The Nation Needs Extremists

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The Nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

 

Martin Luther King, Jr.  

 

 

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Greater purpose

Greater purpose 

 

Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.

 

Martin Luther King Jr. 

 

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The Teller

The Teller

by David Mason

He told me, maybe thirty years ago,
he'd met a rawboned Eskimo named Jack
while filming polar bears on an ice floe.
Jack went out fishing in his sealskin kayak
but the current carried him so far off course
that when a Russian freighter rescued him
they signed him as a mate to Singapore.
Five years at sea it took to get back home.

The year an Englishman gave him his name.
The year of hustling on a Bali beach.
The year of opium in Viet Nam.
The year he pined for snow. The year he searched
for any vessel that would turn toward Nome.
The man who told me? I tell you, I don't know.

Active Hope

Passive hope is about waiting for external agencies to bring about what we desire. Active Hope is about becoming active participants in bringing about what we hope for. Active Hope is a practice. Like tai chi or gardening, it is something we do rather than have. It is a process we can apply to any situation, and it involves three key steps. First, we take a clear view of reality; second, we identify what we hope for in terms of the direction we'd like things to move in or the values we'd like to see expressed; and third, we take steps to move ourselves or our situation in that direction. Since Active Hope doesn't require our optimism, we can apply it even in areas where we feel hopeless. The guiding impetus is intention; we choose what we aim to bring about, act for, or express.

 

Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone

Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in without Going Crazy 

 

 

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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