Early mornings has always been the best time of any day for me as life is still fresh and the earlier the better — optimism and hope swell the mental membranes.
The air is clear (even with thick coastal fog) because the mind is still clear; all the problems facing this wretched planet seem far away and not as dangerous, ugly and dominating as it seems as the clock swings southward.
In the coming day, there’s promise of something neat, of maybe a good thing happening somewhere down the line.
Of course, this is just bullshit — morning gives way to afternoon and the same old crud.
(Illustration found here).
Happiness is both a warm gun and the morning staying put.
And according a most-modern study, most people agree:
People around the world are happiest in the morning, according to a US study on Thursday that analyzed hundreds of millions of messages on the microblogging site Twitter.
…
Mood peaks were detected early in the day but began to dip mid-morning, about the time most people are starting their workdays.
Another positive peak was witnessed around midnight, followed by a “sharp drop in NA (negative affect, including distress, fear, anger, guilt, and disgust) during the overnight hours,” said the study in the journal Science.
The highest numbers of good mood words indicating enthusiasm, delight, activeness, and alertness were found on Saturdays and Sundays, “which points to possible effects of work-related stress, less sleep, and earlier wake time.”
That’s why we’re working for the weekend.
And what brought on all this happy/unhappy introspection is President Obama’s three years at the helm of this disastrous ship of state — he is without a doubt the most disappointing US leader in all of this republic’s history.
Never was so much become so little, or worse.
In the silent corner as opposed to the loud, drum-banging war room, are those quiet civil liberties all of us has taken for granted, though, now could be just a little tick away from a bad shift in the 200-plus years of a country which was for a time the ultimate place on earth.
Jonathan Turley, in an op/ed in the LA Times yesterday, summed up the disappointment in Obama’s disaster for freedom.
Key notes:
However, President Obama not only retained the controversial Bush policies, he expanded on them.
The earliest, and most startling, move came quickly.
Soon after his election, various military and political figures reported that Obama reportedly promised Bush officials in private that no one would be investigated or prosecuted for torture.
In his first year, Obama made good on that promise, announcing that no CIA employee would be prosecuted for torture.
Later, his administration refused to prosecute any of the Bush officials responsible for ordering or justifying the program and embraced the “just following orders” defense for other officials, the very defense rejected by the United States at the Nuremberg trials after World War II.
Obama failed to close Guantanamo Bay as promised.
He continued warrantless surveillance and military tribunals that denied defendants basic rights. He asserted the right to kill U.S. citizens he views as terrorists.
His administration has fought to block dozens of public-interest lawsuits challenging privacy violations and presidential abuses.
But perhaps the biggest blow to civil liberties is what he has done to the movement itself.
It has quieted to a whisper, muted by the power of Obama’s personality and his symbolic importance as the first black president as well as the liberal who replaced Bush.
Indeed, only a few days after he took office, the Nobel committee awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize without his having a single accomplishment to his credit beyond being elected.
Many Democrats were, and remain, enraptured.
Nobody, however, had been raptured yet — all are still prowling around, banging on that pessimism pipe dream.
If it’d only stay morning forever.
Happy Birthday!
One of the all-time, good-looking and talented actresses turns 80 today.
Angie Dickinson is one of those performers who was nearly taken for granted during her heyday.
She made a shitload of movies, but always seemed to stand out as a female member of Frank Sinatra’s ‘Rat Pack’ and was seen in the best of places, both on and off the screen.
Not only was Dickinson gorgeous — her legs was the toast of Hollywood — she also had some acting chops, and appeared in one of the best films from the 1960s, John Boorman’s ‘Point Blank,’ playing Lee Marvin’s girlfriend.
Always a favorite, but like everybody else, age slows — she looks happy in that photo at left, mainly because it was shot in 1970 when it was still morning all over the world.
Happy eighty!
(Illustration found here).