He never washed his face and he never combed his hair...

[embed]https://youtu.be/OGNBBZDRqFo[/embed]

Full lyrics HERE.

Harrowing

"The great suffering now-a-days is undoubtedly harrowing the ground for the planting of seed. But it does not yet fully appear as to just what kind of seeds will be planted."  ~Henry A. Wallace, 1932

All the people who don't fit

[embed]https://youtu.be/MY0VmRR8FHU[/embed]

A very compassionate song about Mean People.  I like it a lot.

Full lyrics HERE.

For a minute there...

[embed]https://youtu.be/oTPe1Gna0-I[/embed]

It wasn’t his biggest hit- or even *a* hit- but I think it’s the best song Tom Petty ever wrote.

Lyrics HERE.

"The most devilish thing imaginable."

In 1945, captured German scientists were secretly recorded discussing the recent American bombing of Hiroshima:

WEIZSÄCKER: History will record that the Americans and the English made a bomb, and that at the same time the Germans, under the HITLER regime, produced a workable engine.  In other words, the peaceful development of the uranium engine was made in GERMANY under the HITLER regime, whereas the Americans and the English developed this ghastly weapon of war.

[ . . . ]

7. In a conversation between WIRTZ, VON WEIZSÄCKER and HEISENBERG,HEISENBERG repeated that in July 1944 a senior SS official had come to him and asked him whether he seriously believed that the Americans could produce an atomic bomb. He said he had told him that in his opinion it was absolutely possible as the Americans could work much better and quicker than they could. VON WEIZSÄCKER again expressed horror at the use of the weapon and HEISENBERG replied that had they produced and dropped such a bomb they would certainly have been executed as War Criminals having made the "most devilish thing imaginable".

You can download the 12-page transcript in PDF form HERE.

Could

Ordinary Things is on the web HERE.

5

Five drummers who became singers:

1. David Grohl


2. Joe Cocker


3. Phil Collins


4. Don Henley


5. Ringo Starr

Amusing Ourselves to Death

“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”  ~Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Andy Singer is on the web HERE.

18 September

Near the front of the black car on the left is a very tall man with two hands in the air, one holding a glowstick and the other making a peace sign.  That's Christopher Yarrow, Peter's son.

Directly in front of him is a man in a green shirt with a long beard who also has both hands in the air.  That's me.  And right in front of me is the love of my life, my wife Mona.

Pete Yarrow is at the bottom of the peace sign, with his glowstick near his belt buckle.  He led us in peace songs and chants while we were getting in formation.

Nothing rejuvenates the soul and creates a sense of community like music does.  I think it's essential for human life.

Hipster

[embed]https://youtu.be/VlK0y8TlzUE[/embed]

This is from 1944!  Long before there was Bill Haily, Elvis Presley, or Jerry Lee Lewis, there was Harry "The Hipster" Gibson.  As you listen, keep in mind there is no bass or drums backing him up; this is just one man, playing his heart out on the piano.

(Thanks to Bill Griffith for the heads up!)

Glowing Within

At the end of the Peter Yarrow concert I went to last night with Mona, they handed out glow lights and we all went to the park and made a human peace sign.

This morning our sticks were still faintly glowing, so I popped them in a glass, went into a closet, and took a picture.

Forgo

"To hold our tongues when everyone is gossiping, to smile without hostility at people and institutions, to compensate for the shortage of love in the world with more love in small, private matters; to be more faithful in our work, to show greater patience, to forgo the cheap revenge obtainable from mockery and criticism: all these are things we can do."  ~Hermann Hesse

Sing and Dance

"Anyone who doesn't sing and dance at every opportunity is missing out on the joy of life."  ~Dick Van Dyke, Men's Health interview, October 2016

General Obliviousness

Excerpted from the biography of Henry A. Wallace, American Dreamer by John C. Culver and John Hyde ©2000:

"Henry Wallace was on her trail every minute," said one of Ilo's friends. "He used to take Ilo driving in a dilapidated old car. Money never meant a thing to Henry, and his eccentricity didn't matter to Ilo." His general obliviousness to customary courtship practices had an endearing quality of its own. On one of their dates Henry brought along his copy of Farmers of Forty Centuries so he and Ilo could discuss Chinese agricultural practices.

At times Henry's peculiarity was a bit much for Ilo's friends. They gossiped that he was existing on a diet of nothing but soybeans and cabbages, and grumbled about his unruly appearance. "Ilo, don't you think you could do something about Henry's ties," one of her friends asked. To Ilo, however, what mattered were the "splendid qualities" she saw in him. His quiet strength, his dedication to God and family, his serious demeanor-- these were qualities she thought her late father would have admired. She felt with Henry a sense of comfort and security. It seemed, she remarked years later, as if she had always known him.

I'm a long-haired vegetarian communist Hare Krishna devotee living in East Texas.  When there's a bug in the house I grab my butterfly net and a Peterson's Field Guide, not a can of Raid. I don't eat peanuts because it's disturbing to me that a seed would grow underground.

I  know I'm weird, and I know that Mona's friends and family expressed concern while we were courting.

I'm very lucky that, like Henry's Ilo,  my Mona found my general obliviousness to customary courtship practices endearing.

No Complaints

There’s a feature called “Jimmy the Bartender“ in Men’s Health magazine, and this Q&A is from the October 2016 issue.  In my experience, this is how men complain about women, and the women in my life say this is how they complain about men:

I know that guys complain about jobs, cars, and teams.  What do women complain to you about?
~Robert, Denver, CO

The thing you left off your list, Robert, is women.  And for women, the number one item is men.  Women complain about men far more than men complain about women.  When men complain about women, it’s like me complaining about weather- no way to predict, mad one day, not mad the next.  But when women complain about men, they’re specific:  he does this and says that; he said X in 1998 but now he says Y.  In my experience, men drink to forget; women drink to remember.  And complain.

Flicked away a tear

I this excerpt from Homer's The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles ©1996, Odysseus has returned home.  He's in disguise at the moment, but he couldn't fool everyone:

Now, as they talked on, a dog that lay there
lifted up his muzzle, pricked his ears...
It was Argos, long-enduring Odysseus' dog
he trained as a puppy once, but little joy he got
since all too soon he shipped to sacred Troy.
In the old days young hunters loved to set him
coursing after the wild goats and deer and hares.
But now with his master gone he lay there, castaway,
on piles of dung from mules and cattle, heaps collecting
out before the gates till Odysseus' serving men
could cart if off to manure the king’s estates.
Infested with ticks, half-dead from neglect,
here lay the hound, old Argos.
But the moment he sensed Odysseus standing by
he thumped his tail, nuzzling low, and his ears dropped,
though he had no strength to drag himself an inch
toward his master.  Odysseus glanced to the side
and flicked away a tear, hiding it from Eumaeus,
diverting his friend in a hasty, offhand way:
"Strange, Eumaeus, look, a dog like this,
lying here on a dung-hill…
what handsome lines!  But I can’t say for sure
if he had the runnng speed to match his looks
or he was only the sort that gentry spoil at table,
show-dogs masters pamper for their points."

You told the stranger, Eumaeus, loyal swineherd,
"Here-- it's all too true-- here's the dog of a man
who died in foreign parts.  But if he had now
the form and flair he had in his glory days--
as Odysseus left him, sailing off to Troy--
you'd be amazed to see such speed, such strength.
No quarry he chased in the deepest, darkest woods
could ever slip this hound.  A champion tracker too!
Ah, but he's run out of luck now, poor fellow...
his master's dead and gone, so far from home,
and the heartless women tend to him not at all.  Slaves,
with their lords no longer there to crack the whip,
lose all zest to perform their duties well.  Zeus,
the Old Thunderer, robs a man of half his virtue
the day the yoke clamps down around his neck."

With that he entered the well-constructed palace,
strode through the halls and joined the proud suitors.
But the dark shadow of death closed down on Argos' eyes
the instant he saw Odysseus, twenty years away.

Odysseus, in spite of his heroic god-like persona, really wasn't a very nice person.  He tried to put a nice polish on it, but at the core his job was killing people and taking all their stuff.  But he did like dogs, so he had that going for him.  (Of course, so did Hitler.)

But it is somehow comforting that even 2,800 years ago, when this story was first told, people loved their dogs.  I do like that.  It makes 800 B.C. seem not that long ago.

I Learned That...

The teaser on the magazine cover said "Henry Winkler:  What I've Learned at 70."  So I bought it.

I don't know what I expected-- probably something along the lines of "Follow your dreams!" or "Don't worry what other people think!"-- but I certainly was not expecting this:

"I learned that I adore elephants.  Everything they say about elephants-- the emotions and the empathy-- it's absolutely correct.  It's palpable.  I fed, washed, and talked to this elephant.  He only understood Thai, but he understood my energy."

And I think I am a bigger Henry Winkler fan than ever.  :)

(Source:  Closer magazine, September 19, 2016; Volume 4 Issue 38)

Something Divine

I'm reading a biography of Henry A. Wallace, American Dreamer by John C. Culver and John Hyde ©2000, and it mentions a famous friend he made at the age of four:

(George Washington) Carver, the son of slaves, wandered through the Midwest for years after the Civil War before becoming Iowa State's first black student in 1891.  There his gentle manner, enormous dedication, and religious devotion won him wide acceptance with students and faculty alike.  Among Carver's friends was Harry Wallace.  First as a student and then as a professor, Wallace spent hours with Carver and regularly invited him to his home for dinner.  There Carver met young Henry, the boy who loved plants.

Carver "took a fancy to me and took me with him on botanizing expeditions and pointed out to me  the flowers and the parts of the flowers-- the stamens and the pistil," H. A. Wallace recalled.  "I remember him claiming to my father that I had greatly surprised him by recognizing the pistil and stamen  of redtop, a kind of grass-- grass Agrostis alba to be precise.  I also remember rather questioning his accuracy in believing that I recognized these parts, but anyhow he boasted about me, and the mere fact of his boasting, I think, incited me to learn more than if I had really done what he said I had done."

More important, Carver had a sense that all living things possessed something divine, that God could speak from the parts of a flower or a blade of grass.  Their walks continued for about a year, after which Wallace left Ames, but Young Henry had permanently absorbed the philosophy of his gentle friend.

I have read many lists in my life of all the wonderful things George Washington Carver could do with peanuts, but this is the first time I've really wanted to get to know him.

Good Deed Indeed

I love cartoons that don't follow a traditional "gag" format, cartoons that just make you smile.  :D

One Big Happy is on the web HERE.

Think on *these* things

Philippians 4:8, King James Version:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

So, basically, be careful what you put in your head.

These precious days, I'll spend with you…

[embed]https://youtu.be/QLe_7QYqJx0[/embed]

Full lyrics HERE.

My Friend

[embed]https://youtu.be/MxAyCtsKvbc[/embed]

Before Jeffery Dahmer was a serial killer, he was just a kid in school.  His peers all knew there was something seriously wrong, but they were just kids, too, and were not equipped to deal with the problem.  Adults were largely absent from his life-- he didn't make trouble for them, so they never looked too closely at him.

And we all know how it turned out.

One of his classmates, Derf Backderf, has written a haunting memoir of what is was like growing up down the street from Dahmer.  It's not prurient-- the book stops well before the killings began-- but it is disturbing.

My Friend Dahmer is a book that will stick with you.  I recommend it.

The author’s web page is HERE.

Tea

This tea set was a gift from a friend, and the nice thing about it is that I never have to drink alone; I'm always sharing a cup with a beautiful Geisha.

Reorganize

 



When I worked at MCI, Dilbert hit so close to home that management leaped into action- and banned the posting of comic strips in cubicles.

(MCI no longer exists, except as a tiny little subsidiary of Verizon.)

Ch-ch-ch-changes

"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

Spectacles

"When you see my spectacles, what do you remember? You remember me, because the spectacles belong to me. Similarly, when we see anything in this world, we should remember Krishna, because everything belongs to Krishna."  ~Srila Prabhupada

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Odysseus finds himself washed up on an island ruled by King Alcinous, where he is told

We're hardly world-class boxers or wrestlers, I admit,
but we can race like the wind, we're champion sailors, too,
and always dear to our hearts, the feast, the lyre, and dance
and changes of fresh clothes, our warm baths and beds,
so come-- all you Phaecian masters of the dance--
now dance away!  So our guest can tell his friends,
when he reaches home, how far we excel the world
in sailing, nimble footwork, dance and song.

So, this is an island of men who are not keen on sports, but are well-groomed, snazzy dressers who like dancing and dance music.

Huh.

Explain and Justify

The amount of fear you carry will determine the amount of anger and intolerance you project into the world. Reflect on this, it’s important.

No matter how much you can shout and be insensitive to others-- no matter how you can then cleverly explain and justify your conduct-- in front of the awakened heart, you are always seen and known.

Love smiles, fear scowls, and so you will never find peace in your life until the fear you carry is ended and the loving fearless heart manifests.

~Michael Kewley (via)

Howdy, Stranger.

Excerpted from The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles ©1996:

Daydreaming so as he sat among the suitors,
he glimpsed Athena now
and straight to the porch he went, mortified
that a guest might still be standing at the doors.
Pausing beside her there, he clasped her right hand
and relieving her at once of her long bronze spear,
met her with winged words:  "Greetings, Stranger!
Here in our house you'll find a royal welcome.
Have supper first, then tell us what you need."

That's a pattern that's repeated over and over:  guests are greeted, fed, sometimes even bathed and clothed, and only after they've been well taken care of are they asked what they came for.

This would have been about the time Sodom was destroyed for Not Being Nice.  Ezekiel 16:49–50:

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty… Therefore I did away with them, as you have seen.

So it's hard to say that it was a more congenial time.  It's just that hospitality was rigidly enforced.

Literary Odyssey

My first introduction to Homer's work, like most people, was when I was forced in high school to read excerpts from 19th century translations of The Odyssey and The Iliad; hacking and slashing through a forest of footnotes, trying to pick out which Greek names to memorize for the test, wondering if the teacher found some sort of perverse pleasure in torturing his students.  And, like most people, that approach kind of ruined it for me.

But over the weekend I found a copy of Homer's The Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles on the clearance shelf, bought it on impulse, and to my surprise, I'm really enjoying it.   There are no footnotes to ruin the flow-- they aren't needed-- and he managed to simplify the language without in any way diminishing the beauty of the words.  I can understand what's happening without cheating and looking at the Cliff's Notes.

In school I was overwhelmed and bored; this time, it's a joy.

I may go back and re-read the earlier translations one day-- they're in the public domain, and you can find them for free at Project Gutenberg-- but this is the way it should have been introduced to me, all those years ago.

Girls and Bears

You can buy a print of this painting for as little as $16 at artist Alexandra Dvornikova's online shop, HERE.

Not Nostalgic

I dropped out of school when I was fifteen, and it was absolutely the best thing not only for me, but for anyone unfortunate enough to be seated near me.  I’m glad I did, and I wish I could have done it sooner.

Force a kid into a room made of cinder-blocks painted pea-green, then lock the door behind him; surround him with thirty people not of his own choosing;  sit him at in an uncomfortable hard wooden desk, and don't let him stand up even if he has to pee; now drone on endlessly about things that aren't interesting and-- be honest-- completely unimportant.

I hated school.