LONELYPOND PRESENTS

(Well, plus all the usual stuff) is to support your favorite crazy, crushing cartoon band by buying their first t-shirt. All nicely done by Zazzle so you can pick the color, shirt and price of your choice. Be one of the few, the proud, the Blinkers…want a better tag? Buy a shirt. Or offer some suggestions. Thanks. Merry Christmas. Scroll down one and watch Elf Panic; you’ll enjoy it.

Posted the scary tree pastel set to

Flickr. Here’s a sample:

Werewolf Haiku pastels Spooky trees

Spooky tree shadow I found while on my Fall Foliage Photo Safari:

SpookyShadow

Harrisburg area tonight: go see my buddy Jeremy in concert (taking care of sick Gayle so need stunt double stand in).

October rain walk
Invigorating twilight
Dance with dusk for warmth

Pensive + paused here
Sun at window Sleep weights eyes
Dreams thoughts nightmares heard

yes, I have the stack of papers and yes, I have been thinking of you and saving articles. So here’s a quick roundup:

Stefan Stern’s excellent column on effective networking, innovation and leadership.

Moon movies + moon moments from Nigel Andrews.

Well, that’s enough for now…although I was going to tell you my bingo adventures but you can just read Sarah Hemming’s interview with Neil Bartlett.

Yes, it’s Friday + yes, I’m in love (but not w/ Jeremy unless he brings me back a t-shirt).

Stray Cats in my head (not my home) + I’m going down to dinner.

They’re following me.

Thinking about virtue after Obama’s inclusion of an uncredited Thomas Paine quote in his Inaugral Address. I remember Machiavelli being big on virtu in The Prince. The Barking Carrot is studying Nietzche in class and blogging about virtue and how it is preventing her from blowing up corporate America(to quote the Carrot): “Nietzsche points out that if you don’t have any desire to commit said bad deeds, that not doing them doesn’t make you virtuous. (Duh.) Virtue is having the desire to commit various sins and the will to not act on that desire.”

Machiavelli’s virtu — a spousebuzz blogpost explains that it means not moral virtue but “strength, power, prowess, control…”

The I Ching also references virtue but I am not familiar enough with its cultural bases to parse its meaning.

So what virtue did Thomas Paine mean, did Barack Obama mean and what does it mean as a modern value. More thoughts later after much reading.

And Peter Aspden discusses how the modern tendency to delve across/through rather than deeply is affecting culture and talks about philosophybites.com and their interview with “radical theologian Don Cupitt.” Good interview; I will be trolling the site later to see if anyone’s mentioned virtue recently.

And for music to mull to: Review of Hjaltalín, musicians of Iceland, land of storms and muses.