Somaly Mam was named one of the people who mattered most this year in Time’s annual “Person of the Year” issue.
Learn more about her, her story, and how she’s helping to lead the way in ending sex slavery on her foundation’s website.
i’ve been shoveling for 12 of the last 16 hours.
yoy!
…that helps belief in the possibility of the written word
…and conversation for change.
that’s what covered my shirt, the walls, the floor, everything in a 5 foot radius of the cream whipper only moments after i dabbed the blade with my index finger to test if whip cream was ready for our belgians. the cream was ready, but the machine was not. my right hand, not knowing what the left was doing, slipped and pressed the button. my finger got stuck in the blade, and, mom would be proud, i called out to Jesus when it was stuck.
it must have been the annual ‘cut off part of your finger this week’ (sorry to jack and his thumb) - and i was sure there’d be some dismembering when i looked down at my hand. but thankfully no, just some deep lacerations and bruising.
and oh, the blood.
so dark, rich, beautiful, especially when juxtaposed with the fluffy white cream. dotting everything like snowflakes and berries. rich with such contrasted colours as a battle scene in a japanese samuri movie, after a stunning fight on a mountain top in snow.
a humiliating injury. a throbbing reminder of man’s tenuous relationship to machines. and, as always, delicious waffles, dan and christy.
Now we need to understand that what simply occupies our mind very largely governs what we do. It sets the emotional tone out of which our actions flow and it projects the possible courses of action available to us. Also, the mind, though of little power on its own, is the place of our widest and most basic freedom. This is true in both a direct and indirect sense. Of all the things we do, we have more freedom with what we think of, where we will place our mind, than anything else…. The deepest revelation of our character is what we choose to dwell on in thought… a part of the call of God to us has always been to think.
- Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy
my cousin dave and i have been chilling. sake has been a bond between us. so delicious.
The following letter was released by the Save-Darfur coalition today:
Dear reader,
Sixty years ago today, the U.N. adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The nations of the world said “Never Again” in the wake of the Holocaust, pledging to stop genocide wherever and whenever it occurs.
To mark this historic occasion, former Secretaries of State and Defense Madeleine Albright and William Cohen released the final Genocide Prevention Task Force report yesterday, outlining concrete recommendations to recognize and respond to emerging threats of genocide and mass atrocities. The report, for which Save Darfur president Jerry Fowler was interviewed, explains why genocide and mass atrocities threaten core American national security and economic security interests as well as our core moral values. Read the rest of this entry »
i’ve been on the phone for over an hour with the fine people at apple (76.5 minutes to be precise).
my new macbook’s fan is constantly whirring and making noise. and my battery lasts 2 hours max. i’ve had it less than 90 days. this concerns me. we’ve done every possible trick to make the fan stop to no avail, and have verified that there is a hardware issue. despite his efforts, steve jobs is unable to deliver perfection.
some tips to those who may have fan issues.
Read the rest of this entry »
I learned this week that my planned excursion to S.E. Asia to work on a publication is postponed, at least until the summer months. There are some scheduling conflicts on the ground in Malaysia that make it nearly impossible to pull the publication off in the upcoming months.
I’m disappointed.
However, I’m not discouraged. The notice came the day after a time of prayer with a large group that made the request for Divine wisdom to weigh in on the timeline of the project. So, how could I complain?
I was looking forward to the time there. While others are ‘Dreaming of a White Christmas,’ I’ll be dreaming of Wanton Mee Soup. Teh Tarik. Char Siew Pow. And, the ultimate: real Tandori Chicken. But the time for such authentic culinary delights will come. The biggest bah humbug is to miss out on a close friend’s wedding, and to visit dear and missed friends. I guess the time for that will come too.
Now to imagine a white Christmas. A light snow fell last night to sugar glaze the landscape like one big apple fritter, so it’s not that difficult. Shopping. Decorating. Etc. That’s the other part.
What greater gift can a writer give a reader than another book? I don’t know that I’ve ever been so affected by a work of fiction. You know that feeling when you don’t want to turn the last page of a book you love. You can imagine my happiness, then, when I turned the last page of Gilead, Robinson’s exquisite book to discover her latest work involves the same characters in the same town, told from a different perspective.
A. O. Scott wrote a fantastic article about Marilynbe Robinson’s latest novel Home for the New York Times which was included on the publication’s list of the top 100 books of the year. The article discusses both novels’ themes and increases my appetite to read her work.
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