Saturday, July 30, 2011

TAKE TIME

Take time
 to know
we’re all different
we feel pain, we bleed the same
happy, sad,  joyous, angry
just moods … phases we navigate through -  together, or alone

Take time
to see
the old man on his verandah
his smile trembles and falters a little
he buried his wife the other day
fifty four years of marriage
not all of it happy but all of it good

Take time
to hear
a bird sing its final note as the eagle swoops in
it would be a pity to
miss life’s melody

Take time
 to talk
why wait till it’s too late
to say
I love you
thanks for believing in me
why did you do that

Take time
to understand
some people need recognition
others a jail sentence
our  individual journeys
changes us
and makes us
who we are now

Take the time
to acknowledge each other

It’s all good

Friday, July 29, 2011

Cavemen Rock!

Should we revert back to being cavemen?

The life of a caveman was a natural one, man and nature in concert with, and respectful of, one another.

Man became hungry, looked for food, ate some and stored the rest for the lean months. Man remained lean.

The cavemen were tough, resilient people, with a healthy respect for Mother Nature. More importantly, they were an intelligent people. Intelligence is about fulfilling needs which, in turn, creates resourcefulness. Resourceful people are ingenious, imaginative, capable and quick-witted.

Living in a cave was a great improvement to living under the stars, at the mercy of Mother Nature’s whims. These cave dwellers struggled with inventing things they could use to fell trees, harness fire, clothe themselves, and feed their family.

They had nothing to begin with, and discovered/invented a lot of known survival techniques that we take for granted today. It was they who first used most laws of physics, too. Modern man merely explained them and gave them fancy names.

Cavemen lived in harsh conditions where “survival of the fittest” meant – if you can’t catch your chow you don’t survive; or, if your neighbor’s weapon of necessity, the club, is bigger than yours, you’ll be the one with massive head trauma, or dead.

Body language and social graces were very important back then. A smile or a frown could be the deciding factor between peace and war.

Modern man is made of the same stuff as our forefathers … still inventing - re-inventing and refining what nature gives to us so freely.

Modern man is ingenious, which is very good, but when it comes to altering nature, this ingeniousness can often be a hindrance and not a help.

Animals are being bred to mature at a much quicker pace, causing them to have thick layers of unnatural, unhealthy fat around their frames; rockets are sent up into the heavens to trigger off lightning. Our excessive greed and use of modern technology are causing greenhouse gases which are speeding up global warming.

Obesity and global warming are just two of the myriad problems afflicting our world today. Could the simple solution be a question of who eats whom?

Do you think if we didn’t breed cows, chickens, lambs and pigs in such large numbers and with so much haste, that perhaps we wouldn’t have so many health and heat problems?

English Cumberland sausage, the German Bratwurst, the South African Boerewors, the Spanish Chorizo, the Breakfast sausage, the Lunch sausage... the list goes on and on, and that's only one variation of a myriad of meat by-products. What happened to eating a simple diet?

Imagine a world where animals roamed free, where cows were like lions or tigers – rare and exotic – to be admired, or hunted, depending upon your clan's needs, a world where humans and animals alike fed off the greens of the earth, the seasonal berries and legumes.

Of course, we can't go back to cavemen days, but surely we can start to take responsibility for our planet? Thriving on human greed is what has brought us to a very sad statistic. About one quarter of the world's adults is overweight. Doesn't that frighten you? It does me.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Kiss

Bobbi Sherlock and Ray Blazina apparently hold the record for the longest kiss.  -  130 hours and 2 minutes between 1-6 May 1978!

Perhaps the greatest evidence of the psychobiosocial theory of kissing lies in the relationships between bonobo monkeys, which share 98.7 percent of their DNA with humans. Baby bonobos get nourishment from their parents, who feed them using a mouth-to-mouth technique. As they grow, the bonobos frequently kiss one another to ease tensions or reconcile after disagreements. They also may kiss as a sign of friendship, or even during the mating process.

A kiss is just a kiss….. or is it?

Kiss of Death
The kiss of Judas, the origin of the term "Kiss of Death", Judas's betrayal of Jesus with a kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane.

 Dinoponera quadriceps ants, known as dinosaur ants, and the Mafia have something in common.
 Both the “Godfather” Mafia boss and the “Godmother ant” use the “kiss of death" as a signal for their "Mob" to punish the offender.

Kiss of Life 






Get stoned!



Wednesday, July 27, 2011

WORK FROM HOME




I’ve spent hours scanning the Internet for legitimate work from home jobs and it’s a jungle out there!

In today’s market, working from home makes a ton of sense and can be the perfect solution to easing some of the unemployment problems. But how many of those jobs are real?

Being well informed is key to finding legitimate sites that offer real employment and not the ones out to scam you of your hard-earned money.

I was interested in the writing/proofreading sites; but the hoops I had to jump through are outrageous.

I’ve written tests, and answered more questions than the FBI would ask me if I were an international cat burglar, and then, when I finally reach the top rung and I’ve been “accepted” into the haloed inner sanctum, I find out what the reward for my efforts will be.

In one instance, the minimum number of articles I have to proof in a 24 hour period is twenty 500 word articles. And I must also be available to proofread at least 5 days per week.

That doesn’t sound too bad … it will certainly keep me busy for a few hours every day, since the articles need to be 100% correct, and I have to check for plagiarism and also ensure a certain keyword density …. So, what do I get? The princely sum of $0.30 per 500 words!

… if I proofread 20 articles a day I’ll earn $6.00 …..

Well, that won’t work, I realize, so I’ll need to write some articles too. Most sites use a bidding system, where writers bid for a job and the “employer” picks the writer he wants. Payment on completion of an original article can start as low as ….. One Dollar.

Obviously, I’m a newbie on the online writing scene, so I can’t expect much more than $5 an hour, until I get a few articles under my belt, and good reviews.

That’s all well and good, but it won’t pay the bills, so it’s back to the grindstone, and writing will remain a hobby, for the time being.