Be careful out there..................................

Look around........................................

Simon & Garfunkel............................A Hazy Shade of Winter

I neglected to watch...........................

...................the most watched TV show in the history of world-wide television (and probably would have been very confused if I did).  I did watch #2 on the list.  It was breath-taking.

thanks craig

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

The Animals........................................................It's My Life

It's that day again.......................................

You don't know how lucky you are, boys.....

The Fab Four...........................................Back in the U.S.S.R.

Me thinks he is over-thinking this...............

Our intrepid statistician calculated the odds on winning the $500,000,000 Powerball prize and decided it just wasn't worth the investment.  I think he makes his mistake in looking at a lottery ticket as a financial investment.  Having already bought my ticket (and in full rationalization mode), I look at it as an investment in an enriched fantasy life.  From that vantage point, I can't think of a better way to spend $2.00. Trust me when I tell you, one can spend hours fantasizing about how to spend/gift the money.  As far as the odds go, two thoughts:   the odds improve the most when you buy the first ticket, and, somebody will eventually win the jackpot.  May the odds be with you.

I'm not much into requirements.................

....................but, when I become King, one of my first edicts will be to make the weekly watching  of this Louis CK riff  mandatory.  Let's have some appreciation people!

Fifty years ago...............(sing along if you wish)

Roger Miller..................................................King Of The Road

A moment..........................................

Happy Birthday Darwin.............................

some of the cartoons from here

... the thought of such freedom.....................

R.E.M...................................................................Belong



Short, but interesting, live version here

A reason for hope.............................

"Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure."
-Charles Darwin

Simple.........................................

From the soul's point of view, you come to appreciate that each one of us is living out his or her own karma.  We interact together, and those interactions are the grist for each other's mill of awakening.  From a personality point of view, you develop judgment, but from the soul's point of view,  you develop appreciation.  This shift from judging to appreciating -- to appreciating yourself and what your karmic predicament is, and who other beings are with their own karma -- brings everything into a simple loving awareness.  To be free means to open your heart and your being to the fullness of who you are, because only when you are resting in the place of unity can you truly honor and appreciate others and the incredible diversity of the universe.
-Ram Dass,  Polishing The Mirror:  How To Live From Your Spiritual Heart

Looks about right..................................

her context is here

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

Dave Clark Five.....................................Any Way You Want It

Religious history revisited.........................

      In fact, the greatest tensions and worst violence tended to take place among people of the same faith.  This was true on both a political and an ideological level.  Surprising as it may sound, Muslim princes frequently allied with Christian kingdoms, and Christian kings with Muslim powers, against common enemies, whether Christian or Muslim.  And holy war was waged among members of the two religions as often as between them.  Latin (Catholic) Christians crusaded against Greek (Orthodox) Christians, while Sunni Muslim rulers proclaimed jihad against Shi'a Muslim rulers.  Nor were Jews merely hapless bystanders in these conflicts.  On the contrary, Jewish communities from Spain to Egypt were powerful and politically engaged; and Jews acted as governors, generals, warriors, and administrators in Christian and Muslim kingdoms.  Like Christian and Islamic society, the Jewish world was one riven by brutal internal power struggles.  All of this flies in the face of popularly established notions of the age of Crusade, and of the history of encounters among Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
-Brian A. Catlos, Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors:  Faith, Power, and Violence in the Age of Crusade and Jihad

A great thought...................................

"The universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine."
-James Hopwood Jeans

photo description here

Preventive medicine at its finest..................

Science discovers something in hops that may enhance long term brain health  Knew it all along.

thanks craig

An early St. Valentine's wish...................

................check out this gift from the house band at Sippican Cottage, Unorganized Hancock.  Share it with your Sweetie.

Only very rarely does this blog play music that has 177,462,523 YouTube views. After this......I believe we will keep it that way.

Cold Play.........................................................Viva La Vida

A worthy goal......................................

via

Us pesky humans................................

via

Ah, Grasshopper.......................................

thanks michael

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

The Kinks......................................................Set Me Free

On how to make a difference................

“I am not apt to follow blindly the lead of other men.” 
-Charles Darwin

Holy McGyver, Batman............................

Learn how to make a candle out of a stick of butter, a bit of toilet paper, and a paper clip (a match will come in handy too).   Let there be four hours of light.
via

On variation.............................................

"Packaged goods, leadership or governance--when you expect (or demand) that people don't deviate, you're robbing them of their dignity and setting yourself up to be disappointed."
-Seth Godin,  as excerpted from here

It's alright......................................

Traveling Wilburys.....................................End Of The Line

How sweet it is.....................................

Falling gas prices, even if only temporary, make me smile.

source here

I'm thinking this is correct...................

"The trouble is that American policy in the Persian Gulf was FUBAR before Obama arrived–indeed, that is a large part of the reason that Obama arrived in the first place."
-Spengler, as excerpted from here

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

The Supremes...................................Stop In The Name Of Love

Speaking of Diana Ross.....................

Risky business...........................................

Eighty years ago..................................

Anything Goes......................................................Cole Porter

Anything Goes....................................

My Sweetie and I ventured to the big city yesterday to take in Anything Goes.  Music and lyrics (which also include "I Get A Kick Out of You", "Easy to Love", "You're the Top", and "It's De-lovely) were created by Cole Porter.  The story line was originally penned in 1934 by P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, but it has been fiddled with many times since.  It was a great show, the voices and dance of the traveling troupe were first rate.  If it comes to a neighborhood near you, do go.

I get no kick from champagne....................

Cole Porter (with Ethel Merman, too)........I Get A Kick Out Of You

Catch me if I fall.......................................

R.E.M............................................................Texarkana

A list of favorite quotes.............................

...................................................from Thomas Sowell.

A few selections:

"The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false."

-Paul Johnson²

"...you can never be happy and dress yourself solely in the glass of other men's approval."

-Nicholas Flood Davis⁵

"You know, doing what is right is easy. The problem is knowing what is right."

-Lyndon B. Johnson⁸

^{thanks Mark}

If you ever want your assumptions challenged...

......in a thoughtful manner, I suggest you read some Wendell Berry.

     "The disease of the modern character is specialization.  Looked at from the standpoint of the social system, the aim of specialization may seem desirable enough.  The aim is to see that the responsibilities of government, law, medicine, engineering, agriculture, education, etc., are given into the hands of the most skilled, best prepared, people.  The difficulties do not appear until we look at specialization from the opposite standpoint - that of individual persons.  We then begins to see the grotesquery - indeed the impossibility - of an idea of community wholeness that divorces itself from any idea of personal wholeness.

     "The first, and best known, hazard of the specialist system is that it produces specialists - people who are elaborately and expensively trained to do one thing.  We get into absurdity very quickly here.  There are, for instance, educators who have nothing to teach, communicators who have nothing to say, medical doctors skilled at expensive cures for diseases that they have no skill, and no interest, in preventing.  More common, and more damaging, are the inventors, manufacturers, and salesmen of devices who have no concern for the possible effects of those devices.  Specialization is thus seen to be a way of institutionalizing, justifying, and paying highly for a calamitous disintegration and scattering-out of the various functions of character:  workmanship, care, conscience, responsibility."

-Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America:  Culture & Agriculture

A voice......................................

"There is a voice that doesn't use words.  Listen."
-Rumi

A good rule..................................

“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.” 
-Charles Darwin

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

The Rolling Stones......................................As Tears Go By

Be determined.....................................

thanks Maggie

Trends.......................................

"Cognition, misled by tiny changes involving low contrast, will often miss a trend that is destiny."
-Charlie Munger

First things first.....................................

"... wanting good government in their states, they first established order in their own families;  wanting order in the home, they first disciplined themselves..."
-Confucius

Imbued...................................

"A republic cannot succeed, till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour."
-Charles Darwin (1833)