Friends | Kevin Barrett's Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Friends’

The Same Can Be True For Politics

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Enemies, Folly, Friends, Market Fluctuations, Philosophy, Profit, Quotes on May 30, 2026| 2 Comments »

Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.

— Warren Buffett

.
Click here (30 May) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Friendly Possession

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Friedrich Nietzsche, Friends, Philosophy, Quotes, Spirits, Writing on November 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

–– Friedrich Nietzsche

.
Click here (7 November) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Make It Meaningful

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Dalai Lama, Days, Friends, Importance, Philosophy, Quotes on October 19, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.

— Dalai Lama

.
Click here (19 October) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Says Billy No-Mates

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Average, Billy No-Mates, Friends, Intelligence, Nikola Tesla, Philosophy, Quotes, Selective, Smart on July 28, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Intelligent people tend to have less friends than the average person. The smarter you are, the more selective you become.

–– Nikola Tesla

.
Click here (28 July) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Negative Results

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Enemies, Friends, Habits, Malcolm X, Philosophy, Quotes, Verification on June 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

If you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you’ll find that other people will have you hating your friends and loving your enemies.

— Malcolm X

.
Click here (30 June) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

29 Again…

Posted in Family and Friends, General Comments, Humor, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Flattery, Friends, General Comments, Getting Old, Happy Birthday James, Humor, Looking Young, Mark Twain, Philosophy, Quotes, Signs Of Aging on April 7, 2025| 2 Comments »

When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.

— Mark Twain

[Happy Birthday, son. …Just entering the high side of your 30s. For a few more years, you’re younger than you feel… LoL!!

Love Always,
— Mum and Dad]

.
Click here (7 April) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Not The Garden Of Eden

Posted in Economics, Faith Family and Friends, General Comments, Movie Review, Movies, Reviews, tagged Carlo Cecchi, Carmen Pommella, Denise Sardisco, Economics, Elena Orsini, Friends, General Comments, Jack London, Jessica Cressy, Low to Moderate Movie Recommendation, Low to Moderate movie review, Luca Marinelli, Margherita, Martin Eden, Martin Eden -- movie review, Movies, Russ Brissenden on March 31, 2025| 2 Comments »

Today’s review is for the 2019 Italian drama film: “Martin Eden” staring Luca Marinelli as Martin Eden, Carlo Cecchi as Russ Brissenden (Eden’s mentor), Jessica Cressy as Elena Orsini (Eden’s love interest), Denise Sardisco as Margherita (Eden’s lover – she loves him) and Carmen Pommella as Maria (a widow with two children who takes Eden in for some time while he is a struggling writer).

Background: I bought this movie based on a recommendation of the novel (by the same name) written by Jack London. The book was recommended to me by an old friend from high school who has written several books including a couple about San Francisco. One of his books is historical and mentioned London and Oakland, so he brought along a copy of the book for me to check out. It’s still in my “to read” stack. I started it, but just didn’t find it interesting, so I put it down to come back to “later“…

Plot: The book is supposed to be semi-autobiographical, although I understand London said it really wasn’t meant to be… A poor boy goes to sea and grows up to be a strong / good looking young man. Because he went to work (sea) at the age of 11, he is poorly spoken and fairly uneducated. He is not unintelligent. He simply lacked the opportunity to become educated when he was young. The movie begins when Eden sleeps with a young waitress he picks up at a dance. When he wakes up, she is gone and he hears a disturbance on the dock. A smallish young man is being roughed up by a larger, older man. Eden “rescues” the young man and the man insists Eden join him for dinner at his parents house. At the house, Eden meets Elena, the boy’s older sister and Eden is immediately smitten. Elena finds Eden attractive, but comically illiterate. Other than Elena, the family (and house help) find Eden to be beneath them. Blah, blah, blah… Eden seeks to educate himself by reading everything he can find / buy and he commits to becoming a writer. Eden is unsuccessful until he meets his mentor (Brissenden), who gives him advice about writing. While he is struggling and unsuccessful, Elena rejects Eden for not being practical and getting a respectable job so he can afford to marry her. Instead, Eden goes back to Margherita, who actually loves him. Blah, blah, blah… Eden gets published, then becomes famous and wealthy. Elena’s family decide Eden is now respectable and she approaches him to get back together. This time Eden rejects her, but he is still frustrated by life and feels he isn’t accepted by the world for who he is. He swims into the sea, presumably committing suicide.

The film is in Italian with English sub-titles and is supposed to be “sometime” between the two World Wars, but the cars look like they are from the 1970s, so it’s possible I’m not really understanding the time period. In any case, there are also numerous cuts to ships and children which, (I guess,) are flashbacks and supposed to be symbolic of Eden’s childhood and life at sea.

Is the movie any good? Not to me. I’m generally not into films with sub-titles and I much prefer movies with narration and / or a straight through time / chronology. Sub-titles and symbolism detract from my being “in the moment” of the movie.

What about the acting and the period costume? I didn’t find either appealing or interesting. I gather Marinelli is a big deal / star back in Italy. I didn’t find him to be much – except a whiner – in this role. His role seemed to be to complain about the classes in his society and how the wealthy didn’t recognize his inherent ability (to write) and the working-man’s status in general. Then, when he finally works his way up to being “successful”, he finds they still don’t appreciate him for “him” – just for his wealth. He sacrifices the woman who actually loves him (Margherita) and sends her to America alone – for no apparent reason. I imagine he still doesn’t feel “being accomplished” makes him worthy of love. But, to be honest, I don’t know… Maybe I’m just reading too much into that part of the film. LoL

Final recommendation: low to moderate (at best). Very little about the movie made me sympathetic to Eden, the working class or the Communist / Socialist portrayed here. There were only two characters I found appealing: Margherita and Maria. Margherita because of her unrequited love. She gives herself, but knows her lover’s heart is taken by another. And, Maria – the universal mother figure – widowed with two children, who still has the heart to take in a “lost” soul, recognize he is a good person and help him be the better person he can be. For me, Maria was the difference between a low and moderate final recommendation. Final thought: The movie didn’t make me want to get back to finish the book any sooner…

.
Click here (31 March) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

I Probably Do

Posted in Family and Friends, Humor, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Friends, Heaven, Hell, Humor, Mark Twain, Philosophy, Quotes on February 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I don’t like to commit myself to heaven and hell — you see, I have friends in both places.

— Mark Twain

.
Click here (8 February) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Shadows Disappear When Times Are Darkest

Posted in Education, Philosophy, Proverbs, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged Change, Friends, Nodding, Philosophy, Plutarch, Quotes, Shadows on April 14, 2024| Leave a Comment »

I don’t need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.

— Plutarch

.
Click here (14 April) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

They Call My Name To Visit Them

Posted in Education, Philosophy, Quotes, Reading, tagged Books, Charles William Eliot, Counselors, Friends, Harvard University, Philosophy, Quotes, Reading, Teachers on February 28, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.

— Charles William Eliot
Former President of Harvard University

.
Click here (28 February) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts. This link also lists all of the posts from 29 February (the leap years) in case anyone cares to check those out, too.

Read Full Post »

Limits Of Friendship

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Alice Walker, Friends, Growth, Philosophy, Quotes, Silence on February 18, 2024| Leave a Comment »

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

— Alice Walker

.
Click here (18 February) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Word Games

Posted in Family and Friends, General Comments, Philosophy, Pictures, Quotes, tagged Albert Einstein, Connections, Facebook, Friends, Games, General Comments, Knowledge, Memory, Philosophy, Pictures, Quordle, Quotes, Sherlock Holmes, Sudoku, Wordle on January 10, 2024| 3 Comments »

In the mid-00s, I got hooked on the numbers game “Sudoku“. A colleague was playing it at work and I asked her what it was she was doing. She explained it was a “numbers” game which you could print out and do on break or while waiting for something (Dr. / Dentist apmt, DMV). I printed out a couple and I was hooked. Sometime later, I found the game as an app on my Kindle and was even deeper down the rabbit hole…

In late 2017, I retired and started going on Facebook regularly. I was contacted by someone I knew back in grammar school days and we “friend”-ed each other. Several of his posts were comments about how much he was enjoying playing “Wordle“. I never heard of it, so I Googled it and tried playing…

It was “fun” enough, but I didn’t see why it was so addictive. I would go along for 5 or 10 days and then error out. I also didn’t realize that if you skipped a day – or played on a different system (PC vs tablet vs Kindle), “you” didn’t get credited with your win that day. In fact, although you simply didn’t play, your count was reset to zero (as if you failed in your guesses). It’s almost needless to say, but I had multiple times when I got the “correct” answer only to find the next day, I didn’t receive “credit” for my win.

So, using the same hardware was the first thing I “figured out”. I then decided there had to be a “system” to winning. I settled on using three unique words which contained all of the vowels(“a”, “e”, “i”, “o”, “u” and “y”) and a good chunk of the consonants (again, trying to keep them unique).

To make a longer story shorter, I quickly shot up into the 80% and then 90% bracket. From there, it takes a LOT more correct days to improve your percentage correct.



When I last posted about this, I was at 96% and 125 correct answers (days). Well, I just went up to 97% and, as you can see, I’m at 217 (days).

To tell the truth, it’s now getting all a bit boring… Even with my OCD, I’m finding it a bit of a drag to continue. Which means I’ll probably get one wrong, miss a day – or even stop completely. Either way, I think it’ll drop me back to 96% (or lower), and it’s really not worth the time / effort to work it back up to 97%.

A little over a year ago, a different Facebook friend was posting about “Quordle“, how she’d finally won a game and how much fun it was to play. And, of course, I had to look into it…

It turns out Quordle is Wordle, but with four words to guess each day and nine tries (instead of 6 tries to get one 5-letter word).



Is it “more” difficult? Yes, a little bit. Is it “more” fun? Not really. Why? Because I’m OCD and I “normally” don’t like “trick” games.

How is this a “trick” game? Every now and then they throw up a word with four common letters and the first letter being the critical different consonant letter. If you happen to hit the consonant as one of the other words, you can win – more or less easily. If you don’t, you can end up with more options than you have remaining guesses. (See: “bunny”, “sunny”, “funny”)

A third game which I’ve recently begun playing is “Connections“. Here you have 16 words and your task is to sort them into four groups of four words – with “something” in common. …And you have four chances to guess the correct “connection”.

I think of this game as the SAT game of “societal” common knowledge. In the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), if you can eliminate one of the multiple-guess answers, you can greatly increase your chance of getting credit for the question / answer. Random guess: 25% correct. Eliminate the “obvious” incorrect response and guess: 33% correct. Eliminate a second “almost” as obvious incorrect response and guess: 50%. Of course, if you know (or can workout) the correct answer: 100%.

I find this (“Connections”) an “amusing” game, more than a test of skill / knowledge. There is a significant amount of recency and cultural bias in this game. How many of us know four names of women’s professional soccer or basketball teams? Men’s hockey teams? Items associated with Wonder Woman’s costume? Actors with common (shared) first or last names? Groups of things (a “murder” of crows or a “hand” of bananas)?

At any rate, I get a few correct each week and a few wrong (more often than not). Since I have no investment in the game or answers, I find the ultimate answers amusing / interesting, but – more often than not – I also don’t care if I get them right or wrong and forget the “connection” almost as soon as I close the browser tab.

It (my reaction to the game) reminds me of the combination saying(s) of Sherlock Homes and Einstein: “Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” and “Never memorize something that you can look up.”

Note: my method of solving Wordle and Quordle does not work on the “advanced” level wherein you can only use “new” words which have the correct letters in them and / or in the correct location from words previously guessed.

.
Click here (10 January) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Stay Surrounded

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Candles, Darkness, Friends, Light, Philosophy, Quotes, Rise Up and Salute the Sun, Suzy Kassem on December 26, 2023| 2 Comments »

Always surround yourself with friends that have plenty of light in them. That way, you will always have candles around you when days are dark.

— Suzy Kassem
From her book: “Rise Up and Salute the Sun“

.
Click here (26 December) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Smiles And Friends

Posted in Faith Family and Friends, Family and Friends, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Family, Friends, Happy Birthday Rebecca, John Lennon, Philosophy, Quotes, Smiles, Tears, Years on September 23, 2023| 2 Comments »

Happy Birthday, Bec!

Count your life by smiles, not tears. Count your age by friends, not years.

— John Lennon

We look forward to seeing all your photos from Scotland and Europe.

We love you always,
Mum and Dad
XXX 00 X

.
Click here (23 September) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

Ditto For A Good Spouse And Their Love

Posted in Family and Friends, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged Elbert Hubbard, Friends, Philosophy, Quotes on March 23, 2023| 2 Comments »

The friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.

— Elbert Hubbard

.
Click here (23 March) to see the posts of prior years. I started this blog in late 2009. Daily posting began in late January 2011. Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.