On Legacies -- word of the day

Legacies...let's see.

Legacy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  ... ISome families pass objects and ideas down from generation to generation. These objects and ideas can also be called legacies. It may have to do with a person or many people. Individuals can leave a historical legacy. ... Legacies are more or less what someone is remembered for.

In my case, my liberalism, resilience and belief in the good in people came from my dad.  Perhaps because I never heard him complain about so-and-so unless that so-and-so was a known quantity.  He just presented the facts and let us kids draw our own conclusions.  I have adopted that in my life as through living by example and not preaching. God, I hate preaching.  I know...it is narrow-minded of me to hate preaching since I preach all the time on this blog but in my defense, I try to cite to background and then criticize.  I really do.  Preaching is the verbal equivalent of being pinched as a young child and told what to do because the pincher is older than the pinchee and expects respect.  Perhaps having been the  pinchee innumerable times, I have sympathy for those preached and pinched.  

Certainly we are being preached at now by the ultra, ultra, ultra right about the budget, free trade and whatever else the Tea Party decides is fair game.   Certainly we are being preached at by those who dismiss the idea of universal healthcare with the air of Marie Antonette 'let them eat cake.'  Certainly we are being preached at whenever the President is spoken about by his last name.  I know this lack of respect very well since I used it with the prior President who landed us into this awful financial mess and these wars against ideas that sadly began with President Lyndon Johnson (a good Democrat) who started the trend by starting a war against poverty.  

But I digress. For me, legacies will always have a personal inheritance definition.  My blue eyes came from my grandfather, my face from one grandmother, my love of words from both parents, my love of animals from my other grandmother, my wisdom from pitting hope against experience to quote from P.D. James' Original Sin and my serenity from making my choices for myself.  From my milk bred religion to the religion of my middle age and now to the serenity of the buddhist.  An amalgam that fosters the middle way approach to life.  

Song that Hit me today

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_the_Long_Way_Home  Supertramp's classic really hit me today.  The song balances success and emptiness, searching for meaning tension between success and despair

Zen Cats for Serenity

Ever notice how well balanced cats don't react to trivia?  Oh, sure, they chase feathers, cat nip, climb curtains, claw at the most expensive thing in the place, sleep in shoes, eat your food but those essentially are cat things.  Their 'cat ma.'  What cats don't do is more important.  They don't hold onto fear or anger.  They deal much better with those emotions that we humans do.  They zen out instead ... reacting only when they need something from their servant -- which is you or me.  And they are very clear about what they need.

Researching for Paralegals and Others

What did we do without the internet?  We read books, went to museums, visited courthouses, cemeteries and libraries...lots of libraries.  But we can do so much more with the internet.  Yesterday's near shutdown is a case in point.  Local courts' filing boards posted instructions on the imminent closure of government and filing procedures in case the government closed down.  

Gilbert & Sullivan Alert

Sssssshhhhh, Gilbert & Sullivan is on WETA tonight.  Awesome.  It is fun to hear American accents singing familiar songs.  Completely revamped and updated as well.