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WITandWISDOM(tm) - September 13, 2000 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. - Author Unknown Source: Thought for Today, thoughtfortoday-subscribe@egroups.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: WHEN IT LOOKS LIKE I HAVE FAILED - Author Unknown Failure does not mean that I am a failure; It does mean I have not yet succeeded. Failure does not mean I have accomplished nothing; It does mean I have learned something. Failure does not mean I have been a fool; It does mean I had enough faith to experiment. Failure does not mean I have been disgraced; It does mean I dared to try. Failure does not mean I don't have it; It does mean I have to do something in a different way. Failure does not mean that I am inferior; It does mean that I am not perfect. Failure does not mean that I have wasted my life; It does mean that I have an excuse to start over. Failure does not mean that I should give up; It does mean that I should try harder. Failure does not mean that I will never make it; It does mean that I need more practice. Failure does not mean that you have abandoned me; It does mean that you must have a better idea. Submitted by: Cynthia Westerfield via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: Interesting Plants and Trees - Welwitschia mirabilis, from the deserts of Namibia, can live for over 2,000 years, yet its central trunk never grows more than three feet in height. Instead the energy is transmitted into its two huge leaves which never fall and continue growing throughout the plant's life. The leaves can be as long as twenty feet! - The banyan tree (Ficus benghalensis) of India has more than one trunk. When the tree attains a certain size, it sends down rope-like trunks. So the tree can spread outwards almost indefinitely. A 200-year-old specimen in the Calcutta Botanic Gardens has over 1,700 trunks, while during Alexander the Great's Indian campaign 20,000 soldiers are said to have sheltered under a single banyan tree. - The merest touch causes the sensitive plant Mimosa pudica to collapse in one-tenth of a second. The wilting pose deters grazing animals from eating it, and ten minutes later, when the danger has passed, the plant reverts to its upright position. - Puya raimondii of Bolivia can take up to 150 years to bloom. And once it has flowered, it promptly dies. Although it's a herbaceous, it's built like a tree with a stem strong enough to support a man. - When the fruit of the South American sandbox tree (Hura crepitans) is ripe, it explodes with such force that the seeds can be scattered up to fifteen feet from the main trunk. The explosion is so loud that it can scare the life out of unsuspecting passers-by. Source: ArcaMax Trivia, www.arcamax.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: The codfish lays 10,000 eggs, The homely hen lays one. The codfish never cackles To tell you what she's done. And so we scorn the codfish While the humble hen we prize. Which only goes to show you That it pays to advertise. Submitted by Marjorie Cate via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: The flight of Apollo 12 was normal for thirty-six seconds. Suddenly lightning struck the spacecraft. The master alarm sounded and lights flashed on all over the control panel. Said Dick Gordon later: "In all our training, we had never seen so many alarm lights as went on inside that spacecraft. . . . If they had given us something like that in the simulators, we would have said, 'What are you trying to do? This is impossible!'" The best thing to do at the moment was nothing. But once in orbit, everything depended on getting the inertial guidance system back in shape. Dick Gordon crawled down into the equipment bay and tried to sight some stars in order to realign the guidance platform. But as he looked through the telescope he couldn't see a single star. He actually wondered, for a moment, if the stars had gone out. Then, as his eyes adapted to the dark, he caught just the bottom of the constellation Orion. He sighted on Rigel, then Sirius. Apollo 12 was back in business. Source: Signs of the Times, Copyright (c) DATE, Pacific Press, www.pacificpress.com/signs via http://www.witandwisdom.org Submitted by: Dale Galusha |