Sift And Stir

What counts, in the long run, is not what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind; it is the ideas and impressions that are aroused in you by your reading.  It is the ideas stirred in your own mind, the ideas which are a reflection of your own thinking, which make you an interesting person.
—     Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2020	Role Reversal
	Time To Defend The Constitution (Part I)
	Time To Defend The Constitution (Part II)
2019	Right Or Wrong
2018	Open Doors
2017	When It Deserves It
2016	Expiation For Rest
2015	You’ll Get Through It
2014	A Special Kind Of Fall
2013	Very Rewarding
2012	MIB3 – The Team Is Closer Than Ever
	Yet
2011	Little By Little

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Spending A Lifetime Learning To Draw

All of life is a constant education.
—    Eleanor Roosevelt
Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.
—    John W. Gardner
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On This Day In:
2020	Light And Dark
2019	My Dog Scratches At The Bedroom Door
2018	One Person Can
2017	Been There, Thought That
2016	Diligent Students
2015	Unanswered Prayers
2014	Pray, v.
2013	As I…
2012	But We Need Room
2011	A Definition Of Leadership

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B U

Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one.  You cannot make any useful contribution in life unless you do this.
—    Eleanor Roosevelt
[Yes…  I am aware the first sentence of this post was used last year.  I did not know / realize there was an equally important second sentence in the full quote.  Hence, I’m re-posting with the addition.   —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2019	I Struggle With One At A Time
2018	An Infectious Political Cancer
	Site Update / Poems Page Evolution
2017	Our Thirst
2016	History Favors The Victor
2015	This We’ll Leave Them
2014	Sounds Like Faux News To Me
2013	Reasons
2012	American Libertarianism
2011	The Goal

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Facing Life

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive.  One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
—    Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2020	#IncompetentTrump And His Pandemic Briefings
	#IncompetentTrump
2019	I Hope So
2018	Painted Into
2017	Prayers, Miracles And Lottery Tickets
	Roman View
2016	Dignity And Grace
2015	Is It Warm Enough For You
2014	What The Right STILL Wants
2013	Embrace Serendipity
2012	Your Order, Please
2011	Well Enough Anyway

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Starting Young

I am convinced that every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds.  For one thing is sure:  If they don’t make up their minds, someone will do it for them.
—    Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2020	My Thoughts On #LyingDonald’s Corona Briefings
2019	As I Recall
2018	Effective Violence And A Government At Risk
2017	Playing The Same Music
2016	Survival Instinct
2015	Tears
2014	Bourne Again (4)
2013	God’s Protection
2012	Happy Easter!!
	Edge, Class, Clash, And Flight
	The Value Of Bureaucracies
2011	Logic Cuts

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Step By Step Find Strength

We do not have to become heroes overnight.  Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.
—   Eleanor Roosevelt
[Sarah, Happy Birthday!!
Congrats on your recent certificate!  Keep taking your steps.  We are proud of you!!
Love Always,
Mum & Dad]
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On This Day In:
2020	Giving Thanks
2019	One A Day
2018	Try
2017	You’re Starting To Make Us Feel Old
2016	Focus
2015	Challenging Legacy
2014	Happy 21st Birthday!
2013	Expectations
2012	Trust Him Smile
2011	Why Change?

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Not Here, Not Again

Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice.  Divide and conquer!  We must not let that happen here.
—   Eleanor Roosevelt
[We will soon see if the Senate is interested in protecting Democracy or whether party continues to be more important than country.  What we saw last month was a President promote civil insurrection to destabilize the Congress while it was performing its Constitutionally mandated duty of confirming a democratically held (and fair) election, simply because he (and his insurrectionist supports) lost the election.  The President did this in front of the cameras and there is no denying his culpability.  He spent almost a year promoting the line that the election would be unfair and, in fact, “stolen” if he lost.  He then spent two months after the election calling on his supporters to come to Washington to “protest” to Congress about them approving the legitimate results of the election.  On the day (6 January 2021), he called on his followers to halt the proceedings in Congress and he promised to walk to Congress with them in protest.  Of course, being a coward, he did no such thing.  He retreated to the White House, where he could be protected from the immediate results of his induced riot.
The former President should be tried and convicted of violation of his oath of office and then the Senate should vote to remove the privileges of his former Office – primarily retirement pay and the ability to run for future public office.  That is what should happen.  I have very little faith it will.  The simple truth is Republicans seek a return to power in an off-year (non-Presidential) election next year (November 2022), and they don’t want to jeopardize that election protecting the Constitution or the Country by punishing a faithless (IMHO a traitorous) former President.
We’ll see if there are any “Profiles In Courage” in the Republican Party, but my money is on this leopard not changing its spots.   —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2020	Senate Perfidy
2019	Contributing To Congress
	Yellow Signs Of Spring
2018	But Take Heart
	Poetic Marker
2017	The Few, The Many, The Most
2016	To My Brother
2015	For Junior
	A Roman Rome
2014	Hmmm
2013	What’s A Motto With You?
2012	Worthy Companions
2011	Bourne Again
	Which Ten Are You In?

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Tomorrow: Will Republicans Choose Democracy Or Tyranny?

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes.  In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves.  The process never ends until we die.  And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
—    Eleanor Roosevelt
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
—    Edmund Burke
The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants.  He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole.  Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right.  Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.  To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.  Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else.  But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.
—    Republican President Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt
[Tomorrow, Congress (both House and Senate) will meet in joint session to “officially” count votes from the electoral college and declare the winner of the 2020 Presidential election.  The “winner” of the election was former Vice-President Joe Biden.  The loser of the election was the current President: Donald Trump.  Biden won the election by over 7 million voters nationwide and surpassed the 270 electoral college votes required to become President.  The losing President (Trump) and his political party (the Republicans) are claiming there was voter fraud and election “irregularities” – but, only in the swing states where the President lost the election and only on the votes for the Presidency (not for Republicans who kept their offices while the President did not).  There is NO evidence to support claims of either significant voter fraud or irregularity in ANY state.  The Republicans are lying to the American public and to the voters they represent in the hopes of furthering their own political careers.  The American public has voted.  Trump LOST by a significant margin.  It is well past time to accept reality and turn to solving the outstanding problems facing our country.  Tomorrow we will see which “representatives” (Congressmen and Senators) in our government believe in “democracy” and which are willing to sacrifice our country’s principles for the sake of an incompetent businessman / politician / con-artist.  —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2020	On Killing Foreign Generals…
2019	Patient Understanding
2018	I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Form
2017	Fashionista
2016	A Faulty Model Of God
2015	Non Sequitur
2014	No Flags League
	I Ain’t Who Am
2013	Spoiling For Fame?
2012	How Many?
2011	Too Tired To Chat Much
2010	I Must Be Crazy!!

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Waiting For 20 January 2021

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror.  I can take the next thing that comes along.’  You MUST do the thing that you think you cannot do.
—    Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2019	#Corrupt45 Fails Another Great Test
2018	Where The Economy Is Headed Thanks To #IncompetentDonald
2017	Time For More Research, Too
2016	Original Thoughts
2015	If They’re Good Enough
2014	Three…
2013	Uncle Joe’s Song
	Live, Then, As If…
2012	Still Trying
2011	Not Deserving

 

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Remember Your Obligation

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.
—   Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2019	If One Is Lucky Enough
	Basic Training (In Films)
2018	Being President Doesn’t Make You Presidential
	Day 27: 4 Weeks / 55lbs
2017	I’m Seeing It, Too
2016	Personal Decisions
2015	Verbal Fluency
2014	Familiar
2013	Unbending
2012	Simple Sayings
2011	Wupped Again?
2010	3 and 1…
	Musical Notes…
	Doubt Tries…
	Northwest Passages – Evening Two
	The Beierly’s Web Site

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Too Frightening For Too Many

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being.  With freedom comes responsibility.  For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.
—   Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2019	Just One
2018	And Not Be Just Vain, Greedy And Dumb
	Day 6: Tickin’ Badly
2017	The Soul Of Victory
2016	Getting Furrowed?
2015	Pretty Good So Far
2014	Still Learning?
	There Ain’t No Thing Like Me, ‘Cept Me!
2013	Little Lives
2012	Evolution
2011	Excellence At Performance = 10,000 Hours
2009	A Brief Poem…
	Crater Lake Trip with James

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Me Too

Friendship with oneself is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
—    Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2019	No Regrets
2018	In Times Of Crisis
	Genes, Desire And Luck
2017	The Voice Of Experience
2016	Who And When
2015	Change Process
2014	What Is Still Possible
2013	Strength Is There
2012	Beyond Reasonable Doubt
2011	Celebrating Values
2010	Is it just me, or is it suddenly dark around here?
	Dance!

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In Need Of Concerted Action

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?  In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world.  Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works.  Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination.  Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere.  Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.
—    Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2019	Anything / Everything
2018	Touching A Nerve
	Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
	I Have Realities In My Past
2017	Did I See You In Chapter 13?
2016	As I Recall
2015	Less And More Irritation
2014	That Marvelous Feeling
2013	Exceptional
2012	A Wild And Crazy Believer
2011	A Lack Of Scarcity
	The Joy Of Prevention

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Always

Life is what you make it.  Always has been, always will be.
—    Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2019	#45 Is More Of A Piddle Than A Puddle
2018	Found Out
	A Message To The “Wanna Be” Dictator On Leadership
2017	Still Waiting…
2016	Same Old, Same Old
2015	Shout!
2014	I Hear Voices
2013	Ethics And Standards
2012	Swing Higher
2011	Convicted For Life

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Love And Charity

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.
—    Eleanor Roosevelt
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On This Day In:
2019	Tomorrow Is Valentine’s Day
	Inverted U Curve
2018	Still More Prejudice
	A Well Trod Path Of Hopes, Expectations And Surprise
2017	…And With It Civilization
2016	Just Like My Mother
2015	All Omissions Are Mine
2014	Precise Order
2013	Uh, No. Not Really…
	Deep Regions
2012	A Pre-Valentine’s Day Message
2011	Easy Like Sunday Morning
	May I Have A Little More, Please…
2010	Valleys and Peaks

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