down on my knees.......................

Heart..............................................................Barracuda

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

Manfred Mann........................................................Sha-La-La



Ed. Note:  For those of you noting that 1964 was 51 years ago, this tune was released as a 45 in November of 1964.  It was still charting in 1965.

Hurting my head.............................

The Bee Gees..................................................I Started A Joke

On practice..................................

"Seekers continue to practice all kinds of self-torture without realizing that such ‘spiritual practice’ is a reinforcement of the very ego that prevents them from their natural, free state."
-Ramesh Balsekar

cartoon via

On maintenance..................

“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.” 
-Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus

On seeking..............................

“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.” 
-Ramana Maharshi

cartoon via

He cracks my head up............

"Black Friday does not mean shopping; it means we watch the first Christmas movies of the year - Die Hard, followed immediately by Die Hard II - "

-full post is here

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

The Bee Gees..................................,,,,,,,.......Claustrophobia

Disengage.............................

"Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom."
-Bodhidharma

The gold standard................

The Execupundit, who knows a thing or two, takes a gimlet eye to the leadership example of Winston Churchill:

"He was not denying what people could see with their own eyes nor was he operating with a view of history that seemed more attuned to someone who has just fallen, as the expression goes, off the turnip truck."

Some nights only the Beatles will do.....

The Beatles.....................................................From Me To You

Knowledge is good.....................

..................Providing context for knowledge is even better.

Graeme Wood  pens an essay trying to make sense out of ISIL.  It is a worthy read.

Thanks Doug

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

The Stanley Brothers...........................It Takes A Worried Man



courtesy of

The road............................

“Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy.” 
-Nisargadatta Maharaj

Play.......................................

“It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu lila, lila meaning play. And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt” 
-Alan W. Watts, Zen and the Beat Way

APOD site, description and enlargeable photo here

One idea...........................

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea.  Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone.  This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced."
-Vivekananda

Dukes indeed................................

The Dukes of September...........................................Lowdown



Boz Scaggs,  Michael McDonald and Donald Fagen.  Nice.

Thanks Greg

We nourished your extremism............

An interesting take on the "endless capacity for masochism and self-loathing" that some tribes revel in can be found here.

Maybe he should talk to....................

...........................his Department of Education.  In this interview, the President comes out against "a recipe for dogmatism."  Louder please.

Ed Note:  my favorite dogma cartoons are here.

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

Edwin Starr...........................................Agent Double-O Soul

This may be the smartest thing..............

..................................................................I've read today:

"I see elements of wishful thinking there, but that is hard to avoid when coming up with an endgame for the Middle East that sounds positive."

-Arnold Kling, as excerpted from here

Here's a good idea..................

"Decision makers should be held accountable for the consequences of their decisions.  In The Case for Modern Man, American philosopher Charles Frankel defines responsibility:  'A decision is responsible when the man or group that makes it has to answer for it to those who are directly or indirectly affected by it."  Charles Munger adds, 'An example of a really responsible system is the system the Romans used when they build an arch.  The guy who created the arch stood under it as the scaffolding was removed.  It's like packing your own parachute.' "

-Peter Bevelin,  Seeking Wisdom:  From Darwin to Munger

Pour yourself a glass..................

Tom Barabas.............................................................Free Spirit

Hungry for that guitar.......................

Jimi Hendrix................................................Hey Joe/Purple Haze

Not the happiest of tunes (we won't be posting the lyrics), but around the 1:40 mark Jimi plays with his teeth.  Why?  Why not?

 

Blind wishing....................................

The cities subject to the Athenians, hearing of the gentleness of Brasidas, felt most strongly encouraged to change their condition, and sent secret messages to him, begging him to come to them;  each wishing to be the first to revolt.  Indeed, there seemed to be no danger in so doing;  their mistake in their estimate of the Athenian power was as great as that power afterwards turned out to be, and their judgment was based more upon blind wishing than upon any sound prediction;  for it is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire.

-Thucydides, as excerpted from here

Bending over backwards........................

But this long history of learning how to not fool ourselves—of having utter scientific integrity—is, I’m sorry to say, something that we haven’t specifically included in any particular course that I know of.  We just hope you’ve caught on by osmosis.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.  So you have to be very careful about that.  After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists.  You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that. 

I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as a scientist. I’m not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you’re not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being.  We’ll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi.  I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to do when acting as a scientist.  And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.

-Richard Feynman, as excerpted from his 1974 Caltech commencement address

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

Buddy and Stacey (is that really Jimi Hendrix)................Shotgun

Stubborn............................

Belief.......................................

No mainstream current of Christianity or Judaism promises that the prayers of the pious always will be answered. The Book of Job is there to instruct Christian and Jew that God’s purposes are so obscure to us as to make pointless the attempt to justify them. But the belief that there exists an ultimate purpose is high motivation to take a chance on the strength of our own efforts. If we do not see God’s purpose in our isolated corner of the battlefield, our children will, or our children’s children. Even if death closes out our part in the drama, God will redeem us from death. People of faith tend to have children; those who are persuaded of the randomness of existence tend not to. I cannot prove the validity of the point of view of faith, but it is instructive to consider the alternatives.

-David P. Goldman, as excerpted from this Spengler post

Trust............................................

AE Aurigae and the Flaming Star Nebula

“I promise you that the same stuff galaxies are made of, you are. The same energy that swings planets around stars makes electrons dance in your heart. It is in you, outside you, you are it. It is beautiful. Trust in this. And you your life will be grand.”
-Kamal Ravikant, Live Your Truth

enlargeable photo and explanation via apod

Transformative.............................

“This I know: the mind, left to itself, repeats the same stories, the same loops.  Mostly ones that don't serve us.  So what's practical, what's transformative, is to consciously choose a thought.  Then practice it again and again.  With emotion, with feeling, with acceptance.   Lay down the synaptic pathways until the mind starts playing it automatically.  Do this with enough intensity over time and the mind will have no choice.  That's how it operates.  Where do you think your original loops came from?” 
-Kamal Ravikant

thanks Nicholas   #65 on this list

Smile, and hold my hand...............

Classics IV.................................................................Spooky

Definiteness..........................

One's dominating desires may be crystallized into their physical equivalents through definiteness of purpose backed by definiteness of plans, with the aid of nature's law of hypnotic rhythm and time!
-Napoleon Hill

I passed (again)........................

..................another Carpe Diem economic news quiz.  You can too.

Sample question:

Snowflakes of the World, Unite...............!

...................................We know this is parody (only) because Matt Walsh is writing it, but still..................

Dear Walmart, Someone Insulted Me In One of Your Stores. Your CEO Must Now Resign.

Full rant is here.

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

The Beatles...............................................Rock n Roll Music

Pondering this one..............

"Unlike any other type of society, capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest."
-Joseph Schumpeter

Going boldly where no man has gone before....

Gene Roddenberry may have created Star Trek, but this might have been his finest hour.

via

I miss Steve Irwin too..................

via