Sunday, January 31, 2010

January 31st, 2010


Quotes of the week


'Tis not the fight that crowns us, but the end.
~George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum~

Meditation of the week

Second Bill of Rights
The Second Bill of Rights was a proposal made by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944 to suggest that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second bill of rights. Roosevelt did not argue for any change to the United States Constitution; he argued that the second bill of rights was to be implemented politically, not by federal judges. Roosevelt's stated justification was that the "political rights" guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness." Roosevelt's remedy was to create an "economic bill of rights" which would guarantee:
Roosevelt stated that having these rights would guarantee American security, and that America's place in the world depended upon how far these and similar rights had been carried into practice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bill_of_Rights

Poem of the Week

Something Else
by Nin Andrews
Sometimes you say I'm something else,
and you mean I'm good, really good,
but honey, don't say that, please?
Reminds me how my dad used to say,
I'm just not myself today.
As if here were some kind of imposter dad.
Then he'd ask things like:
Why don't you go play with James?
Has the dog had his walk yet?
Will you kindly get out of my cotton-pickin' hair?
Sometimes he'd come home from work
carrying his hat and a brown paper bag,
and I'd know he wasn't my dad.
There were at least three daddies then,
sort of like daddy A, B, and C.
Like that TV show. Which will it be,
bachelor 1, 2, or 3?
My mom often said he wasn't the man
she married. And I thought about that.
How, when they were married,
I wasn't me, either. I wasn't anyone.
I didn't like to dwell on that.
It kind of gave me the creeps,
but I liked to ask,
Were you really in love then?
Of course, she'd say.
Did you hold hands?
Yes.
Kiss in public? Sit on his lap?
Yes, yes, I did all that. Once
She even showed me photos
she kept in her lingerie drawer
beneath her slips and silky things
she never wore anymore: him
in his spats and slick-shined hair,
her in a pink crinoline cocktail dress
with her long bangs clipped back
in pearly barrettes. Not a thought
in her head, except maybe
Don't I look swell? And
Love me. And he did.
Did he say so?
He said it every day.
He was something else back then.

Writer of the week

J. D. Salinger, the obsessively private author who captured the hearts of several generations with his pitch-perfect knowledge of adolescence and his ear for the vernacular, died on Jan. 28. "The Catcher in the Rye" is his best-known work. More

Interactive map of Holden Caulfield’s travels in Manhattan

The title of the book Catcher in the Rye comes from the protagonist's dream to keep everyone from growing up — to preserve the childhood grace Salinger idolized and resist falling headlong into adulthood:
“I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in a big field of rye and all. ... Thousands of kids, and nobody big at all, nobody big but me. And I'm standing on the edge of this crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to come and catch them. If they start to fall ... and don't look where they're going. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.”

video style of the century

Signs
From the site http://yayeveryday.com/

IWANTONERIGHTNOW!

http://www.apple.com/ipad/

Websites of the week

What is the Monkeysphere?
http://yayeveryday.com/popular
Why Thought Suppression is Counter-Productive and 10 More Brilliant Social Psychology Studies: Why Smart People Do Dumb or Irrational Things
Everyone can create music
And as always:
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/
http://www.themoth.org/listen

And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

http://yooouuutuuube.com/v/?rows=36&cols=36&id=TQuqeLBTetA&startZoom=1

Sunday, January 24, 2010

January 24th, 2010


Quotes of the week

“If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It's very important to be aware of them every time they come up.”

“There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.”

“The secret of attraction is to love yourself. Attractive people judge neither themselves nor others. They are open to gestures of love. They think about love, and express their love in every action. They know that love is not a mere sentiment, but the ultimate truth at the heart of the universe.”

“The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years.”

www.Deepakchopra.com

Meditation of the week

Example is the lesson that all men can read.
-- Gilbert West

Patterning our lives after others is familiar. Maybe as kids we emulated "toughies" or the teacher's pet. As we grew, the criteria changed, but we sought role models, nonetheless. The career we chose and the family relationships we developed may have been inspired by the example of another. Today may be no different. Seeing our friends and acquaintances pursue paths unlike our own gives us ideas to explore. How lucky we are that teaching is never done and learning is merely a decision.

The only thing that has actually changed is our age. The opportunities for growth continue to flow. Our purpose for being here remains the same. Our responsibility to ourselves never abates. It's comforting to count on these things. It makes our choices simpler.

There's always the right step to take, the right response to make, the right attitude to foster. But if ever we're in doubt, the impulse to forgive and to love will never be wrong.

My action today may be an important example for a friend. I pray to choose my steps and words wisely.
You are reading from the book:

Poem of the Week

Among His Effects We Found a Photograph
by Ed Ochester
My mother is beautiful as a flapper.
She is so in love
that she has been gazing
secretly at my father
for forty years.
He's in uniform,
with puttees and swagger stick,
a tiny cork mustache
bobbing above a shoreline of teeth.
They are "poor but happy."
In his hand is a lost book
he had memorized,
with a thousand clear answers
to everything.

Game of the week

It was on this day in 1892 that the first official basketball game was played, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Basketball was the brainchild of James Naismith, a Canadian who was teaching at a YMCA training school in Springfield, which prepared young men to go out and be instructors in YMCAs. Naismith was teaching physical education, but the winters were cold in Massachusetts, and his students were frustrated that they couldn't go outside. He wanted something physically challenging but that could be played indoors, in a relatively small space. He tried all kinds of new and old games, but nothing worked. Finally he remembered a game he had played as a kid in Canada, a game called Duck on a Rock. He took a few rules from that and adapted it into a game he called Basket Ball. He nailed peach baskets to the balcony on each side of the gym, but the baskets had solid bottoms, so if anyone managed to get the ball in the basket someone else had to climb up and get the ball down. The rules evolved, and basketball caught on fast, helped by the spread of YMCAs. Naismith helped establish the sport at the college level, becoming head coach at the University of Kansas. By the time he died in 1939, basketball was an official Olympic event.
NEED TO GET RID OF MY CASH

Video of the week

Free at last, free at last


Websites of the week

http://howareyoudoingproject.com/ (thanks Rob!)
Once Upon a Time in Siberia And you thought it was cold here!
DESIGN REVOLUTION: 100 Products That Empower People
i-dont-care-what-you-eat-tell-me-about-it-again-and-i-will-eat-YOU

And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

http://community.anarchy-online.com/

Monday, January 18, 2010

January 18, 2010


Quotes of the week

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Meditation of the week

Who Knows Best?

Others do not know what's best for us.

We do not know what's best for others.

It is our job to determine what's best for ourselves.

"I know what you need." . . . "I know what you should do." . . . "Now listen, this is what I think you should be working on right now."

These are audacious statements, beliefs that take us away from how we operate on a spiritual plane of life. Each of us is given the ability to be able to discern and detect our own path, on a daily basis. This is not always easy. We may have to struggle to reach that quiet, still place.

Giving advice, making decisions for others, mapping out their strategy, is not our job. Nor is it their job to direct us. Even if we have a clean contract with someone to help us - such as in a sponsorship relationship - we cannot trust that others always know what is best for us. We are responsible for listening to the information that comes to us. We are responsible for asking for guidance and direction. But it is our responsibility to sift and sort through information, and then listen to ourselves about what is best for us. Nobody can know that but ourselves.

A great gift we can give to others is to be able to trust in them - that they have their own source of guidance and wisdom, that they have the ability to discern what is best for them and the right to find that path by making mistakes and learning.

To trust ourselves to be able to discover - through that same imperfect process of struggle, trial, and error - is a great gift we can give ourselves.

Today, I will remember that we are each given the gift of being able to discover what is best for ourselves.

Poem of the Week

http://archives.cardboardlove.com/

Author of the week

It's the birthday of short-story writer Lorrie Moore, (books by this author) born in Glens Falls, New York (1957). She's the author of the short-story collections Like Life (1990) and Birds of America (1998). Lorrie Moore's first book was Self Help (1985), in which the stories were written in the style of how-to manuals, including "How to Be an Other Woman," "How to Talk to Your Mother," and "How to Be a Writer."
"How to Be a Writer" begins: "First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/ missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age — say, 14. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at 15 you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire."
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/
Man-Servant Needed

Video of the week

The Crisis of Credit Visualized

Websites of the week

http://www.chatroulette.com/
Brian Williams: Why Jon Stewart Is Good For News
The power of beginning: three thoughts from the last 2400 years

And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

Web 2.0 Suicide Machine: Erase Your Virtual Life

Sunday, January 10, 2010

January 10th, 2010


Quotes of the week

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
~John Kenneth Galbraith
My private measure of success is daily. If this were to be the last day of my life would I be content with it? To live in a harmonious balance of commitments and pleasures is what I strive for.
~Jane Rule

Every man loves two women; the one is the creation of his imagination and the other is not yet born.
Kahlil Gibran
If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.
Kahlil Gibran
If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.
Kahlil Gibran

http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Kahlil_Gibran/

"If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
The struggle between "for" and "against" is the minds' worst disease"
                 Sent-ts'an   c. 700 ce

Meditation of the week

Life is for enjoying. It is not a race to see how much you can get done.
--Jill Clark

Before we quit using alcohol and other drugs, we wasted precious hours, days, maybe years. Consequently, we feel we must make up for lost time. We make promises and commitments we don't have the time or the energy to fulfill. This is a normal response to hindsight. After all, we missed many wonderful opportunities when our focus was on getting and staying high.

Making up for the past is different from making the most of each twenty-four hours. It's not how much we accomplish in life but how we treat others along the way that counts. We can accomplish our daily tasks while being kind to other people. But choosing the latter as the more important action will bring a far greater sense of well-being than succeeding at "moving mountains."

I will get done everything I really need to do today if I focus on being kind to the women and men who cross my path.

Epiphany of the Week

January 6 is the Feast of the Epiphany. The word "epiphany" comes from an ancient Greek word meaning "manifestation" or "striking appearance." Before Christianity, the word was used to record occasions when Greek gods and goddesses made appearances on earth.
In the Eastern Church, which includes the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches, today is a general celebration of God's becoming man. It includes celebrating a whole host of things: the birth of the baby Jesus, the revelation of Jesus' divinity to the rest of the world — like to the Magi visiting from Persia — and most importantly in the East, Jesus' baptism in the Jordan River.
Centuries after the Eastern Orthodox Church began celebrating the Epiphany, the Roman Catholic Church decided to start doing so too. But for some reason, the Western Church really latched on to this image of the Persian priests bringing gifts of frankincense, myrrh, and gold to the infant Jesus, guided from their homeland of Iran by a shining star. The Magi are mentioned only in Matthew's Gospel and he never specified how many magi there were — just that there were three gifts. In 1857, the Reverend John Henry Hopkins Jr. wrote some lyrics for a seminary Christmas pageant, a song that begins: "We three kings of Orient are / Bearing gifts we traverse afar / Field and fountain, moor and mountain / Following yonder star."

Bridge of the week

On this day in 1933, construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco began. It was finished four and a half years later, in May 1937. The bridge is 8,981 feet (1.7 miles) long, 90 feet wide for six lanes of traffic, and 746 feet high — almost 200 feet taller than the Washington Monument. It's suspended 220 feet above the water, and it links the city of San Francisco to the County of Marin. The color of the bridge is officially called "International Orange," a slightly deeper shade of "Safety Orange." Frommer's travel guide called the Golden Gate Bridge "possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world."
a complete novel in one paragraph:
We shared a cab, you hit me in the face

Video of the week

Coupon Lady

Websites of the week

http://www.stencilrevolution.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=6316
Irony at its best http://www.sharenator.org/Irony_at_its_best/


And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

The Glory of Grandma’s Vintage Photographs



Sunday, January 3, 2010

JANUARY 3RD, 2010


Quotes of the week

As any action or posture long continued will distort and disfigure the limbs; so the mind likewise is crippled and contracted by perpetual application to the same set of ideas.
~Samuel Johnson, Rambler (#173)~

If pleasures are greatest in  anticipation, just remember that  this is also true of trouble.
~Elbert Hubbard

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
~Alfred North Whitehead
This administration has broken faith with the people of America.
They have squandered the immense good will extended by other nations.
~Senator Edward M Kennedy

Meditation of the week

Poor decisions I made in the past might still make others distrust my ability to make wise choices. I admit that, in the past, my perception was clouded, and I had trouble doing what was best for me and my children. In times when I "zoned out," I couldn't see what was happening to me, and I lacked the awareness of real danger. At that time I wasn't able to ask for or get what I needed.

But now I'm learning how to make healthy and wise decisions, taking care of myself and my children. Other people may want me to prove myself to them, but the only person I have to prove anything to is myself.
I am thoughtful, responsible, strong, confident, and courageous.

Poem of the Week

O Best of All Nights, Return and Return Again
by James Laughlin
How she let her long hair down over her shoulders, making a
  love cave around her face. Return and return again.
How when the lamplight was lowered she pressed against
  him, twining her fingers in his. Return and return again.
How their legs swam together like dolphins and their toes
  played like little tunnies. Return and return again.
How she sat beside him cross-legged, telling him stories of
  her childhood. Return and return again.
How she closed her eyes when his were open, how they
  breathed together, breathing each other. Return and return again.
How they fell into slumber, their bodies curled together like
  two spoons. Return and return again.
How they went together to Otherwhere, the fairest land they
  had ever seen. Return and return again.
O best of all nights, return and return again.

Joke of the week

Why I shot my dog
My dog has her food prepared for her.  If someone tries to share her food she growls and bites them. She doesn’t care if anyone else around her is fed, as long as she gets hers. They are on their own.
She lives in a mansion that is much larger than she needs. If she makes a mess, someone else cleans it up.  She has her choice of luxurious places to sleep, and doesn’t care if others are homeless. They are on their own.
 She is living like a queen, and can stay at home while her servants and minions go out and earn a living every day.  She has no care or regard for the poor or the disenfranchised. She expects them to lift themselves up by their bootstraps.
I was just thinking about all this, and suddenly it hit me like a brick in the head, Holy Moley, my dog is a conservative!
Thanks Brother Rob!
Death of my grandson (remember that this was posted on Craigslist)
http://charlotte.craigslist.org/rnr/1532500673.html

Video of the week

Helen Fisher tells us why we love

Websites of the week

Bamboo Bike Studio
Bizarre Christmas Decorations
Ten Things Not To Do In Las Vegas
http://e-mealz.com/ (thanks Son)

And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor

http://chickencrap.com

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