Those who recite many scriptures but fail to practice their teachings are like a cowherd counting another's cows.
The Dhammapada
...everything is too important ever to be entrusted to professional experts, because every organization of such professionals and every established social organization becomes a vested-interest institution more concerned with its efforts to maintain itself or advance its own interests than to achieve the purpose that society expects it to achieve.
~Carroll Quigley
“One may be old in years, but not in spirit, or poor in wealth, but not in ambition.”
Chinese proverb
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
Albert Einstein (1875-1955), theoretical physicist, philosopher (1875-1955), theoretical physicist, philosopher
Poem of the Week
I CAN, by Edgar A. Guest
Can’t is a word that is foe to ambition;
An enemy ambush to shatter your will.
It’s prey forever to a man with a mission;
And bows only to courage, and patience, and skill.
So hate it with hatred that’s deep and undying,
For once it is welcomed twill break any man.
And whatever the goal you are seeking, Keep trying!
And answer this demon by saying, "I Can!"
Author of the week
It's the birthday of journalist Molly Ivins, (books by this author) born in Monterey, California (1944) and raised in Houston, Texas. She went to a New England liberal arts college and to Columbia's School of Journalism and spent years covering the police beat for the Minneapolis Tribune (the first woman to do so) before moving back to Texas, the setting and subject of much of her life's writing. In a biographical blurb she wrote about herself for a Web site, she proclaimed, "Molly Ivins is a nationally syndicated political columnist who remains cheerful despite Texas politics. She emphasizes the more hilarious aspects of both state and national government, and consequently never has to write fiction."
Ivins especially liked to poke fun at the Texas Legislature, which she referred to as "the Lege."
She gave George W. Bush the nickname "Shrub" and also referred to him as a post turtle (based on an old joke: the turtle didn't get there itself, doesn't belong there, and needs help getting out of the dilemma). She had actually known President Bush since they were teenagers in Houston. She poked fun at Democrats, too, and said about Bill Clinton: "If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili. But the man is so constantly subjected to such hideous and unfair abuse that I wind up standing up for him on the general principle that some fairness should be applied. Besides, no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal." Clinton later said that Molly Ivins "was good when she praised me and painfully good when she criticized me."
Her fiery liberal columns caused a lot of debate in Texas, with newspaper readers always writing in to complain. One time, she wrote about the Republican congressman from Dallas: "If his IQ slips any lower we'll have to water him twice a day." It generated a storm of controversy, and the paper she wrote for decided to use it to their advantage, to boost readership. They started placing advertisements on billboards all over Dallas that said, "Molly Ivins can't say that … can she?" She used the line as the title of her first book (published in 1991).
She went on to write several best-selling books, including Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush — which was actually written and published in 2000, before George W. Bush had been elected to the White House. Ivins later said, "The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please, pay attention."
Molly Ivins died of breast cancer a couple of years ago, at the age of 62. She once wrote: "Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that."
Molly Ivins once said: "I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives."
And, "The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion."
"There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all." ~Ogden Nash
One today is worth two tomorrows. ~Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac
Boy, when you are dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a god dam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you are dead? Nobody.~J. D. Salinger
Meditation of the week
It was on this day in 1920 that the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote. Seventy-two years earlier, at the Seneca Falls Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott had called for the rights of women, and begun the cause of women's suffrage.
Charlotte Woodward was the only one of the women who signed the Declaration who was still alive to see this day in 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified. She was 91 years old. But she herself never got to vote—she was sick on election day in 1920, and by the next spring confined to her house, and probably died soon after.
Growing up in a small town,
we didn't notice
the background figures of our lives,
gray men, gnarled women,
dropping from us silently
like straightpins to a dressmaker's floor.
The old did not die
but simply vanished
like discs of snow on our tongues.
We knew nothing then of nothingness
or pain or loss—
our days filled with open fields,
football,
turtles and cows.
One day we noticed
Death has a musty breath,
that some we loved
died dreadfully,
that dying
sometimes takes time.
Now, standing in a supermarket line
or easing out of a parking lot,
we realize
we've become the hazy backgrounds
of younger lives.
How long has it been,
we ask no one in particular,
since we've seen a turtle
or a cow?
Author of the week
It's the birthday of a great writer who passed away just last month, Frank McCourt, (books by this author) born on this day in Brooklyn (1930). His parents were Irish immigrants, and when Frank was four years old, the family moved back to Ireland. McCourt had a difficult childhood, living in extreme poverty with an alcoholic father who was often absent. Three of his six brothers and sisters died from malnutrition and disease. He wrote: "People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying school masters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years. Above all — we were wet."
When Frank McCourt was 19, he managed to make it back to America, where he worked at a hotel and at a hat factory. Then he was drafted into the Army and fought in Germany. Afterward, the Army let him go to college on the GI bill, even though he didn't have a high school education. And from there, he became a teacher. He taught English in the New York public schools for 30 years, and he frequently told his students stories about his childhood.
And then, after he retired, he started to write his story. But he struggled with the voice. He had written about 20 pages, and one night he made a note for himself about something he wanted to write about the next day, and he jotted it down in a simple present tense. And it felt right, so the next day he started writing in the voice of a child, and that became his memoir of his childhood in Ireland, Angela's Ashes (1996). It won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and it stayed on the New York Times best seller list for two years. He followed it up with two more memoirs, 'Tis (1999) and Teacher Man (2005).
I was at Summerfest this weekend in York SC and it was getting hot so we were leaving. As we headed for the car, I heard this blues band playing and there was a short guy, just tearingup the lead guitar. I got closer and was transfixed by this phenomenal guitar player, Jake Haldenwang. They played Statesboro blues and I would have sworn it was Duane Allman playing lead. Only it wasn’t quite Duane’s style, or anybody else’s style, It was Jakes style. Pam found out his name and that he is only 13 years old!
He played another song, this time using a slide, and he struggled with the slide, you could see he was frustrated, so he threw off the slide and just went off on the lead part, really put his heart into it. Wow. Here is his Youtube page
http://www.lifetuner.org/LifeTuner is a new expert-backed Web site sponsored by AARP that aims to provide a simple roadmap to help young Americans achieve financial security.
Mexico Eases Ban on Drug Possession Those found in possession of the equivalent of four joints of marijuana, or four lines of cocaine will no longer be viewed as criminals. Instead they will be encouraged to seek government-funded drug treatment, which will be compulsory if users are caught a third time. The new law applies to a wide range of drugs, including heroin and methamphetamine.
You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet. ~Hal Borland
For love of the ox the wolf licks the yoke. ~Proverb, (Catalan)
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.~Mark Twain
THIS IS WHY THERE'S A RULE: Donna Munson, 74, fed dog food to bears around her mountain home near Ouray, Colo., despite 10 years of plea from state officials to stop. "It got to the point where she never opened her door for us, allowed us on her property or answered her phone," a state Department of Wildlife spokesman said. Munson even built a wire fence around her porch so she could hand food through it directly to the bears. Munson's handyman arrived to find her outside her home -- being eaten by a bear. Responding sheriff's deputies killed it, but Munson was already dead. Several other aggressive bears in the area have had to be killed this summer, and wildlife officials say they'll likely have to kill about a dozen more: they've lost their natural feeding instincts and instead approach humans when they're hungry. "More bears are going to be killed because of what this woman did," said an angry local. "It's a bad situation, and people are not happy about it." (Ouray Plaindealer, Denver Post) ...A fed bear is a dead bear.
Poem of the Week
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
You can't be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet. ~Hal Borland
For love of the ox the wolf licks the yoke. ~Proverb, (Catalan)
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together to hurt you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.~Mark Twain
THIS IS WHY THERE'S A RULE: Donna Munson, 74, fed dog food to bears around her mountain home near Ouray, Colo., despite 10 years of plea from state officials to stop. "It got to the point where she never opened her door for us, allowed us on her property or answered her phone," a state Department of Wildlife spokesman said. Munson even built a wire fence around her porch so she could hand food through it directly to the bears. Munson's handyman arrived to find her outside her home -- being eaten by a bear. Responding sheriff's deputies killed it, but Munson was already dead. Several other aggressive bears in the area have had to be killed this summer, and wildlife officials say they'll likely have to kill about a dozen more: they've lost their natural feeding instincts and instead approach humans when they're hungry. "More bears are going to be killed because of what this woman did," said an angry local. "It's a bad situation, and people are not happy about it." (Ouray Plaindealer, Denver Post) ...A fed bear is a dead bear.
Poem of the Week
The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor
(Editor’s note: don’t read this!)Thanks Lee!
§I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.
§More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.
§Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
§I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?
§Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.
§That's enough, Nickelback.
§I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
§The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase "Regards" again.
§Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.
§There is a great need for sarcasm font.
§Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the fuck was going on when I first saw it.
§I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.
§The other night I hit a new low at an open bar. I had already hopped on highway blackout when, inevitably I had to find a bathroom. Eventually I decided it was probably on the other side of the bar so I tried to walk over there, but ran into a guy coming the other way. We played that, Both go left, Both go right game to no avail, so I finally put out my hand to guide myself past and that's is when I realized, yup, that's a mirror I just tried to walk through. And the guy on the other side is me. Even cats can re cognize their own image.
§How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
§I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.
§I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
§The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying to finish a text.
§A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.
§Was learning cursive really necessary?
§Lol has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".
§I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
§Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.
§My brother's Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, "Cuz we beat you, and you hate us." Classy, bro.
§Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".
§How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?
§I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!
§Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"
§What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?
§While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.
§MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
§Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
§I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.
§Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
§I would like to officially coin the phrase 'catching the swine flu' to be used as a way to make fun of a friend for hooking up with an overweight woman. Example: "Dave caught the swine flu last night."
§I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
§Bad decisions make good stories
§Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!
§Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?
§If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.
§Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....
§You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.
§Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.
§There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.
§I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.
§"Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.
§I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'
§While watching the Olympics, I find myself cheering equally for China and USA. No, I am not of Chinese descent, but I am fairly certain that when Chinese athletes don't win, they are executed.
§I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damnit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?
§I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.
§When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.
§I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.
§Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...
§As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.
§Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
§It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.
§I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
§I think that if, years down the road when I'm trying to have a kid, I find out that I'm sterile, most of my disappointment will stem from the fact that I was not aware of my condition in college.
§Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.
§Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...
§My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?
§It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.
§I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.
§I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
§I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.
§The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimate d that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.
