Quotes of the week
“Beliefs are
dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind
is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.”
Tool
Tool
“You own a dog;
you feed a cat.”
Jim Fiebig
Jim Fiebig
Websites of the week
Procrastination
flowchart (hilarious, thanks Rob; I wasted 20 minutes on this!)
The culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor
Meditation of the week
If my life were like a ship on the sea, today I will be
the navigator.
I may have been used to someone else steering my ship or telling me which way to go. I may have felt that I had no control over my own life, and I probably didn't. I will take the wheel and read my own map. I will decide which way my ship will go and which route I will take. Even though I may choose to have a crew of advisers who can help me, I will be the one to chart my course.
I realize that on the sea of life, I can't control the weather, but I'm perfectly capable of adjusting my sails.
I may have been used to someone else steering my ship or telling me which way to go. I may have felt that I had no control over my own life, and I probably didn't. I will take the wheel and read my own map. I will decide which way my ship will go and which route I will take. Even though I may choose to have a crew of advisers who can help me, I will be the one to chart my course.
I realize that on the sea of life, I can't control the weather, but I'm perfectly capable of adjusting my sails.
Poem of the Week
Three-Legged Blues
Always you were given
one too many, one too few.
What almost happens, doesn't.
What might be lost, you'll lose.
The crows will eat your garden.
Weeds will get what's left.
Your cats will be three-legged,
your house's mice be blessed.
One friend will take your husband,
another wear your dress.
No, it isn't what you wanted.
It isn't what you'd choose.
Your floors have always slanted.
Your roof has paid its dues.
Life delivered you a present—
a too-small pair of shoes.
What almost happened, won't now.
What can be lost, you'll lose.
one too many, one too few.
What almost happens, doesn't.
What might be lost, you'll lose.
The crows will eat your garden.
Weeds will get what's left.
Your cats will be three-legged,
your house's mice be blessed.
One friend will take your husband,
another wear your dress.
No, it isn't what you wanted.
It isn't what you'd choose.
Your floors have always slanted.
Your roof has paid its dues.
Life delivered you a present—
a too-small pair of shoes.
What almost happened, won't now.
What can be lost, you'll lose.
Song of the week
Losing You by Randy Newman
Stuff that can’t happen without religion of the Week
A period that roughly spanned the spring and summer of 1692, the Salem Witch Trials started when two young girls began displaying bizarre behaviors — convulsing, shouting blasphemy, and generally acting like they were possessed. The girls were the daughter and niece of Samuel Parris, a minister relatively new to town but already divisive. He'd moved from Boston, where an account of young children who were supposedly "bewitched" by a laundress was published. Parris had insisted on a higher salary and certain perks as the village reverend, and insinuated in his sermons that those who opposed him were in cahoots with the Devil.
After the girls' behavior gained attention and was pronounced the result of an evil spell, several other girls in town began acting strangely too ... and began naming individuals in town as the cause. The town was whipped into a frenzy, and soon dozens of people — women, men, and children — were accused of and often jailed for practicing or supporting witchcraft. Many of the accusations seemed to fall along the lines of existing feuds, or were directed at people who were — because they were poor, not upstanding members of the church, or marginalized in some way — not likely to mount a convincing defense.
By the time the final
eight people were hanged on September 22, word about the trials was spreading
throughout the state. Within weeks the governor of Massachusetts declared
"spectral evidence," or visions of a person's spirit doing evil when
in fact their physical body was elsewhere, was inadmissible. Soon after, he
barred any further arrests, disbanded the local court, and released many of the
accused. It wasn't until the following spring that he finally pardoned those
who remained in jail. A full decade passed before the trials of 1692 were
officially declared illegal, another nine before the names of the accused were
cleared from all wrongdoing and their heirs given a restitution, and 265 years
before the state of Massachusetts apologized for the events of that most
infamous witch hunt.
