The mind can make the most pleasurable things unpleasurable. I was recently informed by my sister that my father, an orthodox Jew, was angry the night he consummated his marriage to my mother. Their lovemaking turned from pleasure to anger when he realized my mother was not a virgin as she had claimed. I thought it funny that his mind distracted him from the pleasure at hand; that she had bed others before him and mislead him seemed besides the point. I don't know whether my father was upset because he felt my mother's deception compromised the foundational trust upon which a solid relationship is built upon or perhaps my father felt that marriage was a significant financial commitment on his part for which he expected to have first dibs on certain bedroom benefits; yet, apparently, others received the benefits for free....

Yesterday it was reported that SpaceX, a company controlled by Elon Musk, paid $250K to settle a sexual harassment employment dispute whereas a flight attendant at SpaceX claimed that Musk offered her a horse (she apparently loves riding horses) in exchange for a "sexual" massage. Presumably, Musk's offer was: I'll give you a horse if you take care of my horse. Musk contends that the sexual harassment claim at issue has been mischaracterized; the disclosure of which is an effort by the political left to discredit him because he has taken to task many of the left's absurd ideologies and programs. Clearly the left despises Musk because he is an “unfairly advantaged” successful businessman who criticises them. Essentially, the left is saying, rightfully so, that Musk's success is unfair because Mush has quite a bit more testosterone than those smart enough to lead the left but not able enough to get it up to making money and having fun....

When past is passed it is over and under, finished and buried. When past is past it is over and over, lingering over the present....

My son, Alex, yesterday tore his Achilles' tendon while playing squash. An operation to repair the tendon and 6+ months of rehabilitation will follow. While the injury is an immediate and serious lifestyle and physical problem, Alex was calm. I suppose he was grateful, as his circumstance could have been worse. and optimistic they will get better. As such, we'll save some money. While Alex and I are very different personalities, his attitude makes clear we'll never need a DNA paternity test....

The sun shows us every significant thing on earth and the billions upon billions of stars tell us how insignificant it all is....

Scripture doesn't much describe heaven, but it's likely a cool place relative to hell. As heaven is relatively painless and hell excruciatingly painful, heaven is death by freezing and hell is death by fire....

When we have no doubts about how we see something, we close our eyes to other possibilities....

The Biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is a revealing tale of male/female dynamics. As the story goes, God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden as caretakers. For sustenance, they were allowed to eat anything they desired but the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. In the Garden, all was good for Adam and Eve as they lived naked and carefree. One day, Eve encountered a serpent in the Garden. The serpent is described as the most cunning of beasts, apparently it had legs and could talk. Soon after striking up a conversation with Eve, the serpent convinces her to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil so that she like God would know good and evil. After eating the fruit, Eve convinces Adam to eat it as well. With this new-found knowledge, Adam and Eve came to know the good and evil of sexual intimacy; it felt good but was evil as it represented disobeying God’s rules, like the rules a parent imposes on its child. Presumably, Eve was a virgin and as such their genitals became blood-stained after sexual intercourse. Realizing their bloody genitals would reveal to God that they had disobeyed God’s prohibition, they covered their nakedness with fig leaves. However, seeing their genitals covered, God realized they were trying to hide the bloody evidence of their misdeeds. For their misdeeds, God punished the snake, Eve and Adam. God took away the snake’s legs so it must forever grovel on the ground. God punishes Eve by declaring that the seed of the snake and the seed of Eve will forever hate each other. Moreover, God (apparently believing Adam that Eve instigated breaking God's rules in order to presumably satisfy her sexual desires) decreed that Eve will suffer the pains of childbirth, a consequence of sexual intimacy. God punishes Adam by banishing him from the Garden, where fruits for his sustenance were freely available. Instead, Adam is made to toil the Earth to sustain himself and to support Eve in exchange for sexual pleasures. Essentially, Adam and Eve were thrown out of their parent’s house to fend for themselves. As the snake had legs and was able to talk, the snake must have been Adam’s penis, hanging between his legs and talking through Adam who cunningly acted as a ventriloquist. (That the snake, as above, bore a seed through sperm corroborates that the snake is indeed Adam’s penis.) Moreover, God (apparently thinking that maybe Adam was the instigator) punishes Adam’s penis, forever vanquished to grovel on the ground like men groveling for women’s sexual favors. Thus, it was Adam who tricked Eve into eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, to convince her that sex was a natural act in which they should engage. Moreover, as the seed of the snake and the seed of the woman were decreed to forever hate each other, women and men’s sexual relationships would forever be contentious, based on give-and-take. The story of Adam and Eve, written by men, blames a woman as the root of man's woes, portraying her as a temptress that ultimately lured man to commit misdeeds. Adam’s male progeny have been doing like Adam ever since. While it's unlikely we'll be readmitted to the Garden, perhaps we can get a little closer to it if men take responsibility for their actions....