Now Is the Time -- The Colonel Carries On #28

Epigraph: “I’m always right, because vests have no sleeves.” --Dixie Ipsit

If you need to pass yourself off as Mayor Dan Drew sometime, contact me. At the end of a recent event, I snagged the name sticker he didn’t put on. It says, "HELLO! I’m Mayor Dan Drew." All but the most observant will be completely fooled.

They say if you learn a second language before puberty, you keep open certain brain pathways that let you pick up more languages easily. Without that prepubescent second tongue, the brain pathways close, and learning new languages is still possible, but harder.

They say that Vladimir Nabokov (author of Lolita) learned English before he learned Russian. That doesn’t mean English was his first language; I’ll bet it was French.

The weather continues absolutely normal, which is to say unpredictable. Time to move the snowblower to its summer location. Good thing Murphy can’t read.

Which one is the young Bernie Sanders?

In New Testament times, there were those who accepted Jewish monotheism and ethics and attended the synagogue but did not consider themselves bound by other regulations such as circumcision and observance of the dietary laws. They were called “God-fearers.”

Only 20% of males born in the U.S.S.R. in 1923 survived WWII.

Bears are what they are, but they’re also good symbols of common sense. They just feel down to earth somehow. Did you know that polar bears are considered aquatic mammals like seals and whales? Sometimes “down to earth” means “always at sea.”

Alexander and Hephaestion went together to visit the captured Persian royal family. Its senior member, the queen Sisygambis, knelt to Hephaestion to plead for their lives, mistaking him for Alexander because he was the taller and both young men were wearing similar clothes. When she realized her mistake she was acutely embarrassed but Alexander reassured her with the words, "You made no mistake, Mother; this man too is Alexander."

“A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.” --Goethe

“You lose only what you cling to.” --Buddha

“Any injury fully heals only when we forgive who injured us.” --Dunno

"For the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and the light and that portion of life and time it was born into the world to enjoy." --Plutarch

"What can the blind see and the deaf hear? It’s name is kindness." --Mark Twain

“Sometimes we think we are changing when all we are doing is becoming more fully what we already are." --Dunno

“To say that a sentient being has no interest in continuing to live is like saying a being with eyes has no interest in continuing to see.” --Dunno

“Working hard for something you don't believe in and working hard for something you passionately believe in are both hard work.” --Dunno

“Finding your center can be a challenge if you’re a ring doughnut or a bagel.” --Dunno

“Integrity requires doing right not only when no one is watching, but also when everyone is watching. The right thing is often the unpopular thing.” --Dunno

"Beware! I ride horses. I use pitchforks, I haul hay, I am the boss of a half-ton beast. I've been bitten, kicked, and stepped on. You will not be a problem." --T-shirt

“The only equality is universal uniqueness.” --Dunno

“Live fully and bravely; this may be your last chance.” --Dunno

“What is beauty, and how important is it? Is it skin-deep, transient, and unimportant, or is it soul-deep, eternal, and primary?” --Dunno

“Better a happy home than a big house.” --Dunno

“The natural world is a community to which we belong and every part of which we should treat with love and respect. --Aldo Leopold

“Be always a learner and a seeker; the next thing you learn may transvalue all before it.” --Dunno

“Can you remember who you were before you were taught who you should be?” --Dunno

“Freedom is no fear of what others think of you.” --Dunno

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” --Martin Luther King, Jr.

“If you align yourself with the fundamental flow of the universe, you'll be swimming against other streams most of the time.” --Dunno

“Two kinds of people fill the world: those who think they're normal and those who know there's no such thing.” --Will McAvoy

“Your choice of identity shapes all of reality.” --Dunno

“How you treat each person you meet becomes part of that person's story.” --Dunno

“Without willingness to learn, you are unteachable. With determination to learn, you are unstoppable.” --Zig Ziglar

“If you let yourself be yourself, two things happen fast: people see the real, imperfect, flawed, quirky, weird you, and you find out who your friends are.” --Dunno

“Most of us can’t change till life as usual stops working. We can’t be healed till we’re well and truly broken.” --Charles Eisenstein

“If you do what you should not do, you will see what you should not see.” --Ghanaian proverb

“Do not attempt what you cannot bring to a good end.” --Nigerian proverb

“Three things are worth having in this world: courage, common sense, and caution.” --Nigerian proverb

“Never ask to be told the obvious.” --Kenyan proverb

With that one, I out-and-out disagree. As nothing is rarer than common sense, little is rarer than perception of the obvious, but perception of the obvious is crucial to effectiveness and happiness, so if I can learn the obvious by asking, that’s far better than not learning it at all.

“There are no stupid questions, but there are lots of inquisitive idiots.”  --A. Bumper Sticker

"To have a great idea, have lots of them." - Thomas A. Edison

“Most people have a great idea once a year. The only difference between them and geniuses is the rate: geniuses have three or four per waking hour.” --Dunno

“I’m sick to death of the life of the mind.” --Dunno

“The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists.” --Willi Schlamm

“Socialism is not an economic theory, but assuming for the sake of argument that it is, its ironic fatal flaw is its inability to plan rationally. Socialism lacks the traffic-cop feature that market prices play in allocating resources in capitalist economies.” --Dunno

Hence the following Soviet-era joke:

Question: What would happen if there were a socialist revolution in the Sahara?

Answer: Nothing at first, but in twenty years there would be a severe shortage of sand.