Death's ally

This is the ally in Chicago where John Dillinger (or somebody who looked like Dillinger was shot and killed by the FBI, the alley lets out into another, broader alley.

Mob boss

This is the Oak Park Illinois (I think that town was Oak Park) home of Mafia Don Tony Accardo, the longest reigning and most successful Mob boss in the entire history of organized crime in the US or Europe, no one else even comes close. The house in a convent today. When Accardo lived there, the faucets were gold, there was a bowling alley and Accardo kept a sound proofed conference room in the basement.

Go ahead, laugh at that!

A duck walks into a drug store and gets some chap stick

The clerk asks “Will that be cash or charge?”

The duck says “Put it on my bill”

A father takes his son out to lunch. The waitress comes over and the father asks “What would you like son?”

The boy answers “A God damn hamburger” and the father clips him behind the ear.

The waitress waits a second and says “Little boy what you like to order?” and the boys says “You can beat your ass it won’t be

Courage

Courage

By Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.

The child's first step,

as awesome as an earthquake.

The first time you rode a bike,

wallowing up the sidewalk.

The first spanking when your heart

went on a journey all alone.

When they called you crybaby

or poor or fatty or crazy

and made you into an alien,

you drank their acid

and concealed it.

Later,

if you faced the death of bombs and bullets

you did not do it with a banner,

you did it with only a hat to

comver your heart.

You did not fondle the weakness inside you

though it was there.

Your courage was a small coal

that you kept swallowing.

If your buddy saved you

and died himself in so doing,

then his courage was not courage,

it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,

if you have endured a great despair,

then you did it alone,

getting a transfusion from the fire,

picking the scabs off your heart,

then wringing it out like a sock.

Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,

you gave it a back rub

and then you covered it with a blanket

and after it had slept a while

it woke to the wings of the roses

and was transformed.

Later,

when you face old age and its natural conclusion

your courage will still be shown in the little ways,

each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,

those you love will live in a fever of love,

and you'll bargain with the calendar

and at the last moment

when death opens the back door

you'll put on your carpet slippers

and stride out.

Anne Sexton (November 9, 1928 – October 4, 1974) was an American poet, known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book Live or Die. Themes of her poetry include her long battle against depression and mania, suicidal tendencies, and various intimate details from her private life, including her relationships with her husband and children.

Sexton suffered from severe mental illness for much of her life, her first manic episode taking place in 1954. After a second episode in 1955 she met Dr. Martin Orne, who became her long-term therapist at the Glenside Hospital. It was Dr. Orne who encouraged her to take up poetry

On October 4, 1974, Sexton had lunch with Kumin to revise galleys for Sexton's manuscript of The Awful Rowing Toward God, scheduled for publication in March 1975 (Middlebrook 396). On returning home she put on her mother's old fur coat, removed all her rings, poured herself a glass of vodka, locked herself in her garage, and started the engine of her car, committing suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Be there, its harder than it sounds

What to be well liked?

Ask for nothing.

Learn to laugh at yourself.

Listen with attention, people love attention.

Don’t complain, people have their own problems.

Teach

Give

What is love?

Love alone could waken love. Pearl S. Buck

             

Selflove is the source of all our other loves. Pierre Corneille

             

Oh, love will make a dog howl in rhyme. Francis Beaumont

             

No, there's nothing half so sweet in life as love's young dream. Thomas Moore

To enlarge or illustrate this power and effect of love is to set a candle in the sun. Robert Burton

             

Bid me to love, and I will give a loving heart to thee. Robert Herrick

One must not trifle with love. Alfred de Musset

             

Stolen kisses are always sweetest. Leigh Hunt

Words may be false and full of art; Sighs are the natural language of the heart. Thomas Shadwell

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King, Jr.

             

Life is a song  sing it. Life is a game  play it. Life is a challenge  meet it. Life is a dream  realize it. Life is a sacrifice  offer it. Life is love  enjoy it. Sai Baba

             

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies. Martin Luther King, Jr.

             

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Confucius

             

A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. Mignon McLaughlin

             

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection. Buddha 

I made it myself

The art of War

Define love

To good and true love fear is forever affixed. Francois Rabelais

             

When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough. Maurice Maeterlinck

             

Love is an energy which exists of itself. It is its own value. Thornton Wilder

             

We are most alive when we're in love. John Updike

The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time. Lawrence Durrell

In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing. Antonio Porchia

             

Love is love's reward. John Dryden

             

Love is blind. Geoffrey Chaucer

We love but once, for once only are we perfectly equipped for loving. Cyril Connolly

             

All love is vanquished by a succeeding love. Ovid

             

If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile. Lynda Barry

But love's a malady without a cure. John Dryden

             

Love can be unselfish, in the sense of being benevolent and generous, without being selfless. Mortimer Adler

             

In love there are two things, bodies and words. Joyce Carol Oates

             

We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together. Jean de la Bruyere

             

Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being?Igor Stravinsky

             

Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat. Ben Hecht

             

Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.Boethius

In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love. Marc Chagall

I long for the raised voice, the howl of rage or love. Leslie Fiedler 

On Sunday night, Eli stole of my socks. He brought it back on Monday in exchange for a piece of cheese. He then brought the other sock back also in exchange for cheese.

Astronomers discover 60 new worlds, find 'super Earth'

By James Rogers

An international team of astronomers has found 60 new planets orbiting stars close to Earth’s solar system, including a rocky “super Earth.”

The experts also found evidence of an additional 54 planets, bringing the potential discovery of new worlds to 114.

One planet in particular, Gliese 411b, has been generating plenty of attention. Described as a “hot super Earth with a rocky surface,” Gliese 411b is located in the fourth-nearest star system to the Sun, making it the third-nearest planetary system to the Sun, according to the U.K.’s University of Hertfordshire, which participated in the research. Gliese 411b (also known as GJ 411b or Lalande 21185) orbits the star Gliese 411 (or GJ 411).

 Despite the “super Earth” label, Dr. Mikko Tuomi from University of Hertfordshire’s Centre for Astrophysics told Fox News that Gliese 411b is too hot for life to exist on its surface.

Gliese 411 and Gliese 411b are located 8 light years from earth. A light year, which measures distance in space, equals 6 trillion miles.

By way of comparison, the recently-discovered Earth-like planet Proxima b, which orbits the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, is about 4 light years from Earth. A red dwarf is a relatively cool small star.

Tuomi, who was also involved in the discovery of Proxima b, told Fox News that the latest batch of planets marks a significant discovery. “Over the recent years it has been established as a scientific fact that there are more planets in the Universe than there are stars. This means that virtually every star has a planet, or several of them, orbiting it,” he explained, via email. “Our discovery of dozens of new nearby planets highlights this fact. But it also does more. We are now moving on from simply discovering these worlds.”

“In essence, we are now building an observational roadmap for future giant telescopes that can be used to image some or even most of these newly found worlds,” Tuomi added. “This is like mapping an archipelago so that we are familiar with it in the future when taking a closer look at what its islands actually look like.”

The 60 new planets are found orbiting stars that are mostly some 20 to 300 light years away, according to Tuomi.

The discoveries are based on observations taken over 20 years by U.S. astronomers using the Keck-I telescope in Hawaii as part of the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey. During the course of the research, scientists obtained almost 61,000 observations of 1,600 stars, which are now available to the public.

Sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation, the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey harnesses the talents of planet hunters from a number of organizations, including the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C.

The Carnegie Institution of Science also led a team that included MIT to release the data on the almost 61,000 observations of 1,600 stars.

Yeah, its true

Stay positive, it pisses off dumb people

Simple Symphony

The Simple Symphony, Op. 4, is beautiful and worth a listen.

 It was written Benjamin Britten between December 1933 and February 1934 using bits of score that the composer had written for the piano as a teenager, between 1923 and 1926. It was composed for string orchestra and received its first performance in 1934, with Britten conducting an amateur orchestra. He was twenty years old at the time.

It has four movements:

I. Boisterous Bourrée 3'

Themes Used

– Suite No. 1 in E for piano (18 October 1925), second movement (Bourrée: Allegro vivace) – Song (Song) (1923) A Country Dance ('Now the King is home again'), text from Tennyson's The Foresters, for voice and piano.

II. Playful Pizzicato 3'

Themes Used

– Scherzo (piano) (1924) Sonata for Piano in B flat major, op. 5, Scherzo and Trio (Molto vivace) – Song (1924) The Road Song of the "Bandar-Log" ('Here we go in a flung festoon', text by Rudyard Kipling), for voice and piano.

III. Sentimental Sarabande 9'

Themes Used

– Suite No. 3 (for piano) (1925) Suite No. 3, in F♯ minor, for piano, op. 25, Prelude (Allegro di molto) – Waltz for piano (1923) [Waltz in B major for piano], (Tempo di valse)

IV. Frolicsome Finale 3'15"

Themes Used

– Piano Sonata No. 9 (1926) Piano Sonata No. 9, in C♯ minor, op. 38, Finale – Song (1925)

Eight main themes appear in the symphony, with two movements, the most famous is the pizzicato. The entire pieces last about 20 minutes. The second movement is popular with mandolin players as it is pizzicato.

  

ENJOY!

We need to do something like this in the US

India Floats Universal Basic Income to Eradicate Poverty

In India, the government has unveiled a radical proposal to eliminate poverty – providing a universal basic income for all its citizens, while stressing that this is only a concept.

The idea was floated in the country’s just-released annual economic survey that said guaranteeing a stipend to cover every individual’s basic needs would promote social justice.

Chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian, the lead author of the survey, told reporters that the proposal has many challenges. “So it’s an idea whose time is right for further deliberation and discussion and not necessarily immediate implementation,” he said.

The survey suggests that a basic monthly income could replace a string of welfare subsidies for the poor that India currently has in place.

India spends billions of dollars on a rural work program that aims to ensure minimum employment for the poor and on subsidies such as food and fuel. The programs, however, have often been criticized for poor implementation, corruption, waste and very often failing to reach the intended beneficiaries.

To eliminate intermediaries and officials who critics say often siphon off some of the benefits, both the federal and central governments have made efforts to replace the subsidies with direct cash transfers in recent years.

A universal basic income, however, would be much more ambitious and expensive than the current poverty welfare programs and many economists say India simply does not have the resources for such an initiative. Even if the middle class and rich are excluded, it would have to cover more than a billion people. India has a population of 1.3 billion.

 They say calculations in the survey show that ending the major subsidies for the poor would save 2.07 percent of GDP, but a universal basic income would need an outlay that would be more than double, amounting to 4.9 percent of GDP.

The survey considers various options such as covering only women at the start. “Women face worse prospects in almost every aspect of their daily lives - employment opportunities, education, health or financial inclusion,” the survey says.

Some other countries are experimenting with the idea of a universal basic income – Finland has launched a trial program for unemployed residents. In Switzerland, voters rejected such a proposal last year.

The proponents of a basic income say every citizen has the right to a minimum income that ensures his or her basic needs; critics say it takes away the incentive to work.

The annual economic survey also suggested that the controversial currency ban 

implemented by the government last year has taken a toll on the economy. It estimated that growth would be one-quarter to one-half percentage points lower than the earlier forecast of 7 percent, but added that the adverse impact on gross domestic product “will be transitional.”

The government scrapped high value notes making up 86 percent of the country’s currency last November in a bid to crack down on illegal money. The biggest impact of the cash squeeze was on the country’s informal sector, which makes up more than two-thirds of the economy, employs millions and relies heavily on cash transactions.

Liu Xiaobo’s wife gives Tibetan writer a surprise call

WHY DON'T WE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS

A Tibetan writer said she received a surprise call on Thursday from a Chinese dissident’s wife, who has been under house arrest and held incommunicado by the authorities since 2009.

Tsering Woeser said on her Twitter account that Liu Xia, 55, wife of jailed Chinese dissident and Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, told her she has not been in good shape, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reports.

Woeser said Liu spoke with a trembling voice. Liu said she tried to make a phone call to see if it was possible, adding she has been a sick person pretending to be well, according Woeser.

Radio Free Asia tried to contact Liu after the revelation but failed.

A human rights activist claiming to be her friend said the reason Liu called was that she could no longer bear her situation after many years of confinement.

Liu Xiaobo, 61, one of the leaders of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement that was crushed by the army in 1989, was jailed for 11 years in 2009 on subversion charges for organizing a petition urging an end to the country’s one-party rule.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 but was not able to attend the ceremony.

Liu Xia has been under house arrest since her husband’s incarceration.

According to a recent post from Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, Liu Xiaobo’s brothers were forbidden to visit him in jail during the Lunar New Year holiday.

The last time they saw him was in August 2016, according to Apple Daily.

Good words to have

 Adjure 

uh-JOOR 

1: to command solemnly under or as if under oath or penalty of a curse

2: to urge or advise earnestly

Adjure and its synonyms entreat, importune, and implore all mean "to ask earnestly." Adjure implies advising as well as pleading, and is often accompanied by the invocation of something sacred ("in God's name, I adjure you to cease"). Entreat implies an effort to persuade or overcome resistance ("he gently entreated her to stay"). Importune goes further, adding a sense of annoying persistence in trying to break down resistance to a request ("importuning viewers for contributions"). Implore, on the other hand, suggests a great urgency or anguished appeal on the part of the speaker ("she implored the king to have mercy")

Billet-doux 

bill-ee-DOO 

A love letter

The first recorded use of the French word billet doux (literally, "sweet letter") in an English context occurs in John Dryden's 1673 play Marriage a-la-Mode.

Weltanschauung 

 VELT-ahn-show-ung ("ow" as in "cow") 

(Often capitalized Weltanschauung) a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint

The German word Weltanschauung literally means "world view"; it combines Welt ("world") with Anschauung ("view"), which ultimately derives from the Middle High German verb schouwen ("to look at" or "to see"). When we first adopted it from German in the mid-19th century, weltanschauung referred to a philosophical view or apprehension of the universe, and this sense is still the most widely used. It can also describe a more general ideology or philosophy of life.

Ragtag 

RAG-tag 

1: ragged, unkempt

 2: composed of diverse often incongruous elements: motley

Tag and rag was a relatively common expression in the 16th and 17th centuries, and it was often used pejoratively to refer to members of the lower classes of society. By the 18th century, the phrase had been expanded to ragtag and bobtail. That expression could mean either "the lower classes" or "the entire lot of something" (as opposed to just the more desirable parts—the entire unit of an army, for example, not just its more capable soldiers). Something described as ragtag and bobtail, then, was usually common and unspectacular. Ragtag and bobtail was eventually shortened to ragtag, the adjective we know today, which can describe an odd mixture that is often hastily assembled or second-rate

Struwwelpeter

STROO-uhl-pee-tuhr 

A person with long, thick, disheveled hair.

From Struwwelpeter, the title character of the 1845 children’s book Der Struwwelpeter (Shockheaded Peter) by Heinrich Hoffman. Earliest documented use: 1909.

Peradventure 

PER-ud-ven-cher 

1: doubt

2: the possibility of a particular outcome in an uncertain situation : chance

 When Middle English speakers borrowed par aventure from Anglo-French (in which language it means, literally, "by chance"), it was as an adverb meaning "perhaps" or "possibly." Before long, the word was anglicized to peradventure, and turned into a noun as well.

Carceral 

 KAHR-suh-rul 

of, relating to, or suggesting a jail or prison

Our earliest known evidence of carceral—an adjective borrowed directly from Late Latin—dates to the late 16th century, with evidence of incarcerate ("to imprison") appearing shortly thereafter; they're both ultimately from carcer, Latin for "prison." The English verb cancel is also linked to carcer via Latin cancelli, a word meaning "lattice" that likely developed from an alteration of carcer. Carceral is a word that is generally not found outside the confines of academic or legal contexts.

Bovarism

BO-vuh-riz-em 

A romanticized, unrealistic view of oneself.

From Emma Bovary, the title character in Gustave Flaubert’s 1857 novel Madame Bovary. Earliest documented use: 1902.

Nexus 

NEK-sus 

1: connection, link; also : a causal link

2: a connected group or series

3: center, focus

The word comes from nectere, a Latin verb meaning "to bind." A number of other English words are related to nectere. The most obvious is connect, but annex (meaning "to attach as an addition," or more specifically "to incorporate into a political domain") is related as well. When nexus came into English in the 17th century, it meant "connection." Eventually, it took on the additional meaning "connected series" (as in "a nexus of relationships"). In the past few decades it has taken a third meaning: "center" (as in "the trade nexus of the region"), perhaps from the notion that a point in the center of an arrangement serves to join together the objects that surround it.

Gnathonic

na-THON-ik 

Sycophantic.

From Gnatho, a sycophant in the comedy Eunuchus (The Eunuch) by the Roman playwright Terence, written in 161 BCE. The name is coined from the Greek word gnathos (jaw). The subject of Gnatho’s flattery, Thraso, has also given a word to the English language: thrasonical. Earliest documented use: 1637.

Luculent 

LOO-kyuh-lunt 

clear in thought or expression

The Latin noun lux, meaning "light." The English word first appeared in the 15th century with the meaning "brilliant" or "shining," as in "a luculent flame." By the mid-16th century, the "clear in thought or expression" sense had begun to shine, and by that century's end another sense was flickering with the meaning "illustrious" or "resplendent," as in Ben Jonson's 1599 description of a "most debonair and luculent lady." Both the "illustrious" and the "emitting light" senses have fallen out of use, and even the "clear" sense is now rare. Today's writers seem to prefer another lux descendant with a similar meaning: lucid.