Daily Poem and Quotations

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Erma Louise Bombeck was born at Dayton, Ohio on Feb. 21st in 1927. She started her career in journalism right out of high school, taking time off once for college and again later to raise a family. She became one of the most astute, and possibly the most amusing, observer of the modern family. For today I chose quotes on the domestic arts, a subject we treat with wry humor here. For example, I'm pretty sure we have a coffee table, I even have a vague idea where it is, but I don't think I've seen it for two years.
QUOTES:
"Education is so important when it comes to domesticity. I don't know why no one ever thought to paste a label on the toilet tissue spindle giving 1-2-3 directions for replacing the tissue on it. Then everyone in the house would know what Mama knows."

"Housework is a treadmill from futility to oblivion with stop offs at tedium and counter productivity."

"My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch on fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one cares. Why should you?"

"No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed. I have known mothers who remake the bed after their children do it because there's a wrinkle in the spread or the blanket is on crooked. This is sick."

"A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday."

"The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with ONLY a loaf of bread are three billion to one."

Ironed Sheets are a health hazard.
All from Erma Bombeck (1927-1996)

Thought of the Day:
" To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything."
---Friedrich August von Hayek, 1974 Nobel Prize-winning economist (1899-1992)

Quote of the Day:
"Never go out to meet trouble. If you will just sit still, nine cases out of ten someone will intercept it before it reaches you."
--Calvin Coolidge, 30th Pres. of the US (1872 - 1933)

Quote of the Moment:
"Of all contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money."
---Daniel Webster, US Senator from Massachusetts (1782-1852)


Poem of the Day
"Poem" by Cynthia Arrieu-King

A pink dozen sunshine trapezoids—
It's good to be breathing
says an array of rosemary shrubs.
A field of illicit rocks, shrapnel, bees, germs unknown.
Hands held. Back seats checked for sleeping.

I have made a Tuesday monument
of a baby's toothbrush lying on the sidewalk alone.

The far lake no one knows about, bitching its ripples.

In this case it
doesn't matter what other people need
in measures of solitude; You
need a few years, a few more years
alone. And it's such a popular
slur to hurl: You will always be alone.
I've been told that—
(Eight years ago.)

(And knowing slowly as I go how to hold a garden here.)

Bonus Poem:
"Speech Alone" by Jean Follain, trans. by W. S. Merwin from Transparence of the World [Copper Canyon Press]

It happens that one pronounces
a few words just for oneself
alone on this strange earth
then the small white flower
the pebble like all those that went before
the sprig of stubble
find themselves re-united
at the foot of the gate
which one opens slowly
to enter the house of clay
while chairs, table, cupboard,
blaze in a sun of glory.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Arthur Schopenhauer was born at Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland) on Feb. 22nd in 1788, five years later the family moved to Hamburg. He was educated at Berlin and Göttingen, briefly attempted to follow his father in trade, even more briefly attempted to teach, maintained a running feud with Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, but mostly lived alone and wrote his philosophy. A fierce-looking character, his work was insightful if pessimistic.
QUOTES:
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

"Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents."

"We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people."

"Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, finally, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness."

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see."

"The closing years of life are like the end of a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped."

"Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax."
All from Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Thought of the Day:
"[Self-defense is] justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the laws of society."
---Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780). Commentaries 139


Quote of the Day:
"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. "
--Robert Heinlein, Sci-fi author & engineer (1907-1988)

Quote of the Moment:
"To expose a $4.2 Trillion ripoff of the American people by the stockholders of the 1,000 largest corporations over the last
one-hundred years will be a tall order of business."
---Buckminster Fuller, architect, poet, author & inventor (1895-1983)


Poem of the Day
"Wild Swans" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!


Bonus Poem:
"Afternoon on a Hill" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Wilhelm Karl Grimm was born at Hanau, Germany on Feb 24th in 1786. Wilhelm was the imaginative one, his brother Jacob did the scholarly research that gave depth to the stories they recorded - stories including "Snow White" and "Sleeping Beauty." (No, those aren't Disney stories.) To honor both of the Brothers Grimm, today's theme is Story.
QUOTES ON STORY:
"All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by ... religion, whatever else it has done, has provided one of the main ways of meeting this abiding need."
- William Harvey Cox

"The highest morality may prove also to be the highest wisdom when the half-told story comes to be finished."
- Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859 - 1930

"People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality too. It goes from one generation to another."
- Studs Terkel, 1912 - 2008

"A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest."
- C. S. Lewis, 1898 - 1963

"A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is."
- Flannery O'Connor, 1925 - 1964

"No story lives unless someone wants to listen."
- J. K. Rowling

"If loneliness is the disease, the story is the cure."
- Richard Ford

Thought of the Day:
"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck."
---Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), escaped slave, Abolitionist, author & editor.

Quote of the Day:
"Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't."
--Pete Seeger (b. 1919), folk singer

Quote of the Moment:
"There is no such thing as a majority right. Only those who understand and act according to this principle can promote true freedom."
---Harry H. Hoiles (1916-1998), co-publisher of the Orange County Register


Poem of the Day
"A Thought of the Nile" by Leigh Hunt

It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands,—
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands
That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme
Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,
The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.

Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,
As of a world left empty of its throng,
And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,
And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake

Bonus Poem:
"Jenny Kiss'd Me" by Leigh Hunt

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born at Limoges, France on Feb. 25th in 1841. He went to work painting designs on dinnerware in a porcelain factory at age twelve, running to the Louvre on lunch breaks to copy the Rococo masters. From 1862 he studied at Le Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he met Claude Monet. Along with Alfred Sisley and Frederic Bazille they were the founders of Impressionism. Renoir veered toward realism after traveling to Spain and Italy in 1881 to study Renaissance art. Perhaps because of his early production line experience, Renoir created several thousand paintings in his six-decade career. In his later years arthritis crippled his hands, so he had a brush strapped to his wrist so he could keep painting.
QUOTES:
"I've been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors was black."

"An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature."

"How is it that in the so-called barbarian ages art was understood, whereas in our age of progress exactly the opposite is true?"

"Regularity, order, desire for perfection destroy art. Irregularity is the basis of all art."

"The advantage of growing old is that you become aware of your mistakes more quickly."

"Work lovingly done is the secret of all order and all happiness."

"It is after you have lost your teeth that you can afford to buy steaks."
All from Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

Thought of the Day:
"The best of all government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves."
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German author

Quote of the Day:
"Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it."
--]/i]Stephen Leacock (1869- 944), Canadian humorist

Quote of the Moment:
"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic."
-- Dresden James.


Poem of the Day
"England in 1819" by Percy Bysshe Shelley in The Complete Poems [Modern Library

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,—
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring,—
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,—
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,—
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A Senate,—Time's worst statute unrepealed,—
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestous day.

Bonus Poem:
"'When the Lamp is Shattered'" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I
When the lamp is shattered
The light in the dust lies dead—
When the cloud is scattered
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

II
As music and splendor
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute:—
No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruined cell,
Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman's knell.

III
When hearts have once mingled
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possessed.
O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

IV
Its passions will rock thee
As the storms rock the ravens on high;
Bright reason will mock thee,
Like the sun from a wintry sky.
From thy nest every rafter
Will rot, and thine eagle home
Leave thee naked to laughter,
When leaves fall and cold winds come.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Marian Anderson was born at Philadelphia, Pa. on Feb. 27th in 1897. Her father and grandfather died, leaving Marian and her mother working menial jobs, delaying Marian's education. But she sang. Her family and church got her the best voice training available to a young black woman in South Philly; she was performing in concert in 1914, soloing in 1917. But there was no route to her goal: a position at New York's Metropolitan Opera. In Europe she was a hit with the public and performed for royalty, but in the US the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to let her sing at Constitution Hall at Washington City in 1939. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR and organized a concert on Easter at the Lincoln Memorial. To my ear, the contralto is the most pleasing range, and by all accounts Marian Anderson had one of the finest contralto voices ever. Her talent, faith, and courage broke barriers for later black performers.
QUOTES:
"No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger that its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise."

"Sometimes you're overwhelmed when a thing comes, and you do not realize the magnitude of the affair at that moment. When you get away from it, you wonder, did it really happen to you?"

"None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath."

"The minute a person whose word means a great deal to others dare to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow."

"I hadn't set out to change the world in any way. Whatever I am, it is a culmination of the goodwill of people who, regardless of anything else, saw me as I am, and not as somebody else."

"It is easy to look back, self-indulgently, feeling pleasantly sorry for oneself and saying I didn't have this and I didn't have that. But it is only the grown woman regretting the hardships of a little girl who never thought they were hardships at all. She had the things that really mattered."
All from Marian Anderson, 1897-1993

Thought of the Day:
"Dost thou not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?"
--Axel Oxenstierna, Count of Södermöre, (1583-1654), Swedish statesman

Quote of the Day:
"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
--Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), English lexicographer.

Quote of the Moment:
"Right now, I'd rather be in Sweden than in the US because we have seen the problems and are moving away from the welfare state. On your side of the Atlantic you are moving right into it, and you risk destroying your country."
---Ian Wachtmeister, (b. 1932), Swedish industrialist and politician, member of the Swedish parliament (1991-1994)


Poem of the Day
"My Lost Youth" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Often I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
And my youth comes back to me.
And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.
And the burden of that old song,
It murmurs and whispers still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I remember the black wharves and the slips,
And the sea-tides tossing free;
And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.
And the voice of that wayward song
Is singing and saying still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,
And the bugle wild and shrill.
And the music of that old song
Throbs in my memory still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I can see the breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering's Woods;
And the friendship old and the early loves
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
In quiet neighborhoods.
And the verse of that sweet old song,
It flutters and murmurs still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the school-boy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.
And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town;
But the native air is pure and sweet,
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,
As they balance up and down,
Are singing the beautiful song,
Are sighing and whispering still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I find my lost youth again.
And the strange and beautiful song,
The groves are repeating it still:
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

Bonus Poem:
"Basket of Figs" by Ellen Bass.

Bring me your pain, love. Spread
it out like fine rugs, silk sashes,
warm eggs, cinnamon
and cloves in burlap sacks. Show me

the detail, the intricate embroidery
on the collar, tiny shell buttons,
the hem stitched the way you were taught,
pricking just a thread, almost invisible.

Unclasp it like jewels, the gold
still hot from your body. Empty
your basket of figs. Spill your wine.

That hard nugget of pain, I would suck it,
cradling it on my tongue like the slick
seed of pomegranate. I would lift it

tenderly, as a great animal might
carry a small one in the private
cave of the mouth.

[pegasus]

That Sure is My Little Dog
by Eleanor Lerman


Yes, indeed, that is my house that I am carrying around
on my back like a bullet-proof shell and yes, that sure is
my little dog walking a hard road in hard boots. And
just wait until you see my girl, chomping on the chains
of fate with her mouth full of jagged steel. She’s damn
ready and so am I. What else did you expect from the
brainiacs of my generation? The survivors, the nonbelievers,
the oddball-outs with the Cuban Missile Crisis still
sizzling in our blood? Don’t tell me that you bought
our act, just because our worried parents (and believe me,
we’re nothing like them) taught us how to dress for work
and to speak as if we cared about our education. And
I guess the music fooled you: you thought we’d keep
the party going even to the edge of the abyss. Well,
too bad. It’s all yours now. Good luck on the ramparts.
What you want to watch for is when the sky shakes
itself free of kites and flies away. Have a nice day.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Robert Orben was born at New York City on Mar. 4th in 1927. At sixteen he was performing professionally as a magician but found that his witty persiflage was a bigger hit than the sleight of hand. Two year later he published Encyclopedia of Patter and followed it with ten more volumes. Big names wanted something more than what he put in his books; Dick Gregory, Red Skelton, and Jack Paar were among his clients. His gags were so ubiquitous that Lenny Bruce advertised "No Joe Miller, no corn, no Orben". Michigan congressman Gerald Ford, scheduled to address the Gridiron Club in 1968, hired Orben to help with his speech. That success, upstaging Hubert Humphrey, led to Orben becoming Ford's head speech writer after Ford became vice president, and eventually Special Assistant to the President after Nixon's resignation.
QUOTES:
"Life was a lot simpler when what we honored was father and mother rather than all major credit cards."

"Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch."

"A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that "individuality" is the key to success."

"Did you ever figure to be living in a time when your check is good, but the bank bounces?"

"Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me, but deep down I know that's not true. Some of the smaller countries are neutral."

"Humor is the most honest of emotions. Applause for a speech can be insincere, but with humor, if the audience doesn't like it there's no faking it."

"If you can get someone to laugh with you, they will be more willing to identify with you, listen to you. It parts the waters."
All from Robert Orben

Thought of the Day:
"Goodness without wisdom always accomplished evil."
---Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), sci-fi writer & engineer

Quote of the Day:
"Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought-- particularly for people who can never remember where they have left things."
Woody Allen (b. 1935), comedian & movie director-producer-writer.

Quote of the Moment:
"In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas."
(Unity in things Necessary, Liberty in things Unnecessary, and Charity in all.)
---Rupertus Meldenius [aka Peter Meiderlin], (1582-1651), German Lutheran theologian.


Poem of the Day
"Apples" by Grace Schulman.

Rain hazes a street cart's green umbrella
but not its apples, heaped in paper cartons,
dry under cling film. The apple man,

who shirrs his mouth as though eating tart fruit,
exhibits four like racehorses at auction:
Blacktwig, Holland, Crimson King, Salome.

I tried one and its cold grain jolted memory:
a hill where meager apples fell so bruised
that locals wondered why we scooped them up,

my friend and I, in matching navy blazers.
One bite and I heard her laughter toll,
free as school's out, her face flushed in late sun.

I asked the apple merchant for another,
jaunty as Cezanne's still-life reds and yellows,
having more life than stillness, telling us,

uncut, unpeeled, they are not for the feast
but for themselves, and building strength to fly
at any moment, leap from a skewed bowl,

whirl in the air, and roll off a tilted table.
Fruit-stand vendor, master of Northern Spies,
let a loose apple teach me how to spin

at random, burn in light and rave in shadows.
Bring me a Winesap like the one Eve tasted,
savored and shared, and asked for more.

No fool, she knew that beauty strikes just once,
hard, never in comfort. For that bitter fruit,
tasting of earth and song, I'd risk exile.

The air is bland here. I would forfeit mist
for hail, put on a robe of dandelions,
and run out, broken, to weep and curse — for joy.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Daniel Kahneman was born at Tel Aviv in British Palestine on March 5th in 1934 while his parents were visiting there, he grew up at Paris. When the Germans occupied Paris his father was picked up in a round-up of Jews but was released after six weeks, the family spent the rest of the war on the run. Kahneman earned a degree in psychology from Hebrew University at Jerusalem, worked for the Israeli Defense Forces in vetting officer candidates, then earned his doctorate at Berkeley. While lecturing at Harvard in 1966 he took up the careful study of judgment and decision making; he concluded that not only do we make a lot of bad decisions, which didn't require his advanced education, but went on to learn a great deal about why that is. He points out that he never took a single course in economics, but he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2002 and his honorary doctorate from Erasmus University (Rotterdam) came from the economics department.
QUOTES:
"In many cases, what looks like risk-taking doesn't take courage at all; it's just unrealistic optimism. Courage is a willingness to take the risk once you know the odds; optimistic overconfidence means you are taking the risk because you don't know the odds. There's a big difference."

"Our future is the sum of our anticipated memories."

"We're not aware of changing our minds even when we do change our minds. And most people, after they change their minds, reconstruct their past opinion — they believe they always thought that."

"We associate leadership with decisiveness. That perception of leadership pushes people to make decisions fairly quickly, lest they be seen as dithering and indecisive."

"When everybody in a group is susceptible to similar biases, groups are inferior to individuals, because groups tend to be more extreme than individuals."

"People assign much higher probability to the truth of their opinions than is warranted. It's one of the reasons people trade so much in the market, generally with bad results."
All from Daniel Kahneman

Thought of the Day:
"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure,
when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."
-- Patrick Henry (1736-1799) American Founding Father.

Quote of the Day:
"Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true."
--Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), English mathematician & philosopher.

Quote of the Moment:
"All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land."
-- William Kingdon Clifford (1845-1879) English philosopher & mathematician


Poem of the Day
"Spring Storm" by William Carlos Williams.

The sky has given over
its bitterness.
Out of the dark change
all day long
rain falls and falls
as if it would never end.
Still the snow keeps
its hold on the ground.
But water, water
from a thousand runnels!
It collects swiftly,
dappled with black
cuts a way for itself
through green ice in the gutters.
Drop after drop it falls
from the withered grass-stems
of the overhanging embankment.

Bonus Poem:
"Complaint" by William Carlos Williams.

They call me and I go.
It is a frozen road
past midnight, a dust
of snow caught
in the rigid wheeltracks.
The door opens.
I smile, enter and
shake off the cold.
Here is a great woman
on her side in the bed.
She is sick,
perhaps vomiting,
perhaps laboring
to give birth to
a tenth child. Joy! Joy!
Night is a room
darkened for lovers,
through the jalousies the sun
has sent one golden needle!
I pick the hair from her eyes
and watch her misery
with compassion.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
It was on March 6th in 1836 that Mexican troops led by General Santa Anna stormed the Alamo mission at San Antonio, killing the rebels who had held the mission for thirteen days. "Remember the Alamo" became a rallying cry for the rebellion against Mexican rule. In fact, I never seem able to remember much about the Alamo without going and looking it up, but I can always remember the slogan. In other words, I remember the need to remember, while forgetting the facts.
QUOTES:
"The things we remember best are those better forgotten."
- Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658)

"When I face an issue of great import that cleaves both constituents and colleagues, I always take the same approach. I engage in deep deliberation and quiet contemplation. I wait to the last available minute and then I always vote with the losers. Because, my friend, the winners never remember and the losers never forget."
- Sen. Everett Dirksen (1896-1969)

"The photographic image eclipses other forms of understanding—and remembering..... To remember is, more and more, not to recall a story but to be able to call up a picture."
- Susan Sontag (1933-2004)

"I have liked remembering almost as much as I have liked living."
- William Maxwell (1908-2000)

"Surely it is much more generous to forgive and remember, than to forgive and forget."
- Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849)

"When someone dies, you don't get over it by forgetting; you get over it by remembering, and you are aware that no person is ever truly lost or gone once they have been in our life and loved us, as we have loved them."
- Leslie Marmon Silko.

Thought of the Day:
"Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule."
---Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philospher.

Quote of the Day:
"The road to hell is paved with adverbs."
--Stephen King (b. 1947), movelist.

Quote of the Moment:
"It's a sad day when you find out that it's not accident or time or fortune, but just yourself that kept things from you."
--Lillian Hellman (1905-1984), playwright


Poem of the Day
"Say over again..." (Sonnet 21) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated
Should seem "a cuckoo-song," as thou dost treat it,
Remember, never to the hill or plain,
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.
Belovèd, I, amid the darkness greeted
By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain
Cry, "Speak once more—thou lovest!" Who can fear
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll
The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence with thy soul.

Bonus Poem:
"If thou must love me..." (Sonnet 14) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
"I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Luther Burbank was born at Lancaster, Massachusetts on Marac 7th in 1849. Raised on a farm, he received only elementary education but bought his own 17-acre farm when he was 21. There he started developing new varieties of plants, over 800 of them, including 113 varieties of plums and prunes, 10 varieties of berries, 50 varieties of lilies, and the Freestone peach. His eponymous Russett Burbank potato, one of his early efforts, was designed to resist the blight that led to the famine in Ireland. He sold the rights for $150 and moved to Santa Rosa, California where he established his nursery and experimental farm. I lack the time and discipline to grow plants, but I am impressed by those who do. For all of you with green thumbs, thanks.
QUOTES:
"Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food, and medicine to the soul."

"Heredity is nothing but stored environment."

"It is well for people who think to change their minds occasionally in order to keep them clean. For those who do not think, it is best to at least rearrange their prejudices once in a while."

"Nature's laws affirm instead of prohibit. If you violate her laws, you are your own prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, and hangman."

"A flower is an educated weed."

"If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weed."

"Men should stop fighting among themselves and start fighting insects."
All from Luther Burbank (1849-1926)

Thought of the Day:
"The 1st Amendment embraces the individual's right to purchase and read whatever books she wishes to, without fear the government will take steps to discover which books she buys, reads, and intends to read."
-- Colorado Supreme Court.

Quote of the Day:
"A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation."
--Saki (1870 - 1916), shortl-story writer

Quote of the Moment:
"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."
--P. J. O'Rourke (b.1947), conservative writer.


Poem of the Day
"A Musical Instrument" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan
While turbidly flowed the river;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sat by the river.

'This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan
(Laughed while he sat by the river),
'The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.'
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,—
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
This day in history saw a great deal of planetary activity. On March 13th in 1781, William Herschel discovered the seventh planet, Uranus. In 1855, Percival Lowell was born at Boston and later endowed the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona. Orbital irregularities of Uranus and Neptune convinced him there was a "Planet X" further out and devoted the last years before his death in 1912 to finding it. In 1930, again on this date, Clyde Tombaugh of the Lowell Observatory announced the discovery of the ninth planet, which was named Pluto. Although Disney honored this discovery later that year by naming a cartoon character after the planet, in 2006 the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto to "dwarf planet" status. I believe they're wrong, I contend that if a spheroidal mass orbits a start it's a Planet, even if it's small, dark, cold, and far away.
QUOTES ON PLANETS:
"What do you think of the foremost philosophers of this University? In spite of my oft-repeated efforts and invitations, they have refused, with the obstinacy of a glutted adder, to look at the planets or Moon or my telescope."
- Galileo Galilei, 1564 - 1642

"I am sorry to say that there is too much point to the wisecrack that life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than ours."
- John F. Kennedy, 1917 - 1963

"We cannot predict the new forces, powers, and discoveries that will be disclosed to us when we reach the other planets and set up new laboratories in space. They are as much beyond our vision today as fire or electricity would be beyond the imagination of a fish."
- Arthur C. Clarke, 1917 - 2008

"Outside intelligences, exploring the Solar System with true impartiality, would be quite likely to enter the Sun in their records thus: Star X, spectral class G0, 4 planets plus debris."
- Isaac Asimov, 1920 - 1992

"The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be."
- Douglas Adams, 1952 - 2001

"Perfect works are rare, because they must be produced at the happy moment when taste and genius unite; and this rare conjuncture, like that of certain planets, appears to occur only after the revolution of several cycles, and only lasts for an instant."
- Francois de Chateaubriand, 1768 - 1848

Thought of the Day:
"Government, in its last analysis, is organized force."
--Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) 28th US President.

Quote of the Day:
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
--Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), German-born Nobel laureate in Physics.

Quote of the Moment:
"If through your vices you afflicted are,/ Lay not the blame of your distress on God;/ You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards,/ So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod."
-- Solon (c.638 BC-558 BC) Athenian statesman & lyric poet, renowned as a founding father of the Athenian polis, one of the Seven Sages of Greece.

[pegasus]

Poem of the Day
"Thinking of Work" by James Shea.

A brief storm
blew the earth clean.

There was much
to do: sun to put up,
clouds to put out,
blue to install,
limbs to remove,
grass to implant.

(The grass failed.
We ordered new grass.)

A limb had cracked
in half in the short storm,
short with its feeling.

We saw its innards,
all the hollow places.

Something flew out of
the window and then
the window flew out of the window.

Bonus Poem:
"To People I Hear Talking Loudly on Their Cell Phones" by James Stevenson

It is VERY IMPORTANT
to take care of your cell phone!
Do you know how?

The best way is to drop it in
a deep pot of chicken fat
and bring to a boil.
Simmer for two hours.
Let cool.

[pegasus]

Poem of the Day
"Grasshopper" by Ron Padgett.

It's funny when the mind thinks about the psyche,
as if a grasshopper could ponder a helicopter.

It's a bad idea to fall asleep
while flying a helicopter:

when you wake up, the helicopter is gone
and you are too, left behind in a dream,

and there is no way to catch up,
for catching up doesn't figure

in the scheme of things. You are
who you are, right now,

and the mind is so scared it closes its eyes
and then forgets it has eyes

and the grasshopper, the one that thinks
you're a helicopter, leaps onto your back!

He is a brave little grasshopper
and he never sleeps

for the poem he writes is the act
of always being awake, better than anything

you could ever write or do.
Then he springs away.

Bonus Poem:
"Eletelephony" by Laura Elizabeth Richards

Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant—
No! No! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone—
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I've got it right.)
Howe'er it was, he got his trunk
Entangled in the telephunk;
The more he tried to get it free,
The louder buzzed the telephee—
(I fear I'd better drop the song
Of elephop and telephong!)

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, Germany on March 14th in 1879. He was a brilliant theoretical physicist, a staunch opponent of warfare, and a prolific source of quotes. We generally associate Einstein with the theory of relativity (actually, he proposed a theory of general relativity and a theory of special relativity) but that was just a small part of his work. Today's quotes are selected from his comments on theories.
QUOTES ON THEORIES:
"A theory can be proved by experiment; but no path leads from experiment to the birth of a theory."

"Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us closer to the secret of the 'Old One.' I, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice."

"By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, today in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be represented as a bête noire, the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!"

"A theory is the more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises is, the more different kinds of things it relates, and the more extended is its area of applicability. Therefore the deep impression which classical thermodynamics made upon me. It is the only physical theory of universal content concerning which I am convinced that within the framework of the applicability of its basic concepts, it will never be overthrown."

"Classical thermodynamics ... is the only physical theory of universal content which I am convinced ... will never be overthrown."

"You make experiments and I make theories. Do you know the difference? A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it."
All from Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Thought of the Day:
"The right to know is like the right to live. It is fundamental and unconditional in its assumption that knowledge, like life, is a desirable thing."
---George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright.

Quote of the Day:
"In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning."
--A. E. Housman (1859 - 1936), English poet

Quote of the Moment:
"One of the hardest things to teach a child is that the truth is more important than the consequences."
---O. A. Battista [Orlando Aloysius Battista] (1917-1995), Canadian-American chemist & author.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
The Quotemaster spent over a half century living in what he refers to as the Great North Wet; Seattle and parts north and west. They joke that they have webbed feet and aren't even vaguely upset when Dave Barry suggests that "Evergreen State" sounds better than "The Incessant Nagging Drizzle State". But on thMarch 15th in 1952 the town of Cilaos, high in a caldera on a dormant volcano on the island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, put the wettest parts of the Olympic rain forest to shame: 1,870 mm. of rain in one day. That's a touch over six feet, twice what Seattle gets in a year. So today he just had to look for Rain quotes.
QUOTES ON RAIN:
"Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon."
- Susan Ertz., 1894 - 1985

"The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore."
- W. Somerset Maugham, 1874 - 1965

"Methought it lessened my esteem of a king, that he should not be able to command the rain."
- Samuel Pepys, 1633 - 1703

"It's raining again and once again I have had to put the studies I started to one side.... I am witnessing a complete transformation taking place in Nature, and my courage is failing as a result."
- Claude Monet, 1840 - 1926

"If I were running the world I would have it rain only between 2 and 5 a.m. Anyone who was out then ought to get wet."
- William Lyon Phelps, 1865 - 1943

"I see no wisdom in saving up indignation for a rainy day."
- Heywood Hale Broun, 1918 - 2001

Thought of the Day:
"These are the rules of big business...Get a monopoly; let society work for you; and remember that the best of all business is politics..."
-- Frederick C. Howe in Confessions of a Monopolist [1906]

Quote of the Day:
"Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on."
--Samuel Butler (1835-1902), English author.

Quote of the Moment:
"It was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence...The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as rulers of us all."
--Louis McFadden (1876-1936) US Congressman (R-Pa., 1915-35).