Friend Bilbo.......................................

.......................ponders "mandatory voting."  He reminds us:

"Have a good day. Remember that your responsibilities are every bit as important as your rights ... if not more so."

Ouch.............................................

............on the cutting edge of what is sure to be a growth industry.

Some things are harder to learn than others....

"A rising proportion of medical expenditure is now devoted to prolonging the lives of the very old and the terminally ill. The costs of this are potentially unlimited."

"Perhaps the greatest challenges in modern healthcare are not those of meeting the spiralling cost of advanced medical technologies. They lie in accepting that we are all going to die, and learning to do so with dignity."

-John Kay, as excerpted from here

Pick yourself up................................

via

What more could I ask.............................

The Hollies.........................................The Air That I Breathe




If I could make a wish
I think I'd pass
Cant think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound
Nothing to eat, no books to read

Making love with you
Has left me peaceful, warm, and tired
What more could I ask
Theres nothing left to be desired
Peace came upon me and it leaves me weak
So sleep, silent angel, go to sleep

Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe
And to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe
Yes to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe

Peace came upon me and it leaves me weak
So sleep, silent angel, go to sleep

Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe
And to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe
Yes to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe

Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe
And to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe
Yes to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe
And to love you
All I need is the air that I breathe
Yes to love you

Be interesting to check in on them.................

.............................................in about ten years.  More than you want to know about the "Millennials" is here.  I particularly like this one:

Money.

Millennials don't want to worry about having enough money. They don't need to be rich; they just want to make sure that they have enough to secure their financial future and still do all the things they love to do today.

I wonder if they realize that having enough money "to secure their financial future and still do all the things they love to do today" probably puts them into the hated "1%"?  Stay tuned.

thanks kurt

Damage.................................................

Surprisingly easy to do.............................

via

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

Frankie Valli................The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore

Can I get an Amen...................................!

To this German parent, it seems that America’s middle class has taken overprotective parenting to a new level, with the government acting as a super nanny.

 “Nearly all respondents remember childhoods of nearly unlimited freedom, when they could ride bicycles and wander through woods, streets, parks, unmonitored by their parents,” writes Jeffrey Dill, one of the researchers.

But when it comes to their own children, the same respondents were terrified by the idea of giving them only a fraction of the freedom they once enjoyed.

-As excerpted from The Case for Free-Range Parenting, from the Op-Ed page of the NYT no less.

Hoping so anyway........................................

Sixty years ago...................................

Four Aces..............................Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing

A decision.......................................everyday

Here I am.............................................

Jefferson Starship.....................................................Runaway

Ouch.................................................

Spengler is not impressed.  He opens:

The “Wizard of Oz” is the best single-source explanation of American politics. Specialists, to be sure, will want to read the Federalist papers, de Tocqueville and the speeches of Lincoln, but the 1939 MGM movie tells most of the story. We are a nation of scarecrows without a brain, tin men without a heart, and lions without courage. Nothing is going to fix us, but the next best thing is to feel better about ourselves. A broken-down carnival huckster impersonating the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz gives our three national archetypes not what they need, but the next best thing: A phony diploma, a testimonial, and a medal. The party favors don’t help the feckless trio (the Scarecrow proceeds to recite a comically mistaken formula for the length of the sides of an isosceles triangle) but they did wonders for their self-esteem.

He closes:

Nothing that Mr. Netanyahu can do will placate the Great and Powerful Ob. It may be painful and in some ways damaging, but he has no choice but to ignore the man behind the curtain.


Full essay is here.

Nothing more dangerous.................

"Walt very often paid little attention to my opinion.  Very rarely did he do anything because I suggested it.  Which, by the way, is something I appreciate.  There is nothing more dangerous than a client who does what you tell him to do. You want a client who listens, thinks things through, and makes his own decision."
-Peter Drucker, talking about Walter Wriston, as excerpted from here.

The eyes have it....................................

Primal essence......................................

The bias of errors of principle carries away men into perilous courses, as soon as their will does not control their passion or talent.  Hence the extraordinary blunders, and final wrong head, into which men spoiled by ambition usually fall.  Hence the remedy for all blunders, the cure for blindness, the cure of crime, is love.  "As much love, so much mind," said the Latin proverb.  The superiority that has no superior, the redeemer and instructor of souls, as it is their primal essence, is love.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, as excerpted from his essay Worship

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

Simon & Garfunkel.....................................The Sound of Silence



Back story here.    Better audio here.   Lyrics here:

Hello darkness, my old friend,

I've come to talk with you again,

Because a vision softly creeping,

Left its seeds while I was sleeping,

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence.

In restless dreams I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone,

'Neath the halo of a street lamp,

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more.

People talking without speaking,

People hearing without listening,

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence.

"Fools," said I, "You do not know –

Silence like a cancer grows.

Hear my words that I might teach you.

Take my arms that I might reach you."

But my words like silent raindrops fell

And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made.

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming.

And the sign said, 

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls

And whispered in the sound of silence.

Karmic ripples.........................................

Freedom is an independent inner state, whereas liberty is a consequence of collective social judgments and subject to restriction in order to serve the common good.  It is a serious error to confuse the two as all actions and choices have consequences.
     We eventually have to accept responsibility for our choices, decisions, and their consequences.  Every act, thought, and choice adds to a permanent mosaic;  our decisions ripple through the universe of consciousness to affect the lives of all.  Every act or decision made that supports life supports all life, including one's own.  The ripples we create return to us.

-David Hawkins, Truth vs Falsehood

On the razor-edge...................................

"I've never forgotten for long at a time that living is struggle.  Every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for - whether it's a field, or a home, or a country."
-Thornton Wilder, as excerpted from The Skin of Our Teeth

Dancin'.............................................

Was it light?.......................................

Was it light?
Was it light within?
Was it light within light?
Stillness becoming alive,
Yet still?

A lively understandable spirit
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait.

-Theodore Roethke

God love Ohio in the Springtime.....................

Tell me now.............................................

The Shirelles.......................Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

More talent than you can shake a stick at....

Frank, Sammy, Dean, and Johnny just messing around........

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

The Beatles...........................................Tell Me What You See

Gotta love the kazoos..................................

Joanie Sommers...........................................Johnny Get Angry




1962 certainly was a different time.................................

We're all self employed..............................

Bachman Turner Overdrive......................Takin' Care of Business

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

1.     You can do anything I ask.  I have asked you to perform miracles, and have made it clear that miracles are natural, corrective, healing, and universal.  There is nothing they cannot do, but they cannot be performed in the spirit of doubt or fear.  When you are afraid of anything, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you.  Remember that where your heart is, there is your treasure also.  You believe what you value.  If you are afraid, you are valuing wrongly.  Your understanding will then inevitably value wrongly, and by endowing all thoughts with equal power will inevitably destroy peace.  That is why the Bible speaks of "the peace of God which passeth understanding."   This peace is totally incapable of being shaken by errors of any kind.  It denies the ability of anything not of God to affect you.  This is the proper use of denial.  It is not used to hide anything, but to correct error.  It brings all error into the light, and since error and darkness are the same, it corrects error automatically.

-The Course In Miracles
Chapter 2, II

I'm shocked.....................................

"Purity of intention or devotion to truth is not expected of public figures who routinely distort facts and truth in order to win and persuade.  For the seeker of truth, however, the surrendering of attachments to positionalities is a necessary step and therefore a primary challenge."
-David Hawkins

Worth noting.........................................

" ... History teaches that the means employed do in effect shape the ends,"  Wriston concluded, "and it is almost impossible to have a good result achieved through bad means."
-Phillip L. Zweig,  Wriston:  Walter Wriston, Citibank, and the Rise and Fall of American Financial Supremacy

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

via

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

The Gentrys.....................................................Keep on Dancing

It's okay...................................................

thanks rob

From the "Life Is Strange" file.................

"According to economist Glen Weyl, the average salary of a top-25 hedge fund manager is more than that of all teachers in the Chicago school district combined."
-as excerpted from here

The brain asks, "Could this possibly be true?"   The Oracle Google was consulted.  The Chicago Public School system employed 22,519 teachers for the 2013-14 year (total employees of CPS, same year, = 41,579).   Since the average pay for a Chicago Public School teacher is a bit more that $71,000, that would mean, for the above quote to be true, that the average salary of a top-25 hedge fund manager was $1,598,849,000.  Seems difficult to believe. Yet, a few more clicks on Google and we find this, In total, the 25 highest-earning hedge fund managers and traders made $24.3 billion in 2013.   So, in conclusion, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that in 2014 your basic top-tier successful hedge fund manager made more money than all of the teachers in the Chicago Public School system combined.  Holy career choices, Batman.   Hope he/she created a ginormous amount of value.

The Execupundit......................................

....................................................................is back with another edition of Random Thoughts.   A few excerpts:

 When observing negotiations, consider which side wants an agreement the most. That side is the likely loser..... There should be at least one novel in your life which is periodically re-read..... Although this is often said of any presidential election, the next one will indeed be one of the most important in American history.... The most popular game in any nation is rarely acknowledged. It is called "Kick the Can Down the Road." .... The secret to stumbling is to stumble uphill. 

A trifle uncool...........................................

Martha and the Muffins.......................................Echo Beach

I know it's out of fashion
And a trifle uncool
But I can't help it
I'm a romantic fool
It's a habit of mine
To watch the sun go down
On Echo beach, I watch the sun go down

From nine till five I have to spend my time at work
The job is very boring, I'm an office clerk
The only thing that helps pass the time away
Is knowing I'll be back at Echo Beach some day

On a silent summer evening
The sky's alive with light
Building in the distance
Surrealistic sight
On Echo Beach
Waves make the only sound
On Echo Beach
There's not a soul around

Doing my best.......................................

I don't know about the joke........................

...........................................................but his tie is to-die-for.

Get back, back I say..............................

via

Heart..............................................

                           Life

By one great Heart the Universe is stirred:
By Its strong pulse, stars climb the darkening blue;
It throbs in each fresh sunset’s changing hue,
And thrills through low sweet song of every bird:
By It, the plunging blood reds all men’s veins;
Joy feels that heart against his rapturous own,
And on It, Sorrow breathes her sharpest groan;
It bounds through gladnesses and deepest pains.
Passionless beating through all Time and Space,
Relentless, calm, majestic in Its march,
Alike, though Nature shake heaven’s endless arch,
Or man’s heart break, because of some dead face!
’Tis felt in sunshine greening the soft sod,
In children’s smiling, as in mother’s tears;
And, for strange comfort, through the aching years,
Men’s hungry souls have named that great Heart, God! -Margaret Deland, 1917

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

The Fortunes...................................You've Got Your Troubles



version with better sound quality is here.

A lot of work just for a parking space..............

courtesy of

Wisdom hanging on an office wall.................

Perhaps a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, but perhaps not.  One version of the tale is here.

Speaking of Emerson..............................

"The true doctrine of omnipresence is, that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay Compensation

It is........................................................

Mason Proffit..................................................It's All Right

Fluxion......................................

Know yourself - and is this the prime
And heaven-sprung adage of the olden time! -
Say, canst thou make thyself? - Learn first that trade; -
Haply thou mayst know what thyself had made.
What hast thou, Man, that thou dar'st call thine own? -
What is there in thee, Man, that can be known? -
Dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought,
A phantom dim of past and future wrought,
Vain sister of the worm, - life, death, soul, clod -
Ignore thyself, and strive to know thy God!

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge,  Self-Knowledge

Leviathan..............................

“Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.” 
-Herman Melville

But sometimes it is, and............................

...................................................don't you think that part of this life's journey is figuring out when it is and when isn't?

via

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

The Beau Brummels.................................................Just A Little

Suffice..............................................

"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problem."-Mahatma Gandhi.

Could do/intend to do/did do are very different things.

Occasionally check your aspirations against your accomplishments.

A high ratio means wasted potential.

courtesy of the Business Wisdom blog

You know what this means........................?

A recent study by the National Institute on Retirement Security concluded 40 million, or 45%, of working Americans do not have a single penny saved for retirement. -Source

Kierkagaard notwithstanding......................

...it has been my experience that life gives both quizzes and tests.

courtesy of

Guitar hero.............................................

Santana............................................................Oye Como Va

Choices..........................................

"Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

gif via

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

Despite the mist, she spent an hour working Chica, and working herself, and she smelled of it, mare-sweat and woman-sweat, with a tingle of Chanel No. 5.  They'd turned down the trail from the south forty, easing along, and she could feel the mare's heart beating through her knees and thighs.
-John Sanford,  Dead Watch

If aphorisms are your thing...............

...............................................................follow Kelly Hartland.

This is a good sign...........................................

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

The Beach Boys................................Dance, Dance, Dance

Don't know if it's progressive, but it sounds OK......

Truth....................................................

Decide............................................

thanks maggie

A boy tries hard.....................................

U2....................................................................I Will Follow



Thanks Rob

Tell us something we don't know.................

............................and we're a bit more than halfway done.

Finally.....................

More non-traditional self -help books here.

One of these days.....................................

..................................I'd like to visit John E. Smith's library.

Kind of quiet around here...................

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

Herman's Hermits.................................Just A Little Bit Better

I suspect there are as many blogs............

..............as there are stars in the Milky Way, but in case you're looking for one to check regularly, do visit Swiss-Miss.  She rocks.

Say it isn't so.......................................

.................................................Is Tootsie Roll truly at risk?

via

Everything is......................................

I'm wondering if cut-and-pasting is creative.....

As band names go, this one's not too bad.......

Sniff 'n' the Tears..............................................Driver's Seat



thanks Andrew

Some interesting excerpts.......................

         By training an entire generation of foreign bankers in American methods, Citibank helped create its own competition.  But Wriston, who was convinced that there was nothing more dangerous than a dumb competitor, reasoned that the bank would benefit in the long run.

-------------------------------------------------------

        At an auspicious June 30, 1961 luncheon, Kennedy lamented the poor quality of personnel who were working for the U. S. government in its foreign affairs agencies and asked Wriston and the other business and labor leaders to help him find better people for these jobs ... Wriston wanted to help.  but he told the president bluntly that top executives were reluctant to serve in government because of the difficulties they would have to face when they tried to return to their old jobs, particularly the grilling they would be forced to endure on potential conflicts of interest.  In fact, Wriston asserted, the government should try to recruit people who did have a conflict of interest, because they were the only ones capable of accomplishing anything.

--------------------------------------------------------

       For his part, Wriston parted ways with Saxon on the notion of merging all of the bank regulatory agencies into a single agency.  He favored competition among regulators just as he did among banks.  "Every industry that's been regulated by one federal regulator has gone bankrupt over time,"  Wriston said later.  "The number one example, of course, is the railroads."

-------------------------------------------------------

       All of this would reinforce for Wriston the folly of government interference in economic and financial markets and would soon demonstrate once again the principle that Wriston referred to as the "unintended secondary consequence of primary events."


-Phillip L. Zweig,  Wriston:  Walter Wriston, Citibank, and the Rise and Fall of American Financial Supremacy

A tragic comedy..............................................

Spengler turns his eye towards China and pens a most interesting essay concerning, among other things, the U. S. of A., China, and the Middle East.  I wonder if anyone in Washington reads and thinks about what he writes?

"Opinion is divided between those who think that America is merely incompetent and those who think that America deliberately wants to destabilize the Persian Gulf."

The all-purpose cosmetic..............................

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

Peter & Gordon...................................................I Go To Pieces

How to get the kitty to take a bath.............

Make everyday................................

....................................................................a self-care day.

Thanks Nan

Satisfied.............................................

"A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future."
-Albert Einstein

It's our way and its the best way.................

John Denver & Cass Elliot...................Leaving On A Jet Plane

I guess this means..............................

.........................................the Arctic is not yet ice-free.

It’s not something Parks Canada’s underwater archaeologists can handle on their own, so for nine weeks they’ve been working with expert ice divers from the Royal Canadian Navy’s Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic. Parks Canada divers and the Navy divers have been training together so that the former can learn how to dive safely in below-freezing water under a sheet of ice that’s at least six feet thick (a terrifying practice known as confined space diving) and the latter can learn how to properly handle an underwater archaeological site and its artifacts.

The History Blog offers this story of human determination and grit, the recovery of the HMS Erebus.

More on the tale of the HMS Erebus here.

The word itself..................................

thanks for reminding me, Michael

So, I read this sentence.......................

...............................................on Arnold Kling's blog:

"I like to say that money is a consensual hallucination, using the phrase that William Gibson coined to describe cyberspace, a term that he also coined."

............and I wondered, "who is William Gibson?"   According to the all-knowing Wiki, William Gibson "is an American-Canadian writer who has been called the 'noir prophet' of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction."  If that doesn't raise the curiosity level, I'm not sure what will.  Anyway, Gibson is fairly quotable.  Here is a wee sample:

On the most basic level, computers in my books are simply a metaphor for human memory: I'm interested in the hows and whys of memory, the ways it defines who and what we are, in how easily memory is subject to revision. 

The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed.

The NET is a waste of time, and that's exactly what's right about it.

This perpetual toggling between nothing being new, under the sun, and everything having very recently changed, absolutely, is perhaps the central driving tension of my work.

Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts…

 It's that truth-is-stranger-than-fiction factor keeps getting jacked up on us on a fairly regular, maybe even exponential, basis. I think that's something peculiar to our time. I don't think our grandparents had to live with that.

I think of religions as franchise operations. Like chicken franchise operations. But that doesn't mean there's nochicken, right?

“Honey,” Jammer said, “you'll learn. Some things you teach yourself to remember to forget.”

The future is not google-able.

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

"The most astonishing thing about the extraordinary outpouring of growth and innovation that the United States and other economies have achieved over the past two centuries is that it does not astonish us."

Source, and another excerpt here.  Full article is behind the WSJ paywall, that I have chosen not to breech.

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

Gene Pitney............................Last Chance To Turn Around

Key ingredient.........................

      Walter used to read the short biographies of successful people in Who's Who, seeking some common thread or a key ingredient in a person's success.  He concluded that there was none.  "I was struck by the fact that there was no pattern."
-Phillip L. Zweig,  Wriston:  Walter Wriston, Citibank, and the Rise and Fall of American Financial Supremacy

I'd bet a nickel that there was a pattern, a pattern in the way they organized their minds and controlled their thoughts.  Just saying.

The Right Thing.....................................

Let others probe the mystery if they can.
Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will -
The right thing happens to the happy man.

The bird flies out, the bird flies back again;
The hill becomes the valley, and is still;
Let others delve that mystery if they can.

God bless the roots! - Body and soul are one!
The small become the great, the great the small;
The right thing happens to the happy man.

Child of the dark, he can out leap the sun,
His being single, and that being all:
The right thing happens to the happy man.

Or he sits still, a solid figure when
The self-destructive shake the common wall;
Takes to himself what mystery he can,

And, praising change as the slow night comes on,
Wills what he would, surrendering his will
Till mystery is no more: No more he can.
The right thing happens to the happy man.

-Theodore Roethke
via

Sometimes a downward trend is a good thing....

The Calculated Risk blog posts this chart on "energy expenditures as a percentage of consumer spending":

Larger image (where you can actually read the dates) is here

A generation's anthem...............................

The Snake Oil Willie Band..........I Don't Look Good Naked Anymore



thanks jonco

On listening...........................................

      As Wriston's responsibilities broadened, he remembered what his father had told him about the willingness of people to spill their guts to an interested listener.  Plying subordinates with jelly beans as his father did was not Walter Wriston's style.  In the late afternoon, Wriston would walk the sixth floor, sit down in his subordinates' guest chairs, put his feet on their desk, and puff on his cigar.  "He'd sit there with his feet on your desk and chew the fat," said a former overseas hand.  Said Wriston, "If you go out and walk around the floor talking with the bookkeepers, if you create a climate where people know you care what they're saying they'll tell you a lot.  That's really your data base on operations."  Over the next thirty years, Wriston would make his fair share of mistakes, but failing to listen to workers in the trenches would be the least of them.

      Both Henry and Walter Wriston were fascinated with the gathering and dissemination of information.  Early in his banking career, Wriston concluded that information about money was more important to the business than money itself.

-Phillip L. Zweig,  Wriston:  Walter Wriston, Citibank, and the Rise and Fall of American Financial Supremacy

From time to time we have joked...............

.............that Ohio's long term economic growth plan was to just hold on until the southwest ran out of water.  Not looking so funny now.   This could get very interesting.

Hi-ho, Hi-ho, it's off to work I go..................

thanks craig

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

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles...........The Tracks Of My Tears

Almost always worth asking.......................

thanks

Keeping Things Whole........................

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

-Mark Strand

Why living forever................................

..................................will be difficult for us baby boomers.

Come....................................................