GAYS & STRAIGHTS FOREVER

On a positive note, there have always been and always will be gay (bi-, gay, lesbian, transgendered) people. Laws, threats, oppression, torture, and death have not been able to stop them. Just as, on a negative note, there will always be hurtful affairs outside marriage, spousal and child abuse, addictions, hypocrisy, greed, corruption, injustice, and poor people. The flawed wiring of human creatures demands it....Now, is it possible to stop hitting our societal heads against the wall of fact, and start improving the sad, often tragic lives of us all?

STILL SPINNING

Every morning, the old mother, who looks like the original Madonna, wakes up off her floor mat and goes out to the garden to pick up fallen leaves. No one asked her. No one thanks her or mentions it. It's just what old mothers do to help the family.

She's helped the family for 60 adult years, sending her beloved teenage son to the other side of the planet, so he could have a better life. Sending her beloved daughter to the other side of the planet, so she could have a better life. The illusion of freedom and happiness sometimes becomes real. Life without hope is always real.

This is what mothers were born to do, in Hollywood Golden Age movies and the rest of the truly impoverished world...sacrifice. Men don't know what it means, at its deepest mother-level, although too many may work at jobs that steal their spirits or fight in wars that steal their lives.

A moment of pleasure, together with the luck or misfortune of a brainless frantic sperm connecting with a patient waiting egg, often leads to a lifetime of disappointment, intolerable pain that is tolerated, or magnificent creativity that rewards a species which doesn't notice or deserve it.

Now, the mother makes traditional coffee for the sleeping man who will awaken soon to nod or say a few words, then go on about his man's business, whatever that may be.

Somehow, the pieces come together to form human existence. Another generation goes by. More leaves are picked up, more coffee made, more wars fought, more art created, more children released to their fates, more loneliness and momentary love.

There is beauty in the absurd and sad. Laughter and play may make it all worthwhile, but who is to judge. Another handful of leaves just floated from heaven to earth. Another coffee bean sprouted.

(Painting by 陳守玉)

JOSS WEDON, DIRECTOR

GRADUATES:  Action is more important than words....but words are more important than nothing.  Here are 13 minutes of funny, serious, true words than can help you, if you occasionally think of them.

The two professor-administrators at the front, who probably invited him, get his dark entertaining humor and agree. The professor in the back is probably bored and thinks he's a jerk.  You can make your own decision.  (The English is clear and non-academic.)

The problem is that at graduation ceremonies, students are thinking about partying, their dates, supportive and non-supportive families, no job, the terrifyng future, being hot or cold, holding on to their caps in the wind, eating, texting, boredom, and having a good night's sleep, hopefully with someone.

Still, the Graduation Speech Ritual is one of civilization's more useful inventions, too often unused.

http://www.upworthy.com/behold-the-bluntest-funniest-and-deadliest-graduation-speech-in-the-history-of-the-known-universe?g=2&c=upw1

EXPLORATION OF THE UNIVERSE

佾選的健康生活

CHICKEN & EGG

BALANCE

HAPPINESS

SADNESS

BEAUTY

ARE WE MOVING TOO FAST?

NO GLOBAL WARMING

Kolmanskop, Namibian Desert

MIRRORS

In our ideal world everyone would be like us, think like us, love us unconditionally, and have the same aesthetic, political, religious, education, and social values.

There would be no human problems, health problems, money problems, family problems, civilization-made problems, or nature-made problems.

TO OUR GRADUATES

Life, as told by Lee Ang

ENGLISH DOESN'T TRANSLATE WELL

My short Facebook comment ("Fighting songs are better than funeral songs!") in full support of the "Do You Hear the People Sing" terrific anti-nuclear protest and photos (posted by 曾智偉 and many others), upset some readers....I want to explain what I really meant:

I know some / many of my comments in English are often misunderstood, because I use New York-style dark or absurd humor to twist English words, ideas, and meanings. Sometimes readers may even be hurt or angry, when I use tongue-in-cheek (indirect) or ironic humor to be FRIENDLY and caring. I apologize, seriously. I do not know Chinese, and will never know the beautiful, complex subtleties of Chinese enough to use it creatively.....My positive anti-nuclear protest march comment (above) is an example. "Fighting songs" refers to anti-nuclear protests, AND resistance to the impending take-over (economic, cultural, political, military) of democratic Taiwan by dictatorial China....."Funeral songs" refers to the memorial to Chiang Kai-shek, the losing temporary conqueror of Taiwan, where the people are protesting, AND it refers to the fact that if the Taiwan government builds (allows the building of) another nuclear power plant, there will be a tragic "accident" (human failure or corruption) in the future, and many people will die.....I'm very sorry for any misunderstandings!

REMINDERS

W  H  A  T     I     L  E  A  R  N  E  D

                      

I was a teacher for the past 5 months. Sometimes I think I was a great teacher. (Some of my students wrote me emotional letters...after I gave them grades.) Sometimes I think I was a bad teacher, because there was so much I wanted to communicate, but could not. (Laziness? Language and cultural barriers? Just Life?)

Most of all, I was and always will be, a student....Paid more than my students. Treated with more respect than my students. With more life experience, self-confidence, and the "wisdom" of age (maybe), than my students.

What did I learn? (Of course, as soon as I learn something, I forget it and must continuously re-learn it.).....

I learned that everybody's pain feels the same.

CHILDREN & THEIR FAVORITE TOYS

Revealing, moving photographs of children around the world, by an Italian artist....

http://www.gabrielegalimberti.com/projects/toys-2/#

LOVE

PRO-LIFE IN THE REAL SENSE

200,000+ peaceful Taiwanese, Hakka, Aborigine, and Han protestors in the Capital city, protesting against the building of yet another nuclear power plant on the pristine Taiwan coast, on a major earthquake fault, subject to tsunamis, yearly typhoons, greed, corruption, shoddy workmanship, and guaranteed human error....near Taipei, the largest city.

Unlike China, no army or police beat them ,or fired tear gas and bullets into the crowd.

Young and old, families, students, farmers, workers, fishermen, artists, sat down in front of the President Building, listening to fiery speeches, passionate songs, pleas from the heart, and terrifying scientific facts.

Controlled Western news media covered the story minimally, with headlines reducing the nearly 1/4-Million protestors to only "Tens of Thousands."

DEAR MARGO ®

Margo Howard is (by far) the best, most psychologically astute, mentally healthy "advice" columnist in the international English media. Her wise advice is not always 100% correct, as she is not a mind-reader or God, but it is as close to constructive and useful reality, (not self-help dogma or nice-sounding politically-correct platitudes), as humanly possible. 

If your newspaper doesn't have it, you can read her column at no charge on the net, from Creators.com [This is not a paid endorsement.]

STRANGE SOCIETY

Workers and Students on campuses live in 2 completely different worlds, never communicating or even acknowledging each other.

It is the 5000-year-old caste system - those who use their intellect and mouths vs. those who use their hands and muscles.