A woman goes to bed as 32 -year-old mother of one and wakes up a 15-year-old.
The next morning, I woke into a nightmare. I was convinced I was my 15-year-old self. Distressed and confused, I wondered why I wasn't in my comfy lower bunk bed, covered in a pink Marilyn Monroe bedspread, sharing a room with my sister. ....
Yet here I was in a two-bedroom council house with a room full of books, a cat and an 11-year-old son I didn't recognise. In those first hours, I paced my bedroom convinced I was going mad. I can remember looking in the bathroom mirror and starting to scream. Through the eyes of a 15-year-old, what I saw was horrifying; who was this ageing woman with crow's-feet, spots and bags under her eyes?
I woke up in the future.
Pregnancy used to be something camouflaged and endured, nine months of achy backs and euphemisms and elastic waistbands with a 7-pound 9-ounce reward at the end.
Not anymore. For a certain kind of mom with a certain kind of priority, pregnancy is a heady blur of spa visits and personal pregnancy chefs, of baby planners and "babymoons." Pregnancy is not a journey. Pregnancy is a destination, a showplace.
Greater Expectation: Luxury Services for Pregnant Women are Booming
It was just luck that six months ago I had scheduled a retreat at St.Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts.
After two weeks of the flu, I needed some time to re-energize and get back on track before I took up again all the things I had to do.
So I looked forward to some time with the Trappist monks, to put my ordinary concerns aside, to get away from it all including the Internet and reconnect with my inner self. I wasn't disappointed.
"What was it like?" a friend asked when I got back yesterday.
"Like honey," I said.
It was slow. Time expanded in a miraculous way. I had plenty of time to read "St. Augustine Confessions (Oxford World's Classics)" , a book I always meant to read but never got around to. Time too to take long walks and long naps.
It was sweet, the atmosphere one of concentrated holiness and peace. The meals delicious and taken in silence while we listened to tapes of John Shea, a gifted spiritual writer on the Gospel of St.Luke.
It was beautiful. The monks, no matter the age, all work to make the community self-supporting. At St. Joseph's they are most famous for their Trappist Preserves.
No matter what they wear as they work and some wear blue jeans,
when they gather for song and prayers, seven times a day, they put on their monk's robes.
And when they sing ancient psalms and antiphons, they are as one, joining with monks around the world and in ages past in a timeless singing of praise and thanksgiving. To hear them them is to be lifted up in a sublime experience of beauty.
It's said that monasteries are powerhouses of prayer and spiritual energy. All I know is there is no better place to recharge.
I wish everyone, most especially my dear readers, a New Year filled with more of that of which we never tire - more truth, more beauty, more goodness, more love.
Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.
Henri Frederic Amiel
"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."
-- T.S. Eliot
A new year dawns, witness the meteorological phenomenon known as the Morning Glory cloud
Too busy with cooking, baking and family gatherings to post before Christmas, I hope you all had a wonderful and joyful Christmas.
I've also very much enjoyed the many best wishes and special Christmas links that so many bloggers have posted.
Since I believe in celebrating all twelve days of Christmas, at least through the New Year, I have for you a few little gifts that you may have overlooked in the rush to get ready for the first day of Christmas.
First, An Arabic Christmas Carol (Byzantine Hymn of the Nativity) with gorgeous images from Syria, Egypt and Bethlehem you've never seen before.
Today, is born of a virgin, He who holds the whole creation in his hand
He whose essence none can touch is bound in swaddling clothes as a Child
God, who in the beginning established the heavens, lies in a manger.
An Arabic Christmas Carol was written in response to the The Hymn by Chaldean Catholic Priest-Martyr which you'll find on YouTube.
I'm pleased that so many Iraqi Christians packed the churches for Christmas Mass, which would have been unthinkable just a year ago.
"Last year was the year of misery, desperation and sadness, But this year is better. So many people attend the Mass and you can see that their praying was joyful."
Many Muslims joined Christians in celebrating this most joyful day with the newly installed Roman Catholic Cardinal Delly, patriarch of Iraq's ancient Chaldean Church who said during the service
"Iraq is like a garden and its beauty is the variety of its flowers and scent,"
Among those attending were several Shiite Muslim sheiks, including Raad Tamimi, who said they had come "in solidarity with our Christian brothers . . . to plant the seed of love again in the new Iraq." Tamimi, a tribal leader, was excited to shake the cardinal's hand and asked that a photo be taken with his cellphone.
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Jameel Hamouda, 55, who attended the Christmas services, said four of his family members had left Iraq, but that he was hopeful they would return.
"This is the first time the Muslim figures like sheiks and Shiite clerics attended the Mass," Hamouda said. "I feel happy and my soul filled with peace. God willing, there will be a union."
In this video, the beautiful Majida Al Roumi sings Silent Night in English, Arabic & French, but you have to turn the volume way up.
Surprisingly, the day after Christmas is celebrated in the Catholic Church as the Feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr of the young Church.
Gil Bailie says that more Christians have been killed in the past 100 years than the sum total killed in all the years since Jesus Christ was born some 2000 years ago.
Sadly, many of the Catholics in the Mid East face persecution. The war in Iraq and follow-on extremist violence of some Muslim extremists made many more Christians martyrs and caused tens, if not hundreds of thousands to flee the country for Syria and Jordan and only now, after the surge, are some beginning to return;
And in the Holy Land, most of the Christians have fled Bethlehem and Gaza's Christians, Living in Fear
So this Christmas, it's good news that writing from prison, Sayyed Imam al-Sharif, one of Al Qaeda's senior theologians, is calling on his followers to end their military jihad.
The extraordinary story of The twins bought up on either side of the Iron Curtain...but who lived identical lives.
And the similarities between the two sisters continue to amaze them. "As children, we both loved art and painting, chose the same subjects at school and both went into the same career, event management, which unites our creative and practical sides. And we each had our first children, both daughters, when we were 19," says Conny.
"We both married young, at 18 and 19, I think because we were so desperate for closeness with someone. But funnily enough, since we found each other, we've both got divorced from the men we married as teenagers.
"We're both now living happily with new partners instead and have had younger children with them.
"I've got three children, aged 20, 17 and eight, and Ulrike has four, aged 20, 16, six and two. We even both like the same colour schemes in our houses and often meet up wearing the same or near-identical outfits.
"We've had the same hairstyle as each other - long hair - all our adult lives and wear the same make-up.
They were separated by the East German state policy that twins have no right to stay together even if one of the adoptive family wanted to take them both. The other family had no idea they were getting a twin.
The twins feel an unrelenting fury at the communist apparatus that separated them, but have been unable to find an individual to hold responsible.
"It's so obviously wrong, unethical and immoral to separate two babies who were meant to be together. We're identical twins - why split us up, especially when people wanted to adopt both of us?" says Conny.
"We both feel so much anger at the system that kept us apart for so long. But since we found each other, we're so full of joy that the idea of trying to take any sort of action against the adoption agency seems a negative way to spend our precious time.
A recent study finds that family businesses are increasingly led by women and expect robust growth, yet many will likely face financial problems because they have not prepared for managerial and ownership succession, nor have they prepared an personal estate plan.
Family businesses, increasingly led by women, need succession and financial planning.
People with moles age more slowly than others. It's the telomeres.
A drug called varenicline in a single pill could curb smoking and drinking. Made by Pfizer, varenicline has already been proven safe for people. Because the drug works on the same receptors in the brain to block the release of dopamine that pleasurable sensation that reinforces addiction, what's been proven safe for nicotine addiction may well work for alcohol addiction.
A simple scratch and sniff test to detect Alzheimer's disease in its earliest stages may be coming since a Poor Sense of Smell May be Alzheimer's
Too many jellyfish in Japan caused problems, even a blockage at a nuclear plant. Now those wily Japanese have found that jellyfish mucus is perfect for cosmetics
New ink for tattoos using advanced microcapsulation technology promises that it can be removed later on when the people tattooed come to their senses in only one laser session. 100% Freedom. Zero Regret.
You Breathe What You Eat. Asthma severity linked to diet poor in vitamins C and E and omega-3 fatty acids,
Scientists and Australian beer maker Foster's are teaming up to generate clean energy from brewery waste water — by using sugar-consuming bacteria.
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The battery produces electricity plus clean water, said Prof. Jurg Keller, the university's wastewater expert.
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"It's not going to make an enormous amount of power — it's primarily a waste water treatment that has the added benefit of creating electricity," Keller said.
Through their imaginative visions, artists can give us hints of possible futures our society, but satirists do it best. Think Animal Farm, 1984, Jonathan Swift, the Onion and Steven Colbert.
Christopher Buckley's new book, Boomsday, comically depicts the coming intergenerational war as boomers retire and collect on their entitlements funded by an increasing taxes on younger folks.
Robert Samuelson takes note that 'Boomsday' is Approaching
Cassandra Devine knows how to solve the coming "entitlements'' crisis, preordained when the 77 million baby boomers begin hitting 65 in 2011: Pay retirees to kill themselves, a program she calls "transitioning.'' Volunteers could receive a lavish vacation beforehand ("a farewell honeymoon''), courtesy of the government, and their heirs would be spared the estate tax. If only 20 percent of boomers select suicide before the age of 70, she says, "Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid will be solvent. End of crisis.''
OK, Devine is a 29-year-old fictional blogger in Christopher Buckley's satirical novel "Boomsday.''
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Buckley's comic tale revolves around two truths usually buried in our dreary budget debates.
First, a generational backlash is inevitable...
Second, boomers will want even more benefits.
Baby Boomers,'' says Buckley's Devine, "made self-indulgence a virtue.'' Sure, that's a stereotype, but for opinion leaders and politicians, it is uncomfortably accurate
From Fast Company comes The Three Keys to Change, an excerpt from Alan Deutschman's new book Change or Die
This isn't a another self-help book, but a serious explanation why people don't or can't change, why heart attack victims don't take their medicines or why prisoners once released commit crimes again and go back to prison.
Why is it so hard to change?
Facts don't seem to help.
Fear doesn't either.
Few can change and transform themselves on their own.
Alan writes the keys to change are relate, repeat and reframe.
The first key - Relate
You form a new, emotional relationship with a person or community that inspires and sustains hope....you need the influence of seemingly "unreasonable" people to restore your hope--to make you believe that you can change and expect that you will change.
The second key - Repeat
The new relationship helps you learn, practice, and master the new habits and skills that you'll need. It takes a lot of repetition over time before new patterns of behavior become automatic and seem natural--until you act the new way without even thinking about it. It helps tremendously to have a good teacher, coach, or mentor to give you guidance, encouragement, and direction along the way.
The third key - Reframe
The new relationship helps you learn new ways of thinking about your situation and your life. Ultimately, you look at the world in a way that would have been so foreign to you that it wouldn't have made any sense before you changed.
New hope, new skills, new thinking.
Robert Paterson calls it a revelatory book with the key to change to be found in the human heart.
Alan has reviewed the vast body of literature on what works in therapy to help people confront and then move through their belief barriers to a better life. There seems to be many different approaches that work. One on one. Groups etc. But the one thing that the successful paths had in common was a person who truly, sincerely believed in the capability of the other to make the change. This open hearted person often knew this before the subject did. The magic that crossed over was that truth of the feeling that this person loves me for whom I am now in all my misery. He loves me for me now not for what I should be. He sees in me the person that I can and could be. He gives me the gift of hope.
I would add only that the change in the heart takes place only in relationship, be it another person like a football coach, a group like AA or God. In that relationship you are not only loved for who you are, you are given the support to become what you can be.
Talk About Life Changes. This is creepy.
Jackson's face change on YouTube.
It reminds me very much of the only novel Oscar Wilde wrote, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
I forgot to tell you all that I'm taking a break at least until after Labor Day, probably until September 8 or 9. I'm doing a lot of traveling and sightseeing from Denver to Boulder to San Francisco to Seattle.
Since I want to stay outside in the last of the summer weather, I 'm taking a vacation from the virtual world until I can come back refreshed and renewed.
You all get outside too and enjoy the end of summer. Like life, summer seems endless and then it flies by before you know it.
Traveling 1400 miles across generations via the Corner
Some call those born after 1980 the 9/11 generation. Sept. 11 is a fixture but not a fixation. It has been a fact of childhood that terrorists threaten civilization, and may always, but that life goes on.
The 9/11 generation is both traditional and iconoclastic. Talking heads often depict it as selfish and disengaged, often symbolized by the empty pursuits of Paris Hilton. In fact, according to social scientists, Generation Y has a respect for community and authority that makes it more akin to the 18-year-olds on the beaches of Normandy than the Y Generation's baby boomer parents
"This generation, the baby boomlet, is a very odd generation," said Rachel Kleinfeld, 30, the founding director of the Truman National Security Project, a Democrat think tank. "They are much more sexually conservative than the generation before them. They are much more religious than the generation before them. They are very community-oriented. Their numbers on community orientation are like those of the greatest generation, the World War II generation. They are extremely loving of their parents. Many of them call their parents their best friends. And they are also very respecting of authority, but not all types of authority."
For instance, the 9/11 generation respects the military but not the traditional news media or government institutions. If you were born after 1980, you are likely to gather your impressions of the world as much through MySpace as any front page.
No one writes better on the decline of Western civilization than Mark Stein, It's breeding obvious, mate
The question posed here tonight is very direct: “Does Western Civilization Have A Future?” One answer’s easy: if western civilization doesn’t have a past, it certainly won’t have a future. No society can survive when it consciously unmoors itself from its own inheritance. But let me answer it in a less philosophical way:
Much of western civilization does not have any future. That’s to say, we’re not just speaking philosophically, but literally. In a very short time, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries we regard as part of the western tradition will cease to exist in any meaningful sense. They don’t have a future because they’ve given up breeding.
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Seventeen European nations are now at what demographers call “lowest-low” fertility – 1.3 births per woman, the point at which you’re so far down the death spiral you can’t pull out. In theory, those countries will find their population halving every 35 years or so. In practice, it will be quicker than that, as the savvier youngsters figure there’s no point sticking around a country that’s turned into an undertaker’s waiting room.
With the costs of electricity so high and getting higher, with more and more appliances, devices, computers, peripherals all demanding their share from the grid, the idea that you could produce all the electricity that you need is very appealing.
Springwise brings news of consumer-generated power using small wind turbines you can install on your roof. Beginning this month, Skystream energy introduces the Skystream 3.7 that promises to reduce or eliminate your monthly electrical bills by producing electricity quietly in very low winds.
It will take a while for state and local governments to allow such individual windmills, but I'm betting that over the next couple of decades, the American landscape will be dotted with tall, skinny, silver skystreams.
So much for the home heliport. But what about the birds?
The Winds of Change indeed.
The next time you get a call that a relative is seriously ill or has died and you want to fly out for the funeral, don't count on getting a bereavement fare from the airlines.
From the Wall St Journal, Airlines Curb Bereavement Fares (subscribers only)
The special fares are the latest casualty of the airline industry's troubles. Eliminating bereavement tickets is part of a wider cost-cutting strategy by airlines that has led to the disappearance of everything from in-flight amenities such as meals and blankets to other discounted fares such as those for seniors, students and children.
But while taking pillows and pretzels off planes may annoy travelers, yanking fares aimed at helping grieving passengers strikes some as particularly harsh. Still, some airlines -- and even some travelers -- say that because fares have dropped so low in recent years, the bereavement deals are no longer needed. Indeed, they are often more expensive than last-minute fares available on discount airlines or via travel Web sites.
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With the disappearance of bereavement fares, fliers aren't only losing potential discounts, they are losing flexibility, too. Bereavement tickets typically allow fliers to change the time and dates of their flights as often as they wish, with no penalty. That kind of flexibility is particularly crucial for travelers who don't know when they need to be someplace for a surgery or funeral. Without bereavement fares, travelers who need to change their tickets multiple times can be hit with steep fees.
Grandparents head 62% of multi-generational households which are are growing faster than any other type.
Now 4% of all types, multi-generational households grew by 38% from 1990 to 2000.
Families Add 3rd Generation to Households
A variety of cultural factors also draw and keep relatives together. Multigenerational living, especially those in which grandparents care for their grandchildren, have long been common in Asian and Hispanic countries, and the arrangement is popular among immigrants from those nations. Also driving the trend are — who else? — active baby boomers who want to be involved in the lives of their offspring and who see little appeal in flying off to a Sun Belt retirement in isolation.
Are these helicopter parents just slightly older?
The first rule of the Business of Life is to stay alive. We are now learning from the first North Korean defectors who arrived in Los Angles how difficult that can be.
One refugee
recalled his astonishment upon seeing the abundance of food even in the rural areas just across the river from North Korea. Dogs were being given rice porridge to eat, he recalls, "big bowls of it." Rice is a luxury in North Korea, he said, eaten only on one's birthday and New Year's.
American researchers have coined a new term. Middlescents are those workers between 35 and 54 who have burned themselves out.
Work Stressful? You may be a middlescent
The middlescent is frustrated, confused and exasperated, finding themselves leaving work feeling "burned out, bottlenecked and bored".
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"It is a critical time for people and they have to rethink their whole life. Should they be less ambitious? Should they spend more time with their family?
"The critical time for that used to be well into your 50s, now it's getting younger.
It's what used to be called a mid-life crisis, but it seems to be happening earlier now. I think highly educated people who live in this world of abundance we enjoy today have more opportunities for identity crises throughout their lives. That's a good thing because it's usually a crisis that forces you to assess your life and find new meaning and passion.
I came across this quote today from Peter Drucker and it's such a good question that it's worth asking repeatedly over time.
"What can you and only you do, that if done well, can make a real difference."
The poor in America are richer than the poor anywhere else. And the homeless in Palm Springs live better than the homeless anywhere else in the U.S.
Via Boing Boing
People believe in all sorts of crazy things and nefarious conspiracies for reasons far beyond me. .
Today at least, we can put to rest any question that aliens crashed a UFO in Roswell N.M. in 1948.
Max Headroom Creator Made Roswell Alien
THE creator of Max Headroom, a 1980s television cyber-presenter, has claimed he was one of the hoaxers behind the Roswell film, the grainy black and white footage supposedly showing a dead alien being dissected by American government scientists after a UFO crash.
John Humphreys, a sculptor and consultant on Alien Autopsy who has also worked on special effects for Doctor Who, said it was he who made the models for the alien dissected in the original fake footage.
Rather than being shot in 1947 near Roswell in the New Mexico desert as previously claimed, the film was actually made at a flat in Camden, north London, in 1995.
What happens when you reach a tipping point with rudeness and you just don't want to put up with it anymore?
Well, if you want some civility get thee to New York City.
know I was surprised to learn New York Leads Politeness Trend? Get Outta Here.
Somehow a city whose residents have long been scorned for their churlish behavior is now being praised for adopting rules and laws that govern personal conduct, making New York an unlikely model for legislating courtesy and decorum.
"Most people just seem to ignore common sense and common courtesy so it does have to be legislated," she said. "To have this happen in New York is going to inspire a lot of other people. I cannot applaud it enough. My hands are tired from clapping."
• no cellphones in movies, theaters and concerts
• $50 fine if subway riders put their feet on a seat.
• owners responsible for cleaning up after vandals
• smoking ban in bars, restaurants and nightclubs
• new stiffer noise code
• penalties for sports fans who throw things on the field or spit at the players
• parents can be ejected from Little League games for "unsportsmanlike" conduct
Can't come fast enough for me. Otherwise we will see the rise of the Howling Mob where some children have no conception how to act.
The four teenaged punks who chased an NYU student into the path of an oncoming car looked and laughed as he lay on the street dying, a prosecutor revealed yesterday.
"They didn't call for an ambulance. They didn't call for help. Rather, they stood on the street corner and laughed," prosecutor Joel Seidemann said of the 13- and 15-year-olds who chased Broderick John Hehman into traffic.
Hehman, 20, died four days later from his massive head injuries.
Genetic testing is not just for finding out your family's ancestry.
Says sociologist Troy Duster, "It's about access to money and power." Some call it the "American Indian Princess" syndrome where families are looking for ways to validate their children's eligibility for race-based admissions or government entitlements.
Seeking Ancestry in DNA Ties Uncovered by Tests
Naturally when you're applying to college you're looking at how your genetic status might help you," said Mr. Moldawer, who knows that the twins' birth parents are white, but has little information about their extended family. "I have three kids going now, and you can bet that any advantage we can take we will."
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It may be only natural then that ethnic ancestry tests, one of the first commercial products to emerge from the genetic revolution, are spurring a thorough exploration of the question, What is in it for me?
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Prospective employees with white skin are using the tests to apply as minority candidates, while some with black skin are citing their European ancestry in claiming inheritance rights.
This is the underlying problem of identifying people by race in an increasingly multiracial society. Since most applications accept self-descriptions of race and ethnicity, we can expect to see many more DNA ethnics.
What do you do if you've fallen in the habit of defining yourself in terms of who you are to other people and what they expect of you?
Her children grown, Alice Steinbach decided to take a year off from her job as a reporter with the Baltimore Sun, leave her friends and family and head off for Europe Without Reservations. That's the title of her book she ended up writing about her adventures in Paris, Oxford, Milan, Venice and London.
In so doing, she gives the single best travel tip I've ever seen: Write postcards to yourself to remind you not just of what you saw, but what you felt and thought. So much easier than keeping a travel journal. Plus, you have the stamps, the thoughts and the context to propel you back to another time.
I must say she's awakened a new travel lust in me.
"Without Reservations : The Travels of an Independent Woman" (Alice Steinbach)
She also has some marvelous quotes that will resonate with many women of a certain age.
From Colette, "that lightheartedness that comes to a woman when the peril of men has left her." The peril of men being those times when women needed men more than they needed their own independent identities.
I liked this one too, by Walter Berry in his advice to those about to enter the wilderness.
"Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place, there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into."
In preparation for the journey ahead of her, Alice's mother took this quote with her in her handbag to the hospital where she later died.
If you stay up late tonight, into the wee hours, you'll be awake for a once-in-a-lifetime moment
01:02:03 04/05/06
Of course, any moment you're awake is a moment that will never come again, never to be repeated. Still, some of us go real slow when the odometer is about to turn into 30,000.
On being freed from captivity. Jill Carroll says in today's Christian Science Monitor
I finally feel like I am alive again. I feel so good. To be able to step outside anytime, to feel the sun directly on your face - to see the whole sky. These are luxuries that we just don't appreciate every day.
On the earlier video.
"Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not. The people who kidnapped me and murdered Allan Enwiya are criminals, at best. They robbed Allan of his life and devastated his family. They put me, my family and my friends - and all those around the world, who have prayed so fervently for my release - through a horrific experience. I was, and remain, deeply angry with the people who did this."
Now reunited with her parents
No one makes me think more than Charles Murray. A Plan to Replace the Welfare State
Throughout history until a few decades ago, the meaning of life for almost everyone was linked to the challenge of simple survival. Staying alive required being a contributing part of a community. Staying alive required forming a family and having children to care for you in your old age. The knowledge that sudden death could happen at any moment required attention to spiritual issues. Doing all those things provided deep satisfactions that went beyond survival.
Life in an age of plenty and security requires none of those things. For the great majority of people living in advanced societies, it is easily possible to go through life accompanied by social companions and serial sex partners, having a good time, and dying in old age with no reason to think that one has done anything significant.
If you believe that's all there is--that the purpose of life is to while away the time as pleasantly as possible--then it is reasonable to think that the purpose of government should be to enable people to do so with as little effort as possible. But if you agree with me that to live a human life can have transcendental meaning, then we need to think about how human existence acquires weight and consequence.
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For most people--including many older people who in their youths focused on vocation--life acquires meaning through the stuff of life: the elemental events associated with birth, death, growing up, raising children, paying the rent, dealing with adversity, comforting the bereaved, celebrating success, applauding the good and condemning the bad; coping with life as it exists around us in all its richness. The chief defect of the welfare state from this perspective is not that it is ineffectual in making good on its promises (though it is), nor even that it often exacerbates the very problems it is supposed to solve (though it does). The welfare state is pernicious ultimately because it drains too much of the life from life.
It seems to me that the current French riots are all about security. Les jeunes, knowing nothing else, want everything to stay the same.
Roger Simon asks Can you imagine wanting or even considering keeping your first job out of college for life?
The profound fear that is permeating the French society and which I posted about in French fear is what happens when too much of the life is drained from life.
Why I worry for France. From the Washington Post, Joie de Vivre Fades Into Fear
"France is divorced from the modern world of the 21st century," said Nicolas Baverez, author of a top-selling book, "New World, Old France." It describes a country so fearful of letting go of outmoded traditions -- including a hugely expensive cradle-to-grave welfare system -- that it is being shut out of the global marketplace. "We're at a very dangerous turning point," he said.
Ipsos, a French polling institute, recently asked 500 people between the ages of 20 and 25 the question: "What does globalization mean to you?"
Forty-eight percent of those surveyed responded, "Fear."
Fear of what?
Just about everything, according to Christophe Lambert, author of another examination of contemporary France, "The Fearful Society." The country, he writes, is paralyzed by "fear of the future, fear of losing, fear of others, fear of taking a risk, fear of solitude, fear of growing old."
Art Buchwald makes me laugh out loud. Take Low-Interest Loan
He read the same piece I wrote about in Sperm Online but he "decided it was a sign. Why not me?" so he calls the sperm bank, offers a deposit, and spends the rest of the column in a reverie about his possible children in his room at a hospice where he is spending his last days as the man who wouldn't die.
I actually was not surprised that a recent study found that the loneliest people were in their 40s. Study looks at all the lonely people.
In your 40s, you are still wearing a social mask, doing what other people expect you to do and finding it increasingly empty. It's about 50 when you drop the mask to journey inward.
People aged 50 and older had the lowest levels of loneliness.
The Financial Planning Association and the National Endowment for Financial Education have teamed up to create an online life-stages financial planning tool.
Life Events & Financial Decisions is definitely a site to bookmark if only for as a checklist for the Business of Life™.
They turned off the life support to Brian Paolo, but he began to breathe on his own. Ten days later, he gave his daughter away at her wedding.
His daughter Anne-Marie said: "The doctors had prepared us for the worst and it looked like they were right. But dad fought back.
"I couldn't believe it when he started to recover and we realised he would be there for the wedding. The doctors and nurses said they had never seen anything like it - they were astounded.
Somehow, the atmosphere in Europe harkens the 30s when people began closing their eyes, so horrific was the aftermath of the Great War.
In Paris, a young Jewish man was kidnapped and tortured, left to die on railroad tracks.
From the report in Le Figaro.
“The discovery Monday afternoon of the naked body of Ilan, 23 years-old, near the railroad tracks at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (Essonne) is the tragic epilogue of a long police stake out. The victim had been tortured, 80% of his body was covered with bruises, deep cuts, and burns from an inflammable fluid. The young man, handcuffed and gagged, left for dead by his torturers, died on his way to the hospital.
Was it a criminal attack or was he targeted by the gang because he was Jewish? That is the question the paper and the government should be asking. Fortunately, the journalist Nidra Poller does at Atlas Shrugs and she shows the difficulty of conducting criminal investigations when you must also be politically correct.
Since I've always found it difficult to comprehend anti-semitism, I was especially glad to find ShrinkWrapped's post Pity the Poor Anti-Semite
Here is the crucial point for those who imagine that a tiny group of people, barely 60 years out of an almost successful genocide, left with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, comprising approximately .05% of the world's population, who came to the desert in Palestine and built a modern technological nation while devoting themselves to oppressing the Muslim world, with almost 100 times their population and oceans of oil:
The anti-Semite necessarily defines himself as monumentally inferior to the Jew.
UPDATE. The French have arrested 12 people from the gang called "The Barbarians" suspected in the killing of Ilan Halimi.
"They acted with indescribable cruelty," the judiciary police chief leading the investigation said. "They kept him naked and tied up for weeks. They cut him and in the end poured flammable liquid on him and set him alight."
The French officials say anti-Semitism was not a factor, his family say otherwise.
"We are in total shock," a close friend of Ilan's said Saturday. "All of us, Ilan's mother especially, have not yet begun to comprehend what happened."
Technorati Tags: anti-Semitism, Ilan Halimi
If you're old enough, you'll remember 29 years back when Roots first came on the air and the country was captivated.
This February, PBS will air a four part series "African American Lives" in which DNA testing is used to trace the African ancestry of nine famous Americans.
Chairman and producer of the series Henry Louis Gates, Chairman of Harvard's Department of African and African American studies was shocked to learn that he was half-European.
''Everybody knew their grandparents, but getting beyond that was quite a voyage for people," he says. ''I cried. I found out my fifth great-grandfather fought in the American Revolution. I didn't know he existed. I now have a real family tree going back to 1750. That's amazing."
Is the promise of anonymity forever best for sperm donors? What about the children of sperm donors?
Most of the exotic reproductive technologies are unregulated and private fertility clinics like it that way. Anonymity allows them to escape accountability. After all, who wants to deal with health problems, like diabetes, that may not show up until decades later? Even more troubling is the possibility of inadvertent incest.
Like children anywhere, sperm donor children want to know where they come from. They want a more complete sense of their identity and not just on Father's Day. And there are 40,000 of them born each year
At least one child has tracked down his sperm donor father on the internet.
Britain now requires fertility clinics to register donors in a database the children can access later. But that has resulted in a steep decline in donors. I can understand why after the Swedish Supreme Court ruled that the biological sperm donor father of three children in a lesbian relationship was ordered to pay child support for all three.
The New York Times explores the issue in Are You My Sperm Donor? Few Clinics Say.
With ever more exotic reproductive technologies looming, like cloning and the engineering of traits like eye color and intelligence, some advocates for more regulation say there is a growing urgency to protect these children from what they call "genetic bewilderment." Guaranteeing children access to their genetic heritage, they say, could be the cornerstone of an industry ethics code.
"We need to get it right for donor conception," said Rebecca Hamilton, a law student at Harvard who created a documentary about searching for her donor father in New Zealand, "and use it as the basis for the million weird and wacky decisions coming our way."
Giving sperm donor children a right to access their genetic heritage is one cause I can fully support.
Blind for 25 years, Joyce Urch had a heart attack at 74. When she awoke in the hospital, she could see. She told her husband, "You've got older."
For the first time she could her 12 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
When Joyce first went blind it made a huge change to our life. Everything seemed to fall away from us. She couldn't do anything.
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She said: "I love going out now. I can look around and see the trees and squirrels and pigeons."
When the African grey parrot said, " I love you Gary' in his partner's voice, Chris Taylor became suspicious.
Ziggy is a mimic and a half, and from his cage in the corner he had heard every bill and coo of a secret love affair.
A chill ran down Mr Taylor’s spine. He turned to Suzy, whose cheeks had flushed to beetroot. As she dissolved in tears she was forced to admit to a month-long fling with Gary, some of their intimacies conducted in Mr Taylor’s home while he was out at work, but Ziggy wasn’t. She could not deny it; every time her mobile phone had rung, Ziggy had piped up in perfect imitation of her: “Hiya Gary.
More from this strange, new world where medical advances come faster than our ability to understand the consequences, much less the ethical dilemmas.
We all know the basketball Yao Ming, but we don't know the story former Newsweek journalist Brook Lamer wrote about in his new book Operation Yao Ming.
If what he writes is true, Yao Ming was "knowingly bred for the sport, forced into it against his will and subjected to years of dubious science to increase his height", set up more than 50 years ago under Mao Tse Tung.
Do you have confidence in your own civilization? Mark Steyn says that 's what the War on Terror is all about.
In one of the most discussed articles of the past week and will be one of the most important of the year, It's the Demography, Stupid. Here are some choice bits. The question to ask yourself is what would you fight to defend? Are you worried about the right things?
Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most Western European countries.
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That's what the war's about: our lack of civilizational confidence. As a famous Arnold Toynbee quote puts it: "Civilizations die from suicide, not murder"--as can be seen throughout much of "the Western world" right now.
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So the jihadists are for the most part doing no more than giving us a prod in the rear as we sleepwalk to the cliff. When I say "sleepwalk," it's not because we're a blasé culture. On the contrary, one of the clearest signs of our decline is the way we expend so much energy worrying about the wrong things.
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None of these things happened. In fact, quite the opposite is happening. We're pretty much awash in resources, but we're running out of people--the one truly indispensable resource, without which none of the others matter. Russia's the most obvious example: it's the largest country on earth, it's full of natural resources, and yet it's dying--its population is falling calamitously.
The default mode of our elites is that anything that happens--from terrorism to tsunamis--can be understood only as deriving from the perniciousness of Western civilization. As Jean-Francois Revel wrote, "Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself."
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The idea that progressive Euro-welfarism is the permanent resting place of human development was always foolish; we now know that it's suicidally so.
To avoid collapse, European nations will need to take in immigrants at a rate no stable society has ever attempted. The CIA is predicting the EU will collapse by 2020.
These are very startling figures from the UN. The study has been published as a book, "Women in an Insecure World."
There is a shortfall of some 200 million women in the world -- "missing' due to what a three-year study on violence against women calls "gendercide."
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Theodore Winkler, head of the research center that directed the project said:
"The deeply rooted phenomenon of the violence against women is one of the great crimes of humanity. We cannot close our eyes to it and hope it simply goes away,"
Gender-related abortions and infanticides were the leading causes for the shortfall in the female population. Another factor was domestic violence, including so-called honor killings in some cultures.
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Winkler said violence against women was the fourth-leading cause of premature death on the planet, ranking behind only disease, hunger and war.
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The book uses U.N., World Heath Organization and government reports and photographs to examine the plight of women. According to a study based on 50 surveys from around the world, "at least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime."
Some of the disaffected, unemployed Muslim youths 6 who kept Paris burning for 16 days and entirely too gleeful after torching cars, churches day care centers and busses seem to be listening to their parents.
From the Washington Post, Parents Tears Calm Youth Rage
The parents have reclaimed the night in the suburban Paris town where France's unrest began two weeks ago. While arsons and clashes with police are continuing in dozens of
cities across France, fires have not burned in Clichy-sous-Bois since Monday night.
"The tears of our mothers stopped us," said Maldini, 26, a stout, French-born son of Algerian immigrants. He declined to provide his family name for fear of police harassment. "The parents, the mothers and fathers were all crying."
Other parents have no control. Some in France Ask: Where Are the Parents?
Many parents are struggling to make ends meet, leaving them little time for their children. They often can hardly communicate with their sons and daughters: Many parents are not French citizens and never learn to speak French, while their children don't learn the language of their ancestors.
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According to Sonia Imloul, who works with troubled teens in Seine-Saint-Denis, the Paris-area town hit hardest by the unrest, an estimated 40 percent of families in the suburbs are dysfunctional, causing a high rate of school dropouts, drug use, petty crime and aggressive behavior.
As David Brooks writes in Gangsta, in French, they are taking hip-hop as their model of how to be men.
After 9/11, everyone knew there was going to be a debate about the future of Islam. We just didn't know the debate would be between Osama bin Laden and Tupac Shakur.
Yet those seem to be the lifestyle alternatives that are really on offer for poor young Muslim men in places like France, Britain and maybe even the world beyond. A few highly alienated and fanatical young men commit themselves to the radical Islam of bin Laden. But most find their self-respect by embracing the poses and worldview of American hip-hop and gangsta rap.
One of the striking things about the scenes from France is how thoroughly the rioters have assimilated hip-hop and rap culture. It's not only that they use the same hand gestures as American rappers, wear the same clothes and necklaces, play the same video games, and sit with the same sorts of car stereos at full blast. It's that they seem to have adopted the same poses of exaggerated manhood, the same attitudes about women, money and the police. They seem to have replicated the same sort of gang culture, the same romantic visions of gunslinging drug dealers.
For the first time, an anonymous sperm donor was traced on the Internet
LATE last year, a 15-year-old boy rubbed a swab along the inside of his cheek, popped it into a vial and sent it off to an online genealogy DNA-testing service. But unlike most people who contact the service, he was not interested in sketching the far reaches of his family tree. His mother had conceived using donor sperm and he wanted to track down his genetic father.
That the boy succeeded using only the DNA test, genealogical records and some internet searches has huge implications for the hundreds of thousands of people who were conceived using donor sperm. With the explosion of information about genetic inheritance, any man who has donated sperm could potentially be found by his biological offspring. Absent and unknown fathers will also become easier to trace.
The teenager tracked down his father from his Y chromosome. The Y is passed from father to son virtually unchanged, like a surname. So the pattern of gene variants it carries can help identify which paternal line an individual has descended from and can also be linked to a man's surname.
The boy paid FamilyTreeDNA.com $289 for the service. His genetic father had never supplied his DNA to the site, but all that was needed was for someone in the same paternal line to be on file.
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Though his donor had been anonymous, his mother had been told the man's date and place of birth and his college degree. Using another online service, Omnitrace.com, he purchased the names of everyone that had been born in the same place on the same day. Only one man had the surname he was looking for, and within 10 days he had made contact.
"This is the first time that I know of it being done," says Bryan Sykes, a geneticist at the University of Oxford and chairman of OxfordAncestors.com, a genetic genealogy service. The case raises serious questions about whether past promises of anonymity can be honoured, he says.
Counting my worry beads - hurricane, flood, tornado, earthquake, tsunami, terrorist attack, dirty bomb, avian flu, I find I can add two more this week -pirates attacking cruise ships with rocket launchers and 4GW in France.
From Lexington Green at Chicago Boyz
What is happening in France is nothing less than an "instant war" by a "smart swarm" of networked arsonists who are conducting a loosely coordinated nation-wide intifada:
"They are very mobile, in cars or scooters. ... It is quite hard to combat" he said. "Most are young, very young, we have even seen young minors." There appeared to be no coordination between separate groups in different areas, Hamon said. But within gangs, he added, youths are communicating by cell phones or e-mails. "They organize themselves, arrange meetings, some prepare the Molotov cocktails."
This is much, much worse than I thought it was. It is a massive outbreak of 4th Generation Warfare, in the middle of an advanced, Western country.
After watching the seventh straight night of riots in the Parisian suburbs, I am afraid we are seeing the beginnings of civil war in Europe between the Europeans and the second and third generations of Muslim immigrants.
The unrest spread to at least nine Paris-region towns overnight Tuesday, exposing the despair, anger and criminality in France's poor suburbs - fertile terrain for Islamic extremists, drug dealers and racketeers.
The violence, concentrated in neighborhoods with large African and Muslim populations, has highlighted the difficulties many European nations face with immigrant communities feeling marginalized and restive, cut off from the continent's prosperity and, for some extremists, its values, too.
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The unrest spread to at least nine Paris-region towns overnight Tuesday, exposing the despair, anger and criminality in France's poor suburbs - fertile terrain for Islamic extremists, drug dealers and racketeers.
The violence, concentrated in neighborhoods with large African and Muslim populations, has highlighted the difficulties many European nations face with immigrant communities feeling marginalized and restive, cut off from the continent's prosperity and, for some extremists, its values, too.
Francis Fukuyama explores why Europe is in such trouble in A Year of Living Dangerously
We profoundly misunderstand contemporary Islamist ideology when we see it as an assertion of traditional Muslim values or culture.....In his book "Globalized Islam" (2004), the French scholar Olivier Roy argues persuasively that contemporary radicalism is precisely the product of the "deterritorialization" of Islam, which strips Muslim identity of all of the social supports it receives in a traditional Muslim society.
The identity problem is particularly severe for second- and third-generation children of immigrants. They grow up outside the traditional culture of their parents, but unlike most newcomers to the United States, few feel truly accepted by the surrounding society.
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The real challenge for democracy lies in Europe, where the problem is an internal one of integrating large numbers of angry young Muslims and doing so in a way that does not provoke an even angrier backlash from right-wing populists. Two things need to happen: First, countries like Holland and Britain need to reverse the counterproductive multiculturalist policies that sheltered radicalism, and crack down on extremists. But second, they also need to reformulate their definitions of national identity to be more accepting of people from non-Western backgrounds.
UPDATE: Wow, another must-read by Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal, The Suicide Bombers Among Us. At its heart, hatred and the desire to continue total male domination.
the sweet dream of universal cultural compatibility has been replaced, in a single day, by the nightmare of permanent conflict.
Nancy Glaser, a Stanford MBA, left her career in venture capital
to help Third World women become apparel-industry entrepreneurs. She was in Russia after the Berlin Wall fell, working to build St. Petersburg into a fashion center. For the past three years, she's been visiting bombed-out villages in Afghanistan, helping poor women turn their native handicrafts into Fifth Avenue must-haves.
Glaser talks about giving up the dream job to take real risks in her life in this interview by Patty Fisher, Desire to live right life can change the world.
`The women in Afghanistan make beautiful hand-embroidered tablecloths and napkins, but the fabric is terrible quality, the thread breaks, the colors run,'' she said. ``They don't match anything you have in your home. The workmanship is beautiful, but it's the wrong color, the wrong design.''
She has enlisted designers from New York and Europe to showcase the women's work, and she's trying to raise money for better materials. It's been hard because the country is so devastated, and so much of the aid money goes for security. But she's determined to succeed.
``Once people have a livelihood and can support their family,'' she said, ``they put down their guns.''
via Evelyn Rodriguez who will be writing more about her own vision of artisan journalism and offers us this bonus:
Nancy Glaser says, "Even with all the devastation, there was so much hope. Turning aid containers into shops, people had already set up a bazaar on a dry riverbed.” She described women swathed in burqas and speaking perfect English (learned in refugee camps in Pakistan). Eager to be working, they presented her with resumes. She also saw school classes meeting under trees that included girls for the first time in six years.
The Toronto school board worries that some children will traumatized by Halloween
Many recently arrived students in our schools share absolutely none of the background cultural knowledge that is necessary to view 'trick or treating,' the commercialization of death, the Christian sexist demonization of pagan religious beliefs, as 'fun,' "
They say, "Halloween is a religious day of significance for Wiccans and therefore should be treated respectfully."
Instead of eating sweets in class, they suggest writing health warnings for all Halloween candies.
I pity those poor kids in Toronto schools being deprived of what should be a great day for kids and instead having to write why candy is bad.
Are these people nuts?
UPDATE: Halloween is booming in Europe and some Europeans don't like it. They see Halloween as an "unnecessary, bad American custom" that undermines their cultural identity.
From the Center of Retirement Research at Boston College, this White Paper just out says.
"Social Security is a real problem and we need to fix it and that involves pain," says Jeffrey Brown lead author of a paper which seeks to critically examine the "The Top 10 Myths of Social Security Reform."--
A constructive debate about the future of Social Security should accept that a problem exists and focus on alternative methods of restoring long-run, sustainable fiscal balance to the program," he says. "Simply denying that the problem exists will not make it go away.----
"We shouldn't kick the problem down the road for 10 years for others to deal with it nor should we pursue policies that don't fix the problem but appear to," he says. "There are no easy solutions. Someone's ox must be gored. We either need more revenue or to pay less out of the system. People either don't understand that or they choose to ignore it."
According to the White Paper, the top ten myths of social security that should be debunked on both sides of the aisle (full copy here) are:
1. Social Security is financially sound for "decades to come."
2. Economic growth will eliminate the existing problem.
3. Social Security is in "crisis" and will not be there when today's younger workers retire.
4. Personal accounts can save Social Security without benefit cuts or tax increases.
5. Allowing individuals to redirect their contributions from the trust fund to personal accounts will provide a higher rate of return.
6. Personal accounts will worsen Social Security's financial problem.
7. Personal accounts will cause benefit cuts.
8. Personal accounts are risky and the current system is safe.
9. Transitioning to personal accounts is too costly.
10. Social Security reform is bad for the poor / women / minorities.
Many people don't know about the eugenics movement of the 20th century. Adolf Hitler wanted to create a master race by killing all those he thought inferior - Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and retarded children
Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, said, "eugenic sterilization is an urgent need ...we must prevent multiplication of this bad stock."
Many states allowed forced sterilization of those with "insanity, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy." In 2003, the Governor of South Carolina apologized for decades of forced sterilizations.
The San Francisco Chronicle examines the history of eugenics in California, a key backer of whom was Charles Goethe, a wealthy conservationist and benefactor of what would become California State University's Sacramento campus in Echoes of Eugenics Movement in Stem Cell Debate.
Goethe, who backed preserving redwood stands as a way to enhance California's natural environment, also wanted to apply animal breeding concepts to the betterment of humanity -- apparently to exclude most everyone who wasn't white and European.
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Chloe Burke, a Cal State Sacramento historian and organizer of a daylong conference held Friday and billed as the first of its kind, called "From Eugenics to Designer Babies: Engineering the California Dream." says, "Both are linked to a conviction that tampering with heredity or our genetic makeup can lead to solutions for a broad number of problems, both individual and social," she said.
Behind the advocacy of stem cells, she said, "is this dream of living in a disease-free future," one of the early threads that made up Goethe's own worldview.
What's expected of twenty-somethings according to Doug Manning of Proactive Living. Being twenty-something is harder than ever as society no longer expects marriage for life or jobs for long, yet demands self-managment skills more than ever.
The third decade is a time of emotional and spiritual adolescence. Whereas the first twenty years enable us to mature physically and mentally, we remain relatively undeveloped in our adult relationships and connectedness to meaning. In the crucial third decade, individuals are expected to shift from being 'cared for' to 'taking charge' of their own existence. This means learning how to be a good worker/parent/friend, finding a way to sustain yourself, and getting involved in fulfilling life activities that enable you to be who you are. Developing these capacities is not a simple task.
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The third decade may be the most difficult one to face. It is therefore the one that offers the most hope for developing the self-management skills, relationship skills and mental toughness required to feel alive and successful in a constantly changing world. The rest of us can help if we will just get out of the way.
Thanks to Jeremy of Lifestylism
Marshall Loeb says in Till cash do us part.
Some loving couples would rather share a toothbrush than a bank book. But if you plan to be with your mate for the long-term, sharing your basic financial information is as important as sharing your health history.
At least once a year, you and your mate should talk about what you owe, what you're spending on and what are your future financial goals.
An easy way to have this conversation is to start by making or updating lists of what you own and owe, separately or in common.
You should know the names, email addresses and phone and fax numbers of the financial professionals in your mate's life. They include any stockbroker, accountant, banker, attorney, insurance agent and financial planner.
Then there are the lists of your assets. They include all real estate, bank and brokerage accounts, cars and boats, precious jewelry, works of art and insurance policies.
Keep your lists in the same secure place where you store your wills, property deeds and your marriage license, if you have one.
They're young, educated, opinionated, and early adopters. They just may have an "enhanced ability to recognize the pitfalls of contemporary life."
Something very interesting, indeed radical, is happening to Britain,' confirms Jim Murphy, associate director of the Future Foundation, the trends forecaster which coined the term 'New Puritan'
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a New Puritan does not binge drink, smoke, buy big brands, take cheap flights, eat junk food, have multiple sexual partners, waste money on designer clothes, grow beyond their optimum weight, subscribe to celebrity magazines, drive a flash car, or live to watch television. And the list is likely to grow longer: research by the Future Foundation has found that 80 per cent of people agreed that alcohol should not be allowed at work at all; 25 per cent said snack products should not be offered at business meetings; more than a third agreed that we should think twice before giving sweets and chocolates as gifts to family and friends, and a further 25 per cent thought that 'the government should start a campaign to discourage people from drinking alcohol on their own at home'
Sorry for the light posting, but I've been sidetracked by my Business of Life. My mother, 84, just back Friday from a three week visit to Switzerland and Italy, went into the hospital on Monday. She told us it was a minor medical procedure.
Well, we found out later that day that, in fact, a major surgery was planned. Only mid afternoon did we learn that she had undergone a lumpectomy - the removal of the upper lobe of her left lung along with a 1.5 cm cancerous nodule.
My brother and I spoke to her surgeon after the operation who told us it was stage 1A - the best score you can get with cancer because it's at such an early stage.
She's doing remarkably well according to the doctors and all her nurses who are amazed at her strength and should be home in less than a week. She was even making jokes in the recovery room
I've been on the shuttle run to the airport collecting brothers and sisters and ferrying them to the hospital and talking to her friends and other relatives.
That's the way life is. Everything seems the same, then, suddenly everything changes.
Last month, I wrote about the AOL survey that showed that nearly half of bloggers blog as a form of therapy. The Washington Post calls it Cyber-Catharsis and explores the phenomenon.
Seems as if even hospitals are seeing the blogging light.
One hospital in High Point, N.C., started devoting space to patients' blogs on its Web site....The project has been so successful -- both as a marketing tool for the hospital and a form of group therapy for patients who get feedback from their readers -- that High Point is considering adding video blogs, said Eric Fletcher, a spokesman for the hospital.
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said Bill Schreiner, vice president for AOL's community programming. "It's like they're writing the novel of their lives, and [public] participation adds truth to their story."
Blogging combines two recommended techniques for people to work through problems: writing in a journal and using a computer to type out thoughts. Some bloggers say the extra dimension of posting thoughts on the Web enables them to broach difficult subjects with loved ones, as well as reap support from a virtual community of people they don't know.
From the Washington Post
A couple of months ago, in the privacy of his Reston townhouse, Alan Chien made a final break from cultural tradition, a guilt-filled decision he has yet to share with his parents.
He used his dishwasher. He knows his parents will not understand.
"They don't believe in it," said Chien, 35, an engineer who emigrated with his family from Taiwan when he was a toddler. "Just because they never used it, I never used it, so it was just a mysterious thing to me."
In many immigrant homes, the automatic dishwasher is the last frontier.
Many years ago, I was in a plane with my then boss when we were told the landing gear appeared to be stuck. Somehow, I wasn't afraid though my boss was terrified.
We circled around Logan Airport for about two hours before we were told to assume the crash position with the pillows every airplane used to carry. A runway was sprayed with foam before we landed which we did easily.
So yesterday's drama on Jet Blue was a familiar one. I eagerly searched for reports by the passengers and found this.
Mrs. Jacobs said "We couldn't believe the irony that we might be watching our own demise on television. It just seemed a bit post-post-modern if you will."
Read the full report by McCannta, Post-Post Modern on Jet Blue
It's been a long time, but I figure I'm just about ready to start dating again. Well actually, in about two months after I finish my book and the prototype for ESOL.
So, from time to time, I thought about what I am looking for in a man.
I've reduced it to three essential and non-negotiable requirements.
CLEAN - - KIND - - FUNNY
That's that simple. I don't care about where they went to school or what they do, how much they have, how tall or short they are, how old they are or whether they have hair.
You wouldn't think those three requirements would be an effective screen. But, boy is it ever. Think about it.
Take just CLEAN. That rules out 25% of U.S. men.
Scientists have learned that one-quarter of men left public restrooms without washing their hands.
YEECH.
Voting yesterday in Afghanistan, despite the threats and bombings of the Taliban, was more like a national holiday than like a national crisis.
Optimistic day at polls.
Everyone is so happy. It's like we are waiting for Christmas to come," said Abdullah Shahood, a 22-year-old poll observer for candidate Abdul Razziq. "Everyone is optimistic."
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At the polling station, the women pulled off their burqas. Most emerged with smiling, lively unlined faces. Those faces had been sheltered for years from the harsh Afghan sun.
I'm not at all surprised that scientists at the University of Chicago have found strong evidence that the human brain is still evolving.
I was surprised to learn is about two variant genes. One emerged at a time that coincides with the spread of agriculture, settled cities and the first written language. The second appeared along with the emergence of art, music, religious practices and sophisticated tool-making techniques.
They have the aura of the singularity about them. The Singularity is defined as a predicted time in the near future (say the next 20-30 years) when, according to Wikipedia,
technological progress and societal change accelerate due to the advent of superhuman intelligence, changing our environment beyond the ability of pre-Singularity humans to comprehend or reliably predict.
I recently read Radical Evolution by Joel Garreau, who says we are riding a curve of exponential change that is unprecedented in human history and is transforming no less than human history. Garreau explores what's coming out of DARPA where studies into human enhancement provide the competitive edge to our military. We know about night vision goggles but most don't know about exo-skeletions and drugs that provide photographic recall, vaccination against pain and working without sleep. It's "Be all you can be and a whole lot more."
Garreau calls them GRIN technologies - genetic, robotic, information and nano processes.
These four advances are intermingling and feeding on one another and they are collectively creating a curve of change unlike anything we humans have even seen,"
The key element is that it's fundamentally out of our control. Will it be be a transcendent event issuing in a Heaven that Ray Kurzweil envisions? Or a hell of unexpected consequences? Or will we somehow muddle through and prevail? Garreau explores all three.
What made me believe that we will muddle through and prevail was his writing of World War II as a hinge in co-evolution because the war was won with devices that did not exist when the war started - radar, code-breaking computers and the atomic bomb. It was done using minimum information, solving one problem at a time. We decide on a solution and try it. If it works, we go on. If it doesn't try something else. The new is routinely created not by individual geniuses but by faceless teams of ordinary people.
And by the way, that myth that we use only 10% of our brain is just that, a myth. Even Snopes knocks it down.