It turns me on..........................................

The Beatles...............................................................Because

 

How would like this pressure...................

"In short, the future of malaria depends on bed nets, mosquito control, anti-malarial drugs, better housing and Bill Gates."

Your faithful blogger cherry-picked that sentence out of this blog post from Matt Ridley, the most rational optimist I know.  The post is about the good news that often goes unreported:  the success the clever humans amongst us have had in rolling back the diseases that used to lay waste to us.  Do read it.

Bookmarks.................................

..........................Guilty as charged.  Back story here.

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

The Hondells......................................................Little Honda

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

So far as the ancients of China are concerned, 1906 was a year of the Fire Horse - a time of grave unpredictability that comes along every six decades, and a time when all manner of strange events are inclined to occur.  So to the seers and the hermits in their faraway mountain aeries such events as unrolled during the year would have come as no surprise.  The rest of humankind was less well prepared, however, and were caught unawares.  And what instruments we have agree that, so far as matters of the earth were concerned, 1906 was, yes, a very bad year indeed.
-Simon Winchester,  A Crack In The Edge Of The World:  America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906

Took me forever.............................

............to learn #4 (and sometimes I still forget).  Some valuable reading right here.

thanks maggie's

There are many ways to make music......

.................................this may be one of them.

Ed. Note:  My technology must be dated.  I felt a little silly following the  "touch the screen" instructions.  Eventually figured out to click the old mouse.

Thanks Craig

Volume up...................................!

The Outlaws................................Ghost Riders In The Sky

 

Not so simple.............................

.........................................and with a huge heart.

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

The Beatles......................................You Can't Do That

For those of us who remember 2002......................

.........residential property values have finally returned to those levels.   Just pretend the last twelve years didn't happen.  The 2002-2006 real estate bubble caused real and lasting damage.  How about we avoid another one?

enlargeable chart can be found here.

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

     She was tall and lanky and wore an expensive white summer suit with a complementary cream-colored shoulder bag and jet-black wraparound fuck-you sunglasses.  Her ash blond hair just touched her shoulders.
-John Sandford,  The Fool's Run

Careful what you wish for.................................

The fine art of letter writing................................

AN OPEN LETTER TO MEN ON THE SUBWAY, SPECIFICALLY DURING MORNING RUSH HOUR ON THE A TRAIN BETWEEN JAY STREET AND CANAL.

Dear MTA Riders of the Male Persuasion,

I know you like to spread your chests wide, inhaling deeply and filling your lungs with that special patriarchal air that is your birthright. I know you need to place your legs in wide stances to give ample room to your massive testicles, which you have inherited after generations of Darwinism have assured only the largest and best scrotum survive. I know you need to mount your body against the entire center subway pole, claiming your land like Columbus. I get that.

Therefore, as a woman who is subordinate to your powerful Y chromosome, I will happily stand in the middle of the subway car, rudderless. A ship out at sea, if you will. Perhaps if I were a little taller, I could reach the bars that run across the ceiling of the cars. Alas, I am diminutive in stature, the result of poor nutrition during a starved adolescence in which I maintained the lowest possible body fat percentage in order to please and honor your standard of beauty in the hopes that you would choose me as your prom date.

Balance of letter is here.

Just because....................................

The Outlaws............................Green Grass and High Tides

I do appreciate...................................

The Beatles.......................................................Help!

)

Lessons learned the hard way.........................

From Megan McArdle:
But silencing your critics is a good way to set yourself up for total disaster. That doesn’t mean letting critics shut you down. But it does mean taking everything they say as seriously as the rah-rah sentiments of the policy cheerleaders.

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

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."
-attributed to both Alexis de Tocqueville and Alexander Fraser Tytler, but maybe said by Elmer T. Peterson

chart from this blog post

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

Gerry and The Pacemakers...................How Do You Do It?

 

Jokes for smart folk.................

Bilbo points to this list of twenty jokes  "that only intellectuals will understand."  Two samples:

It is hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs because they  always take things literally.

 Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting in a Parisian sidewalk cafe, revising his draft of Being and Nothingness. He says to the waitress, "I'd like a cup of coffee please, with no cream."  The waitress responds, "I'm sorry, sir, but we're out of cream. Would you like it with no milk instead?"

Hoping this is still true.....................

16 other "burns" from Winston may be found here.

Indomitably...............................

"...if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him   Patience, - patience;..."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson,  The American Scholar

Your basic 1970 protest song..............

Quicksilver Messenger Service..............................What About Me

 

lyrics here

Daydreaming....................................

via

One last post on Aaron Burr......

     Burr was, in fact, the "odd man out," but not because he lacked character.  He was truly odd because he was the only founder to embrace feminism.  He was the only one who truly believed and adhered to the ideal that reason should transcend party differences.  He was unique in that he refused to slander his political enemies behind their backs.  He displayed an insatiable intellectual curiosity and read widely;  his faith in Utilitarianism made him remarkably modern in imaging daring possibilities for social and political change.  He consequently embraced an inclusive definition of democracy, defending freedom of speech, promoting the expansion of suffrage and economic rights to the middling classes, and battling prejudice against aliens, free blacks, petty criminals, and women.  His moving words (in opposition to a law to disenfranchise aliens) before the New York Assembly in 1799 are worth repeating, for they remind us of his idealism:

"America stood with open arms and presented an assylum to the oppressed of every nation;  we invited them with the promise of enjoying equal rights with ourselves, and presented them with the flattering prospect of presiding in our councils and arriving at honour and trust; shall we deprive these persons of an important right derived from so sacred a source as our constitution?"

The evidence shows that as a proponent of equal rights, there was no one among the founders any more enthusiastic -any more genuine- than Burr.

-Nancy Isenberg,  Fallen Founder:  The Life of Aaron Burr

That clarity of vision thing..................

The Strategic Learner recommends we recognize our very own "mixed messages."  (And a big Thank You to John for giving me a reason to re-post my favorite Doonesbury cartoon panel)

Hmmm.................................

The history major in me thinks that, while this quote may be correct,  no previous powerful state has ever tried to be fair or just.  Discuss it among yourselves:

Putin assumes the world, for all its pretensions, is amoral. He assumes it  looks up to states that show power and confidence rather than fairness and justice.
-Victor Davis Hanson

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

The Searchers..............................................Needles and Pins

 

I often told my growing-up kids that................

..........they should seek to become a "friend worth having."  Here is one example of what that might look like.

The unfortunate thing..................................

............is that something that is your "friend" right now, may turn out to be your "foe" tomorrow (and vice versa).   The Execupundit has the list to keep you thinking.

Tough day in the blogosphere......

via

In my time....................................

Kris Kristofferson..................................Loving Her Was Easier

"...better than nothing is a high standard."

-an aphorism from Ann Althouse.  Back story here.

Nothing to see here...............................

...........................ignore that man behind the curtain.

thanks jess

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

Roger Miller.............................................................Dang Me

 

Of one and all..........................

"Rely not on the teacher/person, but on the teaching. Rely not on the words of the teaching, but on the spirit of the words. Rely not on theory, but on experience. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
-Buddha

Interesting paragraphs......................

The Burr trial featured some of the greatest oratory of the age amid heated exchanges, exhibitions of wit, and incisive demonstrations of legal logic.  Though Burr's capture would receive numerous romantic retellings, it was his treason trial that gained the most attention, even acclaim, as one of the great criminal trials in American history.  Spectators flocked to Richmond's House of Delegates from places near and distant, jamming the courtroom to witness the prosecution of the former vice president for the high crime of treason.  The state summoned over 140 witnesses, though only a few actually took the stand and testified.  This was a political prosecution, and so it naturally enflamed public opinion, and consumed more newsprint than any other American court proceeding ever had.  Burr's trial was never simply about the law.  It was political theatre, and elaborate performance designed to mold public opinion as much as to defend public reputations.
-Nancy Isenberg,  Fallen Founder:  The Life of Aaron Burr

More information on the Burr treason trial can be found here.

Will O' Wisp Treason....................

"If I were to name this, I would call it the Will o' wisp treason.  For though it is said to be here and there and everywhere, yet it is nowhere.  It only exists in the newspapers and in the mouths of the enemies of the gentleman for whom I appear;  who get it put in the newspapers."
-Luther Martin, defense counsel for Aaron Burr, 1807

We were young and sure to have our way...

via

Speaking of clocks................................

This happened once before......................

The Beatles............................................................No Reply

 

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

The Kingdom of Morocco has on its most widely used currency bill neither a camel nor a minaret nor a Touareg in desert blue, but the representation of the shell of a very large snail.  The shell of this shore-living marine beast - a carnivore that uses its tongue to rasp holes in other creatures' shells and sip out the goodness - is reddish brown, slender, and spiny, with a long spire and an earlike opening.  It is in all ways rather beautiful, the kind of shell not to idly thrown away by anyone lucky enough to find one.
-Simon Winchester,  Atlantic:  Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries , Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories


As a convenience to those of you curious enough to wonder what the Moroccan 200 Dirham bill looks like, here 'tis:

Unfortunately, elusive the truth is........

thanks Joe

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

Martha & The Vandellas..........................Dancing In The Streets

 

Sowing and reaping.....................

      Haidt realized that he'd made a mistake when he thought that conservatives cared less about fairness than liberals;  rather, they cared about different fairness.  Liberals worried about the fairness of equality.  Conservatives were animated by the fairness of proportion:   Are people being rewarded according to the effort they put it?  Haidt realized he would need a sixth moral foundation, one that would capture what these conservatives were talking about.  "It was the fairness," writes Haidt, "of the Protestant work ethic and the Hindu law of Karma:  people should reap what they sow."
-Megan McCardle,  as excerpted from The Up Side of Down:  Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success

A to-do list.........................

thanks Todd

Here's a little song I wrote, might as well sing it...

....note for note: Bobby McFerrin says "don't worry, be happy"

Before the dawn..............................

Renaissance........................................................Ocean Gypsy

 

It's time.....................................

On becoming a writer (or anything else)....

"There are more talented writers and less talented writers, of course.  What there are not, are writers who are unfailingly brilliant from the first moment they set pen to paper to the last manuscript they send off to the printer.  Even the very best writers have, over the course of their career, produced some pretty appalling slop.
      "So instead of fretting that their copy won't be any good, I tell them what it took me years to learn myself:  they should give themselves permission to suck.  It is easy to begin once you have accepted that what you produce may not be very good, and that this is normal.  They will get better only by writing - and this can only happen if they sit down and face the page.  Or as another writer put it:  "You can rewrite garbage.  You can't rewrite nothing.' "
-Megan McArdle,  The Up Side of Down:  Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success

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

Al Hirt......................................................................Java

Those pesky interest groups.......................

Arnold Kling on Caroline Hoxby on education and politics:

"Perhaps most interestingly, she begins the essay by saying that she is describing what might be feasible ideally, not with what the political system is likely to produce. Implicit in this view is that the political process is likely to be distorted by interest groups. This is something that progressives tend to ignore when they advocate for government playing a larger role in education, health care, and so forth."
-as excerpted from this blog post

Caroline Hoxby on education and politics:

"However, it is not the goal of this paper to predict or be constrained by the bastardized policies that fallible politicians often enact when they bow to pressures from lobbyists, public sector unions, fundraisers, and other interest groups. Politicians often misuse resources to pay for support, bribe opponents to be silent, or "grandfather" ineffective programs. They create programs with elements that undermine the intended policy—sometimes through mere incompetence, other times because some interest group prefers that the program self-destruct. While papers on the politics of education and the misuses of government funds are important for understanding the forces opposed to true reform, relentless attention to such topics obscures the possibilities for raising American students' skills."
-as excerpted from this essay

Verse............................

 Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.

2   Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.

3   Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.

4   Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.

5   Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?

6   Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

7   Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

8   Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.

9   Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;

10   And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day:

11   And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

12   And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

-Isaiah 58:1-12

The Holy Bible

King James Version

Bilbo...........................

........whose blog gets borrowed from regularly around here, celebrates his 8 years of bloggery and indulges in his affection for puns - here