Vagabondism #29 "The best way to interact with the bullies and trouble makers of the world is not at all."
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Drink To Me
Every obnoxious act is a cry for help.
Zig Ziglar
*****************
Hello Brazzaville, Congo
****************
I climb the wooden steel reinforced steps of the school. My footsteps echo down the empty halls. I reach the third floor and enter the room. The dreaded Mrs. Thompson is waiting for me. There is no greeting from her but a nasty word or two of instructions. Mrs. Thompson is an overweight widow. At the door, as she is leaving, she gives me a smile and rebukes me for something I forgot to do yesterday. She likes to think she's my boss, but she isn't. We both work for the same man. We never see him. Mrs. Thompson and I try to pretend that we are friends, that we like each other, but we don't. She wears tennis shoes. One can't hear her going. Or coming.
After she leaves I take off my outer shirt and hang it up. I start the water going in the big sink, get the instant coffee down from the shelf, and the sugar. I put the kettle on and take down a mug, I take a spoon from the draining board, spoon some coffee and sugar into the mug.
The big sink is half full so I turn the water off and wait for the kettle to boil. I go to the window and look out. It's a dark late afternoon sky and it looks like rain.
When the kettle begins to whistle I listen to it for a few moments. It's the sound of quietly frenzied winds. Flutes and oboes calling out, crying in the night. I turn it off and pour the water into the mug.
The large pots are the first things to get cleaned. I thrust my arms elbow deep into the hot soapy water and start scrubbing. I turn the water on again and it cascades into the sink with a crash.
When all the pots are done I set them aside to dry and begin on the utensils. I hear them ring and jingle with each other as they get cleaned one by one and set aside. It has begun to rain, a soft rain but a drumming rain amplified by the metal roof and overhanging ledges outside the window.
The plates large and small are next. I pause, drink my coffee and listen to the percussion of the rain. I think about all the music that I love and want to share with people, so many uninterested people, so many musicless people, Mrs. Thompson. Why is she so unpleasant, so unhappy, I wonder.
After the plates, cups, saucers and mugs are clean I carefully start on the glasses. These are what she was objecting to. There were spots on them, she said. So I am extra careful to get them as clean as possible. When I finish them I take a goblet which is still wet and ran my fingers around the rim making that sweet ringing sound which seems to fill the room.
That is my music, not the percussion of the rain or the jingling of the forks and spoons. And not the crying out of the kettle. It is my music. And I am composing it on the rim of a drinking goblet. And tomorrow someone will drink from that goblet and my music will touch their lips. Maybe Mrs. Thompson's.
DB - The Vagabond
**************************
Never Give Up
********************
Weekend Contest
In your opinion, when he is finished digging up President Obama's school records, what's the next conspiracy Donald Trump will find?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Winner gets the Vagabond Seal Of Approval.
Good luck
DB
*****************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Zig Ziglar
*****************
Hello Brazzaville, Congo
****************
I climb the wooden steel reinforced steps of the school. My footsteps echo down the empty halls. I reach the third floor and enter the room. The dreaded Mrs. Thompson is waiting for me. There is no greeting from her but a nasty word or two of instructions. Mrs. Thompson is an overweight widow. At the door, as she is leaving, she gives me a smile and rebukes me for something I forgot to do yesterday. She likes to think she's my boss, but she isn't. We both work for the same man. We never see him. Mrs. Thompson and I try to pretend that we are friends, that we like each other, but we don't. She wears tennis shoes. One can't hear her going. Or coming.
After she leaves I take off my outer shirt and hang it up. I start the water going in the big sink, get the instant coffee down from the shelf, and the sugar. I put the kettle on and take down a mug, I take a spoon from the draining board, spoon some coffee and sugar into the mug.
The big sink is half full so I turn the water off and wait for the kettle to boil. I go to the window and look out. It's a dark late afternoon sky and it looks like rain.
When the kettle begins to whistle I listen to it for a few moments. It's the sound of quietly frenzied winds. Flutes and oboes calling out, crying in the night. I turn it off and pour the water into the mug.
The large pots are the first things to get cleaned. I thrust my arms elbow deep into the hot soapy water and start scrubbing. I turn the water on again and it cascades into the sink with a crash.
When all the pots are done I set them aside to dry and begin on the utensils. I hear them ring and jingle with each other as they get cleaned one by one and set aside. It has begun to rain, a soft rain but a drumming rain amplified by the metal roof and overhanging ledges outside the window.
The plates large and small are next. I pause, drink my coffee and listen to the percussion of the rain. I think about all the music that I love and want to share with people, so many uninterested people, so many musicless people, Mrs. Thompson. Why is she so unpleasant, so unhappy, I wonder.
After the plates, cups, saucers and mugs are clean I carefully start on the glasses. These are what she was objecting to. There were spots on them, she said. So I am extra careful to get them as clean as possible. When I finish them I take a goblet which is still wet and ran my fingers around the rim making that sweet ringing sound which seems to fill the room.
That is my music, not the percussion of the rain or the jingling of the forks and spoons. And not the crying out of the kettle. It is my music. And I am composing it on the rim of a drinking goblet. And tomorrow someone will drink from that goblet and my music will touch their lips. Maybe Mrs. Thompson's.
DB - The Vagabond
**************************
Never Give Up
********************
Weekend Contest
In your opinion, when he is finished digging up President Obama's school records, what's the next conspiracy Donald Trump will find?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Winner gets the Vagabond Seal Of Approval.
Good luck
DB
*****************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Friday, April 29, 2011
Vagabondism 28
Vagabondism #28, "Nice guys may finish last, but they finish smiling."
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
Alpha Soup
If you wish to learn the highest truth, you must begin with the alphabet.
Japanese proverb
***********************
Hello Berat, Albania
*************************
A - aesthetics
B - bioethics
C - cartesianism
D - dialetheism
E - epistomology
F - follesdal
G - gentzen
H - historicism
I - implicature
J - jainism
K - karma
L - linguistics
M - martinism
N - nomologics
O - ontology
P - perlocution
Q - quiddity
R - reliabilism
S - sankara
T - teleology
U - utopianism
V - vagueness
W - wittgenstein
X - xenophanes
Y - yoga
Z - zoroastrianism
When you're finished with Zoroaster let me know and I'll send you Part 2 of the list.
DB - Vagabond
*******************
Weekend Contest
In your opinion, when he is finished digging up President Obama's school records, what's the next conspiracy Donald Trump will find?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Winner gets the Vagabond Seal Of Approval.
Good luck
DB
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Japanese proverb
***********************
Hello Berat, Albania
*************************
A - aesthetics
B - bioethics
C - cartesianism
D - dialetheism
E - epistomology
F - follesdal
G - gentzen
H - historicism
I - implicature
J - jainism
K - karma
L - linguistics
M - martinism
N - nomologics
O - ontology
P - perlocution
Q - quiddity
R - reliabilism
S - sankara
T - teleology
U - utopianism
V - vagueness
W - wittgenstein
X - xenophanes
Y - yoga
Z - zoroastrianism
When you're finished with Zoroaster let me know and I'll send you Part 2 of the list.
DB - Vagabond
*******************
Weekend Contest
In your opinion, when he is finished digging up President Obama's school records, what's the next conspiracy Donald Trump will find?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Winner gets the Vagabond Seal Of Approval.
Good luck
DB
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Vagabondism
Vagabondism #27, "Sometime, on people you don’t remember, you made a good and lasting impression."
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
Inside The Bubble
Mind is everything. Mind pulls the universe out of a top hat, bows to its own applause, and walks off the stage grinning.
Stephen Mitchell
********************
Hello Arica, Chile
********************
One of my comments I'm fond of is that a person could be happy being an observer of his own life if he could find a safe place to stand. How grand and entertaining it would be if we could be spectators at the game of life. Every now and then, however, the ball comes into our territory and we have to do something about it.
Yesterday in this journal I noted that we are all part of the universe. All the activities of the universe are going on all the time and some of them include you and me. One of the most important activities we humans do is to attempt to understand the universe, from the scientist in the lab peering into the mysterious molecules of cells and crystals to the mighty Hubble telescope capturing images from an unimaginable distance away.
Attempting to define and describe the universe while living in it is a problem, like living inside a giant bubble and trying to see it from the outside. It does not mean that all efforts to understand the universe are futile. But the deeper we look and the farther we go there comes a point where a shift is made from merely material measurements into the atmosphere of imagination, intellect and ideas.
We are in the universe. We are not separate from it. We are attempting to understand the universe. Therefore the universe is attempting to understand itself. It could not do that if it did not have intelligence. Mind.
Dana Bate
The Vagabond
*****************
Never Give Up
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Stephen Mitchell
********************
Hello Arica, Chile
********************
One of my comments I'm fond of is that a person could be happy being an observer of his own life if he could find a safe place to stand. How grand and entertaining it would be if we could be spectators at the game of life. Every now and then, however, the ball comes into our territory and we have to do something about it.
Yesterday in this journal I noted that we are all part of the universe. All the activities of the universe are going on all the time and some of them include you and me. One of the most important activities we humans do is to attempt to understand the universe, from the scientist in the lab peering into the mysterious molecules of cells and crystals to the mighty Hubble telescope capturing images from an unimaginable distance away.
Attempting to define and describe the universe while living in it is a problem, like living inside a giant bubble and trying to see it from the outside. It does not mean that all efforts to understand the universe are futile. But the deeper we look and the farther we go there comes a point where a shift is made from merely material measurements into the atmosphere of imagination, intellect and ideas.
We are in the universe. We are not separate from it. We are attempting to understand the universe. Therefore the universe is attempting to understand itself. It could not do that if it did not have intelligence. Mind.
Dana Bate
The Vagabond
*****************
Never Give Up
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Vagabondism
Vagabondism #26 "One of the reasons old folks forget things is that there are things old folks would like to forget."
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
The Light We Share
A man must be like a great brilliant flame and burn as brightly as he can.
Boris Yeltsin
*****************
Hello Burns Lake, British Columbia
******************
I go down the sidewalk with uncertain steps but with a certain destination aware that I am trekking along one of the ledges of the universe. The universe is a big immeasurable place and I am part of it. And so are you.
Like all the suns, planets and moons I have my place and my orbit. And so do you. Without you and me the universe would be incomplete. and therefore not universal.
You and I don't make the papers and the nightly news. We hear all about the "stars," the famous people; who's in jail, who got out, who got married, who got divorced, who wore what on the beach, who got hired and who is selling his mansion. One should never be fooled by fame. Most of that information is important only to those in the news or the gossip hungry. The gossip, the mundane news about us is unimportant to the world.
The standard greeting in my town is "How ya doin>" It takes the place of Hello, Hi, Good Morning and all the other usual greetings. If anyone stops to talk it's usually small talk, the gracious chit chat that neighborhoods are made of. And we tend to forget that each one of us carries inside the light of the universe.
We all know people who seem to carry that light with them wherever they go. They spill spirit, excitement, positive energy in all directions whatever they are doing. Like a torch they will ignite those qualities in the people around them. Those are the real stars of the universe.
It may be the woman down the street with four kids, the high school history teacher, the little league coach, the girl behind the counter at the pharmacy, the man who fixes your car, the man who fixes your teeth, the kid in glasses who just designed a physics demonstration for her school or the man walking uncertainly down the sidewalk. There is someone around who carries the fire which lights up your own.
The fire may be borrowed but the fuel is not. Excitement, enthusiasm, a sense of wonder, an appreciation for the beautiful and the great are with you all the time ready to burst into radiance when touched by the living flame of the universe.
It doesn't matter how many times that fuel needs to be ignited, one day it will burn as brightly as it can, stay aflame, freely spill it's light in all directions and inspire those around you.
DB - The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Never Give Up
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Boris Yeltsin
*****************
Hello Burns Lake, British Columbia
******************
I go down the sidewalk with uncertain steps but with a certain destination aware that I am trekking along one of the ledges of the universe. The universe is a big immeasurable place and I am part of it. And so are you.
Like all the suns, planets and moons I have my place and my orbit. And so do you. Without you and me the universe would be incomplete. and therefore not universal.
You and I don't make the papers and the nightly news. We hear all about the "stars," the famous people; who's in jail, who got out, who got married, who got divorced, who wore what on the beach, who got hired and who is selling his mansion. One should never be fooled by fame. Most of that information is important only to those in the news or the gossip hungry. The gossip, the mundane news about us is unimportant to the world.
The standard greeting in my town is "How ya doin>" It takes the place of Hello, Hi, Good Morning and all the other usual greetings. If anyone stops to talk it's usually small talk, the gracious chit chat that neighborhoods are made of. And we tend to forget that each one of us carries inside the light of the universe.
We all know people who seem to carry that light with them wherever they go. They spill spirit, excitement, positive energy in all directions whatever they are doing. Like a torch they will ignite those qualities in the people around them. Those are the real stars of the universe.
It may be the woman down the street with four kids, the high school history teacher, the little league coach, the girl behind the counter at the pharmacy, the man who fixes your car, the man who fixes your teeth, the kid in glasses who just designed a physics demonstration for her school or the man walking uncertainly down the sidewalk. There is someone around who carries the fire which lights up your own.
The fire may be borrowed but the fuel is not. Excitement, enthusiasm, a sense of wonder, an appreciation for the beautiful and the great are with you all the time ready to burst into radiance when touched by the living flame of the universe.
It doesn't matter how many times that fuel needs to be ignited, one day it will burn as brightly as it can, stay aflame, freely spill it's light in all directions and inspire those around you.
DB - The Vagabond
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Never Give Up
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Vagabondism
Vagabondism #25: "If the burden gets too heavy, set it down, leave it there and keep on walking."
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
Mohammad Would Weep
The truly righteous becomes a refuge for humankind, their lives and their properties.
Mohammad
*********************
Hello Daraa, Syria. May violence cease.
********************
Deplorable violence is sweeping through the Middle East like an unstoppable virus. Governments shake and our Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters are being killed and injured at an alarming rate. Leaders point their fingers at each other as the causes for the protests and yet the protestors take to the streets in front of slaughtering gunfire because as one protestor said "It is better to die than to not be free."
The Quran was written about 14 hundred years ago, from 610 on. According to Islamic history it was dictated to Mohammad by the angel Gabriel off and on over a period of about 12 years and finally collected into a single volume. So Islam is about 600 years younger than Christianity and much younger than Judaism. 600 years ago Christendom was emerging from the Dark Ages into the Renaissance. Can it be said that the anguish and struggle of the Muslim people is the result of an emerging from their own Dark Age? Perhaps, but if so what makes it a Dark Age? The original Ottoman Empire was one of great art, architecture, and literature. But then so was Christianity before it reached into it's own darkness.
In 1450, about the time the Quran was being distributed and read, the Gutenberg Bible was published in Europe. Even so Europe went through centuries of struggle and violence trying to renew itself. The Bible wasn't the problem. The Quran is not the problem. It is not a book about violence and destruction as anyone would know who has read it as I have.
Sad to say there are more eastern nations who are on the edge of the precipice to mayhem and murder. And how many more adults and children will die, and when will the last blood be shed and the dust finally settle? I'm reminded of the prophesy which says that the laws of peace, kindness, respect for others and love must be preached in every land, and listened to, and understood, and undertaken, before the end can come..
In the mean time where is the righteous one, the one offering refuge to humankind? Not in the United States where a "Christian" pastor burns the Quran, where people won't let Muslims build a mosque where they can or allow their girls to wear their scarves in school.
What can I do about it? What can you do about it? We can offer our prayers, or, if we aren't the praying types, offer up some hard positive thoughts to those who are fighting for the right to be free, for a rapid end to the violence. The martyrs will fall where they must. The survivors will disserve a renaissance.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
*********************
Never Give Up
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Mohammad
*********************
Hello Daraa, Syria. May violence cease.
********************
Deplorable violence is sweeping through the Middle East like an unstoppable virus. Governments shake and our Arab and Muslim brothers and sisters are being killed and injured at an alarming rate. Leaders point their fingers at each other as the causes for the protests and yet the protestors take to the streets in front of slaughtering gunfire because as one protestor said "It is better to die than to not be free."
The Quran was written about 14 hundred years ago, from 610 on. According to Islamic history it was dictated to Mohammad by the angel Gabriel off and on over a period of about 12 years and finally collected into a single volume. So Islam is about 600 years younger than Christianity and much younger than Judaism. 600 years ago Christendom was emerging from the Dark Ages into the Renaissance. Can it be said that the anguish and struggle of the Muslim people is the result of an emerging from their own Dark Age? Perhaps, but if so what makes it a Dark Age? The original Ottoman Empire was one of great art, architecture, and literature. But then so was Christianity before it reached into it's own darkness.
In 1450, about the time the Quran was being distributed and read, the Gutenberg Bible was published in Europe. Even so Europe went through centuries of struggle and violence trying to renew itself. The Bible wasn't the problem. The Quran is not the problem. It is not a book about violence and destruction as anyone would know who has read it as I have.
Sad to say there are more eastern nations who are on the edge of the precipice to mayhem and murder. And how many more adults and children will die, and when will the last blood be shed and the dust finally settle? I'm reminded of the prophesy which says that the laws of peace, kindness, respect for others and love must be preached in every land, and listened to, and understood, and undertaken, before the end can come..
In the mean time where is the righteous one, the one offering refuge to humankind? Not in the United States where a "Christian" pastor burns the Quran, where people won't let Muslims build a mosque where they can or allow their girls to wear their scarves in school.
What can I do about it? What can you do about it? We can offer our prayers, or, if we aren't the praying types, offer up some hard positive thoughts to those who are fighting for the right to be free, for a rapid end to the violence. The martyrs will fall where they must. The survivors will disserve a renaissance.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
*********************
Never Give Up
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Monday, April 25, 2011
Vagabondism
Vagabondism #24, "The enemy sees your wound and rejoices. The friend sees the healing of your wound and rejoices."
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
At The Oars
We have to believe that someday, somehow, some way, it will be better and that we can make it so.
Hubert Humphrey
*********************
Hello Bangladesh
**********************
Whenever I watch or listen to the news, or review some of the events of my past, which I try not to though some of them are very intrusive, I can't help noticing that there seems to be much more in the world that is erroneous than what is right.
Isn't that a peculiar thing? One would imagine that with all of the geniuses and positive thinkers we have had in our history as human beings we would have eliminated by this time all the things that continue to mess up our lives.
I say the fault is with education, and I don't mean children in school, although that's bad enough. I mean that people grow up to believe erroneous things they have been told. That passion is more powerful than reason, that emotion is better than thought, that gut reaction out ranks logic, for example. John takes revenge on Sam to teach him a lesson. But what is he teaching him, how to be a revengeful jerk? I heard a man say he was humiliating his son to teach him humility. He was teaching him humiliation instead, a lesson no one should learn.
Sometimes our governments participate in this malignancy. Saddam Hussein declared torture legal, thus letting loose on Iraq a demonic practice that would have destroyed the country. The United States Congress once passed a law making liquor illegal, thus opening wide a door to organized crime. Now we are up against the possible need to legalize drugs, balance the budget, get out of debt, feed our hungry, take care of our poor, clothe our naked and house our homeless while we're wasting time over a birth certificate. I wonder how many in other countries are laughing at us. I wonder how many negativists are laughing. I wonder how many of those who paid no taxes are laughing.
Wars continue to be waged somewhere in the world, all the time and they are never over the issues the leaders claim they are. Poverty, ignorance, oppression, cruelty and lies are rampant. Why do so many otherwise intelligent humans contribute to the mess rather than help clean it up?
Because they don't believe it can be done? "It's human nature, what can you do, it's no use, nothing can be done." That attitude is also the result of education. If you sit in a rowboat in the middle of the river and do nothing you'll float downstream. If you want to go upstream you have to row.
There is a day, a way where we can make it better. The only reason we haven't destroyed ourselves is that there are enough people at the oars. The rest must be reeducated.
DB - The Vagabond
************************
Never Give Up
*******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Hubert Humphrey
*********************
Hello Bangladesh
**********************
Whenever I watch or listen to the news, or review some of the events of my past, which I try not to though some of them are very intrusive, I can't help noticing that there seems to be much more in the world that is erroneous than what is right.
Isn't that a peculiar thing? One would imagine that with all of the geniuses and positive thinkers we have had in our history as human beings we would have eliminated by this time all the things that continue to mess up our lives.
I say the fault is with education, and I don't mean children in school, although that's bad enough. I mean that people grow up to believe erroneous things they have been told. That passion is more powerful than reason, that emotion is better than thought, that gut reaction out ranks logic, for example. John takes revenge on Sam to teach him a lesson. But what is he teaching him, how to be a revengeful jerk? I heard a man say he was humiliating his son to teach him humility. He was teaching him humiliation instead, a lesson no one should learn.
Sometimes our governments participate in this malignancy. Saddam Hussein declared torture legal, thus letting loose on Iraq a demonic practice that would have destroyed the country. The United States Congress once passed a law making liquor illegal, thus opening wide a door to organized crime. Now we are up against the possible need to legalize drugs, balance the budget, get out of debt, feed our hungry, take care of our poor, clothe our naked and house our homeless while we're wasting time over a birth certificate. I wonder how many in other countries are laughing at us. I wonder how many negativists are laughing. I wonder how many of those who paid no taxes are laughing.
Wars continue to be waged somewhere in the world, all the time and they are never over the issues the leaders claim they are. Poverty, ignorance, oppression, cruelty and lies are rampant. Why do so many otherwise intelligent humans contribute to the mess rather than help clean it up?
Because they don't believe it can be done? "It's human nature, what can you do, it's no use, nothing can be done." That attitude is also the result of education. If you sit in a rowboat in the middle of the river and do nothing you'll float downstream. If you want to go upstream you have to row.
There is a day, a way where we can make it better. The only reason we haven't destroyed ourselves is that there are enough people at the oars. The rest must be reeducated.
DB - The Vagabond
************************
Never Give Up
*******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
6 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Vagabondism
Vagabondism #23 "Share your vision. Make it be. The beautiful things that you can do will never be done if you don’t do them."
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
He Is Risen
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
Kahlil Gibran
********************
Hello Johannesburg, South Africa
***********************************
I have a friend, David, who's a potter. I watched him work one day. I saw him brutally cut off a chunk of clay, thump it on a table, and throw it on a wheel. Then, while it was spinning within an inch of it's life he wet his hands and started strangling it. He forced it out of it's natural shape and then, as if that wasn't enough, he stuck his thumbs in it and then his fingers and carved it even more into something round, Then he poked and scraped down into it's innards with some fiendish instruments, covered it all over with some sticky stuff and tucked into an oven that was hotter than hell. When it finally came out it was a beautiful, delicate, gentle bowl asking to be filled with the elixir of life.
I don't know about you, but I have been cut and thumped by the meanness of life, thrown on the wheel and spun into confusion, strangled with poverty, pushed and squeezed with hard work until I was rebuilt and reformed, poked and scraped by lies and betrayals, glazed over with tears and baked in the oven of hellish experiences. And when I finally got out of my bondage I sang a joyful song.
Today is a day for singing. Today is a day for climbing out of the oven of despair and shedding the scars of war and misery. It's a day for reaching out and touching the welcoming blossoms. It's time for a new life, for becoming reacquainted with ourselves. Today is the day for reclaiming the right to live our lives according to our best ideals. It's the day for sending the message out to the universe that we are here. Today is a day for love. It's a day for gratitude. Now is the day to fill ourselves to overflowing with the elixir of life.
DB - The Vagabond.
*************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
5 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Kahlil Gibran
********************
Hello Johannesburg, South Africa
***********************************
I have a friend, David, who's a potter. I watched him work one day. I saw him brutally cut off a chunk of clay, thump it on a table, and throw it on a wheel. Then, while it was spinning within an inch of it's life he wet his hands and started strangling it. He forced it out of it's natural shape and then, as if that wasn't enough, he stuck his thumbs in it and then his fingers and carved it even more into something round, Then he poked and scraped down into it's innards with some fiendish instruments, covered it all over with some sticky stuff and tucked into an oven that was hotter than hell. When it finally came out it was a beautiful, delicate, gentle bowl asking to be filled with the elixir of life.
I don't know about you, but I have been cut and thumped by the meanness of life, thrown on the wheel and spun into confusion, strangled with poverty, pushed and squeezed with hard work until I was rebuilt and reformed, poked and scraped by lies and betrayals, glazed over with tears and baked in the oven of hellish experiences. And when I finally got out of my bondage I sang a joyful song.
Today is a day for singing. Today is a day for climbing out of the oven of despair and shedding the scars of war and misery. It's a day for reaching out and touching the welcoming blossoms. It's time for a new life, for becoming reacquainted with ourselves. Today is the day for reclaiming the right to live our lives according to our best ideals. It's the day for sending the message out to the universe that we are here. Today is a day for love. It's a day for gratitude. Now is the day to fill ourselves to overflowing with the elixir of life.
DB - The Vagabond.
*************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
5 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Vagabondism
Vagabondism #22, "There’s always something. If there weren't there'd be nothing."
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
Cosmic Crescendo
First you leap, then you grow wings.
William Sloane Coffin
*******************************
Hello Vienna, Austria
*******************************
First there was a primitive man stepping out from his cave and contemplating a bright light in the sky. It seemed to have some control over life so soon he and his buddies began to worship it. They gave it a name and as paganism arose it took on the persona of a goddess. Folks knew it was a goddess because they could see a face in it. But it was a fickle goddess, sometimes she was there, sometimes she wasn't and she came and went gradually.
Then came the scientists, the astronomers with their telescopes trying to get a closer look at the goddess. With them it wasn't a goddess at all, but a planet. And since they could tell that it was moving around the earth. the earth must be the center of everything. That made biblical sense, so people settled on that for a long time.
But then some uppity scientists tried to suggest that the earth was not the center of it all. in fact it was just another planet like the one they were contemplating. And if that was so then what was the relationship, since the other one hung around all the time, or most of the time? And why did it come in gradually changing shapes? Some lunatic proposed the absolutely preposterous idea that it wasn't the planet itself that changed but the shadow of the earth on it. Now things were getting very confusing.
Then folks thought that if it was a planet like ours then maybe there was life on it. The only way to find out was to go there, but how could anyone do that?
Jules Verne wrote a book about going there which depicted the travelers sitting aloft in a Victorian living room. Verne was a science fiction writer. Nobody was going to take it seriously.
But then with the improvement of air flight a few deluded souls did start to take it seriously and tried to think of ways to get there.
Rocket science was born and men tried with some success but mostly failure to put something up there into the vast area which, for want of a better name, we call "space."
Then there was sputnik.
Then there was Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.
Then there was John Glenn, the first man in orbit.
Then there was the , Program and trips around to the goddess' backside.
,
Then there was Neil Armstrong's "One giant leap."
I think the primitive man, peering out of his cave at the bright light in the sky, is pleased and proud that he himself took that "one small step."
DB - Vagabond Journeys
-------------------------------
Never Give Up
****************************
William Sloane Coffin
*******************************
Hello Vienna, Austria
*******************************
First there was a primitive man stepping out from his cave and contemplating a bright light in the sky. It seemed to have some control over life so soon he and his buddies began to worship it. They gave it a name and as paganism arose it took on the persona of a goddess. Folks knew it was a goddess because they could see a face in it. But it was a fickle goddess, sometimes she was there, sometimes she wasn't and she came and went gradually.
Then came the scientists, the astronomers with their telescopes trying to get a closer look at the goddess. With them it wasn't a goddess at all, but a planet. And since they could tell that it was moving around the earth. the earth must be the center of everything. That made biblical sense, so people settled on that for a long time.
But then some uppity scientists tried to suggest that the earth was not the center of it all. in fact it was just another planet like the one they were contemplating. And if that was so then what was the relationship, since the other one hung around all the time, or most of the time? And why did it come in gradually changing shapes? Some lunatic proposed the absolutely preposterous idea that it wasn't the planet itself that changed but the shadow of the earth on it. Now things were getting very confusing.
Then folks thought that if it was a planet like ours then maybe there was life on it. The only way to find out was to go there, but how could anyone do that?
Jules Verne wrote a book about going there which depicted the travelers sitting aloft in a Victorian living room. Verne was a science fiction writer. Nobody was going to take it seriously.
But then with the improvement of air flight a few deluded souls did start to take it seriously and tried to think of ways to get there.
Rocket science was born and men tried with some success but mostly failure to put something up there into the vast area which, for want of a better name, we call "space."
Then there was sputnik.
Then there was Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space.
Then there was John Glenn, the first man in orbit.
Then there was the , Program and trips around to the goddess' backside.
,
Then there was Neil Armstrong's "One giant leap."
I think the primitive man, peering out of his cave at the bright light in the sky, is pleased and proud that he himself took that "one small step."
DB - Vagabond Journeys
-------------------------------
Never Give Up
****************************
Friday, April 22, 2011
Vagabondism
Vagabondism #21, "When they burn your bridge, go upstream and build another."
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
Am I Running"
Am I running for President?
I will officially announce in a few days the establishment of an exploratory commission to investigate the possibility of creating a research engine to discover the extent of the percentages and to empower a committee to analyze the prospects of a possible move in the direction of greater political involvement with an eye to a possible presidential alternative and will have an important announcement to make along those lines in several months.
DB
I will officially announce in a few days the establishment of an exploratory commission to investigate the possibility of creating a research engine to discover the extent of the percentages and to empower a committee to analyze the prospects of a possible move in the direction of greater political involvement with an eye to a possible presidential alternative and will have an important announcement to make along those lines in several months.
DB
Old Folks At Home
Thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning.
Job 11:17
********************
Hello Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
******************
On Wednesday I finally put all my curmudgeonly misgivings aside, and coerced by an artist friend went kicking and screaming into the local senior center. I did that because at 72 I'm considered a "Senior" or old coot, old fogy, old geezer or some other appropriate appellation.
I already knew some of the people there through the artists association to which I belong. So I was welcomed and had a chance to chat with some of the other people. One of the reasons I have avoided that place for so many years is that I didn't want to sit around talking with old folks about the good old days. I was pleased to find that no one was doing that.. In fact, short of the public schools, this is probably the most active group of people in the community. There are all sorts of projects going on and they are always looking for new ones.
I was asked if I would put one or more of my paintings in the art room. I was asked if I could start a play reading group. I was given coffee and some delicious pastry and introduced to more people than I can remember.
There were no relics lolling around in wheelchairs, feeling sorry for themselves and waiting to be entertained. These folks were entertaining themselves. I left with a very good feeling about the place.
I was taken around and shown some of the various rooms where projects were going on, charitable efforts and creative works. At one point I heard the thunder of feet and a group of teenagers passed me by. It seems there are activities for all ages of people at this place.
My guide, Linda, was very helpful in showing me around, getting me to meet people and giving me some valuable information; the gentlest ox goad, ring in the nose, I can imagine. Evidently next Wednesday we're going back for lunch, at which time I'll find out more about the place and the people. Who knows, if they accept vagabonds, I may even plunk down my dues and become a "Senior."
Then, stand back and pardon me if I shine forth and be as the morning.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
Mind Twister Of The Week Answer
-------------------------------
1. Here are three numbered statements.
2. Two of them are true.
3. One of them is false.
__________________
How many of the statements are true? Why?
____________________
Well it didn't take long for Geo to come up with the answer' Here's his reasoning.
#1 seems visually verifiable as true. There are three numbered statements.
#2 claims two statements are true.
#3 says the same thing. So, if #2 and #3 are true, #1 must be false. However, since #1 doesn't refer to the content of #2 and #3, only to their being numbered, I consider all three statements true.
Geo.
----------------------
And here's mine.
I arrived at the same conclusion with a slightly different route.
1. is obviously true as you say.
If 2. is also true then the 2 true ones are 1 and 2. Statement 2 only says 2 are true. It doesn't say only 2 are true.
But if 3 is the false one then what it says (1 is false) isn't true.
That leaves 3 true ones.
Now I have to dream up another puzzle Geo. See what you make me do?
*************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
5 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Job 11:17
********************
Hello Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
******************
On Wednesday I finally put all my curmudgeonly misgivings aside, and coerced by an artist friend went kicking and screaming into the local senior center. I did that because at 72 I'm considered a "Senior" or old coot, old fogy, old geezer or some other appropriate appellation.
I already knew some of the people there through the artists association to which I belong. So I was welcomed and had a chance to chat with some of the other people. One of the reasons I have avoided that place for so many years is that I didn't want to sit around talking with old folks about the good old days. I was pleased to find that no one was doing that.. In fact, short of the public schools, this is probably the most active group of people in the community. There are all sorts of projects going on and they are always looking for new ones.
I was asked if I would put one or more of my paintings in the art room. I was asked if I could start a play reading group. I was given coffee and some delicious pastry and introduced to more people than I can remember.
There were no relics lolling around in wheelchairs, feeling sorry for themselves and waiting to be entertained. These folks were entertaining themselves. I left with a very good feeling about the place.
I was taken around and shown some of the various rooms where projects were going on, charitable efforts and creative works. At one point I heard the thunder of feet and a group of teenagers passed me by. It seems there are activities for all ages of people at this place.
My guide, Linda, was very helpful in showing me around, getting me to meet people and giving me some valuable information; the gentlest ox goad, ring in the nose, I can imagine. Evidently next Wednesday we're going back for lunch, at which time I'll find out more about the place and the people. Who knows, if they accept vagabonds, I may even plunk down my dues and become a "Senior."
Then, stand back and pardon me if I shine forth and be as the morning.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
Mind Twister Of The Week Answer
-------------------------------
1. Here are three numbered statements.
2. Two of them are true.
3. One of them is false.
__________________
How many of the statements are true? Why?
____________________
Well it didn't take long for Geo to come up with the answer' Here's his reasoning.
#1 seems visually verifiable as true. There are three numbered statements.
#2 claims two statements are true.
#3 says the same thing. So, if #2 and #3 are true, #1 must be false. However, since #1 doesn't refer to the content of #2 and #3, only to their being numbered, I consider all three statements true.
Geo.
----------------------
And here's mine.
I arrived at the same conclusion with a slightly different route.
1. is obviously true as you say.
If 2. is also true then the 2 true ones are 1 and 2. Statement 2 only says 2 are true. It doesn't say only 2 are true.
But if 3 is the false one then what it says (1 is false) isn't true.
That leaves 3 true ones.
Now I have to dream up another puzzle Geo. See what you make me do?
*************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
5 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Vagabondism #20
Vagabondism #20 " Life gives you the ocean and the wind, so chart your coarse and set your sails."
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
Ask And Ye Shall Receive
What we think of as the moment of discovery is really the discovery of the right question.
Jonas Salk
******************
Hello Bryant, Arkansas
**************************
One of the greatest discoveries of human history was the scientific method. It is the system we use for trying to understand, cope with and utilize the laws of nature. But it is also a question. Every hypothesis in the course of practicing the scientific method is a question and when the right question is asked the answer reveals itself. There has never been a more useful human tool for peering into the mysteries of the world around us and finding answers to the fundamental questions. It is a rich companion for the human intellect.
Learning to ask the right questions is not only good for science but also for technology, mechanics, politics, art and philosophy. The amazing thing is that the laws we supposedly "discovered" were all there all the time. The laws of gravity, thermodynamics and aeronautics were right there waiting to be discovered, waiting for someone to ask the right questions.
I once had a housemate who was a very particularly religious fellow. He worked as a carpenter and one day he came home and said "Today the Lord showed me how to hang a ceiling." Whether you would agree with that analysis or not, if the ceiling stayed up the right questions were obviously asked.
Artists can use this method all the time. If you talk to your painting, and wait, the painting will talk back to you. It's the same with music. Constantine Stanislavski, the great Russian actor, director and teacher, has given actors a grand and almost mystical hypothesis to work with, called "The Magic IF, If I were in this situation what would I do? If I was this man, in this situation, and I wanted to find out this piece of information from this other man without letting him know I was doing it, what would I do. That puts the actor right in the middle of the action without any artificiality. He is then involved in a real event and the answer to his question will reveal itself. naturally.
There is no secret for finding the right question. Good luck may have something to do with it. But patience, desire, persistence and not giving up are guarantees.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
Mind Twister Of The Week
This puzzle is going to stay up for a week or until someone comes across with the answer. Dust off your brain.
________________
1. Here are three numbered statements.
2. Two of them are true.
3. One of them is false.
__________________
How many of the statements are true? Why?
____________________
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck, DB
*************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Jonas Salk
******************
Hello Bryant, Arkansas
**************************
One of the greatest discoveries of human history was the scientific method. It is the system we use for trying to understand, cope with and utilize the laws of nature. But it is also a question. Every hypothesis in the course of practicing the scientific method is a question and when the right question is asked the answer reveals itself. There has never been a more useful human tool for peering into the mysteries of the world around us and finding answers to the fundamental questions. It is a rich companion for the human intellect.
Learning to ask the right questions is not only good for science but also for technology, mechanics, politics, art and philosophy. The amazing thing is that the laws we supposedly "discovered" were all there all the time. The laws of gravity, thermodynamics and aeronautics were right there waiting to be discovered, waiting for someone to ask the right questions.
I once had a housemate who was a very particularly religious fellow. He worked as a carpenter and one day he came home and said "Today the Lord showed me how to hang a ceiling." Whether you would agree with that analysis or not, if the ceiling stayed up the right questions were obviously asked.
Artists can use this method all the time. If you talk to your painting, and wait, the painting will talk back to you. It's the same with music. Constantine Stanislavski, the great Russian actor, director and teacher, has given actors a grand and almost mystical hypothesis to work with, called "The Magic IF, If I were in this situation what would I do? If I was this man, in this situation, and I wanted to find out this piece of information from this other man without letting him know I was doing it, what would I do. That puts the actor right in the middle of the action without any artificiality. He is then involved in a real event and the answer to his question will reveal itself. naturally.
There is no secret for finding the right question. Good luck may have something to do with it. But patience, desire, persistence and not giving up are guarantees.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
Mind Twister Of The Week
This puzzle is going to stay up for a week or until someone comes across with the answer. Dust off your brain.
________________
1. Here are three numbered statements.
2. Two of them are true.
3. One of them is false.
__________________
How many of the statements are true? Why?
____________________
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck, DB
*************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The Widow's Mite
You are declared interest in Nature's bank account.
Dana Bate
********************
Hello Brunei
********************
I knew of a woman who worked at the same job, or the same type of job, her entire life and when she retired she not only collected Social Security, she had a balance in her savings account of $175,000. When she was asked how she had accumulated so much money she gave a two word answer: "Compound Interest."
I have never been able to stock up on any appreciable hoard of funds during my vagabond life. I have no secret stash in a bank tucked into a remote and anonymous city on the edge of an ancient river. I have no numbered Swiss bank account. I have no trillion dollar lottery ticket to cash in when I feel like it. I have a meager saving account in my credit union and yesterday I had to take some of it out because I ran out of money but not out of needs.
I don't like to do that and I certainly don't want to make a habit of it.
But I have another savings account that I make deposits in all the time and hopefully not too many withdrawals. My shoulders are weighed down by the waight of the youngsters standing on them. But they are strengthened by the shoulders I stand on. There is a mystical bond that exists between me and some individual who lived hundreds of years ago, someone I've never heard of.
Once upon a time a man or a woman did something positive and progressive for the world, and as a result my life, in some small way, is easier. At another time someone did something magnanimous for humanity and my life is benefiting from it in grand ways. I am living interest in the account to which those people contributed in their lives. People who did not enjoy the freedom I have dreamt about it, spoke and wrote about it even, often, at the risk of their lives. Those who did not have the knowledge I have questioned old ideas, investigated and made discoveries which became part of the great account. What do we owe those people? Just to enjoy what they left for us and to make sure the account grows for the people who follow us.
My life could be better. Whose couldn't be? The reason it isn't is because there have always been those who contributed nothing to the savings but instead just withdrew from the account. The regressive, negative, nihilistic, backward thinking and backward moving, frightened and squeamish wasters of the great accomplishments of the past and previous generators, have dipped too much and too often into Nature's bank account. Even so it has not been depleted, though one might think that is what the plunderers want.
Sweeping things under the carpet does not clean the room, erasing a problem does not solve it, laws do not create ethical behavior. Unlike the negativists, those who pull down, those who withdraw from Nature's bank to discard the gains, the future must be considered. A decision has certain results. Logic demands them. Reason will reveal them.
Every positive step forward, even a halting, stumbling, uncertain one deposits value in the bank amd interest will accrue. Every act of kindness, charity, tolerance, cleaning, improvement, invention, design, completion, inspiration, discovery, no matter how small, is an investment in the future. Even the slightest sliver of advanced thinking and doing will brighten the life of someone years from now who has never heard of you. The mite of value you place in the world's cup will grow and interest will be declared.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
One day puzzle,
"Every Jefferson, Nixon and Truman. Or,
Every ----------. ------------- and -------------.= Tom, Dick and Harry.
Geo was the one to break the tape, soon followed by Sue.
Those were the only contestants. What's the matter with you people?
***********************
One day puzzle,
How many "f"s are there in the following statement.
The first of the few faces
you see if you look carefully
will be of a famous father.
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
**************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Dana Bate
********************
Hello Brunei
********************
I knew of a woman who worked at the same job, or the same type of job, her entire life and when she retired she not only collected Social Security, she had a balance in her savings account of $175,000. When she was asked how she had accumulated so much money she gave a two word answer: "Compound Interest."
I have never been able to stock up on any appreciable hoard of funds during my vagabond life. I have no secret stash in a bank tucked into a remote and anonymous city on the edge of an ancient river. I have no numbered Swiss bank account. I have no trillion dollar lottery ticket to cash in when I feel like it. I have a meager saving account in my credit union and yesterday I had to take some of it out because I ran out of money but not out of needs.
I don't like to do that and I certainly don't want to make a habit of it.
But I have another savings account that I make deposits in all the time and hopefully not too many withdrawals. My shoulders are weighed down by the waight of the youngsters standing on them. But they are strengthened by the shoulders I stand on. There is a mystical bond that exists between me and some individual who lived hundreds of years ago, someone I've never heard of.
Once upon a time a man or a woman did something positive and progressive for the world, and as a result my life, in some small way, is easier. At another time someone did something magnanimous for humanity and my life is benefiting from it in grand ways. I am living interest in the account to which those people contributed in their lives. People who did not enjoy the freedom I have dreamt about it, spoke and wrote about it even, often, at the risk of their lives. Those who did not have the knowledge I have questioned old ideas, investigated and made discoveries which became part of the great account. What do we owe those people? Just to enjoy what they left for us and to make sure the account grows for the people who follow us.
My life could be better. Whose couldn't be? The reason it isn't is because there have always been those who contributed nothing to the savings but instead just withdrew from the account. The regressive, negative, nihilistic, backward thinking and backward moving, frightened and squeamish wasters of the great accomplishments of the past and previous generators, have dipped too much and too often into Nature's bank account. Even so it has not been depleted, though one might think that is what the plunderers want.
Sweeping things under the carpet does not clean the room, erasing a problem does not solve it, laws do not create ethical behavior. Unlike the negativists, those who pull down, those who withdraw from Nature's bank to discard the gains, the future must be considered. A decision has certain results. Logic demands them. Reason will reveal them.
Every positive step forward, even a halting, stumbling, uncertain one deposits value in the bank amd interest will accrue. Every act of kindness, charity, tolerance, cleaning, improvement, invention, design, completion, inspiration, discovery, no matter how small, is an investment in the future. Even the slightest sliver of advanced thinking and doing will brighten the life of someone years from now who has never heard of you. The mite of value you place in the world's cup will grow and interest will be declared.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
One day puzzle,
"Every Jefferson, Nixon and Truman. Or,
Every ----------. ------------- and -------------.= Tom, Dick and Harry.
Geo was the one to break the tape, soon followed by Sue.
Those were the only contestants. What's the matter with you people?
***********************
One day puzzle,
How many "f"s are there in the following statement.
The first of the few faces
you see if you look carefully
will be of a famous father.
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
**************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Caress The Unknown
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.
Benjamin Franklin
***********************
Hello Botswana
*************************
How many phantoms are dancing on your nose? How many window shades have you yanked down? How long have you been waiting for the curtain to go up? Do you, as with most people, have two big boxes, one in the attic and the other in the cellar, one marked "unimportant" and the other marked "I'll get to you some day" and they are both filled up with stuff?
One night I was walking a teen age girl home from a meeting. It was dark, she was anxious to get home and glad for the company. On the way we passed a field that would be a shortcut, but she didn't want to go into it if there was water. I offered to go and find out but she said not to. Instead she picked up a rock about the size of her fist and threw it. We heard it splash in the water and avoided the field. I asked her where she learned that and she said it was from her brother. It's the sort of lore country people know. This city boy learned a lesson.
When I'm in a hurry and I want to know the meaning and spelling of a word I'll go to the online dictionary. But if I have the time I'll open up my big 2,214 page Random House/Websters unabridged and find what I'm looking for plus 5 or 6 other words I've never heard of before. That's how I discovered acerbic, abiosis, praxis, proleptic, mondagreen and jerk. Some of them are not all that useful to me but when they are I will use them to entertain us poor, effete, eastern, intellectual snobs, as I think Newt described us.
Someone I once knew said to me "Why do you insist on believing that everyone is as intelligent as you are?" My first answer is: Because I want them to be. But the real answer is that I don't consider myself any more intelligent than anyone else. But I am curious. Einstein once said that he wasn't all that clever but that he was just very curious.
We are all ignorant of most things, and there's nothing wrong with that. But the desire to remain ignorant is a cud chewing crime. A man will refuse to read the Quran but he'll set fire to it. People did not read Kazantzakis' "The Last Temptation Of Christ" but they demonstrated against the film. The professional wrestler says :If I can do it, it aint art." and yet he rehearses and acts out a scripted wrestling match every time he steps into the ring. One of the nations wealthiest CEOs says he's never given a dollar to any cultural cause, never will and he's proud of it. The ignorance is breath taking. If I didn't doubt it I would think that some people are abjectly and shudderingly frightened to death of the "terrorism" of philosophy, science, art and ideas.
"Don't go looking into things that don't concern you." How will you know if they concern you or not until you look into them? "The more you know the less you know." Yes. Isn't that great?
Ignorance is the perpetually dancing phantom distracting us from the realities. It's the strange light on the other ise of the window shade. It's what's behind the curtain. It's the monster in the cellar and the ghost in the attic. It's the shadow on Plato's wall. It's the creature from outer space. It's the great, terrifying unknown, which once known is simply known.
"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:" Matthew 7:7. So what's the big deal? For ignorance there is an excuse. For unwillingness to ask, seek and knock there is no excuse.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
One day puzzle, First one in with the right answer wins the badge.
"Every Jerrerson, Nixon and Truman. Or,
Every ----------. ------------- and -------------.
dbdacoba@aol.com
***********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Benjamin Franklin
***********************
Hello Botswana
*************************
How many phantoms are dancing on your nose? How many window shades have you yanked down? How long have you been waiting for the curtain to go up? Do you, as with most people, have two big boxes, one in the attic and the other in the cellar, one marked "unimportant" and the other marked "I'll get to you some day" and they are both filled up with stuff?
One night I was walking a teen age girl home from a meeting. It was dark, she was anxious to get home and glad for the company. On the way we passed a field that would be a shortcut, but she didn't want to go into it if there was water. I offered to go and find out but she said not to. Instead she picked up a rock about the size of her fist and threw it. We heard it splash in the water and avoided the field. I asked her where she learned that and she said it was from her brother. It's the sort of lore country people know. This city boy learned a lesson.
When I'm in a hurry and I want to know the meaning and spelling of a word I'll go to the online dictionary. But if I have the time I'll open up my big 2,214 page Random House/Websters unabridged and find what I'm looking for plus 5 or 6 other words I've never heard of before. That's how I discovered acerbic, abiosis, praxis, proleptic, mondagreen and jerk. Some of them are not all that useful to me but when they are I will use them to entertain us poor, effete, eastern, intellectual snobs, as I think Newt described us.
Someone I once knew said to me "Why do you insist on believing that everyone is as intelligent as you are?" My first answer is: Because I want them to be. But the real answer is that I don't consider myself any more intelligent than anyone else. But I am curious. Einstein once said that he wasn't all that clever but that he was just very curious.
We are all ignorant of most things, and there's nothing wrong with that. But the desire to remain ignorant is a cud chewing crime. A man will refuse to read the Quran but he'll set fire to it. People did not read Kazantzakis' "The Last Temptation Of Christ" but they demonstrated against the film. The professional wrestler says :If I can do it, it aint art." and yet he rehearses and acts out a scripted wrestling match every time he steps into the ring. One of the nations wealthiest CEOs says he's never given a dollar to any cultural cause, never will and he's proud of it. The ignorance is breath taking. If I didn't doubt it I would think that some people are abjectly and shudderingly frightened to death of the "terrorism" of philosophy, science, art and ideas.
"Don't go looking into things that don't concern you." How will you know if they concern you or not until you look into them? "The more you know the less you know." Yes. Isn't that great?
Ignorance is the perpetually dancing phantom distracting us from the realities. It's the strange light on the other ise of the window shade. It's what's behind the curtain. It's the monster in the cellar and the ghost in the attic. It's the shadow on Plato's wall. It's the creature from outer space. It's the great, terrifying unknown, which once known is simply known.
"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:" Matthew 7:7. So what's the big deal? For ignorance there is an excuse. For unwillingness to ask, seek and knock there is no excuse.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
One day puzzle, First one in with the right answer wins the badge.
"Every Jerrerson, Nixon and Truman. Or,
Every ----------. ------------- and -------------.
dbdacoba@aol.com
***********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Monday, April 18, 2011
Vagabondism #17
Vagabond #17 "One of the ironies of life is that the freedom to do what we want must be paid for by the effort of doing it." http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
The Free Artist
Artistry is possible only for those who acknowledge necessity as a condition of, rather than as a limit upon, their freedom to act.
Aaron Ridley
******************
Hello Bermuda
********************
You might as well make a pot of tea because this is a long one. Of course, you could skip it if you want to. But if you do that I won't send you any more cookies.
----------------------------
"Why do I keep writing?" I asked myself in my journal a few days ago. Naturally, the answer is "I write because I have to." Every morning two vicious, sinister guys in double breasted suits show up here with Tasers wanting to see what I wrote the day before. If I can't show them something I'm in for a lot of trouble. One day I said I was tired and needed to rest. That earned me a smack across the back of the head with a tether ball paddle.
The two men in suits are known as imagination and humor. I write because I must, because the ideas flow. It's like breathing. If you exhale you have to inhale. Every time I exhale it's another vagabond journey. If you inhale you have to exhale, there is only so long I can hold my breath.
If you walked in on me you would probably find me sitting on my bed staring aimlessly into space. At least that's what it would look like. (My mother used to think I was dopey.) But that's where the inspiration is, in the silent breath of ideas.
Like the lungs, the human mind works by itself. But also like the lungs we can control its workings. I have a quote somewhere which says that the reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory. A long time ago I decided that since my mind was going to work, as long as I was continuing to think, I had a responsibility to myself to think as clearly and as originally as possible. One doesn't have to be a great thinker, a genius, to utilize one's intelligence intelligently. It takes a little discipline and some getting used to.
Another thing I decided was that I didn't want to express myself through grand old sterling silver cliches. Most of them were invented by Shakespeare anyway, like "wild goose chase" and "eaten me out of house and home." His was a good example. If he can make them up, so can I.
So now I look forward to sitting down at the keyboard after staring into space to discover what this senior citizen's imagination is going to hatch. And I don't hold my breath.
---------------------------------
It was the same with my acting. I may have told this story before. (What DB? You're repeating yourself? Warn the Google censors.) If you've heard it before you can talk among yourselves or go out for a beer.
I was doing "A Christmas Carol" at a New York State theatre. There was a quick change in the show, when Scrooge goes from his bed clothes into the winter clothes he wears to visit Fred's family and on the way buy the goose for the Cratchets.
The production gave me one minute to make the change. On stage was a small group singing a hymn. My dresser was a retired actress who had been the understudy for some of the most famous actresses on Broadway. Quick changes are things that have to be carefully designed and thoroughly rehearsed. The first time we did the change it took about five minutes. But we gradually worked it down to about a minute, and that's how we opened the show. But as time went buy we got even faster with it, and one night we did it in about 30 seconds. I went out and joined the singers.
After the performance my dresser said she was very impressed that instead of resting for the 30 seconds I went back out on the stage and it showed that's where I really wanted to be.
I was well into my career when that happened, but early on I learned that being on the stage was the place where I was the most comfortable, the most at home. I was free to work through the words of the great playwrights, to depict the human race to itself in all its disguises, to offer messages of joy, healing, fresh ideas and fresh expressions of standard ideas, to invite the people who saw me into the strange and wonderful world of human life through art. It was my necessity.
Now I write and I paint. If you do what you love you will do it even when you're tired. If you do what you love because you must, you won't even know you're tired.
Thank you for reading my journal.
DB - The Vagabond
**************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Aaron Ridley
******************
Hello Bermuda
********************
You might as well make a pot of tea because this is a long one. Of course, you could skip it if you want to. But if you do that I won't send you any more cookies.
----------------------------
"Why do I keep writing?" I asked myself in my journal a few days ago. Naturally, the answer is "I write because I have to." Every morning two vicious, sinister guys in double breasted suits show up here with Tasers wanting to see what I wrote the day before. If I can't show them something I'm in for a lot of trouble. One day I said I was tired and needed to rest. That earned me a smack across the back of the head with a tether ball paddle.
The two men in suits are known as imagination and humor. I write because I must, because the ideas flow. It's like breathing. If you exhale you have to inhale. Every time I exhale it's another vagabond journey. If you inhale you have to exhale, there is only so long I can hold my breath.
If you walked in on me you would probably find me sitting on my bed staring aimlessly into space. At least that's what it would look like. (My mother used to think I was dopey.) But that's where the inspiration is, in the silent breath of ideas.
Like the lungs, the human mind works by itself. But also like the lungs we can control its workings. I have a quote somewhere which says that the reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory. A long time ago I decided that since my mind was going to work, as long as I was continuing to think, I had a responsibility to myself to think as clearly and as originally as possible. One doesn't have to be a great thinker, a genius, to utilize one's intelligence intelligently. It takes a little discipline and some getting used to.
Another thing I decided was that I didn't want to express myself through grand old sterling silver cliches. Most of them were invented by Shakespeare anyway, like "wild goose chase" and "eaten me out of house and home." His was a good example. If he can make them up, so can I.
So now I look forward to sitting down at the keyboard after staring into space to discover what this senior citizen's imagination is going to hatch. And I don't hold my breath.
---------------------------------
It was the same with my acting. I may have told this story before. (What DB? You're repeating yourself? Warn the Google censors.) If you've heard it before you can talk among yourselves or go out for a beer.
I was doing "A Christmas Carol" at a New York State theatre. There was a quick change in the show, when Scrooge goes from his bed clothes into the winter clothes he wears to visit Fred's family and on the way buy the goose for the Cratchets.
The production gave me one minute to make the change. On stage was a small group singing a hymn. My dresser was a retired actress who had been the understudy for some of the most famous actresses on Broadway. Quick changes are things that have to be carefully designed and thoroughly rehearsed. The first time we did the change it took about five minutes. But we gradually worked it down to about a minute, and that's how we opened the show. But as time went buy we got even faster with it, and one night we did it in about 30 seconds. I went out and joined the singers.
After the performance my dresser said she was very impressed that instead of resting for the 30 seconds I went back out on the stage and it showed that's where I really wanted to be.
I was well into my career when that happened, but early on I learned that being on the stage was the place where I was the most comfortable, the most at home. I was free to work through the words of the great playwrights, to depict the human race to itself in all its disguises, to offer messages of joy, healing, fresh ideas and fresh expressions of standard ideas, to invite the people who saw me into the strange and wonderful world of human life through art. It was my necessity.
Now I write and I paint. If you do what you love you will do it even when you're tired. If you do what you love because you must, you won't even know you're tired.
Thank you for reading my journal.
DB - The Vagabond
**************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Vagabondism
Vagabondism #16 "When you have to tell your age, do it, but start by saying “I’m only…”
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
******************************************
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com/
******************************************
For Crying Out Loud
So my voice becomes a breath and a shout. One prepares the way, the other surrounds my loneliness with angels.
Rainer Maria Rilke
*******************
Hello Acapulco, Mexico
*******************************
"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands." Psalm 100.
It was the first week in August. I was living in a residential hotel, where I had lived for many years. I wrote out a check for the rent and presented it at the front desk, but I knew there wasn't enough money in my account to cover it.
During the previous week I had made a soap opera appearance for which I was owed about $700. I was assured the check would be mailed early enough to be in my mail box by Thursday at the latest. If I could get that check into my account by Friday morning the hotel check wouldn't bounce. The hotel was patient with me but I knew they didn't want a bounced check. They could get me out in 3 days if they wanted to. They tried it once before.
I returned from my day of hustling at about 6 p.m. on Thursday and opened my mailbox. It was empty. No check.
I went up to my room in anger and agitation. I was desperately trying to figure out what to do. There were no buildings across the street from me so I threw open the window and hollered out into the night, into outer space, with all my voice, WHERE'S MY MONEY ???!!!
I sat there for a moment thinking "what to do, what to do" when my intuition told me to go down and look in the mail box again. I knew it was empty, but I also knew that sometimes the hotel was slow and inept at distributing the mail. Maybe it had landed in someone else's box and would get returned. So I put on my shoes and went downstairs. I opened my mail box and there was my check.,
I knew that it wouldn't take long to process that check because ABC TV and I both banked at the same branch. But, all the same and for good measure, I took it to one of the officers and explained my predicament, He, a nice young Asian fellow, took care of it immediately and my rent check cleared.
When I told my friend David about shouting out the window and then getting the check he said "Wow. That's service."
I said "Yes. I think I got the angels to listen to me"
My noise wasn't all that joyful, but it was an earnest shout. Try it someday. You might wake up an angel and get what you want.
DB - The Vagabond
*************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Rainer Maria Rilke
*******************
Hello Acapulco, Mexico
*******************************
"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands." Psalm 100.
It was the first week in August. I was living in a residential hotel, where I had lived for many years. I wrote out a check for the rent and presented it at the front desk, but I knew there wasn't enough money in my account to cover it.
During the previous week I had made a soap opera appearance for which I was owed about $700. I was assured the check would be mailed early enough to be in my mail box by Thursday at the latest. If I could get that check into my account by Friday morning the hotel check wouldn't bounce. The hotel was patient with me but I knew they didn't want a bounced check. They could get me out in 3 days if they wanted to. They tried it once before.
I returned from my day of hustling at about 6 p.m. on Thursday and opened my mailbox. It was empty. No check.
I went up to my room in anger and agitation. I was desperately trying to figure out what to do. There were no buildings across the street from me so I threw open the window and hollered out into the night, into outer space, with all my voice, WHERE'S MY MONEY ???!!!
I sat there for a moment thinking "what to do, what to do" when my intuition told me to go down and look in the mail box again. I knew it was empty, but I also knew that sometimes the hotel was slow and inept at distributing the mail. Maybe it had landed in someone else's box and would get returned. So I put on my shoes and went downstairs. I opened my mail box and there was my check.,
I knew that it wouldn't take long to process that check because ABC TV and I both banked at the same branch. But, all the same and for good measure, I took it to one of the officers and explained my predicament, He, a nice young Asian fellow, took care of it immediately and my rent check cleared.
When I told my friend David about shouting out the window and then getting the check he said "Wow. That's service."
I said "Yes. I think I got the angels to listen to me"
My noise wasn't all that joyful, but it was an earnest shout. Try it someday. You might wake up an angel and get what you want.
DB - The Vagabond
*************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Saturday, April 16, 2011
A Winter Song
Spring comes to you at the farthest
In the very end of harvest.
William Shakespeare
*********************
Hello Baffin Island
**********************
Yesterday was a cold, wet, windy day here in eastern Pennsylvania. As I walked the two blocks back to my apartment house, huddled in my jacket which was not quite warm enough, I thought how much it resembled a winter day.
That made me reflect on how things were with me during the Winter. No matter what the weather is life goes on, and winter weather is the kind that prompts indoor activities, taking stock of personal things and some introspection. As I walked along against the wind I thought about where I was in January, How much did I gain, of self awareness and strength of purpose. How much did I lose, of negativity, arrogance and futile dreams.
The Winter was a time of rebuked pride, weakening of body but raising of standards, a time of chastisement for past errors, healing strokes for recent rebukes and recognition of personal worth. It was a time for weeding out thoughts that were contributing to confusion, planting new ideas and gathering up lessons learned.
As Spring came with its tearful buckets of bad national and international news I knew I could retreat into the safety and warmth of my own barn surrounded by the accomplishments of another year. I can peer out with hope for the well being of the world, know that the music is still being played, the paintings are still on display and the curtains are still going up, and even though I'm not there I can be grateful for the fact that my life is still a life being lived.
When the last Christmas decoration has been taken down, the last piece of pumpkin pie has been eaten, the last thank you card has been sent and the New Year has been welcomed in, then is the time to tend the inner crops, the rich fields of experience, aspiration and love. And then, when you are ripe and ready, gather up the harvest of your Winter and welcome the Spring.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
This Week's Contest - Answers
You were ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
There were 6 excellent replies;
---------------------------------------
a lump of old coal on the far reaches of the golf course
Sue
------------------------
Not for all the herbs in Asia
Avians of similar plumage congregate amongst themselves
A lupine in ovine's garb
The chirography instrument is more invincible than the foil
Janice Slack
jamcs605@aol.com
---------------------------------
One is wiser not to place their heavy, opened, two-wheeled vehicle, used for the conveyance of their goods, drawn by their large, solid-hoofed herbivorous quadruped, in front of its mouth, but to place it behind its hindquarters (a.k.a its arse).
Val
--------------------------------------
It was a difficult choice but the judge is awarding the first place prize to Val for the sheer verbosity of the cart before the horse.
Second place is tough, but it's going to Sue for the diamond in the rough.
And third prize to Janice for the pen being mightier than the sword.
Thank you all. Excellent work.
There may be another puzzle this week, if I have the stamina for it.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB,
******************
In the very end of harvest.
William Shakespeare
*********************
Hello Baffin Island
**********************
Yesterday was a cold, wet, windy day here in eastern Pennsylvania. As I walked the two blocks back to my apartment house, huddled in my jacket which was not quite warm enough, I thought how much it resembled a winter day.
That made me reflect on how things were with me during the Winter. No matter what the weather is life goes on, and winter weather is the kind that prompts indoor activities, taking stock of personal things and some introspection. As I walked along against the wind I thought about where I was in January, How much did I gain, of self awareness and strength of purpose. How much did I lose, of negativity, arrogance and futile dreams.
The Winter was a time of rebuked pride, weakening of body but raising of standards, a time of chastisement for past errors, healing strokes for recent rebukes and recognition of personal worth. It was a time for weeding out thoughts that were contributing to confusion, planting new ideas and gathering up lessons learned.
As Spring came with its tearful buckets of bad national and international news I knew I could retreat into the safety and warmth of my own barn surrounded by the accomplishments of another year. I can peer out with hope for the well being of the world, know that the music is still being played, the paintings are still on display and the curtains are still going up, and even though I'm not there I can be grateful for the fact that my life is still a life being lived.
When the last Christmas decoration has been taken down, the last piece of pumpkin pie has been eaten, the last thank you card has been sent and the New Year has been welcomed in, then is the time to tend the inner crops, the rich fields of experience, aspiration and love. And then, when you are ripe and ready, gather up the harvest of your Winter and welcome the Spring.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
This Week's Contest - Answers
You were ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
There were 6 excellent replies;
---------------------------------------
a lump of old coal on the far reaches of the golf course
Sue
------------------------
Not for all the herbs in Asia
Avians of similar plumage congregate amongst themselves
A lupine in ovine's garb
The chirography instrument is more invincible than the foil
Janice Slack
jamcs605@aol.com
---------------------------------
One is wiser not to place their heavy, opened, two-wheeled vehicle, used for the conveyance of their goods, drawn by their large, solid-hoofed herbivorous quadruped, in front of its mouth, but to place it behind its hindquarters (a.k.a its arse).
Val
--------------------------------------
It was a difficult choice but the judge is awarding the first place prize to Val for the sheer verbosity of the cart before the horse.
Second place is tough, but it's going to Sue for the diamond in the rough.
And third prize to Janice for the pen being mightier than the sword.
Thank you all. Excellent work.
There may be another puzzle this week, if I have the stamina for it.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB,
******************
Friday, April 15, 2011
Sights And Sounds
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence.
Helen Keller
******************
Hello Borneo
*********************
The electricity went off in the neighborhood this evening. I was suddenly transformed into darkness and also into silence. I couldn't listen to music. I couldn't read, write or paint. So I sat still in my room to watch and listen.
There is a different kind of music in the silence. It's not the familiar songs in memory but a never ending and never repeating symphony of sound. It does not ask to be heard, but will sing for whomever listens. It is a music that can not be played on any earthly instruments and all the music of earth is not much more than a mumble compare to it. Musicians will try to capture it and invite it to live on their strings. But it sings on above the fingers and lips that can only whisper it.
There are visions in the darkeners beyond describing in terms of the daily fiction we live, with our duties, our day dreams and our night dreams. It transcends the very fundamental beliefs of humans. It sprays an abundance of beauty not known or understood by all the artists who strive to grasp and reproduce it.
The sounds and sights of stillness do not try to invade our lives. They play their immortal games with joy and don't care who knows it.
I'm grateful to have been taken, unwillingly, to the place where wonders live of silent sounds and invisible sights.. I must do it more often.
DB - The Vagabond
************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
5 entries so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
Helen Keller
******************
Hello Borneo
*********************
The electricity went off in the neighborhood this evening. I was suddenly transformed into darkness and also into silence. I couldn't listen to music. I couldn't read, write or paint. So I sat still in my room to watch and listen.
There is a different kind of music in the silence. It's not the familiar songs in memory but a never ending and never repeating symphony of sound. It does not ask to be heard, but will sing for whomever listens. It is a music that can not be played on any earthly instruments and all the music of earth is not much more than a mumble compare to it. Musicians will try to capture it and invite it to live on their strings. But it sings on above the fingers and lips that can only whisper it.
There are visions in the darkeners beyond describing in terms of the daily fiction we live, with our duties, our day dreams and our night dreams. It transcends the very fundamental beliefs of humans. It sprays an abundance of beauty not known or understood by all the artists who strive to grasp and reproduce it.
The sounds and sights of stillness do not try to invade our lives. They play their immortal games with joy and don't care who knows it.
I'm grateful to have been taken, unwillingly, to the place where wonders live of silent sounds and invisible sights.. I must do it more often.
DB - The Vagabond
************************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
5 entries so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Adventure
The road to success and career fulfillment is not straight, it's not a super highway and it's not without potholes.
Patty Talahongua (Hopi)
****************************
Hello Ambriz, Angola Good fishing.
************************************
Recently someone suggested that since he thought I had had such an interesting and adventuresome life I should write an autobiography. I don't think I will. But one thing I'm sure of is that if I did and a conscientious, researching journalist wrote a biography of me, other than names and dates the two books would not resemble each other. It would be due simply to the fact that an objective appraisal of a human action is usually far from the subjective context of it, which is much richer in meaning. And what I might consider an important thread in my life a biographer may see as trivial, and vice versa.
In my autobiography there would certainly be no mention of certain things I said and did, not because I don't have the courage to write about them but because I would want to be remembered by and identified by the best of my actions and experiences.
There's a Dakota proverb that says "We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.: We can't help leaving tracks in other people's lives, especially on the twisting, potholed road to fulfillment. Some of those tracks can be harsh and hurting. One can hope that things will turn out for the best, amd many will. But there are footprints and crumbs I've left behind me that I would just as soon forget about.
I'm glad I traveled the road I did. It was hard and difficult. I could have chosen not to follow it. One always has the choice of looking for and finding the permanent resting place, the elysian field where dreams remain dreams, where one's potentials are woven into a crazy quilt of maybes that keeps us warm in the winter and where the answer to the question of why didn't I is answered by "I didn't want to take the chance, it was too scary. I may be bored, but I'm not frightened."
I didn't set out to have an adventuresome life, but the choices I made thrust adventures on me, some of them dangerous pot holes. I have had many lonely days and many frightening days, but I haven't had a boring day since I can remember.
So let the biographer write of me as he will, if he really wants to. As for my autobiography it has, for seven decades, today and perhaps forever, consisted of only one word: "vagabond."
DB
**************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Patty Talahongua (Hopi)
****************************
Hello Ambriz, Angola Good fishing.
************************************
Recently someone suggested that since he thought I had had such an interesting and adventuresome life I should write an autobiography. I don't think I will. But one thing I'm sure of is that if I did and a conscientious, researching journalist wrote a biography of me, other than names and dates the two books would not resemble each other. It would be due simply to the fact that an objective appraisal of a human action is usually far from the subjective context of it, which is much richer in meaning. And what I might consider an important thread in my life a biographer may see as trivial, and vice versa.
In my autobiography there would certainly be no mention of certain things I said and did, not because I don't have the courage to write about them but because I would want to be remembered by and identified by the best of my actions and experiences.
There's a Dakota proverb that says "We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.: We can't help leaving tracks in other people's lives, especially on the twisting, potholed road to fulfillment. Some of those tracks can be harsh and hurting. One can hope that things will turn out for the best, amd many will. But there are footprints and crumbs I've left behind me that I would just as soon forget about.
I'm glad I traveled the road I did. It was hard and difficult. I could have chosen not to follow it. One always has the choice of looking for and finding the permanent resting place, the elysian field where dreams remain dreams, where one's potentials are woven into a crazy quilt of maybes that keeps us warm in the winter and where the answer to the question of why didn't I is answered by "I didn't want to take the chance, it was too scary. I may be bored, but I'm not frightened."
I didn't set out to have an adventuresome life, but the choices I made thrust adventures on me, some of them dangerous pot holes. I have had many lonely days and many frightening days, but I haven't had a boring day since I can remember.
So let the biographer write of me as he will, if he really wants to. As for my autobiography it has, for seven decades, today and perhaps forever, consisted of only one word: "vagabond."
DB
**************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Sportsmenlike Conduct
One ought to think for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.
Moliere
****************
Hello Brest, Belarus
*********************
Is violence becoming the American way of life? Is civility finally drifting out of our civilization and leaving behind a land of terrorists? So a Giant fan was beaten up in the Dodgers Stadium parking lot and is now in a coma. So what? It's baseball. It's important.
Players smashing into other players is the thrill of ice hockey. More players are carried off the football fields than ever were. I keep reading about what goes on in soccer games when the fans get unruly and the stadium comes down. Come on. Basketball players are easy targets. So are marathon runners.
If you can't beat up all the opposing fans, you can do what the sports Dad's do and go after the referee when your kid or your side gets a call you don't like. Knock him down.
If the other guy is about to win the tennis match, don't waste time, jump over the net and smack over the head a few times with your tennis racket. That should teach him a lesson.
When you're on the last golf green and another player is within one stroke of winning the tournament don't stand around gawking, have your buddies come out with clubs and break his knees.
Now lets see, there must be some way we can work the grand old red, white a blue violence into high jumping, discus throwing and table tennis.
This is nothing new, of course. When you read that some of our esteemed founding fathers would come into the floor of the House and Senate during the first few congresses and beat each other with sticks, you realize that some of the rules of condemnation were laid out early on.
I think it would be politically correct if a Republican and a Democrat were to duke it out on the floor of the House of Representatives. Don't you? Then we would know who is right.
If you don't like a guy's religion, burn his book. If you don't like a guy's sexuality, beat him up. If you don't like a guy's politics, buy a gun and shoot him, as happened in Arizona not too long ago.
What happened to civilized behavior? Where is it? What happened to American civilization? Where did it go?
DB - The Vagabond
???????????????????????????
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Moliere
****************
Hello Brest, Belarus
*********************
Is violence becoming the American way of life? Is civility finally drifting out of our civilization and leaving behind a land of terrorists? So a Giant fan was beaten up in the Dodgers Stadium parking lot and is now in a coma. So what? It's baseball. It's important.
Players smashing into other players is the thrill of ice hockey. More players are carried off the football fields than ever were. I keep reading about what goes on in soccer games when the fans get unruly and the stadium comes down. Come on. Basketball players are easy targets. So are marathon runners.
If you can't beat up all the opposing fans, you can do what the sports Dad's do and go after the referee when your kid or your side gets a call you don't like. Knock him down.
If the other guy is about to win the tennis match, don't waste time, jump over the net and smack over the head a few times with your tennis racket. That should teach him a lesson.
When you're on the last golf green and another player is within one stroke of winning the tournament don't stand around gawking, have your buddies come out with clubs and break his knees.
Now lets see, there must be some way we can work the grand old red, white a blue violence into high jumping, discus throwing and table tennis.
This is nothing new, of course. When you read that some of our esteemed founding fathers would come into the floor of the House and Senate during the first few congresses and beat each other with sticks, you realize that some of the rules of condemnation were laid out early on.
I think it would be politically correct if a Republican and a Democrat were to duke it out on the floor of the House of Representatives. Don't you? Then we would know who is right.
If you don't like a guy's religion, burn his book. If you don't like a guy's sexuality, beat him up. If you don't like a guy's politics, buy a gun and shoot him, as happened in Arizona not too long ago.
What happened to civilized behavior? Where is it? What happened to American civilization? Where did it go?
DB - The Vagabond
???????????????????????????
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Over Do It
Every artists knows how far from any feeling of letting himself go his most "natural" state is.
Friedrich Nietzsche
*************************
Hello Bregenz, Austria
***********************
A wise man once said that he treats everything with moderation, even moderation. That word "moderation" is probably the most useless word in the world of art and artists. Unless we are "out on a limb" where most people consider it excessive, unless we are in those dangerous places of opulence, magnanimity and ripeness we can't make the discoveries and produce the marvels that are so beloved by the rest of the world.
Think of the lush paintings of Rubens, Botticelli and Rembrandt, the vigorous poetry of Shakespeare or John Donne, the novels of Dostoevski. There is nothing moderate about any of their works. If you say Tchaikovski, most people think of the 1812 Overture. Where's the moderation in that?
One day a colleague and I went to visit a class of high school seniors who had seen our play. Questions were asked and one boy asked what life was like in the theatre. I asked him if he was thinking about a life in the theatre. He said "Mildly." My colleague said "Well, if you're thinking about it mildly don't think about it." And that brought on a discussion of what it was like for professional actors, how there was nothing mild about it, how it was with us every moment, how it was a constant occupation and preoccupation of our thoughts and lives, as it is with any artist.
I explained that we were not addicted, obsessed or insane but that we were committed to it and that it ranked in our lives above any other activity. I told the boy he might stop thinking mildly about it and start thinking passionately. Or he may soon discover something else to which he knows he can honestly commit his life.
Every day I sit here and write a entry into the Vagabond Journes and I often wonder why I do it. There is usually some mud the computer wants to throw on my page. Tonight it's that some girl scout stole my cookies so I have to reregister for every place I want to log in to. But I also wonder about the seeming futility of what I am doing. Maybe 15 people out of the millions in the world read my journal and maybe I will get 2 or 3 comments. It seems unlikely that any words will reach the shores where they can do the most good, unless I publish, which I would love to do if I knew how.
So why do I keep writing?
DB - Vagabond Journeys
***************************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Friedrich Nietzsche
*************************
Hello Bregenz, Austria
***********************
A wise man once said that he treats everything with moderation, even moderation. That word "moderation" is probably the most useless word in the world of art and artists. Unless we are "out on a limb" where most people consider it excessive, unless we are in those dangerous places of opulence, magnanimity and ripeness we can't make the discoveries and produce the marvels that are so beloved by the rest of the world.
Think of the lush paintings of Rubens, Botticelli and Rembrandt, the vigorous poetry of Shakespeare or John Donne, the novels of Dostoevski. There is nothing moderate about any of their works. If you say Tchaikovski, most people think of the 1812 Overture. Where's the moderation in that?
One day a colleague and I went to visit a class of high school seniors who had seen our play. Questions were asked and one boy asked what life was like in the theatre. I asked him if he was thinking about a life in the theatre. He said "Mildly." My colleague said "Well, if you're thinking about it mildly don't think about it." And that brought on a discussion of what it was like for professional actors, how there was nothing mild about it, how it was with us every moment, how it was a constant occupation and preoccupation of our thoughts and lives, as it is with any artist.
I explained that we were not addicted, obsessed or insane but that we were committed to it and that it ranked in our lives above any other activity. I told the boy he might stop thinking mildly about it and start thinking passionately. Or he may soon discover something else to which he knows he can honestly commit his life.
Every day I sit here and write a entry into the Vagabond Journes and I often wonder why I do it. There is usually some mud the computer wants to throw on my page. Tonight it's that some girl scout stole my cookies so I have to reregister for every place I want to log in to. But I also wonder about the seeming futility of what I am doing. Maybe 15 people out of the millions in the world read my journal and maybe I will get 2 or 3 comments. It seems unlikely that any words will reach the shores where they can do the most good, unless I publish, which I would love to do if I knew how.
So why do I keep writing?
DB - Vagabond Journeys
***************************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
Good luck. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Monday, April 11, 2011
I'm The Dolt
The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself in spite of being unacceptable.
Paul Tillich
***********************
Hello Barbados
***********************
I can't think of anyone who frustrates and annoys me more than myself. My life is a living example of Murphy's Law. I need to wear a sign that says "DOLT" when I go out in public so everyone will be forewarned.
I did my income tax today and as usual I got it all finished and in the stamped envelop when I discovered something I forgot and had to redo the whole thing. I used to have it done by the end of February, but these days I have too much to do. I need a personal accountant, lawyer, butler, maid. cook, chauffeur, masseuse, a clinic full of the proper doctors and nurses, a closet full of new clothes, a couple of cats to frolic in the back yard, a dog to walk me every day and a big house to keep them all. In short, I need to be a billionaire so that I would have the people around me to take care of and clean up after the doltish things I do.
Instead I have a few twittery birds on the balcony, eating up all my bird seeds and no one else around (thank goodness) to witness the perilous circumstances I have made and keep making for myself.
I question why I put up with me. No one else would. I think it has something to do with worth, value or permission. I feel i have never achieved and probably never will the one thing that certifies me, that pays the price of having been born, that compensates the world for allowing me to be a citizen of it.
Wouldn't it be something if everything was harmonious? To see the sleek appearance of rightness and fitness everywhere, to realize an unbreakable alliance of beauty and logic, to have one's honest hopes meld into graceful realities, and never have to face problems whose solutions are elusive or questions that have no answers, is to live the acceptable life. Everything is less than, including me.
No I'm not putting myself down. I'm accepting myself as being unacceptable. It gives me something to strive for, and that's probably why I have too much to do. I would have a lot more time to do things it I didn't persist in making doltish mistakes. The only thing I can say for myself is that it's a damn good thing I have a sense of humor.
DB - Vagabond
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
5 entries so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
Paul Tillich
***********************
Hello Barbados
***********************
I can't think of anyone who frustrates and annoys me more than myself. My life is a living example of Murphy's Law. I need to wear a sign that says "DOLT" when I go out in public so everyone will be forewarned.
I did my income tax today and as usual I got it all finished and in the stamped envelop when I discovered something I forgot and had to redo the whole thing. I used to have it done by the end of February, but these days I have too much to do. I need a personal accountant, lawyer, butler, maid. cook, chauffeur, masseuse, a clinic full of the proper doctors and nurses, a closet full of new clothes, a couple of cats to frolic in the back yard, a dog to walk me every day and a big house to keep them all. In short, I need to be a billionaire so that I would have the people around me to take care of and clean up after the doltish things I do.
Instead I have a few twittery birds on the balcony, eating up all my bird seeds and no one else around (thank goodness) to witness the perilous circumstances I have made and keep making for myself.
I question why I put up with me. No one else would. I think it has something to do with worth, value or permission. I feel i have never achieved and probably never will the one thing that certifies me, that pays the price of having been born, that compensates the world for allowing me to be a citizen of it.
Wouldn't it be something if everything was harmonious? To see the sleek appearance of rightness and fitness everywhere, to realize an unbreakable alliance of beauty and logic, to have one's honest hopes meld into graceful realities, and never have to face problems whose solutions are elusive or questions that have no answers, is to live the acceptable life. Everything is less than, including me.
No I'm not putting myself down. I'm accepting myself as being unacceptable. It gives me something to strive for, and that's probably why I have too much to do. I would have a lot more time to do things it I didn't persist in making doltish mistakes. The only thing I can say for myself is that it's a damn good thing I have a sense of humor.
DB - Vagabond
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
5 entries so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Up We Go
Why do you climb the philosophical hills? Because they are worth climbing.
Margaret Thatcher
*************************
Hello Arkadelphia, Arkansas.
*******************************
Why are they worth it? What is the value in huffing and puffing up the steep trails of ethics, aesthetics, politics, poetics and economics? Where is the profit in struggling through the jungles of logic and semantics? Then what is to be gained from coming out onto the sheer and treacherous slopes of cosmology and metaphysics?
Why make the effort? Why not just order a pizza, kick off your shoes, crack a beer, flick on the TV and enjoy a good ball game? I must admit there are many times when I just want to relax into the simple, limited thinking of my own mental world. And I would if I hadn't been permanently alarmed at my own lack of knowledge and understanding of the world of ideas that are shaping everything around me and will eventually affect me and my life, if they haven't already.
Some of the gentler philosophers like Bertrand Russell will take me by the elbow and lead me this way or that. The more vigorous ones like Friedrich Nietzsche will grab me by the beard and yank me into understanding. Either way it's a life changing experience to be thrust into a place high up in the rarified atmosphere of thought where few have been before.
The philosopher, like the artist and the inventor, is searching for the invisible, cataloguing the unknown. A philosopher may attempt to understand and define the short term and long term destiny of humanity by observing human history and human behavior. He may attempt to define man's relationship to the universe, as a creature of it, through cosmological observations. He may reach the enlightened place in his thinking where things disappear and are replaced by thoughts. If he achieves that inspired place he will have fulfilled all the duties of his watch.
I, following, stumbling and tripping, climb as best as I can, the slippery philosophical hills.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
5 entries so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
Margaret Thatcher
*************************
Hello Arkadelphia, Arkansas.
*******************************
Why are they worth it? What is the value in huffing and puffing up the steep trails of ethics, aesthetics, politics, poetics and economics? Where is the profit in struggling through the jungles of logic and semantics? Then what is to be gained from coming out onto the sheer and treacherous slopes of cosmology and metaphysics?
Why make the effort? Why not just order a pizza, kick off your shoes, crack a beer, flick on the TV and enjoy a good ball game? I must admit there are many times when I just want to relax into the simple, limited thinking of my own mental world. And I would if I hadn't been permanently alarmed at my own lack of knowledge and understanding of the world of ideas that are shaping everything around me and will eventually affect me and my life, if they haven't already.
Some of the gentler philosophers like Bertrand Russell will take me by the elbow and lead me this way or that. The more vigorous ones like Friedrich Nietzsche will grab me by the beard and yank me into understanding. Either way it's a life changing experience to be thrust into a place high up in the rarified atmosphere of thought where few have been before.
The philosopher, like the artist and the inventor, is searching for the invisible, cataloguing the unknown. A philosopher may attempt to understand and define the short term and long term destiny of humanity by observing human history and human behavior. He may attempt to define man's relationship to the universe, as a creature of it, through cosmological observations. He may reach the enlightened place in his thinking where things disappear and are replaced by thoughts. If he achieves that inspired place he will have fulfilled all the duties of his watch.
I, following, stumbling and tripping, climb as best as I can, the slippery philosophical hills.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
5 entries so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Brushed Off Strokes
I am a poor student sitting at the feet of giants, yearning for their wisdom and begging for lessons that might one day make me a complete artist, so that if all goes well, I may one day sit beside them.
Rod Taylor
********************
Hello Cotonou, Benin. Have a peaceful day.
*********************
There can be great sadness in missed opportunities. We can regret those things that were almost in our hands but somehow slipped away, those things that we hoped for and expected one day we would achieve and those things that we carry with us as dreams, only to realize one day the dreams will never become realities.
When I was at the Art Students League in New York City I took life drawing classes from three excellent teachers and a course in anatomy for artists with a fourth. One day one of my teachers encouraged me to start painting. I have been painting since but I never got to study painting with a teacher.
My enthusiasm for art was slow in coming, I was in my 40's before I ever began to draw. The League offered courses in illustration, realistic and abstract painting, water color and murals. It taught graphic arts, etching, engraving, lithography, wood cutting and linoleum cutting. There were classes in sculpture: wood, stone and clay sculpture.
I was so hungry for it I wanted to learn all of it. There were inspiring teachers there, some of them famous artists. I was looking forward, even in my advanced years, to sit at their feet and get their wisdom. But, unfotunately my career as an actor interfered. That wouldn't have been so bad except that it took me out of town for many months, and since it was the way I made a living and enabled me to pay for the art classes, I needed to go. When I was back in New York I was looking for work and didn't have the money to pay for any classes.
Years later I went back to the League and took some drawing classes, but it wasn't the same and I soon saw that the hopes of really learning about all the possibilities of artistic expression that had been available to me as a student were going to be lost.
Now I still yearn for that knowledge but there is no access to it other than books and magazines which I pour over. I don't even know if I would have ever become as great an artist as those I admired. It doesn't matter. I just wanted to know what they knew.
That I was never able to fully follow that desire is one of the sadnesses of my days.
Moral: Follow your dreams, even if you have to go slowly.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Rod Taylor
********************
Hello Cotonou, Benin. Have a peaceful day.
*********************
There can be great sadness in missed opportunities. We can regret those things that were almost in our hands but somehow slipped away, those things that we hoped for and expected one day we would achieve and those things that we carry with us as dreams, only to realize one day the dreams will never become realities.
When I was at the Art Students League in New York City I took life drawing classes from three excellent teachers and a course in anatomy for artists with a fourth. One day one of my teachers encouraged me to start painting. I have been painting since but I never got to study painting with a teacher.
My enthusiasm for art was slow in coming, I was in my 40's before I ever began to draw. The League offered courses in illustration, realistic and abstract painting, water color and murals. It taught graphic arts, etching, engraving, lithography, wood cutting and linoleum cutting. There were classes in sculpture: wood, stone and clay sculpture.
I was so hungry for it I wanted to learn all of it. There were inspiring teachers there, some of them famous artists. I was looking forward, even in my advanced years, to sit at their feet and get their wisdom. But, unfotunately my career as an actor interfered. That wouldn't have been so bad except that it took me out of town for many months, and since it was the way I made a living and enabled me to pay for the art classes, I needed to go. When I was back in New York I was looking for work and didn't have the money to pay for any classes.
Years later I went back to the League and took some drawing classes, but it wasn't the same and I soon saw that the hopes of really learning about all the possibilities of artistic expression that had been available to me as a student were going to be lost.
Now I still yearn for that knowledge but there is no access to it other than books and magazines which I pour over. I don't even know if I would have ever become as great an artist as those I admired. It doesn't matter. I just wanted to know what they knew.
That I was never able to fully follow that desire is one of the sadnesses of my days.
Moral: Follow your dreams, even if you have to go slowly.
DB - The Vagabond
*********************
This Week's Contest
This is one I put up a few years ago and people seemed to enjoy it, so here it goes again.
You are now ordered to take a famous remark, a cliche or otherwise and restate it in the most verbose manner possible. Example:
Night is an inappropriate time for the manufacture of animal feed.
(Make hay while the sun shines.)
Get it? Ken Riches won this contest the last time, so you're up against some heavy competition.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Good luck. Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased, curmudgeon is final.
DB
******************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Friday, April 8, 2011
Tossing The Rope
Whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world.
The Talmud
********************
Hello Bahrain. The Vagabond wishes you peace.
*********************************
There was another earthquake in Japan today. 2 people died. There are people from Japan and other nations over there trying to rescue the survivors. But we have forgotten about Japan.
There are still desperate, homeless people in Haiti. Some folks are in Haiti trying to rescue the people who need it. But we have forgotten about Haiti.
There are many places in the world where people need rescuing. But we have long ago forgotten about them.
All those stories were replaced by Libya. And now the desperate situation in Libya has all but been replaced by a bunch of ridiculous politicians in Washington who are proposing cutting back on programs that help Americans and some of which will put us in the position of needing to be rescued.
A pathetic attempt to decrease the national debt by taking money away from where it isn't and not looking for it where it is. As these shameful negotiations take the focus away from Japan, Haiti and wherever else in the world the human race is in danger and instead endanger the human American, turning off the lights on our way of life and stalling all forward motion into an improved nation, I am finished having any respect for or trust in the duly elected fools that sit in Congress. Where is the intelligence, where is the morality, where is the humanity, where is the courage, where is the idealism?
It's ironic that we have spent trillions of dollars to keep the world safe for democracy when our own democracy is in danger of becoming a flop. There's a large group in the House of Representatives that doesn't represent the American people. Take any one of these Republican representative and ask him how many poor people he has in his constituency. He probably doesn't' know. But if he does, ask him why he's not out rescuing those people instead of trying to deny them the social programs that help keep them alive.
I wish I were young enough or wealthy enough to be a real vigilante. Albert Schweitzer said "Search and see if there is not some place for you to invest your humanity."
The next person you rescue may be next door, or down the street, in a foreign country or in your own country.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
Here are my answers to the weekly puzzle
Several Saints - A few Good Men
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner - Mutiny On The Bounty
How One Murders An Imitator i To Kill a Mockingbird
Swept Away In A Breeze - Gone With The Wind
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet - Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
What The Flute Makes - The Sound Of Music
The Insects' Messiah - Lord Of The Flies
She Married The Monster - The Bride Of Frankenstein
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring - A Man For All Seasons
The Chimpanzees Live There - Planet Of The Apes
Confessing When Drenched - Singing In The Rain
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately - The Man Who Knew Too Much
Boiling When It's Dark - In the Heat Of The Night
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen - Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Trees Around The Little House - A Cabin In the Woods
Leo's Secret Message - The DaVinci Code
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France - Last Tango In Paris
Country In A Maternity Ward - Birth Of A Nation
Instructions In Stone - The Ten Commandments
Creepy Creatures Aloft - Snakes On A Plane
The Bitch Is Domesticated - The Taming Of The Shrew
There were 3 good sets of answers from Geo, Val and Jeff. Since everyone got at least 5 wrong or missing I'll call it a tie.
Although I did like the answer from Geo for "The Bitch Is Domesticated" - Lassie Come Home.
Thank you for playing. I may try this again, sometime when you're not watching.
DB
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
The Talmud
********************
Hello Bahrain. The Vagabond wishes you peace.
*********************************
There was another earthquake in Japan today. 2 people died. There are people from Japan and other nations over there trying to rescue the survivors. But we have forgotten about Japan.
There are still desperate, homeless people in Haiti. Some folks are in Haiti trying to rescue the people who need it. But we have forgotten about Haiti.
There are many places in the world where people need rescuing. But we have long ago forgotten about them.
All those stories were replaced by Libya. And now the desperate situation in Libya has all but been replaced by a bunch of ridiculous politicians in Washington who are proposing cutting back on programs that help Americans and some of which will put us in the position of needing to be rescued.
A pathetic attempt to decrease the national debt by taking money away from where it isn't and not looking for it where it is. As these shameful negotiations take the focus away from Japan, Haiti and wherever else in the world the human race is in danger and instead endanger the human American, turning off the lights on our way of life and stalling all forward motion into an improved nation, I am finished having any respect for or trust in the duly elected fools that sit in Congress. Where is the intelligence, where is the morality, where is the humanity, where is the courage, where is the idealism?
It's ironic that we have spent trillions of dollars to keep the world safe for democracy when our own democracy is in danger of becoming a flop. There's a large group in the House of Representatives that doesn't represent the American people. Take any one of these Republican representative and ask him how many poor people he has in his constituency. He probably doesn't' know. But if he does, ask him why he's not out rescuing those people instead of trying to deny them the social programs that help keep them alive.
I wish I were young enough or wealthy enough to be a real vigilante. Albert Schweitzer said "Search and see if there is not some place for you to invest your humanity."
The next person you rescue may be next door, or down the street, in a foreign country or in your own country.
DB - The Vagabond
***********************
Here are my answers to the weekly puzzle
Several Saints - A few Good Men
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner - Mutiny On The Bounty
How One Murders An Imitator i To Kill a Mockingbird
Swept Away In A Breeze - Gone With The Wind
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet - Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
What The Flute Makes - The Sound Of Music
The Insects' Messiah - Lord Of The Flies
She Married The Monster - The Bride Of Frankenstein
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring - A Man For All Seasons
The Chimpanzees Live There - Planet Of The Apes
Confessing When Drenched - Singing In The Rain
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately - The Man Who Knew Too Much
Boiling When It's Dark - In the Heat Of The Night
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen - Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Trees Around The Little House - A Cabin In the Woods
Leo's Secret Message - The DaVinci Code
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France - Last Tango In Paris
Country In A Maternity Ward - Birth Of A Nation
Instructions In Stone - The Ten Commandments
Creepy Creatures Aloft - Snakes On A Plane
The Bitch Is Domesticated - The Taming Of The Shrew
There were 3 good sets of answers from Geo, Val and Jeff. Since everyone got at least 5 wrong or missing I'll call it a tie.
Although I did like the answer from Geo for "The Bitch Is Domesticated" - Lassie Come Home.
Thank you for playing. I may try this again, sometime when you're not watching.
DB
********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Are You Who You Are?
We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.
Arthur Schopenhauer
************************
Hello Durres, Albania. Have a joyful day.
**************************
It's one thing for an actor to assume a character and convincingly behave as that character for two hours or so. But it's another thing entirely for a person to assume a personality and character of someone they think they are or want to be.
It's fine to try to emulate people, particularly those who have been an inspiration to us, but we can't achieve the level of grace and knowledge expressed by someone else through imitating them. You can't grab a hold of the wagon in the same place someone else has a hold of it. Sooner or later, and too bad if it's later, the mask has to come off and you have to start understanding who you are begin to live that way.
There is another form of false individuality and that's type casting. It may not be a certain individual that you want to copy but a type of person you wish you were. You want to be a tough guy so people won't bother you, so you swagger and talk rough. I once worked with a woman director who was bossy, unpleasant and put up a grand stand about being important. She wasn't really that way. She just thought she should be, to prove herself in a man's world, or something. Amazing pretensions can accompany someone who is trying to be a type of person they aren't.
The most insidious role playing that can happen is when one has a vision of himself which isn't true and tries to fulfill that vision. I once knew a man who tried to convince himself and others that he was a cultured and intellectual gentleman, who read all the world's great literature. The fact was he wasn't, which became obvious if one tried to discuss ideas with him. He was a perfectly fine fellow just as he was. He didn't need the pretension. He didn't need to hide himself from himself. But he had developed a false individuality that he liked and, by golly, he was going to stick to it.
To really understand oneself is a formidable and somewhat impossible task. It doesn't happen over night, but through days of darkness into occasional sun shine. And just as infrequently but just as assuredly the masquerade drips slowly off of us and the real individual emerges. Then we realize to our shock how many years we wasted trying to be someone else.
DB - The Vagabond
********************
No fooling around, here is this week's puzzle.
These are all legitimate movie titles in translation.
Your task, if you wish to survive, is to translate them back into their original titles by the end of the week.
Several Saints
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner
How One Murders An Imitator
Swept Away In A Breeze
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet
What The Flute Makes
The Insects' Messiah
She Married The Monster
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring
The Chimpanzees Live There
Confessing When Drenched
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately
Boiling When It's Dark
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen
Trees Around The Little House
Leo's Secret Message
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France
Country In A Maternity Ward
Instructions In Stone
Creepy Creatures Aloft
The Bitch Is Domesticated
3 entries so far.
Good luck
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Arthur Schopenhauer
************************
Hello Durres, Albania. Have a joyful day.
**************************
It's one thing for an actor to assume a character and convincingly behave as that character for two hours or so. But it's another thing entirely for a person to assume a personality and character of someone they think they are or want to be.
It's fine to try to emulate people, particularly those who have been an inspiration to us, but we can't achieve the level of grace and knowledge expressed by someone else through imitating them. You can't grab a hold of the wagon in the same place someone else has a hold of it. Sooner or later, and too bad if it's later, the mask has to come off and you have to start understanding who you are begin to live that way.
There is another form of false individuality and that's type casting. It may not be a certain individual that you want to copy but a type of person you wish you were. You want to be a tough guy so people won't bother you, so you swagger and talk rough. I once worked with a woman director who was bossy, unpleasant and put up a grand stand about being important. She wasn't really that way. She just thought she should be, to prove herself in a man's world, or something. Amazing pretensions can accompany someone who is trying to be a type of person they aren't.
The most insidious role playing that can happen is when one has a vision of himself which isn't true and tries to fulfill that vision. I once knew a man who tried to convince himself and others that he was a cultured and intellectual gentleman, who read all the world's great literature. The fact was he wasn't, which became obvious if one tried to discuss ideas with him. He was a perfectly fine fellow just as he was. He didn't need the pretension. He didn't need to hide himself from himself. But he had developed a false individuality that he liked and, by golly, he was going to stick to it.
To really understand oneself is a formidable and somewhat impossible task. It doesn't happen over night, but through days of darkness into occasional sun shine. And just as infrequently but just as assuredly the masquerade drips slowly off of us and the real individual emerges. Then we realize to our shock how many years we wasted trying to be someone else.
DB - The Vagabond
********************
No fooling around, here is this week's puzzle.
These are all legitimate movie titles in translation.
Your task, if you wish to survive, is to translate them back into their original titles by the end of the week.
Several Saints
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner
How One Murders An Imitator
Swept Away In A Breeze
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet
What The Flute Makes
The Insects' Messiah
She Married The Monster
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring
The Chimpanzees Live There
Confessing When Drenched
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately
Boiling When It's Dark
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen
Trees Around The Little House
Leo's Secret Message
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France
Country In A Maternity Ward
Instructions In Stone
Creepy Creatures Aloft
The Bitch Is Domesticated
3 entries so far.
Good luck
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Breaking Bread
One of our main reasons for being is to share our music with other people.
Boz Scaggs
**************************
Hello Belem, Brazil. May you have great prosperity.
**************************
A recent reader of my journal, Geo, wrote: "When I read a good poem, I think: how wonderful to share in this extraordinary moment. It puts me in touch with others who feel that way --artists, physicists, puppies."
The desire to share what we have with others is a basic human instinct, I think. But sometimes that instinct is turned away by other negative impulses. The need to hoard what we have for fear of losing it or because we are jealous or suspicious of others. We often come upon people who are not in the receiving mode, and evidence no interest in what we have to share. Sometimes our attempt to share seems to others as an act of egotism. And then there are those who will try to steal what we have and claim it as their own.
Isn't it a shame that those reaction come in the face of one's honest attempt to brighten someone's life by the benevolent action of passing along beauty and goodness however we managed to come by it?
I have faced all of those reactions in my life, both private and professional, and try as I might to become protective and possessive about what I have, I still want to share things with people.
A serious, conscientious performing artist works for many hours alone and with other artists to provide something that is worth sharing. He can't provide it by pushing a button. And when the time comes to present it to others, it is not an act of ego that motivates him, it's an act of love..
I have had my ideas criticized, scorned, rejected and even stolen. I once came up with a better way for a certain radio station to do its news broadcast. I got harsh criticism from the management of the station and was told not to do it that way under any circumstances. Listening to the station about 5 years later I heard it doing the news my way. Why spend any negative energy being angry at that?
Sometimes it can be amusing. One day someone quoted back to me my own statement about something by phrasing it as "an old saying." I thanked him.
I think the main thing I have to do and we all have to do is to be grateful to whomever takes the time and trouble to share something beautiful or beneficial that comes from his own thoughts and his own heart, and to be thankful when we are given the opportunity share what we love, our music, with others.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
No fooling around, here is this week's puzzle.
These are all legitimate movie titles in translation.
Your task, if you wish to survive, is to translate them back into their original titles by the end of the week.
Several Saints
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner
How One Murders An Imitator
Swept Away In A Breeze
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet
What The Flute Makes
The Insects' Messiah
She Married The Monster
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring
The Chimpanzees Live There
Confessing When Drenched
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately
Boiling When It's Dark
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen
Trees Around The Little House
Leo's Secret Message
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France
Country In A Maternity Ward
Instructions In Stone
Creepy Creatures Aloft
The Bitch Is Domesticated
3 entries so far.
Good luck
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Boz Scaggs
**************************
Hello Belem, Brazil. May you have great prosperity.
**************************
A recent reader of my journal, Geo, wrote: "When I read a good poem, I think: how wonderful to share in this extraordinary moment. It puts me in touch with others who feel that way --artists, physicists, puppies."
The desire to share what we have with others is a basic human instinct, I think. But sometimes that instinct is turned away by other negative impulses. The need to hoard what we have for fear of losing it or because we are jealous or suspicious of others. We often come upon people who are not in the receiving mode, and evidence no interest in what we have to share. Sometimes our attempt to share seems to others as an act of egotism. And then there are those who will try to steal what we have and claim it as their own.
Isn't it a shame that those reaction come in the face of one's honest attempt to brighten someone's life by the benevolent action of passing along beauty and goodness however we managed to come by it?
I have faced all of those reactions in my life, both private and professional, and try as I might to become protective and possessive about what I have, I still want to share things with people.
A serious, conscientious performing artist works for many hours alone and with other artists to provide something that is worth sharing. He can't provide it by pushing a button. And when the time comes to present it to others, it is not an act of ego that motivates him, it's an act of love..
I have had my ideas criticized, scorned, rejected and even stolen. I once came up with a better way for a certain radio station to do its news broadcast. I got harsh criticism from the management of the station and was told not to do it that way under any circumstances. Listening to the station about 5 years later I heard it doing the news my way. Why spend any negative energy being angry at that?
Sometimes it can be amusing. One day someone quoted back to me my own statement about something by phrasing it as "an old saying." I thanked him.
I think the main thing I have to do and we all have to do is to be grateful to whomever takes the time and trouble to share something beautiful or beneficial that comes from his own thoughts and his own heart, and to be thankful when we are given the opportunity share what we love, our music, with others.
DB - The Vagabond
**********************
No fooling around, here is this week's puzzle.
These are all legitimate movie titles in translation.
Your task, if you wish to survive, is to translate them back into their original titles by the end of the week.
Several Saints
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner
How One Murders An Imitator
Swept Away In A Breeze
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet
What The Flute Makes
The Insects' Messiah
She Married The Monster
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring
The Chimpanzees Live There
Confessing When Drenched
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately
Boiling When It's Dark
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen
Trees Around The Little House
Leo's Secret Message
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France
Country In A Maternity Ward
Instructions In Stone
Creepy Creatures Aloft
The Bitch Is Domesticated
3 entries so far.
Good luck
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Singing With The Rain
I believe in general in a dualism between facts and the idea of those facts in the human head.
George Santayana
********************
Hello Alpine, Arizona. A joyful day to you.
***********************
H: What are you doing out there?
I: Sitting.
H: Can't you see it's raining?
I: Yes
H: Well come inside out of the rain.
I: No.
H: Why not?
I: I'm relaxing.
H: Oh, you're relaxing are you? In the purring rain?
I: Yes.
H; You're going to get wet.
I: Oh I hope so.
H: You want to get soaking wet?
I: Yes.
H: Why?
I: I like the rain.
H: Oh so you're going to sit there until you're soaking wet and then when you come inside where the air conditioner is on you'll catch your death of cold.
I: I'm not coming inside.
H: Why not?
I: I like the rain.
H: I think you're crazy.
I: The rain is a great blanket of beauty, a gift to the earth from the sky. It cleanses the air, it baptizes the ground and awakens the seeds of life within it. It makes a gentle drumming sound on everything it touches.
Each rain drop is like a word, a thought from nature, an idea spread around with other ideas to make a storm of thinking. It writes its poetry on every leaf and blade of grass. It lends its wisdom to my head and mingles itself with my hair and with my heart. And when I tilt my head back it washes my face with joy and energy. It brings remembrances to mind.
It is the music of echoes, of patience and the song of the earth. It lifts up as it lays down, it refreshes the mind as it stirs up the dirt.
When I hold out my hand I change the destiny of a rain drop. I am in the rain, I am at one with the rain, I am the rain.
H: I think you're crazy.
I: I am crazy. I love the rain.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
**************************
No fooling around, here is this week's puzzle.
These are all legitimate movie titles in translation.
Your task, if you wish to survive, is to translate them back into their original titles by the end of next week.
Several Saints
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner
How One Murders An Imitator
Swept Away In A Breeze
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet
What The Flute Makes
The Insects' Messiah
She Married The Monster
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring
The Chimpanzees Live There
Confessing When Drenched
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately
Boiling When It's Dark
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen
Trees Around The Little House
Leo's Secret Message
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France
Country In A Maternity Ward
Instructions In Stone
Creepy Creatures Aloft
The Bitch Is Domesticated
3 entries so far.
Good luck
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
George Santayana
********************
Hello Alpine, Arizona. A joyful day to you.
***********************
H: What are you doing out there?
I: Sitting.
H: Can't you see it's raining?
I: Yes
H: Well come inside out of the rain.
I: No.
H: Why not?
I: I'm relaxing.
H: Oh, you're relaxing are you? In the purring rain?
I: Yes.
H; You're going to get wet.
I: Oh I hope so.
H: You want to get soaking wet?
I: Yes.
H: Why?
I: I like the rain.
H: Oh so you're going to sit there until you're soaking wet and then when you come inside where the air conditioner is on you'll catch your death of cold.
I: I'm not coming inside.
H: Why not?
I: I like the rain.
H: I think you're crazy.
I: The rain is a great blanket of beauty, a gift to the earth from the sky. It cleanses the air, it baptizes the ground and awakens the seeds of life within it. It makes a gentle drumming sound on everything it touches.
Each rain drop is like a word, a thought from nature, an idea spread around with other ideas to make a storm of thinking. It writes its poetry on every leaf and blade of grass. It lends its wisdom to my head and mingles itself with my hair and with my heart. And when I tilt my head back it washes my face with joy and energy. It brings remembrances to mind.
It is the music of echoes, of patience and the song of the earth. It lifts up as it lays down, it refreshes the mind as it stirs up the dirt.
When I hold out my hand I change the destiny of a rain drop. I am in the rain, I am at one with the rain, I am the rain.
H: I think you're crazy.
I: I am crazy. I love the rain.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
**************************
No fooling around, here is this week's puzzle.
These are all legitimate movie titles in translation.
Your task, if you wish to survive, is to translate them back into their original titles by the end of next week.
Several Saints
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner
How One Murders An Imitator
Swept Away In A Breeze
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet
What The Flute Makes
The Insects' Messiah
She Married The Monster
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring
The Chimpanzees Live There
Confessing When Drenched
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately
Boiling When It's Dark
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen
Trees Around The Little House
Leo's Secret Message
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France
Country In A Maternity Ward
Instructions In Stone
Creepy Creatures Aloft
The Bitch Is Domesticated
3 entries so far.
Good luck
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Monday, April 4, 2011
Let The Door Open
Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and unknowable.
Carl Sandburg
*******************
Hello Adelaide, Australia. Have a warm and happy day.
------------------------------------
Every work of art is an announcement, a declaration, the cry of a new born, the rattling of the prison gates, the sound of two stones being smacked together.
Sometimes art is pretty, but it usually isn't meant to be. Sometimes the things that grow out of the ground are pretty, but sometimes they are ugly and they are both doing the same thing for similar reasons.
Art happens because there is something missing, a hole in the fabric, a mess that can only be cleared up by the magical workings of art and the artist as obedient servant. Art is for healing, not the kind of healing the doctor is paid for, but the healing of the rend that separates us from the beatific.
Great art is not a decoration, it is an attack, a challenge, s weapon against all the inanity, pedantry, ignorance and chaos that surrounds the earth and its humans. It is the bird struggling against the library window trying to get out, as Karla Feinzig once wrote about. It is an alarm bell and a beacon shining down on those who are morally corrupt and who aren't smart enough to know it. Those who do know it are lost. Art can't help them.
The poet holds stars in his hand and he flings them one at a time against the door of hope and beauty behind which is the land of truth. One day the door will open.
DB - The Vagabond
*****************************
No fooling around, here is this week's puzzle.
These are all legitimate movie titles in translation.
Your task, if you wish to survive, is to translate them back into their original titles by the end of next week.
Several Saints
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner
How One Murders An Imitator
Swept Away In A Breeze
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet
What The Flute Makes
The Insects' Messiah
She Married The Monster
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring
The Chimpanzees Live There
Confessing When Drenched
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately
Boiling When It's Dark
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen
Trees Around The Little House
Leo's Secret Message
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France
Country In A Maternity Ward
Instructions In Stone
Creepy Creatures Aloft
The Bitch Is Domesticated
2 entries so far.
Good luck
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Carl Sandburg
*******************
Hello Adelaide, Australia. Have a warm and happy day.
------------------------------------
Every work of art is an announcement, a declaration, the cry of a new born, the rattling of the prison gates, the sound of two stones being smacked together.
Sometimes art is pretty, but it usually isn't meant to be. Sometimes the things that grow out of the ground are pretty, but sometimes they are ugly and they are both doing the same thing for similar reasons.
Art happens because there is something missing, a hole in the fabric, a mess that can only be cleared up by the magical workings of art and the artist as obedient servant. Art is for healing, not the kind of healing the doctor is paid for, but the healing of the rend that separates us from the beatific.
Great art is not a decoration, it is an attack, a challenge, s weapon against all the inanity, pedantry, ignorance and chaos that surrounds the earth and its humans. It is the bird struggling against the library window trying to get out, as Karla Feinzig once wrote about. It is an alarm bell and a beacon shining down on those who are morally corrupt and who aren't smart enough to know it. Those who do know it are lost. Art can't help them.
The poet holds stars in his hand and he flings them one at a time against the door of hope and beauty behind which is the land of truth. One day the door will open.
DB - The Vagabond
*****************************
No fooling around, here is this week's puzzle.
These are all legitimate movie titles in translation.
Your task, if you wish to survive, is to translate them back into their original titles by the end of next week.
Several Saints
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner
How One Murders An Imitator
Swept Away In A Breeze
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet
What The Flute Makes
The Insects' Messiah
She Married The Monster
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring
The Chimpanzees Live There
Confessing When Drenched
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately
Boiling When It's Dark
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen
Trees Around The Little House
Leo's Secret Message
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France
Country In A Maternity Ward
Instructions In Stone
Creepy Creatures Aloft
The Bitch Is Domesticated
2 entries so far.
Good luck
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Swords Into Plows
The increasing number of the human species that behave well reduces the activity of those humans who try to further their means by war.
Immanuel Kant
***********************
Hello Andorra. May there be peace in your mountains.
************************
I can't tell whether the human race is getting saner or madder. There is a lot of evidence to prove both theories. Some idiots in Florida burn a Quran, a book they've never read, and some other idiots in Afghanistan take revenge by attacking UN workers, who had nothing to do with it.
There are too many people in this world who believe the ancient canard that the way to resolve disagreements, disputes and dangers is by violence But as Isaac Asimov said "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
We have our war machines in place. It used to be called The Department of War, in the days when we needed to be prepared to defend ourselves. Then, in the 40's it became euphemistically called The Department of Defense, and we've been waging war ever since. We are told that those wars are in order to protect our freedoms. We are told that by some whose pockets are benefited by them, and, sad to say, a great many people still believe it. But as Nehru noted "It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive."
I don't know if Kant is correct. I want to believe that the human race is producing more and more people who wish to behave in a sane and reasonable manner. If they are there they certainly don't make the news. It's the mad and bad that make the news.
What can one humble senior citizen say to them?
STOP SPENDING MONEY ON WAR.
STOP GIVING TAX BREAKS TO THE WEALTHY.
STOP CUTTNG THE PROGRAMS THAT MAKE LIFE BEARABLE AND ENJOYABLE FOR THE REST OF US.
AND STOP ARGUING ABOUT IT.
(I, for one, am not impressed with you.)
DB - The Vagabond
************************
Puzzle
No fooling around, here is this week's puzzle.
These are all legitimate movie titles in translation.
Your task, if you wish to survive, is to translate them back into their original titles by the end of next week.
Several Saints
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner
How One Murders An Imitator
Swept Away In A Breeze
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet
What The Flute Makes
The Insects' Messiah
She Married The Monster
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring
The Chimpanzees Live There
Confessing When Drenched
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately
Boiling When It's Dark
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen
Trees Around The Little House
Leo's Secret Message
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France
Country In A Maternity Ward
Instructions In Stone
Creepy Creatures Aloft
The Bitch Is Domesticated
1 entry so far.
Good luck
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
Immanuel Kant
***********************
Hello Andorra. May there be peace in your mountains.
************************
I can't tell whether the human race is getting saner or madder. There is a lot of evidence to prove both theories. Some idiots in Florida burn a Quran, a book they've never read, and some other idiots in Afghanistan take revenge by attacking UN workers, who had nothing to do with it.
There are too many people in this world who believe the ancient canard that the way to resolve disagreements, disputes and dangers is by violence But as Isaac Asimov said "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
We have our war machines in place. It used to be called The Department of War, in the days when we needed to be prepared to defend ourselves. Then, in the 40's it became euphemistically called The Department of Defense, and we've been waging war ever since. We are told that those wars are in order to protect our freedoms. We are told that by some whose pockets are benefited by them, and, sad to say, a great many people still believe it. But as Nehru noted "It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive."
I don't know if Kant is correct. I want to believe that the human race is producing more and more people who wish to behave in a sane and reasonable manner. If they are there they certainly don't make the news. It's the mad and bad that make the news.
What can one humble senior citizen say to them?
STOP SPENDING MONEY ON WAR.
STOP GIVING TAX BREAKS TO THE WEALTHY.
STOP CUTTNG THE PROGRAMS THAT MAKE LIFE BEARABLE AND ENJOYABLE FOR THE REST OF US.
AND STOP ARGUING ABOUT IT.
(I, for one, am not impressed with you.)
DB - The Vagabond
************************
Puzzle
No fooling around, here is this week's puzzle.
These are all legitimate movie titles in translation.
Your task, if you wish to survive, is to translate them back into their original titles by the end of next week.
Several Saints
Uprising Over The Thanksgiving Dinner
How One Murders An Imitator
Swept Away In A Breeze
The Lion Is Burning It's Feet
What The Flute Makes
The Insects' Messiah
She Married The Monster
Mr. Summerfall Winterspring
The Chimpanzees Live There
Confessing When Drenched
He Paid Very Close Attention, Unfortunately
Boiling When It's Dark
Misplaced Religious Artifact Stolen
Trees Around The Little House
Leo's Secret Message
Ultimate Spanish Dance in France
Country In A Maternity Ward
Instructions In Stone
Creepy Creatures Aloft
The Bitch Is Domesticated
1 entry so far.
Good luck
dbdacoba@aol.com
DB
*********************
SPRING QUESTION
(This is not a contest)
NASA has planned to send a two man mission on an 18 month trip to the planet Mars. It would take 6 months for the astronauts to get there and after 6 months of exploration another 6 months to return.
Should they do it and why, and if not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
4 answers so far
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
******************
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