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.
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
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
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.
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.