Chill............................................

David Sanborn....................................................Pearls

Rise up singing.............................

Booker T. & The MG's.............................................Summertime

Ripples......................................

This book has a strange message, that practically all human misery and serious emotional turmoil are quite unnecessary - not to mention unethical.  You, unethical?  When you make yourself severely anxious or depressed, you clearly are acting against you and being unfair and unjust to yourself.
     Your disturbance also badly affects your social group.  It helps to upset your relatives and friends and, to some extent, your whole community.  The expense of making yourself panicked, enraged, and self-pitying is enormous.  In time and money lost.  In needless effort spent.  In uncalled-for mental anguish.  In sabotaging others' happiness.  In foolishly frittering away potential joy during the one life - yes, the one life - you'll probably ever have.
     What a waste.  How unnecessary!
-Albert Ellis,  How To Stubbornly Refuse To Make Yourself Miserable About Anything (Yes, Anything!)

Personal Finance 101................................

"In personal finance, you have to develop good habits early, and learn that life isn’t about how much you spend."

"In finance, you have to focus on what you can control.  You have reasonable control over ordinary spending.  You have less control over what you earn, and almost no control over accidents and investment returns.  Thus the first bit of advice is to live below your means and save."

-David Merkel, as excerpted from this blog post

A fair piece of writing............................

      By nature Sir Oliver was a shrewd fellow ("cunning as twenty devils," is my Lord Henry's phrase) and he was also a man of some not inconsiderable learning.  Yet neither his natural wit nor his acquired endowments appear to have taught him that of all the gods that rule the destinies of mankind there is non more ironic an malicious than that same Dan Cupid in whose honor, at it were, he was now burning the incense of that pipe of his.  The ancients knew that innocent-seeming boy for a cruel, impish knave, and they mistrusted him.  Sir Oliver either did not know or did not heed that sound piece of ancient wisdom.  It was to be borne in upon him by grim experience, and even as his light pensive eyes smiled upon the sunshine that flooded the terrace beyond the long mullioned windows, a shadow fell athwart it which he little dreamed to be symbolic of the shadow that was even then falling across the sunshine of his life.
-Rafael Sabatini,  The Sea-Hawk

reference for Dan Cupid here

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

The Four Seasons....................................Girl Come Running

I better get busy....................................

36 books recommended by the leading lights on Wall Street.  I've read six of them and have several more on the shelves.  Currently resisting the urge to splurge on Amazon.  We will see.

Exactly when was it that climate didn't change....?

via

For the love of.....................................

................................................roller skating?   Totally Free

The mathiness of it all.................................

via courtesy of

Chill.....................................................

John Klemmer............................................................Touch

This one is for Michael...........................

context here

I wanted you more................................

Ryan Tennis and the Club House Band............Sunlight and Shade

Function........................................

"I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."
-Ralph Nader

Talking about wine..................................

I’d be remiss if before proceeding I didn’t first apologize profusely for having taking an interest in and in having actual opinions of wine. It is, after all, only a $300 billion dollar a year industry which also happens to be an integral part of the cultural, social and religious traditions of at least half the nations on earth.
-Sarah Miller, as excerpted from this essay, Cheap Wine Sucks:  A Manifesto

via

Some one has been reading their Sun Tzu....

.........................................or, mischief making via the Intertunnel.

For those not familiar with Sun Tzu (shame on you), here are a couple of nuggets from the first chapter of his The Art of War:

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.  

If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

via

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

In January 1941 the fate of Europe and the world seemed to be sealed.  Only the deluded could still think that Germany would not win;  the stolid English "had not noticed that they had lost the game," and obstinately resisted under the bombings; but they were alone and suffered bloody losses on all fronts.  Only a voluntarily deaf and blind man could have nay doubts about the fate reserved for the Jews in a German Europe;  we had read Feuchtwanger's Oppermanns smuggled secretly in from France, and a British White Book, which arrived from Palestine and described the "Nazi atrocities";  we had only believed half of it, but that was enough.  Many refugees from Poland and France reached Italy, and we had talked with them:  they did not know the details of the slaughters that were taking place behind a monstrous curtain of silence, but each of them was a messenger, like those who run to Job to tell him, "I alone have escaped to tell you the story."
-Primo Levi,  The Periodic Table

George Will delivers.....................................

................a commencement address suitable only for YouTube.

thanks Mark

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

Shirley Ellis..................................................The Puzzle Song



Oops.  Sorry.  Try listening in here.

Ouch.............................................

The mathiness of investing.......................

Ben Carlson has a post up about the role of luck in investing.  He opens his tale like this:

In The Success Equation, Michael Mauboussin tells the story of a man in the 1970s who set out to find a lottery ticket ending with the number 48. He bought the ticket he was looking for and ended up winning the lottery using his lucky numbers. When the man was asked why he wanted that specific number on his ticket he replied, “I dreamed of the number 7 for seven straight nights. And 7 times 7 is 48.”

They left off the easiest way.........................

Full post with list is here.  The easiest way to keep promises -to yourself or anyone else - is to be very, very, very careful about making those promises.  Making fewer of them is an option.

Chill....................................................

Stan Getz....................................In Between The Heartaches

Chasing the moonlight...........................

The Gentrys...................................................Cinnamon Girl

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

"The mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands."
-Francis Bacon (1561-1626) British statesman/philosopher.

courtesy of

The secret to successful investing..........

.....................unfortunately looks like it takes some effort.

The proliferation of complex securities made it more necessary to inquire into the exact determinants of the underlying cash flows on which the security was based; but the global financial crisis showed that many investors had not really understood this, or did not much care so long as a rating agency gave the answer they sought.
-John Kay, as excerpted from here

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

Bob Dylan..................................................Positively 4th Street

Setting and dreaming........................

via

We don't usually quote Kanye West on this blog...

..............but when we do, he says stuff like this:

36.  “I refuse to accept other people’s ideas of happiness for me. As if there’s a ‘one size fits all’ standard for happiness.”
 -Kanye West

From this list of 57.  Thanks Ray

Practice.................................................

Buy your very own said shirt here.

self.............................................

"My happiness cannot possibly depend on my forcing changes in somebody else.  Nor does my misery come from anyone but myself."
-One Day At A Time In Al-Anon

Chill.................................................

The Rippingtons............................................................Taos

tell 'em I'll be there.............................

Dean Martin...............In The Cool Cool Cool Of The Evening



#4 on this list. Look at the picture accompanying the list.  Did you ever notice how people just naturally smiled when around Dean Martin.  That's the true talent.

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

The great bell of Beaulieu was ringing.  Far away through the forest might be heard its musical clangour and swell.  Peat-cutters on Blackdown and fishers upon the Exe heard the distant throbbing rising and falling upon the sultry summer air.  It was a common sound in those parts - as common as the chatter of the jays and the booming of the bittern.  Yet the fishers and the peasants raised their heads and looked questions at each other, for the Angelus had already gone and Vespers was still far off.  Why should the great bell of Beaulieu toll when the shadows were neither short nor long?
-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,  The White Company

Happiness is.....................................

I don't mind admitting................................

.........................................that I had to look up "perimenopausal."

If you don't typically check in with Nan at Jade Page Press, well, do.

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

Dean Martin......................Send Me The Pillow You Dream On

Unfortunately..............................................

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

 courtesy of

Trigger warning.........................................

"The truth that many people never understand is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt."
-Thomas Merton

God's Truth........................................

thanks Pat

Chill...................................................

The Rippingtons........................................................Sahara

Paul Weller...................................................Saturns Pattern




Scott is at it again.  Stop by and say "Hi"

A true and wild love.............................

via

Wondering what Watson thinks of this..........

via

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

Bob Dylan......................................................Maggie's Farm

Ready explanations.............................

"My advice has been constant -- avoid those who are self-confident of view and who provide ready explanations to daily market moves."
-Doug Kass, as linked from here.

I am the lucky recipient of the Business Digest, a daily one-page fax with interesting quotes, information, and - my favorite - a summary called "The Market."  "The Market" typically describes what happened in the stock market the day before, and then provides a handy rationale for whatever happened.  For instance:

         "Wall Street rallied higher on Monday as a decline in the 
         U. S. dollar against the euro eased some worries over how 
         a robust greenback might erode the earnings of multinationals."

They make the market seem so rational and logical.  Call me skeptical.  The history major in me is fairly certain that hindsight is not 20/20.  I'm with Doug Kass on this one.

Speaking of history majors...................

I read this blurb on The American Interest blog last night:

In the real world, “state building” has often started with ethnic cleansing—and we’re witnessing that process right now in the Middle East.

The backup essay is here.   The blurb triggered an uh-oh in me that was not echoed by the essay.  I wonder if the essayist considered this.

Happy Birthday....................................

to Martha Dandridge Custis Washington, the 1st First Lady

cartoon via

And approximately none of them read this blog...

...........................................................................back story here.

All I have to do...................................

The Mindbenders..............................A Groovy Kind Of Love

Got the relaxation part down..................

"Proficiency and the results of proficiency come only to those who have learned the paradoxical art of doing and not doing, of combining relaxation with activity, of letting go as a person in order that the immanent and transcendent Unknown Quantity may take hold."
-Aldous Huxley

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

On following recipes...........................

.................................................................................to the T.

More thoughts on security........................

via

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

The Castaways..................................A Man's Gotta Be A Man

Stop..............................................

“Stop looking for love and start showing it.”
-Paul Pearsall

Awe.............................................

"The aforementioned Paul Pearsall, inventor of 'openture,' spent a large part of his life waging a lonely battle of which John Keats would surely have approved:  to get the concept of 'awe' accepted by the psychological establishment as one of the primary human emotions, alongside such standards as love, joy, anger, fear, sadness.  'Unlike all the other emotions,' he argued, awe 'is all of our feelings rolled up into one intense one.  You can't peg it just happy, sad, afraid, angry, or hopeful.  Instead, it's a matter of experiencing all these feelings and yet, paradoxically, experiencing no clearly identifiable, or at least any easily describable, emotion.'  Awe, he writes, 'is like trying to assemble a complex jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing.  There's never any closure in an awe-inspiring life, only constant acceptance of the mysteries of life.  We're never allowed to know when this fantastic voyage might end ... but that's part of the life-disorienting chaos that makes this choice so thrillingly difficult.'"
-Oliver Burkeman,  The Antidote:  Happiness For People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking

Awe. The unexpected universe.........................?

Explanation: Long ago, far away, a star exploded. Supernova 1994D, visible as the bright spot on the lower left, occurred in the outskirts of disk galaxy NGC 4526. Supernova 1994D was not of interest for how different it was, but rather for how similar it was to other supernovae. In fact, the light emitted during the weeks after its explosion caused it to be given the familiar designation of a Type Ia supernova. If all Type 1a supernovae have the same intrinsic brightness, then the dimmer a supernova appears, the farther away it must be. By calibrating a precise brightness-distance relation, astronomers are able to estimate not only the expansion rate of the universe (parameterized by the Hubble Constant), but also the geometry of the universe we live in (parameterized by Omega and Lambda). The large number and great distances to supernovae measured over the past few years, when combined with other observations, are interpreted as indicating that we live in a previously unexpected universe.

via (including much larger photo)

Life its ownself.........................................

"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving."
-Lao Tzu

Interpretations..........................

One of the beauties of the Tao Te Ching (for us English-only readers, anyway) is the rich variety of the translations.  The following are all the 27th verse of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching:


A good traveler has no fixed plans
And is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
Lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
And keeps his mind open to what is.

Thus the Master is available to all people
And doesn't reject anyone.
He is ready to use all situations
And doesn't waste anything.
This is called embodying the light.

What is a good man but a bad man's teacher?
What is a bad man but a good man's job?
If you don't understand this, you will get lost,
However intelligent you are.
It is the great secret.

-as translated by Stephen Mitchell
------------------------------------------------------------


Good walking leaves no tracks
good talking reveals no flaws
good counting counts no beads
good closing locks no doors
and yet it can't be opened
good tying ties no knots
and yet it can't be undone
thus the sage is good at saving
and yet abandons no one 
nor anything of use
this is called cloaking the light
thus the good instruct the bad
the bad learn from the good
not honoring their teachers
mot cherishing their students
the wise alone are perfectly blind
this is called peering into the distance

-as translated by Red Pine
-------------------------------------------------------


He who is skilled at traveling
     leaves neither tracks nor traces;
He who is skilled at speaking
     is flawless in his delivery;
He who is skilled at computation
     uses neither tallies nor counters;
He who is skilled at closing things tightly
     has neither lock nor key;
He who is good at binding
     has neither cord nor string,
        but what he binds cannot be untied.

For these reasons,
     The sage
          is always skilled at saving others
               and does not abandon them,
               nor does he abandon resources.
     This is called "inner intelligence."

Therefore,
     Good men are teachers for the good man,
     Bad men are foils for the good man,
     He who values not his teacher
           and loves not his foil,
     Though he be knowledgeable,
           is greatly deluded.

     This is called "the wondrous essential."

-as translated by Victor H. Mair
----------------------------------------------------------

               A knower of the truth
        travels without leaving a trace,
         speaks without causing harm,
       gives without keeping account.
The door he shuts, though having no lock,
                 cannot be opened.
The knot he ties, though using no cord,
                 cannot be undone.

Be wise and help all beings impartially,
                abandoning none.
          Waste no opportunities.
     This is called following the light.

What is a good man but a bad man's teacher?
  What is a bad man but a good man's job?
         If the teacher is not respected
         and the student not cared for,
confusion will areise, however clever one is.
           This is the great secret.

-as channeled by Wayne Dyer
---------------------------------------------------------


The sage who goes the way leaves no traces
The sage who speaks the true law never slips up -
He never calculates what profit he can make from what he does.

He keeps out thieves with wisdom!  He's never robbed -
He makes sure the rules are binding, then no one can undo them.

He is aware of everyone, leaving no one uncounted;
He cares like a parent, and wastes nothing.

                         This is the essence of harmony.

So, a good man is a model for a bad one
And, misguided, he is touched by his goodness.

Not to follow a teacher here
Or to love his precious message
Is to lose the Way, however clever you are -

                        This is the essence of the matter.

-as translated by Man-Ho Kwok, Martin Palmer, Jay Ramsey

A simpler time....................................

The Crystals.............................................Then He Kissed Me

Underlying reality.......................................

Right now, we are embroiled in a deeply, deeply stupid debate over whether to raise the statutory minimum wage to $15 an hour. (I write “statutory minimum wage” because the real minimum wage is always and everywhere $0.00 an hour, as any unemployed person can confirm for you.) Because everything in the economy is in reality priced relative to everything else, using the machinery of government to monkey around with the number of little green pieces of paper that attaches to an hour’s labor manning the register at 7-Eleven or taking orders at Burger King is, necessarily, an exercise in futility. The underlying hierarchy of values — the relative weighting between six months’ work washing dishes and six months’ tuition at the University of Texas — is not going to change. Prices in markets are not arbitrary — they are reflections of how real people actually value certain goods and services in the real world. Arbitrarily changing the dollar numbers attached to those preferences does not change the underlying reality any more than trimming Cleveland off a map of the United States actually makes Cleveland disappear.

-Kevin D. Williamson, as excerpted from here

Ignored..................................................

The Bernie Sanders................................

...................................Save the Children Fund.  Watch today.

courtesy of

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

The Byrds...............................................I Knew I'd Want You

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

      Nothing is durable, whether for an individual or for a society;  the destinies of men and cities alike sweep onwards.  Terror strikes amid the most tranquil surroundings, and without any disturbance in the background to give rise to them calamities spring from the least expected quarter.  States which stood firm through civil war as well as wars external collapse without a hand being raised against them.  How few nations have made of their prosperity a lasting thing!
-Seneca, Letter XCI from Letters from a Stoic

The kids will be just fine.............................

via

You gotta love the creatives.............

It is only 13 seconds. Do click  the start button.
 
POLITIKA // Bill Posters - 'Ad Agency' (Vine 1) from upper space on Vimeo.