ALBUQUERQUE POLICE FAIL THEIR OATH

Three stops at the V.A. this morning went well, followed by yummy lunch; then I went to a store where I purchase a particular item (Amazon, Staples, etc. sell by the box only) but a different store was in place; went inside and asked, my store moved about a mile away, good directions; found the store, they sell too few of my item, so not in stock; purchased substitute and asked why the move; store lady said that uniformed A.P.D. shut down a majority of stores at the old place, based on COVID compliance chicanery, then ten officers would show up to install a sign warning people away; customer traffic there died off completely, so store lady found a better location: small mall with 30 stores and a McDonald's next door, lots of customer traffic now.

Add that story to the recent letter in the newspaper from somebody whose job is driving around ABQ all day; he complains that A.P.D. is not halting street racing at night, not catching speeders seen all day long, not catching drivers running red lights also seen all day long, not dealing with panhandlers and homeless - in fact, he has noticed for several months now NOT seeing one single traffic stop by A.P.D.

Minimal data here, sure, but given the terrible crime statistics glossed over by ABQ officials, I surmise that there is some kind of 'blue flu' conspiracy and that the patrol officers are hoping that the crime situation gets so bad that more fascist Republicans will be elected to City Council and-or Mayor and that A.P.D. will then be turned loose to employ their jack-booted intention to further instill fear among the already-oppressed citizenry.

COVID is not the only epidemic causing daily life to be ever more dangerous.

The Bright Side

Look on the bright side, guys: Because of COVID variants, teenagers are learning the Greek alphabet.

October 2021 Quotations (54)

"Life is full of constant sordid surprises. Whenever you do anything for art or the glory of God or friendship or a friend’s memory, you find someone across the board looking upon it as a business venture. If you’d thought of it in that light, you’d never have gone into it."
~~ publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. [1892-1984]

"Writing for children is an art in itself, and a most interesting one."
~~ British children's author Enid Blyton [1897-1968]

"Reality is NOT a variable. Your personal power derives from the extent that your viewpoints & beliefs match Objective Reality. Asking whether others match your viewpoints & beliefs is a stupid survey, the question to ask is whether anything that you/they believe matches existential Objective Reality."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"Time is a storm in which we are all lost."
~~ American poet Wm. Carlos Williams [1883-1963]

"Summer afternoon – summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language."
~~ Henry James [1843-1916]

"The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes."
~~ Frank Lloyd Wright [1867-1959]

"A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad."
~~ Theodore Roosevelt [1858-1919]

"The harder the work, the greater the satisfaction in accomplishing it."
~~ Anna May Wong [USA; 1905-61]

"Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement."
~~ philosopher Will Durant [1885-1981]

"Pour ce qui est de l’avenir, il ne s’agit pas de le prévoir, mais de le rendre possible."
"As far as the future is to be expected, it is not a question of predicting it, but of making it possible."
~~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry [1900-44] - in "Citadelle", 1948

"Trump Republicans are running on nothing except lies and hate."
~~ Ian Reifowitz on the DailyKos newsletter, 9/2021

"Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]

"You know [Trump is] crazy. He's crazy and what he did [January 6] is further evidence of his craziness."
~~ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a phone call with U.S. Army Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley

"Gun violence is a public health crisis."
~~ daily newsletter from ThePaper free weekly newspaper in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 9/2021

"Big problems can be such big fun."
~~ line from the "Tango Shalom" movie [2021]

"Never underestimate a psychopath's capacity to do harm"
~~ headline on the DailyKos newsletter, 9/2021

". . . if I were a bird / I would fly about the Earth / seeking the successive autumns."
~~ George Eliot [1819-80]

"The road to hell is paved with both-siderism."
~~ David Corn, Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones Magazine [est. 1976]

"War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times."
~~ historian Howard Zinn [1922-2010] in 2001

"I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
~~ athlete Michael Jordan

"There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do."
~~ baseball great Derek Jeter

"You miss 100 percent of the shots [that] you don’t take."
~~ ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky

"It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up."
~~ football coach Vince Lombardi [1913-70]

"It’s not the will to win that matters — everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters."
~~ football coach Paul William 'Bear' Bryant [1913-83]

"You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them."
~~ baseball great Leroy Robert 'Satchel' Paige [1906-82]

"I don’t count [all] my situps. I only start counting once it starts hurting."
~~ boxing legend Muhammad Ali [1942-2016]

"The only way to prove you are a good sport is to lose."
~~ baseball great Ernie Banks [1931-2015]

"Stubbornness usually is considered a negative; but I think that trait has been a positive for me."
~~ baseball great Cal Ripken, Jr.

"It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters."
~~ boxing great Evander Holyfield

"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard."
~~ high school basketball coach Tim Notke

"Never say never because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion."
~~ athlete Michael Jordan

"Good is not good when better is expected."
~~ sportscaster Vin Scully [b. 1927]

"Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up."
~~ runner Dean Karnazes

"What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose."
~~ tennis champion Andre Agassi

"Each time you let these opportunities slip through your fingers, you’re passing a much harder problem on to the next generation. It’s a very hard thing to swallow that we are relegating children born today and not yet born to a future of dangerous climate impacts."
~~ Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology - 10/2021

'found' t-shirt text: "only in theaters!"
another 'found' t-shirt text: "not actual size"

"There is now research showing that in advanced economies two-thirds of the population are now on the track to be poorer than their parents."
~~ Rana Foroohar, associate editor at "Financial Times" - in 2020

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910]

"He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others."
~~ Dr. Samuel Johnson [1709-84]

"Next in importance to having a good aim is to recognize when to pull the trigger."
~~ David Letterman

"I am a great admirer of mystery and magic. Look at this life - all mystery and magic."
~~ Harry Houdini [1874-1926]

"I have lived a thousand lives and I have loved a thousand loves. I have walked on distant worlds and seen the end of time. Because I read."
~~ sci-fi author George R.R. Martin

"As you know, now Rush Limbaugh is the new face of the Republican Party, but they'll probably go with a different body."
~~ David Letterman

"It's like the Wild West, the Internet. There are no rules."
~~ comedian Steven Wright

"There are things in American culture that want to wipe the class distinction. Blue jeans. Ready-made clothes. Coca-Cola."
~~ literary critic Leslie Fiedler [1917-2003]

"I have written, probably, more books for children than any other writer, from story-books to plays, and can claim to know more about interesting children than most."
~~ British children's author Enid Blyton [1897-1968]

"A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing. One that sounds good, and a real one."
~~ banker John Pierpont 'J.P.' Morgan [1837-1913]

"We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings."
~~ Ursula K. Le Guin [1929-2018]

"The reason many people fail is not for lack of vision but for lack of resolve and resolve is born out of counting the cost."
~~ rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard [1882-1945]

"A cybernetic problem is always connected with the control of a dynamic system."
~~ mathematician & philosopher Norbert Wiener [1894-1964]

"So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why don't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?"
~~ Harriet Beecher Stowe [1811-96]

"The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education."
~~ Paul K. Feyerabend [1924-94]

"Tradition is the illusion of permanance."
~~ Woody Allen

"Each problem that I solved became a rule, which served afterwards to solve other problems."
~~ French/Dutch philosopher René Descartes [1596-1650]

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

Republican National Debt: An Update

You guys being watchful of the federal budget deficits is silly, a glittery diversion to miss the REAL problem, which is the Republican National Debt.

When Reagan took office, the National Debt was ONE TRILLION DOLLARS, which included the entire VietNam War.

At the end of Reagan-Bush (12 years), the National Debt was FOUR TRILLION - the GOP quadrupled it.

Clinton did lots that I don't like, but his fiscal policies shine: in his first term the increase was reduced to 25% and at the end of his second term he handed a BUDGET SURPLUS to George W.

George W. squandered the surplus and quadrupled the National Debt from $5.7 TRILLION to $25 TRILLION -- George W. Bush ran up the most debt of any person in the history of mankind.

Barack Obama saved the world economy before the GOP managed to prevent all his further proposals; in any case, Obama held the National Debt steady at $25T.

The idiot Trump handed $5.8T in loot to the One Percent in only 20 months, and then added more trillions by having the Fed purchase junk bonds from Wall Street at the rate of $1T per month, so that when Trump left office the Republican National Debt stood at $70 TRILLION DOLLARS!! So the Orange Imbecile beat George Dubya's record and now holds the record for running up the most debt of any person in the history of mankind.

Biden has not been in office for a year yet, so the jury there is still out.

Why more seriouser? The Republican National Debt makes each and every resident of the USA an INDENTURED SERVANT, to the tune of $212,000 for each and every man, woman, and child.
But wait, half those people are minors, so that makes it $424,000 for each and every adult.
And if you let Democrats off the hook – not their fault, after all – that makes it $850,000 run up and now owed by each and every fascist Republican.

We just need to restore the U.S. Constitution and figure out how to collect on that debt.

Reason-Based Taxation
The United Federation of Indentured Servants [est. 2010]

July 2021 Quotations (55)

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."
~~ Marcus Aurelius [121-180 C.E.]

"The Constitution ... rested upon the equality of races. This was an error. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
~~ the Confederacy's Vice President, Alexander Stephens [1812-83] - in his "Cornerstone Speech" on 21 March 1861

"He had delusions of adequacy." ~~ playwright & critic Walter Kerr [1913-96]

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." ~~ Irvin S. Cobb [1896-1944]

"Rich people don't create jobs. Jobs create rich people." ~~ blogger Ferguson Foont

“What Galileo and Newton were to the Seventeenth Century, Darwin was to the Nineteenth."
~~ Bertrand Russell [1872-1970] - in "A History of Western Philosophy" [1945]

t-shirt: CAUTION / OVERSIZED / LOAD

"I believe in steel swords, gold coins, and man's wits ... And I believe [that] there once were dragons. I've seen their skulls, after all."
~~ sci-fi author George R.R. Martin

"We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible."
~~ Vince Lombardi [1913-70]

"You have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it."
~~ Flannery O'Connor [1925-64]

"Failure is not an option. It's a lifestyle."
~~ cartoonist Stephan Pastis - (in the "Pearls Before Swine" daily strip, 6/2021)

"Just be sure that [that] you can look at yourself in the mirror every day and be proud of what you've done, whether you're successful or not."
~~ Italian movie producer Dino De Laurentiis [1919-2010]

"Republicans don't believe in science."
~~ Deb Haaland of New Mexico, on Twitter in October 2020

"And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul."
~~ pioneer eco-activist John Muir [1838-1914]

"Every day is more dangerous." ~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]

"I am human, and I think that nothing human is alien to me."
~~ Roman playwright Terence [185?-159? BCE]

"Today, then, as I have suitably freed my mind from all cares, and have secured for myself an assured leisure in peaceful solitude, I shall at last apply myself earnestly and freely to the general overthrow of all my former opinions."
~~ René Descartes [1596-1650]

"Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses, except the intellect itself."
~~ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz [1646-1716]

"The threat of another global financial crisis, like the one that hit in 2008, is very, very low; the risk that we keep our eyes on the most now is cyber risk."
~~ Jerome H. Powell, Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, on 11 April 2021

"There will be more Derek Chauvins, because his conviction alters nothing (about the American system of policing)."
~~ Adam Serwer, staff writer at The Atlantic Magazine

"There is no off position on the genius switch."
~~ David Letterman

"I think it's wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly."
~~ comedian Steven Wright

t-shirt: Party Size !

"So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy."
~~ A.C.L.U. co-founder Roger Nash Baldwin [1884-1981]

"Success doesn’t come from what you do occasionally. It comes from what you do consistently."
~~ motivational speaker Marie Forleo

"We cannot be 'for' or 'against' [artificial intelligence technology], insofar as it is already here and not likely to disappear any time soon."
~~ French anthropologist Régis Meyran

"Fate has its own objectives." ~~ writer Emilie Coulter

"Arrange whatever pieces come your way."
~~ British author Virginia Woolf [1882-1941] - in "A Writer's Diary" [1953]

"Of all the paths [that] you take in life, make sure [that] a few of them are dirt."
~~ pioneer eco-activist John Muir [1838-1914]

"Success is not a jewel that you can purchase and keep for your entire life. On the contrary, the brightest star can fall down at any time and fade away into dust."
~~ Anna May Wong [1905-61]

"Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand."
~~ Putt's Law (from Archibald Putt, 1981)

"The greatest cinematic experience is the human face and it seems to me that silent films can teach us to read it anew."
~~ German filmmaker Wim Wenders

"The object of art is to make eternal the desperately fleeting moment."
~~ Tennessee Williams [1911-83]

"It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper."
~~ Rod Serling [1924-75]

"As you read this, the fascists of America (under the false label Conservative or Republican) are working very hard to destroy the teetering freedoms that provide the facade that the United States is a free country."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"Socialism is the best medicine." ~~ Dr. Susan Rosenthal

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."
~~ Thomas Paine [1737-1809] - in "The Crisis" pamphlets, 1776-83

"The American Civil War was just the point in time when the South was forced to learn what the North had figured out a century or so before. Namely, that's it's cheaper to lease people than to own them."
~~ David White of Tennessee, on Facebook 6/2021

"In Moscow Mitch's world, anything to the left of hunting the poor for sport is 'full bore socialism."
~~ Dwight Gray, on Facebook 6/2021

"We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever."
~~ scientist & TV host Carl Sagan [1934-96]

"I wish [Christopher Hitchens] would have written a book entitled "Where did Noah get two kangaroos?"
~~ Mark Younger

"If God is unable to prevent evil, then he is not all-powerful.
If God is not willing to prevent evil, then he is not all-good.
If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?"
~~ Epicurus [341?–270? B.C.E.]

"If God created the world, his primary concern was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary."
~~ Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-94]

"Accusations of unpatriotism drenched in scorn are a means of stopping debates, not of starting them."
~~ U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright [1905-95]

"Hollywood is the place ... where you can get stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder."
~~ William Faulkner [1897-1962]

"Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen."
~~ British statesman George Savile [1633-95]

"The social contract between humans and dogs might be the best bit of business we have ever done."
~~ Irish journalist Paul Howard

"In proportion as the structure of government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."
~~ George Washington [1732-99], - in his 'Farewell Address', 1796

"The longer I live, the more convinced am I that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum."
~~ British writer George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]

"Republican derangement over the vaccines is killing hundreds of Americans every day &ndash Americans who could easily still be alive."
~~ Teresa Hanafin, reporter at The Boston Globe, 7/2021

"Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind rather than on outward circumstances."
~~ Benjamin Franklin [1706-90]

"I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge - even wisdom. Like art."
~~ Nobel-laureate author Toni Morrison [1931-2019] - in a 2015 essay for The Nation Magazine [est. 1865]

"The past, with its pleasures, its rewards, its foolishness, its punishments, is there for each of us forever, and it should be."
~~ playwright Lillian Hellman [1905-84]

"You're terrific as far as I am concerned."
~~ writer E.B. White [1899-1985]

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

FREE COVID-19 VACCINATIONS

I shall continue to wear my COVID mask when out and about. New Mexico has recorded 60% of the population as having received full vaccinations. But I do not trust that other 40%, and the probable higher percentage in Valencia County, on my visits to town. Other than folks ordered by their doctor not to get the COVID-19 shots, anyone who does not yet have their shots completed is willfully being a jerk by not participating in making New Mexico safe against the COVID-19 epidemic.

C'mon guys: Albertsons is offering FREE COVID-19 VACCINATIONS. You no longer have any valid excuse.

Facebook Jail sentence is over

One of the benefits of being in Facebook Jail for 30 days (I hurt the feelings of a lying fascist Republican troll) is having what seems like extra time to catch up on LinkedIn and other social media, while still spending most of my day adding more content to my blog and to the 1,900+ pages of my dozen websites.

So I posted these five self-promotions on LinkedIn, figuring that some of you will like these online bookstores:

The BlackHat Mystery Bookstore [est. 2001]
A growing inventory of mystery books by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, G.E. Nordell, John D. MacDonald, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie & many more noir and hard-boiled detective authors, Noir Film Festival pages, and links to other mystery authors, other mystery sites, and books, posters, videos, and DVDs for purchase.

The Magic Lantern Video & Book Store [est. 2001]
A growing inventory of books & videos & DVDs about cinema, with pages about the History of Cinema, and about stars & directors such as Buster Keaton, Kurosawa & others, and topical film festivals, and dozens more pages, with posters and other memorabilia also for purchase.

The Maison d'Être Philosophy Bookstore and Beatnik Coffeehouse [est. 2001]
A growing inventory of books by Ayn Rand, Albert Camus, C.Wright Mills, Thorstein Veblen, Carlos Castaneda, Sun Tzu, Buckminster Fuller, Nikola Tesla, the Beats, Voltaire, and other authors & thinkers, relevant info sites, and posters and videos and other merchandise for purchase.

The Spirit of America Bookstore [est. 2001]
A growing inventory of profiles of & links to American authors, poets & thinkers, architects & artists & cartoonists, musicians & patriots, and progressive social movements plus books & audio tapes & videos & DVDs & posters & ebooks for purchase.

The 'Readers of The Purple Sage' Western Bookstore [est. 2001]
A growing inventory of books by Western authors (known & lesser-unknown) and about legendary characters, plus links to cowboy/cowgirl & other relevant info sites, and posters and videos & DVDs and audio tapes and ebooks for purchase.

February 2021 Quotations (55)

"We are telling you to act as if you love your children above all else."
~~ eco-activist Greta Thunberg, World Economic Forum 1/2020

"Don't judge each day by the harvest [that] you reap, but by the seeds that you plant."
~~ Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-94]

"In this new year, I choose optimism and insist on seeing brighter days ahead."
~~ Anthony Romero, Executive Director, A.C.L.U. (in early 2021)

“Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
~~ George Bernard Shaw [1856-1950]

"Make no mistake: Every flight is a test flight when it comes to space travel."
~~ N.A.S.A. Administrator Jim Bridenstine

"Remember, ladies & Gentlemen: We wouldn't fool you for the world!"
~~ stage magician Howard Thurston [1869-1936]

"Science, unlike certain political philosophies and personality cults, corrects its mistakes."
~~ Tom Siegfried at Science News

"History has shown that democracies are healthy when the principles that bind people together are stronger than those that divide them."
~~ mega-investor Ray Dalio

"The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind."
~~ H.L. Mencken [1880-1956]

"The world's most fearless warrior couldn't make it today, so I came instead."
~~ animated Doogal the Dog

"It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force." — Federalist Paper #1

t-shirt: Well dammit, I AM essential!

"Your most crucial health decision is the choice of your parents."
~~ Garrison Keillor (quoting a friend)

"People sage their homes after I leave."
~~ TV personality Cazzie David

"Being rich is not about how much money you have or how many homes you own. It's the freedom to buy any book [that] you want without looking at the price and wondering if you can afford it."
~~ independent filmmaker John Waters

"Make people laugh when you tell them the truth, or they will kill you."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]

"The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency."
~~ Bill Gates

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."
~~ Howard Zinn [1922-2010]

"I may be wrong, and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth."
~~ philosopher Karl Popper [1902-94]

"The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States."
~~ financier George Soros

"It is a privilege and an honor to be me."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"Thanks for being true to yourself. Someone has to do it."
~~ Tom Voccola of Idaho

"If I only had a little humility I would be perfect."
~~ entrepreneur Ted Turner

"You are not a drop in the ocean but the entire ocean in a drop."
~~ Persian poet & mystic Rumi [1207-73]

"In science fiction, we dream."
~~ poet & author Ray Bradbury [1920-2012]

"Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do."
~~ banker John Pierpont 'J.P.' Morgan [1837-1913]

"The creative adult is the child who has survived."
~~ Ursula K. Le Guin [1929-2018]

"Just remember - when you think all is lost, the future remains."
~~ rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard [1882-1945]

"The more [that] we get out of the world the less we leave, and in the long run we shall have to pay our debts at a time that may be very inconvenient for our own survival."
~~ mathematician & philosopher Norbert Wiener [1894-1964]

"Whipping and abuse are like laudanum: you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline."
~~ Harriet Beecher Stowe [1811-96]

"Switzerland is a small, steep country, much more up and down than sideways, and is all stuck over with large brown hotels built on the cuckoo clock style of architecture."
~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]

"Science is only one of the many instruments [that] people invented to cope with their surroundings. It is not the only one, it is not infallible, and it has become too powerful, too pushy, and too dangerous to be left on its own."
~~ Paul K. Feyerabend [1924-94]

"Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all."
~~ Woody Allen

"A record, if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted."
~~ engineer Vannevar Bush [1890-1974]

"The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once."
~~ French/Dutch philosopher René Descartes [1596-1650]

“Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.”
~~ Langston Hughes [1902-67]

"I've long maintained that the health of an enlightened and progressive society is measured by how vibrant is its science fiction, since that is where true self-critique and appraisal and hope lie."
~~ David Brin

“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all.”
~~ economist John Maynard Keynes [1883-1946]

"Life gets mighty precious when there is less of it to waste."
~~ Bonnie Raitt

"Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings. Only one thing endures, and that is character."
~~ Horace Greeley [1811-72]

"We’re not asking you to shoot them like you shoot us, we’re asking you to NOT shoot us like you don’t shoot them . . ."
~~ Davontae Harris, on Twitter

"Nobody in our country should be sick because they are poor, or poor because they are sick."
~~ New Mexico State Senator Antoinette Sedillo Lopez

"President Trump is the world's best oxymoron."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"There is NO situation SO bad that Donald Trump can't make WORSE."
~~ Gail Collins, The New York Times columnist

"Do not underestimate the evil genius that is Donald Trump."
~~ gadfly filmmaker Michael Moore

"I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health."
~~ French philosopher Voltaire [1694-1778]

"Our republic and its press will rise or fall together."
~~ Joseph Pulitzer [1847-1911]

"What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Except for a cowgirl, cowgirls will kill you."
~~ Lisa Richards

"You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play."
~~ cinema auteur Warren Beatty

"Against stupidity we are defenseless; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed, and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one."
~~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer [1906-45]

"In much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."
~~ King Solomon [circa 990-931 BCE], in the Judeo-Xian book of Ecclesiastes, 1:18

"Magic is the sole science not accepted by scientists, because they can't understand it."
~~ Harry Houdini [1874-1926]

"That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
~~ Hitchens' Razor (from socio-political critic Christopher Hitchens [1949-2011] )

"What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest."
~~ pop artist Andy Warhol [1928-87]

"The crux of the problem is [that] Americans now occupy two separate worlds – a fact-based pro-democracy world and a Trump-based authoritarian one."
~~ Robert B. Reich

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}

Working Minds Essay #118: "Love and The G-spot"

        As an old guy, usually quite cranky, and truly happy to be living as a hermit in the desert in the center of New Mexico USA, I reject participation in all pagan rituals and in all religious practices. But as a philosopher, I know that such rules are made to be broken, so I wrote this essay anyway. It is my Valentine to all the women of the world.

        The male human is said to have two sexual organs: the first is his mind - proven by the popularity of pornography - and the second is his physical sexual equipment, the penis. (For any pitchfork people who are already offended, I truly do not care about you one whit: anybody that much of a prude deserves it.)
        The female human has primary & secondary sexual organs located in several places. Stimulating the female breasts can cause lubrication of the vagina {foreplay} to be ready for sexual activity, and such stimulation can even cause orgasm. Clitoral orgasms and vaginal orgasms are common.
        The existence of the G-spot was first detailed by New York gynaecologist Ernst Gräfenberg, MD [1881-1957] in 1950, but the concept was largely ignored until women began liberating themselves in the 1970s. A majority of the population of the world are still unaware, mainly since the Culture Structure is under the control of authoritarian males, quite afraid of women and also afraid of science.

* *          * *          * *          * *         How you find a G-spot is simple: Rub the clitoris a little bit to begin sexual arousal; this will lubricate the vagina and also activate swelling of the G-spot. Insert one or two fingers into the vagina and gently rub back & forth and up & down - the G-spot is located 2-3 inches vertically and upward from the opening. Rubbing for some time may be required, especially on the first try. You will know it when you find it: it will either be a detectable swollen area or it will go ZING! and make your toes tingle. Keep going as long as you want, Nature will tell you when to stop. {If you light any candles during this process, be sure that they are extinguished before going to sleep: Fire safety is really, really important.}
        After you are self-trained on the matter, you can enlighten your sexual partner/s as well.

* *          * *          * *          * *         Really, that is the whole deal. You are welcome!