Contributor Posts

In some times and places, life is seen as a one-way expedition from birth to death. We progress linearly and don’t look back. In other times and places, life is circular, a never-ending round trip. We live, die, and live again....Read more

I read your obituary today
and thought of the words,
from our past times,
when I talked with thee.
My recollection was the kindness,
which I heard in our talks;
The words were just words to me,
but I could hear the love
you had for friends and family.
Rest in peace in the afterlife,
where your Soul is now free,
as the World is now a sadder place,
you're gone and we no longer see.

Love is something
which we have.
There isn't a limit
of how much we gave.

Don't be dumb,
don't you succumb
to the loud beat,
without a drum.

The rain is back.
It is good to see
and to smell the freshness.
At least it is to me.

Bette Nesmith Graham invented one of the most popular office supplies of the 20th century. Today, she’s largely been forgotten. Click to read

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Why isn't this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round? Clues might include the high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star featured here at the nebula's center. One possible answer is that Mz3 is hiding a second, dimmer star that orbits close in to the bright star. A competing hypothesis holds that the central star's own spin and magnetic field are channeling the gas. Since the central star appears to be so similar to our own Sun, astronomers hope that increased understanding of the history of this giant space ant can provide useful insight into the likely future of our own Sun and Earth.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream, and not make dreams your master;
If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And, which is more, you'll be a Man, my son!

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work. His works of fiction include  "The Man Who Would be King" and the "Jungle Book"/ His Poems include "Mandalay", "The Gods of the Copybook Headings", "Gunga Din"and "If...."

It has been said, by others,
"clothes make the man."
So tell me how it does
and help me understand.
I wore a hat when I was young;
a great time for me,
back in the year, 1943.
My little Sister, stood by my side.
To this day she is my friend.
She has a recurring Cancer, back again.
I pray for her nightly; can't pretend,
I'm worried for her recovery
and will pray for her once again.

Down on the street of broken dreams,
lay the ruins of too many lives.
Not their fault, when many lost jobs.
A collapse in Governing, which soon became
small businesses closing due to government edict.

Black is the night.
No clouds in sight,
just the dim rays
from a half moon light

NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

What's happening in the sky? The pre-dawn sky first seemed relatively serene yesterday morning over Indian Harbor Beach in Florida, USA. But then it lit up with a rocket launch. Just to the north, NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 Mission blasted into space aboard a powerful Falcon 9 rocket. The featured time-lapse video -- compressing 12-minutes into 8-seconds -- shows the bright launch plume starting on the far left. The rocket rises into an increasingly thin atmosphere, causing its plume to spread out just as it is lit by the rising Sun. As the Crew-2 capsule disappears over the horizon, the landing plume of the returning first stage of the Falcon 9 descending toward the SpaceX barge in the Atlantic Ocean can be seen. Up in space, the Endeavour crew capsule is expected to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) this morning, delivering four astronauts. The Crew-2 astronauts join Expedition 65 to help conduct, among other tasks, drug tests using tissue chips -- small microfluidic chips that simulate human organs -- that run rapidly in ISS's microgravity.

Video by Eric Holland