From " Tuesdays With Morrie"

A story related by Morrie Schwartz to Mitch Albom days before his death.

"I had a nice little story the other day," Morrie says. He closes his eyes for a moment and I wait.

"Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air - until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore.

'My God, this is terrible,' the wave says. 'Look what's going to happen to me.'

"Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, "Why do you look so sad?"

"The first wave says, 'You don't understand. We're all going to crash. All of us waves are going to be nothing. Isn't it terrible?'

"The second wave says, 'No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean"

I smile. Morrie closes his eyes again.

"Part of the ocean" he says. "part of the ocean" I watch him breathe, in and out, in and out.

Quinterssential Quote For Today

Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.

Nabakov.

Quinterssential Quote For Today

In Cymbeline. They think Imogen is dead:

" Fear no more the heat O' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and taken thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust."

Shakespeare.

Quintessential Quote For Today

Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money.

Henry Higgins in Shaw's " Pygmalion " - "My Fair Lady."

VERSE AND WORSE

...
" I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all our poor selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door,
And never put it on again."

Luisa Fletcher.

Quintessential Quote For Today

Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby.

Henry Higgins in "Pygmalion" - My Fair Lady.

CREDIT CARD CRIME

20 Years for Credit-Card Hacker

The college dropout behind one of the biggest computer crimes in history (which he reportedly called “Operation Get Rich or Die Tryin’”) has been sentenced to 20 years and one day in prison, the harshest sentence ever for a convicted hacker. Earlier in the week, he was sentenced to 20 years each for two similar crimes in which he sold credit-card information on the black market, and will serve each sentence concurrently. Five other people have been convicted in the scheme. Prior to his arrest, Albert Gonzalez collected $2.8 million from hacking, some of which he buried in his parents’ backyard and the rest of which he used for lavish cars, a handgun, and a Tiffany & Co. ring for his girlfriend. Defense for Gonzalez claim that his role was “peripheral” to that of two Eastern European hackers, and fault Gonzalez’s struggles with drug addiction, Internet addiction, and Asperger’s syndrome for his crimes.

Read it at Wall Street Journal

VERSE AND WORSE

"...
We have loved and lived together
Through many changing years,
We have shared each other's gladness
And wept each other's tears.
And let us hope the future
As the past has been will be:
I will share with thee my sorrows,
And then thy joys with me.

Charles Jeffreys.

Quintessential Quote For Today

O what a tangled web we weave
When we first practice to deceive.
But when we've practiced awhile
How vastly we improve our style.

J.R.Pope.

Quintessential Quote For Today

Jesus to Magdalene:

Much shall be forgiven thee because thou has loved much.

Just For Kicks :-))))

A Rich Saudi went to Germany to "study".
A month later, he sends a letter to his dad in Riyadh saying: " Berlin is wonderful, people are nice and I really like it here, but I'm a bit ashamed to arrive to school with my Gold Mercedes when all my teachers travel by train."

Sometime later he gets a letter from his dad with a ten million Euro cheque saying: "Stop embarrassing us, go and get yourself a train too"

VERSE AND WORSE

A word of encouragement:

O what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.
But when we've practiced quite awhile
How vastly we improve our style.

J.R.Poe.

Thanks to the Supreme Court...

First Corporate Political Ad Appears

A real-estate company based in Texas is the first corporation to exercise its newly granted corporate right to fund political ads since the Supreme Court overturned a century-old spending ban for corporations and unions. According to The Texas Tribune, KDR Development Inc. ran ads in two local papers attacking the GOP credibility of Rep. Chuck Hopson, an incumbent Democrat who had switched parties and joined the GOP last November—but to no avail. Hopson garnered 61 percent of votes in a primary against two other Republicans this month. In 2006, Hopson beat KDR's current president, Larry Durrett. "I think we're on solid legal ground," Durrett said of the ads. "We checked it out every way from Sunday." The ads asked voters to cast a ballot for either of the two Republicans running against Hopson.

Read it at The Texas Tribune

HEATH CARE REFORM ALAS...

Obama Signs Health Care Into Law


J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo In a jubilant White House ceremony Tuesday morning, President Obama signed his health-care reform bill into law amid standing ovations from supporters. "Today, after almost a century of trial. Today, after over a year of debate. Today, after all the votes have been tallied, health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America," he said. Acknowledging that some House Democrats face uphill reelection fights for voting yes, one congressman shouted “Yes, we did.” Obama also added: "It's easy to succumb to the sense of cynicism about what's possible in this country, but today we're asserting that essential truth... that we are not a nation that scales back its aspirations." The president also thanked Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid for their help.

Read it at ABC News

Quintessential Quote For Today

Let those who like me take me as I am and the let the rest leave me.

Somerset Maugham.

MODERN DEFINITIONS

ECSTASY:

A feeling when you feel
You are going to feel
A feeling
You have never felt before.

TEARS:

The hydraulic force by which
masculine will power is
defeated by feminine water-power.

COMPROMISE

The art of dividing
a cake in such a way that
everybody believes
he got the biggest piece.

Quintessential Quote For Today

Forgive your enemies ; it's not for the sake of the enemy, but for one's own sake and because love is more beautiful than hate.

Oscar Wilde n "De Profundis"

Quintessential Quote For Today

" Just as in the soundest body there is some organic lesion through which sooner or later death strikes, so the noblest hearts hide secret wickedness which serve to remind us that man is a compound of noble sentiments and petty actions.

Alexander Dumas in "Fernande"

Quintessential Quote For Today

With apologies to all wives.
L.O.L. :-)))

" when you're away, I'm restless, lonely,
Wretched, bored, dejected; only
Here's the rub, my darling dear,
I feel the same when you are near."

Samuel Hoffenstein.

WHAT 'S NEW

. First Black Priest for Sainthood

Nearly a century and a half after Augustus Tolton escaped slavery in Missouri and became the nation’s first black Roman Catholic priest on record, he will be considered for sainthood. A commission will assess the reverend’s "heroic virtues" and present his case to the Vatican, upon which he could become St. Augustus. After being ordained in Rome because no American seminary would admit him, Tolton returned to Quincy, Illinois, where he preached to an integrated congregation. He eventually moved to Chicago to start a mission for African Americans in the basement of another parish. That eventually became the city’s first black parish. "To think that every seminary in the U.S. was closed to him… but that did not stand in the way of him being able to fulfill his call," said Vanessa White, director of the Tolton Center for African-American Catholics at Catholic Theological Union.

Read it at Chicago Tribune

VERSE AND WORSE

The Author's Epitaph.

I suffered so much from printer's errors
That death for me can hold no terrors;
I'll bet this stone has been misdated,
I wish to God I'd been cremated.

anon.

Quintessential Quote For Today

Calpurnia pleading with Caesar not to go to the Capitol - on the Ides Of march (3/15) - where he was murdered by his friends (Et Tu Brute' ? )

When beggars die there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

Quintessential Quote For Today.

Critics are like horse-flies which prevent the horse from plowing.

Somerset Maugham.

THE SMALLEST MAN

. World's Smallest Man Dies

Junji Kurokawa / AP Photo
At only 29 inches tall, He Pingping was larger than life: The world’s smallest man died over the weekend. The 21-year-old was in Rome filming a TV spot when he began suffering chest problems. He Pingping was born in China’s Inner Mongolia—which was also, miraculously, home to the world’s tallest man for a period of time. (See pictures of He Pingping with the 7’9” Bao Xishun here.) The Guinness Book of World Records says it will soon announce He Pingping’s heir; one Nepalese man, Khagendra Thapa Magar, who claims he’s only 20 inches tall, said he deserved the title in February.

A NEW SHAKESPEARE PLAY?

A New Shakespeare Play Discovered?

Nearly four centuries after Shakespeare's death, a new play by the playwright might be entering the canon. Rumors have abounded of the Bard's "Lost Play" since the early 18th century, when Lewis Theobald claimed that his play Double Falsehood was based on original texts of Shakespeare’s lost Cardenio, which had been performed in 1613. Theobald’s claims were widely dismissed as a hoax, but Nottingham University Professor Brean Hammond has found new evidence supporting them, saying, "I don’t think you can ever be absolutely 100 percent but, yes, I am convinced that it is Shakespeare." Experts say that Theobald’s play is similar to other Shakespeare works, though Hammond described it as "flawed." His research has been endorsed by Shakespeare publisher Arden, and the play may even be performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford.

Read it at The Guardian

VERSE AND WORSE

I HAVE BURNED MY CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS.

I burned my candle at both ends,
And now have neither foes nor friends;
For all the lovely light begotten,
I'm paying now in feeling rotten.

Samuel Hoffenstein.

Quintessential Quote For Today

" Misery acquaints a man with strange bed fellows."

Trinculo in "TEMPEST"

Quintessential Quote For Today

The great sins of the world take place in the brain.

Oscar Wilde in "De Profundis"

Quintessential Quote For Today

A guilty conscience needs no accuser.

Quintessential Quote For Today

Cressida playing hard to get:

" Men price the thing imagined more than it is."

Shakespeare's, " Troilus and Cressida."

JUST FOR KICKS :-))))

A Rich Saudi went to Germany to "study".
A month later, he sends a letter to his dad in Riyadh saying: " Berlin is wonderful, people are nice and I really like it here, but I'm a bit ashamed to arrive to school with my Gold Mercedes when all my teachers travel by train."

Sometime later he gets a letter from his dad with a ten million Euro cheque saying: "Stop embarrassing us, go and get yourself a train too"

A very elderly couple is having an elegant dinner to celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary. The old man leans forward and says softly to his wife, "Dear, there is something that I must ask you. It has always bothered me that our tenth child never quite looked like the rest of our children. Now I want to assure you that these 75 years have been the most wonderful experience I could have ever hoped for, and your answer cannot take that all that away. But, I must know, did he have a different father?"

The wife drops her head, unable to look her husband in the eye, she paused for a moment and then confesses. "Yes. Yes he did."

The old man is very shaken, the reality of what his wife was admitting hit him harder than he had expected. With a tear in his eye he asks, "Who? Who was he? Who was the father?"

Again the old woman drops her head, saying nothing at first as she tried to muster the courage to tell the truth to her husband. Then, finally, she says, "You."

Quintessential Quote For Today

If you can look into the seeds of time
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me.

The witches to Baquo in "Macbeth"

VERSE AND WORSE

I loved thee, beautiful and kind,
And plighted an eternal vow;
So alter'd are thy face and mind,
'Twere perjury to love thee now.

Robert Earl Nugent.

Quintessential Quote For Today

The trumpet of a prophecy O' Wind,
If winter comes, can spring be far behind.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Just for kicks. :-)))

A nursery school teacher was delivering a station wagon full of kids home one day when a fire truck zoomed past.  Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog.  The children fell to discussing the dog's duties. 

"They use him to keep crowds back," said one youngster. 

"No," said another, "he's just for good luck." 

A third child brought the argument to a close. "They use the dogs," she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrant."

AMERICA'S OLDEST PASSES AWAY

America’s Oldest Person Dies
Congratulations Neva Morris of Ames, Iowa: At 114 years and 216 days old, you are now the United States’ oldest person. Sadly, that means the previous title holder has passed. Mary Josephine Ray died on Sunday at 114 years and 294 days old. Ray was born in Canada on May 17, 1895, and moved to the United States when she was 3. Ray was also the second-oldest person in the world at the time of her death, behind Japan’s Kama Chinen, who is 114 years and 301 days old. She is survived by two sons, eight grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren, and five great-great grandchildren.
Read it at New York Daily News

Pailn Crossed Border For Canadian Health Care

Palin Crossed Border For Canadian Health Care

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care -- admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada's single-payer system.

"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. "And I think now, isn't that ironic?"

The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada's health care system as revolting: with its government-run administration and 'death-panel'-like rationing. Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska. Up to the age of six, Palin lived in a remote town near the closest Canadian city, Whitehorse.

Officials at several hospitals in that area declined to give out information on patient visits.

Quintessential Quote For Today

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson.

Quintessential Quote For Today

It is folly to live in Rome and strive with the pope.

W.M.D. Mea Culpa

Rove Admits Errors on WMDs
Let the counterfactuals begin: Karl Rove says in his new memoir that President Bush would not have invaded Iraq, had he known that there were no WMDs. “Would the Iraq War have occurred without W.M.D.? I doubt it,” he writes. “Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the W.M.D. threat. The Bush administration itself would probably have sought other ways to constrain Saddam, bring about regime change, and deal with Iraq’s horrendous human rights violations.” Rove strongly rejects, however, charges that Bush lied, and otherwise is an adamant defender of the administration. Rove says he was responsible for the “weak response” to charges that Bush lied. Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight will publish on Tuesday.
Read it at The New York Times
Posted at 11:56 AM, Mar 4, 2010

VERSE AND WORSE

Just behind the Battle Mother,
I am slinking back to you;
For the cannons rattle, Mother,
Makes me feel uncommon blue.

I am not so fond of dying
As my comrades seem to be,
So from missiles round me flying
I am mizzling back to thee,

Chorus:

Mother don't you hear the hissing
Of the bulletses so plain?
I may be counted with the missing
But NEVER, NEVER with the slain.

anon.

Quintessential Quote For Today

In "As You Like It " .. The Last Scene Of All.

"That ends this strange, eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
sans hair...:-)))

Quintessential Quote For Today

" ...if thou live remembered not to be,
Die single, and thine image die with thee.

Shakespeare.

VERSE AND WORSE

I Am My Own Grandpa
by Moe Jaffe and Dwight Latham


Many, many years ago
when I was twenty-three,
I got married to a widow
who was a pretty as could be.

This widow had a grown-up daughter
who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her,
and soon the two were wed.

This made my dad my son-in-law
and change my very life.
My daughter was my mother,
for she was my father's wife.

To complicate the matters worse,
although it brought me joy,
I soon became the father
of a bouncing baby boy.

My little baby then became
a brother-in-law to dad.
And so became by uncle,
though it made me very sad.

For if he was my uncle,
then that also made him brother
To the widow's grown up daughter who,
of course, was my step-mother

Father's wife then had a son,
who kept them on the run.
And he became my grandson,
for he was my daughter's son.

My wife is now my mother's mother
and it makes me blue,
Because, although she is my wife,
she's my grandma too.

If my wife is my grandmother,
then I am her grandchild
And every time I think of it,
it simply drives me wild.

For now I have become
the strangest case you ever saw,
As the husband of my grandmother,
I am my own grandpa!

Quintessential Quote For Today

In life its not what you achieve that matters. Its what you overcome.