When people enter the kitchen, they often drag their childhood in with them. Laurie Colwin from the Cup of Comfort Cookbook More
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Recommended by R> Members “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it and hell where they already have it.” – Ronald Reagan
The problem with socialism is it requires perfect people to work. That is why it works in heaven. Of course, if people are perfect, as Reagan observed, socialism is unnecessary. And if people are not perfect in a place where socialism is implemented? Well, Reagan had the answer to that, as well. Perhaps it is no accident that the United States’s most flawed politicians are the most ardent socialists in the United States.
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Recommended by R> Members “The Black Knight always triumphs!” I should probably say “spoilers ahead,” even though the movie is 44 years old. Also, those of you looking for transcendent inspiration should go elsewhere.
We open with King Arthur traveling through the forest, where he encounters the Black Knight. This massive warrior is guarding a ridiculously tiny bridge over a minute, apparently dry brook. As the scene opens, the Black Knight dispatches an adversary after a ferocious battle. The King naturally asks him to join the knights of the round table, only to be met with stony silence. Arthur tries to proceed, but the knight blocks his passage with a thunderous “None shall pass” and the fight is on.
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Recommended by R> Members “It would be hard to think of a more ridiculous way to make decisions than to transfer those decisions to third parties who pay no price for being wrong. Yet that is what at least half of the bright ideas of the political left amount to.” – Thomas Sowell
Although Thomas Sowell wrote this years (perhaps decades) ago, it is more relevant today than when he wrote it. We have had our noses rubbed in the consequences of transferring important decisions to third parties who pay no price for being wrong for nearly ten years — certainly since January 2009 when the American people inaugurated a government for experts, of experts, and by experts. Since then, they have made dozens of faulty decisions, for which others paid the price of the “experts” being wrong. The third-party deciders suffer no consequences except occasionally being promoted.
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Recommended by R> Members It is amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. Using this kind of reasoning, you can believe or not believe anything about anything, without having to bother to deal with facts or logic. – Thomas Sowell More Sowell food. Somehow this […]
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Recommended by R> Members The spirit of the kangaroo court has since graduated into business and politics where it has proven especially useful for settling scores and advancing careers and agendas dishonestly. Coercion has replaced persuasion. Coercion is at the heart of totalitarian politics. Do what you’re told, or else. Believe what we say, or else. (Or else lose your reputation, your livelihood, your friends….) This plays neatly into the dynamics of human mob psychology. When the totalitarians set up for business, few individuals dare to depart from the party line. It’s the perfect medium for cultivating mendacious ideologies. – James H. Kunstler
The “Resistance” is big on projecting the label of “Fascist” on their opponents. They even call their movement “antifa” for anti-fascist. It reminds me of how another other totalitarian society truncated Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police)to Gestapo. Intolerant bigotry against all of those disagreeing even slightly with your views has always been the hallmark of the fascist. And today, it is not only the political mob that will come after you. Major corporations are firing, deplatforming, refusing to service and otherwise silencing those who deviate from the Progressive agenda; intolerance in the name of diversity.
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When @vectorman reminded me a month or so ago that I was late in uploading my QoTD, I replied that I had had it ready, but it was late since I “had problems with the draft” (i.e. it disappeared). It occured to me later that the phrase “trouble with the draft” used to have a […]
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Greetings, Ricochet! As many of you know, I’m more of a “both-and” than an “either/or” person. So with a nod to the Quote of the Day and the monthly writing topic of Renovation, here’s an homage to St. Therese of Lisieux, a longtime source of encouragement and challenge on the daily journey. The popular perception […]
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Recommended by R> Members Our lives aren’t defined by our challenges. Instead, we get to define our lives by how we respond to those challenges. – Gov. Greg Abbott (TX)
2018 was a challenging year for me. My wife died, my father died, my father-in-law died. I lost two jobs (the second just days ago). I had to scramble to cover the bills, and just when I thought everything would work out, suddenly I am looking for a job again.
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Recommended by R> Members There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railway man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison. – Theodore Roosevelt
I saw that illustrated this Christmas. It was the first one I spent without my wife of forty years, the previous one being only two weeks before her death. This year, instead of everyone coming to my house, I went to Dallas, to spend Christmas with my oldest son, his bride of sixteen months, and my five-month old granddaughter. My other two sons were there, too. One lives in Fort Worth, the other one came up to the DFW area to spend the weekend with his fiance’s family.
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Recommended by R> Members “When Congress makes a joke it’s a law, and when they make a law, it’s a joke.” – Will Rogers
The one law always in force is the law of unintended consequences. Congress can ignore it, and yet it remains, a reef to create the shipwreck of their hopes. This is the secret inherent in Will Rogers’s quote. No one individual is smart enough to foresee every possibility arising from an action. That is one reason it is always best to get a lot of outside input for a decision – especially one outside your area of expertise.
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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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