RUBBER & REAL DUCKS GO VIRAL IN CHINA

COMMUNISTS AND OLIGARCHS HAVE NO SENSE OF HUMOR.....

LAUGHING AT MY NIGHTMARE.COM

There are a so many things to do on Facebook, YouTube, 

and even in real life....

Some are worth spending a few minutes of your time.  

This is one of them.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shane-burcaw-laughing-at-my-nightmare-documentary?c=home

GIVING UP THINGS WE LOVE

STANLEY FISH May 27, 2013, 9:00 pm 414 Comments

Moving On

By STANLEY FISH

Stanley Fish on education, law and society.

I have sold my books. Not all of them, but most of them. I held on to the books I might need while putting the finishing touches on a manuscript that is now with my publisher. I also kept the books I will likely need when I begin my next project in the fall. But the books that sustained my professional life for 50 years — books by and about Milton, Spenser, Shakespeare, Skelton, Sidney, Herbert, Marvell, Herrick, Donne, Jonson, Burton, Browne, Bacon, Dryden, Hobbes — are gone (I watched them being literally wheeled out the door), and now I look around and see acres of empty white bookshelves.

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)

SEMINOLE

BALANCE

SADNESS

SEARCHING

ARE WE MOVING TOO FAST?

FACEBOOK

The Facebook that I see has a flood of streaming photos with cute girls and boys of all ages and persuasions, stunning CUs of flowers and nature, thousands of smiling classmates posing with V-fingers or horror movie faces, a few soft-core effective body photos, political pro-human/anti-evil protests, serious truthful international news from the Colonialist BBC and Muslim TV station, pro-Obama public relations that I want to believe (with the instinctive hateful anti-Obama comments), lots of YouTube videos interesting and not, really funny sites with all levels of humor and social satire, delicious food food food, photos of patterns and of nothing that are real art, graffiti and official museum art, insightful film reviews, a few ads for things I don't use or don't like or can't afford, endless good-feeling sayings and advice that no one who is human can ever follow.

This is my Facebook....hundreds of friends I never meet, and cannot touch with my hands, brain, heart, or spirit. This is Communication in the 21st Century. I prefer the 20th Century, or 18th, or 15th..... except I probably would have died of plague, starvation, war, or torture by now, and wouldn't have been an artist or teacher creating in relative freedom and security.

I'm naively and deeply disappointed in the Facebook God, but not in the Facebook users.

[Painting by artist Andrew, on Facebook]

TEDDY WATCHES SEA

EGO

An experience to learn from....Last night, I was an "expert" in a professional panel, and treated as important. This morning, I was clumsy in beginning dance class, and treated as someone to avoid. The 24-hour highs and lows of my ego are useful....to put me in my place as part of this massive flood of humanity, all desperately trying to survive, not feel invisible, be treated with respect due all human beings, and maybe even get a little love.

TO OUR GRADUATES

Life, as told by Lee Ang

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/#

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.]

AWAKENING

The people I’ve tried to make love with, haunt my virtual reality dreams that are as fragile as a crashed hard drive or pulled plug. My dreams haunt my dreams. Everything I have ever seen or imagined or done, invisibly haunt my super-reality dreams.

I am not a bad man, yet I am a troubled man, troubled by what could have been, what was, what should have been, what can never be. If my dreams trouble someone as guiltless and meaningless as me, what must the dreams of Adolf, Idi, Mao, George W, and Pius XII have been? Not to mention good men like Bill, Obama, and Indira. What was in the dreams of Chopin, A.S. Neill, and Groucho as they lay dying?

How can it be that 5000 years of human majesty and shame can absolutely vanish in a millisecond explosion, along with all the cute bunnies, redwoods, hummingbirds, crocodiles, roses, manatees, and mosquitoes we’ve killed.

My list of tragedies are endless and soothing, yet fill only a page of the Great Unabridged Dictionary of things known, experienced, not known, imagined, unimagined, and distorted.

LUCK

There is no such thing as Luck....

There is hard work, skill, patience, trust in yourself,

courage, creativity, playfulness, wonder, and love.

You need all, and love, to succeed in your dreams 

and feel there is meaning in the hard struggles of life.

Money doesn't save souls.

[Art by Oaehyun Kim]

MONEY AND THE SOUL

Mr. Kalayanasundaram worked as a Librarian for 30 years. Every month in his 30 year experience(service), he donated his entire salary to help the needy. He worked as a server in a hotel to meet his needs. He donated even his pension amount of about ten lakh rupees to the needy.

He is the first person in the world to spend the entire earnings for a social cause. In recognition to his service, United Nations Organization adjudged him as one of the Outstanding People of the 20th Century. An American organization honored him with the ‘Man of the Millennium’ award. He received a sum of Rs 30 cores as part of this award which he distributed entirely for the needy as usual.Moved by his passion to help others, Super Star Rajinikanth adopted him as his father.

This is an amazing video.....

http://www.cornell.edu/video/?VideoID=2398