An Afternoon Nap

Show me another pleasure like dinner which comes every day and lasts an hour.
—    Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
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On This Day In:
2020	Magical Voices In My Head
	I Still Need Educating
2019	And I’m Not Letting Go
2018	The Continuing Failure Of Speaker Paul Ryan
	Day 3: Approaching The Half Way Point
2017	Orange Comb-Overs Unite!
2016	Speaking Of Which
2015	Complexity Has A Strict Architecture
2014	Just Support
2013	Wandering Free
2012	Contribute = Paying Taxes
2011	How Will You Be Judged?

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We ARE…

We Are The World
Favorite Line(s):
There comes a time
When we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
Oh, and it’s time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all
We can’t go on
Pretending day-by-day
That someone, somewhere soon make a change
We’re all a part of God’s great big family
And the truth, you know, love is all we need
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day, just you and me
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On This Day In:
2020	Happy 11th Anniversary Of Blogging
2019	Happy 10th Anniversary — Thoughts On My First Decade Of Blogging
2018	Happy 9th Anniversary — Three Thoughts
	Day 2 – Notes On Progress
2017	Happy 8th Anniversary
2016	Happy 7th Anniversary
2015	Happy 6th Anniversary
2014	Happy 5th Anniversary
2013	I Resemble That Remark!
2012	Happy 3rd Anniversary
2011	Is America Safe Tonight?
2009	Hello world! (See how it all began…)

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We Are More Alike

I would encourage us all, African Americans, Asians, Latinos, Whites, Native Americans to study history.  I long for the time when all the human history is taught as one history.  I am stronger because you are stronger.  I am weaker if you are weak.  So we are more alike than we are unlike.
—    Maya Angelou
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On This Day In:
2020	One Lesson In Diversity
2019	And Yet, I Believe
2018	Beats
	First Step: Starting Cleansing (Again)
2017	Effective Stimuli
2016	Dave’s Not Here, Man
2015	Blink
2014	The Struggle To Educate America Continues…
2013	On Elections
2012	Warm Smiles
	Pick Your Poison
2011	Straight Shooters

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Namaste

True Colors
Favorite Line(s):
Show me a smile then
Don’t be unhappy, can’t remember
When I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you’ve taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I’ll be there
And I’ll see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that’s why I love you
So don’t be afraid to let it show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful
Like a rainbow
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On This Day In:
2020	Michigan Countdown
	Risk Free
2019	Speak Up / Call Out
2018	Does Smiling Count?
2017	Giving Much
2016	Sounds Like Class
2015	Inert Ideas
2014	Worth Anything?
2013	Bruises Before Bed (Or Why You Didn’t Answer)
	Revealed Riches
2012	Extra Gears
2011	Say What?
2010	Hello Frogs…

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Why Do Republicans Seek To Destroy American Democracy?

In the long run, the aggressive civilizations destroy themselves, almost always.  It’s their nature.  They can’t help it.
—    Carl Sagan
[Does anybody else remember when being a conservative Republican meant supporting the troops, law and order and an efficient, cost effective government?  Now, Republicans criticize the commander of the Joint Chiefs, support insurrection in the Capitol Building and are threatening to ruin the “good faith and credit” of the United States by refusing to raise the debt ceiling.  Let’s recall, the current budget (which Congress agreed to) was signed by a Republican President.  These are debts the Republicans ALREADY committed to owing when they passed last year’s budget.    —    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2020	Michigan Countdown
	Risk Free
2019	Speak Up / Call Out
2018	Does Smiling Count?
2017	Giving Much
2016	Sounds Like Class
2015	Inert Ideas
2014	Worth Anything?
2013	Bruises Before Bed (Or Why You Didn’t Answer)
	Revealed Riches
2012	Extra Gears
2011	Say What?
2010	Hello Frogs…

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Truthfully

People only see what they are prepared to see.
—     Ralph Waldo Emerson
[Why Republican politicians think the 6 January 2021 insurrection at the Capitol was a love-fest:  because it was Republican traitors trying to overthrow the government of the United States.    —    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2020	Demonstrably Proven To Yield No Benefits
	But When You Must, Stand
2019	Paint-By-Numbers
2018	#45: Still Trying To
	Oh, Well…
2017	Two Views Of The Starting Line
2016	Never Had It, Never Will (Donald Trump)
2015	20/20
2014	All Of My Best Ideas Come While Walking…
2013	Learn To Learn
2012	I Remind You
2011	Respect And Prestige
2010	Living Legends (Willie Nelson) and the Gettysburg Address

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Cabbage Looking

If you refuse to be made straight when you are green, you will not be made straight when you are dry.
—     African Proverb
[This quote reminds me of the British expression:  “You’re not as green as you are cabbage looking.”    —    KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2020	Your Challenge
2019	The Tragedies Are About To Get Worse
2018	Plunge
	Time To Meet God
2017	Wealth Within
2016	Soaring
2015	Gone To The Library…
2014	Choose To Lead
2013	Not Sent Yet
2012	Wall-Crawler Reboot
	Learning To Count
	On Worshiping God
2011	Emancipated Differences
2010	A Little More Technology, Please…

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They Are All Perfect

Try to keep your expectations reasonable.  You’re beginning the journey of a thousand miles with a single step.  Each step is important;  every step counts.
—    John “The Penguin” Bingham
From his book:  “No Need For Speed“
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On This Day In:
2020	Perhaps There Has Been Some Method In My Madness
2019	An Accidental Escape
2018	And I Thought It Was Just My Deodorant
2017	Hannity And Limbaugh
2016	Or He Could Just Be Lazy
	Small Hero
2015	Seeking Cultured Leadership
2014	Examining Failure
2013	Driving Passion
2012	Cannibal, n.
2011	Moments Of Truth

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6/11 Capitol Riot Commission

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil:  God will not hold us guiltless.
Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.
―     Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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On This Day In:
2020	Fact Check: Presidential Memories
	Vote In November!
2019	Where Today’s Republican Party Is Failing America (And The President)
2018	Either / Or
2017	Redemptive Power
2016	On Calls To Renew Waterboarding / Torture
2015	Still Struggling
2014	How To Become A Saint
2013	Not Much Change
	Our Biggest Fear
2012	Brain, n.
2011	Styles Of Leadership
2010	Face Front!

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Get Vaccinated AND Wear A Mask

It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
—    Mark Twain
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On This Day In:
2020	Didn’t I Just Post Yesterday?
2019	A Long Slog
2018	There Is No God But God
	To The Uncommitted Reader
2017	Not Yet That Well-Organized
2016	Probably Whatever Was Sought Yesterday
2015	What We Choose To Divide Us
2014	Peace With Honor
2013	Dangerous Systems
2012	Useful Science
2011	Say It, But Please Don’t Make Me Listen

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Gotta Have A Friend

Spirit In The Sky
Favorite Line(s):
Prepare yourself
You know it’s a must
Gotta have a friend in Jesus
So you know that when you die
He’s gonna recommend you
To the spirit in the sky
(Spirit in the sky)
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On This Day In:
2020	In The Moment
2019	I Will Try Again
	Original Chips
2018	Still Blogging
2017	Reliable Vision
2016	Still Walking
2015	Steps
2014	To Be Greatly Good
2013	Limited Capacity
2012	Two Ear Ticklers
	Justification
2011	To Avail The Nation

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None Live Apart

I am interested in the way that we look at a given landscape and take possession of it in our blood and brain.  None of us lives apart from the land entirely;  such an isolation is unimaginable.  If we are to realize and maintain our humanity, we must come to a moral comprehension of earth and air as it is perceived in the long turn of seasons and of years.
—     Navarre Scott Momaday
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On This Day In:
2020	In The Moment
2019	I Will Try Again
	Original Chips
2018	Still Blogging
2017	Reliable Vision
2016	Still Walking
2015	Steps
2014	To Be Greatly Good
2013	Limited Capacity
2012	Two Ear Ticklers
	Justification
2011	To Avail The Nation

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And Then You Begin

I had as many doubts as anyone else.  Standing on the starting line, we’re all cowards.
—    Alberto Salazar
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On This Day In:
2020	A Prayer For China
	He Says The Last Five Questions Are Really Hard
	Fear And Cleverness
2019	Historic Contact
	All Good
2018	History Judges Incompetent Presidencies, Too
2017	Our Confident New President
2016	Ways
2015	Be Happy, Too
2014	At Least Smile
2013	Comfortably Bound
2012	Certainty
	Thinking About Fathers
2011	And In Every Level Of Media

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Families

…
The nuclear family, in its brief heyday, was fundamentally an economic strategy, one that made it easier to control the supply of workers and organize childcare and domestic work so that women were doing as much of it as possible for free.  This arrangement no longer makes economic or emotional sense — and millennials know it.  Almost half of us, after all, grew up with parents who were divorced, or in single-parent households.  But the nuclear family remains the only form of family with cultural legitimacy.
…
Here’s the lesson I had to learn:  “Traditional” nuclear families today are no more stable or secure, no more or less likely to lead to lasting happiness, than “alternative” households.  In “The Sirens of Titan“, Kurt Vonnegut spends hundreds of pages coming to the conclusion that the purpose — or at least a purpose — “of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”  The problem with found families is exactly the same as the problem with every other sort of family.  There is no perfect structure, no single set of rules, that can guarantee that people will always be decent to each other, will never have growing up to do, and that nobody will ever get their heart broken ever again.
…
And that, I suppose, is what family means.
It means you love whoever is around to love.  That doesn’t mean you have to like them all the time.  Love takes work.  Living together takes work.  Sick and tired of waiting around in the antechamber of socially sanctioned adulthood, millennials are setting up home right here.  We are not waiting for our “real lives” to start.  We may never have the security or stability we were raised to desire, but we can still have commitment and community.  For me, this is my real life.  These are the households and relationships where I have grown up, learned how to take care of myself and other people, had my heart and brain and favorite mugs broken.  These are our real lives, brief and beautiful, stupid and unlikely, and we would live them far better if we were given permission — beyond the wish fulfillment of fiction — to believe in them.
—    Laurie Penny
From her article: “Live Wrong And Prosper: It’s The Future Of Families“
Appearing in:  Wired Magazine, dtd: July / Aug 2020
Online at:  https://www.wired.com/story/live-wrong-prosper-covid-19-future-of-families/
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On This Day In:
2020	A Message To Optional Trump Supporters (Basically Everyone)
2019	Bigger Jaws
	On The Other
2018	Hoping For A Blue Wave In November
2017	Garden Dreaming
2016	Well, Maybe Not “No” Talent
2015	An Appetite For Life
	A Trip To The Library
	Great Expectations
2014	Pass The Soul
2013	Zapping Music And Art
2012	Not Quite Fantastic
	That Kid Is Back
2011	Wolves At The Door
2010	I’m Feeling Patriotic… (Well, more than usual, anyway.)
	Beating the Heat…

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Feeling Younger

When I was a little boy, I told my dad, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a musician.’  My dad said:  ‘You can’t do both, Son’.
—    Chet Atkins
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On This Day In:
2020	One Person
2019	More Likely Unsinging
	What’s At Stake…
2018	But What Are You DOING About November?
	Or His Elected Position
2017	Some Good
2016	Edges
	Sums
2015	I Hope Not
2014	Study The Means Of Expressing Yourself
2013	That Stubborn Thing
2012	Like Mike
2011	Flawless Or Candid
2010	Browning…

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