COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Meeting Life Challenges


Life is a constant challenge. They are a part of what we are. It is a given. We can wear them or carry them silently. Most challenges accepted take us to places that were never expected. I don't doubt for a moment the expressed joy and gratitude of this family for having accepted what was put to them. They are fortunate indeed.

16 comments:

  1. Funny a friend just gave me similar advice just the other day. Not in those exact words but the meaning was still the same.

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  2. In the South, why is a hurricane like getting a divorce?










    Either way, you know somebody's gonna end up losing a trailer.

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  3. An Idaho County, Idaho divorce is an extra-legal proceeding that saves the court and attorney's fees.

    Bob rules

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  4. Heh

    just shot myself in the leg with my 20 guage.

    Heh. owww


    Bob ru..............

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  5. Why is divorce so expensive?

    Because it's worth it.

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  6. West-Running Brook

    ‘Fred, where is north?’

    ‘North? North is there, my love.
    The brook runs west.’

    ‘West-running Brook then call it.’
    (West-Running Brook men call it to this day.)
    ‘What does it think it’s doing running west
    When all the other country brooks flow east
    To reach the ocean? It must be the brook
    Can trust itself to go by contraries
    The way I can with you — and you with me –
    Because we’re — we’re — I don’t know what we are.
    What are we?’

    “Young or new?

    “We must be something.
    We’ve said we two. Let’s change that to we three.
    As you and I are married to each other,
    We’ll both be married to the brook. We’ll build
    Our bridge across it, and the bridge shall be
    Our arm thrown over it asleep beside it.
    Look, look, it’s waving to us with a wave
    To let us know it hears me. ”

    “Why, my dear,
    That wave’s been standing off this jut of shore –”
    (The black stream, catching a sunken rock,
    Flung backward on itself in one white wave,
    And the white water rode the black forever,
    Not gaining but not losing, like a bird
    White feathers from the struggle of whose breast
    Flecked the dark stream and flecked the darker pool
    Below the point, and were at last driven wrinkled
    In a white scarf against the far shore alders.)
    “That wave’s been standing off this jut of shore
    Ever since rivers, I was going to say,’
    Were made in heaven. It wasn’t waved to us. ”

    “It wasn’t, yet it was. If not to you
    It was to me — in an annunciation. ”

    “Oh, if you take it off to lady-land,
    As’t were the country of the Amazons
    We men must see you to the confines of
    And leave you there, ourselves forbid to enter,-
    It is your brook! I have no more to say. ”

    “Yes, you have, too. Go on. You thought of something. ”

    “Speaking of contraries, see how the brook
    In that white wave runs counter to itself.
    It is from that in water we were from
    Long, long before we were from any creature.
    Here we, in our impatience of the steps,
    Get back to the beginning of beginnings,
    The stream of everything that runs away.
    Some say existence like a Pirouot
    And Pirouette, forever in one place,
    Stands still and dances, but it runs away,
    It seriously, sadly, runs away
    To fill the abyss’ void with emptiness.
    It flows beside us in this water brook,
    But it flows over us. It flows between us
    To separate us for a panic moment.
    It flows between us, over us, and with us.
    And it is time, strength, tone, light, life and love-
    And even substance lapsing unsubstantial;
    The universal cataract of death
    That spends to nothingness — and unresisted,
    Save by some strange resistance in itself,
    Not just a swerving, but a throwing back,
    As if regret were in it and were sacred.
    It has this throwing backward on itself
    So that the fall of most of it is always
    Raising a little, sending up a little.
    Our life runs down in sending up the clock.
    The brook runs down in sending up our life.
    The sun runs down in sending up the brook.
    And there is something sending up the sun.
    It is this backward motion toward the source,
    Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in,
    The tribute of the current to the source.
    It is from this in nature we are from.
    It is most us. ”

    “To-day will be the day….You said so. ”

    “No, to-day will be the day
    You said the brook was called West-running Brook. ”
    “To-day will be the day of what we both said.”

    b

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  7. 100 bushel straw, 10 bushel wheat, renewed loan

    b

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  8. With my luck, It'd be Rufus, aka Mr. Ethanol, and we'd be falling-down drunk most of the time, and ultimately burn to death in a cellulosic still accident.

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  9. Here we go again, another illegal-loving GWB clone wrt the border:

    Perry does not think the U.S. should build a wall spanning the entire Mexican border.

    Perry has been criticized by some fellow conservatives as being too lenient on illegal immigration issues. Unlike fellow GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Michele Bachmann, Perry does not think the U.S. should build a wall spanning the entire Mexican border. Perry also has supported discounted tuition rates for the children of illegal immigrants at Texas universities, and he has said Arizona's tough-on-immigration law wouldn't be right for Texas.

    As governor, Perry was one of the first to talk about immigration by breaking out the issue of border security, a move that has won him support from conservative Hispanics. But he angered Hispanic leaders in June by endorsing legislation that would have prohibited cities from adopting "sanctuary" rules for handling suspected immigrants.

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  10. Perry is all hat, no cattle. All he's got is some rugged good looks and a great ability to remake himself. He was campaign manager for Ozone Al, for Christ's sake.


    b

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  11. Perry - 100 bushel straw, 10 bushel wheat.

    b

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  12. With luck, all those billboard advertisements asking all women that have had sex with Perry to come forward will pay dividends.

    What have we come to - the democrats are shameless, but hell, they used to be Perry's people.

    b

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  13. Simply don't know what to say about those two kids, and their parents. I do remember another case like that not so long ago where the doctors were able to separate the two kids, successfully as I recall.

    All four here seem to be doing remarkably well in a really tough situation.

    b

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  14. I do know what to say - they are providing a standard of conduct for us all.

    b

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  15. "Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time's swiftness, which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment"

    William Blake

    ----
    I hope the production chief opened the loading hatches above and the service door below on that grain bin last night to let the cool in or we'll all be bacon by 9:30 when the play ends.




    b

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