Saturday, March 19, 2016
Fifty years ago............................
Left Banke.................................................Walk Away Renee
Am I the only one wondering about that voice?
Fifty years ago........................
Carla Thomas..............................................................B-A-B-Y
A tonic............................
......................................................for whatever ails you.
Fifty years ago....................
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass........................Zorba the Greek
Friday, March 18, 2016
Life its ownself.............................................
My family is the most important collection of people on this planet, but if I am not willing to help and support others as I do them, I am missing the full point of being humans sharing this planet.
-John E. Smith, who knows whereof he speaks
But they can hurt................................
"Unless you’re working in a coal mine, an emergency ward, or their equivalent, spare us the sad stories about your tough job. The biggest risk most of us face in the course of a day is a paper cut."
-Michael Wade
Fifty years ago...................
The Surfaris....................................................Wipe Out
My musically knowledgeable readers are undoubtedly saying, "wait a minute." Yes, Wipe Out was released several times in 1963 and again in 1965. It did, however, race up the charts again in 1966. And why not?
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Re-discovery time..................
“The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.”
-William James
Karma................................
"The greatest ignorance of all is the mistaken belief that we can ever receive more than we truly earn. Sooner or later there will be an accounting. We throw the boomerang, good or bad."
-Earl Nightingale, as excerpted from here
Do your work...........................
Do your work - not just your work and no more, but a little more for the lavishing's sake; that little more which is worth all the rest. And if you suffer as you must, and if you doubt as you must, do your work. Put your heart into it and the sky will clear. Then out of your very doubt and suffering will be born the supreme joy of life.
-Dean Briggs, as quoted here
Instead.............................
Far too often we are guilty of wishing for a tool instead of wishing for a solution. We think that innovation must come only with new tools. Instead, first consider the innovative ways to use the tools we already have. We may find that not only is this enough but in many ways it may be better.
-Patrick Rhone
How would it end..........................
Louis Armstrong.............................................Black and Blue
Cold empty bed, springs hard as lead
Feels like ol' Ned wished I was dead
What did I do to be so black and blue
Even the mouse ran from my house
They laugh at you and scorn you too
What did I do to be so black and blue
I'm white inside but that don't help my case
'Cause I can't hide what is in my face
How would it end, ain't got a friend
My only sin is in my skin
What did I do to be so black and blue
How would it end, ain't got a friend
My only sin is in my skin
What did I do to be so black and blue
Fifty years ago..........................
Simon & Garfunkel................................The Sound of Silence
Knowledgeable readers will remind me that this song was released in 1964. However, it got very little notice until it was re-mixed and re-released as a single in the fall of 1965, It reached #1 on the charts in January of 1966. More here.
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Sticks and stones...................
In the election that pitted Thomas Jefferson against John Adams, the somewhat more restricted and refined electorate had its choice between the president of the American Philosophical Society and the president of the American Academy of Arts and Science. "What could possibly have been more civilized and agreeable?" breathes the incurable nostalgic. Yet it's worth looking up what was said, especially about Jefferson, in those days: he was called adulterer, whoremaster, atheist, even deserter in the face of the enemy. There's no doubt that the emergence of parties or "factions" after the retirement of George Washington gave voters a set of clear and often stark choices - and a good thing that was too.
-Christopher Hitchens, as excerpted from Bring On The Mud
Checking in with Scott Adams..........................
................Those who appreciate the mind of the creator of Dilbert will understand that he has spent most of the last four months explaining the rise of Trump, aka the "Master Persuader." A few nuggets from a recent post - excerpted from here.
"The evidence is that Trump completely ignores reality and rational thinking in favor of emotional appeal. Sure, much of what Trump says makes sense to his supporters, but I assure you that is coincidence. Trump says whatever gets him the result he wants. He understands humans as 90% irrational and acts accordingly.
Rand Paul, on the other hand, treated voters as if they were intelligent creatures who make decisions based on the facts. His campaign didn’t last long with that message. Rand Paul knows about a lot of stuff. He’s a smart guy. But apparently psychology is not on the list of things he knows. And psychology is the only necessary skill for running for president."
"Do you remember a year ago when you thought humans were rational most of the time – let’s say 90% of the time – and irrational the rest of the time? That was how most people saw the world, and still do. But Trump is teaching you that you had it backwards. The truth is that humans are irrational 90% of the time."
For those of us..........................................
........................whose business models work better when there is a "normal" amount of single-family house construction, this chart speaks volumes:
Needy.......................................
"it amuses me how many people talk of the needs of 'the economy' as if it were a demanding relative whose demands we are obliged to satisfy."
-John Kay, as excerpted from this statistically significant post
Cognitive dissonance..............
Opinion polling shows how far cognitive dissonance on this point has progressed. When asked, millions of people will say that the two parties are (a) so much alike as to be virtually indistinguishable, and (b) too much occupied in partisan warfare. The two "perceptions" are not necessarily opposed: party conflict could easily be more and more disagreement about less and less - what Sigmund Freud characterized in another context as "the narcissism of small differences."
-Christopher Hitchens, as excerpted from his Wilson Quarterly essay of Autumn, 2004, as found in this collection of essays
Needing an interpreter.....
"What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact."
-attributed to Warren Buffet
Temperatures rising..................
Earth, Wind, and Fire................................................Reasons
Soft rhythms................................
Opportunities are whispers, not foghorns.
If we can't hear their soft rhythms - if we are too busy rushing about, waiting for thunderclaps of revelation, inspiration, and certainty - or if we can spot them, but can't nurture them into real advantages, then we might as well be blind to them.
-Sean Patrick, Nikola Tesla: Imagination and the Man That Invented the 20th Century
Fifty years ago.......................
James & Bobby Purify....................................I'm Your Puppet
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Certain........................
"There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self."
-attributed to Aldous Huxley
Trust your people; what a concept........
“Over the years we learned that if we asked people to rely on logic and common sense instead of on formal policies, most of the time we would get better results, and at a lower cost”
-as excerpted from here
What happened to our entrepreneurial spirit....?
From 1977 to 2005, business startups accounted for almost all economic growth and all net job creation. Established firms shrank and new firms grew. After the Great Recession of 2008, the opposite occurred: established firms accounted for all the recovery in employment, and startups contributed nothing to net employment growth. Under the Obama administration, America changed from the world’s most innovative economy to the most static and cartelized.
This is the single most depressing fact about the American economy. The single most depressing fact about American politics is that no-one wants to talk about it.
-Spengler, as excerpted from this post
Such a beautiful feeling.................
The Grass Roots................................................Heaven Knows
Fifty years ago.........................
On the television.................................................Time Tunnel
Monday, March 14, 2016
An inside job...............................
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
-attributed to Abraham Lincoln
I understand that feeling.....................
In J. G. Ballard's sci-fi short story "The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista," there are psycho-sensitive houses that can be driven to hysteria by their owners' neuroses. Picture sentient walls sweating with anxiety, a staircase keening when an occupant dies, roof seams fraying from a mild sense of neglect. Some days I swear I'm living in that house right now.
-Diane Ackerman, The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us
As if we weren't flawed enough already......
"The real question," he says, "is what the evolutionary pressure of these therapies might me. Would faulty genes become more prevalent, because they could be fixed? I wear contact lenses, but if I were a caveman and my eyesight was as bad as it was when I was five, I would have been in serious trouble. Now it doesn't matter. We could replace our defective parts, live longer, and feel healthier." Then he adds a provocative afterthought: "Yet physically we could be much weaker and more flawed genetically."
-Diane Ackerman, The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us
Why rest on the seventh day.......................?
................Because this Universe building thing must have been very hard work. Thinking in a next life it might be fun to be an astronomer. There is soooo much we just don't know.
According to Joshua Sokol at New Scientist, the megastructure discovered by a team from the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics is composed of 830 separate galaxies and has a mass 10,000 times greater than the Milky Way. To put the scale of this structure into perspective, we orbit one single star, the Sun. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has over 200 billion stars, just like our Sun, in it alone with an unknown amount of planets orbiting them.
Now, multiply that insane thought by 10,000 and you have the BOSS Great Wall. To our limited scope, it is effectively infinite.
thanks gerard
All hail the underdogs...............
X Ambassadors.....................................................Renegades
Fifty years ago.................
Paul Revere and The Raiders................................Just Like Me
Go..................................
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
-Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Stories.........................
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
-Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Avoid..............................
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
-Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Enjoy..............................
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
-Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Exercise...............................
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
-Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Perennial..................................
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.
-Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Gracefully...........................
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
-Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Nurture................................
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
-Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Be gentle.......................
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Unfolding..................
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
-Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Strive...............................
And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
-Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
Socially engineered spaces.............
Coercion is natural; freedom is artificial. Freedoms are socially engineered spaces where parties engaged in specified pursuits enjoy protection from parties who would otherwise naturally seek to interfere in those pursuits. One person's freedom is therefore always another person's restriction; we would not have even the concept of freedom if the reality of coercion were not already present. We think of a freedom as a right, and therefore the opposite of a rule, but a right is a rule. It is a prohibition against sanctions on certain types of behavior. We also think of rights as privileges retained by individuals against the rest of society, but rights are created not for the good of individuals, but for the good of society. Individual freedoms are manufactured to achieve group ends.
-Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
Lest we forget......................
Between 1901 and 1910, 8,795,386 immigrants were admitted to the United States, 70 percent were from Southern and Eastern Europe, principally Catholics and Jews. Between 1911 and 1920, another 5,735,811 people were admitted from abroad, 59 percent of whom came from Southern and Eastern Europe. By 1910, 40 percent of the population of New York City was foreign-born.
-Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
Opening paragraphs..............................
The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason. It was waxing, only one day short of full. The time was 05:03:12 UTC. Later it would be designated A+0.0.0, or simply Zero.
-Neil Stephenson, Seveneves
Does anybody really know what time it is......
Happy Daylight Savings time. Spring forward one hour.
Fifty years ago....................
Stevie Wonder..........................Uptight (Everything's Alright)
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