As in, "Pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top, don't kill me, Mr. ICE Man"?

Tolkien is spinning like a top in his grave...

How to Practice Gratitude Practicing gratitude has incredible effects, from improving our mental health to boosting our relationships with others. Explore ways you can be more appreciative in our mindful guide to gratitude.

For Thankful Thursday:

From Robert Emmons at UC, Davis explaining the two key components of practicing gratitude:

1. We affirm the good things we’ve received

2. We acknowledge the role other people play in providing our lives with goodness

Learn more here: www.mindful.org/an-introduct...

Maybe we should call it April Fools (and Fanatics) Day.

That tracks. The white kids will be waiting tables and dropping balls at better spots on the golf course.

The kids look thrilled. I guess it's time for their shift at the meat packing plant.

Well, I'm hopeful, too...but he's certainly become the pied piper of anyone who wants follow a disrespectful, dishonest, indecent, angry, resentful, and hateful tune into oblivion. I am still reeling from the knowledge of just how many people that is.

if you buy used books and want to avoid amazon where possible, check out bookfinder.com

you can search essentially every marketplace in one go

so you can, e.g., find the same used copy for sale, from the same seller, on biblio.com or ebay instead of amazon or abe (owned by amazon)

Lord love you for sticking with it over there and doing whatever good you could.

White nationalist group Patriot Front marches on South Carolina Statehouse Patriot Front, a white supremacist organization, briefly demonstrated at the South Carolina Statehouse on March 1 during Columbia's popular Soda City Market.

Dear People of the Blue Sky,

This is not OK.

Sincerely,

A native South Carolinian

www.postandcourier.com/columbia/new...

And how bad must that something be if it’s worse than what we already know?

I've wondered for a long time why it is that human beings often elevate the greediest and most power mad among us to rule over us...and why we don't recognize insatiable greed and lust for power as the pathological illnesses that they are and ensure suffered are committed...not elected.

Also works for "aggressively ignorant."

One of the best videos you'll ever see

The US Army blowing up a swastika in occupied Germany, 1945

Meet Lena Richard, the Celebrity Chef Who Broke Barriers in the Jim Crow South Lena Richard was a successful New Orleans-based chef, educator, writer and entrepreneur

In celebration of Black History Month, here's a groundbreaking TV star, chef, entrepreneur, teacher, and benefactor that I had never heard of: Lena Richards. "Mama Lena," as she was known, was to New Orleans cooking as Julia Childs was to French cooking - in 1949. Truly a remarkable woman:

I will accept this comparison to a Komodo dragon as a compliment and, at my age, is most apt.

None at all. No ill effects whatsoever (other than excess calories).

Folks: I am NOT affiliated with the group that is using my name to support an economic boycott. Please spread this post, if you would.

Well, I can attest to living through salmon croquettes made from a can that expired six years earlier.

The basic assessment report is free, and you can purchase more detailed reports if you’d like to learn more.

End

I’d like to invite you to consider your own virtuous strengths – and those you hope to see in our leaders - by taking the Values In Action (VIA) strengths assessment you’ll find here:

www.viacharacter.org/surveys/take...

7/?

...especially in the crucial time when we are deciding, once again, whether we mean liberty and justice for all…or only for some. 6/?

As our government transitions from being a nation of laws, we’re going to be on our own to govern ourselves and support those who are willing to serve – virtuously – in local leadership roles,...5/?

Transcendence (spiritual strengths such as gratitude and hope) 4/?

Courage (emotional strengths such as bravery and perseverance)

Humanity (social strengths such as love and kindness)

Justice (community strengths such as fairness and leadership)

Temperance (protective strengths such as self-regulation and humility)

3/?

Based on what the father of positive psychology and his team could decipher from the writings of antiquity, across time and across cultures, research suggests that humanity has aspired to certain virtues for 2500 years or so:

Wisdom (cognitive strengths such as discernment and perspective) 2/?

We have failed to come to a crossroads in America because the paths of what we say and what we do have failed to converge. Worse, our stated values and our actions have diverged so sharply from one another, that it seems we will never again come to the crossroads where character meets behavior. 1/?

She and Matt Gaetz got a Groupon 2-for-1?