Mar 31
I like watching old TV shows before I got to bed. Something about them helps me relax. So, I’ve been queuing up random shows in the DVR including Hogan’s Heroes, Columbo, Different Strokes among others. The shows are wonderful time capsules: often with hidden marvels. – Sometimes the shows are remarkably clever, others are so bad that …
Mar 08
“The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.” ~Oscar Wilde
Feb 08
“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.” ~Jane Austen
Jan 09
“National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.” ~ Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Dec 03
“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.” ~ Voltaire
Nov 13
“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.” ~ Albert Einstein
Oct 12
“This is the sense of the desert hills, that there is room enough and time enough.” ~ Mary Hunter Austin
Sep 13
“I think some of the funniest and most artistic people I know are the ones who had a hard time at school. They often have humility and artistry. So, as much as I feel bad for kids who have to go through a rough childhood, I believe that if they can turn it around, it’s …
Aug 18
Since Dear Leader Trump’s recent comments regarding the Charlottesville demonstrations and related violence, I’ve seen many people on my social media channels offering a defense of the Confederate monuments. (Supplemented with bogus stories about the Confederate flag.) First, an overview of where I stand on some related matters: I’m heartfelt advocate of freedom of speech, and …
Aug 09
“The crucial test of ethical values is whether they apply to strangers, and those afar, not just in our midst.” ~ Bernard Crick, Essays on Citizenship, 2000
Jul 17
“Broken by it, I, too, may be; bow to it I never will. The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
Jun 21
“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.” ~ George Orwell
May 01
“Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.” ~ Frank Herbert
Apr 07
“Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men …
Mar 09
“A good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection.” ~ Crystal Eastman
Feb 05
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’” ~ The Shadow of …
Jan 20
“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” ~ Henry A. Wallace
Jan 12
“The split in America, rather than simply economic, is between those who embrace reason, who function in the real world of cause and effect, and those who, numbed by isolation and despair, now seek meaning in a mythical world of intuition, a world that is no longer reality-based, a world of magic.” ~ Chris Hedges
Dec 01
“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.” ~ Wendell Berry
Nov 08
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.” ~ Ursula K. Le Guin, The …
Oct 12
“Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
Sep 01
“The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.” ~George Orwell
Aug 29
I really know next to nothing about the man Gene Wilder who died today at the age of 83. We are the music makers… and we are the dreamers of dreams. ~ Willy Wonka But I do know that he left an indelible glowing and warm memory in my childhood: that of Willy Wonka …
Aug 03
“My attitude to peace is rather based on the Burmese definition of peace – it really means removing all the negative factors that destroy peace in this world. So peace does not mean just putting an end to violence or to war, but to all other factors that threaten peace, such as discrimination, such as …
Jul 08
“While we are under the tyranny of Priests, it will ever be their interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith.” ~Ethan Allen
Jun 19
Personal Tragedy or National News Fodder On June 14th, 2016, tragedy struck a Nebraska family when their two year old son was attacked and killed by an alligator at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa. Five days later and this event is still making national headline news. As unadulteratedly heartbreaking as this is for the child’s family; as much …
May 10
“As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.” ~Christopher Dawson
Apr 30
Donald Trump could almost qualify as a cartoon character, except for the dark rancor that spews from his round, orange mouth. What at first might have seemed like an extension of one of his reality TV shows has long crossed the border into scary fascism. Here is why I think the man is a danger …
Apr 14
“Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Mar 06
“Success is a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.” ~Robert Strauss
Feb 01
“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.” ~Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Jan 07
“The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.” ~Thomas Paine
Dec 02
“The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” ~Sir Richard Burton
Nov 04
“Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true But you and I know what this world can do So let’s make our steps clear that the other may see And I’ll wait for you If I should fall behind Wait for me” ~Bruce Springsteen
Oct 06
“I don’t think the American Dream was that everyone was going to make it or that everyone was going to make a billion dollars, but it was that everyone was going to have an opportunity and the chance to live a life with some decency and a chance for some self-respect.” ~Bruce Springsteen (as captured …
Sep 28
For all of the humanistic conventions and relative progressiveness of Pope Francis*, that is enchanting the people; here, at the bedrock is what continues to disturb me: the fostering of supernatural, magical beliefs. If the disservice and damage that this magical mindset does among the everyday individual is disturbing enough, it is downright scary when …
Sep 03
The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend. ~ Abraham Lincoln
Aug 02
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. ~ Bertrand Russell
Jun 04
Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May, but at length the season of summer does come. ~Thomas Carlyle
May 02
It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them. ~Agatha Christie
Apr 04
No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. ~ Hal Borland
Mar 02
Of winter’s lifeless world each tree Now seems a perfect part; Yet each one holds summer’s secret Deep down within its heart. ~ Charles G. Slater
Feb 21
Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it. ~ John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday
Jan 24
For disappearing acts, it’s hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work. ~Doug Larson
Jan 12
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its …
Dec 30
Whereas others have decorated their house for the winter holidays – namely, christmas, we’ve kept the arachnid Halloween decorations up in our entryway – Cirith Ungol (Sindarin for Spider’s Cleft, or Pass of the Spider). All Photos by Yours Truly – Glen Green. Click on images to see larger versions. In a ravine she lived, …
Nov 17
There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch. ~Robert Brault
Oct 06
Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. ~ Bertrand Russell
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