I am travelling today, so I didn't have time to prepare anything. But all is not lost! We can have an Open Thread Day! Feel free to tell us your best joke, post your favorite poem, or maybe expound on why 47 Republicans sent an open letter to Iran. Whatever floats your boat.
If nothing else, we could talk weather or speculate on what that mysterious greenish fireball could have been that was swooshing through Colorado yesterday !
If nothing else, we could talk weather or speculate on what that mysterious greenish fireball could have been that was swooshing through Colorado yesterday !
OK. Jason, if you're reading this, I forgot to finish our conversation from your Mini-Major discussion on Cannon Films last week.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your remarks and checking out your clips, it's clear I owe you an epic Chuck Norris joke.
As for the Colorado fireball, NASA's lying: it's aliens called in by the Governor Hickenlooper to stop the return of the GOP by whatever means necessary. (brainwashing, annihilation, pod people, re-introduction of disco music, etc.)
In the meantime, here's an old documentary on a big fireball that blew the socks off Siberia over 100 years ago. (and, yes, RIP, Leonard Nimoy)
A good poem (not my favorite, though), "Invictus":
ReplyDeleteOut of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
"Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (one of my favorites)
ReplyDeleteIt little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
We’re still trying to raise money for our BFA graphic design exhibition. Anything will be appreciated and we’re actually shutting down the fundraising page next week. So, to paraphrase Richard Daley (or Al Capone): “Donate early and donate often!”
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gofundme.com/k2922o
And Rustbelt, we actually lost three Trek folks in the span of a week:
-Nimoy
-Harve Bennett, producer and (co-)writer of Treks II, III, IV, and V
-Maurice Hurley, writer/producer on the first two seasons of TNG and the man who introduced us to the Borg
Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes
ReplyDeleteFleas:
Adam
Had 'em.
-Gillian Strickland .
Two cops shot in Ferguson. The good news is they are in bad shape but alive, the bad news is that the shooter is still running around.
ReplyDeleteCoupled with the resignations, that ought to put paid to the Ferguson protests.
On a lighter note, here's a hilarious but spot on look at the Dems in general and Hillary in particular.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/us/politics/democrats-see-a-field-of-one-heading-to-2016.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Down the ticket, the party’s problems are worse. The two midterm elections since President Obama’s 2008 victory have wiped out an entire generation of Democratic state officeholders, costing the Democrats more than 900 state legislative seats and 11 governorships, according to an internal Democratic National Committee assessment released last month.
Anthony, I wouldn't be so sure. The history of vendettas is that they never end. I would expect the cops to overreact soon.
ReplyDeleteAnthony, That is a HUGE problem for the democrats. Even worse, they lost all of their supposed stars. Every single "the next thing"/princeling lost their last election.
ReplyDeleteThere is Kamala Harris, first female state Attorney General of California.
ReplyDeleteVery liberal, little experience, and running for the Senate. Sounds like a new Obama to me!
Hillary's biggest problem is that since LBJ left office and Hubert Humphrey lost in 1968 the Democrats have been looking for their next Kennedy. Young, good-looking, and liberal candidates. Think Carter, Bill Clinton, and Obama.
ReplyDeleteHillary is in her 60s, not exactly Kennedy. At least Kerry was from Massachusetts and had the initials, JFK.
Ok, that is not her "biggest" problem but it hurts.
ReplyDeleteNow, a quintessentially American poem, "It Couldn't Be Done":
ReplyDeleteSomebody said that it couldn’t be done
But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it!
Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it;”
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure,
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.
I thought these were funny:
ReplyDelete- Where there's a will, I want to be in it.
- The last thing I want to do is hurt you ... but it's still on my list.
- If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.
- Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
- You're never too old to learn something stupid.
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteGood aphorisms. :)