Gone, but not forgotten...................

Paul Lynde................making Hollywood Squares worth watching



#26 on this list

Purpose..........................

“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

-George Bernard Shaw, as quoted here

Quiz time..............................

Years back, Marilyn vos Savant had a quiz column in which a question was: “Two bugs in a jar reproduce, doubling their number every minute. The jar is full in an hour. How long does it take to half fill the jar?”

-extracted from here 

And I don't think he is talking about bourbon....

"If you go to college today, you had best take on the hard stuff or nobody cares."

-The News Junkie, as culled from here

17 Ideas..............................

.............for the modern world, from Seth Godin.  Idea #1:

You are more powerful than you think.

Welcome to the age of leverage. A moment in time when each of us has more tools, more reach and more impact than a head of state did a hundred years ago.

Each of us has the skills and insight and power to see what’s happening around us, to create new ideas, and most of all, to change the way others respond and act.

Jagged indeed........................

"Comfort and stability is not always the best goal. With comfort it can be hard to change. Without change it can be hard to maintain future stability. And comfort."

-Nicholas Bate, as lifted from here

While technology may create the need........

...........................for immediacy, we actually live in a "not-yet" world.  Jeff Gill offers some thoughts:

"The world around us may expect speed, but we look for truth, a concept that can be blessedly slow."

Intelligence......................

........................................................is no match for ignorance.

Goals................................

.........................................................It is good to have goals.

Need an energy boost..............?

Arrant..................................

"There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action."

-Bertrand Russell, from his essay, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish

Coming home..............................

Allman Brothers...............................................Into The Mystic



We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic
Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic

And when that fog horn blows I will be coming home
And when the fog horn blows I want to hear it
I don't have to fear it

And I want to rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
And magnificently we will flow into the mystic

When that fog horn blows you know I will be coming home
And when that fog horn whistle blows I got to hear it
I don't have to fear it

And I want to rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
And together we will flow into the mystic
Come on girl...

Too late to stop now...

-Van Morrison, c. 1970

Gotta love the '60s..................

The Byrds.............................................I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better

When you've lost David Brooks...........

I was the op-ed editor at The Wall Street Journal at the peak of the Whitewater scandal. We ran a series of investigative pieces “raising serious questions” (as we say in the scandal business) about the nefarious things the Clintons were thought to have done back in Arkansas.


Now I confess I couldn’t follow all the actual allegations made in those essays. They were six jungles deep in the weeds. But I do remember the intense atmosphere that the scandal created. A series of bombshell revelations came out in the media, which seemed monumental at the time. A special prosecutor was appointed and indictments were expected. Speculation became the national sport.


In retrospect Whitewater seems overblown. And yet it has to be confessed that, at least so far, the Whitewater scandal was far more substantive than the Russia-collusion scandal now gripping Washington.


-via


Ah, the memories.   It's almost like we should read history books to keep up with current matters.

The world is just..............................

...............a much better place when Jeff is posting regularly.

On rule following........................

....................................................I especially like #62 and #63.


via

Invest a half hour....................

................................................understanding with Tucker Carlson.

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

Tim Buckley...............................No Man Can Find The War

Trump.............................

Can we "all agree on is that he is America’s first modern asymmetric warrior president"?    It would be nice if we could agree on at least one thing.


-idea further fleshed out here


via

Counter-intuitive..............................

.................................but human nature is a fairly mysterious thing:


"As the level of information and access to knowledge continues to improve it’s only making it harder for most people to make better decisions."


-Ben Carlson, as he concludes this post about the Dorito Effect

The one true lesson of history.........

.........................................................is that nothing is "fixed."

Optimism versus pessimism.....................

...................An interesting post from Morgan Housel here.   An extracted quote that I enjoyed here:

Optimists are often ridiculed as being oblivious to how risky the world is. I’ve found this to be a bad reading. They’re often quite aware of risks, but equally aware of risks being the soil optimism eventually grows out of.

As said here before, while pessimism many sell more newspapers and books, always bet on the optimists.

via

A few thoughts..........................

.........................................on Jeff Bezos's philanthropic impulses:

Because he is presumably uniquely good a creating businesses, probably the best way for him to maximize the use of his money and time in improving the lives of a maximum number of people is to go start another business.  Certainly Amazon has created value for the rest of us that dwarfs the amount he has earned from it.  Taken another way, via Amazon he has hugely improved the lives of many, many people and in turn taken just a small commission for himself on this value created. He has lowered prices for us, he has saved us time, he has brought us many more choices.  He has created a platform for small businesses to sell their product that they could never duplicate themselves.  He has nearly single-handedly created the self-publishing business and provided an outlet for a ton of new authors (myself included).  He helps keep Apple and Google honest (and vice versa) from his competition with them.

-Warren Meyer, as culled from here

Trying..............................

as all right-thinking people are aware......

“When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning-rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with the enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will of God. For, as all right-thinking people were aware, lightning is sent by God to punish impiety or some other grave sin—the virtuous are never struck by lightning. Therefore if God wants to strike any one, Benjamin Franklin [and his lightning-rod] ought not to defeat His design; indeed, to do so is helping criminals to escape. But God was equal to the occasion, if we are to believe the eminent Dr. Price, one of the leading divines of Boston. Lightning having been rendered ineffectual by the 'iron points invented by the sagacious Dr. Franklin,' Massachusetts was shaken by earthquakes, which Dr. Price perceived to be due to God's wrath at the 'iron points.' In a sermon on the subject he said, 'In Boston are more erected than elsewhere in New England, and Boston seems to be more dreadfully shaken. Oh! there is no getting out of the mighty hand of God.' Apparently, however, Providence gave up all hope of curing Boston of its wickedness, for, though lightning-rods became more and more common, earthquakes in Massachusetts have remained rare.  Nevertheless, Dr. Price's point of view, or something very like it, was still held by one of the most influential period of recent times.   When, at one time, there were several bad earthquakes in India, Mahatma Gandhi solemnly warned his compatriots that these disasters had been sent as a punishment for their sins."

-Bertrand Russell, from his essay An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish found in his book, Unpopular Essays

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

Tim Buckley..........................................................Once I Was

Seems about right.....................

"A problem with using the mind to discover the truth is that it often cannot tell the forest from the trees and instead focuses on problematic irrelevancies and extraneous diversions..."

-David R. Hawkins