This is a priceless artefact of humanity. Amazing to think powered only by our brains humans managed to actually leave this planet!
It remains as a sacred vessel of science and human reason.

This is a priceless artefact of humanity. Amazing to think powered only by our brains humans managed to actually leave this planet!

It remains as a sacred vessel of science and human reason.

Article: Powerfully Poetic Self-Portraits of a Former Dancer

Powerfully Poetic Self-Portraits of a Former Dancer http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/ingrid-endel-photography

Artistic souls can overcome obstacles, and even use them to fuel their artistic creativity!

All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. A culture that celebrates femininity and considers women to be the masters of their own lives is better than a culture that mutilates girls’ genitals and confines them behind walls and veils or flogs or stones them for falling in love. A culture that protects women’s rights by law is better than a culture in which a man can awfully have four wives at once and women are denied alimony and half their inheritance. A culture that appoints women to its supreme court is better than a culture that declares that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man. It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women and part of all tribal cultures to institutionalize patronage, nepotism, and corruption. The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better.


In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali - from NOMAD - hardcover edition, pages 212 - 213 (via garbanzotoons)

Totally true!

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a heroine in our house. We bought all her books after hearing her speak at Sydney Opera House last month!

(via corbarr)

whakahekeheke:

I wouldn’t buy my girlfriend Starbucks and now she’s mad at me.

Well if the stock price goes way down perhaps you can buy it for her

inothernews:

A woman, identified as Cub Scout troop leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, confronts one of two suspects who moments before viciously beheaded a British soldier on a street in London in what government officials called a “terror-related” incident. The attackers had claimed responsibility for the murder, saying on camera “The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth.” Loyau-Kennett, who wasn’t hurt, is also captured on video telling one of the men “Right now it is only you versus many people. You are going to lose.  What would you like to do?”  Both suspects were later killed shot and wounded by police.    (Photo: @sibiillamlaw / Twitter via The New York Daily News)
God damn it.

One hardly knows what to say.  Again human beings infected with one of the most toxic of cultural upbringings demonstrate brazenly how evil acts sanctioned by that culture can be. Someone on an earlier post suggested the appalling butchery perpetrated on an 8-year old child “bride” might not have been a “genuine” account, because the news source was “questionable”. Well open your eyes sweetheart! Here is another example of barbarity fostered within that toxic culture - a culture that sanctions cutting throats. Look at the photo. The murderers bloody knife still in his hand, on display for every news source in the world. His religion, by his own admission, was the sole motive for the attack. Take your pick among your news sources. But don’t dare - for shame - make excuses for that culture! Don’t dare - for the sake of the man who they just killed in cold blood - blame the victim.  What a miserable excuse for a human being of a man. “An eye for an eye”. What a vile and vacuous excuse for murdering and butchering someone, randomly on the basis of their occupation, not even for anything done by that person. Gandhi I think said “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. But so does turning a “blind eye” to evil among us. What an appalling excuse for such a barbarous crime. Nowhere are muslims being targetted by Western governments and “murdered” for being “muslims” - only for being terrorists, actively engaged in committing or plotting acts of violence. Western powers are not attacking “ordinary” muslims. The only people who specifically murder muslims for being muslims in those countries are other muslims - sunnis vs shiites. Western troops in so-called muslim nations are fighting to protect law and order and facilitate the secular work of governments on behalf of their citizens. Western forces are constrained by laws, and punishments are meted to those who violate them, who “take the law into their own hands”. Westerners in general have no hatred toward muslims as muslims. What about the volunteers who have for decades been coming from the West to provide humanitarian aid and medical assistance to “muslims” in those same countries? And all those muslims who have willingly come to Western nations to escape poverty, persecution and misery in their own countries. They have been welcomed and granted extraordinary generosity to rebuild their lives freely, on the basis of Western respect for humanity above any creed. No, what we have seen today is an evil manifestation of a primitive culture which we “tolerate” growing in our communities, and even protect via an unofficial media censorship and fearful political silence in the name of “tolerance”.  But this terrible story has a heroic counterpoint, and one which we can rally around. That heroic woman! A Cub Scout troop leader who confronted the murderer, bloody knife still in his hand. I was a Cub as a child. I still recall the pledges - “Be Prepared”, “Akela, We’ll do our best”, “On my honour, I promise that I will do my best, to do my duty… to help other people and to keep the Cub law”. What a living embodiment of the “everyday hero” ethos of scouting! I hope Scout numbers surge. Community organizations are the lifeblood of a culture. If more people were prepared, each individually, to “do our best” we can not only turn around the decline of Western culture, but even help re-educate those brought up by toxic cultures, and integrate them into a truly life-enhancing, humanity-affirming civilization. I encourage all fair-minded citizens of western democracies, to find the contact addresses of local muslim organizations and officials at mosques, and to begin writing to them. Not attacking them for what has happened, not attacking their religion or their god, but calling on them to denounce such murderous violence committed in the name of their religion; reminding them that their god is blasphemed by anyone committing evil in his name. We need to be calling them out on these types of atrocity, making their leaders stand up publicly and either confess their approval, or condemn it without equivocation.  I want to hear the chorus of “western” muslim organizations decrying this evil act; cursing and excommunicating this murderer; announcing their shame at the violation of the tenants of their religion; calling on the courts to deal with this evil man as harshly as his acts demand. It is through being confronted by the shame of evil that we all learned to do what is right and avoid what is wrong. We need to let these religious leaders know that they stand in our eyes shamed if they fail to renounce this type of behaviour. And if each time such atrocities occur, they hear their leaders condemn them, then their followers will also gradually come to share their leaders sense of the wrongness of these actions. Then muslim culture will be able to integrate and contribute to the life of our society. Then religious terrorism will simply die out. Please write a letter today! I am needing to have my faith in humanity restored.

inothernews:

A woman, identified as Cub Scout troop leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, confronts one of two suspects who moments before viciously beheaded a British soldier on a street in London in what government officials called a “terror-related” incident. The attackers had claimed responsibility for the murder, saying on camera “The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth.” Loyau-Kennett, who wasn’t hurt, is also captured on video telling one of the men “Right now it is only you versus many people. You are going to lose.  What would you like to do?”  Both suspects were later killed shot and wounded by police.    (Photo: @sibiillamlaw / Twitter via The New York Daily News)

God damn it.

One hardly knows what to say.

Again human beings infected with one of the most toxic of cultural upbringings demonstrate brazenly how evil acts sanctioned by that culture can be. Someone on an earlier post suggested the appalling butchery perpetrated on an 8-year old child “bride” might not have been a “genuine” account, because the news source was “questionable”. Well open your eyes sweetheart! Here is another example of barbarity fostered within that toxic culture - a culture that sanctions cutting throats. Look at the photo. The murderers bloody knife still in his hand, on display for every news source in the world. His religion, by his own admission, was the sole motive for the attack. Take your pick among your news sources. But don’t dare - for shame - make excuses for that culture! Don’t dare - for the sake of the man who they just killed in cold blood - blame the victim.

What a miserable excuse for a human being of a man. “An eye for an eye”. What a vile and vacuous excuse for murdering and butchering someone, randomly on the basis of their occupation, not even for anything done by that person. Gandhi I think said “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. But so does turning a “blind eye” to evil among us.

What an appalling excuse for such a barbarous crime. Nowhere are muslims being targetted by Western governments and “murdered” for being “muslims” - only for being terrorists, actively engaged in committing or plotting acts of violence. Western powers are not attacking “ordinary” muslims. The only people who specifically murder muslims for being muslims in those countries are other muslims - sunnis vs shiites. Western troops in so-called muslim nations are fighting to protect law and order and facilitate the secular work of governments on behalf of their citizens. Western forces are constrained by laws, and punishments are meted to those who violate them, who “take the law into their own hands”.

Westerners in general have no hatred toward muslims as muslims. What about the volunteers who have for decades been coming from the West to provide humanitarian aid and medical assistance to “muslims” in those same countries? And all those muslims who have willingly come to Western nations to escape poverty, persecution and misery in their own countries. They have been welcomed and granted extraordinary generosity to rebuild their lives freely, on the basis of Western respect for humanity above any creed.

No, what we have seen today is an evil manifestation of a primitive culture which we “tolerate” growing in our communities, and even protect via an unofficial media censorship and fearful political silence in the name of “tolerance”.

But this terrible story has a heroic counterpoint, and one which we can rally around. That heroic woman! A Cub Scout troop leader who confronted the murderer, bloody knife still in his hand.

I was a Cub as a child. I still recall the pledges - “Be Prepared”, “Akela, We’ll do our best”, “On my honour, I promise that I will do my best, to do my duty… to help other people and to keep the Cub law”. What a living embodiment of the “everyday hero” ethos of scouting! I hope Scout numbers surge. Community organizations are the lifeblood of a culture. If more people were prepared, each individually, to “do our best” we can not only turn around the decline of Western culture, but even help re-educate those brought up by toxic cultures, and integrate them into a truly life-enhancing, humanity-affirming civilization.

I encourage all fair-minded citizens of western democracies, to find the contact addresses of local muslim organizations and officials at mosques, and to begin writing to them. Not attacking them for what has happened, not attacking their religion or their god, but calling on them to denounce such murderous violence committed in the name of their religion; reminding them that their god is blasphemed by anyone committing evil in his name. We need to be calling them out on these types of atrocity, making their leaders stand up publicly and either confess their approval, or condemn it without equivocation.

I want to hear the chorus of “western” muslim organizations decrying this evil act; cursing and excommunicating this murderer; announcing their shame at the violation of the tenants of their religion; calling on the courts to deal with this evil man as harshly as his acts demand. It is through being confronted by the shame of evil that we all learned to do what is right and avoid what is wrong. We need to let these religious leaders know that they stand in our eyes shamed if they fail to renounce this type of behaviour. And if each time such atrocities occur, they hear their leaders condemn them, then their followers will also gradually come to share their leaders sense of the wrongness of these actions. Then muslim culture will be able to integrate and contribute to the life of our society. Then religious terrorism will simply die out.

Please write a letter today! I am needing to have my faith in humanity restored.
Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us that we are nothing but acorns and that our greatest happiness will be to become bigger, fatter, shinier acorns… Our faith gives us knowledge of something better: that we can become oak trees.

E.F. Schumacher (via wordchalice)

Specifically our left brain is reductionist and thinks everything is acorns - unconnected atoms. Our right brain is holistic and integrates us into a living reality. Today too many people make their left brain their “ordinary” mind and don’t question that everything is being called acorns even when the roots and trunks and branches and leaves are all around them. What the world really needs now is not so much religious “faith” but rather a balancing dose of right brain thinking. It can come in the form of art, literature, or deeper human relationships.

Article: The Unbelievable 3D Latte Art of Kazuki Yamamoto

This early in the day I need coffee. This so deserves to be appreciated!

The Unbelievable 3D Latte Art of Kazuki Yamamoto http://www.visualnews.com/2013/05/20/the-unbelievable-3d-latte-art-of-kazuki-yamamoto/