Ernest Hemingway

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?”

We Were Evergreen

HBO's NEWSROOM Opening scene "Why America's Not the Greatest Country"

I have been watching this show religiously ever since I saw this little segment several weeks ago. I could not help but agree wholeheartedly with his argument.  As I have attempted to inform myself better about my country and about where I stand politically, over the past several years, I have mostly become frustrated and saddened by how selfish and petty we have become.  Then, being the son of a historiaholic, who dragged me around the country almost deifying all the great men that established our laws and who fought to make this country great, I was often reminded of the days when this county truly was great. 
I love this country and I feel so blessed to have been born a citizen of it, however we each have a responsibility as such.  As he states in the clip, we need to inform ourselves and realize we can do better.  Our government was established to be "a government of the people, by the people, and for the people".  If we, as the people will inform ourselves and then act in accordence with our beliefs, instead of just stand back, then "change" can truly come.

Scilla Elworthy: Fighting with non-violence

Of Monsters and Men - Love Love Love (Live on KEXP)

Beautiful song.  When I play it I like to change the lyrics at the end of the first verse though.   I think it should be "Well maybe, I know" instead of "Well baby, I know "

Don Tapscott: Four principles for the open world

Jim Carrey

"It is better to risk starving to death then surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what's left?"

Derek Paravicini - British Musical Savant

Is it not amazing to realize how little we know of how the brain actually works.  We know about the chemical and electrical signaling that is taking place, and we try to map out how the connections correlate to one another, but really we know so very little.  How do all these signals and such turn into the complex and beautiful thoughts and memories that we have in our minds all the time, while still keeping our bodies functioning and alive?  And how does a premature, supposedly damaged, brain like Derek's here, store and create such mindbogglingly beautiful music?  We may have mapped out the human genome, and we may know everything about the evolution and maturation of the brain, but with all we have learned the brain is still mystifying us.

Eyes are a Window to the Soul

Link to National Geographic Article

The original picture of this girl was taken the year I was born.  Because of my love of National Geographic and because of the popularity of the picture, I have seen it many many times and have speculated, more than once, on the story behind those magnificent eyes.  The true story, however, and the more current photograph shake me.  I find myself being haunted by those eyes, especially when I see the pictures side by side.   The stunning young girl looking fiercely at life and into the future, and then . . . . the future.  I don't even know how to put into words all that I can see in those eyes, all that I feel when I try to imagine the lives that people actually live.  What will life make of me and of my eyes and what am I to take and do with stories such as this?  

Frank Lloyd Wright

“Human beings can be beautiful. If they are not beautiful it is entirely their own fault. It is what they do to themselves that makes them ugly. The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself with out it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.”

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