May 31st

Quotes of the week

·         It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes. ~Thomas Aquinas

·         The pursuit of the perfect, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and light. ~Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy

• All things that are,
  Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd.
  ~William Shakespeare
• The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative ~Winston Churchill
• Without a sense of humor, you're old in a hurry. ~Janice Clark

Meditation of the week

Accepting those things we cannot change frees us.

It's so easy to get caught up in other people's lives. Assuming that we know what's best for them seems so natural. Many of us have excelled at being caretakers, but it's time to back off and let our loved ones fend for themselves. That means letting them make their own decisions and live with their own consequences.

We can't change other people. Certainly we have made others feel guilty enough so that they have given in and done things our way. And we have won many power struggles. But ultimately we can't claim ownership of anyone else's mind, and we aren't the stewards of anyone else's life. We may feel diminished by our lack of control initially, but in time we will love the freedom of living only our own lives. The extra time we'll have and the peace we'll know will comfort us.

I will experience many moments of relief and peace when I let others be their own stewards.

Author of the week

We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.

Bertrand Russell

Good Idea of the week

Releasing the Cows
(Told by Master Thich Nhat Hanh)

One day the Buddha was sitting in the wood with thirty or forty monks. They had an excellent lunch and they were enjoying the company of each other. There was a farmer passing by and the farmer was very unhappy. He asked the Buddha and the monks whether they had seen his cows passing by. The Buddha said they had not seen any cows passing by.

The farmer said, "Monks, I'm so unhappy. I have twelve cows and I don't know why they all ran away. I have also a few acres of a sesame seed plantation and the insects have eaten up everything. I suffer so much I think I am going to kill myself.

The Buddha said, "My friend, we have not seen any cows passing by here. You might like to look for them in the other direction."

So the farmer thanked him and ran away, and the Buddha turned to his monks and said, "My dear friends, you are the happiest people in the world. You don't have any cows to lose. If you have too many cows to take care of, you will be very busy.

"That is why, in order to be happy, you have to learn the art of cow releasing (laughter). You release the cows one by one. In the beginning you thought that those cows were essential to your happiness, and you tried to get more and more cows. But now you realize that cows are not really conditions for your happiness; they constitute an obstacle for your happiness. That is why you are determined to release your cows."

Video of the week

SEBASTIAN'S VOODOO

Websites of the week

http://www.sweetlandmovie.com/ Alaska Rob says this is a good movie!

Think we can’t figure out this energy problem? http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-05/power-made-shocks

Retire on $500 a month!

http://www.escapefromamerica.com/

Your weekly address and much more is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/

The funniest truth on TV is www.thedailyshow.com

And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

They have way too much time in Japan!

MAy 25th

Delete Me First for MAy 25^th, 2009

Quotes of the week

 

A minute's success pays the failure of years. ~Robert Browning

Few things are necessary to make the wise man happy while no amount of material wealth would satisfy a fool. I am not a fool. ~Og Mandino

There is nothing more potent than thought. Deed follows word and word follows thought. And where the thought is mighty and pure, the result is mighty and pure.
--Gandhi

Meditation of the week

 

... human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspect of their lives.
--William James

"It's no use; I'll screw it up anyway." This is an attitude. Some attitudes sound like this: "I'm great and people should try to please me," or, "I deserve good breaks," or, "Rules and laws are for others, but not for me."

Some attitudes can wreck our sobriety, families, jobs, education, love life, financial well being, and spiritual growth. The good news is attitudes can change. It takes practice but, if we really decide to pay attention and change the ones that are harmful to us, we can succeed. In this way we guide our own growth and create a better, more positive world for ourselves.

Today let me pay very close attention to my attitudes and change the harmful ones.

Poem of the Week

 

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow.

Omar Khayyám

Author of the week

 

Daniel Goleman- Ecological Intelligence

www.Goodguide.com

www.Skindeep.com

Person of the week

 

May 18^th is the birthday of comedian Tina Fey, born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania (1970). She worked with The Second City improve troupe, then as an actor and writer on Saturday Night Live, and went on to create her own TV series, 30 Rock. But she returned to SNL during the 2008 election to do a series of extremely popular impersonations of Governor Sarah Palin.

Video of the week

 

Wounded Heart By Bonnie Raitt

(For Ann and Adam)

Wounded heart I cannot save you from yourself
Though I wanted to be brave, it never helped.
‘Cause your trouble’s like a flood raging through your veins
No amount of love’s enough to end the pain

Tenderness and time can heal a right gone wrong,
but the anger that you feel goes on and on.
And it’s not enough to know that I love you still
So I’ll take my heart and go for I’ve had my fill

Instrumental

If you listen you can hear the angel’s wings
Up above our heads so near they are hovering
Waiting to reach out for love when it falls apart
When it cannot rise above a wounded heart.

When it cannot rise above a wounded heart.

Websites of the week

Wanna see Donald Rumsfeld roll a joint? (thanks Dan)

http://content3.clipmarks.com/view_clip.aspx?guid=C7F7BFE0-81CC-4729-9008-2EFD38DED08A

Your weekly address and much more is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Do not underestimate the power of a Presidents pen:

It was on this day in 1862 that President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act. Settlers who paid a filing fee of 10 dollars and agreed to live on a piece of land for at least five consecutive years were given 160 acres for free. By 1900, homesteaders had filed 600,000 claims for 80 million acres. Willa Cather's parents set out to homestead in Nebraska, Laura Ingalls Wilder's parents in South Dakota, Lawrence Welk's family in North Dakota, and George Washington Carver in Kansas.

The funniest truth on TV is www.thedailyshow.com

And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

FMyLife

Today, I received my passport in the mail. They got my birthdate wrong. Then I picked up my birth certificate that I had sent in with the application. Turns out my parents have been celebrating my birthday on the wrong day for 16 years. FML

Today, I realised that my glade plug-in air freshner lasts longer than any of my relationships have. FML

Delete Me First!

Quotes of the week

A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.

~Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

"You give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."

Jesse Ventura

And this week from Alaska Rob: “Carrying a loaded firearm into a bar is like driving a combat-ready military force into a foreign country. There's no guarantee that war might break out, but...”

Favorite bumper sticker this week:  Have a nice day, somewhere else

Meditation of the week

New feelings may seem uncomfortable at first. I may be used to feeling afraid and anxious, or depressed and alone. In my new life, I may begin to feel joy or happiness, or peace and calm.

These new feelings are signs that I'm changing and learning how to accept my new way of thinking. Feeling peaceful means I'm healing from all the crises in my past. If I confuse feeling peaceful with feeling bored, I need to remind myself that the absence of fear or crisis takes awhile to get used to.

I am glad to welcome my new feelings and emotions; they are one way to know how well I'm doing.

Poem of the Week

My Name

by Mark Strand

Once when the lawn was a golden green
and the marbled moonlit trees rose like fresh memorials
in the scented air, and the whole countryside pulsed
with the chirr and murmur of insects, I lay in the grass,
feeling the great distances open above me, and wondered
what I would become and where I would find myself,
and though I barely existed, I felt for an instant
that the vast star-clustered sky was mine, and I heard
my name as if for the first time, heard it the way
one hears the wind or the rain, but faint and far off
as though it belonged not to me but to the silence
from which it had come and to which it would go.

Author of the week

It was on May15th in 1886 that Emily Dickinson (books by this author) died at the age of 55. She wrote:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

Good Idea of the week

It was on this day (May 12^th) in 1935 that the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous first met, in Akron, Ohio. Recovering alcoholic Bill Wilson (books by this author) was on a business trip, and he felt the need for a drink. But he wanted to stay sober, so he looked for support from someone who would understand what he was going through. He was introduced to Dr. Bob Smith, a member of an evangelical Christian movement called the Oxford Group. The two men spread the word about starting a support group for alcoholics. Wilson wrote a book in 1939, Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism. The book described the 12-step program that the support group used. The first three steps listed in the original book were:

1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2) Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Many other types of groups today follow the 12-step model developed by Alcoholics Anonymous, including Clutterers Anonymous, Crystal Meth Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Online Gamers Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, and Workaholics Anonymous.

Video of the week

Have you noticed that Dick Cheney seems to be everywhere these days?

Websites of the week

Polish photographer documents four years of drunken revelry in Cardiff

Murphy’s laws site

Your weekly address and much more is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/

The funniest truth on TV is www.thedailyshow.com

And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

best of craigslist > Stunt double look alike wanted for family photo shot

A message for Delete Me First readers from my niece, Hadley Seward

Please take 5 minutes and fill out this survey! I'm launching a wellness center soon and want your input!

Spark! Wellness Wants To Know...

Quotes of the week

When a true genius appears in this world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

Jonathan Swift

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

~Kahlil Gibran

All my life I used to wonder what I would become when I grew up. Then, about seven years ago, I realized that I was never going to grow up - that growing is an ever ongoing process.

M. Scott Peck, M.D.

I put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time.

Steven Wright

Meditation of the week

AMAZINGLY SIMPLE HOME REMEDIES (That Really Work!)

1.      AVOID CUTTING YOURSELF WHEN SLICING VEGETABLES BY GETTING SOMEONE

ELSE TO HOLD THE VEGETABLES WHILE YOU SLICE.

2. AVOID ARGUMENTS WITH THE FEMALES ABOUT LIFTING THE TOILET SEAT BY USING THE SINK.

3. FOR HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE SUFFERERS ~ SIMPLY CUT YOURSELF AND BLEED FOR A FEW MINUTES, THUS REDUCING THE PRESSURE ON YOUR VEINS. REMEMBER TO USE A TIMER.

4. A MOUSE TRAP PLACED ON TOP OF YOUR ALARM CLOCK WILL PREVENT YOU FROM ROLLING OVER AND GOING BACK TO SLEEP AFTER YOU HIT THE SNOOZE BUTTON.

5. IF YOU HAVE A BAD COUGH, TAKE A LARGE DOSE OF LAXATIVES. THEN YOU'LL BE AFRAID TO COUGH.

6. YOU ONLY NEED TWO TOOLS IN LIFE - WD-40 AND DUCT TAPE. IF IT DOESN'T MOVE AND SHOULD, USE THE WD-40. IF IT SHOULDN'T MOVE AND DOES, USE THE DUCT TAPE.

7. IF YOU CAN'T FIX IT WITH A HAMMER, YOU'VE GOT AN ELECTRICAL PROBLEM.

DAILY THOUGHT: SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKIES - NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING BUT THEY BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN PUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS.

 

Poem of the Week

I rode the metro this afternoon from Georges-Vanier to Vendome.
You sat next to me and were wearing a tuque.

You were trying to open up some sort of electronic device that was shelled in tough plastic.
I watched as you tried jamming your keys through the packaging and failed repeatedly to retrieve what was on the inside.
I found the way you would scowl and swear to yourself every few seconds charming and it was when you threw your hands up in the air in despair that I really swooned.
I really wanted you to get the prize on the inside while I was there to witness it-

That was until you ripped a part of the packaging off and threw it away on the floor of the metro car without skipping a beat.
You discarded your garbage onto the rest of the passengers, without a care in the world.
The spell was over, and your childish fits of rage were no longer cute to me.
I fell in and out of love with you during a three stop metro ride.
I all of a sudden hated you. and your stupid electronic thing.

I hope you never get through that packaging.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/mon/1053416710.html

Interesting Idea of the Week

Communal reinforcement

Full moon and lunar effects

Video of the week

I admit it, I really like these guys. Obama and Biden go to Ray’s Hell burger for lunch:

Websites of the week

13th Annual Webby Awards Nominees & Winners

Here we are in the Future

50 Thrifty Ideas

http://1000awesomethings.com/

Including: (774-discovering-those-little-tabs-on-the-sides-of-the-aluminum-foil-box)

http://www.12canoes.com.au/

Your weekly address and much more is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/

The funniest truth on TV is www.thedailyshow.com

And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

craigslist > Best of Craigslist

May 3rd, 2009

Quotes of the week

I've believed ever since that living on the edge, living in and through your fear, is the summit of life, and that people who refuse to take that dare condemn themselves to a life of living death. ~John H. Johnson

Poem of the Week

Music

by Anne Porter

When I was a child
I once sat sobbing on the floor
Beside my mother's piano
As she played and sang
For there was in her singing
A shy yet solemn glory
My smallness could not hold

And when I was asked
Why I was crying
I had no words for it
I only shook my head
And went on crying

Why is it that music
At its most beautiful
Opens a wound in us
An ache a desolation
Deep as a homesickness
For some far-off
And half-forgotten country

I've never understood
Why this is so

Bur there's an ancient legend
From the other side of the world
That gives away the secret
Of this mysterious sorrow

For centuries on centuries
We have been wandering
But we were made for Paradise
As deer for the forest

And when music comes to us
With its heavenly beauty
It brings us desolation
For when we hear it
We half remember
That lost native country

We dimly remember the fields
Their fragrant windswept clover
The birdsongs in the orchards
The wild white violets in the moss
By the transparent streams

And shining at the heart of it
Is the longed-for beauty
Of the One who waits for us
Who will always wait for us
In those radiant meadows

Yet also came to live with us
And wanders where we wander.

Photo booth photos of the week

http://www.squareamerica.com/pb1.htm

Good Idea of the week

Interactive map details how the Obama administration initiatives have provided changes in your state

Video of the week

Websites of the week

Here is the city where I have worked for 20 years: Chester South Carolina

The president’s house is on facebook

Greg Rutter's Definitive List of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Unless You're a Loser or Old or Something

The Worst Artery Cloggers in America

Your weekly address and much more is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/

The funniest truth on TV is www.thedailyshow.com

And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

In FACEBOOK , If you scroll to the bottom of any page to where it says English(UK) or English(US) you can change the language to English(Pirate) everything on facebook becomes pirateaze...like this

“Make yer mark · Arrr, This be pleasin' to me eye.”