This was told me by a physical therapist. I should hasten to add that I don’t think she meant me specifically, just humans in particular. The story of how we got to this conversation takes some explanation. It started over the holidays two years ago. I found myself almost unable to get out of bed […]
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Recommended by R> Members “When you wake up each morning, you can choose to be happy or choose to be sad. Unless some terrible catastrophe has occurred the night before, it is pretty much up to you. Tomorrow morning, when the sun shines through your window, choose to make it a happy day.” – Lynda Resnick
For me, the best thing about 2018 is that it is almost over. If I have had a worse year, I cannot recall it. My wife died, my father died, and my father-in-law (a man I have respected for nearly 50 years) will likely die before the year is out. I had to go to the emergency room in the middle of the night because of difficulties breathing. I have had money and job challenges.
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Recommended by R> Members “The charge is often made against the intelligentsia and other members of the anointed that their theories and the policies based on them lack common sense. But the very commonness of common sense makes it unlikely to have any appeal to the anointed. How can they be wiser and nobler than everyone else while agreeing with everyone else?” – Thomas Sowell
I believe this bit of Sowell food explains a lot of the silliness in today’s SJW culture. How can you seem superior when you agree with the cannaille, the commoners? You have to come up with ever more esoteric and outre theories — or at least agree with them — in order to stand out from the herd. And by doing so become part of a different herd. (Or perhaps, really a flock, baaing out inanities with the rest of the sheep.)
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Recommended by R> Members “When you’re in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, ‘Damn, that was fun.'” – Groucho Marx
Yes, it’s true. Sometimes the things you do are not the smartest. But it is always nice to know that there is someone who will have your back, even then — and think afterwards that it was fun. Kipling talked about that kind of friend in his poem The Thousandth Man.
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“The silence must be longer. This music is about the silence. The sounds are there to surround the silence.” ― Arvo Pärt, Estonian composer
From his youth, Arvo Pärt was a gifted composer, starting by mimicking the neo-classicists before following the trend of modernist atonality. While the tastemakers insisted this was the proper path, Pärt was disappointed with his output and music itself.
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I said, “I’m so happy, I could die“. She said, “Drop dead“, then left with another guy. More
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Recommended by R> Members MoreThe most extreme examples of climate change were the ice ages and they were really a catastrophe for life in many parts of the world. And we don’t understand them.
We just don’t know why they started or why they come and go in a more or less periodic fashion. It’s all a big mystery. And if we don’t understand ice ages we don’t understand climate. – Freeman Dyson
Recommended by R> Members “Why is it always our people? Why us? Bork, Thomas, Alito, and now Kavanaugh. Why us? Because it’s a noble cause in their eyes to destroy a conservative judicial candidate, and I hope it blows up in their face. I hope politically they pay a price for this … losing [the confirmation fight] is not enough, they need to pay a price at the ballot box.” — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
He is right. Until the Democrats pay a price at the ballot box their incivility will only increase. When you are trying to train a dog not to make messes on the floor you need to rub their noses in the mess they made and say “No.” If you think what they did to Kavanaugh is acceptable, if you want to give political violence a pass, if you are good with virtue-signaling mobs destroying peoples lives stay home on November 6, or go ahead and vote Democrat. If you are tired of this behavior, vote them out of office.
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Recommended by R> Members In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these. – Paul Harvey
Yes, things are going crazy. Someone in an article on a news site commented that this year has been tumblr fan fiction weird. It has.
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On January 17, 1961 in his farewell address as President. This has been called the “Military Industial complex speech” because it contains the following quote More
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Recommended by R> Members “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” – George S. Patton
A new meme has appeared on the Internet mocking the lockstep thinking of leftists and social justice warriors: the NPC meme. It casts these people as non-player characters (NPCs), analogizing them to computer AI characters which appear in role-playing games.
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Recommended by R> Members Well, he’s one of those who knows That life is just a leap of faith.Spread your arms and hold your breathAnd always trust your cape.—Guy Clark Albert Jay Nock was born on this day in 1870 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He served as an inspiration to those who founded our modern conservative and libertarian movements. Besides […]
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Recommended by R> Members “We’ve made it… This far.” -TRON (Bruce Boxleitner) TRON More
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Recommended by R> Members “Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice.” – Charles Kettering
I worked as an engineer for many years before shifting into technical writing. I have three adult sons. All three are engineers. I did not advise them to be engineers. I advised them to follow the careers that would serve them best.
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Recommended by R> Members “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” — Cromwell’s Address to the Rump Parliament (20 April 1653)
Watching any legislature in action is likely to bring out the Cromwell in any sensible man.
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Recommended by R> Members “Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.” – Thomas Sowell
The truth of this observation is being made plain by the failure of the United States education system. Instead of being centers to educate and civilize our next generation they have become centers to indoctrinate and foster barbarism.
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Recommended by R> Members “A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” – Mark Twain Yesterday someone asked me about the books I review, how I decide to pick them, and how I got into reviewing books. I read. Boy, do I read. I have always been a voracious reader – even in first […]
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Recommended by R> Members Left-wing zealots have often been prepared to ride roughshod over due process and basic considerations of fairness when they think they can get away with it. For them the ends always seem to justify the means. That is precisely how their predecessors came to create the gulag. – Margaret Thatcher
It appears we are seeing this play out in this week’s news, but it has been a problem for years. Certainly since the Department of Education changed standards on sexual assault accusations on campus.
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Recommended by R> Members Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism. – Thomas Sowell
This seems to be the era for that kind of thinking. Some people advocate saving the world by banning straws. Others insist any speech they disagree with is hate speech, unprotected by the Constitution, and prosecutable. Others insist the only way to save the Republican party is vote a straight Democratic ticket this fall. And let’s not get into those who argue the Moon landing was faked or that the collapse of the Twin Towers was due to a government conspiracy rather than Islamofascist terrorists because, truth.
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Recommended by R> Members 
Once upon a time, two Buddhist monks, one young and one old, traveled from their temple in the mountains down to the nearest little town in the foothills of the Himalayas, to beg for alms. As they entered the peaceful valley with rice fields all around, they came to a wide river, by the side of which a beautiful young girl stood and wept.
The young monk’s mouth fell open, and he turned his back and covered his eyes, so as not to gaze upon a forbidden sight. But the older monk approached the girl and asked her what was wrong. “Oh, Sir Monk, she said, the river is too strong for me and I am afraid to cross it.” The old monk said, “Don’t worry, my dear. Climb up on my back, and I will carry you across.”
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