Birthday Cavalcade

Today's birthdays are a truly mixed lot, although when you get to thinking about them, they do share creativity, a certain élan, and a serious interest in the world around them. They are all, in their own ways, persons of marked qualities.

Qualities that include idealism and skepticism, embodied in Percy Bysshe Shelley...


As well as worldliness and wit, as in Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (she would have been 108, bless her):

Not to mention charisma and an enormous generosity of spirit, as in the one and only Satch:

Add in selflessness, determination, and infinite courage, as with Raoul Wallenberg:

Perhaps sharing this anniversary bodes well for another birthday boy, 47 today. If all goes well, they are qualities he will need, in bulk.

Not to wax either political or sentimental, let's hope.