Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

HOME "FOR SALE" SIGNS COMING DOWN IN CONNECTICUT TOWN (VIDEO)

For sale signs a bit tacky?  Give the wrong impression of a town?  Unneeded because people search for homes online?  For all of the above reasons and more, the town of New Canaan, Connecticut is experimenting with a six month ban on "For Sale" signs in front of homes.

But I think the most important reason may be the following:

They don’t want people to know how many people are fleeing high tax areas like Connecticut. While Massachusettes may be the worst state in terms of raw state taxes, when you add up the total state and local tax burden for residents, it’s actually barely in the top ten of the worst. New York and Connecticut hold the top (or actually bottom) spots, with 12.7% and 12.6% of residents’ income being vacuumed up respectively. (Alaska, Wyoming and South Dakota are the least taxed by that standard in case you were curious.) This is no doubt a contributing factor to Connecticut’s place on the list of states where the most people are leaving. They come in fourth, trailing only Illinois, New Jersy and New York.

COCA-COLA ADVERTISEMENTS

These historical advertisements should warn us to be a tad skeptical about contemporary ads (of whatever sort...)

And not this from the "Cola Industry!"

 

FERTILITY AND LIFE EXPECTANCY RATES

ALABAMA COACH BEAR BRYANT - "IT DON'T COST NOTHIN' TO BE NICE"

I received the following from a friend and then tracked down the writer, Larry Burton.

At a Touchdown Club meeting many years before his death, Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant told the following story:

"I had just been named the new head coach at Alabama and was off in my old car down in South Alabama recruiting a prospect who was supposed to have been a pretty good player and I was havin' trouble finding the place. Getting hungry I spied an old cinder block building with a small sign out front that simply said "Restaurant."

"I pull up, go in and every head in the place turns to stare at me. Seems I'm the only white fella in the place. But the food smelled good so I skip a table and go up to a cement bar and sit. A big ole man in a tee shirt and cap comes over and says, "What do you need?" I told him I needed lunch and what did they have today? He says, "You probably won't like it here, today we're having chitlins, collared greens and black eyed peas with cornbread. I'll bet you don't even know what chitlins are, do you?" I looked him square in the eye and said, "I'm from Arkansas, I've probably eaten a mile of them. Sounds like I'm in the right place." They all smiled as he left to serve me up a big plate. When he comes back he says, "You ain't from around here then?"

SHOULD YOU GO TO THE STORE LOOKING GRUBBY?

Or to put it differently, would you agree that "fixing yoursel up a bit" is a way of being polite?   Match your thoughts with this article, a sure-fire discussion starter.  

"I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT" - HOUSEHOLD HINTS AND PRACTICAL TIPS

From an email:  (Be sure to click "continue reading..." below)

 Place a rubber band around an open paint can to wipe your

brush on, and keep paint off the side of the can

 

Use bread clips to save flip-flops with split holes.

Use a post-it note to catch drilling debris

JAY NORDLINGER - SUPER BOWL HALFTIME OBSERVATION

Nordlinger observes:

At the end of the halftime show, they displayed the words “World Peace.” They never, ever say “World Freedom,” do they? Never.

In a different vein, Nordlinger notes the music used in Super Bowl commercials:

1) I wish Beethoven could know they were using his music to sell Coca-Cola during the Super Bowl. (“Coca-Cola? Super Bowl?”) (The music was from his Fifth Symphony.)

2) There was a hint of Wagner in a Lexus commercial. (A motif from The Ring.)

3) There was Verdi in a Doritos commercial. (“La donna è mobile,” from Rigoletto.)

4) There was Bach in a Time-Warner Cable commercial. (C-major prelude from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier.)

CHARLES MURRAY - "THE NEW AMERICAN DIVIDE"

The subtitle of Murray's Wall Street Journal article reads:

 "The ideal of an 'American way of life;' is fading as the working class falls further away from institutions like marriage and religion and the upper class becomes more isolated."

Murray compares statistics of an upper-middle-class Boston suburb with a working class neighborhood in Philadelphia in areas of marriage, single parenthood, industriousness, crime, and religiosity.  On the last, Murray writes:

It is worrisome for the culture that the U.S. as a whole has become markedly more secular since 1960, and especially worrisome that Fishtown [Philadelphia working-class neighborhood] has become much more secular than Belmont [the upper-middle-class Boston suburb]. It runs against the prevailing narrative of secular elites versus a working class still clinging to religion, but the evidence from the General Social Survey, the most widely used database on American attitudes and values, does not leave much room for argument.

For example, suppose we define "de facto secular" as someone who either professes no religion at all or who attends a worship service no more than once a year. For the early GSS surveys conducted from 1972 to 1976, 29% of Belmont and 38% of Fishtown fell into that category. Over the next three decades, secularization did indeed grow in Belmont, from 29% in the 1970s to 40% in the GSS surveys taken from 2006 to 2010. But it grew even more in Fishtown, from 38% to 59%.  [my bolding]

Murray makes many other comparisons between the two groups and is obviously concerned.  The unity of culture we knew in the 1960s does not prevail today.  He writes:

As I've argued in much of my previous work, I think that the reforms of the 1960s jump-started the deterioration. Changes in social policy during the 1960s made it economically more feasible to have a child without having a husband if you were a woman or to get along without a job if you were a man; safer to commit crimes without suffering consequences; and easier to let the government deal with problems in your community that you and your neighbors formerly had to take care of.

NEW YORK CITY BANS CHURCHES FROM MEETING IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Update 1/11/12 - FRC has initiated a petition:

Equal access means equal access. Right? Not for Christians in New York City.

Last week the city's Department of Education reversed course on its policy of allowing religious congregations the use of public schools for Sunday worship services, sending pastors packing with just six weeks to find a new home.

For the last ten years, New York's Department of Education has given at least 60 small, mostly Christian, upstart or itinerant congregations the option to hold their weekend services in any one of the city's empty school buildings provided, of course, they pay to use the facilities - a nice benefit to the cash strapped public education system.

When possible, public schools should and have customarily been made available to community organizations of every stripe. It's called equal access. But by essentially disallowing some groups over others because, in this instance, they are religious, NY's Department of Education has engaged in nothing other than viewpoint discrimination.

This Thursday, pastors from across New York City will be gathering at Mayor Bloomberg's State of the City address at Morris High School to protest this troubling discrimination.

From Tocqueville's America to today's, community groups, fraternal societies, churches and other voluntary associations have been the hallmark and backbone of our society, fostering networks of support and civic engagement. We should be encouraging not evicting these congregations. The fact that they're doing it on religious grounds only makes it all the more insulting to right sensibility.

Sign our petition to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to stop the city's discrimination against churches and grant them equal access for building use.

HUMAN INTEREST STORY OF 2011 - VIVIAN MAIER, STREET PHOTOGRAPHER

Actually, I guess the story broke a year ago, but it was today that a friend forwarded the story to me.  (HT: JoeF)  Enjoy.

 

RANDOM ITEMS

--  Obama's Muslim Advisers  Block Middle Eastern Christians' Access to White House

--  McDonald's comes under fire for pathogens in its child play area -

-- Dennis Prager: Are Evangelicals or secular leftists more irrational

-- The Washington Post is deathly afraid of Marco Rubio's appeal as a GOP Vice Presidential candidate so it is trying to destroy him.

-- More kids sleep with TV, Study Finds . .

-- Not So Free Speech in New Jersey

MICHAEL NOVAK - THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Kathryn Jean Lopez interviewed Michael Novak (author of two recent books), who came forth with the thought for the day:

NOVAK: A wise teacher once told our class: Keep a worn journal by the bed, and write in it every night — five minutes, no more — jotting down the most memorable image (or even insight) of the day. Four minutes if you must. But do it. You will be surprised how this will teach you to notice many vivid images each day, and many insights. Only choose one at night, though, “to snatch from the flames.”

LANGUAGE USAGE: "PROXIMITY" OR "CLOSE PROXIMITY"

I recently read a sentence that struck me as unusual:

Picture Egypt as a vacant lot in which a dozen or so combustible elements--a leaking oil can here; some dry wood over there; patches of desiccated grass--sit in varying degrees of proximity to one another, while the boys who play in the lot light cigarettes.  Chances are, something will catch fire."

What's unusual about that first sentence?  Answer:  It uses the word "proximity" without its normal partner "close" linked to it.  Saying "close proximity" has always struck me as redundant, and somewhat ignorant.  My online dictionary defines "proximity" as "nearness in place, time, order, occurrence, or relation."

I'm far from expert in English usage, and don't mean to be pedantic, it's just that I was genuinely surprised to see the word used in a proper way.

DON'T KNOW WHEN TO STOP . . .

I enjoyed Jason Gay's reflections on eating too much at a big meal -- not knowing when to  stop.  I could identify.  This was to set up his argument that sports schedules should be lean and mean to keep fans hungry for more.  Since satiety is the enemy, Jason advocates the best-of-five series over the best-of seven series.   But he begins (quite entertainingly) talking about eating::

We're a nation of presumed gluttons—allegedly desperate for more, more, more. But how much do we really need?

Not long ago, I ordered a salad for dinner (I know: how thrilling! Want to buy the movie rights?)

When it arrived, I thought someone had made a mistake: The kitchen had prepared a Caesar fit for the Purdue University football banquet.

This was not a dish, or a bowl, but a trough that would not fit in the overhead compartment of an airplane. The waiter practically had to carry it with a harness, and when he plopped it on the table, as if it were fresh roadkill, he gave a look of unspoken disgust, as if to say, "Knock yourself out, elastic waistband!"

Of course, I soon found myself doing the thing that many of us do when faced with an oversized plate, which is to embrace the challenge, and eat beyond reasonable limits. I made a series of mental contracts—stop here, okay here, okay here—that were quickly broken, until all that was left was one lonely crouton, soggy in dressing. Then I ate that, too. I was filled with parmesan and self-loathing.

"The meal is not over when I'm full," the comedian Louis CK once said.

"The meal is over when I hate myself."

The thing is, we don't want so much. We need balance and portion control. We don't have to have the biggest car, or house, or TV, or Caesar salad.

And we don't need so much from sports, either. . . . [more . . .]

Good writing! 

WHAT DO "BLACK ENGLISH" AND "MODERN HEBREW" HAVE IN COMMON?

In a review of John McWhorter's book, What Language Is, Erin McKean writes:

"Do you think Black English is a "dialect" full of "mistakes"?  You're likely to change your mind about its "languageness" after reading Mr. McWhorter's careful explanation of the similarities between Black English and Modern Hebrew -- both being slightly simplified versions of their 'parent' languages, Standard English and Biblical Hebrew.

 

HEARTWARMING

Jonah Goldberg posted this YouTube video and wrote:

If this isn’t the best thing you see all weekend, you’re living a charmed life. A man with autism stumbles on the National Anthem and the crowd comes to the rescue. Just a wonderful display of humanity.

Me: Just wonderful... 

 

"MOTHER'S DAY" CAN BE PAINFUL

Justin Taylor's blog post raised my consciousness.  He linked to Russell Moore's post on being sensitive to the infertile.  A reader of Taylor's post added:

Pastors, if there are two things I would add they would be as follows.

First, please avoid making a distinction between mothers and non-mothers in a physical way (e.g. having all the moms stand up or giving flowers to all the moms). I well remember sitting in a Father’s Day service where all the dads were asked to stand. I felt like there was a huge neon sign over me that kept flashing “not able to have kids, not able to have kids.” My wife felt it keenly as well: she began to weep. The most pastorally sensitive leaders I know avoid this like the plague. Instead, they acknowledge the day and proceed to pray earnestly for the full range of emotions that are being experienced on that day (since it is often quite painful, not just for those unable to have kids, but for those estranged from their moms, those moms who are estranged from their kids, those who have recently lost a mother, etc.).

This leads to the second thing. As Moore indicates, it is important to recognize that there are many conflicting emotions going on during a Mother’s Day service. It is crucially important to pastor all the people through that time. Here is the prayer I would offer on Mother’s Day:

QUICK TAKES

 - Daily Caller - Sen. Inhofe turns tables on global warming ambushers -- and gets it on tape [video]

- John Fund - "What's at Stake in Wisconsin's Budget Battle"  "Who's in charge of our political system, voters or unions?"(WSJ)

"Ending dues deductions breaks the political cycle in which government collects dues, gives them to the unions, who then use the dues to back their favorite candidates and also lobby for bigger government and more pay and benefits," Mr. Siegel told me.

- Marcel Dicke and Arnold Van Huis - "The Six-Legged Meat of the Future"  (WSJ)

"Insects are nutritious and easy to raise without harming the environment. They also have a nice nutty taste."

- Kay S. Hymowitz - Where Have the Good Men Gone?  Hymowitz argues that too many men in their 20s are living in a new kind of extended adosescence.  (WSJ)

Not so long ago, the average American man in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, financial independence, marriage and children. Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. This "pre-adulthood" has much to recommend it, especially for the college-educated. But it's time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn't bring out the best in men.

SKILL AND NOSTALGIA CREATE AN 1895 STREET SCENE MASTERPIECE

I wish I had 1/100th of this man's ability to make things.  He has spent 30 years creating an 1895 street scene in his basement.  You've got to see this!

 

MAYOR BLOOMBERG'S NEW YORK SNOW REMOVAL

The following photo (Pamela Geller) illustrates the point Charlotte Hays makes below:

The blizzard is definitely a force for conservatism, and not only because it has had the global-warming crowd scrambling for explanations. The blizzard reveals something basic:  Liberals in government want to tell us what to eat, counsel us about how and when to die, and in general attempt to engineer our lives. But when reality knocks, they can’t do the basic stuff such as clearing the streets so that newborns don’t die in bloody apartment-building lobbies. Mayor Bloomberg may be receiving an unfair amount of criticism for his lackluster performance in coping with Mother Nature, given the almost unprecedented nature of the storm, but the unplowed city streets provide a metaphor for the nanny state: It can order us to do anything, but it can’t take care of the basic obligations of government.

Update: Slow Clean-Up was Union "Budget Protest!"

SHORT 12 QUESTION "NEWS IQ POP QUIZ"

It's short and easy.  Click here.   Jonah Goldberg wrote:

This is a pretty depressing news quiz by Pew. What’s depressing is how easy it is. For the record, I got 12 out of 12, though I think a person who describes themselves as well-informed on current events could be forgiven for missing maybe 2 or 3, maybe even 4. But 4% of those who took the quiz got 0 right. And it looks like 30% of respondents got 3 or fewer right.

Me:  I got 10 of 12.  Try it.  It takes less than 5 minutes.

200 years in 4 minutes

From an e-mail.  Worth viewing.

 

STEVE SAINT'S MAVERICK FLYING CAR (FOR REAL!

Click here for the 6 minute video. It's the invention of Steve Saint, the son of one of the four missionaries killed in Ecuador many years ago (most mentioned was Jim Elliot).  Steve shows footage and explains the car.

I was fascinated and did a little more internet exploring.  Click here and then choose "The Maverick Flying Car" video.   It's 8 minutes long and goes into more detail.  The flying car is utterly, utterly fascinating.  This is aviation history taking place right now!

Popular Mechanics came out with a major article in its October 27, 2010 edition.  The vehicle is now street and air legal!  It will do zero to 60 in 3.9 seconds; it easily does over 80 mph on the ground and about 40 mph in the air. 

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS BLOG

If you haven't yet discovered Tim's "Random Observations" blog, it wouldn't surprise me if you wanted to add it to your bookmarks. When I pop by every so often, I am invariably treated to several original thought pieces of an extremely high caliber.  Tonight, for example, I greatly appreciated his post, "Detecting Religion in Atheists." I also valued his post, "The Origin of the Flat Earth," which taught me that "no one before the 1830s believed medieval people thought the earth was flat."  That was a charge invented, or should I say, "concocted" by atheists.  I appreciate his level-headed, dispassionate observation displayed in his post, "What's at Stake in the Intelligent Design Debate?"  There's a lot more to be found at his blog.  Happy reading! 

IT'S NOT LACK OF EXERCISE CAUSING OBESITY; IT'S EATING TOO MUCH!

The British Telegraph reports "Greed not laziness explains obesity epidemic."

A study has found that over the past 30 years, average calorific intake has increased by at least 500 calories a day, while exercise levels have changed little.

The study is the first major piece of research to quantify the relative contributions of food and exercise habits to the obesity epidemic.   Read on...

Me:  I don't doubt that people are getting fatter; I can see that for myself.  I just wonder how researchers determine relative caloric intake.  Do they consult how many hamburgers MacDonalds sells?

"DENIM'S AN INFANTILE UNIFORM FOR JUVENILIZED NATION" - IS GEORGE WILL RIGHT?

George Will's article can be found here.  He quotes Daniel Akst who denounced denim as a manifestation of “the modern trend toward undifferentiated dressing, in which we all strive to look equally shabby.”   Will contends, "Denim is the carefully calculated costume of people eager to communicate indifference to appearances."  He says a lot more too.

For which he received multiple denunciations.  Take Ed Morrissey's for example:

People don’t wear denim as an affectation to seem indifferent to sartorial splendor.  They wear jeans because they’re (a) mostly inexpensive in comparison to other sportswear choices, (b) remarkably durable, and (c) resistant to the whims of fashion.  They match almost every kind of shirt or blouse, and they work in almost every kind of weather.

Or Michelle Malkin:

Er. Don’t know about you, but in my case, denim is the “costume” of normal people who like wearing something comfortable and inexpensive in the home office, to the supermarket, on the road, and at the kids’ soccer matches and horse-riding lessons. (And yes, even when they are doing Fox News segments!) Busy, budget-conscious wives are grateful to busy, budget-conscious husbands who wear jeans that don’t have to be ironed. This is not an “indifference to appearances.” This is attention to frugality, practicality, and time constraints.

James Lileks:

We all may wear jeans now, but judging from my recent trip to Disneyworld, we all wear different shirts with an astonishing array of logos, corporate identities, slogans, pictures and other examples of personal expression. No one strives to look equally shabby. Shabbiness may be the end result, but people are keenly interested in carving out a particular niche identity on the front of their shirts.

Me:  Of the responses noted above, no one discussed the appropriateness of wearing jeans to funerals, weddings, or church.  I've seen jeans worn at all such occasions (not to mention shorts).  It's  become  extremely common at church.  And I confess, I wince a little. 

Should there be a dress code for certain occasions?  I think so, especially funerals and weddings.  But there's also an aesthetic consideration.  Should those who look at our appearance have to endure it,  rather than appreciate and enjoy it?  Is there a reason why we enjoy walking in a flower garden? 

IT'S ALWAYS A PLEASURE TO LOOK AT OTHER PEOPLE'S DESKS

It makes me feel better about my own.  Here is a picture of the late William F. Buckley, Jr. at his desk.

And here is a picture of the great New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright, at his desk.   

Handwrite a letter? Are you kidding?

Is it the last gasp of a dying art?  (HT: Kathryn Jean Lopez)  Click here.  Check out the comments, also.  One person suggests writing a note, scanning it, and attaching it to an e-mail.  I've never tried that. 

So often I am late in remembering a friend's birthday that I do the next best thing:  scurry to send an e-card.  But I feel slightly guilty.  Still, (I comfort myself), an e-card at least lets the friend know they have been remembered.  Far better than nothing. 

But I agree with what others have written.  A handwritten note is something more and more to be appreciated and (in some cases) treasured.

John Updike (1932-2009) Wrote a Magnificent Poem on Christ's Resurrection

John Updike, the American writer, died yesterday at 76.  I hadn't read his poem, "Seven Stanzas at Easter," until yesterday.  I think it magnificent.    (HT: Justin Taylor)

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

For remembrances and evaluations, see Russell Moore Charlotte Allen, and Mike Potemra who disagrees with Charlotte Allen on the place of sex in Updike's novels.

I CHOKED UP WHEN I READ THIS . . .

[SAN DIEGO – A grieving father and husband who lost his wife, two young daughters and mother-in-law when a Marine fighter jet crashed into their home on Monday thanked everyone who has supported him and said he does not blame the pilot of the disabled plane.

“Nobody expected such a horrible thing to happen, especially right here, you know, our house,” Don Yoon said at a Tuesday news conference in front of his decimated home in University City. “I believe my wife and two babies and mother-in-law are in heaven with God, and I know God is taking care of them.”   [More . . .]

It's the video that really moved me.   Michelle Malkin has supplied us with an address to which one can send a card:

Dong Yun Yoon
c/o Rev. Kevin Lee
Korean United Methodist Church
3520 Mount Acadia Blvd
San Diego, CA 92111

WHAT'S IT LIKE LIVING IN A SMALL TOWN?

I haven't had any first-hand experience living in a small town, but Paul Gregory Alms does a terrific job describing what it's like.  He pastors a Lutheran Church in Catawba, North Carolina, population about 700.  A key word he uses to describe living in a small town is "connection."  I think a lot of us would be very different people if we lived in a small town, just as I think we'd be different people if we had grown up in a very large family.  I enjoyed reading Alms' essay.

MASSIVE WAVES A MYSTERY IN MAINE

I found this article in the Boston Globe a reminder that the unexpected, the unexplained, the weird and the uncanny, can arrive "out of nowhere."  We don't know everything.  What seems consistent and "uniform" may not be so.   We cannot foresee all that can happen.  We live in a mysterious world and an even more mysterious universe.  It should make us humble.  (HT: Drudge)

HUGH HEWITT INTERVIEWS VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

Hugh Hewitt [pictured at the left], for those who do not know him, is an extraordinary man, a lawyer, author, columnist and talk-show host.  Victor Davis Hanson, one of the wisest of men, a historian and classicist, sat down with Hewitt for an extraordinary two hour interview, the transcript of which can be found here.   Their discussion covers the state of the world, the elections, the culture, and a whole lot more.  Take the time to read it.  You will be well rewarded.  If you prefer, you can listen to the podcast of hour one, and the podcast of hour two. If I can find the time, I may later come back and provide some excerpts.  Again, the transcript of the interview can be found here.

ON BEING GOVERNED BY THE FIRST FEW NAMES IN A PHONEBOOK. . .

I've always been amused by William F. Buckley's opinion on who would govern best, Harvard profs or ordinary citizens.  Roger Kimball muses on that old WFB line and a reader adds a twist.  Kimball writes (HT: Mark Steyn):

In the early 1960s, Bill Buckley famously observed that he would rather be governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston phone book than the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.

After my post last weekend re Governor Palin, a number of readers modified the thought along the following:

I would rather be governed by the first 500* names in the Wasilla, AK phone book than by the editors of The Harvard Law Review.

(*Presumably reduced from 2,000 because, what with all those five-kid households, there probably aren't 2,000 names in the Wasilla book.)

Me: Without a doubt.

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, YOU'RE IN EXCELLENT COMPANY

 Melinda Beck tells us:

• J.K. Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers before a small London house picked up “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.”
• Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor who said he “lacked imagination.”
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high-school varsity basketball team sophomore year.
• Decca Records turned down a contract with the Beatles, saying "We don't like their sound."
• It took Thomas Edison 1,000 tries before he invented the light bulb. (”I didn’t fail 1,000 times,” he told a reporter.  “The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”)

CITY LIGHTS ARE OBSCURING OUR STARRY NIGHT

This is a fascinating (and disturbing) article from the Wall Street Journal.

Around the world, the night sky is vanishing in a fog of artificial light, which a coalition of naturalists, astronomers and medical researchers consider one of the fastest growing forms of pollution, with consequences for wildlife, people's health -- and the human spirit.  (more . . .)
 

MAKING USE OF FLEETING MINUTES AND NOT WASTING TIME

I found the following words of William Barclay challenging:

"Often we find ourselves with a small amount of time; and often we know that there is something which ought to be done; and often we say, 'It's not worth beginning with so little time available.'

It is a dangerous phrase, because it means that the half hour is wasted--and wasted half hours soon mount up to a considerable amount of time.  If we work a five-day week and waste half an hour each day that is two and a half hours.  Over a year that is one hundred and thirty hours; and one hundred and thirty hours is not much short of a week--a whole week's time and work wasted and gone. - From Daily Celebration, 1971, p.172

WHAT THE WORLD REALLY ADMIRES

Peggy Noonan, in writing about media coverage of Tim Russert, makes a great point:

In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn't. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn't, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. At the end it gives its greatest tributes to generosity, honesty, courage, mercy, talents well used, talents that, brought into the world, make it better. That's what it really admires. That's what we talk about in eulogies, because that's what's important. We don't say, "The thing about Joe was he was rich." We say, if we can, "The thing about Joe was he took care of people."

Another excerpt follows:

TIME MAG: 50 BEST WEBSITES 2008

Time: 50 Best Websites 2008.

WORLD CLOCK

Very handy and useful.  All the other data on the site I can't vouch for.  I'm becoming more and more skeptical of data.  Sorry.  (HT: Jonah Goldberg at the Corner)  Here's another world clock site.

THE TOP 100 PRODUCTIVITY AND LIFEHACK BLOGS

Click here.      (HT: Evangelical Outpost)

DUBAI - ARCHITECTURE AND GROWTH

Amazing.  Click here.

USES FOR WD-40

This is really good and very practical.  Click here.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS NOW MEETING IN DAVOS, SWITZERLAND

Wow.  What a collection of Bigwigs!  The World Economic Forum is meeting in Davos, Switzerland for its annual meeting.  Jay Nordlinger of National Review has begun his annual coverage, and he includes a beginning list of notables:

For Those Who Remember "Burma Shave" Highway Commercials . . .

and want a little stroll down memory lane, click here for a neat video.   - For a fascinating history of the Burma Shave company (complete with the cute rhymes), click here.

Bedbug Epidemic Attacks New York City

Pretty amazing!  Story here.   (HT: Drudge)

25 Skills Every Man Should Know

A useful article by the editors of Popular Mechanics.

25 Unexpectedly Useful Websites for the Uncommonly Curious

Click here.

Have We Begun to Grasp the Rapid Changes Taking Place in the World?

Redheads on the Way out?

Jonah Goldberg at "The Corner" posts the following:

Redheads may be extinct within a century:

The current National Geographic magazine reports that less than two per cent of the world's population has natural red hair, created by a mutation in northern Europe thousands of years ago.

Global intermingling, which broadens the availability of possible partners, has reduced the chances of redheads meeting and producing little redheads of their own.

It takes only one red-haired parent to produce ginger-headed babies, but two redheads obviously create a much stronger possibility.

If the gingers really want to save themselves they should move to Scotland.

An estimated 40 per cent of Scots carry the red gene and 13 per cent actually have red hair.