On the home stretch................................

What can I say......................................

Barry White....................Can't Get Enough Of Your Love Babe

What I did yesterday..................................

An excellent mixture................................

50.  Frugality is good if accompanied by liberality.  Frugality avoids unnecessary expenses;  liberality gives to others that are in need.  Frugality without liberality produces covetousness;   liberality without frugality produces reckless waste.  Both together make an excellent mixture.  Wherever this mixture exists, happiness is found.
-William Penn,   Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims

Every once in a while.......................

.......we just need to reflect on what an amazing species we are...

Real joy.................................................

" ... real joy in life comes when you get in the act of forgetfulness about yourself."
-Blanchard and Shaevitz,  Refire! Don't Retire:  Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life

thanks John E.

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

The Beatles..................................................Every Little Thing

Been watching my mind here of late............

The gray in your hair doesn't make you old,
Nor the crow's feet under your eyes, I'm told.
But when your mind makes a contract your body can't fill,
You're over the hill, brother, over the hill.
-Mary E. Mitchell, as excerpted from here

Here's to that little rebel in all of us..................

Finding the silver lining........................

      When I would lecture before the stroke, there would always be one or two people in the audience who had been dragged to hear me speak by a spouse or a friend.   It was easy to pick them out of the crowd;  they'd be sitting with their arms folded and their faces wearing a long-suffering look.  I'd work hard to help them open their hearts.  Now my wheelchair opened their hearts.  And because of the wheelchair, I was always assured of having a seat wherever I went.
-Ram Dass,   Polishing The Mirror

Insatiable.......................................

Normally I don't feel sorry for the deer.......

Searching everywhere...............................

Joan Osborne..................What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted

And you thought you were mentally tough....

The History Blog offers a rather severe example:

Back story (or at least what they think happened) is here.

Self-imposed............................

      Getting caught up in memories of the past or worrying about the future is a form of self-imposed suffering.  Either retirement or youth can be seen as moving on, a time for something different, something new.  Start fresh.  It's a new moment.  Aging is not a culmination.  Youth isn't preparation for later.  This isn't the end of the line or the beginning.  Now isn't a time to look back or plan ahead.  It is a time just to be present.  The present is timeless.  Being in the moment, just being here with what is, is ageless, eternal.
-Ram Dass, Polishing The Mirror:  How To Live From Your Spiritual Heart

Freedom of Speech..............................

Friend Bilbo offers his thoughts on the subject.  A few wee excerpts:

"I have always thought that freedom of speech should have as few limits as possible, because it makes it easier to recognize and argue against stupidity. Nowadays, though, freedom of speech often comes accompanied by its undesirable cousin, Ironclad Certainty ..."

"I've often observed that Freedom of Speech is not always accompanied by Freedom of Smart. But if you don't listen with an open and respectful mind, you can't very well evaluate what's smart and what isn't."

Let's dance.........................................

"When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way."
-Wayne Dyer

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

Righteous Brothers...................................Just Once In My Life

On failure and success.................................

"Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit."
-Napoleon Hill

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."
-Robert F. Kennedy

"You build on failure.  You use it as a stepping stone.  Close the door on the past.  You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it.  You don't let it use any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space."
-Johnny Cash

"My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure."
-Abraham Lincoln

"The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing."
-Henry Ford

"Winners are not afraid of losing.  But losers are.  Failure is part of the process of success.  People who avoid failure also avoid success."
-Robert Kiyosaki

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm."
-Winston Churchill

"I failed my way to success."
-Thomas Edison

“People think that the opposite of success is failure, but it's not. Failure is part of the process of success.” 
-Randy Gage

"Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. You don't fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day."
“Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.”
-Jim Rohn

Easily............................................

Remember..........................................

      Don't take your melodrama so seriously.  Let's remember who we really are -- that is, souls, not egos.  The ego is who you think you are.  Who you think you are will die with the body because it's part of this incarnation.  But your soul, which has these qualities of deep wisdom and love and peace and joy, is just here, watching it all go by.
-Ram Dass,  Polishing The Mirror:  How To Live From Your Spiritual Heart

Winter, spring, summer, or fall....................

Carole King and James Taylor..................You've Got A Friend




full concert here

Re-thinking the whole college thing......

As Andrew Kelly succinctly put it in a recent paper for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, “on average ≠ always.” He cites a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that found that the lowest-paid quartile of college graduates earns little more than average high-school graduates do; that’s been so since the 1970s. Which helps to explain all of those college-educated Starbucks baristas. 
-Michael Petrilli, as excerpted from this essay

All I know is that some of the most successful human beings of my acquaintance, including my long time business partner, do not have college degrees.  

We're just not accustomed to dealing with.........

............such serious-minded folk.  The Atlantic does us a favor by providing some needed context for the phenomenon known as ISIS.

There is a temptation to rehearse this observation—that jihadists are modern secular people, with modern political concerns, wearing medieval religious disguise—and make it fit the Islamic State. In fact, much of what the group does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment, and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse.

Full essay is here.  Take the time.

via

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

The Beach Boys...................................................Barbara Ann

Ok...................that means that.......................

One of the glories of a college education...................................

Didn't read any of this in my History textbooks...

.......................or, maybe I just wasn't paying attention that week.  Anyway, here is another way of looking at John D. Rockefeller, Standard Oil, anti-trust, and history.

thanks craig

On why we text while we drive.............

......................................................Louis C.K. explains it all.

Lighten up......................................

Original, more readable, version is here.

I hate it when they do that.......................

So, I am on-line reading this very interesting essay on Scott Walker and his lack of a college degree at the National Review, when out of the corner of my eye I spot this Amazon advertisement:

Faithful readers will note that in the past week or so I have posted excerpts from  Infidel Kings and Holy Warriors and from Bergson's Creative Evolution.   Am I the only one who thinks this whole cyber knowing thing is getting a bit creepy?

I feel fine.............................................

James Tayor..........................Something In The Way She Moves

Verse..............................................

3.  ‘Why have we fasted and You do not see?
Why have we humbled ourselves and You do not notice?’
Behold, on the day of your fast you find your desire,
And drive hard all your workers.
4 

4. Behold, you fast for contention and strife and to strike with a wicked fist.
You do not fast like you do today to make your voice heard on high.
5 
5.  Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to humble himself?
Is it for bowing one’s head like a reed
And for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed?
Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord?
6 
6.  Is this not the fast which I choose:
To loosen the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the bands of the yoke,
And to let the oppressed go free
And break every yoke?
7 
7.  Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, to cover him;
And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
8 
8.  Then your light will break out like the dawn,
And your recovery will speedily spring forth;
And your righteousness will go before you;
The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 
9.  Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
You will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you remove the yoke from your midst,
The pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness,
10 
10. And if you give yourself to the hungry
And satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness
And your gloom will become like midday.
11 
11. And the Lord will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.

Isaiah 58:3-11
The Holy Bible
New American Standard Version

Thinking about money.......................

...............with some uncommon sense.  Excerpted from here:

Write the following quotes on index cards and stick them above where you work:

“The key to eternal happiness is low overhead and no debt.”
—Lynda Barry

“If you don’t take money, they can’t tell you what to do, kid.”
—Bill Cunningham

* * *

The next time someone tells you to “do what you love no matter what,” ask to see their tax return.

Anybody who tells people to “do what you love no matter what” should also have to teach a money management course.

Low overhead + “do what you love” = a good life.

“I deserve nice things” + “do what you love” = a time bomb.

Lent, revisited........................................

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

Herman's Hermits.........................................Wonderful World

Faith............................................

Don't they read the papers........................?

And yet a funny thing has happened during the bust. Oil production in America has been rising, as this chart of monthly oil production from the Energy Information Administration shows. In November, the U.S. produced 9.02 million barrels of oil per day, up 14.5 percent from November 2013. The last time the U.S. pumped more than 9 million barrels of oil per day for two straight months was in 1986. This week, in its short-term energy outlook, the Energy Information Administration noted that the boom is continuing. Production in January 2015 rose to 9.2 million barrels per day. And even with WTI crude settling at a forecasted price of about $55 per barrel for the year, production for all of 2015 should come in at 9.3 million barrels per day—up 7.8 percent from 8.63 million barrels per day in 2014.

You'll just love the reason behind this unexpected behavior:

What we’re seeing, I’d argue, is an example of yet another type of American business exceptionalism. Compared with many of their peers in other countries, U.S. firms have often—not always, but often—demonstrated a superior capacity to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances. We saw it after the dot-com bust, as new tech industries arose amid the wreckage. And we saw it in 2009 and 2010, when companies large and small acted swiftly, often brutally, to ensure their survival, return to profitability, and help the economy come back (ahem) better, stronger, and faster.  Look hard enough, and you can see it in the oil patch, too. In recent decades, the oil industry—especially in the U.S.—has evolved from a brute-force industry into a nimbler high-tech manufacturing one. Fracking—a new drilling technology developed primarily in the U.S.—propelled the shale revolution. And technology-based companies don’t respond to falling market prices by cutting production or shutting down. Rather, they innovate and experiment to bring down the cost of production and operations, push suppliers for lower prices, and hold down costs. If the market won’t keep the market price above the break-even price, you can stop producing—or you can try to lower the break-even price.

Full essay is here.

Half way there........................................

Bon Jovi........................................................Livin' On A Prayer

The fog lifts.....................................

     Have you ever noticed how many angry people there are at peace rallies?  Social action aroused righteousness.  Righteousness ultimately starves you to death.  If you want to be free more than you want to be right, you have to let go of righteousness, of being right.
     This reminds me of a story.  There's this Chinese boatman, and he hits another boat in the fog.  He starts swearing at the other boatman.  "You SOB!  Why didn't you look where you were going?"  Then the fog lifts for a moment, and he sees there is nobody in the other boat.  And he feels like a fool.
      Righteousness is roughly the same thing.

-Ram Dass,  Polishing The Mirror

Thinking about it..............................

Do you really want..........................?

via

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

Barbara Mason................................................Yes, I'm Ready

Keeping the faith.................................

An important public service reminder..................

Lesley Gore, revisited..........................

The inner dome of heaven..........................

                        Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay

As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them

Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning

After a rain. They click upon themselves

As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored

As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells

Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away

You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,

And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed

So low for long, they never right themselves:

You may see their trunks arching in the woods

Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground

Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair

Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in

With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm

I should prefer to have some boy bend them

As he went out and in to fetch the cows—

Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees

By riding them down over and over again

Until he took the stiffness out of them,

And not one but hung limp, not one was left

For him to conquer. He learned all there was

To learn about not launching out too soon

And so not carrying the tree away

Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise

To the top branches, climbing carefully

With the same pains you use to fill a cup

Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,

Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations,

And life is too much like a pathless wood

Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs

Broken across it, and one eye is weeping

From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile

And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me

And half grant what I wish and snatch me away

Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

-Robert Frost

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

The Turtles..................................................Eve of Destruction

Stay warm my friends................................

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

Welcome to the world of South London in the last decade of the nineteenth century.  It was frowsy;  it was shabby;  the shops were small and generally dirty.  It had none of the power or the energy of the more important part of the city on the other side of the Thames.  It moved at a slower pace.  All the accounts of it, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, describe it as a distinct and alien place.  It was in a sense cut off from the life of the greater London;  this may account for the air of exhaustion, and of torpor, which could hit the unwary.  It was the site of a small and noisome trades such as the hat-making and leather-tanning.  Factories abounded for the manufacture of biscuits, jam and pickles.  Glue factories stood adjacent to timber warehouses and slaughterhouses.  The predominant smells were those of vinegar, and of dog dung, and of smoke, and of beer, compounded of course by the stink of poverty.  By the end of the nineteenth century Kennington, the earliest home of Charles Chaplin, had all the characteristics of a slum.
-Peter Ackroyd,  Charlie Chaplin:  A Brief Life

Lent...............................................

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

Lesley Gore (5/2/46 - 2/16/15)........................You Don't Own Me

A Wealth of Common Sense....................

.............is a superb blog for those interested in investing.  While Ben's focus is on financial instruments and their markets, us real estate investors can find his thoughts useful as well.  Two excerpts:

"You always have to think in terms of total return when thinking about income investments, not just the dividend or bond yield." (Which means to me:  don't forget you have to sell the property and pay the income taxman before you really know how well the investment performed.  More often than not, the return of the investment is just as important as the return on investment)

"As an investor you should be saying no to way more investment opportunities then you say yes to. Just because something’s available doesn’t mean it’s necessary." (If only it was more clear to which we should say NO, then life would be much simpler.)

Yep......................................................

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

Lesley Gore........................Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows

Simplicity.......................................

...........................................more wisdom from the Execupundit.

On shining..........................................

On attention spans.........................

Unfortunately, most people these days do not have the patience to watch long-term trends develop.  Instead, we have been trained by the mainstream media to have the attention spans of toddlers.  We bounce from one 48-hour news cycle to the next, eagerly looking forward to the next “scandal” that is going to break.

And when the next financial crash does strike, the mainstream media is going to talk about what a “surprise” it is.  But for those that are watching the long-term trends, it is not going to be a surprise at all.  We will have seen it coming a mile away.

-from this Zero Hedge post (he appears to have lost his rose-colored glasses)

That's no reason why....................................

The Crystals......................................................He's A Rebel

Everything us Midwesterners need to know.....

.........................................................about Goldman Sachs.

Will the center hold...............................?

For bewildered and increasingly quietist Americans, the center holds mostly in family, religion, a few friends, the avoidance of the cinema and nightly news, the rote of navigating to work and coming home, trying to stay off the dole and taking responsibility for one’s own disasters — as the world grows ever more chaotic in our midst.
-Victor Davis Hanson, as excerpted from this essay

It's all about what you can do.......................

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

The Searchers....................................................Love Potion #9

The sweetness of flexibility.................

In these later years I’ve become more flexible in spirit rather than bone. I add a bit more or a bit less, or leave it in the oven for a few more minutes than the prescribed time. Maybe I add a touch more sweetness or bite. Or even a fingersnip more of salt. Maybe something doesn’t work. And that’s ok – there’s always the opportunity to make it again. There can be a bit of forgiveness in cooking and baking – even the small failures can be overlooked when you share a meal that was made with your own hand.

And nothing tastes sweeter, lasts longer, or is enjoyed more.

-Jeff Kopito

Keeping up with us "Boomers"...............

       Average boomer net worth, which was over $200,000 pre-recession, is now only $143,000.  The median outstanding mortgage balance for a 50-to-69-year-old is up from $48,743 in 1992 to $118,000 -- and 56% say they may apply for another mortgage.  "Boomers are just not planning that far ahead for some of the health issues and limitations they will face later in life," says Jeremy Burbank, a vice president at Neilson.  "They look around and have a general reticence for things that are labeled as seniors products, including housing.  Even with possible renovations to their homes, they're focused on updates instead of aging-friendly features.  They just aren't ready to settle yet."
-Robert Carr, as excerpted from this National Real Estate Investor essay

Film at 11:00.......................................

via

My Sweetie..............................

.......................and I celebrate our seventh anniversary today!

It's a good place.......................................

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

Cigars had burned low, and we were beginning to sample the disillusionment that usually afflicts old school friends who have met again as men and found themselves with less in common then they had believed they had.  Rutherford wrote novels;  Wyland was one of the Embassy secretaries;  he had just given us dinner at Tempelhof - not very cheerfully, I fancied, but with the equanimity which a diplomat must always keep on tap for such occasions.  It seemed likely that nothing but the fact of being three celibate Englishmen in a foreign capital could have brought us together, and I had already reached the conclusion that the slight touch of priggishness which I remembered in Wyland Tertius had not diminished with the years and an M.V.O. Rutherford I liked more;  he had ripened well out of the skinny, precocious infant whom I had once alternately bullied and patronized.  The probability that he was making much more money and having a more interesting life than either of us, gave Wyland and me our one mutual emotion - a touch of envy.
-James Hilton,  Lost Horizon

Tripping over the steps...........................

The echo knows.....................................

One of Freud's best rules of thumb for determining what a person was unconsciously feeling was:  "A negation is as good as an affirmation."  Listen with the third ear and you will hear the echo.
         "It's not the money, it's the principal."  (It's the money)
         "I'm not mad, but...."  (I'm mad)

-Sam Keen,  Fire In The Belly:  On Being a Man

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

The Kinks..........................................A Well Respected Man

Take Time For Ten Things.......................

1.  Take time to work:   It is the price of success.

2.  Take time to think:  It is the source of power.

3.  Take time to read:  It is the foundation of knowledge.

4.  Take time to dream:  It hitches the soul to the stars.

5.  Take time to help and enjoy friends:  It is the source of happiness.

6.  Take time to love:  It is the one sacrament of life.

7.  Take time to play:  It is the secret of youth.

8.  Take time to laugh:  It is the singing that helps with life's loads.

9.  Take time to worship:  It is the highway of reverence and washes the dust of earth from our eyes.

10. Take time to plan:  It is the secret of being able to have time to take time for the first nine things.

thanks roger

Meanwhile, at the University of Kentucky.....

....Dance Blue is a happening thing.  Our youngest was one of some 900 UK students participating in the 24 hour dance marathon (and no, they did not dance like this for the whole time, but no sitting, no sleeping and no leaving the gym).  This was the tenth Dance Blue, and this year they raised over $1,600,000 for this worthy cause.   Sorry I'm unable to deliver the sound with the video.  Just know that it was energizing and a bit heavy on the bass.  As this blog has noted before:   the kids will be just fine.

 At 9:00 at night..........................................7 hours in

At 7:00 in the morning....................................17 hours in

Got that right..........................................