Here’s a poem.  I like it.  It’s by a guy named Max Ehrman.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

“There are all kinds of dream interpretations, but I have always believed they serve a simple eliminatory function, and not much more–that dreams are the psyche’s way of taking a good dump now and then.  And that people who don’t dream—or don’t dream in a way they can often remember when they wake up–are mentally constipated in some way.”

–Glen Bateman, “The Stand”  (finally got back into the book, and am savoring each delicious page)

It would be:

Stairs are the default.  You don’t need an elevator unless you’re sick, injured, work in a skyscraper, or your boss is holding the door for you.

Good advice at this blog.

I found this pill you can take that makes you no longer hungry. It’s called a “Burrito” and it takes forever to swallow but it works.

-Amir; from Jake & Amir

I’ll suffocate for the respect before I breathe to collect a fuckin check.

-Eminem; “Say What You Say”

Have you ever seen a star supernova? I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the universe. A supernova. Creation itself. And do you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull. With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. With ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air. I don’t want to be human! I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear x-rays, and I want to smell dark matter! Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can’t even express these things properly, because I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting, spoken language. But I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me! I could experience so much more… but I’m trapped in this absurd body! And why? Because “my creator” wanted it this way.

-Brother Cavil (tweaked a bit by me)

We didn’t start the fire

It was always burning

Since the world’s been turning

We didn’t start the fire

No we didn’t light it

But we tried to fight it

- Billy Joel, ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’

(via rulesformyunbornson)

We need to reinvent General Motors and we need to do it in a very, very abbreviated time period so that we’re not spending our time careening from crisis to crisis.

-New GM CEO Fritz Henderson

UPDATE:  Another great blog about the differences between boys and girls.

I thought this was relevant because of the discussion in one of my earlier posts.  Sad and surprising, but eye-opening in a “what I will teach my kids” kind of way.  I tend to agree with the second paragraph.

From TheWeek:

Sure, singer Chris Brown punched, bit, and choked his girlfriend, the pop star Rihanna, so badly that she landed in the hospital, according to a police report. But for Brown to get that angry, it must have been Rihanna’s fault. At least that’s what a lot of teenagers believe, said Jan Hoffman in The New York Times. In a finding that has sparked consternation among parents and domestic-violence experts and led to a new crusade by Oprah Winfrey, nearly half of 200 teenagers polled by the Boston Public Health Commission held Rihanna responsible for her recent assault. “She probably made him mad for him to react like that,” a female ninth-grader said. Reports that the couple have reunited, and recorded a new duet together, have further muddied the lines of responsibility. “She probably feels bad that it was her fault, so she took him back,” one girl said.

For this ugly way of thinking, I blame feminism, said Kathryn Jean Lopez in National Review Online. Back before “natural gender roles” were deliberately muddled, it was normal “for us to expect men to protect women, and for women to expect some level of physical protection.” But feminism conditioned us to view men and women as equals. “By inventing oppression where there is none and remaking woman in man’s image, as the sexual and feminist revolutions have done, we’ve confused everyone.” Teens are making excuses for Chris Brown because they no longer expect men to treat women with special deference.

You’ve got it backward, said prosecutor Glenn F. Ivey in The Washington Post. At a middle school I visited recently, I heard the same blame-the-victim talk about Rihanna. But “the room froze” when I asked whether Barack Obama could ever be justified in hitting Michelle. “Putting hands on Michelle Obama was somehow unthinkable.” And therein lies the power of the First Lady, a strong and dignified feminist and mother. Mrs. Obama could make a difference in countless lives if she focused on domestic violence as “one of her primary issues.” Ultimately, though, said DeWayne Wickham in USA Today, it comes down to what we tell our own daughters. Here’s what I’m telling my 15-year-old: One in four women gets beaten up by a man. Many of them then make the same mistake as Rihanna, and believe the guy when he says it won’t ever happen again. “Don’t walk away from that man,” I’ll tell my daughter. “Run.”

…from CollegeHumor:

Mom:  Craig, what does “idk” mean?
Me:    I don’t know.
Mom:  Dang, nobody knows.

That’s funny.