if birds & the sky & life itself ( Read more... )

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed ( Read more... )

Merrily, merrily shall I live now ( Read more... )

Recent events have caused me to shake my head in disapproving befuddlement ( Read more... )

Is a Target bag studded with plastic jewels that reads "Bling Bling" not a bit self-contradicting?

Not that I boycott Target's pedestrian fashions, but I certainly do not have delusions of grandeur (or glamor) in them.

so quiet was the night
dreams writhing in the hollows
me wafting in my sailboat
that always will abruptly
hit the water's edge

eyes open wincingly
(recalling time and place)
to this cocooned, this quiet creature
who's dreamt never of another bed
never of another me.

Inebriate of air am I,

And debauchee of dew,

Reeling, through endless summer days,

From inns of molten blue.

[Dickinson]

So beatific a poem on an evening such as this--in the warm, sun-laden air even the thickest ennui seems to dissipate like rain.

A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.
[Also Russell--what a winsome lad]

"The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell."
[Russell--good ol' Bertrand, that is]

Percentage of songs on Billboard’s Top 20 list during 2004 whose lyrics mention at least one brand name: 40

Percentage that mention weaponry: 50

Minimum number of days that a Florida couple picketed their home in December to get their children to do more chores: 17

Average number of years by which a 2004 study found the cells of chronically ( Read more... )