March 4, 2011

Quotes of the week

A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged; a liberal is a conservative who’s been indicted; and a passionate prison reformer is a conservative who’s in one.

Websites of the week

http://musicovery.com

The culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

Are we lazy of what!

Poem of the Week

The Wasteland – T S Eliot

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

Read the rest here

Happy Leap day!

Quotes of the week

 “Through our willingness to help others we can learn to be happy rather than depressed.”
Gerald Jampolsky

“Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof.”
Ashley Montague

“They always talk who never think, and who have the least to say.”
Matthew Prior

“When ideas fail, words come in very handy.”
Goethe

“We are so accustomed to wearing a disguise before others that eventually we are unable to recognize ourselves.”
Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Websites of the week

Old photos

Antidepressants are the new snake oil 1

Anti-depressants are the new snake oil 2

Vintage mug shots

Women can be bad too (Mom ~is that my grandma in that mug shot?

All images are courtesy of the Historic Houses Trust. Be sure to check out their site for more fascinating historical images.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a nonpartisan organization dedicated to preserving church-state separation to ensure religious freedom for all Americans.

Search America's historic newspapers pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. 

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Cool shoes at http://www.sanuk.com/

The culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

Drive through counseling

Meditation of the week

On this day in 1895, Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest opened in London. He wrote the first draft in just 21 days, the fastest he'd ever written anything. The play tells the story of a man named Jack Worthing who pretends to have a younger brother named Earnest. Jack uses the imaginary Earnest as an excuse for getting out of all kinds of situations, and even pretends to be Earnest when that suits his purposes. At the same time, Jack's friend Algernon Moncrieff also begins impersonating the imaginary Earnest. When two women fall in love with Jack and Algernon, they both think they are in love with a man named Earnest. It comes out in the end that Jack and Algernon are themselves actually long lost brothers.

Wilde said that The Importance of Being Earnest expressed his philosophy that "we should treat all the trivial things of life very seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality."

Poem I of the Week

I’d Rather be the Father

by Faith Shearin

Right from the start, it's easier to be the father: no morning
nausea, no stretch marks. You can wait outside the

delivery room and keep your clothes on. Notice how
closely the word mother resembles smother, notice

how she is either too strict or too lenient: wrong for giving up
everything or not enough. Psychology books blame her

for whatever is the matter with all of us while the father
slips into the next room for a beer. I wanted to be

the rational one, the one who told a joke at dinner.
If I were her father we would throw a ball across

the lawn while the grill fills with smoke. But who
wants to be the mother? Who wants to tell her what

to wear and deliver her to the beauty shop and explain
bras and tampons? Who wants to show her what

a woman still is? I am supposed to teach her how to
wash the dishes and do the laundry only I don't want

her to grow up and be like me. I'd rather be the father
who tells her she is loved; I'd rather take her fishing

and teach her to skip stones across the lake of history;
I'd rather show her how far she can spit.

Poem II of the week

My Dead Friends

by Marie Howe

I have begun,
when I'm weary and can't decide an answer to a bewildering question

to ask my dead friends for their opinion
and the answer is often immediate and clear.

Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child
in my middle age?

They stand in unison shaking their heads and smiling—whatever leads
to joy, they always answer,

to more life and less worry. I look into the vase where Billy's ashes were —
it's green in there, a green vase,

and I ask Billy if I should return the difficult phone call, and he says, yes.
Billy's already gone through the frightening door,

whatever he says I'll do.

February 8, 2012

Quotes of the week

Old wisdom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapharmakos

Don't fear god,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure

“America is a country which produces citizens who will cross the ocean to fight for democracy but won't cross the street to vote.”
Unknown

Websites of the week

http://inoveryourhead.net/100-tips-about-life/

The culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

The Fireplace delusion

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-fireplace-delusion

Poem of the Week

Going to Heaven

by Emily Dickinson

Going to heaven!
I don't know when,
Pray do not ask me how,--
Indeed, I'm too astonished
To think of answering you!
Going to heaven!--
How dim it sounds!
And yet it will be done
As sure as flocks go home at night
Unto the shepherd's arm!

Perhaps you're going too!
Who knows?
If you should get there first,
Save just a little place for me
Close to the two I lost!
The smallest "robe" will fit me,
And just a bit of "crown";
For you know we do not mind our dress
When we are going home.

I'm glad I don't believe it,
For it would stop my breath,
And I'd like to look a little more
At such a curious earth!
I am glad they did believe it
Whom I have never found
Since the mighty autumn afternoon
I left them in the ground.

Video of the week

New office New office!

Old office http://youtu.be/r5S4ecVDMkM

January 21, 2012

Quotes of the week

“Money, as it increases, becomes either the master or the slave of its owner.” Unknown

“If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam.”
Johnny Carson

Websites of the week

Then and now

http://irinawerning.com/back-to-the-fut/back-to-the-future?refid=0

http://irinawerning.com/bttf2/back-to-the-future-2-2011/

We have the time and money for stuff like this in America! http://allbobbleheads.com/

http://www.colbertsuperpac.com/episodeiv-anewhope/

http://freecabinporn.com/

The culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

http://beybeyname.com/

Poem of the Week

A Short Panegyric

by Mark Strand

Now that the vegetarian nightmare is over and we are back to
our diet of meat and deep in the sway of our dark and beauty-
ful habits and able to speak with calm of having survived, let
the breeze of the future touch and retouch our large and hun-
gering bodies. Let us march to market to embrace the butcher
and put the year of the carrot, the month of the onion behind
us, let us worship the roast or the stew that takes its place once
again at the scared center of the dining room table.

Photo of the Week

January 9, 2012

Quotes of the week

“Your goals, minus your doubts, equal your reality.”Ralph Marston

“Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.” Wayne Dyer

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves. Carl Jung

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose. Carl Jung

“Retirement without literary amusements is death itself, and a living tomb.”Unknown

Websites of the week

Perform Everyday Tasks for Free

The culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

The scale of the universe

Poem of the Week

Harmony in the Boudoir

by Mark Strand

After years of marriage, he stands at the foot of the bed and
tells his wife that she will never know him, that for everything
he says there is more that he does not say, that behind each
word he utters there is another word, and hundreds more be-
hind that one. All those unsaid words, he says, contain his true
self, which has been betrayed by the superficial self before her.
"So you see," he says, kicking off his slippers, "I am more than
what I have led you to believe I am." "Oh, you silly man," says
his wife, "of course you are. I find that just thinking of you
having so many selves receding into nothingness is very excit-
ing. That you barely exist as you are couldn't please me more." 

January 1st, 2012

Quotes of the week

“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.”
George Bernard Shaw

“To look up and not down, To look forward and not back, To look out and not in--and To lend a hand.”
Edward Everett Hale

Websites of the week

       Play with this for a few minutes

        back to the future

Siri is the assistant on the new Iphone and she says some hilarious stuff

And the answer to “ I need to bury and body”

And a parody (language alert)

The culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

WORST Facebook Profile Pics EVER! http://youtu.be/QUvLZeDgU-c

Song of the Week

School song- Larry Goldings

Poem of the Week

The Clock

by Dennis O'Driscoll

With only one story to tell, the clock strikes
a monotonous note, irrespective of how
musical the bell, how gilded the chimes
its timely conclusions report through.
Time literally on hands, it informs you
to your face exactly where you stand
in relation to your aspirations, stacks up
the odds against your long-term prospects,
leaves your hopes and expectations checked.
Keeping track of time to the last second, it gives
the lie to all small talk about your reputedly
youthful looks, sees through the subterfuge
of dyed hair, exposes the stark truth beneath
the massaged evidence of smooth skin.