A great new online science magazine by Anna and Anne, the women of Inky Circus. They rock! Congratulations!!
Inkling is an often updated magazine on the web dedicated to science as we see it. Founded in late 2006, we cover the science that pervades our life, makes us laugh, and helps us choose our breakfast foods. We aim to capture a larger proportion of female readers, but, of course, everyone is always welcome.
Awww.
BTW, my hubby is incapable of watching the puppy for an hour without incident.
Sigh.
Have a Gibbous Cephalodmas!
May your days be filled with terror and tentacles!
Don’t forget! Cephalopodmas falls on December 22nd by the human calendar! Get your special squamous someone something fetid!
Darwin with my friend Rochell.
via Bartcop
“It’s not my fault” – the motto of the Bush assministration….
Meme via The Silent K – the first sentence of the first post of each month of the past year. So here are mine:
January 2006: Another fresh new year is here . . .
February 2006: Those of you who have seen these will know what my morning is like…. at least I won’t be reading much today!
March 2006: You can’t hear it, but this ash tree in my backyard is full of bees.
April 2006: OMG! Ponies!
May 2006: Deborah Lippmann, A friend of mine from high school has started her own line of nail care products after years of being a “manicurist to the stars”.
June 2006: This is why I read Stirling Newberry – he gets it. Both where we are, and where we could have been.
July 2006: Being young is easy – Aging creatively is an art form…
August 2006: I was a child in the 60s, too. Mostly I was really pissed off that I missed all the fun of being a hippie and going to Woodstock….
September: Just got the JC Penney fall style catalog.
October: “So you think we are already at a dictatorship,” I asked.
November : Once they were young, beautiful and handsome, my parents.
December : “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — Henry Louis Mencken
Wow. Too bad spirit points can’t bring the dead back to life, huh? Bush has so many “spirit points” to make up – he better be praying a lot. Praying not to be impeached, go to jail, be brought up on war crimes charges, etc, etc….
Here’s another article on that freaky Left Behind video game. The rationalizations for the ability to kill people violently in the game are fascinating.
Left Behind Games’ president, Jeffrey Frichner, says the game actually is pacifist because players lose “spirit points” every time they gun down nonbelievers rather than convert them. They can earn spirit points again by having their character pray.
Isn’t the most wonderful version of pacifism ever? Go out, butcher a few people, engage in a warlike campaign…and as long as you beg an invisible man’s forgiveness afterwards, you can still call yourself a pacifist. With that kind of reasoning, Ted Haggard is a heterosexual, Bill Bennett is a cautious investor, and Ted Nugent is an environmentalist. No wonder Christianity is popular among hypocrites.
This is Darwin with Blair, one of my son Gregory’s friends. She called Monday and her first words to Greg were, “Can I come see the puppy?!”
Darwin is an extremely calm little guy – he tolerates all handling and just about anything I’ve tried to annoy him – including stacking all his toys on him:
I think he’s going to make a great dog to take for hospital and nursing home visiting. I’m planning to get him as much training as possible, but I totally love his calm attitude!
The experiment began with a close examination of the subject…
“My hypothesis is this is some type of chewable insect!”
“hmm…. cronchy, yet soft and squeaky!”
With removable antennas!
Now we are tie-tie.
We took Darwin to puppy kindergarten tonight – he had a blast playing with the other puppies, and now he’s completely zonked.
“Between wealth and grinding poverty, who now chooses no more than material sufficiency in order to pursue something personally satisfying – craft, art, cooking, music, farming? How many (people) have a powerful private vision that would sustain them through decades of living on merely adequate means? I suppose some people do, but it’s not held up as a desirable end, and I guess youthful poverty is regarded as temporary, something to endure until fortune comes along. I read recently in the Sunday Times magazine, “Obscurity is the new poverty.” I tend to think that anonymity is freedom.”
Edward Behr, in the 20th anniversary edition of “The Art of Eating”
Me too. I think the anonymity that many use in blogging gives them a lot more freedom to say what they really feel. Even though I’m pretty outspoken, I do rein myself in here at times. This paragraph struck me most strongly though for what it really says about pursuing our dreams, doing what we enjoy most passionately. I’m sitting here today with my now three golden retrievers, still dreaming of the Golden Ranch someday and raising service dogs, but now, for the first time in ages, really happy with where I’m at. The long term view is still there, but I’m not anxious about it, since I feel like I’m here at the first steps, with a puppy, ready to take him to training, to meet the people I can learn from about this whole raising puppies and breeding and training thing, about really working with both dogs and people to find good matches and let these wonderful animals provide the services they so want to give.
I watch my new little guy trying to please us, making his mistakes but so, so eager – and my older dogs, looking on patiently, every once in a while wagging their tails and seeming to smile inwardly, as if remembering when they were little. I don’t know much of their history since they are rescues, but, when I see them look at the crate, watch the puppy as he’s being taught, patiently give up their own toys or sticks for him to play with and chew on, it seems as if they’re saying, “Ah yes, I remember that! Well, he’ll learn…”
How many of us these days are willing to learn to make an art of anything, much less make an art of our entire lives. For that is the real secret, not what you are doing or how you live but the attention paid to it, the mindfulness of your life and awareness of its purpose. To walk your path proudly and thoughtfully is a rare thing indeed today.
I imagine it’s kind of a musty, moldy smell by now…. but mostly, I’m really ticked off that they’re filming religious videos in the Pentagon. Sounds like a great way to start religious wars AND a huge violation of separation of church and state. Way to go, guys.
Inquiry Sought Over Evangelical Video – washingtonpost.com
Army Brig. Gen. Bob Casen refers in the video to the Christian Embassy’s special efforts to reach admirals and generals through Flag Fellowship groups. Whenever he sees another fellowship member, he says, “I immediately feel like I am being held accountable, because we are the aroma of Jesus Christ.”
Puppies are so classy.
BTW, I’m leaning towards the name “Darwin White Cloud”. His Daddy was “Sandar’s White Cloud”, and his Mommy was “Sandar’s Winsome Wynne”.
The sad part is, he’s all dressed up to go play a role-playing game.
Sigh.
Oh well, I suppose that’s not too different from dressing up for work really. Work is sort of a role-playing game, after all.
Whatever gets him to learn to tie a Windsor knot tie a four-in-hand is a good thing, huh?
Christmas came early for me. Or, three years late, considering how long I’ve wanted a puppy!
Here he is, at last, my new little guy – a very creamy colored golden retriever, born on the fourth of July. We brought him home today from Desert Goldens in Palm Desert. He was the last of his litter mates to go home. We just took to each other right away – he’s very calm and relaxed like my first golden, Chance, while the pups from the next litter down were pretty rowdy. There were also new babies available, but with me, it always seems to be the one that needs a home the most that takes my heart. I don’t really mind if he’s not so tiny, he’s still a puppy! Still working on a name, so I’m open to suggestions.
Possibilities so far:
Dustin: German – A proud warrior. This male dog won’t back down.
So far he’s not at all responsive to this name.
Daxter (after the Playstation character): He seemed to like this name this morning, came when called and seemed excited.
Darwin: Thought of this today (Sunday) while he was out exploring the yard. He seems to like it.
Now we’re tie-tie, so we’re going to bed.
This post mainly stems from an article in Yoga Journal this month. The article expresses how good meditation is for getting us used to the idea of just starting over. When you meditate, you try to clear your mind, and every time a thought enters, you let go of that thought and start over again, until the mind becomes quiet and still. I never get to that point, but I do get to a calm level where my thoughts don’t bother me so much anymore.
Last night, I slipped off my diet, so today, I’m starting over again on that. The phrase that stuck with me from the article was, “Well, I just screwed up, and now I’m just going to start over.” I liked that phrase, because there is the acceptance of the mistake, the getting over it, and the restart all in one handy little phrase. So often we get into the blaming loop, blaming ourselves over and over when we mess things up. For me this used to lead into depression. These days, I let go of things easily and move on.
We’re coming up on Solstice, and I’ve decided to use that as a restart point for my year, after reading this post on Farrfeed. My thought is to write out all the things I want to rid myself of, all the bad habits and things I need to let go of, and toss them into the Solstice fire. And then start over, with my New Year and lengthening days full of intention and mindfulness and the things I want coming into my life, instead of the frustration at not having my life be just as I would like it to be.
I’m also thinking about ideas for restarting my blogging practice. Last year, I tried to blog about art journaling, which didn’t really last all that long. I may try to restart my journaling practice, since i have several blank journals sitting about. I am feeling the need to get more art back into my life. And the political urgency is dying down, with the shift in congress giving me the feeling that at last people are at least paying attention and aware that we need change. So Changing Places will be changing as well, taking on new focus.
Process always fascinates me, particularly the process of change itself. It’s difficult to get people to change the way they do things, to shift to a new structure or order or to allow structure and order to develop in their lives and work, rather than simply reacting chaotically to whatever happens. Most people don’t realize that chaos itself is a process, just not a well-ordered one. Chaos leads us to think we have no control over what happens, but it is also a mindset that leads to many points of starting over. Those who think they must constantly be in control, and can never start over fresh, are the ones who end up with the most problems, since they can’t admit mistakes and change direction. We certainly see this in our political leadership today.
So this is what will be on my mind for the next couple of weeks. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I would love to hear them, as well as stories about how you’ve started over in your lives. Let me know if you want them posted or not. You can email me at donna at woodka dot com, or just leave me a comment. I would love to hear from my “six or seven readers”, as my brother refers to my blog readers….
“Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” — Carl Bard
“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.” — Henry David Thoreau
“It is important to do what you don’t know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos.” — Carlos Casteneda
“As you begin changing your thinking, start immediately to change your behaviour. Begin to act the part of the person you would like to become. Take action on your behaviour. Too many people want to feel, then take action. This never works.” — John Maxwell
Supposing you have tried and failed again and again. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call “Failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.” — Mary Pickford
“Change starts when someone sees the next step.”
– William Drayton
“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.” — William Somerset Maugham
The national job approval rating of President Bush has plummeted to 30%, an all–time low in the latest Zogby International telephone poll, sinking below the 31% approval rating he dropped to in early June.
The President’s positive job rating is down from 36% in late October, in the weeks heading into the congressional midterm elections. Since then, the Democrats swept to control of both houses of Congress, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned and was replaced by Robert Gates, who said the U.S. is not winning the war in Iraq. Release of the Iraq Study Group’s report calling for significant change in the way the U.S. is conducting the Iraq war came as this latest Zogby poll was in the field.
I often remark on the trend of young women knitting and spinning these days, something women my age would never even have thought about doing. I wonder if it has something to do with what’s coming.
Perhaps we’re ready for that consumer revolt after all.
It is no accident that clothing manufacture on an industrial scale has always been oppressive work, one in which people have been terribly exploited. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, or the appalling conditions of the Lowell mills of the 19th century are not aberrations, any more than the room full of 12 year old Philippine slaves is now. Every step of industrial clothing production is inhumane and unjust in most circumstances, from the growing of cotton, which was once the product of American slave labor, and is now the most toxic crop produced in the US, putting more pesticides into the ground and water than any other, to the production of silk in India, to the sewing of dresses in factories all over the world. There are exceptions, but just as industrial food production is fundamentally and essentially inhumane, in ways that cannot simply be resolved by a little tinkering, there seems little contrary evidence to the claim that industrial cloth production is equally morally problematic.
Cloth production has always been tied up with colonialism, slavery, and power. Thus, it is no accident that many of the most successful revolutionary movements in history framed their revolutions in part on the rejection of the clothing of their oppressors. Around the time of the American Revolution, for example, poorer women had always worn homespun, but in refusing to buy British cloth imports, women had their own Boston tea party. Urban and upper and middle class women accustomed to buying cloth or clothing imported from Britain proudly wore only homespun, and clothed their family entirely in their own production.
During and before the Civil War, people in the North refused to wear clothing that came from the South, because it was a product of slave labor. Women spun, wove and knitted their own wool and linen clothing, in an attempt to undermine the southern slave economy.
And Mahatma Gandhi, of course, in his famous swadeshi movement, called for a boycott of all British cloth, and for women and men both to work daily at the production of khadi, or homespun cotton cloth, spun on an indigenous spinning wheel called a charka.
In each of these cases, the clothing revolution was a revolution of women, of people who had historically been left out of revolutionary planning. In India, the khadi revolution was the first call for women to be full enfranchised. In America, particularly during the civil war, women took their economic power to boycott quite seriously, and it led to women take new public roles in the anti-slavery movement.
Make sure the evil JP Morgan gets their share of the blame.
Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis
In its statement, Ownit blamed Merrill Lynch & Co. for the closure, saying the company was one of its primary lenders and had cut off its funding Tuesday. Merrill Lynch holds about 20% of Ownit. Merrill Lynch spokesman Bill Halldin said Ownit’s statement was misleading, but he declined to comment further.
Two people with knowledge of the funding arrangement said JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut off Ownit’s funding Monday, leaving the lender unable to issue loans. JPMorgan couldn’t be reached for comment.
According to trade publication Origination News, Ownit ranked 11th among sub-prime wholesale lenders in the first half of 2006 with $5.5 billion in loans.
Changing Places is about the process of creating and opening up to change. My current interests include spiritual change, business change management, cultural change, artistic change, Tao Te Ching (The Way of Change), interpersonal and relationship change, and lifestyle change. It is also my personal blog, so my own life changes get top billing. The change in social media means a lot of my activity is now on Facebook, Google Reader and Twitter, so follow me there to see more.
You are currently browsing the Changing Places weblog archives for December, 2006.
