Northern star............................

Rascal Flatts........................Bless the Broken Road

Happy Anniversary Sweetie

Eric Clapton......................Wonderful Tonight

(as always, please click through to YouTube)

Ring........................

Bon Jovi...........................Bells of Freedom

Founding Fathers................Part 6

"We look forward to the time when the power to love will replace the love of power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace."
-William Ellery

Irony........................

via

Founding Father............Part 5

"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."
-Charles Carroll

Mothers.......................

via

Founding Fathers............Part 4

"By removing the Bible from schools we would be wasting so much time and money in punishing criminals and so little pains to prevent crime. Take the Bible out of our schools and there would be an explosion in crime."
-Benjamin Rush

No, let's use amendments.............

via

Founding Fathers..................Part 3

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."
-Benjamin Franklin

Works for me..................

via

Founding Fathers...............Part 2

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"
-Samuel Adams

Perhaps.................

via

Founding Fathers...............Part 1

"Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
-Elbridge Gerry

Michael gets personal.................

His secret fantasy is here.

The song that I sing................

Frank Sinatra.........................Moonlight Serenade



thanks Kurt

Quest.......................

What we need to question is bricks, concrete, glass, our table manners, our utensils, our tools, the way we spend our time, our rhythms.  To question that which seems to have ceased forever to astonish us.  We live, true, we breathe, true; we walk, we open doors, we go down staircases, we sit at a table in order to eat, we lie down on a bed in order to sleep.  How? Why?  Where? When?  Why?
-Georges Perec, as excerpted from How To Be An Explorer of The World:  Portable Art  Life Museum, by Keri Smith

photo of the Pantheon in Rome: Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.

a coarse bag..................

You want to learn to catch a mouse?
Don't try to learn from a pampered cat.
If you want to learn the nature of the world,
don't study fine bound books.
The True Jewel's in a coarse bag.
Buddha-nature stops at huts.
The whole herd of folks who clutch at looks of things
never seem to make the connection.

-Shih Te, as translated in The Poetry of Zen

Fifty years ago................

Peter, Paul & Mary..............Puff the Magic Dragon

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

Woodrow Wilson had very few friends, and that bothered him.  People considered him "cold and removed," he groused.  He wished journalists would write about his lighter side - his love of baseball, his gift for mimicry, his flair for limericks - but instead they depicted him as a bloodless "thinking machine."  He longed for a nickname.  Perhaps if he had kept his birth name, Thomas, he mused, people would call him "Tommy" and thus find him more approachable.  Theodore Roosevelt was known as "Teddy," and no one ever called him cold and removed.
Peter Beinart:  The Icarus Syndrome:  A History of American Hubris

Some mighty fine questions.............

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?
-Mark Twain

Mixed blessings..................

David Harsanyi weighs in on the President's SOTU ideas about manufacturing:

America is producing about 80 percent more than it did 30 years ago with nearly 8 million fewer workers needed. Technological advances and a boom in productivity have not only made life more tolerable for the average American worker, opening up far better opportunities for them, but also been a godsend to consumers.

Full essay from whence the above quote was lifted is here .  My favorite excerpt is here:

But the problem isn't a lack of manufacturing jobs. It's that, by almost every measure, the entrepreneurial class is shrinking in America. Democrats may romanticize massive collective national efforts of the past, but individual risk and unexpected innovation are what change the world. The last thing we need is another crony "manufacturing hub."

Mean-looking (for those who believe in the Fordist economy with massive manufacturing employment) chart is here:

source

Work.......................?

How.......................

First heard this song five or six years ago.........

........just driving down the road, minding my own business, when the gradual awareness of the song on the radio turned into a prayer that the disc jockey would name that tune.  He did.  Here it is "live"

David Gray...................................Please Forgive Me

Be your own valentine..........

thanks Todd

The benefit of smoking a cigarette........

The Execupundit points to an interview on leadership - here.  Excerpt here:

"...it is only chaos because we haven’t yet seen or found the patterns."

Fifty years ago.........................

The Orlons.............................South Street

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

     On May 18, 1860, the day when the Republican Party would nominate its candidate for President, Abraham Lincoln was up early.  As he climbed the stairs to his plainly furnished law office on the west side of the public square in Springfield, Illinois, breakfast was being served at the 130-room Chenery House on Fourth Street.  Fresh butter, flour, lard, and eggs were being put out for sale at the City Grocery Store on North Sixth Street.  And in the morning newspaper, the proprietors at Smith, Wickersham & Company, had announce the arrival of a large spring stock of silks, calicos, ginghams, and linens, along with a new supply of the latest styles of hosiery and gloves.
-Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals

Can we get an Amen...........?

"Lowering or removing the caps on high-skilled immigrants should be the first thing on the table for immigration reform. "
-Walter Russell Mead, as excerpted from this post.

So sad.........................

via

Minimum wage...............

Matt Yglesias notices that the "minimum wage" issue will be front and center on the President's agenda in the coming days.

"The State of the Union proposal with by far the most political juice is going to be a call to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 and index it to inflation. That would put it, in inflation-adjusted terms, back up to its 1981 level."

Matt points to this study showing that raising the minimum wage had no observable impact on hiring in the fast food industry.  Hmmm.   I can understand that, as long as the fast food industry can pass the costs along to the consumer, they will still hire.  Judging by this chart below however, there are many industries that can't pass those costs along.  The results do not paint a pretty picture.  Of course, the great recession might have had some impact too.

chart via Mark Perry

And a happy Valentine's Day to you too..........

all cartoons via

The world's most interesting press conference.....

Matt Damon shows his solidarity with World Toilet Day.  Seriously, you need to watch this.




thanks Ann

As clear as day.............

Mark Knopfler.............................boom, like that

Damn remotes.......................

Wonder what he would think of us now......?

        In 1833, Alexis de Tocqueville had been struck by the American outright affection for the freedom of the press, aptly linking this obsession with the equally indigenous quality of self-reliance which the "inhabitant of the United States learns from birth."  This "tumultuous agitation" of the spirit made the exemplary American restless, enterprising, enraptured by speed, and, above all else, an innovator.
-Neil Baldwin, Edison:  Inventing the Century

S....O....S.........................

The always excellent Brain Pickings blog reviews Ainissa Ramirez's Save Our Science: How to Inspire a New Generation of Scientists.   Full review is here.  Excerpt here:

"...we need to replace the traditional academic skills of “reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic” with creativity, curiosity, critical-thinking, and problem-solving. (Though, as psychology has recently revealed, problem-finding might be the more valuable skill.)"

(Ed. note:  not sure "replace" is the correct verb)

Words matter............................

As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse.
-George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

For an educational take down review of the latest Inaugural Address, one should really read this post from the Naked Capitalism blog.  To be fair, this same analysis could be applied to many speeches by many presidents.  Might make for an interesting inter-disciplinary college course.

Fifty years ago..................

The Chiffons....................................One Fine Day

Responsibility......................

"Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy."
-Milton Erickson

thanks

50 Things............................

     Lists are wonderful things.  The one below comes from here.  It is a summary of the bucket lists of 2,000 people.  I've done nine of these fifty.  The adjective that quickly comes to mind for those nine is "over-rated."  Still, lots of travel seems to be on peoples' minds.  (Time travel if you want to chase #7.)
     We've traveled overseas a bit, and plan on doing more.  In addition to wanting to see the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids, I would add Machu Picchu, the Acropolis in Athens, Venice, and Stonehenge.
      #5, #10, and #20 are not, and will not be, on my list. I will confess surprise the parachuting did not make the list. although I'm waiting until my 80's to tackle that one.

And they are both right.......................

via

Gentle voices.......................

Moody Blues.............................Tuesday Afternoon

Cream...................................Sunshine of Your Love

A plea............................

Once upon a time, the mortgage market was a safe and staid place where widows and orphans could lend to responsible borrowers paying reasonable prices for sensible housing. But a combination of lax regulation, political opportunism, Wall Street (and Fannie Mae) greed, credulous investors and speculative borrowers turned the mortgage market into a horrible mess that cost this country as much money as a foreign war. Let’s try not to do the same thing with our municipal finance system, shall we?

From Walter Russell Mead, a tale of toxic bonds timed to cripple the Echo Boomers.  Back story is here.

As one generation talks to the next............

via

Fifty years ago...............

Martha & the Vandellas...................Heatwave

Birthday greetings................

Speaking of evolution................

cartoons via