On acid and Prozac.....................

via

Can I get an Amen..............?

"We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works."

-Douglas Adams (with more cool quotes found by following this link)

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

Led Zeppelin......................................................You Shook Me

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

Led Zeppelin.......................................Babe I'm Gonna Leave You

Maybe I'll start reading...................

....................................................Tom Friedman's stuff again.

As we've said many times before............

.......................normalcy is merely the psychosis of the majority.

thank you, kind sir

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

Led Zeppelin.............................................Good Times Bad Times

Adding and subtracting....................

Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul.

-Jeremy Bentham

On love........................................

Love and relationships are the ends—everything else is just the means.  We, as a species, segment love.  When we are young, we take in love—our parents', teachers', caregivers'.  When we enter adulthood, we find transactional love;  we love others in exchange for something in return—their love, security, or intimacy.  Then there's complete love, surrendering to loving someone regardless of whether they love you back, or whether you get anything in return, for that matter.  No conditions, no exchange, just a decision to love this person and focus solely on their well-being.
     Love received is comforting, love reciprocated is rewarding, and love given completely is eternal.

-Scott Gallowy,  The Algebra of Happiness:  Notes on the Pursuit of Success, Love, and Meaning

"Milkshaking"..........................

………………………………...is not such a new thing:

Savor the work.........................

…………………………………..by slowing down.

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

The Allman Brothers Band.....................Black Hearted Woman

On truth.............................

"A truth is a useful, reliable statement of how the world is. You can ignore it, but it will cost you, because the world won’t work the way you hope it will. You can dislike the truth, but pretending it isn’t true isn’t an effective way to accomplish your goals or to further our culture."

-Seth Godin

Fred Reed, bless his heart.................

....................................gives some thought to Darwin and the state of our universities.   A few wee excerpts:

As an interested layman of lukewarm but engaged intelligence, I would say thusly to the Department of Biology: “If you want to discredit Mr. Behe and persuade the thoughtful public of your views, perhaps you should go beyond assertions of virtue and actually answer some of Mr. Behi’s questions. And mine. The best way to quash dissent is to show it to be wrong. Please do so.”

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

Abiogenesis? The fact is (tell me why it is not a fact) that the Biology Department does not know of what the ancient seas consisted, does not know what seas would be necessary for life to appear, bearing in mind that reactions depend crucially on concentrations, pH, reducing or oxidizing atmosphere, temperature, half-life of intermediates, and so on; cannot reproduce the event in the laboratory; cannot draw a reproducing, metabolizing molecule on paper; and cannot show the event to be mathematically probable. What reason, really, is there to believe that it happened, other than that the Biology Department cannot think of another acceptable explanation?

The response of the orthodox is usually “billions and billions of years,” and “lots and lots of seawater.” This is so vague as to embarrass a football player majoring in Breathing for Credit.

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

At no risk of making friends in the Department: Darwin’s idea was less scientific than metaphysical, more akin to the elan vital or the will to power than to the Principia Mathematica. Like Communism, Christianity, Islam, and Freudian psychiatry, it was an overarching explanation of vast tracts of existence. These have emotional appeal and attract ardent adherents. Evolution inevitably was interpreted by the common run of men as a sort of biological Coueism, “Every day in every way, we are getting better and better.” as a human progression toward the more advanced and admirable. Of course it said no such thing, but few noticed.

Almost makes me wonder.................

........................................what Bo Derek has been doing lately.

via

Does this strike you as ironic...................?

Every time Democrats look at a problem, they think of a program. And while those programs often point the way forward, they need to focus their energy on convincing the middle class that they share their values more than just their economic interests. There is more to voters than their wallets. To do that, Democrats need to prove to them that they know the difference between right and wrong, and that begins with owning the terms accountability and responsibility. No matter how privileged, Democrats need to be the ones demanding that those who fall short be made to answer for their own decisions. Every one of us should have to live by the same moral and ethical codes. The nation’s elite shouldn’t have any special license to take the easy way out.


-Rahm Emanuel, as extracted from here


via

Color me.................................

....................................................................a winner!

in the familiar fabric of dawn...............

You can
die for it—
an idea,
or the world.  People

have done so, 
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound

to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light.  But 

this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought

Of China, 
and India
and Europe, and I thought
how the sun

blazes 
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises

under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?

What is the name
of the breath I would take
over and over
for all of us?  Call it

whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.

-Mary Oliver,  Sunrise

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

The Allman Brothers Band...................................Whipping Post

Tougher than it looks........................

Most people will get much more out of destroying their own wrong ideas than trying to come up with new ones all the time.  Once you get rid of the clutter, all that's left will be the good stuff that you can use to improve your results.

-Ben Carlson, from A Wealth of Common Sense