A Layman's Blog: 6/21/15

Saturday, June 27, 2015

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

The Rippingtons.................................................Deep Powder

Taking that chance right now...............................

Friday, June 26, 2015

Simply amazing...........................

Jim Nabors..............................................The Impossible Dream

One less rascal....................................

But no social change can come about until the consciousness of individuals is changed first. When a young man asked Carlyle how he should go about reforming the world, Carlyle answered, "Reform yourself. That way there will be one less rascal in the world." The advice is still valid. Those who try to make life better for everyone without having learned to control their own lives usually end up making things worse all around.
-Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow

Speaking of Carlyle.........................

courtesy of

Unregenerate................................

By a kind of philological accident (which is probably no accident at all, but one of the more subtle expressions of man's deep-seated will to ignorance and spiritual darkness), the word "charity" has come, in modern English, to by synonymous with "almsgiving," and is almost never used in its original sense, as signifying the highest and most divine form of love. Owning to this impoverishment of our, at the best of times, very inadequate vocabulary of psychological and spiritual terms, the word "love" has had to assume an added burden. ... Ambiguity in vocabulary leads to confusion of thought; and, in this matter of love, confusion of thought admirably serves the purpose of an unregenerate and divided human nature that is determined to make the best of both worlds - to say it is serving God, while in fact it is serving Mammon, Mars or Priapus.

-Aldous Huxley, as excerpted from The Perennial Philosophy

Who knew............................

Not having heard of Priapus, the Oracle Google was consulted:

In Greek mythology, Priapus (/praɪˈeɪpəs/;^[1] Greek: Πρίαπος, Priapos), was a minor rustic fertility God, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism. He became a popular figure in Roman erotic art and Latin literature, and is the subject of the often humorously obscene collection of verse called the Priapeia.

image via

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

On Broadway..............................Richard Kiley is Don Quixote

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

"By and large, life will give you what you deserve and it doesn't give a damn what you "like." So it is up to you to take full responsibility to connect what you want with what you need to do to get it, and then to do those things - which often are difficult but produce good results - so that you'll then deserve to get what you want."
-Ray Dalio, as excerpted from Principles

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

Say it's not so........................................

Patrick Macnee, aka John Steed, has passed away. Macnee (93) teamed with Diana Rigg to create the ultimate TV power couple as The Avengers. Do yourself a favor and watch (at least) the opening scenes at this link. Stylish, classy, and fun.

Please...........................................

thanks kurt

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Playing requests................................

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

War............................................................City Country City

Trying to slow down................................................

"Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life."
-Dallas Willard

But, is it excessive.............................................?

“A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.”
-Alexander Hamilton

“No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable.”
-George Washington

“It is a wise rule and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its faculties, never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the interest annually, and the principal within a given term.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises.”
-James Madison

“Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.”
-Herbert Hoover

“We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.”
-Ronald Reagan

"I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office."
-Barack Obama

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

He crossed the bridge at Penryn a half-hour after sunset, as dusk was closing into night, and it may be that the sharp, frosty air had a hand in the cooling of his blood. For as he reached the river's eastern bank he slackened his breakneck pace, even as he slackened the angry galloping of his thoughts. The memory of that oath he had sworn three months ago to Rosamund smote him like a physical blow. It checked his purpose, and, reflecting this, his pace fell to an amble. He shivered to think how near he had gone to wrecking all the happiness that lay ahead of him. What was a boy's whip-lash, that his resentment of it should set all his future life in jeopardy? Even though men should call him a coward for submitting to it and leaving the insult unavenged, what should that matter? Moreover, upon the body of him who did so proclaim him he could brand the lie of a charge so foolish. Sir Oliver raised his eyes to the deep sapphire dome of heaven where an odd star was glittering frostily, and thanked God from a swelling heart that he had not overtaken Peter Godolphin whilst his madness was upon him.
-Rafael Sabatini, The Sea-Hawk