the biggest challenge facing our world today is the subjugation and abuse of women and girls

Jimmy Carter's new book hitting the nail on the head big time....
because something in us sees receptivity as weakness and agrees with that comb-over guy who fires people for a living when he says that 'Weakness is a provocation'.



http://www.ted.com/talks/amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking

not succeeding at getting an image to go from internet to blog with my chromebook.  what happened to  right click and save image as?


http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/episodes/gs2him/march-25--2014---jimmy-carter

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2014/0326/Jimmy-Carter-s-new-book-A-Call-to-Action-receives-positive-reviews

A big flashing arrow indicating the beginning and the direction of an infinitely long road.  We are all feminine in relation to God.  (from Autobiography of a Yogi).

Ecumenical Room

Did you know that some airports have Ecumenical Rooms?  I learned this from one of Anthony Bourdain's travel shows; I think it was the Layover oriented program and I think he was laying over in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

I love Anthony Bourdain.  When I first started this blog I talked a little about Craig Ferguson and Russel Brand.  I'd noticed a somewhat mysterious similarity in the appeal they have as people who've written readable memoirs which include horrible choices, embarrassing low points, alcohol, drugs and general debauchery.  They also share an enduring longing for the good, the true and the beautiful, or so it seemed to me.  Anthony Bourdain shares some profile elements.  He is clear that he eschews nothing based on appearances alone. He judges not and accepts not judgement.  Kind of like Ferguson and Brand?  They question.  They are endlessly curious.  They want to find stuff to be enthusiastic about but don't become downcast or resentful if it doesn't work out that way.

I listened to Ted Radio Hour  this morning while I waited for a technician to come to my home to fix my wi-fi, which was suffering 'signal leakage'.  The topic was success.   During the Tony Robbins portion on 'drive', I was thinking that my drive has always been to establish and maintain a connection with, for lack of a better term, God.  Success is guaranteed since God also wants this.  (Sometimes I haven't been so clear on that last detail.)  In the next portion Angela Duckworth explored the role of grit in attaining success.  I thought how little that term applies to me.  But when I think about it in relation to these three guys, I realize there's something else that's inside of what she's identifying as 'grit'.  It's sheer buoyancy and resilience.  That I can identify with.

Pussy Riot on Colbert!

Stephen Colbert is one of my favorite humans of all time.  I knew he was seriously a kindred spirit when he suddenly began reciting The Song of Tom Bombadil during an interview a couple of years ago.  (I read and reread Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring at least 10 times before the end of 11th grade.)  He is famous for not being what he pretends to be (conservative) and for saying what he doesn't believe (that Karl Rove is a lovely human being) but the truth is he's a very tenderhearted individual.  I have no doubt that his religious feeling is deeply sincere.  His interview with Pussy Riot is great fun to watch but I think Colbert, the Dad, is genuinely worried about 'these girls'.  I know the current president of Russia prides himself on looking as though he eats slow moving citizens for breakfast but I wouldn't want Colbert mad at me either.  The artists' humor was a perfect match for Colbert's.

Stephen Colbert was made a member of the band.  This makes me happy:

Everyman in thy most need

I've had this phrase in my head all week,  Everyman in thy most need  ( <--- link to everyman's library)

(By the 100th Anniversary in 2006 the list of authors Everyman’s Library publishes has been joined by Achebe, Allende, Bassani, Borges, Bulgakov, Calvino, Camus, Chandler, Penelope Fitzgerald, Forster, Grass, Greene, Hasek, Highsmith, Levi, Mahfouz, Mann, Marquez, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Nabokov, Naipaul, Orwell, Plath, Rushdie, Solzhenitsyn, Steinbeck, Svevo, Updike, and Waugh, a catalogue that few publishers can rival in paperback and of course none in hardcover.)

actually the phrase I was trying to remember goes:  ”Everyman, I will go with thee and be thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy side” 

Annonyme has something to do with the generalization of Identity in same sense as Everyman.  Questioning the significance, import and stability of individual identity sounds whack but it can lead to some great thinking.  See the work Borges and I by Jorge Luis Borges for an exploration of the I in relation to it's biographical host.  I haven't read it in years.  I think I will put it on my list.  





My daughter is in the room listening to TimWillDestroyYou.  This is making me laugh a lot.  I had the thought that my efforts to create a blog similar to the one I admired in 2003 or so (lemonyellow) might be pretty lame.  I wonder, since I don't actually look for or read other people's blogs (although I enjoy Herbivoracious and am worried that I stopped getting newsletters in my email from him) whether anyone even bothers with the hyperlink.  Here I am fussing about whether any reader's will be able to tell a hyperlink when they see it and why I can't make the titles be links anymore.  Oh Well.

I just hit 16,000 page views. still not one comment other than one from a close friend and from me.... I don't really understand that.