Beanie Books

How important do you have to be to have been "assassinated" instead of "murdered"? If the motivation is political, then it's assassination. Otherwise, it is murder. You cannot be assassinated by accident, either. If a jilted ex murders the Prince of Placeland, it's just a murder. If a jilted ex is also a member of a rival political faction, it may be an assassination. If a jilted ex is driving home in tears and accidentally runs over the Prince of Placeland in the middle of the night in a neighborhood where the streetlights are out because of the prince's questionable infrastructure policy, it's manslaughter.

Don Featherstone - creator of plastic lawn flamingos in 1957

You are not obligated to visit relatives. You are not obligated to purchase gifts for anyone. People will give you candy for no reason other than it is Halloween. It is the only day of the year where it is socially acceptable to dress up like a penguin.

If you want your dreams to come true, don't oversleep. The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention. Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important. The best vitamin for making friends…B1. The 10 commandments are not "multiple choice." The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. Minds are like parachutes…they function only when open. Ideas won't work unless YOU do. One thing you can't recycle is wasted time. One who lacks the courage to start has already finished. The heaviest thing to carry is a grudge. Don't learn safety rules by accident. We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves. Jumping to conclusions can be bad exercise. A turtle makes progress when it sticks its head out. One thing you can give and still keep…is your word. A friend walks in when everyone else walks out. The pursuit of happiness is the chase of a lifetime! Author Unknown Apple Seeds Click here for...

The Story of the Butterfly A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to squeeze its body through the tiny hole. Then it stopped, as if it couldn’t go further. So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bits of cocoon. The butterfly emerged easily but it had a swollen body and shriveled wings. The man continued to watch it, expecting that any minute the wings would enlarge and expand enough to support the body, Neither happened! In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around. It was never able to fly. What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand: The restricting cocoon and the struggle required by the butterfly to get through the opening was a way of forcing the fluid from the body  into the wings so that it would be ready for flight once that was achieved. Sometimes struggles are exact...

These three, short sentences tell you a lot about the direction of our current government and cultural environment: We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Seems we constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run out of money. But we never hear about welfare or food stamps running out of money! What’s interesting is the first group “worked for” their money, but the second didn’t. Why are we cutting benefits for our veterans, no pay raises for our military and cutting our army to a level lower than before WWII, but we are not stopping the payments or benefits to illegal aliens. Am I the only one missing something? “If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.” - Plato

The definition of the word Conundrum is: something that is puzzling or confusing. Here are six Conundrums of socialism in the United States of America: America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about. They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries. Think about it! And that, my friends, pretty much sums up the USA in the 21st Century. Makes you wonder who is doing the math.  Free people are not equal. Equal people are not free. 

Peace of mind   Once Buddha was walking from one town to another town with a few of his followers. This was in the initial days. While they were travelling, they happened to pass a lake. They stopped there and Buddha told one of his disciples, “I am thirsty. Do get me some water from that lake there.” The disciple walked up to the lake. When he reached it, he noticed that some people were washing clothes in the water and, right at that moment, a bullock cart started crossing through the lake. As a result, the water became very muddy, very turbid. The disciple thought, “How can I give this muddy water to Buddha to drink!” So he came back and told Buddha, “The water in there is very muddy. I don’t think it is fit to drink.” After about half an hour, again Buddha asked the same disciple to go back to the lake and get him some water to drink. The disciple obediently went back to the lake. This time he found that the lake had absolutely clear water in it. The mud had se...

Inscribed on the walls of an ancient Persian temple are these thoughts: Do not say  all you know, for he who says all he knows often says more than he knows. Do not tell  all you hear, for he who tells all he hears often tells more than he hears. Do not spend  all you have, for he who spends all he has often spends more than he has. Do not covet  all you see, for he who covets all he sees often wants more than he sees.   From appleseeds