· Quotes of the week
Haud ignara maki, miseris succurrere disco.
Not unacquainted with distress, I have learned to succour the unfortunate. ~Virgil
Not unacquainted with distress, I have learned to succour the unfortunate. ~Virgil
History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there. George Santayana
Who makes the past, a patterne for next yeare,
Turnes no new leafe, but still the same thing reads,
Seene things, he sees againe, heard things doth heare,
And makes his life, but like a paire of beads.
John Donne
Turnes no new leafe, but still the same thing reads,
Seene things, he sees againe, heard things doth heare,
And makes his life, but like a paire of beads.
John Donne
· Meditation of the week
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly....
--Antoine de Saint Exupery
If we look at the world through suspicious or angry eyes, we'll find a world that mirrors our expectations -- a world where tension will mount, arguments will abound, strife will be present where none need be. However, our experiences in some manner bless us, and we'll recognize that if we look upon them with gratitude. Everything in our path is meant for our good and we'll see the good when our hearts act as the eyes for our minds.
When we see with our hearts, our responses to the turmoil around us, the fighting children, the traffic snarls, the angry lovers, will be soft acceptance. When our hearts guide the action we can accept those things we cannot change, and change those we can. And the heart, as the seat of all wisdom, will always know the difference.
--Antoine de Saint Exupery
If we look at the world through suspicious or angry eyes, we'll find a world that mirrors our expectations -- a world where tension will mount, arguments will abound, strife will be present where none need be. However, our experiences in some manner bless us, and we'll recognize that if we look upon them with gratitude. Everything in our path is meant for our good and we'll see the good when our hearts act as the eyes for our minds.
When we see with our hearts, our responses to the turmoil around us, the fighting children, the traffic snarls, the angry lovers, will be soft acceptance. When our hearts guide the action we can accept those things we cannot change, and change those we can. And the heart, as the seat of all wisdom, will always know the difference.
· think of the children this Christmas
· advice of the week
Advice to the Uninformed
It’s very important in life to know when to shut up: Alex Trebek
It’s very important in life to know when to shut up: Alex Trebek
THE ADMONITION
Enough! Just stop. You’ve had your say over and over and over. You’ve repeated yourself ad nauseam for years without making an iota of sense. You’ve accomplished nothing constructive, absolutely nothing. You’ve repeated the same nonsense over and over without knowing a single fact. So just cut it out. Now it’s time to close your mouth and open your ears.
Just shut up and listen!
All this time you’ve ignored people who know things you can’t even imagine. You’ve shut your eyes and your mind to people who have spent years gathering information and checking out their sources. You’ve dismissed people with skills and credentials you can’t even pronounce. And you’ve demeaned people with knowledge and experience you can’t even come close to.
All this time you’ve refused to hear a single thing they’ve said. You’ve strutted around like an arrogant peacock, believing you knew more than they. You had no basis for what you claimed to know. You just decided it was true. What unadulterated stupidity. It’s time to stop being a total idiot.
It’s time to just shut up and listen.
THE SOLUTION
First, understand that there is hope for you. But also understand that it’s too late for courtesy or good manners. The solution lies in your willingness to just shut up and listen.
Shut up about things you know nothing about and get informed. And most of all learn to say “I don’t know,” instead of repeating the distortions and lies and garbage you’ve been conned into believing. If you can’t do that, just shut up. Please, just shut up.
Once you’ve been able to stop spreading misinformation and to stop supporting ideas about which you know nothing, go on to the next step. For your own sake, LISTEN. Listen to people who know because they’ve taken the time to research and validate the facts. Listen to people you refused to even acknowledge because they dared to question what you blindly accepted as truth. Listen with a discerning ear so you can filter out unsubstantiated and uncorroborated propaganda.
The information is out there. The facts are at your fingertips. Find them.
Deal with the painful reality that you DO NOT KNOW what is happening around you, and understand that your stubborn resistance to new information will be your own downfall in the long haul. Until you make some attempt at rehabilitation, just stop. We’ve had enough. You’ve done your damage, so just stop.
There is no other way to say it. If you can’t back up what you parrot so stupidly, just stop. If you can’t explain why you believe what you do without some substantive and meaningful backing, just stop. Just stop.
Just shut up and listen. It’s time.
(Thanks to Ann Melton, a woman for whom I sometimes shut up and listen)
· You can’t make up such a thing as that, I dare you to even try
Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick may be getting a little bit ahead of himself on his rehabilitation tour: He told NBC News, “I would love to get another dog in the future.” He said such a move “would be a big step for me in the rehabilitation process. I think just to have a pet in my household and to show people that I genuinely care, and my love and my passion for animals … I miss having a dog right now.”
· Websites of the week
Run your mouse over this… http://inoyan.narod.ru/kaleidoskop.swf
May I please have this for Christmas? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kGxCP0x0co
Why we shouldn’t buy each other Christmas gifts http://scroogenomics.com/
Fox News Viewers Are The Most Misinformed: Study
Rachel Botsman: The case for collaborative consumption
· And finally, the culmination of millennia of scientific endeavor
· It's the birthday of the mystic Nostradamus, (books by this author) born Michel de Nostredame in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France (1503). His father was an attorney, and the family was comfortably middle-class. Michel went off to the University of Avignon when he was 15, where he was nicknamed "little astronomer." But when the plague erupted again, the university closed and he was sent home.
· At some point he taught himself enough about plants and medicine to work as an apothecary. He tried to study to become a doctor, but was kicked out after the school realized that he was an apothecary, a trade that was banned by the university. Much of his medical work revolved around the plague, which was a huge problem still in Europe, even though the main epidemic had been during the 14th century. He had some modern ideas about healing — he believed that good hygiene went a long way and he was ahead of his time in his disapproval of bloodletting.
· At some point, his wife and children died, probably victims of the plague. But he got married again, to a rich widow this time, and had six more children. No one is sure what prompted him to write his first almanac in 1550, full of prophecies and annual predictions, dabbling in astrology. He published his book under the name Nostradamus, the first time he had Latinized his last name. And it was a big success, so he kept publishing a new book each year, each with 100 verse predictions. He had a ready audience — people considered astrology a legitimate source of information, and some members of the royal court in particular were fans of Nostradamus, even though he was not a very good astrologer, and had to ask people to supply their own birth charts for him to interpret. He made more than 6,300 predictions, including predictions about the world well into the future, until the year 3797. By the time he died — after predicting his own death the night before — he was rich and famous.
· Plenty of people continue to read his predictions. Among other things, Nostradamus has been credited with predicting the Great Fire of London, the rise of Adolph Hitler, both world wars, the creation of the United Nations, the assassination of JFK, the atomic bomb, the Apollo moon landings, the McCarthy trials, the death of Princess Diana, and 9/11. But his predictions have only seemed true when people have looked back at his writings after a major event and found a verse that might fit; no one has ever been able to read one of his predictions and say, This huge natural disaster will happen in this place at this time. As many people have pointed out, the language of his prophecies is so vague and there are so many of them that it is easy to find a prophecy to fit any situation. And people have often fudged the translations to make them even less specific. After World War II, MGM made a short film called "Nostradamus Says So," which gave a little background on Nostradamus and suggested that he had predicted the Allied victory during the war. They quoted this verse, which they said was about the Statue of Liberty:
· "The chosen protector of the great country
For endless years will hold the famed torch
It will serve to guide this great people
And in its name they will struggle and triumph."
For endless years will hold the famed torch
It will serve to guide this great people
And in its name they will struggle and triumph."
· But a more accurate translation reads:
"The newly elected patron of the great vessel
Will see the clear flame shine for a long time
Which will serve as a lamp to this great territory
At which time the armies under his name
Will join with those happily of Bourbon
From east to west resting his memory."
"The newly elected patron of the great vessel
Will see the clear flame shine for a long time
Which will serve as a lamp to this great territory
At which time the armies under his name
Will join with those happily of Bourbon
From east to west resting his memory."
