Don't make me laugh talking about a respectful conversation, please. You're the last one who should ever say such a thing..

So much for trying to have a respectful conversation with Beck, I guess. No real surprise there.// Freewheelin', I've definitely talked to some people who find the fighting metaphor helpful, or innocuous. I'm not against people using it across the board; I think its ubiquity does really plug into ways of thinking about disease which make life harder for many (not least many cancer patients themselves.)

It is not about fighting the disease itself. It is about fighting to live well with the disease. Some days that means researching and finding the best treatments. Some days it means fighting the symptoms of cancer and / or treatment to do the things that are important to you. Some days it means taking time to grieve or worry and doing self-care so you can fight another day. It's about not giving up on living and having a high quality of life whether cancer is cured or not. When my mom died of cancer, I didn't think of it as her losing a battle, and I certainly didn't think it was her fault. I knew how hard she fought and what she went through wanting to be alive. She was proud to consider herself a cancer fighter. And she did win because she lived as long as she could, and she was a person who gave so much to others, especially me, and made me the person I am today. That's what being a fighter means.

Two people told you something so people must now reframe how they encourage people to deal with a life threatening disease. Just listen to yourself.

Oh, so you quote selected people who say such a thing? Well that settles the matter. Give me a break.

Hey Beck. I quote two people who had cancer who say that the metaphor caused them pain. I've spoken to numerous other people who say the article resonated for them as well. One woman says her mother asked why she was not getting well if she was fighting so hard; that frame made her feel like a failure.//Alan, just about nobody deserves brain cancer.//Nicky, thanks.

There is no way whatsoever that such language implies that those who succumb are not brave enough. Who could possibly believe people who express such a sentiment actually feel this way? This is beyond ridiculous.

John McCain richly deserves it, that much is for sure.

When my late wife was first diagnosed with cancer, I was amazed at the number of imbeciles who felt that addiction is a disease who also adhered to the ridiculous notion that cancer is a failure of will. It's the other way around. That said, there is an abundance of evidence that highly refined cannabis oil cures cancer.

Couldn't agree more, Noah. I loathe this language around disease, cancer specifically. People feel powerless because it's this titanic and lethal and scary thing that's inside of them and therefore invisible (at least at first). "Brave fight"... just abhorrent language.

Some of same could be said about Ry Cooder. Thanks for writing...

He did that very nice record with Ginger Baker...

Thank you for sharing your stroll, musings, memories and original art work with us, painting your pictures in every possible way. Please continue to take us along, always happy to take a walk with you.

Your writing is so thought provoking, and I think that the dream state is the way our minds reach out to other realities, universes, times. Well done, eloquently said, thank you for sharing your mindful musings. I look forward to each new installment in your series of stories.

That is truly beautiful, Tom.

"Hearts made light by lines of red canoe" Joe Cardarelli

Follow the pigeon. Always. He tried to get you to follow him down Milano's step, out the door. He wanted to whisper All the answers, to it All, sitting on your shoulder.He knew the urine -pants guy was coming to sit next to you. He tried to warn you. Think back , Mr Pigeon was staring you in the eye, wasn't he? He was giving you that head motion, wasn't he? Like, " hey, i got what ya need. Over here, Step outside, cmon' , don't be a Chicken." Next time a pigeon beckons, give him a shot, bend down and listen, haha, his ideas as good as any you pay fer out there. another good one TD!, You landed well, your story flows. Thanx. and Hinckley shoulda brought a higher caliber.

After Brooks did this travesty of a show, he did another the next day to admit that he'd taken Harris out of context. Today he announced he's starting his own show so perhaps he got fired. https://twitter.com/_michaelbrooks/status/884581266854748161

You may not build a wall from your friends, however your friends have...so a white man from LA could possibly have a pulse on Israel and Palestine?? No way. Most Americans suffer from zipcode coma. a couple of your friends seem incredibly racist. My wife is a nurse, I've never in 17 years heard say anything about a patients race when it came to why they were in the hospital. To hear a paramedic say it is troubling. The Christian lady and abortion. She derives her whole existence from one playbook. The govt should strive to keep religion and zealots out of governing. The govt should also stay the hell out of a woman's uterus.

the G20 summit is largely symbolic, but symbols and idols are crucially important to our society. We obviously have a need to have some kind of alpha chimp figure - that's in the human genome going way back before we had philosopher kings or despotic dictators. Trump's insane behavior and the chaos ballet that he has put into action is satisfying as someone that has contempt for calcified and incestuous media & political institutions, but it's going to come with consequences, or at least a hangover. The world does need a moral leader, and Obama was very good at playing that role, despite the fact that he continued using drones to kill people, jailed more whistleblowers than Bush or Clinton, or turned a blind eye toward National Guard and local police abuse in Ferguson and Baltimore. There is value in having an articulate and calm statesman. The chaos ballet that Trump is playing right now is fun, but it's not sustainable, and it begs the question - what next?

"When one is afraid of death , he doesn't look forward, he looks back, as death petrifies him. He dies before his time. "..Carl Jung just getting back catching up on TD's memoir stream , i return and can Binge read now, been a binger on the chase with him in a few glory daze past, i pick up where he nails Death , yep throw my dusty carbon to the wind also, fear of locked boxes, ahhhhhggghhh!, can hear Me screaming in there, id rather feed the vultures like the Buddhists do, and yeah the quiet fresh air of gardens of stone in the night are great hangouts, in my teens our grave of choice for a while was the Wizard of Oz, Frank Morgan , buried no fanfare in Cavalry in Sunnyside Queens NY, we walked with bags of Schaefer/ Rheingold over the bridge from Greenpoint, to hang with the Wizard, back in the days of our youth- streets . The Wizard didnt mind. None of the stones do like you say. Places of free thought. ..Good seeing our good buddy CW up top, he too like you , a fine word-gangsta. You TD, Tucker, are hitting the mark like a tide that finally comes in, thanks for the ride.

Realpolitik. At the same time,because of our economic and military strength, rightly or wrongly, people around the world look to us for moral leadership. We can do a lot better than Trump on that front. In fact, we have to.

nailed *it

You're with Plato and all this is quite impressive sounding, at least at first glance. Many of your fellow Gladwell fans would think you'd nailed. The problem is that you've incorrectly identified the fundamental premise of the podcast, rendering all of your words here meaningless. Enjoy whatever dominates your weekend.

Since my girls and I started listening to the Beatles station, I must admit a rekindled passion for Glass Onion.

Look at a map of Russian military bases abroad and compare it to a map of American military bases abroad. Who's the aggressor here?

I know quite a bit about those machines. I revealed their vulnerabilities in an article for NY Press a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

Those Russian hackers must have superlative skills, Nicky. Our newfangled voting machines are not connected to the internet. I'm more invlined to believe that the "Russian hackers" narrative sprang forth from John Podesta's head after he finished fucking Jon-Benet Ramsey's rotting corpse on election eve.

It's so frustrating that Russia Derangement Syndrome has taken over CNN & WaPo & many others. They're diluting the actual bombshell story: our voting machines were hacked by Russia. Yet they feel the need to rush to publish unsourced stories because they get ratings. So the whole thing becomes a wash, and the biggest political story of the year (perhaps second only to Trump winning) is obscured by clouds of smoke.

1) Demographics not as important as length of game, in terms of lost popularity. 2) Show picture of lovely wife some time...

You're starting to sound like me, Russ.

Don't think we're *quite* there yet, Spike. Right now, there are a lot of Millennials (always in the petri dish) who were taken to ballgames as kids, some of whom still like baseball for baseball, others abandoning once they stopped liking cotton candy. But also, it's not just the Zippos, but also the fact that the number of ballgames on TV has increased exponentially since we were kids, and you'd be lucky to see your team on "Game of the Week" twice a season.

Again, technology is the invisible hand. MLB has overpromoted its online content to the point where you can watch your team anywhere, anytime on every device including a Zippo lighter. The overpriced ballpark experience is an unknown to the demographic they seek. They have abandoned the oddball logic of the ancient "blackout" rules for TV. The glowing thing in the palm of your hand will always be better than an upper deck nosebleed to the younger fans.

I fully support that Yankees Curse.

Won't be long before a consulting firm full of Gen X B-school grads come up with some absurd gimmick to lure Millennials into the sport and it totally backfires, on level of the Dove Real Body Bottles or the Kendall Jenner Defeats Racism Pepsi ad.

I would love to live through a Yankees Curse. No more World Series wins this century. Fuck the playoffs, too. They've had enough. Although I dread the day when the Orioles win a couple World Series and the fans become just as obnoxious as many bandwagon Sox fans post-2004 and Yankees fans since time immemorial.