AARP Online Community: Vagabond - My Journals & Blogs

This AARP Journal

This journal is the most irritating of all journals. Everythihng takes forever. No matter what I click on I have to wait 15 to 30 seconds before anything happens. I'm going to stop posting here. If anyone is interested you can find me at:

dbdacoba@aol.com

http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/

http://db-vagabondtales.blogspot.com/

http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com./

http://wingstoart.livejournal.com/

Added: June 22, 2009
Views: 26 | Comments: 0 | Bookmarks: 0

Weekend Puzzle Results

WEEKEND PUZZLE

Results below

Below is a list of 22 names. Your privilege is to rearrange the names into sets of two, a first name and a last name of two famous people. The 2 first names must be the same or the last 2 names must be the same, as in Joe DiMaggio and Joe Louis or Al Smith and Kate Smith. You may use any name more than once. To win you must use all the names and have at least 8 sets of two names each. Ready? Go !!!

Betsy
Berg
Bob
Danny
Diana
Dylan
Ford
George
Gerald
Gobel
Hamilton
Harrison
Hingle
Hope
Margaret
Molly
Pat
Picon
Robertson
Ross
Thatcher
Thomas

Good luck

Note: 3 winners, 2 from the Email Lions, and 1 from the Blogspot Tigers.

Some of the answers are not the same as mine but they are correct.

Here are mine:

Betsy Ross - Diana Ross

Molly Berg - Molly Picon

Bob Hope - Bob Dylan

Gerald Ford - Harrison Ford

George Harrison - George Gobel

Margaret Hamilton - Margaret Thatcher

Pat Hingle - Pat Robertson

Dylan Thomas - Danny Thomas

First prize winner (drum roll, cymbal crash) Barry Pearl of the Email Lions.

Second prize winner Paula Cohen of the Email Lions.

Third Prize winner Salemslot9 of the Blogspot Tigers.+

Nothing from the AARP Panthers or the LJ Jaguars.

Added: June 21, 2009
Views: 36 | Comments: 0 | Bookmarks: 0

Vagabond Journeys

Yokeless Yearning 6/21/09

I want no part in making any contribution whatsoever to the despair which eventually follows downbeat thinking.

Loretta Young

((((((((((((((((((((((

Hi

-----------------

What do the space shuttle, the 747, a blimp, a hot air balloon, a mountain climber, a tight rope walker, a pole vaulter and a good thinker all have in common?

DB

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WEEKEND PUZZLE

Below is a list of 22 names. Your privilege is to rearrange the names into sets of two, a first name and a last name of two famous people. The 2 first names must be the same or the last 2 names must be the same, as in Joe DiMaggio and Joe Louis or Al Smith and Kate Smith. You may use any name more than once. To win you must use all the names and have at least 8 sets of two names each. Ready? Go !!!

Betsy
Berg
Bob
Danny
Diana
Dylan
Ford
George
Gerald
Gobel
Hamilton
Harrison
Hingle
Hope
Margaret
Molly
Pat
Picon
Robertson
Ross
Thatcher
Thomas

Good luck
Answer with winners will be posted on Sunday evening at 9 Eastern Time.

Note: 3 winners so far, 2 from the Email Lions, 1 from the Blogspot Tigers and none from the AARP Panthers.

dbdacoba@aol.com

http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/

Added: June 21, 2009
Views: 34 | Comments: 0 | Bookmarks: 0

Vagabond Journeys

Xenophilic Xylograph 6/20/09

Curiosity and a sense fo wonder keep me on the trail through the forests of philosophy.

DB - The Vagabond

'''''''''''''''''''

Come wander with me.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Check out the WEEK END PUZZLE below.

-----------------------

I've been many places and talked with many people and one of the primary discoveries I've been blessed to make is that it does no good to measure anyone by a limited set of standards. Even though it is the common "normal" way of reacting to the varied members of the human race, it forces decisions and opinions that prevent one from actually understanding oneself and others. Superficial judgements are bad ones.

As a college student I was assigned to read Plato and to discuss it in very prescribed, neo platonic terms, those which the professor had decided were the only ones worth discussing. In my career I spent most of the time with dramas, memorizing speeches and making some theatrical sense out of them. I didn't touch philosophy, If I had any free time it was spent with the daily newspapers.

But one day I picked up a book on philosophy, just out of curiosity. It's by Martin Heidegger (What is Called Thinking). I read it and as I was reading I found myself in a rich, fecund forest of ideas. It wasn't about how to behave or what to think. It was a challenge to understand what the whole process of thinking is about. This was a topic I had never considered. It was like posing the question "What is breathing?"

That experience took me into the study of philosophy and an awareness of how much philosophical thinking there is around me and how important it is to the basic human problems of existence. Much of philosophy addresses how to live a virtuous life but even that subject requires a vigorous exercise of analysis and interpretation. Philosophy concerns itself with everything from the mundane to the sublime, from good manners and healthy diets to the complex of metaphysics and the vast infinity of cosmology. Philosophic literature can be in one sentence or in a 1600 page book, as my complete Plato is. Yes, I finally went back to Plato to find out what Plato had to say about his philosophy and not what Professor So-and-so said.

Another discovery I made is that philosophy doesn't tell us what to think. It prompts us to think for ourselves and leads us in that direction. Any thinking person is a philosopher to one extent or another. We all have to confront the problems and dilemmas of life. It is an easy answer to let someone or something else tell us what to think or do. But if we learn to step up to the task with a sturdy respect for and trusty reliance on our own innate ability to question, reason and solve at least some aspect of the crazy riddle of life we are philosophers and much the better off for it.

And philosophy doesn't exclude science, religion, economics, mechanics, politics or the daily efforts to make a living. It includes, in fact it wraps itself around, all of those things.

Philosophers don't agree with each other. No matter. That's what makes it interesting. Philosophy is a walk through a wild and tangled forest of ideas and I enjoy it as much as I have ever enjoyed anything.

DB - The Vagabond

__________________

Summer is a-comin' in, Are you ready?

********************

WEEKEND PUZZLE

Below is a list of 22 names. Your privilege is to rearrange the names into sets of two, a first name and a last name of two famous people. The 2 first names must be the same or the last 2 names must be the same, as in Joe DiMaggio and Joe Louis or Al Smith and Kate Smith. You may use any name more than once. To win you must use all the names and have at least 8 sets of two names each. Ready? Go !!!

Betsy

Berg

Bob

Danny

Diana

Dylan

Ford

George

Gerald

Gobel

Hamilton

Harrison

Hingle

Hope

Margaret

Molly

Pat

Picon

Robertson

Ross

Thatcher

Thomas

Good luck

Answer with winners (I hope) will be posted on Sunday evening at 9 Eastern Time.

I wonder who will be first across the finish line. Will it be Paula C of the Email Lions or will it be Salemslot of the Blogspot Tigers? Or will it be a dark horse?

Well I have a front row seat. DB

dbdacoba@aol.com

http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/

Added: June 20, 2009
Views: 34 | Comments: 0 | Bookmarks: 0

Vagabond Journeys

Wrought Wisdom 6/19/09

Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.

Denis Waitley

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Welcome.

-----------------------

"What if...?" "It'll never happen." "Never say never."

How well do we really know what we're doing? An idea comes, followed by a desire, then usually by some impatient action and, if we're lucky, some satisfying result. But what if it doesn't? What went wrong?

If we are intelligently patient we will carefully plan for the desired outcome. If we are willfully impatient who knows what the result will be. Part of careful planning is to take into consideration what might go wrong and therefore to compensate for it ahead of time.

My mother taught me to drive and one thing she told me has stayed with me my whole life, not just about driving, but about many things. She said "Always assume the other driver is going to do something foolish." That tactic has saved me from many accidents I might have gotten into. It doesn't mean the other driver is a fool, it merely means that under the circumstances the driver made a decision to do something I didn't expect. I explained that to someone one day and she thought it was one of the stupidest things she had heard. But I will be willing to bet if more people were alert to the unexpected turn or stop there would be a lot less road rage.

I was watching the NASA channel one day and they were talking about those sessions where one department would get together and bring up every possible thing that could go wrong and then make arrangements to prevent it or prepare for it. When you consider how vast, complicated and dangerous the space program is there must be an untold number of things that could mess up. If they didn't poke their noses into every connection, every bolt and wire, things would not go as smoothly as they do.

There are usually surprises built into every venture, things we don't expect no matter how much trouble shooting we do. I am still learning how to not get frantic when those things happen. Sometimes there are detours we have to make. There are a lot of detours in life. We might as well enjoy the surprising scenery while we keep a look out for the turn that takes us back the way we want to go.

We should expect the best from ourselves, not sell ourselves for anything less than the best we can do and be. We should recognize it when the lines of life are not going right and are not allowing us to fulfill ourselves, are limiting us and putting pot holes in the way of success and joy. And we should avoid making assumptions about who we are and where we're going to be at any destination we have planned for ourselves.

Is your life a roadmap? Well, whether you're planning to fly to the moon or begin a love affair (and there are similarities) study it carefully, watch out for the pot holes and send me a post card when you get there.

DB

___________

You're alive, thank goodness.

*******************

Added: June 19, 2009
Views: 36 | Comments: 0 | Bookmarks: 0

Vagabond Journeys

Voided Variety 6/18/09

An artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs.

Edgar Varese

*******************

Here again are you?

-------------------------

"I know everything about art but I don't know what I like" James Thurber has one of his characters say. That, of course, is a reversal of the usual cocktail party remark about art appreciation. One of the greatest disservices a person can do to himself is to stick to only what he knows and not open his mind to something new and different.

I think I've written before about the woman at the NY Philharmonic concert who sat in the back row of the balcony. When the Mozart or Schubert was being played she sat and listened, But when a piece of modern music, Webern or Berio, was played she would go out into the hall and wait for it to be over. She was making a statement. She wasn't going to listen to any of that "modern junk." It was totally silly because she could hear it out in the hall so she would know when it was "safe" to come back and sit down. This lady was purposely depriving herself of some amazing musical experiences. The lady had an "attitude."

There used to be a TV commercial from an outfit that was selling classical music records by subscription, to introduce fine music into the home of people who weren't used to it. One of the remarks the announcer made while pitching those records was "We've taken out all the unfamiliar music." I gasped.

What's modern music? It's all a lot of dissonant noise. You can't hum along or tap your foot. What good is it?

What's modern art? It's a lot of squiggles and blobs. What's it supposed to be of?

What's modern dance? A bunch of people falling down and rolling around. That's not dance.

When I first came into the world of 20th Century music I had been raised on a diet of Baroque to Late Romantic. I purposely bought and listened to the music of modern composers. I had a recording of a piece by an intense and seldom played composer named Karlheinz Stockhausen. I listened to it many times, trying to understand it. One day I had the record with me when I was visiting some dancer friends. They had never heard it, So I played it for them. They had no trouble with it. They immediately got up and started dancing. They caught the spirit and life of the music and taught me what it was about.

It's well and good to have favorites among the arts. Who doesn't? But the art of the 20th and 21st Centuries is the modern mind, with its modern sensitivities, speaking to the modern mind. If we don't pay attention to it we'll be left behind. Yes, it's difficult if you're not familiar with it. That's why it has to be heard and seen over and over again until it becomes familiar, until it becomes a part of our lives and we can know it and love it.

Art, like life, is a process of discovery. So look and listen and don't sit out in the hall.

DB Vagabond

_________________

Greet a stranger today. Why not?

*****************

Added: June 18, 2009
Views: 271 | Comments: 1 | Bookmarks: 0

Vagabond Jourjneys

Voidid Variety 6/18/09