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

Bobby Rydell...................................A World Without Love

Brothers can't you see.................................

Donovan.............................................The Universal Soldier

Directions..................................................

"You've got to think about 'big things' while you are going small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction."
-Alvin Toffler

The Man Watching........................................

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister.

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on 
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape, like a line in the psalm book, 
is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny! 
What fights with us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm, 
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things, 
and the triumph itself makes us small. 
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us. 
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestlers' sinews 
grew long like metal strings, 
he felt them under his fingers 
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel 
(who often simply declined the fight) 
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand, 
that kneaded him as if to change his shape. 
Winning does not tempt that man. 
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively, 
by constantly greater beings.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

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

Chad & Jeremy..............................Willow Weep For Me

Not sure who Ruckert is (was)...................

.................but there appears to be some truth here.

"There is nothing so small that it can't be blown out of proportion."
-Ruckert's Law

Now is the time.........................................

..........................................................to row your own boat.

Focus on your own efforts.
Don't be distracted by competition with others.
Aim for your personal goals.
Look inward for your motivation:
     to reach your full potential, to be your most creative.


"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."
-Ayn Rand

-Patrick Linday,  Now Is The Time:  170 Ways to Seize the Moment

Value.............................................

"The value of a good idea is in using it."
-attributed to Thomas A. Edison

Proclamation of Thanksgiving........................

October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States
A Proclamation

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln

Happy Turkey Day.................................

Bill Clinton...............................Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon

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

From New York City:        The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Happy Thanksgiving................................

Ronald Reagan.............................................Blessings to all

Happy Thanksgiving..................................

It doesn't matter.......................................

Smith............................................................Baby It's You

Do you think that maybe this is because..........

................................our governments are doing things for us that we ought to be doing for ourselves?

"Of all the predictions to be made about 2015, none seems safer than the idea that across the great democracies people will feel deeply let down by those who lead them."
-The Economist, as excerpted from here

Just wondering.

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

..............................................................Thaw that bird.

A resource............................................

“I never viewed money as being ‘my money.’ I always saw it as ‘the money’.  It’s a resource. If it pools up around me then it needs to be flushed back out into the system.” 
-Louis CK, as excerpted from here

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

Chad & Jeremy.........................................Yesterday's Gone

Litany...............................................

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

-Billy Collins

Such a deal.........................................

via

By-products..........................................

"Grandiose fantasies are a symptom of Resistance,  They're the sign of an amateur.  The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work.  The professional concentrates on the work and allows rewards to come or not come, whatever they like."
-Steven Pressfield,  The War of Art:  Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Until the 12th of Never.............................

Earth, Wind & Fire................................................Fantasy

Can I get a hallelujah.............................?

Remember that for every $0.10 gas prices decline, after you factor in the typical mileage driven for a vehicle, times the number of drivers in the US, that is something like another $36 billion a year that consumers can save or spend on other goods.
-via

The optimists amongst us believe.............

...............................that falling gas prices are a direct result of a better, more secure, supply stream via horizontal drilling and fracking in the good old U.S. of A.  For those of you who believe that us rose-colored-glasses-wearers are oblivious to the real world, falling gas prices may be caused by this.  Some people can never be happy.

T - N - T...............................................

"T-N-T.  Today, not tomorrow.  This should be the motto of every employee, every manager, every leader, and every business.  If it is a good idea, do it today, not tomorrow.  Good ideas rarely get better over time."
- Larry Winget

I'm still rooting for inflation.............................

.......................................and Krugman is still being Krugman.
"Yes, they sometimes found credentialed economists to back their positions, but they used these economists the way a drunkard uses a lamppost:   for support, not illumination."
-Paul Krugman, as excerpted from here

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

Chuck Berry......................................................Promised Land

More #8..............................................

8.  Spend more time with Nicholas Bate.

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

The Mighty E. gives us an easy way to access his archives.

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

The prison looked more like the campus of a community college than a place where men were kept in cells for ten years or longer for offenses committed while wearing the uniform of their country.  There were no guard towers, but there were two staggered twelve-foot-tall security fences, armed patrols, and enough surveillance cameras to keep an electronic eye on virtually every millimeter of the place.  Situated at the northern end of Fort Leavenworth, the United States Disciplinary Barracks sat next to the Missouri River on nearly forty acres of rolling, forested Kansas acres, a mound of brick and razor wire cradled by a green hand.  It was the only maximum security military prison for males in the country.
-David Baldacci,  The Escape

One friendly universe to go, please...........

"The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or a hostile universe."
-attibuted to Albert Einstein

Good to remember.............................

"Faith does not grow in a house of certainty."
-Wm. Paul Young

About those "Executive Orders"....................

President Bush asserted nearly unlimited authority.  And now when Obama does the same thing, the Republicans squeal, and the Democrats who squealed about Bush come up with transparently self-serving and absurdly false justifications.

A pox on both their House, and the Senate.

-Mungowitz

As an Eagles fan........................................

.............................when Dallas plays the Giants all you can do is root for both of them to lose.  Still, this is the best catch I've ever seen.



It's even better than this one, which broke my heart at the time.

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

Chuck Berry................................No Particular Place To Go

A little slice of Americana........................

The Stroll..........dress code enforced, and please - no smiling

To Be A Slave Of Intensity..........................

Friend, hope for the guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think…and think…while you are alive.
What you call ‘salvation’ belongs to the time before death.

If you don’t break your ropes while you’re alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
Just because the body is rotten -
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will   have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for, it is the   intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.

Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

-Kabir, as translated by Robert Bly

Ignoring...........................................

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

Johnny Rivers.............................................Mountain of Love

Seems like it anyway..............................

via

Top 25 inventions from 2014...................

..............and the year's not over yet.  Some of these are cool, some are amazing, and some could lead to who knows where.  It is stuff like this that forever makes Malthusians look silly.

I can never remember..............................

.............is it the weather or the climate that necessitates this?

via

Spengler seeks to remind us..................

.................................that things often are not as they seem.