Nicholas Bailey
The evening before Kate and Nick fly back to Ft. Collins, they came by with Katelyn for you fun, food and loving. (Photo Set)
kenne
Archive for August 2009
Nick, Katelyn & Kate Come for Dinner Leave a comment
Nick’s Birthday, 2009 Leave a comment
Friends and family celebrated Nick birthday early before Kate, Matt and Nick headed back to Ft. Collins. Even though it was hot for these Ft. Collins people, we are appreciative of the time they spent in the Texas gulf coast. (Photo Set)
kenne
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A Picture of Pride Leave a comment
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Bailey’s In Houston Leave a comment
Nick and Kate
Kate, Matt and Nick are visiting from Ft. Collins and we were able to do some family time yesterday. (Photo set.)
kenne
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“Replace Town Halls with Study Halls” 2 comments
Texas Poetry Shoot-Out 1 comment
When one thinks of a “shoot-out”, one may assume a gunfight between armed groups; or a “High Noon” gunfight between the good guy and the bad guy – a duel. What if the dual doesn’t involve guns, but rather a clash of skills like in, Dueling Banjos or a debate – a duel of words? You would think a “poetry shoot-out” would be a duel of words, which it could be, like in “The Dueling Poets” on the web. Although the concept might be one Good Books In The Woods may want to showcase in the future, this shoot-out was more to showcase the poetry of two friends (Paul Ruffin and Dave Parsons), each a poet laureate, each from Montgomery County.
Regardless of the format, when Dave and Paul read together, it can be a memorable evening, and this evening was not exception. (See photo set.)
kenne
(The viewer may want to chick on the YouTube logo to watch it on the YouTube site.)
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Joy’s Birthday Party, 2009 1 comment
Joy, James & Chase
Jill and Greg had a little afternoon dinner for Joy to celebrate her birthday. Of course, James and Chase got most of the attention.
kenne
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Knowing When To Exhibit Confidence Leave a comment
“Confidence”
With age, we grow in experience, which may cause us to overrate the accuracy of our judgments. This is the conclusion voiced by Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers, Blink, The Tipping Point) in his recent The New Yorker article, “Cocksure: Banks, battles, and the psychology of overconfidence.” Gladwell investigates the mental-space of decision-making and asserts that leaders in war and peace, financial and economic, base their future behavior on their past successes, rather than reviewing current situations as ones requiring different and new thinking. The result is a failure to adapt.
We may think life is a game, but unlike a game with rules and boundaries generating limited possibilities that repeat themselves, life is open to unlimited possibilities. “Perhaps this is part of why we play games: there is something intoxicating about pure expertise, and the real mastery we can attain around a card table or behind the wheel of a racecar emboldens us when we move into the more complex realms.”
kenne
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A good laugh . . . Leave a comment
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the “Anyway You Want It” kid has a birthday Leave a comment
Chase, James and Justin
Family and friends gathered at Chucky Cheese to celebrate Chase’s fifth birthday. Others did the singing, but you will see that they could stood some help from Chase.
kenne
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Music Explosion 1 comment
Music Explosion– Photo-Artistry by kenne
Words filling the air
Expressing an enchanted
Anecdotal truth
— kenne
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Yesterday’s Wreckage Leave a comment
West Coast of Mexico
Yesterday’s wreckage
Ridge showcased above the bay
By the morning sun
kenne
How, put that quote into context with a quote from Jonathan Rosen’s review of Douglas Brinkley’s new book, “The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America.”
“The subtitle is telling — the crusade for America, not “wild America” — because for Roosevelt, living forests and petrified forests, bird preserves and buffalo ranges were essential for the country’s survival as a moral and military power.”
Let’s face it; this great American leader was a “tree-hugger” at a time when such issues were not a part of the zero sum game of patrician politics. Because of Roosevelt and the Federal Government, this beautiful country has saved more than 234 million acres of wilderness, which ironically happen to be the images most often used in depicting “America the Beautiful,” one of our patriotic songs. A year before Roosevelt died, he was quoted as saying, “Thank Heaven I sat at the feet of Darwin and Huxley.”
Another great leader, by the same name, Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote of the four freedoms:
These freedoms, sometimes referred to as the “Four Essential Human Freedoms,” were represented in the now famous Norman Rockwell paintings, Four Freedoms. The first, Freedom of Speech depicts a citizen standing in a town hall setting, surrounded by less than enthusiastic citizens.
As Paul Krugman wrote in a recent N.Y. Times column, “That’s a far cry from what has been happening at recent town halls, where angry protesters — some of them, with no apparent sense of irony, shouting ‘This is America!’ — have been drowning out, and in some cases threatening, members of Congress trying to talk about health reform.”
One can’t help but wonder what both Roosevelt’s would think of today’s political operatives who are exploiting the fear and anxiety of many Americans. Maybe we need to do as Bill Maher has suggested, “We should forget town halls, and replace them with study halls. There’s a lot of populist anger directed towards Washington, but you know who concerned citizens should be most angry at? Their fellow citizens. “Inside the beltway” thinking may be wrong, but at least it’s thinking, which is more than you can say for what’s going on outside the beltway.”
Bill Maher is today’s Mark Twin “who liked Theodore Roosevelt personally, felt he was ready to “kick the Constitution into the backyard whenever it gets in the way.” Jonathan Rosen ends his review of Douglas Brinkley’s new book writing, “What this book makes abundantly clear is that his inspiration, vision and courage were as rare 100 years ago as they are today and that without them our country would be uglier, and poorer. Most usefully, it is a vital reminder of the key element of conservation, so often neglected: You cannot save what you do not love.”
kenne
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