Question of the ages................

Not sure this settles it, but.................I agree.




thanks gerard

Not so fast........................

via

This is how life is...................

A bit longish, but a world record Kazoo band attempt

Time to celebrate..................!

From the Heartland, news you can use - here.
(Checking in with The Strategic Learner is always a good idea)

Somehow...............................

William Bell......................I Forgot To Be Your Lover (1968)

 


 Robert Cray........................I Forgot To Be Your Lover (2005)

 

Dissing the weatherpeople.............

Compared to our friends at Sippican Cottage, where they have been coping with some serious cold, we are having positively balmy weather here in Central Ohio.  While coping, Greg has taken notice of the annoying tendencies of the weatherpeople, as in:

"There's some sort of IMPENDING DOOM banner displayed most every day, and they've taken to naming snowstorms that bring a half-inch of snow that's not worth shoveling as if they're arctic typhoons."

If you enjoy wordsmithing, check out his essay here.

50 years ago..........................

Hippy Hippy Shake...................The Swinging Blue Jeans

 

The gift that keeps on giving..............

The gift of imperfections.........

Thanks Todd

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

The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.  As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors.  It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares.  A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp fires set in the low brows of distant hills.
-Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

Curious..............................

"Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the lifeblood of real civilization."
-George Macaulay Trevelyan


image via

Question of the day......................

If spammers go to all the trouble of inundating us with their "check out my website at ...." messages, why don't they take the time to write (or to program their computer to write) a coherent message, or at least one appropriate to the post they attach the comment to?

A typical sample:

Hey There,  I found your blog the usage of msn.  That is a really well written article,  I'll be sure to book mark it and return to read extra of your helpful info.  Thanks for the post.  I'll definitely return. Also visit my page - http://etc.etc.etc.

My really well written article referred to in the spam was the YouTube video of the Rocky Fellers singing Killer Joe.

History..............................

Bob Marley & the Wailers..............Buffalo Soldier

Life.......................

         Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

-Langston Hughes

image via

If this is Sunday..............

...then one of my heroes will be suggesting that we "find
something beautiful today."   Just doing my part.

50 years ago.....................

The Rocky Fellers..................Killer Joe

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

My Father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons.  He sent me to Emanuel-College in Cambridge, at Fourteen Years old, where I resided three Year, and applied my self close to my Studies:  But the Charge of maintaining me (although I had a very scanty Allowance) being too great for a narrow Fortune; I was bound Apprentice to Mr. James Bates, and eminent Surgeon in London, with whom I continued four Years; and my Father now and then sending me small Sums of Money, I laid them out in learning Navigation, and other Parts of the Mathematicks, useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be some time or other my Fortune to do.  When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my Father; where, by the Assistance of him, and my Uncle John, and some other relations, I got Forty Pounds, and a Promise of Thirty Pounds a Year to maintain me at Leyden:  There I studied Physick two Years and seven Months, knowing it would be useful in long Voyages.
-Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

Ed. Note:  One has to admire Swift's aggressive use of Capitalization, colons, and semi-colons.  Miss Francis never taught us to write like that back in the Eighth Grade.

Trivia question of the day...................

What was Gulliver's first name?

Non-partisan.....................

"One part of government action is non-partisan:  force.  All government officials believe that their efforts to control people, observe people, and force people to bend to their will is justified."
-Mungowitz, from here

It's an unfair world......................

......and us bricks and mortar people are a bit nervous about this:

Further proof.................

....of an unfair world.  The instinct to chase squirrels,
but no ability to climb trees.