... freedom's shield and hope.....

The U.S. Marine Band.....................Stars And Stripes Forever




lyrics here

Happy 4th of July.................................

The Declaration..........................

And they did.................................

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
-final sentence to the Declaration of Independence

Full text here (note the site).  The King's offences here.

Just a question...........................

Have you ever thought about what our world might look like today if Abraham Lincoln had not fought the Civil War to keep the Confederacy from seceding from the Union?

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

Howlin' Wolf....................................Smokestack Lightning

 

Ordinary..............................

"All higher motives, ideals, conceptions, sentiments in a man are of no account if they do not come forward to strengthen him for the better discharge of the duties which devolve upon him in the ordinary affairs of life."
-Henry Ward Beecher

The chemistry of fireworks........................

If they had offered this kind of chemistry in high school, my academic career might have turned out differently.............

Short cuts...........................

thanks gerard

Great pairings..........................

Music and advertising.........................from Alka-Seltzer in 1966




original T-Bones  No Matter What Shape  is here

Following the rails...................

Chris Rae.................................Looking For The Summer



thanks doug

Stevenson.........................

     He did manage to evoke an astonishing degree of adoration.  The aura of special feeling that enveloped John F. Kennedy only after his death in Dallas surrounded Adlai Stevenson for a substantial stretch of his adult life.  Alongside the warmth and determined elegance with which his friends and admirers have written about Stevenson, the eulogies to President Kennedy read as though spoken by a clergyman who did not know the deceased while he lived.  Nor can there be any doubt that Stevenson's personality had a profound effect on the people who knew him;  he seemed to elevate all of them and somehow made them feel good.  As for the rest of his admirers, it is already a cliche to say that he struck a chord of affection in people in a way that few other American political figures have ever managed to do.  As Hans J. Morgenthau, not a notably sentimental man, wrote:  "His promise was ours, and so was his failure, and the tears we shed for him we shed for ourselves."

-Joseph Epstein, as excerpted from the chapter on Adlai Stevenson in Essays in Biography

Stevenson................in his own words

Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) was Governor of Illinois, U.S. Ambassador the the United Nations, and two time presidential candidate of the Democratic party.  He had the misfortune to run twice against Dwight Eisenhower.  He was a graduate of Princeton and the Northwestern University School of Law.  You can read more about him here and here.  He said some interesting things:

"What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for. Who leads us is less important than what leads us — what convictions, what courage, what faith — win or lose. A man doesn't save a century, or a civilization, but a militant party wedded to a principle can."

"There is no evil in the atom, only in men's souls."

"If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain."

"Laws are never as effective as habits."

"Let's face it. Let's talk sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eve of great decisions, not easy decisions, like resistance when you're attacked, but a long, patient, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of man — war, poverty, and tyranny — and the assaults upon human dignity which are the most grievous consequences of each."

"Laws are never as effective as habits."

"A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste."

"The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak, of anti-communism."

"In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes."

Say what you will about the Presidency..............

......................................but it certainly seems to age a man.

George W. Bush               2000

George W. Bush        2008

Barack Obama                      2008

Barack Obama                           2014

Lessons...............................

"Life is a long lesson in humility."
-James M. Barrie

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

Dionne Warwick..............................Anyone Who Had A Heart

Alight..................................

“Happiness is like a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ellison................................

     Reading Rampersad's highly tendentious biography has had, at least on this reader, the reverse effect its author intended.  It has convinced me that Ralph Ellison was an even greater man than I had thought.  His greatness consists of never suggesting, when so many people would have been pleased to hear him do so, that America was a racist country and every black person in it born a victim;  of his relentlessly insisting that we all make our own way, each with the unpredictable combination of gifts and talents and temperament that culture and race and nationality bestow;   of his love for the black culture in which he was born and his deep understanding of its true richness;  of his unflagging assertion that separatism, racial or any other kind, is always a mistake;  of his keeping cool during a time of frenzy and easy rage while being insulted by many of the people who should have admired him most of all.

-Joseph Epstein,  as excerpted from the chapter on Ralph Ellison in his Essays in Biography

Ellison......................in his own words

Ralph Ellison (1913-1994) was a talented man.  He went to the Tuskegee Institute to study music, left for New York after three years to study photography and sculpture, and became the author of one of America's great books, The Invisible Man. You can read more about him here and here.  Here are a few things he wrote:

“Life is to be lived, not controlled;  and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” 

“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?” 

“I am an invisible man.   
No I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allen Poe: 
 Nor am I one of your Hollywood movie ectoplasms.  
I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids 
- and I might even be said to possess a mind.  
I am invisible, simply because people refuse to see me.”

“I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest.   Or when, even as just now I've tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth.   No one was satisfied”

“Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.”

"Commercial rock ’n’ roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church music … an obscene looting of a cultural expression."  (1964)

"America is woven of many strands. I would recognise them and let it so remain. Our fate is to become one, and yet many. This is not prophecy, but description."

“Nothing, storm or flood, must get in the way of our need for light and ever more and brighter light. The truth is the light and light is the truth.” 

“He's only a man. Remember that. He's only a man!” 

Sweet.................................

G. Allman, D. Mathews and Warren Haynes...............Melissa




original and fabulous Allman Brothers Band version here

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

I can admit it freely now.  All my life I've been a patsy.  For as long as I can recall, I've been an easy mark for the pitches of peddlers, fund raisers, and operators of one sort or another.  True, only some of these people have had dishonorable motives.  The others - representatives of certain charitable agencies, for instance - have had the best of intentions.  No matter.  With personally disquieting frequency, I have found myself i possession of unwanted magazine subscriptions or tickets to the sanitation workers' ball.  Probably this long-standing status as sucker accounts for my interest in the study of compliance:   Just what are the factors that cause one person to say yes to another person?  And which techniques most effectively use these factors to bring about such compliance?  I wondered why it is that a request stated in a certain way will be rejected, when a request that asks for the same favor in a slightly different fashion will be successful.
-Robert B. Cialdini,  from the Introduction to Influence:  How and Why People Agree To Things

Never ever forget.................................

Approval................................

"I much prefer the sharpest criticism of a single intelligent man to the thoughtless approval of the masses."
-Johannes Kepler

image via

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

Manfred Mann............................................Do Wah Diddy

 

Clarity....................................

...............in writing, from the Angry Sub-Editor blog:

"In truth, clarity is the only thing that matters. Break every rule you like, but the only important thing is that you make your meaning clear. Don't hide your meaning in cliché or jargon. Say what you want to say. Don't pretend to say something and then hide it. If it's worth saying, then say it clearly. If you don't want to say it, just leave it unsaid."

Full post is here.  Thanks Andrew

Working on this one....................

"An alarm bell should sound whenever we believe there is only one way."

Options are good.  Typical Execupundit wisdom here.

Just around the corner...............

via

The truth....................

............can be somewhat elusive.  For your blogging pleasure, here is a collection "of strange, bizarre notions and theories that warp traditional narratives about reality and existence."  Part of the fun of living on this wondrous planet is there are some truths that we can only guess at.  Guess away!

thanks craig

Brothers In Arms..............................

This may be the best ever pairing of a great TV show and a great song.  Miami Vice and Dire Straits.  The sound quality could be better on the video, but still......................



a live version of Brothers In Arms with better sound quality is here

Show them...................................

James Taylor........................................Shower The People

 

This clip is from his concert in Nashville two years ago.   The singers he introduces were all with him in Columbus on Sunday.  He has surrounded himself with some very talented folk.  The music starts around the 2:30 mark.  This was his final song of his encore.  Good stuff.

James Taylor.............................

My Sweetie and I ventured to the big city Sunday night to enjoy James Taylor live and in person.  I've never met him, but based on his concert persona I'd venture that he is a nice, happy, and generous man.  He certainly is talented.  It was a great show.

The regular crowd shuffles in..........................

Seats were great.  The fans appreciative.

Cell phones up.......the new way to call for an encore

Elixir..................................

“In a full bottle of whisky are all the aspirations of mankind, and in an empty one are all the failures of man.”
- Mike Drury

If by whisky you mean Scotch, you will probably want to read Jeffrey Polet's Whisky Tales.  A few wee excerpts:

"If you sip a whisky and it causes puckering or shuddering or burning, there is something inherently wrong with it. A good dram will gently wash over your palate, engaging all your senses of taste. It will bloom in your mouth, not explode. In it you can taste the peculiarities of its place of origin: the quality of the water, the unique strains of barley, the smokiness of the peat, even the shape of the still will all work together to create a unique, often non-replicable, taste."

"The flux of existence can’t be resolved by trying to fix the essence of something so that it never changes and is always ready-to-hand. A living thing can’t be grasped. We can’t sip the same dram twice."

Just keep at it.....................................

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” 

-Earl Nightingale

image via 

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

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons..............Big Man In Town

And I say good luck to them...........

....................Russia seeks a bigger role in the Middle East.

A bad trade............................

“The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now” 
-Zig Ziglar

Pray...............................

"Pray for peace even if it doesn’t work."
-Stuart Wilde

Quiet now...................................

On poverty and inequality.................

"Poverty, on the other hand, is a real and pernicious evil. In the entire history of the human race, no one has ever died of inequality. But far too many have died of poverty. It would do us well not to lose sight of the real evil in our midst, even as the political elite, Pope Francis included, rail against an imagined one."

As excerpted from this Carpe Diem blog post.

See you again..................................

James Taylor................................................Fire and Rain

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

In The American Commonwealth, his book of 1888,  Lord Bryce, considering American political institutions, provided an early chapter titled "Why Great Men Are Not Chosen Presidents."  Most Americans, without needing to hear the argument, are likely to agree with the chapter's premises.   The planetarkhis, the modern Greek word for ruler of the planet, the President of the United States may well be, but we can all be assured that, whoever he is, nowadays he is almost certainly likely to be a mediocrity.  "Besides,"  Bryce wrote, "the ordinary American voter does not object to mediocrity.  He has a lower conception of the qualities requisite to make a statesman than those who direct public opinion in Europe have. He likes his candidate to be sensible, vigorous, and, above all, what he calls 'magnetic,' and does not value, because he sees no need for, originality, or profundity, a fine culture or a wide knowledge."  Mr. Ford, Mr. Carter, Mr. Reagan, Messrs. Bush, Mr. Clinton, and Mr. Obama - take a bow, please.
-Joseph Epstein, as excerpted on his essay on George Washington in Essays in Biography

As it is..................................

     If Washington was an unusually unimaginative man, he enjoyed the advantages of not having a strong imagination.  Chief among them is that it allows one to take the world as it is, not to argue with it, nor wish to change it.  This George Washington always seems to have done.  If one takes the world as it is, it becomes easier to know what to ask of it.
-Joseph Epstein, as excerpted from his essay, George Washington:  An Amateur's View

Jetboy................................

.......plays an old favorite and introduces a new (to me) voice.

No game for a blind man.....................

Life without traffic controls.  We are a resourceful breed, and, left to our own devices,  tend to figure things out.  My favorite part was watching the pedestrians.  Enjoy the film clip.  The music sets the mood.



thanks mark

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

Dickey Lee.............................................Only Trust In Me

To trust, or not to trust - that is the question.....

John E. Smith starts out with this Samuel Johnson quote:
“It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.”
and then asks, "You buy this?"

My answer, "Yep."  The few people I know who are incapable of trusting are the unhappiest people I know.  It is like a disease that destroys all the good and all the relationships in their lives.  On the flip side of that, our business model has long been based on partnerships.  Successful partnerships require trust between the partners.  As we have said more than a few times, "a handshake is better than a contract;  you can break a contract, but you can't break a handshake."  Lest you think we are naive, we don't enter into partnerships with just anybody.  As one of my favorite presidents said, "Trust, but verify."  Trusting has worked for us, not all the time, but the vast majority of the time, and we're pretty happy guys.

On trust...................................

A bit of advice....................

"Julius Caesar said, 'I came. I saw. I conquered.'   He was murdered - conquering is fairly dangerous, try to avoid it."
-Stuart Wilde

Inference.........................

"If you infer the man from the books, you may go seriously wrong, because only a part of my nature has gone into my writings, and not all of my writings have been published."
-George Santayana    

Relaxing..................................

Booker Ervin..........................................No Booze Blooze

Lost in that sunset........................

George Strait............................................I Saw God Today

Beauty...............................

each to each.........................

Will-lessly the leaves fall,
are blown, coming at last
to the ground and to their rest.
Among them in their coming down
purposely the birds pass,
of all the unnumbered ways
choosing one, until
they like the leaves will
will-lessly fall.  Thus freed
by gravity, every one 
enters the soil, conformed
to the craft and wisdom, the behest
of God's appointed vicar,
our mother and judge, who binds
us each to each, the largest 
to the least, in the family of all
the creatures:  great Nature
by whom all are changed, none
are wasted, none are lost.
Supreme artist of this
our present world, her works
live and move, love
their places and their lives in them.
And this is praise to the highest
knowledge by the most low.

-Wendell Berry
Sabbaths, 2011  XIII

A prayer......................................

O great spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds
And whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me:
I come before you one of your many children.
I am small and weak.  I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes
Ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
And my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may know the things
You have taught my people,
The lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength not to be superior to my brothers
But to fight my greatest enemy - myself.
Make me ever ready to come to you
With clean hands and straight eyes
So that when life fades as a fading sunset
My spirit may come to you without shame.

-A Sioux prayer by Yellow Lark

excerpted from here

Bookish...............................

many of the cartoons from here and here

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

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons............................Alone

In praise of doubt........................

“Nationalism only allows for affirmations, and every doctrine that discards doubt, negation, is a form of fanaticism and stupidity”
-Jorge Luis Borges, as excerpted from here

On politics today...............................

via

I'm into real estate...................

..............not the stock market.  But, if I was into the stock market, I would read David Merkel's blog and follow his advice:

"Again, never buy promoted stocks.  If they have to buy the services of others to promote the stock, it is a fraud.  Good stocks do not need promotion.  It’s that simple."
-as excerpted from this post

I have long been a fan...................

................of Robert B. Parker's books.  He has created some great characters.  He carries a simple and communicable philosophy through all his writings (Life is messy, choices are good, accepting responsibility is paramount).  He writes 300 page books that you can read in less than two days, mostly by having lots of dialogue that has been described as "crackling" and "clipped" (and repetitive, but that is life too).  While moseying through the library last week I found Painted Ladies, a new-to-me Spenser novel. Oh, joy!   Here is a taste of Parker:

       I smiled.
      "Good-bye, Winifred," I said.
      "Good-bye"
      "Thanks for the advice."
      "Which you won't take," she said.
      "No."
      She stood and came around the desk.  She we wearing a skirt.  Her legs were great.  I stood.   She put out her hand.  I took it.
      "Be careful," she said.
      "Within reason,"  I said.
      "Most of us, I suppose, do what we must, more than what we should," she said.
      "Sometimes they overlap," I said.
      "Perhaps," she said.
      We shook hands, and I left.  I was glad her legs were great.