many others.

"Eh, you'll be fine if you remember t'ree things. One, your adversaries have tapioca for brains. Two, always eat your carrots. And three, villains always fall for cheesy disguises."






Gulley Jimson- From The Horses Mouth by Joyce Cary

“Plantie is a very strong Protestant, that is to say, he's against all churches, especially the Protestant: and he thinks a lot of Buddha, Karma and Confucius. He is also a bit of an anarchist and three or four years ago he took up Einstein and vitamins.”




BTW: Was reading about Joyce Cary and discovered that in addition to the William Blake influence, there was also his contemporary Stanley Spencer as a model for Gulley Jimson. Some Spencer info and works posted below.




Sully Sullivan- From Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo

“I'm about to fuck up, he thought clearly, and his next thought was, but I don't have to. This was followed closely by a third thought, the last of this familiar sequence, which was, but I'm going to anyway.”




Raylan Givens- Elmore Leonard character in numerous books.

"Stop. Glen, I don't want you to speak anymore. 'Cause once you start lyin' to me, there's going to be a river between us with no bridge to cross. Do you understand what I'm sayin'? Nod if you do."






Huck Finn- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn…by Mark Twain

"When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the stars and drift logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed; there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can't stay so, you soon get over it."


Ishmael- Moby Dick , by Herman Melville

"In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans…. I do not think that my remarks about religion made much impression upon Queequeg…. He looked at me with a sort of condescending concern and compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such a sensible young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan piety."


Cuddy Mangum-- From the Justin and Cuddy novels by James Malone (Uncivil Seasons, Time’s Witness, First Lady)

“At the time, some kind folks thought we had us a moral revolution going that couldn’t slip back; it was racing along the road to glory, chucking war, racism and sexism out the widnows like roadside trash. These sweet Americans could no more imagine a backward slide than Romans could imagine their Forum was going to end up a cow pasture or much less a big litter box for stray cats tiptoeing through the condoms and cigarette butts.”





How the imaginative, playful, contrarian, and desperately overmatched mind deals with mathematics:





Stanley Spencer (30 June 1891 – 14 December 1959)
Stanley Spencer with his old pram chassis walking down a Cookham lane with his easel and canvas.
Upon reading that he was Joyce Cary's model for Gulley Jimson in The Horse's Mouth, I was intrigued to know more. Spent some time online looking at his work and it knocked me out. Prolific and all over the map in style and substance. For more: http://www.stanleyspencer.org.uk/

CLICK TO ENLARGE















More G.K Chesterton:

“A child's instinct is almost perfect in the matter of fighting; a child always stands for the good militarism as against the bad. The child's hero is always the man or boy who defends himself suddenly and splendidly against aggression. The child's hero is never the man or boy who attempts by his mere personal force to extend his mere personal influence. That combination of the hero and bully in one, which people now call the Strong Man or the Superman, would be simply unintelligible to any schoolboy....No; I am not in favour of the child being taught militarism. I am in favour of the child teaching it.”