Purely Outstanding

Why gild the lily?

Heart, Soul, and Song

The ineffable power of music, per Amos Lee's wonderful song, "Long Line of Pain," from the Supply and Demand album.


Here is a rich, deep, wide, and varied musical resource, the contents of which make clear why we call it Soul Music. If you go to visit the Soul Patrol, you may end up staying all day.....and it will be worth every minute.

My modus operandi for today

"You are never behind. Jump in where you are." - The FlyLady

Etiquette Questions

1. Why is it desirable to be "fashionably late" in a social setting but a sign of moral turpitude, sloth, or worse, to be 'fashionably late' to work?

2. Is it necessarily the case that people who are early to arrive at work are getting more done than those who drift in a bit later, but crank it out when they are there and/or stay late to get it done right?

Larger Philosophical Questions

1. What is the connection between fascism and an excessive focus on punctuality (to wit: Mussolini made the trains run on time, but at what cost)?

2. Physicists have found that time forms in zones and moves in waves. Why, then, are we all still pretending that time is a grid and that each box on the grid is the same as all the others?

The unity of wisdom and humor

......As epitomized in the life and words of Dr. Suess. Here's just one among many pieces of evidence:

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.

-- Theodor Seuss Geisel

Source: The Quotations Page

Glacier Preparedness

Have we worried about this enough?

Silent Blogging

I've decided this is a Quaker blog.

I was born and raised as a Quaker, which is among the most abstract of all religions. I kid you not. Sitting through a Quaker Meeting for Worship (aka almost complete silence for an hour, with others) was pure pain when I was a kid, but now that I better understand the concept,* I like it a great deal more.

In any event, I have decided my approach to blogging is Quaker-ish because I only post something when I feel like it. Often times, I don't feel like saying anything at all for months on end.

The conventional wisdom is that if you want people to read your stuff, you must update frequently. After months of ceaseless (& ineffective) nagging on the part of my superego I've instead determined that:

1) This is hooey,

2) My purpose in writing is simply to write -- or as Cyril Connolly
more eloquently noted: "Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self." (NB- it does nonetheless make me happy when you read it), and

3) I don't want to talk just to talk. I would rather say something when I feel like it. Otherwise, I think I'll just do something else. The world is noisy enough as it is.

...As long as I'm launching this mini-manifesto, I will also assert that I am not in any way required to say anything important. Of course, if you have ever read this blog before, you know this has always been my modus operandi...

*(Remember, Quakerism is highly abstract ....concepts really matter.)

Towards a More Perfect Union