--THE HEART IS NOT SO EASILY CHANGED BUT THE HEAD CAN BE PERSUADED

…Hey Wednesday, how you doin’?

…Yesterday I was reading the news online.  These were the top stories

-TWO TEENS ARRESTED IN PLOT TO KILL THREE STAFFERS MURDER AS MANY STUDENTS AS POSSILBE

-OKLAHOMA COP CHARGED WITH KILLING DAUGHTER’S BOYFRIEND

-SUSPECT ARRESTED IN SEVERE PHILADELPHIA STREET BEATING

-ALABAMA MAN ARRESTED FOR KILLING WIFE

-MURDER CONVICTION IN DEATH OF FLORIDA STUDENT

-POLICE KILL MAN BRANDISHING KNIFE

-MAN KILLS  3 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER BEFORE SHOOTOUT WITH POLICE

I mean, yikes.  Why all the violence?  It’s creepy.

That’s not mentioning all the stuff going on in Ferguson.

…Anyway, changing tone, here are some things smart people have said:

-“Persevere.  If you fuck up, you won’t be the only one.”  Elizabeth Wales

-“People tend to think of happiness as a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weather if you're fortunate. But happiness is the result of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist  upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly.” Elizabeth Gilbert

-“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” Epictetus

-“No home is complete without affection. You can have all the Picassos in the world or walls made of gold, but without affection it's nothing.”  Claudio Luti,

-“Trying to please everyone is a stressful life”

“We forget things for our own protection.”

“Freedom keeps you going because it makes you try to find ways to keep yourself exciting.”

“I don’t like getting old.  But the cool thing about aging is that the older you get, the harder it is to lie to yourself.”

“Sex is really like breathing or drinking a glass of water.  We need to treat it as a normal thing.”

--Andre 300

-“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”  W. Clement Stone

-"A book must be an ice-axe to break the frozen seas inside our souls." Kafka

-"It is never too late to be what you might have been." George Eliot

+"Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off.  Build your wings on the way down." Ray Bradbury

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof crap detector." Hemingway

"I believe poems begin as grit, as curiosities that get stuck in the mind." Sean Hicks

"To get your ideas across use small words, big ideas, and short sentences." John Henry Patterson