As I was driving home this morning from the dentist’s office I was listening to the latest news from the Ukraine and Russia. I was thinking, what would President Biden do if something like this were to happen here. It’s not that I’m not a big fan of Biden, which I’m not, I just don’t think any politician that I know of currently would know exactly what to do in this type of situation. Out of all of the people involved Putin is the only one with a World War II mindset, and a real lack of concern for the deaths and destruction that he is causing. Most of our World War II politicians are either out of office or dead. Unfortunately, you need somebody who thinks like he does and won’t hesitate to return all the nastiness right back at him. Leadership is something you can’t really teach. True leaders have a knack in their dealings with people and how they problem solve. Here are few opinions on leadership you might find interesting.
“The leader holds his position purely because he is able to appeal to the conscience and to the reason of those who support him, and the boss holds his position because he appeals to fear of punishment and hope of reward. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.” Theodore Roosevelt
“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” Martin Luther King Jr.
“I was only the servant of my country and had I, at any moment, failed to express her unflinching resolve to fight and conquer, I should at once have been rightly cast aside.” Winston Churchill
“Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated.” Dag Hammarskjöld
HOPE AND PRAY SOMETHING LIKE THIS NEVER OCCURS HERE
Right after I awoke this morning, I got online and was watching a blurb from one of Sarah Silverman’s podcasts. I’ve always been a fan of Silverman and I appreciate her views on a lot of subjects and love her comedy. She was talking briefly about being taken to task by Paris Hilton for some jokes made a number of years ago when Hilton seemed to be on every TV, every hour, and was just annoying as she could be. Sarah doesn’t need me to defend her because she’s more than capable of doing that job all by herself. I just thought I’d make a few comments of my own and exercise my Freedom of Speech. Please Ms. Hilton, “Shut the hell up”. I’m certain you will make sure you get as much media coverage as you can now that you’re a reformed celebrity and a wife. I’d better not see any honeymoon videos accidently released to the media as has happened a few times in the past. Just to let everyone know how I really see her, read a few of her ridiculous pearls of wisdom she insisted on sharing with the world.
“Every woman should have four pets in her life. A mink in her closet, a jaguar in her garage, a tiger in her bed, and a jackass who pays for everything.”
There’s nobody in the world like me. I think every decade has an iconic blonde, like Marilyn Monroe or Princess Diana and, right now, I’m that icon.”
“I don’t think there’s ever been anyone like me that’s lasted.”
“Of the few innocent pleasures left to men past middle life, the jamming of common sense down the throats of fools is perhaps the keenness.”
🕳🕳🕳
Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specializing in comparative anatomy. He has become known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his advocacy of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. After comparing Archaeopteryx with Compsognathus, he concluded that birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs, a theory widely accepted today.
Here’s a well-known fact, I’m not a poet. I know a few people who have that skill and like it or not it is a rarity. I’ve tried over the years to read almost all of the more famous of the poets from this country and it leaves me uninterested and unmoved. I write a lot but when it comes to poetry my mind slides right into confusion. All of my poems (and there are a few) tend to be rude, abrasive, and at times erotic and funny. I’ve never been able to wrap my head around serious poetry because I just don’t have it in me. That being said, today I’ll offer up a sample of poetry and you can judge for yourself just how good it is. Let’s get started . . .
“Let me ask you one question,
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness?
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find,
When your death takes its toll,
All the money you made
will never buy back your soul.”
That little bit of poetry was written by an often-criticized poet, Bob Dylan, in 1963, from his song, Masters of War. As with most of his musical lyrics, they’re still as good today as they were then. I’ll pass on one more small piece of wisdom with one of his quotes, ” Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”
George Chapman (1559–1634) Was an English dramatist, translator and poet. He was a classical scholar whose work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman is best remembered for his translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
David Owen Russell (born August 20, 1958) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and received his seventh Golden Globe nomination for the semi-biographical comedy-drama Joy (2015).
I think today I’d like to discuss with all of you a couple of terms that we all hear a lot of and never give much thought to when we do. The terms are dumb and stupid. Many people seem to think that these two terms are interchangeable and mean the same thing, but I disagree completely. I can’t tell you how many times in the course of my life that I’ve been called a dummy, a dumb shit, and a dumb ass. Many times, those words were used to describe me by some of my best friends and family members and were meant to be funny and sarcastic, and they were. I never took offense because I called many of them the same thing as well.
The term stupid was more derogatory than calling them dumb in my opinion. I save the word stupid for people who are no longer dumb but have moved into the stupidity ranks based on things they’ve said and actions that they’ve taken. Here are a few quotes from some relatively famous people who were anything but dumb but were exceedingly stupid if only for a moment.
“The day of the battleship has not passed, and it is highly unlikely that an airplane, or a fleet of them, could ever successfully sink a fleet of Navy vessels under battle conditions.”This statement was made by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1922
“Atomic energy might be as good as our present-day explosives, but it is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous.” Statement made by Sir Winston Churchill, 1939
“That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done . . . The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.” Statement made by Adm. William Leahy to President Harry S. Truman regarding the atomic bomb 1945
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. Statement by Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1972
I think I’ve made some kind of point here, but I’m not quite sure what it is. I guess it just means that incredibly smart and intelligent people caught at the proper moment can make dumb statements. I think calling them stupid would be unfair to most of them. Always remember though that in a pile of dumb people there could be a few sneaky stupid people just waiting to impress you.
Let’s have a little fun today. While I’m not the greatest sports fan who’s ever lived, I have a deep and abiding passion for baseball. Not listening to or watching games on television (other than the Little League World Series) but actual playing at it for many years. I find watching sports these days is as much fun as watching paint dry. They’re not the same games as they were when I was growing up. All that being said there are certain things about sports that are universal and forever and one of those is the words of wisdom spoken by Yogi Berra. He was a great ballplayer, but his little tidbits of wisdom made him more famous than baseball. I’ve picked up a few of them here and there over the years and then I discovered a gold mine of them in recent weeks. These are the ones I like the best and here they are for your enjoyment. Let’s go…
“This is like déjà vu all over again.”
“You got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
In reference to movie star Steve Queen, “He must’ve made that movie before he died.”
When asked what he would do if he found $1 million, he stated, “I’d find the fellow who lost it and if he was poor, I’d return it.”
“Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical.”
“A nickel isn’t worth a dime today.”
When asked for the time, he stated, “Do you mean now?”
“If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
“I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat, and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it wasn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?”
“It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.”
When asked about his hat size he stated, ” I don’t know. I’m not in shape yet.”
“You should always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise, they won’t come to yours.”
“I take a two-hour nap, from one o’clock to four.”
“You give 100% in the first half of the game, and if that isn’t enough, in the second half you give what’s left.”
“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
Well, there you have it folks. The sport of baseball hasn’t been the same since Yogi retired and passed away. We need more like him in all of today’s sports to keep us aware that it’s just a game for kids. That’s how it was before it became nothing but agents, money, negotiations, social media, media interviews, and a few hundred talking heads who think they have all the answers. They’ve all done their best to ruin “Americas Pastime” and it’s a damn shame.
The first mention of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was in the 5th century BCE. They were some of the greatest human achievements at that time. The list was used over the centuries by many medieval writers but was mainly concerned with the accomplishments of the Greek or Roman empires. At that time very little was known of faraway cultures and their creations. Here is the traditional list of seven:
Giza Pyramids (Egypt), The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Iraq), Temple of Artemis (Turkey), Statue of Zeus (Greece), the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (Turkey), the Colossus of Rhodes (Greece), and the Pharos of Alexandria (Egypt).
While these seven were indeed a wonder, there were many other places elsewhere on the globe with achievements worthy of mention. Here are just a few to make my point:
The Great Wall (China), Angkor Wat (Cambodia), Machu Picchu (Peru), the Taj Mahal (India), the Moai Statues (Easter Island), the Aztec Temple of Tenochtitlan (Mexico), the Shwedagon Pagoda (Myanmar), and the Coliseum (Italy).
These were just a few. I could easily have named at least two dozen more. Let’s change categories now to name the Seven Wonders of the Industrial Age.
The Transcontinental Railroad (USA), the London Sewer System England), the Panama Canal (Panama), Hoover Dam (USA), the Three Gorges Dam (China), the Banaue Rice Terraces (Philippines), and the Bell Rock Lighthouse (Scotland).
What about the modern world and it’s wonders? Here are seven more to consider:
Itaipu Dam (Brazil), the Channel Tunnel (England/France), the Twin Towers (USA), the Zuider Zee Dam (Netherlands), the Petronas Towers (Indonesia), the CN Tower (Canada), and the Burj Khalifa (UAE).
I’ve offered up a lot of information here and many will likely disagree with some of my choices. The point of this historical rampage was to show that creativity and wonder aren’t limited to one country or one continent. The wonders of the world are too numerous to list, and every country has their own favorites. I find it amazing that as a species we have so many similarities and so little understanding of each other. Maybe someday it will improve.
everyuselessthing.com 