Life to me is nothing more than a series of connections of actions and words between individuals. What I do or say on any given day has some effect on others. They in turn take actions and say things prompted by what I’ve said or done. Therefore my actions and words will ripple through great numbers of people allowing me the ability to indirectly create change. That’s one of the many reasons I enjoy blogging. On most days the majority of citizens feel disenfranchised by the system because they believe they cannot effect change. Many people fear change but I don’t. I’ll keep writing and voicing my opinions and they will be read by others, not just in the United States, but worldwide. My records indicate that the things I’ve written have been read in over eighty countries. It’s the best solution I can offer as I try to effect change. What blogs offer is considerably more interesting than what Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram are supplying us with. Find some blogs you can relate to and get involved.
“When you’re safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you’re having an adventure you wish you were home.” – Thornton Wilder
“You cannot change anyone, but you can be the reason someone changes.” – Roy T. Bennett
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” – Lao Tzu
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” – John F. Kennedy
“Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people. – Jim Rohn
“You can’t just keep doing what works one time, everything around you is changing. To succeed, stay out in front of change.” – Sam Walton (Walmart)
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” – Leo Tolstoy
I honestly try to avoid getting into political discussions and arguments with people because any fool knows it’s a waste of time. As I’ve always explained, I don’t have a lot of good things to say about any politician whether they be Democrats or Republicans. I think the system has the ability to corrupt even the most honest elected official once they been in office for a period of time. As a lover of history I constantly fall back on the words and opinions of past politicians who practiced their politics in a different way than these modern magicians.
Today I think it’s time that we hear from some of those experts on exactly what a politician is or should be. These quotes, no matter how old, still retain a great deal of truth about the human condition both good and evil and how they operate within their political reality.
“Politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.” Charles De Gaulle 1961
Anonymous: Do you pray for the Senators, Dr. Hale? Hale:” No, I look at the Senators and pray for the country.” Edward Everett Hale 1964, Senate Chaplain
“If ever this free people – if this Government itself is ever utterly demoralized, it will come from this human wriggle and struggle for office – a way to live without work; from which nature I am not free myself.” Abraham Lincoln 1865
“Politicians who vote huge expenditures to alleviate problems get reelected; those who propose structural changes to prevent problems get early-retirement.” John McClaughry 1978
“A politician should have three hats: one for throwing in the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.” Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Welcome to the Every Useless Thing discussion on up-and-coming younger generations. It’s obvious that the older generations are responsible for the various nicknames to the younger generations i.e. Greatest Generation, Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y (Millennials), Gen Z, and the internet generation. Of course they never name themselves because that’s the job of the next generation to take care of. It’s all so silly. That’s why a history lesson is in order. Here we go . . .
I remember as a child being told by my parents that the younger generation (including me) were screwed up, uncaring, and unthinking. I took great offense to that and it just motivated me to rebel at every opportunity much to their chagrin. Jump ahead thirty-five years and I actually heard myself saying the same kinds of things during one of my angry moments in dealing with my son. Soon after that conversation I was having a coffee at a local café (pre-pandemic) and I just started chuckling to myself. The more I thought about the conversation with my son the funnier it became because it’s not often I’m able to recognize an epiphany when I have one.
I read quite a bit and the diversity of my subject matter is what makes it so much fun. The following quotation was in a recent book I read and as soon as I saw it I began chuckling again. Even 5000 years ago the adults were saying the same damn things about their younger generations and it keeps me optimistic about the generations to come. Also having a close relationship with a few of the younger generation keeps me on my toes and aware of their thoughts, ideas, and approaches to us grown-ups. Broad brushing a group of individuals is foolish and should be avoided at all costs.
A tablet from ancient Assyria, from about 2800 B.C., has been found that states: “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common.”
More than 2000 years later, Socrates complained, “Children are now tyrants . . .They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize over their teachers.”
And Plato also wrote of his students: ” What is happening to our young people? They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions, their morals are decaying, what is to become of them?”
If reading that doesn’t make you chuckle just a little then you’ve got a problem. It gives me a great deal of comfort to think that the grown-ups then were moaning and complaining just like we do now and how the next generation will be moaning and complaining about us.
Here’s the third list of stupid quotes as promised. I wouldn’t want the celebrities to feel left out. Regardless of what they say, they love any and all attention they can get. We should be soooooo proud.
“When I pictured heroin, I pictured some crazy crackhead with no shoes under a bridge. You never think that is going to be you. And it never was me. I was never under a bridge, and I always had shoes.” – Nicole Richie
“I want to go to Egypt and Japan and opened orphanages… a chain of them.” – Lindsay Lohan
“I have started smiling! I’ve mastered this smirk; it’s a smile that isn’t a smile.” – Victoria Beckham
“To have your niece die in your arms is the greatest gift from god.” – Celine Dion
“Sometimes what I actually love to do is go to a farm and get fresh milk or watch a pig get slaughtered.” – Jake Gyllenhaal
“I felt like my vote was the vote that put [Obama] into office. It was down to one vote, and that was going to be my vote. And that may not be true, but that’s how much power it felt like I had.” – P Diddy
“There are many other kinds of milk available. Why don’t we try drinking rats’ milk and dogs’ milk?” – Heather Mills
“I’m not a sexual person, really. I don’t really care about sex.” – Paris Hilton
“It’s so bad being homeless in winter. They should go somewhere warm like the Caribbean where they can eat fresh fish all day.” – Lady Victoria Hervey
“If you have intercourse you run the risk of dying and the ramifications of death are final.” – Cyndi Lauper
“I always wanted to be a hairdresser.” – David Beckham
“I’ve always wanted to be a spy, and frankly I’m a little surprised that British intelligence has never approached me.” – Liz Hurley
“There’s the perception Danni Minogue is the sweetest little thing in the world but she’s not… she’s got balls of steel.” – Sharon Osborne
“I’ve been up and down so many times that I feel as if I’m in a revolving door.” – Cher
“How the fuck am I supposed to get in then?” – Kate Moss, on being told that the only available toilet on a photoshoot location had no door.
This is the first of two posts concerning our two major political parties. I decided to do the dumb quotes of the Republicans first to avoid the never ending complaints of bias from the Democrats and other Liberals. After all this time they still haven’t gotten my core message. I don’t much care for any politicians from any party. This is my friendly gesture to all of you non-Republicans out there that stupid things are consistent to all parties. Enjoy . . .
“If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.” ~ George W. Bush
“When the President does it that means that it’s not illegal.” ~ Richard M. Nixon
“Exercise freaks are the ones putting stress on the health care system.” ~ Rush Limbaugh
“Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them.” ~ Jerry Falwell
“Facts are stupid things.” ~ Ronald Reagan
“This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating.” ~ George W. Bush
“Trees cause more pollution than automobiles.” ~ Ronald Reagan
“[America has to import so many workers because] for the last 35 years we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce.” ~ Mike Huckabee
“I even accept for the sake of argument that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.” ~ Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
“I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started.” ~ Donald Rumsfeld
“Well, I learned a lot. I went down to (Latin America) to find out from them and (learn) their views. You’d be surprised, they’re all individual countries.” ~ Ronald Reagan
“We have a lot of work to do. It’s a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border.” ~ John McCain (the countries share no common border)
“The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them.” ~ Rush Limbaugh
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you.” ~ Representative. Virginia Foxx
“I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.” ~ George W. Bush
Be sure to check back tomorrow for the Democratic posting on this subject. You’ll see that both stupid and smart people have the ability look ridiculous at times. It’s unfortunate that we the citizenry are forced to listen to all their never-ending nonsense.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died on July 7, 1940 in Sussex, England of a heart attack. Six years and one month later I was born. Approximately twelve years after my birth I read my first Sherlock Holmes story and later saw my first Hollywood movie version starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. I’ve been hooked ever since.
Through the years I was able to find and read the occasional Holmes story but it wasn’t until I was stationed in Korea in the 1960’s that I happened upon a complete volume of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. It was left at the hooch of a Korean business girl by an American G.I. who had since returned to the states. She couldn’t read a word of English and gladly gave me the book. In the intervening years I’ve read the entire Holmes collections many times. That book I found in Korea actually piqued my interest in crime and criminal investigations.
After leaving Korea I joined the Pennsylvania State police and began a thirty year career first as a police officer, then a private investigator, and lastly as a corporate investigator. I’m not saying that Sherlock Holmes was the inspiration for my career but I can’t tell you how many times when I first initiated a case I thought to myself, “Watson, the game is afoot.” Rest in peace Sir Arthur, your legacy lives on.
THANK GOD FOR MY KINDLE, HOLMES IS WITH ME EVERYWHERE
It’s time for another giant pile of flaming and utterly useless information. As you already know I’ve always been a huge fan of trivia thats unusual, odd, or strange. I’ve collected this information from books, e-mails, notes from friends, and anywhere else I could find it. I hope you enjoy them and find them as interesting and fun as I did.
New foreskins discarded after circumcision are sold to biomedical companies for use in artificial skin manufacture. They are also used as the secret ingredient in some popular anti-wrinkle gels.
Lettuce contains 2 to 10 parts of morphine per billion.
To see a rainbow you must have your back to the sun.
You can tell the temperature by listening to the chirp of a cricket. For the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, count the number of chirps in 15 seconds and then add 37.
A calorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of 1 g of water by 1°C. A gallon of gasoline contains 31,000 K calories, or the equivalent of 46.3 happy meals.
Bubblegum is pink because it’s creator Walter Diemer, a Fleer employee, had only pink coloring left when he mixed up his first successful batch.
The fly of your jeans is the flap of cloth over the zipper, not the zipper itself.
The term cop most likely derives from the British police acronym for Constable On Patrol.
There are more Subway sandwich shops in Manhattan than there are actual subway stations.
Henry Ford, Robert Fulton, Eli Whitney, and Paul Revere were all clock makers at one point in their lives.
When Thomas Edison died in 1941, Henry Ford captured his last breath in a bottle.
The first item sold on eBay (then called the auction web) was a broken laser pointer that sold for $14 at the time, more than the cost of a new one.
The term “the whole 9 yards” dates from World War II. When fighter pilots armed airplanes, the 50 caliber machine gun ammunition belts loaded into the fuselage measured exactly 27 feet. If a pilot fired all his ammo at one target, it got “the whole 9 yards”.
On average, women utter 7000 words a day; men manage just over 2000.
As I promised, here is part two of the “Famous Last Words” list. They don’t need any more of an introduction than that.
“No! I didn’t come here to make a speech. I came here to die.” Crawford Goldsby, a.k.a. Cherokee Bill, when asked if he had anything to say before he was hanged.
“I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man.” Che Guevera
“Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.” Francisco (Pancho) Villa
“I’ll be in hell before you start breakfast!” “Black Jack” Ketchum, notorious train robber
“Don’t worry… It’s not loaded…” Terry Kath, rock musician in the band Chicago Transit Authority as he put the gun he was cleaning to his head and pulled the trigger.
“Is someone hurt?” Robert F Kennedy, to his wife directly after he was shot and seconds before he fell into a coma.
“Die, my dear? Why that’s the last thing I’ll do!” Groucho Marx
“Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough!” Karl Marx, asked by his housekeeper when his last words were to be
“I have a terrific headache.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage
“Drink to me!” Pablo Picasso
“I have not told half of what I saw.” Marco Polo, Venetian traveler and writer
“Dammit… Don’t you dare ask God to help me.” Joan Crawford. This comment was directed towards her housekeeper who began to pray aloud.
“Lord help my poor soul.” Edgar Allen Poe
Now that we’ve laid all these so-called celebrities to rest we can move on with our lives. If any of you come up with any epithets or last-words to celebrate your own death, let me know. I have a another post on this subject coming in the near future and I could add yours to the list.
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