Others Are Saying . . .

    

Tucson Weather Today

 



____________________ 

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: "Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

Now that is meaningful and helpful advice indeed. That is my idea of sharing useful insight.

But, wait a minute . . . Who in the world cares what my idea about anything is?  Everybody has their own interpretation of a subject, or an object, or an event, or even a half-formed mental vision of a possible concept. And who's to say that one is superior to that of another? It would take a veritable god indeed to truthfully do so.

_____

 

PZ Myers answers the question: "What Does Evil Look Like?" in a short but effective blog entry with photo.

Read it HERE

_____

Today's Passing Asteroid

NASA is inviting members of the media and public to participate in online and television events May 30-31 with NASA officials and experts discussing the agency's asteroid initiative and the Earth flyby of the 1.7-mile-long asteroid 1998 QE2.

At 4:59 p.m. EDT, Friday, May 31, 1998 QE2 will pass by Earth at a distance of about 3.6 million miles -- its closest approach for at least the next two centuries. The asteroid was discovered Aug. 19, 1998, by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research Program near Socorro, N.M.

More at the NASA Asteroid and Comet watch

_____

TRIVIA

If you drop a penny off of the Empire State Building, it will be going 106 miles per hour when it reaches the ground. Something moving this fast may actually cause head injuries if it lands on you.

_____



HISTORICAL EVENT

A killer who couldn't keep his mouth shut

On this day, May 31 in 1964, fifteen-year-old Alleen Rowe was killed by Charles Schmid in the desert outside Tucson, Arizona. Earlier in the night, Schmid allegedly had said to his friends, "I want to kill a girl! I want to do it tonight. I think I can get away with it!" Schmid went on to kill three other teenage girls before being caught by police.

Schmid was convicted and sentenced to death, but he survived because the Supreme Court invalidated most death sentences in 1972.

More  . . .

_____

WORD FOR TODAY

preamble
noun
an introductory statement; preface; introduction
Synonyms
opening, beginning; foreword, prologue, prelude

A preamble is an introductory and expressionary statement in a document that explains the document's purpose and underlying philosophy.

_____

CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr.
(born May 31, 1930)

 Clint Eastwood is an American film actor, director, and producer. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide (1959–1966). He rose to fame for playing the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy of spaghetti westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) during the late 1960s, and as Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry films (Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact, and The Dead Pool) throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

For his work in the films Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), Eastwood won Academy Awards for Best Director and Producer of the Best Picture, as well as receiving nominations for Best Actor. These films in particular, as well as others including Play Misty for Me (1971), Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Escape from Alcatraz (1979), Tightrope (1984), Pale Rider (1985), Heartbreak Ridge (1986), In the Line of Fire (1993), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), and Gran Torino (2008), have all received commercial success and critical acclaim. Eastwood's only comedies have been Every Which Way but Loose (1978) and its sequel Any Which Way You Can (1980), which are his two most commercially successful films after adjustment for inflation.

Brooke Shields
(born May 31, 1965)

Brooke Shields is an American actress, model and former child star. Shields, initially a child model, gained critical acclaim for her leading role in Louis Malle's wildly controversial film Pretty Baby (1978), in which she played a child prostitute in New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century. The role garnered Shields widespread notoriety, and she continued to model into her late teenage years and starred in several dramas in the 1980s, including The Blue Lagoon (1980), and Franco Zeffirelli's Endless Love (1981).

 

Joseph William "Joe" Namath
(born May 31, 1943)

Joe Namath, nicknamed "Broadway Joe" is a former American football quarterback. He played college football for the University of Alabama under coach Paul "Bear" Bryant and his assistant, Howard Schnellenberger, from 1962–1964, and professional football in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL) during the 1960s and 1970s. Namath was an American Football League icon. He played for that league's New York Jets for most of his professional football career, and finished his career with the NFL's Los Angeles Rams. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1985.

Lea Kathleen Thompson
(born May 31, 1961)

Leah Thompson is an American actress, television director and television producer. She is known for her role as Lorraine Baines in the Back to the Future trilogy and as the title character in the 1990s NBC sitcom Caroline in the City. Other films she is known for include All the Right Moves, The Beverly Hillbillies, Howard the Duck, Jaws 3-D, Red Dawn, and Some Kind of Wonderful. Since 2011 she has co-starred as Kathryn Kennish in the ABC Family series Switched at Birth.

__________

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.
--Robert Frost

The Face Of Good And Evil

To search out and reveal those who were not wholly devout was good -

while for common folk to criticize holy members of the clergy was evil.
But that was in the past; that was history; was Christian doctrinal truth.

Faces of good and evil are not fixed in human affairs. Time reverses that which was but yesterday, so apparently unchangeable.

Two are one.

_____

  
Tucson Weather Today


____________________

TRIVIA

Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to digest a piece of celery than the celery has in it.

_____

HISTORICAL EVENT

On this date, May 24 in 1844, In a demonstration witnessed by members of Congress, American inventor Samuel F.B. Morse dispatched a telegraph message from the U.S. Capitol to Alfred Vail at a railroad station in Baltimore, Maryland. The message -- "What Hath God Wrought?" -- was telegraphed back to the Capitol a moment later by Vail. The question was taken from the Bible (Numbers 23:23).

Just a decade after the first line opened, more than 20,000 miles of telegraph cable crisscrossed the country. The rapid communication it enabled greatly aided American expansion, making railroad travel safer as it provided a boost to business conducted across the great distances of a growing United States.

_____

WORD FOR TODAY

carnage
noun
-  Massive slaughter, as in war; a massacre.
-  Corpses, especially of those killed in battle.
-  The flesh of slain animals or men
synonyms
bloodshed, slaughter, massacre, butchery and bloodbath.

Carnage is one of the most powerful words in the language. But already TV reporters are watering down the word by using it to describe the building debris left by a tornado or hurricane, even when no bodies are present.

_____


CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS


Gary Burghoff
(born May 24, 1943)

Gary Burghoff is an American actor, known for playing Charlie Brown in the 1967 Off-Broadway musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, and the character Corporal Walter Eugene "Radar" O'Reilly in the M*A*S*H movie and TV series.

Priscilla Presley
(born May 24, 1945)

Priscilla Presley is an American actress and businesswoman. She is the ex-wife of singer Elvis Presley, and the mother of singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley.

Bob Dylan
(born May 24, 1941)

 Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, music producer, artist, and writer. He has been an influential figure in popular music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly reluctant figurehead of social unrest.

A number of Dylan's early songs, such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", became anthems for the US civil rights and anti-war movements. Leaving his initial base in the culture of folk music behind, Dylan's six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone" radically altered the parameters of popular music in 1965. His recordings employing electric instruments attracted denunciation and criticism from others in the folk movement.

Rosanne Cash
(born May 24, 1955)

Rosanne Cash is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of country music icon Johnny Cash.

__________

I am struck by how casually we as a nation react to the carnage in Iraq.
--Charles Rangel

dies Mercurii

Tucson Weather Today

_________________

 

Murder, Incorporated Is Legal -- And Thriving

Cigarette Smoke in the Car Breaks Toxic Limit

Smoking in a car, even with the windows open or the air conditioning on, creates pollution that exceeds official "safe" limits, scientists say.Children are particularly susceptible because they have faster breathing rates, a less developed immune system and are largely unable to escape or avoid exposure to second-hand smoke, says Dr Sean Semple, of the University of Aberdeen.

Researchers say, "We believe that there is a clear need for legislation to prohibit smoking in cars where children are present."

But Simon Clark, director of the smokers' lobby group Forest, (of course) says: "We don't encourage adults to smoke in a car if small children are present, out of courtesy if nothing else, but we would strongly oppose legislation to ban smoking in cars. Parents must be allowed to use their common sense, and most of the time they do -- there is no need for further regulation”

Common sense? Ha! As I have said many times before, "Common Sense is that faculty that proves the Earth is flat."

LINK


I have often pondered the puzzling concept of evil.

What exactly is evilness?

Aside from the tedious and often downright ludicrous teachings of various religious institutions, it seems to me that Evil is, for the most part, simply a matter of opinion.

Catholic View Of Evil

 

My View Of Evil

A majority of members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate are directly complicit in the perpetuation of the manufacture and sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products that are known to be dangerous to the health of human beings.

History will show that they all are accomplices to murder.

'Nuff said?

_____

WORD FOR TODAY

Quran [English pronunciation: kor-AHN]

The Quran (literally meaning "the recitation"), also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Al-Coran, Coran, Kuran, and Al-Qur'an, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be the verbatim word of God (Arabic: Allah). It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language.

The Quran is composed of verses that make up 114 chapters of unequal length which are classified either as Meccan or Medinan, depending upon the place and time of their claimed revelation. Muslims believe the Quran to be verbally revealed through angel Gabriel from God to Muhammad gradually over a period of approximately 23 years beginning on 22 December 609 CE, when Muhammad was 40, and concluding in 632 CE, the year of his death.

_____

 

 

BORN ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Mae Carol Jemison

Born Oct 17, 1956
Age: 56 years old.

Mae Carol Jemison is an American physician and NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel in space when she went into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour on September 12, 1992.

After her medical education and a brief general practice, Jemison served in the Peace Corps from 1985 to 1987. She resigned from NASA in 1993 to form a company researching the application of technology to daily life. She has appeared on television several times, including as an actor in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She is a dancer, and holds nine honorary doctorates in science, engineering, letters, and the humanities.

George Wendt

Born Oct 17, 1948
Age: 63 years old.

George Robert Wendt III is an American actor, best known for the role of Norm Peterson on the television show Cheers.

Montgomery Clift

Born Oct 17, 1920
Died: Jul 23, 1966

Edward Montgomery Clift was an American film and stage actor. The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men". He often played outsiders, often "victim-heroes". Examples include the social climber in George Stevens's A Place in the Sun, the anguished Catholic priest in Hitchcock's I Confess, the doomed regular soldier Robert E. Lee Prewitt in Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity, and the Jewish GI bullied by antisemites in Edward Dmytryk's The Young Lions.

Later, after a disfiguring car crash in 1956, and alcohol and prescription drug abuse, he became erratic. Nevertheless important roles were still his, including "the reckless, alcoholic, mother-fixated rodeo performer" in John Huston's The Misfits, the title role in Huston's Freud, and the concentration camp victim in Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg."

Tom Poston

Born Oct 17, 1921
Died Apr 30, 2007

Thomas Gordon "Tom" Poston was an American television and film actor. He starred on television in a career that began in 1950. He appeared as a comic actor, game show panelist, comedy/variety show host, film actor, television actor, and Broadway performer.

In the 1950s, Poston gained recognition as a comedic "Man in the Street" (along with his colleagues Louie Nye, Dayton Allen and Don Knotts) on The Steve Allen Show. Poston was a recurring guest star on The Bob Newhart Show in the 1970s. He later played the role of Franklin Delano Bickley on Mork & Mindy. A longtime friend of Bob Newhart, Poston played George Utley, bumbling country handyman of the Stratford Inn, on Newhart.

Poston also had regular roles on many other television series: Family Matters, Murphy Brown, Home Improvement, Cosby, Malcolm & Eddie, ER, Grace Under Fire, That '70s Show, and Will & Grace.

__________

"If she survives this time, she won't next time. We will certainly kill her."
--spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban
re: the shooting of 14 year old Malala Yousufazi
 

Conservative Or Liberal?

Tucson Weather Today

_____

At times I post dictionary definitions of words that I took for granted as being words I knew the meanings of but then discovered that I did not actually know but only thought I did. And sometimes I post words that I absolutely know I do not know.

Well . . . I thought I knew the meanings of the words conservative and liberal, in the political sense. But when I looked up their definitions, I found the following:

An ideal conservative believes in the importance of the individual person and the family structure; that it is the responsibility for the individuals within each family to do as much as they can for themselves before asking for assistance. When assistance is needed the route taken is community, city, county, state and federal, in that order, with the federal government the avenue of last resort. A conservative believes in the least government possible.

An ideal liberal takes the completely opposite position to an ideal conservative vying for a socialistic form of government working from the top down wherein the freedom of the individual is compromised for the supposed good of the collective group.

A conservative believes that when government assumes responsibility it takes away the freedoms and incentives that make an individual productive. Whereas, a liberal believes an individual’s interests should be subservient to the collective interest of the members of society and thus minimizes reliance on personal responsibility.

Read more about this here . . .

_____

BORN ON THIS DAY

Desi Arnaz

Born on March 2, 1917

Died December 2, 1986

_____

I should not write about politics. Doing so depresses me. And it probably depresses all who happen to read my words. It would be better for all concerned if I were to simply write about the things I understand.

Good idea.

_____

Also Born On This Day

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

Born March 2, 1931

__________

Conservatives think liberals are stupid.
Liberals think conservatives are evil.
--Charles Krauthammer

Is Evil The Opposite Of Good?

Tucson Weather Today

_____

What I most enjoy about listening to the Rush Limbaugh show, along with Rush's witty asides, is the unintentional humor that's sometimes presented by the dimwitted radical liberal callers, the know-nothing conservative ditto heads, and the Christian, parent-indoctrinated mush-brained hero-worshipers. One 17 year-old a few days ago said (paraphrased), "It gets me when Obama supporters proclamate..."

'Proclamate?' Well, who knows... maybe that's a perfectly good word.

But I doubt it.

Not worth researching.

_____

Recently I read an article titled Evildoers And Us and one statement in the article stood out from all the rest.

Political evil refers to the willful, malevolent, and gratuitous death, destruction, and suffering inflicted upon innocent people by the leaders of movements and states in their strategic efforts to achieve realizable objectives.

Evil? In my opinion evil is a word that should be removed from the dictionary -- cut out and cast away. There is no all-inclusive correct definition for it. Every definition I have encountered can be easily and intelligently refuted by someone. The concept of evil is as difficult to grasp as is its (supposed) opposite... good.

__________