We gotta do better................

Edgar Winter Group.................................Free Ride

Ambition.....................

"Great ambition is the passion of a great character.  Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts.  All depends on the principles which direct them."
-Napoleon Bonaparte

Opening paragraphs................

     Of all the criminal cases in which Philo Vance participated as an unofficial investigator, the most sinister, the most bizarre, the seemingly most incomprehensible, and certainly the most terrifying, was the one that followed the  famous Greene murders.  The orgy of horror at the old Greene mansion had been brought to its astounding close in December; and after the Christmas holidays Vance had gone to Switzerland for the winter sports.  Returning to New York at the end of February he had thrown himself into some literary work he had long had in mind - the uniform translation of the principal fragments of Menander found in the Egyptian papyri during the early years of the present century; and for over a month he had devoted himself sedulously to this thankless task.
-The Bishop Murder Case,  S. S. Van Dine

Small enough..........................

"When hosting high-ranking friends, former U. S. President, Theodore Roosevelt, was fond of taking his guests on evening walks.  Inevitably, he would point skywards and recite:
     "'That is the Spiral Galaxy of Andromeda.  It is as large as our Milky Way.  It is one of a hundred million galaxies.  It is 2,500,000 light-years away.  It consists of one hundred billion suns, many larger than our own sun.'
     "The, following a brief silence, he would grin and say, 'Now, I think we are small enough.  Let's go in.'"
-Thoughts Afield,  Harold E. Kohn

Results................................

"Workaholics are addicted to activity; super achievers are committed to results.  They work toward goals that contribute to their mission.  In their mind's eye they see the end they want and the actions leading to it."
-Charles A. Garfield

Willing......................

"The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them."
-Robert Frost

At least it wasn't Boone's Farm...............

"In order to be a realist you must believe in miracles."
-David Ben-Gurion

Wishing it was a dream............

The Stories..................................Brother Louie

Poor Richard................

"Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes it."
-Benjamin Franklin

Uh-oh....................................

via

Imagination........................

"Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun."
-George Scialabba

image via

Rise................................

"All men are born free and equal - free at least in their right to be different.  Some people want to homogenize society everywhere.  I'm against homogenizers in art, in politics, in every walk of life.  I want the cream to rise.
-Robert Frost

Harry.....................

"The Presidency is an all-day and nearly all-night job.  Just between you and me and the gatepost, I like it."
-Harry S. Truman

Love.................................

"I took violin lessons from age six to fourteen, but had no luck with my teachers, for whom music did not transcend mechanical practicing.  I really began to learn only after I had fallen in love with Mozart's sonatas.  The attempt to reproduce their singular grace compelled me to improve my technique.  I believe, on the whole, that love is a better teacher than sense of duty."
-Albert Einstein

"When do the locusts arrive......"

Jeff has survived Sandy, a nor'easter, and a contentious election campaign with both his good sense and his sense of humor intact.  I'm looking forward to buying him a beer or two at some out-of-the-way, hole-in-the-wall joint in the Big Apple, but I think I'll wait till their weather improves.  Do go visit him.

(the quote comes from his response to David Kanigan's comment to a previous post)

If you feel the need for a smile this morning............

...............................head on over to the Teacher Thought Bubble.  You'll be glad you did.

thanks craig

Party down..........................

Grand Funk Railroad.....................We're An American Band

Choices............................

Remember.................................

Alexander Graham Bell says..................

"Don't keep forever on the public road, going only where others have gone. Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. You will be certain to find something you have never seen before. Of course it will be a little thing, but do not ignore it. Follow it up, explore around it; one discovery will lead to another, and before you know it you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the result of thought."

"Before anything else, preparation is the key to success."

"If a man is not bound down, he is sure to succeed."

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."


"I am a believer in unconscious cerebration. The brain is working all the time, though we do not know it. At night it follows up what we think in the daytime. When I have worked a long time on one thing, I make it a point to bring all the facts regarding it together before I retire; I have often been surprised at the results... We are thinking all the time; it is impossible not to think."

"The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady accretion."

"You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth. Ideas do not reach perfection in a day, no matter how much study is put upon them."

"A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with — a man is what he makes of himself."

Now that we're done celebrating.................

A "financial cliff" awaits.  A brief explanation from the WSJ:




thanks Greg

Oops..............................

Even more re-runs......................

And often does......................

via

What a tale...........................

Gordon Lightfoot.........................If You Could Read My Mind

It's a process.......................

thanks Eric

Leadership.........................

John in the Heartland points to some vintage leadership thinking:

While managers focus on overseeing the completion of tasks according to a deadline and predictable outcomes, leaders look for human potential and possibilities. Leaders inspire others with a clear purpose and vision behind the tasks at hand. In the place of quotas, standards, and regulations, a leader gives values, goals, and a mission.

I can always tell when my husband has a good supervisor. The content of dinner time conversation changes from complaints about his boss to war stories about the work he and his team are accomplishing. Even without addressing the topic directly, he is telling me that quality leadership gets work done. At our dinner table, this appears to be the litmus test for what good leadership looks like: how seamlessly work is accomplished.

Tough call.......................

via

Swim..........................

"If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it."
-Jonathan Winters

Attitude................................

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude."
-William James

image via

A few more re-runs....................

Depends.......................

"Happiness doesn't depend on outward conditions, it depends on inner conditions."
-Dale Carnegie

Jeff re-joins the electrified..............

........and he comments on a recent post about the impact of "price gouging" laws on supple and demand.  Jeff, having lived with the impact of Sandy, favors the brighter side of human nature.

"I'll put forth the proposition that human ingenuity is not driven by the desire for windfall profits - but by the solution to a need."

I'd like to believe he is right.

Twofer..........................

The Grass Roots...............................Temptation Eyes





The Grass Roots................................Midnight Confession

Vote........................

Vote..................................

Negativism........................

"The tragic truth is that the language of 'victimization' is the true victimizer - a great crippler of young minds and spirits.  To teach young people that their lives are governed - not by their own actions, but by socioeconomic forces or government budgets or other mysterious and fiendish forces beyond their control - is to teach our children negativism, resignation, passivity, and despair."
-Louis W. Sullivan

Easiest.....................

"The search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions."
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

Times......................

"The times are bad.  Very well, you are there to make them better."
-Thomas Carlyle

Unfortunately.....................

via

A few re-runs.....................

Support for "price-gouging".............................or, Mess with the "Invisible Hand" at your own risk...

Matt Yglesasis.   Full post here.  Excerpt here:

........the lack of price gouging is harming things on the supply side. If it were possible to earn windfall profits by transporting gasoline into the affected areas, then human ingenuity would be finding ways to do it. But if you restrict retailers to earning merely ordinary profits, then people won't take extraordinary measure to increase supply.


Mark Perry.  Full post here.  Excerpt here:

Well, maybe if Home Depot, Sears and Lowe’s had been allowed to raise their prices to $1,000 (or more) this week to reflect the true value of gas generators following the hurricane, more people with children would actually have a generator right now because the retailers wouldn’t have sold out so fast!  And you really can’t blame the retailers for not raising prices, because they could have been charged with price gouging by the state of New Jersey.

Sometimes............................

The Undisputed Truth....................Smiling Faces

Welcome to Gonzo's world.................

 The world according to Hunter S. Thompson: