Wot's de idear?

RT Harrrumph!

Surface RT runs a pared-down version of Windows 8 known as Windows RT. The OS, which runs on ARM-based chips from Nvidia and others, is not compatible with standard Windows applications. It supports only software pre-installed by Microsoft or apps downloaded from the company's online Windows Store.

Failing and Flying

by Jack Gilbert
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew. It's the same when love comes to an end, or the marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it would never work. That she was  old enough to know better. But anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Like being there by that summer ocean on the other side of the island while love was fading out of her, the stars  burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last. Every morning she was asleep in my bed like a visitation, the gentleness in her like antelope standing in the dawn mist. Each afternoon I watched her coming back through the hot stony field after swimming, the sea light behind her and the huge sky on the other side of that. Listened to her while we ate lunch. How can they say  the marriage failed? Like the people who came back from Provence (when it was Provence) and said it was pretty but the food was greasy. I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Language and humanity

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.

 

Amy Tan

 

Keep your language. Love its sounds, its modulation, its rhythm. But try to march together with men of different languages, remote from your own, who wish like you for a more just and human world.

 

Hélder Câmara

 

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Donation requests without PayPay = FAIL!

There are a great many worthy causes that I would gladly support if only they would except PayPal.  Here is a great example: Toby Keith's initiative to fund critical USO functions...

Donate now. Help the USO fund critical programs including career transition workshops for our wounded troops.

Please allow us to use the currency of this new technological age.  I would be willing to bet that the first 10 PayPal contributions would cover the cost of implementation.  I betcha I can find a wagering site that would give me odds and take my PayPal payment.

Half cooked?

A one-pound female lobster that was caught by a Massachusetts fisherman last week arrives at the New England Aquarium in Boston. Officials say such rare coloration is estimated to occur once in every 50 million lobsters.

Picture: New England Aquarium, Emily Bauernseind/AP (via Pictures of the day: 1 November 2012 - Telegraph)

Incredible Illusion

What Is an Epigram?

What Is an Epigram? by Samuel Taylor Coleridge   What is an Epigram? A dwarfish whole,  Its body brevity, and wit its soul.

Degrees of love

Degrees of love

 

St. Bernard (1090-1153) said that there are four ascending degrees of love:

1) Love of self for self's sake.

2) Love of God for self's sake.

3) Love of God for God's own sake. 

4) Love of self for God's sake.

Be a yardstick of quality.

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.”   Steve Jobs

Your level of expertise on the job may have a lot to do with how you feel about going to work.  Imagine if you were recognized as the best at that particular job.  Imagine if people came to you for answers.  You’ll enjoy work more! 

Looks like the Smiler, talks like the Beast.

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it... And they will vote for this president no matter what…[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

-- Mitt Romney, at a recent fundraiser, sadly not fictional

Looks like the Smiler, talks like the Beast.

Raised to fear

Raised to fear

  

We have been raised to fear ... our deepest cravings. And the fear of our deepest cravings keeps them suspect, keeps us docile and loyal and obedient, and leads us to settle for ... many facets of our own oppression.

 

Audre Lourde

Meaningful work

Meaningful work

  

Happiness, peace, and fulfillment come not through carefree idle play, although that is where they are often sought. They can only be found in meaningful work, that establishes worthwhile goals and then in the struggle to achieve them. 

 

Anthony Wallace

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Grace

Postscript

Postscript
by David Lehman 

He wrote the whole novel in his head,

Sentence by sentence. It took him all day.

Then he took out a wide-ruled yellow legal pad

With three pink vertical lines marking the left margin,

And from his breast pocket he extracted

A disposable plastic fountain pen,

And near the top of the page he wrote the word ODE

In black ink, all caps. For a few minutes he did nothing. 

Then he skipped three lines and wrote,

"It was the greatest birthday present he had ever received:

The manual Smith-Corona typewriter

His parents gave him on the day he graduated from high school

After they took him to the Statler Hilton for lunch, 

Where they had cold poached salmon, his father's favorite."

On becoming...

How you treat

  

Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be. 

 

Stephen R. Covey

To have succeeded

To have succeeded

 

The definition of success: to laugh much, to win respect of intelligent persons and the affections of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give one's self; to leave the world a little better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm, and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived ... this is to have succeeded.

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson lost my fear

 

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My life has been the poem

My life has been the poem I would have writ
by Henry David Thoreau 

My life has been the poem I would have writ
But I could not both live and utter it.

Butterfly effect

Butterfly effect 

 

By carrying out one's duty, whether in the public service, or in business, or in employment, rightly, faithfully, honesty, and justly ... then the welfare of the general body of people of mankind is being cared for. 

 

Emanuel Swedenborg 

Leo Said

Leo Said
by Eileen M

you've gotta

write clearer
so you can
be read
when you're
dead

Poets.org

Cross of the present

 

We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the present and let our illusions die.

 

W.H. Auden

Consumer Economy

June 7, 2012

Consumer economy   A consumer economy only works if consumption of goods provides only temporary pleasure. That is, if happiness is infinitely deferred, so that buyers continue to buy more and more goods and services. By definition, the consumer can never be satisfied, at rest or happy. Which means she will always feel lacking. The pursuit of this sort of happiness creates a vicious circle of growing anxiety and dissatisfaction.    Tirdad Derakhshani

Viva!

Why old hippies?

Collective fear...

"Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd."
— Bertrand Russell, Nobel laureate

Gaining wisdom

Wisdom is not gained by knowing what is right. Wisdom is gained by practicing what is right and noticing what happens when that practice succeeds and when it fails. Wise people do not have to be certain what they believe before they act. They are free to act, trusting that the practice itself will teach them what they need to know.

  

Barbara Brown Taylor

An Altar in the World

Emergent Village

We need a huge, world-changing idea...

Go to Gapingvoid Art and get good stuff.

We don't need no...

If the evil doings of men...

"If the evil doings of men move you to indignation and overwhelming distress, even to a desire for vengeance on the evildoers, shun above all thing that feeling. Go at once and seek suffering for yourself, as though you were yourself guilty of that wrong. Accept that suffering and bear it and your heart will find comfort, and you will understand that you too are guilty, for you might have been a light to the evildoers and were not a light to them."

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky from,

The Brothers Karamazov

Do not pick the flowers...

Keepers have put up a sign telling visitors not to pick the...

by hikergirl

Keepers have put up a sign telling visitors not to pick the flowers - in the lion enclosure at Longleat Safari Park. Every spring the grassy paddock where the lions are kept gives way to a glorious display of bluebells.

Absolute power corrupts...

Russia Lawmakers Advance Bill on Penalties for Protesters

BY: SERGEI L. LOIKO | LOS ANGELES TIMES

Stiff new penalties aimed at opposition protesters were given preliminary approval Tuesday by Russian lawmakers loyal to President Vladimir Putin, the target of mass rallies and demonstrations before his March election victory.

Two Voices

Two Voices - Forward

A collection of poems written over the course of nearly 30 years. From the arrogance and innocence of youth to the vengeful musings of a crudmugeon. Romance, philosophy, death, religion, even *gasp* heartbreak are woven through these paltry offerings. In these scribblings you will find unfinished paintings. You will see the reflection of the war years... you have to choose which war - perhaps the one that best suits you. You will encounter mystical prophets and nearly naked young ladies and grumpy old men.

The title, Two Voices, is the mystique of this collection. Two Voices is the dance I don't do. Two Voices is the magic I don't do. Two Voices symbolizes the relationship between my writing and your reading. I "speak" with my one voice and you "hear" with the second voice, your own. So we collaborate. Much of the content that you will find in my work is not there in my voice. You will paint the picture. You will hear the music. You will write the poetry. I have written these pieces. They will not be rewritten - so I can say that I don't dance. I have imparted meaning to these collections of words. Yet the value comes from you reading them - so I don't do magic.

The title, Two Voices, is an insight into my writing. Seldom if ever do we hear just one voice in our world. More often than not we are subject to barrages of voices all speaking at the same time - and then there is our internal voice(s) offering continuous commentary. Many of these pieces are an attempt to capture in some small measure that multi-dimensionality of voices. Or at least two.

Birds of a feather...

Picture: Paul Miguel/Rex Features (via Pictures of the day: 22 May 2012 - Telegraph)

folding corner ladder by company & company

folding corner ladder by company & company:
a useful domestic tool is redeveloped, keeping its functional quality while making it compact and easier to store.

read more

Nine Meditations on Complexity

Nine Meditations on Complexity:
Complexity not as a mathematical concept, but as an almost intuitive sense of both complication and interconnectedness. Both are necessary components of a truly complex system or situation.

1. Complicated systems have many parts, or take many steps, or have many rules; complex systems are complicated systems connected to and interdependent with other systems (likely also complex).
   
2. There are rarely simple resolutions to complex (complicated+interconnected) problems; because a resolution must take into account the effects of changing a complex situation on the connected systems, the resolution will of necessity be at least as complex as the problem.
   
3. The associated complexity of a seemingly simple resolution generally shows up in unintended or unexpected consequences; complicated interconnections cannot be cut without repercussions.
   
4. For this reason, over time, simple solutions tend to increase complexity.
   
5. Complication can be the perverse result of simple interactions, but complexity is rarely so; because complex situations are also complicated, the two can be easily confused.
   
6. In situations where "complexity itself" is asserted to be the problem, the actual crisis is often around complication; the trick is to devise ways to reduce the complication without damaging the interconnections.
   
7. Unfortunately, that's not simple; in many cases, it may not be possible.
   
8. The only way to reduce and resolve the complexity of a given situation is to reduce its level of interconnection with other systems; doing so, however, can undermine the value or power of the given system, and will alter the systems to which it was once connected.
   
9. In other words, the opposite of "complex" is not "simple," the opposite of "complex" is "isolated."
   

[Just thinking about how the world works as I prepare for another intercontinental journey.]

Comic for May 17, 2012

Comic for May 17, 2012:

CDR Heritage

• Fear of failure is the most debilitating fear of all 
• Competence is valued far more than collar device 
• There is no more dangerous personality flaw than arrogance 
• Over-communicating the WHY behind our actions is a necessity 
• Remaining focused on helping those around oneself rise to the top is the only way to be a true leader 
• In order to inspire, one must be inspired 
• Being successful does not mean we are significant 
• Efficiency and effectiveness don't always converge 
• Erring on the side of action is admirable 
• Constructively critical feedback from a 360 degree array is desired, required, and the only way to improve

- Commander Sean Robert Heritage

Algebra?

In India, "cold weather" is...

In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into

use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather

which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.

                -- Mark Twain

My simple Religion

I don't know...

... what you just gave me but it tastes... icky!  *P'teau*

Want to play?

Hunger! What is it good for?

To soften our view of others

Jesus urged his followers to learn to look at other adults as they might at children. Few things can more quickly transform our sense of a person's character than picturing him or her as a child; from this perspective, we are better able to express the sympathy and generosity that we all but naturally display towards the young, whom we tend to describe as naughty rather than bad, cheeky rather than arrogant. This is the same sort of softening we may feel towards anyone whom we see sleeping: with eyes closed and features relaxed and defenceless, a sleeper invites a gentle regard that in itself is almost love—so much so, in fact, that it can be unsettling to gaze at length at a stranger asleep beside us on a train or plane. That unmasked face seems to prompt us towards an intimacy that calls into question the foundations of civilised indifference on which ordinary communal relations rest. But there is no such thing as a stranger, a Christian would say; there is only the impression of strangeness, born out of a failure to acknowledge that others share both our needs and our weaknesses.

--ALAIN DE BOTTON, in his book STATUS ANXIETY

Blatantly borrowed from Garry's Posterous

Because I _DO_ care...

Mmmmmm...

Too Many People...

Visit WinExtra

Global May

Me too.

Where can I get one?

I didn't know it was a competition...

Broccoli

Comic for April 5, 2012

Comic for April 5, 2012:

The modern poor

The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other.  It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich.  Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied... but written off as trash.  The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing.  

 

John Berger 

  

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Word of the day: Solipsism

Solipsism ( /ˈsɒlɨpsɪzəm/) is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. The term comes from Latin solus (alone) and ipse (self). Solipsism as an epistemological position holds thatknowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure. The external world and other minds cannot be known, and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist. As such it is the only epistemological position that, by its own postulate, is both irrefutable and yet indefensible in the same manner. Although the number of individuals sincerely espousing solipsism has been small, it is not uncommon for one philosopher to accuse another's arguments of entailing solipsism as an unwanted consequence, in a kind of reductio ad absurdum. In the history of philosophy, solipsism has served as a skeptical hypothesis. 

One is a religious fanatic...

One is a religious fanatic railing against secularism, the role of women in the workplace, and the evils of higher education, as he seeks to impose his draconian moral values upon the state. The other is the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Grand Ayatollah or Grand Old Party?

Truth where you find it...

Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor):

        That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to,

or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should

have gotten.

Unabashedly borrowed from Slackware Fortune

Moral justification of capital?

 

The idea that the profits of capital are really the rewards of a just society for the foresight and thrift of those who sacrificed the immediate pleasures of spending in order that society might have productive capital, had a certain validity in the early days of capitalism, when productive enterprise was frequently initiated through capital saved out of modest incomes. The idea, as a moral justification of present inequalities of privilege, has become more and more dishonest, since the increased centralization of power and privilege makes it possible for those who make the largest investments in industry to do so without any diminution of even the most luxurious living standards. Since we are living in a world in which there is too much capital for production and too little for consumption, the argument that economic inequality is necessary for the accumulation of capital resources has lost even its economic validity. Yet it is still used by privileged classes to establish a specious connection between virtue or social function and privilege.

 

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

Moral Man and Immoral Society, 1932

  

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Economy

Economy 
by Sandra Beasley

After you've surrendered to pillows 
and I, that second whiskey, 
on the way to bed I trace my fingers 
over a thermostat we dare not turn up.
You have stolen what we call the green thing—
too thick to be a blanket, too soft to be a rug—
turned away, mid-dream. Yet your legs
still reach for my legs, folding them quick 
to your accumulated heat.
                              These days
only a word can earn overtime. 
Economy: once a net, now a handful of holes. 
Economy: what a man moves with 
when, even in sleep, he is trying to save
all there is left to save.

109 things not to do to cats

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/109-cats-in-sweaters

109 things not to do to cats

If Fox News covered the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s

If Fox News covered the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s

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Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers...

FAREWELL, DEAR FRIEND: PETER BERGMAN (1939-2012)

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Abstract conversations

Abstract conversations

  

Instead of telling our vulnerable stories, we seek safety in abstractions, speaking to each other about our opinions, ideas and beliefs rather than about our lives. Academic culture blesses this practice by insisting that the more abstract our speech, the more likely we are to touch the universal truths that unite us. But what happens is exactly the reverse: as our discourse becomes more abstract, the less connected we feel. There is less sense of community among  intellectuals than in the most "primitive" society of storytellers.

 

Parker J. Palmer

A hidden wholeness

  

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Jan 24, 2012

Theology needs transformation    65% of the work in the world is done by women; 12% of the paid salaries in the world go to women; 2% of properties in the world are on the hands of women; 1 in each 6 women in the world is a victim of incest; 1 in each 4 women will experience some form of sexual violence in life;75% of people that die of hunger are women and children; In all the world, women do not earn the same salary as men; In all the world, the education level of women is lower than that of men; In countries where women have more diplomas than men, the tendency is for less educated men to hold higher positions, changing, therefore, the criterion of promotion;98% of structural decisions are made by men;  In all the world, women are more dependent on the land than men; In many places of the world, the majority of abortions is of girls. Given that, the lesson the Feminist Theology teaches us is that before worrying about explaining reality, theologies must pay attention to an unjust reality that needs transformation. This situation must be taken as a theological challenge that requires an urgent answer seeking changes.   Felipe Fanuel Xavier Rodrigues Towards a daily theology: listening to the unheard voices   from "Teologias com Sabor de Mangostão". Isabel Aparecida Felix  Translation from Portuguese by Gustavo Frederico         Start or join the conversation for this posting on the Emergent Village Facebook Page Visit the new The Emergent Village Voice blog at EmergentVillage.com     At Emergent Village we love quotes. Deep, practical, ancient, new, edgy or smooth, from Einstein or from your own head - great quotes keep us searching for the fundamental truths that unite us all, and help us learn from each other. Send us your favorites, and we'll select some of the best for the following categories: inspiration, theology, leadership, culture, poetry/song. Submit a contribution to MinEmergent@gmail.com                          Join Our Email List

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Street Art

ReflectionsOf.Me

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Occupy Voting Booths

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Stereotypes...

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Lessons in leadership

1. Courage is not the absence of fear - it's inspiring other to move beyond it
2. Lead from the front - but don't leave your base behind

3. Lead from the back - and let others believe they are in front

4. Know your enemy - and learn about his favorite sport 

5. Keep your friends close - and your rivals even closer 

6. Appearances matter - and remember to smile

7. Nothing is black or white

8. Quitting is leading too 

Nelson Mandela 

Read the entire TIME article here.

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