Herding Cats

One minute...

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6572941025419743765&q=herding+cats&hl=en

 

Seem familiar?

Pure Entertainment

Here is an awesome parody of Star Wars. No deeper philosophical meanings whatsoever.

 

Enjoy!

Thumb Wars

I am a LITTLE upset with CHINA right now!

Why? Well, because of PERSECUTION!!

Not long ago, Lobsang told us of a video he received of a Chinese soldier shooting down Tibetan refugees, just like they were little targets on a shooting range. Bang. Bang. Bang. Then, he sat down under a tree and had lunch.

Lobsang talked for a while about compassion and truly cherishing all sentient beings. Someone asked how to cherish that Chinese soldier. He pondered, and told us to remember that the soldier acted as he did because of causes and conditions that brought him to that place. Perhaps he didn't have loving support as a child, or was tortured, or we can't know. When it's reallly hard to cherish someone that has done horrible things, he suggested thinking of the person as a baby. Suddenly that changed the whole feeling tone of the situation. I trey to remember that thought.

Then the SECOND reason I'm upset with CHINA is more PERSECUTION!

I was at the amazing Wears + Wares (www.wearsandwares.com) artisans market in Boston (which continues on Saturdays through December). On my way back, through the common, there was this group of people doing tai chi. They had presentation boards about torture and imprisonment in China of practitioners of Falun Gong.

Now, these 4 people were doing the Falun Gong exercises. A series of 5 Qi Gong exercises that are slow, peaceful, and harmless. Apparently if you do that in China, you can get arrested, imprisoned, and well, it gets really ugly... Visit www.falundafa.org for instruction on how to do the exercises, and/or political updates.

Seems like thousands of people have been disappeared for practicing this. I don't really understand why, but Amnesty International confirms the persecution. Maybe it's becasue millions of people practiced these exercises, and got together in groups to do it. (I'm thinking China doesn't really like people assembling on their own.)

Anyway, I have been practicing tai chi for 25 years now, and have thought it would be nice to practice in China sometime. Think again Sister! It's hard to grasp that my own activities would be reason for torture in another country.

So, that's why I am a little upset with China right now.

Distorted Perception of Beauty

Thank you Bodhipaksa, for this link. It's a one-minute film, worth watching. (Otherwise, would I even put it here?!?!)

 

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca/bblank.asp?id=6895

 

See how our perception of beauty is manipulated by the media.

 

 

 

(To visit Bodhipaksa's blog, http://www.bodhipaksa.com/blog/ )

Don't give up!!

Enjoy this from Josh Groban...

http://www.bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=groban_youareloved

Here's a good attitude!

I have to thank my son for this lesson in perseverence.

He has been doing some Flash animation recently, and posting his short animations on a site called Newgrounds. When you post something, people dive all over it, rating it, and if you get low numbers.... BLAM.

Well, he put up his first short animation. It got BLAMMED. So, he revised it a bit, maybe added music or some other details.... BLAMMED again. [And for those of you with thick skin, this BLAMMING happens within minutes. The short little life of that short little animation is crushed mercilessly quickly.]

He went on to make something new. Put that up and sent me the link in an IM. I actually got to see it before it got BLAMMED, which happened within five minutes. My niece got there after the BLAM. She put the animation on her web space and linked to it from her blog. I linked to it from my blog. (Take THAT you Newgrounds stupid-heads!)

I started to get mad at those Newgrounds know-it-all-geeks. I mean, can't they give a kid a chance? They are merciless! Were they ever beginners? Yeah, so I was wondering how Billy was going to take this negative feedback. (It's so easy to be mercilessly negative when you're also anonymous...)

I kept my mouth shut, and watched.

Shortly, he came out and said.... "Well, I'm not putting anything else up on Newgrounds until I get a whole lot better at Flash. I just made my own web site where I can put my stuff and people can see it if they want to."

http://www.freewebs.com/glorgans_flashes/myflashes.htm

Now. Freeze frame here for a minute. What a strong, healthy attitude. What perseverence. What a clever solution to the cruel vagaries of techno-democracy. I, for one, am often crushed by the merest whisper of a criticism. Here is my adolescent son, BLAMMED several times by folks who have no problem writing negative and rude commentatires, and he just decides to go play in a different sandbox.

Is he a genius or what? Must get it from his mom....

Optical Illusions -- click to see!

Go take a look at this Flash thing that Billy made.

I think it's clever, funny, and has an intellectually stimulating surprise finish.

What do you think? Please leave comments.

http://www.mittenmitten.com/photos/billy.html

Enjoy!