It is a great tragedy that science, this wonderful process for finding out what is true, has ceded the spiritual uplift of its central revelations: the vastness of the universe, the immensity of time, the relatedness of all life, and life’s preciousness on our tiny planet.
~ Ann Druyan from, Ann Druyan Talks About Science, Religion, Wonder, Awe… and Carl Sagan
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It’s surprising how hard we’ll work when the work is done just for ourselves. And with all due respect to John Stuart Mill, maybe utilitarianism is overrated. If I’ve learned one thing from being a cartoonist, it’s how important playing is to creativity and happiness. My job is essentially to come up with 365 ideas a year.
~ Bill Watterson from, May 20, 1990
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…from May 20, 1990: Advice on Life and Creative Integrity from Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson
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Unfortunately, true community in our modern world is hard to find for soldiers and civilians alike. Instead, we increasingly live out our lives as members of networks. This transition from community to network life is truly at the heart of the increasing feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and anomie that many people experience in the modern age. We’ve never been so “connected” — and yet so isolated at the same time.
~ Brett McKay from, Communities Vs. Networks
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• A man does the job no one else wants to do.
~ “Atticus Finch”
• A man lives with integrity every day.
• The most important form of courage is moral courage.
• Live with quiet dignity.
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Soul Sailer
Hobie Cat, Hobie Cat, where are you bound?
Silently streaking over the sound.
Your sails standing high,
Proudly contrast the sky,
It’s not just a boat;
I know it can fly!When she gets up to speed,
She’ll sing you a song.
But if you’re weak in the knees,
You’d best not go along.
For there’s always a thrill,
And sometimes a spill!
Hobie Cat, Hobie Cat – go where you will!–
The world that we know
~ Bruce W. Constantine
dwindles down to size
on the shoreline behind us.
We sail along on the song that
is the wind.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the only piece of poetry my father wrote. Whatever possessed him to pick up a pencil and write this, I’ll never know. However, I would bet that it was the result of long hours chatting with one of his sailing buddies until they had it down pat; Followed by him writing it out. I see no errors or erasures, and I know his handwriting well enough to suspect that he simply wrote it out straight through. The last verse – oddly indented – looks like it was written separately, or at least later than the first two verses. I think it’s the better of the three, and I fear it might be a song lyric… but I’m not searching the ‘Net because I like the idea that he wrote it.
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A group of scientists from multiple institutions looked at a number of other reasons that we could be in the midst of an obesity epidemic that have nothing to do with diet and exercise, or as they call them, the Big Two. They make the case in an paper published online in advance of print in the International Journal of Obesity that so many have so fully accepted the Big Two that pretty much no one has bothered to look for any other causes.
~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/weight-loss/how-does-life-fat-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/»
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Slow going this morning, but at least the traffic is light — or should I say “white.” #freshTracks
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For more than four decades, Hollywood insiders, financiers and dreamers have been obsessed by the quest to recover “The Other Side of the Wind,” the unfinished last film of Orson Welles. Cinema buffs consider it the most famous movie never released, an epic work by one of the great filmmakers.
~ Doreen Carvajal from, Orson Welles’s Last Film May Finally Be Released
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A central part of the American Right’s false Founding Narrative is that the Tenth Amendment trumps the Constitution’s creation of a powerful central government that possesses a mandate to do what’s necessary to provide for the country’s “general Welfare.” In Right-Wing World, the Tenth Amendment gives nearly all powers to the states.
~ Robert Parry from, The Right’s Tenth Amendment Myth
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Might not be the “anarchy” you think of at first: Ross criticizes this model from both sides: First, the options offered to the people are too limited and too easily manipulated by those with money and power. My favorite expression of this situation comes from the Cake song “Comfort Eagle“
Some people drink Pepsi, some people drink Coke.
~ Doug Muder from, When Centralized Institutions Fail, Is Anarchy an Answer?
The wacky morning DJ says democracy’s a joke.
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