CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-07 13:27:30 (210 comments, 2 reshares, 29 +1s)

'Scuse me, but this statement is wholly absurd: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place,” said Eric Schmidt, then Google’s chief executive, in 2009.

First, the assumption that the only reason someone might not want to be photographed in public by some random stranger is because they are doing something they should not be doing is ludicrous. Second, the assumption that simply because we are slowly being provided with the technology that allows us to invade other people's privacy anytime we feel like it means that we therefore should invade their privacy whenever we feel like it, is lunacy. Third, the assumption that everyone needs or wants to be a voyeur, despite what devotees of such practices might want to believe in order to justify their own tendencies, is wishful thinking on the part of a companyprimed to ... more »

2013-05-06 12:48:13 (28 comments, 5 reshares, 52 +1s)

Five Talented Dancers + an Empty Warehouse + the Countryside + a Video Camera x the Human Condition = Gravity of Center, a choreographed site specific conversation between 3 men and 2 women. It's impossible to explore this kind of movement in a traditional studio or theatre space. Remove dance from a constrained space, no matter how well-designed the set, and "stage" it in nontraditional indoor and outdoor spaces and the movement conversation changes, expands and challenges the viewer.

When I started dancing at 6, the only styles really discussed with any seriousness were Ballet and Modern, and Modern took a distant (very distant) second place. Sure, there was a smattering of talk about the rich tradition of Flamenco and certain other exotic dance forms from distant countries, but it took a while before an acknowledged homage was paid to the thrilling choreography born on... more »

2013-04-28 22:42:40 (32 comments, 2 reshares, 27 +1s)

“People read with their ears, whether they know it or not.”  - William Zinsser, On Writing Well

I grew up surrounded by artistic people who would sometimes let me into their studios when they were working. My dance teacher would say, "Close your eyes and feel the movement," when I was trying to "see" the steps. A friend of my mother's who was a painter would say that she could "hear" a painting being born under the brush strokes across the canvas. Another friend who was an architect said that the New Mexico landscape of sagebrush and clay and cacti "talked" to him and told him where and how to design and build a house.

The sighing, breathing, groaning, writhing, and sweating of modern dancers in the University of New Mexico gymnasium as they rehearsed for a performance literally seemed to help a dance be born. My mother'sfrie... more »

2013-04-24 19:26:07 (165 comments, 4 reshares, 40 +1s)

+James Barraford I, too, along with many people I know, am in complete agreement with your dismay at our cry for an Execution, Off With His Head And Let's Be Done With It demeanor. Yes, 9/11 was the tidal turn for that attitude. I watched it from New York, where we New Yorkers for the most part were not for the Shock and Awe that much of the rest of the country was for. It happened in our City and we were not crying for blood. Perhaps that is because in New York City we live with an extraordinary degree of peace and civility among all mixed together races and religions and creeds and peoples, from all over the world, and it is difficult under those circumstances to turn - after morning Yoga class next to a Muslim - and denounce all Muslims. It is difficult to walk down the street and feel superior to any one "kind" of person, to judge and denounce any one "kind" of person. It is a... more »

2013-04-21 18:52:03 (67 comments, 1 reshares, 25 +1s)

The rise in New York City’s poverty rate as a result of the recession has apparently eased, but not before pushing nearly half of the city’s population into the ranks of the poor or near-poor in 2011, according to an analysis by the Bloomberg administration. - The NY Times, City Report Shows a Growing Number Are Near Poverty, by Sam Roberts, April 21, 2013

...."pushing nearly half of the city's population into the ranks of the poor or near-poor in 2011..."_ This is a staggering statement. There are 8.25 million people in New York City. This means that nearly 4,000,000 souls are edging toward poverty because of the recession, during which unemployment rose, the mortgage crises left so many people homeless all over the country, and there were numerous catastrophic weather events, such as Hurricane Sandy.

Every time I see the outstretched arm of Lady Liberty, Ithi... more »

2013-04-19 23:18:12 (81 comments, 0 reshares, 18 +1s)

Apparently they have the remaining suspect cornered. I hope they take him alive and that no one else gets hurt...

2013-04-18 19:04:30 (29 comments, 4 reshares, 31 +1s)

In the midst of chaos here on Earth, scientists are finding hope for life on other planets. - Elizabeth Landau, CNN

I love contemplating the Cosmos in general, but today I rather particularly love this announcement.

Probably, if there is life, it would be very unlike what we see on our own world. Tom Barclay, Kepler Scientist

I SHOULD HOPE NOT! Or at least a more peaceful life form...

2013-04-17 14:23:30 (69 comments, 5 reshares, 20 +1s)

Mornin' my writing friends... I love a good old-fashioned grouch. Particularly a creative one. Most particularly a writer. And certainly when that person is David Mamet.

“Basically I am doing this because I am a curmudgeon, and because publishing is like Hollywood — nobody ever does the marketing they promise.” - David Mamet

David Mamet, bad boy of theatre, film and television — do you have any idea how many brilliant scripts this man has written? (Oleanna, Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo, Speed the Plow, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, The Verdict, Wag the Dog, The Untouchables * ... *Hill Street Blues) — has finally decided to self publish. As far as I am concerned this is big news because he's basically an anarchist, and you know what that means...there never is just one anarchist (his latestplay, The An... more »

2013-04-14 16:56:01 (20 comments, 3 reshares, 19 +1s)

A mid-April Sunday Morning Hello, everyone,

What do Ballet and Bullfighting have in common? Nothing. And everything. In oh so many ways, particularly if the Bullfighter was Patricia McCormick and the Ballerina was Maria Tallchief, both of whom died this week, McCormick at 83 and Tallchief at 88. But while lots of little girls dream about becoming ballerinas, who among young dreamy damsels fantasize about becoming a bullfighter?

McCormick did and executed her cape work - faena - as elegantly as Tallchief executed her tour jetés. But in their hearts, they were both defiant, 
Tallchief, who became one of the most celebrated American ballerinas, remaining connected to her Osage Indian roots throughout her life: “Traditionally, women didn’t dance in Indian tribal ceremonies. But I had toe shoes on under my moccasins, and we both wore fringed buckskin outfits, headbands withfeath... more »

2013-04-26 23:42:54 (155 comments, 5 reshares, 34 +1s)

Morning,

I love it when uncreative people yammer on about how everything in the age of the Internet should be free, free, free for the taking. Like an author's words. Like a musician's music. Like a photographer's picture. Like a painter's painting. Hey, if it's not nailed down, in a shop behind glass, or guarded by some fellow without a gun, it's free, right?

But in the tangible word, the non-Internet world, you wouldn't walk into my restaurant and sit down and eat dinner for free now, would you? Or saunter into my shop, try on a pair of earrings and say, "Thanks. I'm taking these home and not paying you because I don't feel like it." No, you wouldn't. Unless you were a criminal. Because that would be called stealing.

But making off with authors' words goes on all day all long on the internet and people/businesses who... more »

2013-04-07 18:19:48 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 20 +1s)

Hi, everybody,

While it might still be Spring (okay, Summer...) in my life, it is Fall in the life of the fabulous Elaine Stritch. She is the doyenne of Broadway, an actress, performer, singer, raconteur without peer, in my view. She is also 88. And has not done a thing to erase the passing of the years from her incredible face. Why would she? She has talent. But she has never been merely talent in a comely face and sexy body (although she had both in spades).

She is, rather, a force...of energy, opinion, wit, life experience, struggles with alcoholism, marriage and men (lots of them)...of love with her audience. Yes, that kind of love, the kind of love between a performer and a person who willingly pays good money to go to the theatre to watch a performer relay, portray, evoke, and connote, through words and music and expression and gesture, things that we all feel but cannot express,... more »

2013-04-10 12:11:33 (55 comments, 24 reshares, 73 +1s)

Cheers, everyone,

When I first learned to fly a glider (a plane without an engine), I knew nothing about aerodynamics and didn't understand what allows a plane to "fly," to stay up in the air. I was nervous and would white knuckle the stick on tow. My instructor, directly behind me, would say, over and over again, "Gentle corrections. Don't over correct, and if you undercorrect, be decisive and confident, but don't muscle it. Be coordinated in flight. Think balance. Become one with the plane."

I'd been a dancer in my youth and had an instinct about kinesthetic energy and what was going on around me. I'd practiced Yoga since I was 14 and had an understanding of how balance, effort, flexibility, energy, strength, stillness and focus can all magically come together within one single pose. I'd been an actor and theatre director, and had had to... more »

2013-04-10 12:12:09 (47 comments, 0 reshares, 30 +1s)

Good morning, everyone,

I've been traveling nonstop for 3 1/2 weeks - back and forth across the country by plane, and up and down the city-slicked East Coast and over the farm-bestrewed Appalachians by car. I've been citified and countrified. I've been noise-crowded and quiet-becalmed. I've eaten dinner alone in a jammed NY restaurant, and I've stopped at my favorite grass airstrip off I 64 and watched a solitary hawk thermal above sleeping metal airbirds. I've contemplated the shifting priorities and needs of my own life, frustrated at how difficult it often is to blend harmoniously my creative desires with the needs of others in my life.

We are each of us different creative selves. To pretend that what one painter, one writer, one sculptor...one person...needs should be the same as what any other such person needs is called denial. While some creative souls... more »

2013-04-10 15:52:11 (38 comments, 1 reshares, 28 +1s)

Good morning from New York City, everyone,

There are days that are perfect, and then there are days that are, well, spectacularly, magnificently, perfect (What me? Hyperbole? Never. ) I dare anyone who is in New York at the moment to disagree with me. Go on. I dare you. The sky is that easy pale blue that one could make deeper, richer and even more blue of that special sort of blue color if one were a Universe Painter with the exactly right sable brush and the requisite combination of confidence and arrogance.

The temperature of the air is of a certain coolish degree that allows it to flow in and out of one's lungs, invigorating one's walk and stimulating one's brain...a temperature which one could, if one were a Universe Climate Controller, with the requisite amount of confidence and arrogance, dare to make a little cooler or a little warmer, but why would one, when it is... more »

2013-04-10 12:13:05 (78 comments, 9 reshares, 61 +1s)

Morning, all...

When I was a child, after my father died, there were two beautiful and kind older women - Anne and Julia - who befriended my mother. New Mexicans called them "those Yankee women" - tough, independent, strong-willed, opinionated and brilliant. They had headed West when they were both very young and more than a little pioneering, working on the Indian reservations as nurses and conservationists, becoming experts in All Things Navajo Land over the course of their long and unusual professional lives. Julia was also a poet and a writer.

When they retired they settled in Albuquerque, not too far from my mother and we saw them often in their Spanish style home, which I not so secretly wanted to move into with them. I had always thought they were just two good women friends who liked one another's company and who chose to live together because they were not... more »

2013-04-10 15:50:51 (127 comments, 11 reshares, 47 +1s)

Hello, everyone,

When I asked him if they would raise my salary to match my predecessor's if I dumped my boyfriend, got married, had children and bought an apartment, I was told that I should be grateful that I was working in what had always been considered a "man's job." - Giselle Minoli, A Woman's De-Liberation: There Never Was a Sexual Revolution

This has been the longest stretch of time I've been away from G+ in I don't remember how long. I've been traveling non stop for two weeks, was chased across country by a nasty virus (it won), and by +Meg Tufano, the publisher of The Journal for Social Era Knowledge, because I'd gone past the deadline she'd extended me to write A Woman's De-Liberation: There Never Was a Sexual Revolution. My essay is a reflection on my own long, interesting, fortunate and challenging professional life, and... more »

2013-04-10 12:19:39 (30 comments, 0 reshares, 24 +1s)

On February 22nd I posted about Sheryl Sandberg and her new book, Lean In, which has caused significant controversy. Sandberg is intelligent, ambitious, educated, involved, and clearly caring about the future of women in business. This is a good thing. The questions that have been raised have to do with her statements about what women can be doing and should be doing to promote themselves...so that they are paid equally to men, are respected in the work place and get the promotions and job opportunities they deserve if they are qualified, talented and hard working.

For instance, the quote I used in my post was, We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in,” she writes, and the result is that “men still run the world.  Now that her book has officially launched, Sandbergis b... more »

2013-03-10 17:58:30 (11 comments, 0 reshares, 20 +1s)

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum. - Georgia O'Keeffe

...Except that when the artist painted in obscurity his entire life in a small 8x8 foot studio and was therefore completely unknown his art cannot possibly become political or erotic or mystical. Unless his trove of thousands of paintings narrowly escape a dumpster when discovered upon his death. Because the order of his sister, who generously had supported him, that it should all go in the garbage was somehow strangely ignored by a cousin who was assisting with the clean-up.

Which miraculous Saving of the Art led to a curious close look by an art historian, who declared, "This wasn’t even a rediscovery. That connotes an artist who was once well known but has been forgotten in successive generations. This was an artist who was completelyu... more »

2013-04-10 12:20:32 (15 comments, 2 reshares, 28 +1s)

Good morning. It's snowing. I got up at 5:00am, made my usual 4-shot latte and climbed back in bed to write. Reeva Steenkamp preferred to cozy up with tea apparently, which she can't do anymore because she's dead, and this morning I'm contemplating a life turned off so suddenly like a light switch. I don't know whether I think about death more or less than anyone else does. I suppose that because my father died when I was five it would be safe to guess that I think about it a little bit more than some do, but perhaps that's because a child is not supposed to lose their parent at such a young age. Yes, one gets beyond it, one moves forward, one compensates, one accepts it and absorbs it into daily inhaling and exhaling, but No, one never gets over it, whatever that means.

But while children do expect their parents to die eventually, parents do not expect their children to... more »

2013-04-10 12:21:32 (134 comments, 1 reshares, 32 +1s)

I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan - and never, ever let you forget you're a man, 'cause I'm a woman. W. O. M. A. N.

Why is everyone afraid to say why Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's well-paid CEO, is building a nursery near her office for her own young child, while simultaneously undoing work-at-home arrangements for other Yahoo parents? She's doing it because if she cannot manage to pull Yahoo out of the dumpster during her tenure as CEO (average CEO shelf life is around 3 years), then it will be said of her that she failed because she was a woman with a young child and she was distracted from her job. So she's committing the sin of pretending she's not really a Mom, that it's not really difficult to have children, be a mother and work too. The problem is that her solution only works if you're CEO and have a lot of money to buy your way out of the... more »

2013-04-10 12:22:27 (176 comments, 1 reshares, 17 +1s)

Hello, everyone,

To Censor or Not to Censor the Internet, for Some This is the Question... and this morning, for better or worse, I reveal my own conflicts about the much discussed issue of censorship, freedom of speech and expression on the Internet, which of course extends to real life, but this post is about the internet. I have never thought of it as a black and white issue, but one that is deeply complex, with ethical, moral, sociological, legal, cultural, political and personal ramifications for everyone and so I have always been a champion of freedom. But articles like the attached in yesterday's Times, which discusses a police officer's plans, championed in internet chat rooms, to torture (cook, among other things) select women, one of whom was his wife, who discovered his plans and reported him to the FBI - he is now on trial - has pushed every button I have about the... more »

2013-02-25 18:40:02 (14 comments, 1 reshares, 17 +1s)

That's a gift for anyone who wants to be a detective...it's an obstacle, because an obstacle is an inspiration. If you just find things easily, they're not inspiring... Searching for Sugar Man, directed by Malik Bendjelloul

Searching for Sugar Man is a documentary film about Sixto Rodriguez, an American singer/songwriter, who became "bigger than Elvis" in South Africa in the 70s, while barely registering on the radar screen back home in the States (http://www.sonyclassics.com/searchingforsugarman/). I was hoping it would win best documentary at the Oscars - and it did - because it's a story about things that in one way or another affect us all. To be sure, the "plot" is about the sudden and mysterious 30+ year disappearance of a beloved musical poet, but the deeper story is about discrimination and oppression (in this case apartheid) and... more »

2013-04-10 12:23:21 (62 comments, 28 reshares, 63 +1s)

My friend +Kena Herod got me reminiscing about all of the African American dancers I admire with her recent post about Black History Month and the impact Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem had on dance in America. When a work of art, whether it is a piece of music, a painting, a sculpture, poem or dance, really gets to me it literally raises the goosebumps on my arms.

I can't remember when I first saw Lil Buck dance (I've never seen him in person, sadly), but every time I watch a video I am stunned. Here he dances to The Dying Swan, typically danced by a ballerina in a tutu on pointe shoes. Watch Lil Buck's hands, so relaxed, the control he has over his body. And watch his gorgeous face. Lil Buck's interpretation of Mikhail Fokine's dance, which he choreographed for ballerina Anna Pavlova to Camille Saint-Saëns's cello solo in 1905, is myde... more »

2013-02-25 18:12:25 (16 comments, 0 reshares, 18 +1s)

Sunday morning musings...

What do Nathaniel West's 1939 novel, The Day of the Locust, the Hollywood sign, searching for fame and the fountain of youth in Los Angeles, riding the New York subways, tigers, hamburgers, and the movie Amour (http://www.sonyclassics.com/amour/) have to do with one another? Well, since it's Oscar Sunday and since I love the movies I thought I would share a personal essay I published on my writing pages about these, among other, subjects.

BTW...last night I saw Searching for Sugar Man (http://www.sonyclassics.com/searchingforsugarman/), which I hope wins Best Documentary, but I digress. Here's to great novelists. Here's to the movies. Here's to you all. 

GM

2013-04-10 12:24:33 (128 comments, 6 reshares, 34 +1s)

Morning,

We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in,” she writes, and the result is that “men still run the world. - Sheryl Sandberg, author, Lean In

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of FB, is seriously testing the respect I want very much to have for her. A couple of years ago her TEDTalk Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders, addressed some of the issues facing career women, one of the more charged of which is the feeling that ultimately a woman has to choose between work or marriage and raising a family. The seriousness of the issue shows up in how many women leave their careers because of the difficulties of doing both well.

I was impressed that Sandberg was honest about her own unconscious prejudices against women - she had been called out by another womanfor... more »

2013-02-14 15:21:46 (85 comments, 2 reshares, 24 +1s)

Well, this is a completely unexpected turn of events in Oscar Pistorius's life. Murdering his girlfriend? My Gawd. There need be no Made-for-TV movies. Real life trumps fiction every single time. Every. Single. Time. How horrific. How sad. There will be those among you who are not surprised at all, no doubt. I posted about his Olympic bid eons ago:

https://plus.google.com/104028329852681318179/posts/U6VHNvuih25

2013-02-13 00:44:33 (58 comments, 1 reshares, 41 +1s)

Okay, I am now guilty of posting a Doggie Pic. However...this is an Italian doggie, a Spinone Italiano to be specific, whose name is DiOgi, of course. What else would his name be? I am assuming DiOgi is a he, because he has a certain roguish look about him. But I digress. The point is I want him. Kindly arrange that, please.

2013-02-11 12:17:48 (61 comments, 1 reshares, 37 +1s)

Greet-Ings...

If I absorb the information within the unread 5,500+ emails in my inbox and follow their wise advice, gone - Voila! - will be every mistake, misstep, wrinkle, extra ounce of fat, cholesterol, gray hair, depression and anxiety accumulated in my life. I shall be a Vixen! A Sexual dynamo! 30 again! A marketing genius! Well-read! Successful and rich beyond my wildest dreams! Informed! Transformed! Remade! Remarkable. What rubbish...

I counted them. 1,200+ email notifications from one single source since January. 500+ from another. Over 300 blocked spam messages that made their happy and deceitful way into my Email Inbox anyway. Dozens and dozens of warnings about every conceivable thing about which I should be immediately (if not sooner) fearful - Terrorism, getting sick, getting old, becoming poor, illegal Muslim Presidents, banking shams, internet dangers, tornadoes,... more »

2013-02-10 23:02:42 (61 comments, 6 reshares, 42 +1s)

Hi everyone,

When I read stories about how hard it is for kids to go to college because of the cost, I empathize with them because my big fear at 17 was that I would never be educated because I couldn't afford to pay for one of the great schools I had applied to. But I ended up walking in fairy dust because I was accepted at a college that offered me a package of part scholarship, part financial aid, part work-study, and I was, thankfully, able to get a stellar education because of it. It took me a long time after I graduated to pay off my loans, and I had to enter the work force immediately on graduation - years before many of my classmates did - about which, truthfully, I was emotionally conflicted for a long, long time - it was hard to wrap my mind around the different realities of those who have a financial safety net and those who do not when it comes to getting an education. I think one... more »

2013-02-06 13:32:45 (34 comments, 1 reshares, 26 +1s)

Ah me the pleasures of salted caramels, one of those divinely inspired combinations, like chili-infused chocolate, or a fresh basil/strawberry cocktail, that blends savory and sweet in a way that brings out the ruthlessly selfish horder in me. I do not share. I do not give a little sip or a taste. Hands off, or prepare to be thwacked.

Savory over sweet has always been my thing, you know, that olives, rosemary, garlic, sage, lemons, leeks and parmesan thing that controls my life in the kitchen, but were you to ask me which indulgence I would choose for a desert island sojourn, despite the sun-melting inevitabilities, it would be salted dark (dark) caramels, no question.

And if you asked me to choose wine over spirits for that desert island normally I'd pick wine. But once dark chocolate has a part in the play, out with the wine and in with the bourbon. Although you can't drink... more »

2013-02-05 15:09:49 (13 comments, 1 reshares, 15 +1s)

Who knew that pigeons are into fashion? That they coif their hair? And wear hats and feathered shoes? That they clearly take dance lessons by the looks of their physical stances? And have taken to heart their mothers' instruction to stand up straight? And sit like professional models who rather like posing for the camera? And have haughty airs? And egos? And can be proud, defiant, shy and rather full of themselves? 

Today I rather feel like a Jocobin, with her fabulous headdress.

Tomorrow I might put on my dancing shoes and step out like a Blassen Priest.

On Friday night with my fella perhaps I'll put on a nice coat, like a Blue Grizzle Frillback.

I've just finished an intense week in New York, our City of Pigeons, holed up in my apartment writing a complicated speech. Throughout the day scores of pigeons land on my living room window sill to cheer me... more »

2013-02-05 13:01:44 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 19 +1s)

Announcing my nonprofit, +The LittleBigFund
Launching Summer. Subscribe to updates here: http://goo.gl/3YNHU

Today I'm literally ecstatic to announce my nonprofit, The LittleBigFund. I've been extremely lucky that I've been able to accomplish what I have here through hard work, but I felt the need to do more. My words weren't enough. I had to take my constant commitment to do good to the next level. So, with all of your support, I founded a nonprofit to empower community organizations and charitable passions.

With so much buzz surrounding huge, administration-heavy nonprofits and one-time projects, I created The LittleBigFund to bring the neighborly feeling of accomplishment back to charitable giving. It will empower donors to feel that they can make a meaningful impact within their means through collective action. I'm sick of marketing stunts people... more »

2013-02-02 16:43:13 (36 comments, 8 reshares, 36 +1s)

Good morning music lovers. Oh, but my heart did sing when I watched this video...

I used to live in an orphanage. One day, my teacher asked us if anyone would like to join the music school. She said that even the girls could join. So I came here to this music school. But my uncle didn't want me to join because in the province where I am from they do not even let their girls go to to school. If someone practices music...people consider them an infidel. That's why my uncle didn't want me to join the music school. But I cried a lot. I cried until he allowed me to come to the music school. Now it's two years that I've been at this school and I feel it's all worth it. Because music...music gives a human being feelings. - Gulalai, Sitar Student, Afghanistan National Institute of Music

Thank the universe for the energetic, visionary and mischievous William... more »

2013-01-29 13:53:20 (179 comments, 13 reshares, 38 +1s)

How bizarre that at the end of a musician's long day - of practicing and perfecting their craft - they might have to suit up for their support job as, perhaps, a waitress or bartender in some popular coffee shop or watering hole, where happy, casual customers with various music players can listen to an endless stream of "free" music composed, perhaps, by the very person who serves up their drinks, hamburgers and fries...because that musician makes so little money off their own music that they can't afford to survive on the output of their own talent.

“In certain types of music, like classical or jazz, we are condemning them to poverty if this is going to be the only way people consume music,” Ms. Keating said. - NY Times, Streaming Shakes Up Music Industry's Model for Royalties

As a writer, designer, and person who has spent her life in the arts, and assome... more »

2013-01-28 13:01:25 (15 comments, 2 reshares, 20 +1s)

Of all the books I own - I'm a weirdo who still buys hardcover and paperback books - there are a few short works that have been on my nightstand for years and years. I also travel with them whenever I can. I was thinking about the good company they provide last night as I was packing for a return flight to New York this morning, particularly E.B. White's Here is New York, an homage to my favorite American city, because within their pages lies inspiration unbounded.

Do I carry them with me because they are short? No, I relish a long read equally. It's pure serendipity that my appreciation for them is long lived, but that they are compact enough to carry wherever I go. Bound separately as they are, the individual writers' voices are unarguably distinct one from the other, like paintings on a wall, or buildings rising into the New York cityscape, or Japanese cherry trees in... more »

2013-04-10 12:33:41 (106 comments, 2 reshares, 48 +1s)

If Hillary runs, she will be our next President. 8 years in the Senate. 8 years of First Wife (it matters). 4 years as Secretary of State, the most travelled Secretary of State in our History, mother, wife, lawyer, writer. There isn't any President who has gone into office with that combination of talents, roles, experiences in political and public life. None. Doesn't hurt that she has met and worked with absolutely every world leader and American politician on both side of the aisle. Just sayin'.

#hillaryclinton2016   #hillaryclinton  

2013-01-27 19:10:36 (38 comments, 1 reshares, 25 +1s)

The answer: Because of the Pentagon’s ban on women in combat, which prohibited women from serving in Special Operations units like the Night Stalkers. So Ms. Melki watched as friends and peers, including pilots she considered no better or more experienced than she was, were accepted in the Special Forces. “I was jealous of them, I was,” Ms. Melki said. “Their stories seemed cool.” - The NY Times, January 26, 2013

I don't think there is an issue that has been more successful at pushing virtually every "feminist" button I have, including some that I'm probably not even aware of but that are operating at full bore in my subconscious any way. I'm more than a little stunned at how black and white this issue is perceived to be, when in reality there is a significant amount of gray matter at play. Yesterday I commented in another poster's thread that I'mnot suppo... more »

2013-01-26 21:53:21 (34 comments, 1 reshares, 28 +1s)

Greetings Googlers,

How well can we really know one another within the format of an online community? Can we ever, really know one another? Or do we simply cobble together a notion of what someone is like after reading their posts and comments over a period of time? Can the experience here ever approach the way it might be in real life? Do we ever come to feel...'Ahhhh, I know this person now'? I think that in order for there to be a sense of knowingness about someone they have to reveal more personal things sooner or later.

The Slow Demise of a Flying Friend is something I posted about briefly when it first happened several months ago, but when things have a big emotional impact on me I tend to want to memorialize them in an essay for my own website.  It took me a long time to write it because it was not only so upsetting to me, but because it reveals a side of my personality... more »

2013-01-23 16:13:53 (16 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

The sole cause of a man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room. - Pascal, Pensées

This morning I sit with a mug of coffee, my back warmed by an over-stuffed fire. Warmed because it hurts. Because I slept on the floor last night in front of the fire like I used to do when I was a child, listening to the crackle of the embers, alone with my thoughts. But before smoothing my blanket on the rug I had read in the Times that the poet Richard Blanco would be Obama's 2013 inaugural poet. I had not known of this man, but I immediately liked everything I read about him (link at the end of this post) so I went to Blanco's website to find six inviting doors into his life and work: Welcome, Meet, Read, Listen, Look, Connect.

These "beckonings" instantly spoke to me here on the Northern Seashore of California, where I have come tow... more »

2013-01-21 17:17:09 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Richard Blanco delivers his Inaugural poem....

2013-01-21 16:49:55 (40 comments, 0 reshares, 17 +1s)

James Taylor is singing Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies...at the inauguration of President Obama.

Fabulous...

2013-01-21 15:01:07 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

Good morning, everyone.  I offer you a Must See TedTalk, which I hope fills you with awe at the body in which you walk around every day...

"I'm going to show you something pretty unique. Here is the human heart at 25 inches - basically 2 strands and like this magnificent origami the cells are developing a 1,000,000 cells per second. At 4 weeks it is folding on itself, within 5 weeks you can start to see the early atrium and early ventricles. At 6 weeks these folds are now beginning with a propella (spell?) on the inside of the heart, actually being able to pull down each one of those valves in your heart until you get actually a mature heart and then basically the development of the entire human body. The magic of the mechanisms inside each genetic structure saying exactly where that nerve cell should go. The complexity of these things, the mathematical models of how these things are... more »

2013-01-21 02:38:11 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 18 +1s)

I am so conflicted in emotions right now..... +miriam dunn posts a hilarious picture and +Sivan Rehan posts a tribute to a man I have had circled for a long time who took his own life. How can I be laughing and crying at the same time? 

2013-01-21 00:21:13 (7 comments, 2 reshares, 22 +1s)

Evening, everyone. The Sun is going down on a gorgeous day here, and I just read this sweet story about a Tortoise Cat named Holly, who got lost and traveled 200 miles to find her way home. I immediately thought about Five Hundred Miles, the gorgeous folk song made famous by Peter, Paul & Mary. There isn't any reason that song can't apply as much to a cat who longs to get home as it does to a human being.

Why does it so confound some scientists when presented with a Scratch Your Head Scenario such as a lost animal traveling for weeks against all odds to return to their homes? Birds migrate. Whales and other beasts too. And anyone who grew up with animals on a farm know that they know things we humans wish we knew. Yes, some people will argue with me. Animals don't know anything. They only sense...or something. Fine. Whatever.

But I don't know one single human... more »

2013-01-19 15:43:39 (88 comments, 7 reshares, 72 +1s)

Sure do