Cogito, Ergo Sumana for 2005 July 14

# 14 Jul 2005, 02:49AM: Stayin' Awake: When I wake up very early, I wonder whether I can get back to sleep. Sometimes a cup of water or trip to the loo will do it, sometimes daydreaming will. But what doesn't help: hearing the following sounds from the street:

1. firework or gunshot
2. only a second later, a second identical sound
3. car driving away from said sounds

So I called 911 and made my calm, lucid report, and now I am definitely awake. Time to write.

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# 14 Jul 2005, 03:51AM: Sunset is to Nightfall as Insomnia is to Wikipedia: Wowie zowie, there are some crazy people out there.

Other related modern theories involve Hitler having escaped to the Antarctic, where he joined with a subterranean dinosauroid master race, with whom he now travels inside UFOs underground, generally beneath the South Pole or throughout the center of the hollow earth, but sometimes to a Nazi moon base as well.

Includes the "avatar of Vishnu" theory and its proponent, who went on to write "a fictionalized autobiography and memoir of her favorite cats." Title: Long-Whiskers and the Two-Legged Goddess, or the true story of a "most objectionable Nazi" and . . . half-a-dozen cats.

The history of the swastika is a brand manager's nightmare. Imagine you run a minor hockey team or a beloved cereal or an infantry division, and you've chosen as your logo lightning breaking jaggedly through a circle. Then the jihadists start using it! And off to CafePress you go.

What if some distasteful political movement started using swooshy corporate-style logos? What would it take for PBS or Coke to give up and flee?

Finally: Om saha naavavatu is one of the two mantras I know best, but I'd never seen it written down before. I've only heard my father cajoling large groups of Hindus into saying it before we dug into potluck dinners. Are there prayers like that for people who grew up Christian? Do you remember whether you said or sung them?

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# 14 Jul 2005, 09:16AM: Past Current Events + Tastelessness: This Year In Nepal: Hamlet II: Where is Everybody?

Subtitle: "What's all this blood on the floor?"

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# 14 Jul 2005, 09:38AM: Blood Donation Time: MC Masala this week urges you (if you are eligible) to give blood. The blood banks are running low.

So when the blood van pulls up across the street from my office every month, I go and I sit and I fill out the form. I have to answer the list of yes/no questions every time, and they take on a ritual significance, like the Four Questions of Passover.

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