I learned them from listening to a short interview with a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old.

It seems the 5-year-old thought it would be good to “help” her younger sister by cutting her hair for her.

When the father interviewed his two girls for the radio a few weeks later to ask why they made these choices, streams of brilliant philosophical insights ensued from their lisping mouths.

Be warned that listening to this less-than-three-minute clip is NSFW (not safe for work). It’s not due to strong language or inappropriate content, but because you will most likely be choking coffee out your nostrils unto innocent pieces of paper lying nearby. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

I introduce to you two great sages of the universal human condition: two young siblings caught in unauthorized haircutting—

(Thanks to Susanna B. for drawing my attention to this wonderful radio story.)

(The fact that this knowledge came into my life at exactly the same time I suddenly began finding it very difficult to even get out of bed in the morning and began openly questioning the very meaning and value of life itself might possibly be related. I will have to get back to you on that.)

It is being said by some haters that butter is essentially empty calories.

This hurt all my feelings immeasurably, as my passion for butter is perhaps exceeded only by my love for family members, close friends, and my dog Pugsley.

In modern-day parlance, butter plays nicely with others—it excels at teamwork. Butter is self-effacing: it makes every other ingredient look, taste, and smell really, really good with no concern at all for personal self-promotion.

Come to think of it, butter is all about the empowerment of others: other ingredients, that is.

Butter is the Miss Congeniality of the cooking world. After all, I have never met a recipe that didn’t love butter.

I have tried, but there is simply no substitute to be found for the one-and-only, the magnificent, the Taj Mahal of all saturated fats: (drum roll)…dairy butter!

It’s good to know that the generations before me found their own reasons to love butter. After all, there is much wisdom to be found in collective human history.

On the other hand, one might do well to disregard certain aspects of the, er, “science” of butter appreciation from past generations.

Because it is the heart and soul of the matter that counts, not the details, right?

With that in mind, I leave you with this charming vintage sign reminding folks of the “health benefits” and the rich pleasures to be found in a pat (or pound) of beautiful butter:

Have a butterful Monday, everyone!

As someone who played a bright red electric bass in the family country/gospel band for many years—starting at age 11—this cracks me up on so many levels:

Hee.

This graphic needs no explanation, I think:

The benefits we’ve gained through Internet and cell phone technologies are incalculable. But it could also be said that some of our resulting losses—the human qualities and activities displaced (temporarily or permanently) by these technologies are also incalculable.

What are ways that you have found to continue lifestyle choices of a simpler time? Things such as interacting with people in real time face-to-face or of engaging in activities together as a unit instead of together in name only while each person lives in their own separate world (“alone together”)?

Of course, all new technology displaces what came before it, and occasionally the loss of what existed prior to a particular technology is quickly recognized. When that happens, ways of keeping the best of both worlds (or at least what is tolerable in both worlds!) can often emerge.

What kinds of boundaries—if any—are helping you transition between or comfortably co-exist within both a virtual world and the more tangible, traditional, pre-Internet and pre-cell-phone world?

I love this graphic because it helps put our great wealth and privilege into perspective.

We have so much to be thankful for:

I’m sure this piano player will need all kinds of therapy to sort this one out:

Um, er, happy practicing?  

But it does.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you veterans out there~~to those who’ve returned, to those who still keep watch, and to those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

There simply aren’t words to express our gratitude as Americans for what you did, do, and will continue to do for our beloved country—and your countrymen—faithfully and constantly.

Thank you for keeping watch so we can enjoy the lives of abundant freedom, extraordinary opportunity, and amazing resources that are daily experiences for every citizen of this country.

I hope and pray your Memorial Day is richly filled with Americans everywhere expressing their gratitude for the sacrifices you’ve made.

You are not forgotten.

Thank you.

No fun.

Short of special deliveries of double-caff coffee, I couldn’t think of any way to ease their burden.

Until now.

The inimitable Frank L. Visco has written a profoundly helpful set of guidelines on how to use the English language well in written form. Originally published in the 1986 edition of Writer’s Digest, I am certain it will be an unspeakably useful gift to my paper-writing, hair-twirling, glassy-eyed, hallucinating, chronophobic friends.

Here it is, and best of luck to all of you who are burning the midnight oil this week and next!

How to Write Good

by Frank L. Visco

My several years in the word game have learnt me the following rules:

1. Avoid Alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren’t necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?

This meme is hilariously true at so many levels.

In my general experience, folks I know who believe in more governmental regulation in health, education, business, and finance frequently tend to view my libertarianism as naive and irresponsible at best and as downright, dangerously selfish at worst.

On the other hand, folks I know who believe in more governmental regulation in social values (ie, marriage, religion, drugs and alcohol, and so on) often view my libertarianism as my unprincipled, unbridled personal hedonism: they can sometimes view libertarianism as a deliberate cop-out so I can avoid the unpopularity of standing up for any moral value of any kind with which some other American might not agree.

But as an American, my greatest value is freedom for me and for others. It is my belief that forms of Libertarianism provide the greatest freedom for all Americans to freely practice their religion (or non-religion), to practice their freedom of speech (or freedom of silence), to enjoy their freedom from political tyranny, to insist on their freedom to keep the greatest percentage possible of their hard-earned wages…the list goes on and on.

In the spirit of laughing at our Libertarian selves, then, I present this Libertarian Meme:

If you want to understand a woman, look in her bag~~Valerie Steele

A true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence~~Amos Bronson Alcott

Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed~~Vida Dutton Scudder

I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form~~President Calvin Coolidge, Inaugural Address, 1924

You never realize what you have until it’s gone. Take toilet paper, for example~~Unknown

Sing out loud in the car even, or especially, if it embarrasses your children~~Marilyn Penland

When a student asked the Hungarian violinist Leopold Auer how many hours a day he should be practicing, Auer said, “If you practice with your fingers, no amount is enough. If you practice with your head, two hours is plenty.”

Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new~~Ursula Le Guin

Creativity is the residue of time wasted~~Albert Einstein

Practice doesn’t make perfect: practice makes permanent~~Unknown saxophone professor

Silence is a message, just as doing nothing is an act~~Leonard Peltier