Daily Poem and Quotations

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
How important is National Trivia Day? Not at all, in fact it's trivial unless you happen to be an employee or stockholder of Hasbro, the publisher of the board game Trivial Pursuit. I don't rely on such props, I'm fully committed to trivia without any outside help at all. For example, the game was invented by a couple of Canadian journalists at Montreal in 1979. Why waste time on creating a game around trivia? The two had lost some of the tiles for their Scrabble game and had to come up with something new while waiting for breaking news. Since then the game has reached impressive heights in triviality, with 46 editions, 28 supplemental question sets, ten multimedia editions, and several sets of alternate rules. I haven't bought a single one of them, although I seem to have gathered some trivial quotes.
QUOTES ABOUT TRIVIA:
"Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men."
- George Jean Nathan, 1882 - 1958

"Too many of our prejudices are like pyramids upside down. They rest on tiny, trivial incidents, but they spread upward and outward until they fill our minds."
- William McChesney Martin, 1906 - 1998

"Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on the trivial and the mediocre."
- Walter Lippmann, 1889 - 1974

"The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to.... No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it."
- Richard Feynman, 1918 - 1988

"In larger things we are convivial;
what causes trouble is the trivial."
- Richard Armour, 1906 - 1989

Thought of the Day:
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
--Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights acitivist (1929-1968)

Quote of the Day:
"Man forgives woman anything save the wit to outwit him."
--Minna Antrim, writer (1861-1950)

Quote of the Moment:
"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."
--Rene Descartes, French philosopher (1596-1650)


Poem of the Day
"Four Lack Songs" by Susan Stewart.

Alack Alas
Hammer to a copper bowl,
someone left the light on.
Touch against the thin wrist
skin, and back again, and back
again. Can't find the vein.


Alack A Day
Stiffing a filigree leaf, ribs
align in alternity. Drop
me a line, I am leaving—
the har-dee-har men come soon.
And once they are here, they are.


A Daisy
Soon the alterations are finished;
she mends where fray yields to fringe.
Wet thread creaks the slit like
chalk on a board. There's
no sense closing your ears.


Lackadaisical
You're just like the other, someone
said. I hear you, but where
are my shoes? I've looked every
where. I've looked high and low
and my feet are cold, and bare.

Bonus Poem:
"A Clear Midnight" by Walt Whitman

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson
done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Humans have always sought light in the dark parts of the year. One old tradition from northern Europe, continued in the northern US communities settled by Germanic and Scandinavian folk, involved the end of Christmas. Yes, today, Jan. 5th, is the Twelfth Day of Christmas, which ends at sundown. The tradition was for each family to take down their tree, bundle up, and drag it to the churchyard for a community bonfire before celebrating the Eve of Epiphany. (Epiphany commemorates the arrival of the Magi at the stable.) Now we get our warmth and light from more modern means, but it seemed apt to bring you some quotes on Fire.
QUOTES ON FIRE:
"It is with our passions as it is with fire and water, they are good servants, but bad masters."
- Aesop.

"Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens."
- Douglas William Jerrold, 1803 - 1857

"The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation."
- Auguste Rodin, 1840 - 1917

"When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself."
- Shunryu Suzuki, 1904 - 1971

"The spread of civilisation may be likened to a fire; First, a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing in speed and power."
- Nikola Tesla, 1856 - 1943

"I don't approve of open fires. You can't think, or talk or even make love in front of a fireplace. All you can do is stare at it."
- Rex Stout, 1886 - 1975

Thought of the Day:
"Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary."
--Robert Louis Stevensno, English author (1850-1894)

Quote of the Day:
"Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?"
--Lily Tomlin, comedienne (b. 1939)

Quote of the Moment:
"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, English mathematician/philospher (1872-0970)


Poem of the Day
"Love" by [i[Katy Lederer[/i].

After Duras

"We go back to our house. We are lovers.
We cannot stop loving each other."

I come to confiscate your love.
What will you do?

Small shrubs grow in the blackened yard.
Sun, which is yellow, shines in through the windows, now barred.

You were watching me eat.
Put your tongue in my mouth then retract it.

We were waiting for our recompense.
But everyone knows love is bankrupt.

On the billboard in front of us: breasts.
The empty middles of the mannequins that peered out through the glass.

Reprehensibly, I mouthed the words: I love you.

Bonus Poem:
"Anna, Thy Charm" by Robert Burns

Anna, thy charms my bosom fire,
And waste my soul with care;
But ah! how bootless to admire,
When fated to despair!

Yet in thy presence, lovely Fair,
To hope may be forgiven;
For sure 'twere impious to despair
So much in sight of heaven.
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[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Jehanne Darc was born at Domremy, France on Jan. 6th in 1412 if you're gullible. The only thing we know about the date of her birth is that the illiterate warrior maiden said she was nineteen when she was on trial in 1431 She. is commonly called Joan of Arc, but she was never Joan and was not "of" or "from" Arc; there isn't any Arc. The name comes from her father's pretense at nobility, he briefly used "d'Arc" instead of the family name of "Darc" before the king elevated him to noble status and gave granted the family name "du Lis". That was a minor thing for Charles VII of France to do, as it was Jehanne who had been most forceful in actually getting Charles crowned. This young girl saw visions and heard voices, and because of them led troops successfully when experienced captains cowered. Her efforts were not properly rewarded, she was captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English, and finally burned at the stake for wearing mens clothes. On her putative six hundredth birthday, our theme is Visions nd Voices.
QUOTES ON VISIONS & VOICES:
"I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires."
- Kahlil Gibran, 1883 - 1931

"Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements."
- Napoleon Hill, 1883 - 1970

"The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there."
- Willa Cather, 1873 - 1947

"The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside."
- James Joyce, 1882 - 1941

"Artists are generally soft-spoken persons who are concerned with their inner visions and images. But that is precisely what makes them feared by any coercive society. For they are the bearers of the human being's age old capacity to be insurgent."
- Rollo May, 1909 - 1994

"There are periods of history when the visions of madmen and dope fiends are a better guide to reality than the common-sense interpretation of data available to the so-called normal mind. This is one such period, if you haven't noticed already."
- Robert Anton Wilson, 1932 - 2007

Thought of the Day:
"The man who craves disciples and wants followers is always more or less of a charlatan. The man of genuine worth and insight wants to be himself; and he wants others to be themselves, also."
--Elbert Hubbard, columnist (1856-1915)

Quote of the Day:
"I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me."
--Woody Allen, comedian & movie producer-director (b. 1935)

Quote of the Moment:
"His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best."
--Aeschylus, Greek dramatist (c.525-456 B.C.)


Poem of the Day
"A Divine Image" by William Blake.

Cruelty has a Human heart
And Jealousy a Human Face,
Terror, the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy, the Human Dress.

The Human Dress is forgéd Iron,
The Human Form, a fiery Forge,
The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd,
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.

Bonus Poem:
"Ah, Sunflower" by William Blake.

Ah! sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey is done;

Where the youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves and aspire;
Where my sunflower wishes to go.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
We have quite a crowd of performers in the birthday list for Jan. 7th. The flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal was born at Marseilles, France on this day in 1922. Paul Revere, leader of Boise, Idaho's Paul Revere and the Raiders, was born at Harvard, Nebraska on this day in 1938. Singer/ songwriter Kenny Loggins was born at Everett, Washington on this day in 1948. Are talking heads performers? Then add Katie Couric (Arlington, Virginia, 1957). But as the Bard said, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." That suggests that while we're often in the audience, much of our daily life is Performance.
QUOTES ON PERFORMANCE:
"To others we are not ourselves but a performer in their lives cast for a part we do not even know that we are playing."
- Elizabeth Bibesco, 1897 - 1945

"We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are - politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings".
- Sir Laurence Olivier, 1907 - 1989

"At the end of each day, you should play back the tapes of your performance. The results should either applaud you or prod you".
- Jim Rohn, 1930 - 2009

"Too many young performers have forgotten that the most important part of show business is not the second word, it's the first. Without the show there's no business."
- Liberace, 1919 - 1987

"In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show."
- Timothy Leary, 1920 - 1996

"All you owe the public is a good performance."
- Humphrey Bogart, 1899 - 1957

Thought of the Day:
"If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self."
--Napoleon Hill, self-help author (1883-1970)

Quote of the Day:
"He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which."
--Douglas Adams, English author (1952-2001)

Quote of the Moment:
"It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars."
--Garrison Keiller. radio host, author & raconteur (b. 1942)


Poem of the Day
"Item:" by Lynn Emanuel.

I strolled through the neighborhood of beautiful houses
All of which I had written

Down the long dark street
Past the cemetery

Where all the tombstones
Had my small white face.

Over my shoulder burned the lamp
Of the moon.

The pages, in the wind, flew, were fluffed and ruffled
Like water by stones into a tune.

I watched the horse and the rat
The rabbit and fox

Leaving their tracks
On the snowy drafts.

The fox looked like me
Had my face

A long sharp chin
A shifty eye.

The wind riffled its beautiful pelt.
My spelling faltered

Under the spell of myself.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Stephen Hawking was born at Oxford, England on Jan. 8th in 1942, his parents had moved to Oxford before the birth because the Luftwaffe was bombing London. Stephen grew up at London where he was an indifferent student with good grades, although he was fascinated by math. His father wanted him to study at his alma mater, University College, Oxford, but the school didn't offer a math program so Stephen read natural science. His grades were borderline for a "first", leading to an oral exam where the examiners realized he was well ahead of them. He then studied astronomy but left for Trinity Hall, Cambridge for a more challenging program. The next year he was diagnosed with ALS, a degenerative neurological disease, and given two to three years to live. Over the last half century he has been confined to a wheelchair and now communicates only by controlling a computerized voice with his cheek. Despite that, he has published ground-breaking scholarly works on cosmology but also works for the general public and two books of children's fiction. His A Brief History of Time stayed on the London best-seller list for 237 weeks, the record.
QUOTES:
"My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."

"Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory."

"I'm not religious in the normal sense. I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws."

"My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus."

"So Einstein was wrong when he said, 'God does not play dice.' Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that he sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen."

"So next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist."
All from Stephen Hawking.

Thought of the Day:
"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."
--Don Marquis, journalist (1878-1937)

Quote of the Day:
"Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street."
--Elbert Hubbard , writer, publisher & artist (1856-1915)

Quote of the Moment:
"The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable."
..Paul Tillich, theologian (1886-1965)


Poem of the Day


Bonus Poem:

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Effective on Jan. 10th in 1840, the postal rate for a half ounce letter delivered anywhere in the United Kingdom was reduced to one penny, if paid in advance, twice that if the recipient were to pay on delivery. The lowered rates meant the volume of mail in the UK more than doubled that year. It might have been even more except that the self-adhesive "Penny Black" stamps that really made the system work (and would have allowed more accurate accounting) weren't available until May.
QUOTES ON PENNIES:
"A penny saved is a penny earned."
- Abraham Lincoln, 1809 - 1865

"Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future."
- Samuel Johnson, 1709 - 1784

"Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain."
- Barbara Kingsolver.

"Human beings have the remarkable ability to turn nothing into something. They can turn weeds into gardens and pennies into fortunes."
- Jim Rohn, 1930 - 2009

"We notice things that don't work. We don't notice things that do. We notice computers, we don't notice pennies. We notice e-book readers, we don't notice books."
- Douglas Adams, 1952 - 2001

"A Penny Saved Is Impossible:
The further through life I drift
The more obvious it becomes that I am lacking in thrift."
- Ogden Nash, 1902 - 1971

Thought of the Day:
""I know that I don't know what I don't know."
—-Marguerite Youcenar, French author (1903-1987).

Quote of the Day:
"If people behaved the way nations do, they would all be put in strait jackets.{
--Tennessee Williams, playwright (1911-1983)

Quote of the Moment:
"It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them."
--P. G. Wodehouse, humorist author (1881 - 1975)


Poem of the Day
"Archaic Torso of Apollo" by Rainer Maria Rilke/trans. by Stephen Mitchell

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could
a smile run through the placid hips and thighs
to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Bonus Poem:
"Books" by Gerald Stern

How you loved to read in the snow and when your
face turned to water from the internal heat
combined with the heavy crystals or maybe it was
reversus you went half-blind and your eyelashes
turned to ice the time you walked through swirls
with dirty tears not far from the rat-filled river
or really a mile away—or two—in what
you came to call the Aristotle room
in a small hole outside the Carnegie library.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
The first government-sponsored lottery was held on thJan. 11th in 1569, with tickets on sale at the West Door of St Paul's Cathedral at London. Ever since, lotteries have been a tax on the innumerate, and it is mathematically accurate (to at least six decimal places) to say that the chance of winning is equal whether you buy a ticket or not. I occasionally blow five bucks on tickets when the pot gets over $10 millions, that's enough cash to change your life, but I actually know better. In honor of the first lottery, today's quotes are on Chance.
QUOTES ON CHANCE:
"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."
- Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:11 (King James Version)

"Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."
- Ovid, 43 BC - AD 17

"'Tis hard if all is false that I advance
A fool must now and then be right, by chance."
- William Cowper, 1731 - 1800

"Insurance, n. An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table."
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1881 - 1906

"Only the element of chance is needed to make war a gamble, and that element is never absent."
- Karl von Clausewitz, 1780 - 1831

"Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance?"
- Phyllis Diller.


Thought of the Day:
"Making duplicate copies and computer printouts of things no one wanted even one of in the first place is giving America a new sense of purpose."
--Andy Rooney, writer (1919-2011)

Quote of the Day:
"I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland."
--Woody Allen, comedian & movie director-producer (b. 1935)

Quote of the Moment:
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one."
--Albert Eisstein, theoretical physicist (1879-1955)


Poem of the Day
"Night Air" by C. Dale Young.

"If God is Art, then what do we make
of Jasper Johns?" One never knows
what sort of question a patient will pose,

or how exactly one should answer.
Outside the window, snow on snow
began to answer the ground below

with nothing more than foolish questions.
We were no different. I asked again:
"Professor, have we eased the pain?"

Eventually, he’d answer me with:
"Tell me, young man, whom do you love?"
"E," I’d say, "None of the Above,"

and laugh for lack of something more
to add. For days he had played that game,
and day after day I avoided your name

by instinct. I never told him how
we often wear each other’s clothes—
we aren’t what many presuppose.

Call it an act of omission, my love.
Tonight, while walking to the car,
I said your name to the evening star,

clearly pronouncing the syllables
to see your name dissipate
in the air, evaporate.

Only the night air carries your words
up to the dead (the ancients wrote):
I watched them rise, become remote.


Bonus Poem:
"The Philosopher in Florida" by C. Dale Young

Midsummer lies on this town
like a plague: locusts now replaced
by humidity, the bloodied Nile

now an algae-covered rivulet
struggling to find its terminus.
Our choice is a simple one:

to leave or to remain, to render
the Spanish moss a memory
or to pull it from trees, repeatedly.

And this must be what the young
philosopher felt, the pull of a dialectic so basic
the mind refuses, normally,

to take much notice of it.
Outside, beyond a palm-tree fence,
a flock of ibis mounts the air,

our concerns ignored
by their quick white wings.
Feathered flashes reflected in water,

the bending necks of the cattails:
the landscape feels nothing---
it repeats itself with or without us.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
John Hancock was born at Braintree, Massachusetts on Jan. 12th in 1737. I am sure he would be taken aback to learn that his name is known to millions, but very few remember it for more than signing his name extra large. As a Boston merchant, he was angered by the Stamp Act of 1765. Two years later, one of his ships was seized and he was tried as a smuggler. He was the President of the Continental Congress and thus boldly signed the Declaration of Independence. Ever since I first saw his signature I've been unable to sign my name to fit in those little boxes on forms. A bold signature is, I think, a worthy thing to be remembered for.
QUOTES ON SIGNATURES:
"My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed."
- Christopher Morley, 1890 - 1957

"A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name."
- Evan Esar.

"The childless experts on child raising also bring tears of laughter to my eyes when they say, "I love children because they're so honest." There is not an agent in the CIA or the KGB who knows how to conceal the theft of food, how to fake being asleep, or how to forge a parent's signature like a child."
- Bill Cosby.

"If it is true that wars are won by believers, it is also true that peace treaties are sometimes signed by businessmen."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1900 - 1944

"Never so long as you live, write a letter to a man — no matter who he is — that you would be ashamed to see in a newspaper above your signature."
- Emily Post, 1872 - 1960

"I go to restaurants and the groups always play "Yesterday." I even signed a guy's violin in Spain after he played us "Yesterday." He couldn't understand that I didn't write the song. But I guess he couldn't have gone from table to table playing "I Am The Walrus.""
- John Lennon, 1940 - 1980

Thought of the Day:
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French writer (1900 - 1944)

Quote of the Day:
"When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before."
--Mae West, actress, screenwriter & sex symbol (1893-1980)

Quote of the Moment:
"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."
--Joseph Conrad, English novelist (1857 - 1924),


Poem of the Day
"Winter Haravest" by George Meredith in The Gypsy Trail [Harvard Univesity Press]

Sharp is the night, but stars with frost alive
Leap off the rim of earth across the dome.
It is a night to make the heavens our home
More than the nest whereto apace we strive.
Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive,
In swarms outrushing from the golden comb.
They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam:
The living throb in me, the dead revive.
Yon mantle clothes us: there, past mortal breath,
Life glistens on the river of the death.
It folds us, flesh and dust; and have we knelt,
Or never knelt, or eyed as kine the springs
Of radiance, the radiance enrings:
And this is the soul's haven to have felt.

Bonus Poem:
"A Winter Without Snow" by J. D. McClatchy.

Even the sky here in Connecticut has it,
That wry look of accomplished conspiracy,
The look of those who've gotten away

With a petty but regular white collar crime.
When I pick up my shirts at the laundry,
A black woman, putting down her Daily News,

Wonders why and how much longer our luck
Will hold. "Months now and no kiss of the witch."
The whole state overcast with such particulars.

For Emerson, a century ago and farther north,
Where the country has an ode's jagged edges,
It was "frolic architecture." Frozen blue-

Print of extravagance, shapes of a shared life
Left knee-deep in transcendental drifts:
The isolate forms of snow are its hardest fact.

Down here, the plain tercets of provision do,
Their picket snow-fence peeling, gritty,
Holding nothing back, nothing in, nothing at all.

Down here, we've come to prefer the raw material
Of everyday and this year have kept an eye
On it, shriveling but still recognizable--

A sight that disappoints even as it adds
A clearing second guess to winter. It's
As if, in the third year of a "relocation"

To a promising notch way out on the Sunbelt,
You've grown used to the prefab housing,
The quick turnover in neighbors, the constant

Smell of factory smoke--like Plato's cave,
You sometimes think--and the stumpy trees
That summer slighted and winter just ignores,

And all the snow that never falls is now
Back home and mixed up with other piercing
Memories of childhood days you were kept in

With a Negro schoolmate, of later storms
Through which you drove and drove for hours
Without ever seeing where you were going.

Or as if you've cheated on a cold sickly wife.
Not in some overheated turnpike motel room
With an old flame, herself the mother of two,

Who looks steamy in summer-weight slacks
And a parrot-green pullover. Not her.
Not anyone. But every day after lunch

You go off by yourself, deep in a brown study,
Not doing much of anything for an hour or two,
Just staring out the window, or at a patch

On the wall where a picture had hung for ages,
A woman with planets in her hair, the gravity
Of perfection in her features--oh! her hair

The lengthening shadow of the galaxy's sweep.
As a young man you used to stand outside
On warm nights and watch her through the trees.

You remember how she disappeared in winter,
Obscured by snow that fell blindly on the heart,
On the house, on a world of possibilities.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
It is told that when Martin Luther King, Jr was born at Atlanta, Georgia on Jan. 15th in 1929 he didn't cry, and there was concern that the baby had not survived the difficult birth. It didn't take many years for the boy to develop a powerful voice for peace and equality. One day he had a dream, following it made him one of the few who have changed the world. The world resists change and Dr King was murdered, but the dream continued and his words live on.
QUOTES:
"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend."

"There is little hope for us until we become toughminded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half-truths, and downright ignorance."

"What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic."

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."

"True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice."

"Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill-will."

"Life's piano can only produce the melodies of brotherhood when it is recognized that the black keys are as basic, necessary, and beautiful as the white keys."
All from Martin Luther King, Jr (1929-1968)

Thought of the Day:
"Try to learn something about everything and everything about something."
--Thomas H. Huxley, British scientist (1825-1895)

Quote of the Day:
"At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely."
--W. Somerset Maugham, English writer (1874-1965)

Quote of the Moment:
"While we have the gift of life, it seems to me that only tragedy is to allow part of us to die - whether it is our spirit, our creativity, or our glorious uniqueness."
--Gilda Radner, comedienne (1946-1989)


Poem of the Day
"It sifts from Leaden Sieves--" by Emily Dickinson from The Poems of Emily Dickinson [Belknap Press]

It sifts from Leaden Sieves -
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool
The Wrinkles of the Road -

It makes an Even Face
Of Mountain, and of Plain -
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again -

It reaches to the Fence -
It wraps it Rail by Rail
Till it is lost in Fleeces -
It deals Celestial Vail

To Stump, and Stack - and Stem -
A Summer’s empty Room -
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless, but for them -

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen -
Then stills its Artisans - like Ghosts -
Denying they have been -

Bonus Poem:
"A Bird came down the Walk (328)" by Emily Dickinson.

A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass—
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass—

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around—
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought—
He stirred his Velvet Head

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home—

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
On Jan. 16th in 1919, Nebraska ratified the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution, becoming the 36th and deciding state. On thJan. 16th in 1920 it went into effect: Sale and transport of alcohol was prohibited, the start of Prohibition. Moderate drinking in most families came to an end, while wild and frenzied drinking behind closed doors was unaffected, organized crime got its first great source of income, and thousands died from fusel oil in "bathtub gin". Prohibition never works, but don't expect the government to learn from the wisdom of past experience.
QUOTES ON PROHIBITION (substitute drugs for alcohol and the reasoning remains the same):
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.:
- Albert Einstein, 1879 - 1955

"Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine point on which all the legal professions of history have based their job security."
- Frank Herbert, 1920 - 1986

"Prohibition is better than no liquor at all."
- Will Rogers, 1879 - 1935

"The period of Prohibition — called the noble experiment — brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police."
- Gore Vidal.

"Prohibition cannot be enforced for the simple reason that the majority of American people do not want it enforced and are resisting its enforcement."
- Fiorello LaGuardia, 1882 - 1947

"I was getting sick and tired of being lectured by dear friends with their little bottles of water and their regular visits to the gym. All of a sudden, we've got this voluntary prohibition that has to do with health and fitness. I'm not really in favor of health and fitness."
- Barbara Holland, 1933 - 2010

Thought of the Day:
"As the interned American citizens of Japanese descent learned, the Bill of Rights provided them with little protection when it was needed."
--Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Assoc. Prof. of Law, Univ. of Tenn.

Quote of the Day:
"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it."
--Sir Terry Pratchett, English sci-fi/fantasy author (b. 1948)

Quote of the Moment:
"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
--Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist (1879-1955)


Poem of the Day
"Low Barometer" by Robert Bridges in Poetry & Prose [Clarendon Press]

The south-wind strengthens to a gale,
Across the moon the clouds fly fast,
The house is smitten as with a flail,
The chimney shudders to the blast.

On such a night, when Air has loosed
Its guardian grasp on blood and brain,
Old terrors then of god or ghost
Creep from their caves to life again;

And Reason kens he herits in
A haunted house. Tenants unknown
Assert their squalid lease of sin
With earlier title than his own.

Unbodied presences, the pack'd
Pollution and remorse of Time,
Slipp'd from oblivion reënact
The horrors of unhouseld crime.

Some men would quell the thing with prayer
Whose sightless footsteps pad the floor,
Whose fearful trespass mounts the stair
Or burts the lock'd forbidden door.

Some have seen corpses long interr'd
Escape from hallowing control,
Pale charnel forms—nay ev'n have heard
The shrilling of a troubled soul,

That wanders till the dawn hath cross'd
The dolorous dark, or Earth hath wound
Closer her storm-spredd cloke, and thrust
The baleful phantoms underground.

Bonus Poem:
"The Garden Year" by Sara Coleridge

January brings the snow,
Makes our feet and fingers glow.

February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again.

March brings breezes, loud and shrill,
To stir the dancing daffodil.

April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daisies at our feet.

May brings flocks of pretty lambs
Skipping by their fleecy dams.

June brings tulips, lilies, roses,
Fills the children's hands with posies.

Hot July brings cooling showers,
Apricots, and gillyflowers.

August brings the sheaves of corn,
Then the harvest home is borne.

Warm September brings the fruit;
Sportsmen then begin to shoot.

Fresh October brings the pheasant;
Then to gather nuts is pleasant.

Dull November brings the blast;
Then the leaves are whirling fast.

Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Charles-Louis de Secondat was born at the Château de la Brède in the west of France. His father was a soldier with noble ancestry, his mother had a great deal of money and a barony. After college, Charles married, when he was 26, bringing in a large dowry. The next year he received an inheritance from an uncle including another barony. Despite his real name and his first barony, we know him today only by the second: Montesquieu. His wealth allowed him time to read, travel, and write and he became a noted social commentator and political analyst. He was the first to develop the concept of separation of powers, coined the term "feudalism", and his political writings were cited by America's founding fathers more often than any other writer's works.
QUOTES:
"It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption."

"Democracy has two excesses to be wary of: the spirit of inequality, which leads it to aristocracy, and the spirit of extreme equality, which leads it to despotism."

"I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise."

"If I knew of something that could serve my nation but would ruin another, I would not propose it to my prince, for I am first a man and only then a Frenchman."

"Study has been my sovereign remedy against the worries of life. I have never had a care that an hour's reading could not dispel."

"The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy."

"Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty."
All from Montesquieu, 1689 - 1755

Thought of the Day:
""That no government, so called, can reasonably be trusted, or reasonably be supposed to have honest purposes in view, any longer than it depends wholly upon voluntary support."
--Lysander Spooner, political theorist, activist, abolitionist (1808-1887)

Quote of the Day:
"A compromise is an agreement whereby both parties get what neither of them wanted."
--Anonymous.

Quote of the Moment:
""Some lawyers and judges may have forgotten it, but the purpose of the court system is to produce justice, not slavish obedience to the law."
--Charlie Reese, columnist (b. 1937)


Poem of the Day
"Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar in The Collected Poems [University of Virginia Press]

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats its wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

Bonus Poem:
"Beyond the Years" by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I

Beyond the years the answer lies,
Beyond where brood the grieving skies
And Night drops tears.
Where Faith rod-chastened smiles to rise
And doff its fears,
And carping Sorrow pines and dies—
Beyond the years.

II

Beyond the years the prayer for rest
Shall beat no more within the breast;
The darkness clears,
And Morn perched on the mountain's crest
Her form uprears—
The day that is to come is best,
Beyond the years.

III

Beyond the years the soul shall find
That endless peace for which it pined,
For light appears,
And to the eyes that still were blind
With blood and tears,
Their sight shall come all unconfined
Beyond the years.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was one of the first African-American poets to gain national recognition.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Today's theme, Steam and Steel, comes from the coincidence that two brilliant British engineers were born on Jan. 19th: James Watt was at Greenock, Scotland in 1736 and Sir Henry Bessemer at Charlton, Hertfordshire, England in 1813. Watt invented the steam engine and Bessemer invented the open hearth furnace for making steel, both critical to the Industrial Revolution. Watt's work would have been much easier if Bessemer had come first, he had to build his machines from wrought iron. As is normal in engineering, the progress they spurred has meant their own inventions are now limited to museums.
QUOTES:
"Men are like steel. When they lose their temper, they lose their worth."
- Chuck Norris.

"There is no country in the world where machinery is so lovely as in America. It was not until I had seen the water-works at Chicago that I realised the wonders of machinery; the rise and fall of the steel rods, the symmetrical motion of the great wheels is the most beautiful rhythmic thing I have ever seen."
- Oscar Wilde, 1854 - 1900

"Prudence and justice tell me that in electricity and steam there is more love for man than in chastity and abstinence from meat."
- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, 1860 - 1904

"At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion."
- Edwin Hubbel Chapin, 1814 - 1880

"Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not."
- Robert M. Pirsig.

"Once a new technology rolls over you, if your're not part of the steamroller, you're part of the road."
- Stewart Brand.

Thought of the Day:
"Politicians never accuse you of ‘greed’ for wanting other people’s money—only for wanting to keep your own money."
--Joseph Sobran, columnist (1946-2010)

Quote of the Day:
"Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other."
--Ann Landers, advice columnist (1918 - 2002)

Quote of the Moment:
"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves."
--Ronald Reagan, 40th US President (1911-2004)


Poem of the Day
"Many-Roofed Building in Moonlight" by Jane Hirshfield.

I found myself
suddenly voluminous,
three-dimensioned,
a many-roofed building in moonlight.

Thought traversed
me as simply as moths might.
Feelings traversed me as fish.

I heard myself thinking,
It isn't the piano, it isn't the ears.

Then heard, too soon, the ordinary furnace,
the usual footsteps above me.

Washed my face again with hot water,
as I did when I was a child.

Bonus Poem:
"A Hand" by Jane Hirschfield.

A hand is not four fingers and a thumb.

Nor is it palm and knuckles,
not ligaments or the fat's yellow pillow,
not tendons, star of the wristbone, meander of veins.

A hand is not the thick thatch of its lines
with their infinite dramas,
nor what it has written,
not on the page,
not on the ecstatic body.

Nor is the hand its meadows of holding, of shaping—
not sponge of rising yeast-bread,
not rotor pin's smoothness,
not ink.

The maple's green hands do not cup
the proliferant rain.
What empties itself falls into the place that is open.

A hand turned upward holds only a single, transparent question.

Unanswerable, humming like bees, it rises, swarms, departs.

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
If the constant stream of political news were not enough, historically this has been a busy day for government. The first elected English parliament met on Jan. 20th in 1265, although it lasted less than a month and the king ignored it. Duke Lokietek became king of Poland on this day in 1320, Edward Balliol abdicated the throne of Scotland in 1356, Christian II was forced to abdicate the thrones of Denmark and Norway in 1523, and Edward VIII became king of the United Kingdom as of this day in 1936. And since Franklin Roosevelt's second term started in 1937, every US presidency has been inaugurated on this day. With all that progress, people still criticize it.
QUOTE:
"It is what we prevent, rather than what we do that counts most in Government."
- Mackenzie King, 1874 - 1950

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government."
- Edward Abbey, 1927 - 1989

"I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of government ever endured by mankind."
- Henry Louis Mencken, 1880 - 1956

"Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others — only to lose it over themselves."
- Barbara W. Tuchman, 1912 - 1989

"When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.'
- Winston Churchill, 1874 - 1965

"No government proposal more complicated than "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" ever works."
- P. J. O'Rourke.



Thought of the Day:
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
--George Orwell, British author (1903-1950)

Quote of the Day:
"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy."
--Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist (1918 - 1988)

Quote of the Moment:
"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon."
--Thomas Paine, writer (1737-1809)


Poem of the Day
"Comet Hyakutake" by Arthur Sze.

Comet Hyakutake's tail stretches for 360 million miles—

in 1996, we saw Hyakutake through binoculars—

the ion tail contains the time we saw bats emerge out of a cavern at dusk—

in the cavern, we first heard stalactites dripping—

first silence, then reverberating sound—

our touch reverberates and makes a blossoming track—

a comet's nucleus emits X-rays and leaves tracks—

two thousand miles away, you box up books and, in two days, will step through the
invisible rays of an airport scanner—

we write on invisible pages in an invisible book with invisible ink—

in nature's infinite book, we read a few pages—

in the sky, we read the ion tracks from the orchard—

the apple orchard where blossoms unfold, where we unfold—

budding, the child who writes, "the puzzle comes to life"—

elated, puzzled, shocked, dismayed, confident, loving: minutes to an hour—

a minute, a pinhole lens through which light passes—

Comet Hyakutake will not pass earth for another 100,000 years—

no matter, ardor is here—

and to the writer of fragments, each fragment is a whole—

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
Francis Bacon was born at London on Jan. 22nd in 1561. His father's death in 1579 left him penniless, but he took to the law well enough to hold a seat in Parliament by age 23 and eventually held the titles Baron Verulam and Viscount Saint Albans. His public career was limited under Queen Elizabeth, flourished under James I, but ended when he took a bribe. His literary output was great, and his scientific inquiries varied and continued until he died of bronchitis following experiments at storing meat at low temperatures - the experimenter and the test subjects were too often at the same temperature.
QUOTES:
"No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of Truth."

"Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; adversity not without many comforts and hopes."

"The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other."

"As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all Innovations, which are the births of time."

"The monuments of wit survive the monuments of power."

"Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly."
All from Francis Bacon, 1561 - 1626



Thought of the Day:
"The only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. ... Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."
--John Stuart Mill, English philosopher & economist (1806-1873)

Quote of the Day:
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed."
--Herman Melville, novelist (1819 - 1891)

Quote of the Moment:
"It's never more important to move slowly and carefully before granting the state new powers than in the wake of tragedies."
--Brian Doherty, journalist & author (b. 1968)


Poem of the Day
"A Man may make a Remark (952)" by Emily Dickinson

A Man may make a Remark -
In itself - a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature - lain -

Let us divide - with skill -
Let us discourse - with care -
Powder exists in Charcoal -
Before it exists in Fire -


Bonus Poem:
"Because I could not stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –

[pegasus]

Quotes for Today
On Jan. 21st in 1951 a federal jury at New York City returned a verdict of guilty in the case of Alger Hiss. Hiss had been accused of passing government secrets to a Communist courier, Whittaker Chambers, in 1937. The statute of limitations had expired on the espionage, but after Hiss denied the charges to a congressional committee he was charged with perjury. There was no significant evidence, just Whittaker's unsupported claim. Did Hiss lie? Controversy over the question continues today. (I think not, but I have a strong bias against the House Un-American Activities Committee.) The trial did propel one young congressman, Richard Nixon, into the national media, cynics might suggest that Nixon knew a thing or two about prevarication. As you have come to expect, I have several hundred quotes on the subject.
QUOTES:
"Baloney is the unvarnished lie laid on so thick you hate it. Blarney is flattery laid on so thin you love it."
- Bisop Fulton J. Sheen, 1895 - 1979

"Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
- George Orwell, 1903 - 1950

"Of all lies, art is the least untrue."
- Gustave Flaubert, 1821 - 1880

"Legend: a lie that has attained the dignity of age."
- Henry Louis Mencken, 1880 - 1956

"How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read."
- Karl Kraus, 1874 - 1936

"People need good lies. There are too many bad ones."
- Kurt Vonnegut, 1922 - 2007

"Of course the government and the newspapers lie. But in a democracy, they're not the same lies."
- Steve Jackson.

Thought of the Day:
"No man suffers injustice without learning, vaguely but surely, what justice is."
--Isaac Rosenfeld, Jewish-American writer (1918-1956)

Quote of the Day:
"The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79."
..Douglas Adams, English writer (1952-2001)

Quote of the Moment:
"Whatever disagreement there may be as to the scope of the phrase due process of law" there can be no doubt that it embraces the fundamental conception of a fair trial, with opportunity to be heard."
--Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., US Supreme Court Justice (1841-1935) in Frank v. Magnum, 237 U.S. 309, 347 (1915).


Poem of the Day
"The Snow Fairy" by Claude McKay in Complete Poems [University of Illinois Press]

I

Throughout the afternoon I watched them there,
Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky,
Whirling fantastic in the misty air,
Contending fierce for space supremacy.
And they flew down a mightier force at night,
As though in heaven there was revolt and riot,
And they, frail things had taken panic flight
Down to the calm earth seeking peace and quiet.
I went to bed and rose at early dawn
To see them huddled together in a heap,
Each merged into the other upon the lawn,
Worn out by the sharp struggle, fast asleep.
The sun shone brightly on them half the day,
By night they stealthily had stol'n away.


II

And suddenly my thoughts then turned to you
Who came to me upon a winter's night,
When snow-sprites round my attic window flew,
Your hair disheveled, eyes aglow with light.
My heart was like the weather when you came,
The wanton winds were blowing loud and long;
But you, with joy and passion all aflame,
You danced and sang a lilting summer song.
I made room for you in my little bed,
Took covers from the closet fresh and warm,
A downful pillow for your scented head,
And lay down with you resting in my arm.
You went with Dawn. You left me ere the day,
The lonely actor of a dreamy play.