Today's Daily Motivation

A smile costs nothing but gives much.  It enriches those who receive without making poorer those who give.  It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.  None is so rich or mighty that he cannot get along without it and none is so poor that he cannot be made rich by it.  Yet a smile cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away.  Some people are too tired to give you a smile.  Give them one of yours, as none needs a smile so much as he who has no more to give.  ~Author Unknown

August 1 is Girlfriend Day

The best way to mend a broken heart is time and girlfriends.  ~Gwyneth Paltrow

Today's Daily Motivation

In my day, we didn't have self-esteem, we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned.  

~Jane Haddam

Today's Daily Motivation

If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.
John Paul Jones 

Today's Daily Motivation

"A man must know his destiny. if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, twice, or at the very most, three times, fate will reach out and tap a man on the shoulder. if he has the imagination, he will turn around and fate will point out to him what fork in the road he should take, if he has the guts, he will take it." 
Gen. George S. Patton

Today's Thought

I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb... and I also know that I'm not blonde.  ~Dolly Parton

A PIECE OF A SCRIPT

CUT TO:


INT. INDUSTRIAL SITE, DESERT - SAME
The big duffel bag lays on the floor. It is packed full of money. Sheriff Joe Parson, a large man with a shaved head, reaches into the bag and grabs stacks of cash.


He puts the bag into an open lighted gun safe. The safe is filled from top to bottom  with stacks of cash. It is cellophaned into bricks and in wrappers. He stands and slams the door. He spins the dial. He walks down the passageway and counts the row of identical safes. He touches and counts each one. There are ten. He smiles.


CUT BACK TO:


EXT. DESERT, TWO LANE ROAD - HIGH NOON
Andy walks past a sign that reads:
THIS SECTION OF ROAD IS MAINTAINED BY THE HOMER SHERIFF'S DEPT.  COMPLIMENTS OF SHERIFF JOE PARSON.

A PIECE OF A SCRIPT

INT. SHAOLIN TEMPLE - DAY


CLACK! CLACK! CLACK! The sound of martial arts bo sticks strike. We see the bo's strike. Robed students on knees observe. Andy and a male black belt (teens) are engaged in mock combat. They spar with intensity but not 100%.  


The boy suddenly accelerates and grazes Andy on the cheek. She jumps back. A red welt appears. 


Andy attacks all out. Clack! Clack! With a leg sweep, she upends the boy. She jumps over his chest. She pulls back with the bo in a killing spear attack. She aims at his throat and thrusts.


CHENG LU
Ying!


The bo strikes the stone floor next to the boy's windpipe and cracks a tile.


CHENG LU stands near. His hands are clasped. He lifts one hand palm upward. His fingers motion to Andy. He pivots and walks away.
Andy takes a deep breath. She looks down upon the boy.

Today's Daily Motivation

The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.  ~C.C. Scott

Today's Daily Motivation

Each day, awakening, are we asked to paint the sky blue? Need we coax the sun to rise or flowers to bloom? Need we teach birds to sing, or children to laugh, or lovers to kiss? No, though we think the world imperfect, it surrounds us each day with its perfections. We are asked only to appreciate them, and to show appreciation by living in peaceful harmony amidst them. The Creator does not ask that we create a perfect world; He asks that we celebrate it.  ~Robert Brault

Today's Daily Motivation

Progress always involves risks.  You can't steal second base and keep your foot on first.  ~Frederick B. Wilcox

Paraprosdokians of the Day

“The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some great ideas!”


Do not let your alligator mouth overwhelm your hummingbird ass................


All things come to he who waits if he works like hell while he waits. It says all things.  I'm not sure I want all things. Could I just choose?


I was born in the South.  My family has been in America since 1629.  Why do people say I have an accent?  (dodge the alligator)

Paraprosdokians of the Day

When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.

You're never too old to learn something stupid.

I always take life with a grain of salt, ...plus a slice of lime,
...and a shot of tequila.

Paraprosdokian

We will start a new thread called paraprosdokian; they can be thought provoking and they can be inspirational.  I hope you find them interesting.  Please post one if you have one of your own.


A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to re-frame or re-interpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists.




Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

Today's Daily Motivation

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination. Edmund Burke

Today's Daily Motivation

Why do children want to grow up?  Because they experience their lives as constrained by immaturity and perceive adulthood as a condition of greater freedom and opportunity.  But what is there today, in America, that very poor and very rich adolescents want to do but cannot do?  Not much:  they can "do" drugs, "have" sex, "make" babies, and "get" money (from their parents, crime, or the State).  For such adolescents, adulthood becomes synonymous with responsibility rather than liberty.  Is it any surprise that they remain adolescents?  
~Thomas Szasz

Searching for my Gold Today's Daily Motivation

When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold.  They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.  ~Barbara Bloom

Today's Daily Motivation

SUCCESS IS A CHOICE YOU MAKE

Success or failure?  It's always your choice.  You alone have the responsibility to shape your life.

Once you understand this, nothing and no one can deny you success.  There's really no one to stop you but yourself.

More powerful than all the success slogans ever written is the realization that everyone has but one boss.  That boss is you.

Your life will always be to a large extent what you make of it. No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but you.

If you want to be successful, you can be successful.


-Max Steingart

Today's Daily Motivation

That was rough.... Thing to do now is try and forget it.... I guess I don't quite mean that.  It's not a thing you can forget.  Maybe not even a thing you want to forget.... Life's like that sometimes... Now and then for no good reason a man can figure out, life will just haul off and knock him flat, slam him agin' the ground so hard it seems like all his insides is busted.  But it's not all like that.  A lot of it's mighty fine, and you can't afford to waste the good part frettin' about the bad.  That makes it all bad.... Sure, I know - sayin' it's one thing and feelin' it's another.  But I'll tell you a trick that's sometimes a big help.  When you start lookin' around for something good to take the place of the bad, as a general rule you can find it.  ~From the movie Old Yeller

Today's Daily Motivation

When written in Chinese the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity.  ~John F. Kennedy, address, 12 April 1959

A Revised Work "Will that lady teach me to Pray?"

Woke up this mornin and I went to work

I decked the boss cause he’s just a jerk

My temper seems to get the best of me

Just don’t give me any sympathy

Stopped by the grocery store today

There stood a lady and I heard her pray

Blessing all who passed that day

What did she really want to say

Selling chocolate bars for pay

Blessing all who passed that way

What did she really say and pray

A bill collector called and woke me up

Said they’re gonna come and take my truck

Smashed the glass as I cussed that sucker out

Took sixteen stitches to sew my right hand up

Stopped by the grocery store today

There stood a lady and I heard her pray

Blessing all who passed that day

What did she really want to say

Selling chocolate bars for pay

Blessing all who passed that way

What did she really say and pray

Flashing lights pulled me over today

I ran a light and I had to pay

A thousand bucks or sixty days

Will that lady teach me to pray

Stopped by the grocery store today

There stood a lady and I heard her pray

Blessing all who passed that day

What did she really want to say

Selling chocolate bars for pay

Blessing all who passed that way

What did she really say and pray

Stopped by the grocery store today

There stood a lady and I heard her pray

Blessing all who passed that day

Please dear lady teach me to pray

Please dear lady help me pray today

Please dear lady help me pray today

Paul Mize © 2011

Happy Birthday America The 4th of July

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts

John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut

Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York

William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey

Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania

Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland

Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina

William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia

Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

July 3

And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
~Lee Greenwood

July 2

Liberty has never come from the government.  Liberty has always come from the subjects of it.  The history of liberty is a history of resistance.  ~Woodrow Wilson

July 1

We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls.  ~Robert J. McCracken