2024 Elections!
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The Bryan Ferry Orchestra on NPR
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Things You Thought Today
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Wordle - daily game
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Photos you have taken of yourself
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Radio Paradise Comments
- Coaxial - Oct 22, 2024 - 7:21am
Trump
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NY Times Strands
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260,000 Posts in one thread?
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NYTimes Connections
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Define Reality
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Radio Paradise NFL Pick'em Group
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Mixtape Culture Club
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how do you feel right now?
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Oh, The Stupidity
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October 2024 Photo Theme - Furry
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Baseball, anyone?
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The Future is here!
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Name My Band
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Gotta Get Your Drink On
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Australia
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Talk Behind Their Backs Forum
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Evolution!
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Peace, Love, & Understanding
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Kamala Harris
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TWO WORDS
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Business as Usual
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The Obituary Page
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TEXAS
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Setback for the Wayback
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Song of the Day
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Two Things
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Periodic wake up call
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RPeep QUOTES: Best Worst, Funniest, Most Notorious
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Today in History
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Vinyl Only Spin List
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GHOST of HALLOWEEN, Past, Present, & Future
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Play the Blues
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Pernicious Pious Proclivities Particularized Prodigiously
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Photography Forum - Your Own Photos
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the Todd Rundgren topic
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Bug Reports & Feature Requests
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Art Show
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Click Here to Donate Button
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YouTube: Music-Videos
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Lyrics for original songs
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Live Music
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Biden's Lies
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songs that ROCK!
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Serenity! Thank you, Bill!
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Manbird's Episiotomy Stitch Licking Clinic - KEEP OUT
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Chemosabe, the further adventures of ...
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Main Mix Playlist
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Musky Mythology
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Russia
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Thanks RP!
- miamizsun - Oct 19, 2024 - 8:57am
The Republican Convention
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Radio 2050 on Android RP App
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Thanks William!
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Climate Change
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Prog Rockers Anonymous
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USA! USA! USA!
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Florida
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Strange signs, marquees, billboards, etc.
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Environment
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FOUR WORDS
- GeneP59 - Oct 18, 2024 - 9:10am
Is there any DOG news out there?
- oldviolin - Oct 18, 2024 - 8:12am
Signs o' the Apocalypse in the news...
- oldviolin - Oct 18, 2024 - 8:03am
Israel
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NEED A COMPUTER GEEK!
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Questions.
- Red_Dragon - Oct 18, 2024 - 7:33am
Earworm
- ScottFromWyoming - Oct 18, 2024 - 7:26am
Chaka Khan - Tiny Desk Concert
- miamizsun - Oct 18, 2024 - 6:53am
Karma/Divine Justice
- sirdroseph - Oct 18, 2024 - 5:50am
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Index »
Entertainment »
Books »
Oliver Sacks on Learning He Has Terminal Cancer
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R_P
Gender:
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Posted:
Feb 26, 2015 - 7:32am |
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meower
Location: i believe, i believe, it's silly, but I believe Gender:
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Posted:
Feb 23, 2015 - 5:02am |
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A most amazing man.
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R_P
Gender:
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Posted:
Feb 21, 2015 - 1:04pm |
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ScottN
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
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Posted:
Feb 21, 2015 - 11:07am |
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I too learned of Sacks' condition a few days ago. Sad. Yet...
This man who was such a fine example of the the richness of living may now be an exemplar of the dignity of one's dying. Nevertheless: sad, very sad.
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R_P
Gender:
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Posted:
Feb 21, 2015 - 10:46am |
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Sad news from one of my favourite authors... (...) It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can. In this I am encouraged by the words of one of my favorite philosophers, David Hume, who, upon learning that he was mortally ill at age 65, wrote a short autobiography in a single day in April of 1776. He titled it “My Own Life.” “I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution,” he wrote. “I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment’s abatement of my spirits. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company.” I have been lucky enough to live past 80, and the 15 years allotted to me beyond Hume’s three score and five have been equally rich in work and love. In that time, I have published five books and completed an autobiography (rather longer than Hume’s few pages) to be published this spring; I have several other books nearly finished. Hume continued, “I am ... a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions.” Here I depart from Hume. While I have enjoyed loving relationships and friendships and have no real enmities, I cannot say (nor would anyone who knows me say) that I am a man of mild dispositions. On the contrary, I am a man of vehement disposition, with violent enthusiasms, and extreme immoderation in all my passions. And yet, one line from Hume’s essay strikes me as especially true: “It is difficult,” he wrote, “to be more detached from life than I am at present.” Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life. On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight. This will involve audacity, clarity and plain speaking; trying to straighten my accounts with the world. But there will be time, too, for some fun (and even some silliness, as well). I feel a sudden clear focus and perspective. There is no time for anything inessential. I must focus on myself, my work and my friends. I shall no longer look at “NewsHour” every night. I shall no longer pay any attention to politics or arguments about global warming. This is not indifference but detachment — I still care deeply about the Middle East, about global warming, about growing inequality, but these are no longer my business; they belong to the future. I rejoice when I meet gifted young people — even the one who biopsied and diagnosed my metastases. I feel the future is in good hands. (...)
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