Clipmarks | debbyski's clips

The Forever War Of The Mind

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:13:38 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Wars are not over when the shooting stops. They live on in the lives of those who fight them. That is the curse of the soldier. He never forgets.

War is haunting. Death. Pain. Blood. Dismemberment. A buddy dying in your arms.

After America’s wars, the used-up fighters are too often left to fend for themselves.

This is inexcusable, and it comes with frightening moral costs

In his poem “The Dead Young Soldiers,” Archibald MacLeish, whose younger brother died in World War I, has the soldiers in the poem tell us:“We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.” Until we help our returning soldiers get their lives back when they come home, the promise of restoring that meaning will go unfulfilled.

Happy Birthday Tany

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:55:44 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Your day; your day . . .

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: to you

For You TN

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:51:51 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Sometimes life is hard to bear,
When a friend is not there."

Clip Source: 100-poems.com

Instead of different words, however, we're stuck with simple adjectives. Close friend. Best friend. Childhood friend. Intimate friend. Trusted friend. Beloved friend. But whether you use adjectives or different words, few could deny the nearly infinite meaning in such a simple word.

Friends are special people. We can't pick our family, and we're sorely limited in the number of them at any rate. Society and mores (and often our own conscience) dictate we select a single mate. But our friends can be as diverse and infinite as the adjectives we choose. Our friends, in a very real sense, reflect the choices we make in life.

Let the countdown begin.

It's Never Easy

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:25:50 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: iamonetoo told me once that she didn't understand why it had to be so hard to be herself.

She could have taken the easy way. But she didn't and I admire her.

Social change is hard, long and difficult work. It will often spawn hatred by other's who are just ignorant of human differences.

That's ok; the struggle of civil rights for everyone is always worth it

Clip Source: www.365gay.com

listen up peoples: freedom struggles are difficult and filled with losses and setbacks. It’s not fair and many of us are not going to see the very things we are fighting for, but if you want quick results it’s time to find something else to do. If you are not in it for the long haul, what’s the point? If you think struggles for rights are easily earned in one election cycle, you are not paying attention to the narrative called American history.

Nothing wrong with being angry and disappointed today, but when you are finished put the armor back on because the struggle still continues.

Who Are You Calling A Narcissist

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:10:02 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

In those days, he called himself a “harmless little fuzzball.” He’s a lot less harmless now.

As he and Sarah Palin conduct their auto-da-fé of moderate Republicans — “Moderates by definition have no principles,” he told his radio audience on Monday — Limbaugh is more than ever the face of his party, as Rahm Emanuel said.

He’s also the mouth.

the tactics of Limbaugh, Palin, Cheney & Fille are more cynical: They spin certainty, ignoring their side’s screw-ups, and they exploit patriotism, labeling all critics as traitors.

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace,” Limbaugh accused the president of trying to destroy the economy — yes, the same economy that W. came within a whisker of ruining.

he ripped the president for having “an out-of-this-world ego,” for being “very narcissistic,” “immature, inexperienced, in over his head.” (Isn’t immaturity scoring OxyContin from your maid?)

It gives new meaning to pot, kettle and black.

License To Wonder

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:59:50 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: judson.blogs.nytimes.com

There are plenty of (probably) apocryphal tales about what inspired a great discovery, from Archimedes in his bathtub, to Newton and his apple.

Among the most famous is the story of Rosalind Franklin and her non-discovery of the structure of DNA.

She had the data. Why didn’t she reach the solution?

There are several answers to this; but one is that she had a fixed idea about how the problem should be solved.

But there’s one way in which we should not be limited: imagination. As Einstein put it, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

Should We Trust The Experts?

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:45:01 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "None of this suggests the public should abandon a healthy skepticism toward even well-credentialed authorities. Pharmaceutical companies, with colossal missteps like the dangerous medication Vioxx, have earned suspicions about their motivations.
Vaccinations foregone put not only those individual children at risk but clear the path for infectious disease to spread more easily. That's not a great outcome, whether we're collectively battling the measles or this season's H1N1 flu.

"You can't minimize your individual risk," Wallace writes, "unless your herd, your friends and neighbors, also buy in."

Our children most certainly deserve safe vaccines; that's a given. I don't blame people for not trusting special interest groups. I just thought this article brought out some interesting points regarding social media.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Two weeks after the story hit the Internet, the e-mail keeps flowing. A majority voice support for “An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All.” But at least one in five disagrees. Many seethe with indignation. A few sling vile names and veiled threats.

Wallace has run smack into an abiding, perhaps growing, phenomenon of the Internet Age: Citizens armed with information are sure they know better.

Unhappy with the scientific consensus that man's activities have exacerbated global warming? Then just find and promote the academic naysayers. Or merely post your personal musings: "Climate change, bah, there's a foot of snow on my lawn."

The rise of computer literacy, high-speed Internet connections, blogging and social networks has emboldened the common man to tell his own story and, sometimes, to disdain trappings like a university degree, professional training or corporate affiliation.

Nonviolence As Their Weapon

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:33:08 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "It was 2001. Khatib watched in horror as Israeli soldiers shot an unarmed friend at a checkpoint. Two weeks later, the militant Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade made a revenge attack on the checkpoint, killing seven soldiers.

"My first reaction was 'Good for Al Aqsa!' " Khatib said. Then he realized the dead soldiers belonged to a different unit, not the one on duty when his friend was shot.

"It made me wonder: This cycle of death, of violent action and reaction, how we can break it?"

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

"If they cannot accuse us of terrorism, they cannot stop us. The world will support us."

His message is a hard sell: Khatib, 35, is a modern-day Gandhi in a culture that enshrines the language of the gun, even if most Palestinians have never used one. And the risks of his activism are enormous.

The Israeli army has targeted him. He was arrested, severely beaten and threatened with death during a series of midnight raids on the village this summer

He believes Israel is trying to crush nonviolent activists because it would rather take on an armed insurgency.

Today's nonviolence initiatives tap into nostalgia for the first intifada, in what Khatib calls a sober reaction to the armed uprising that bloodied the first half of this decade after peace talks broke down.

Khatib, who dropped out when things turned violent, remembers the killings that changed him.

Republicans In Congress

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:44:29 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Understanding complex issues in Washington is a big challenge and I'm incredibly excited about this new technology.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: wowo

Election Day

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:19:08 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.365gay.com

There are lots of things about this country that grate and our history is a hodgepodge of greatness and shame. Yet election day mornings always stroke my patriotic genes. Sure at the end of the day I’m depressed all over again (being in the minority can do that for you), but there is something about a bunch of disparate people pulling a lever for politicians that gets me every time.

This wasn’t always the case, and I know too many liberals and conservatives who would have no problem returning to our past when it comes to voting (allowing only the “right” people access to the ballot). Thank goodness those backwood reactionaries are in the minority…at least for now.

Get out and vote,

Politics

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:13:40 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.mathewbinkley.org

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. -- Robert Orben

Dash Berlin feat. Emma Hewitt - Waiting (Acoustic Version)

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:46:26 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: For Debbyski, I have a feeling you'll like this!

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: music, video, dash berlin, acosutic, version, youtube

How Mean It Can Be

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:55:11 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Could adults gossiping in the office be more devious than the teenagers in “Gossip Girl”?

The earlier studies found that once someone made a negative comment about a person who wasn’t there, the conversation would get meaner unless someone immediately defended the target. Otherwise, among both adults and teenagers, the insults would keep coming because there was so much social pressure to agree with the others.

“Office gossip can be a form of reputational warfare,” Dr. Hallett says. “It’s like informal gossip, but it’s richer and more elaborate. There are more layers to it because people practice indirectness and avoidance. People are more cautious because they know they can lose not just a friendship but a job.”

When the going gets tough, when the gossip gets mean, you always have one reliable escape line: “Don’t we have some work to do here?”

A Southern Mirrored Window

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:50:54 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Ms. Stockett, 40, herself a native of Jackson, said the idea for the novel came to her in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, when she was living in New York. Ms. Stockett, who had another novel in her drawer that a writing coach had told her was “just awful,” said she felt homesick and “tried to comfort myself by writing in the voices of the people I missed.”

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Since it came out in February, “The Help” has been embraced by book clubs and bloggers who can’t stop recommending it to their friends.

The novel features three narrators. Two are black housekeepers, Aibileen and Minny, who work for white families in Jackson; the third is Skeeter, a young white woman who aspires to be a writer and break free of the Junior League expectations of her childhood friends (one of whom employs Aibileen) and her starchy mother.

With its intimate portrayals of the maids’ relationships with their employers and the children they care for, “The Help” appeals to readers who feel they are getting a behind-the-scenes peek into a dark period in the country’s history.

On Ms. Vazquez’s blog, Coffee, Books and Laundry (at melissa-coffeebooksandlaundry.blogspot.com), she wrote: “I cannot recommend ‘The Help’ enough! If you haven’t read it, you are missing out on a fantastic book, that is sure to be a classic.”

Lack Of Paid Sick Days

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:46:44 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: It's amazing to me that 39 percent of private-sector workers do not receive paid sick leave.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Tens of millions of people, or about 40 percent of all private-sector workers, do not receive paid sick days, and as a result many of them cannot afford to stay home when they are ill. Even some companies that provide paid sick days have policies that make it difficult to call in sick, like giving demerits each time someone misses a day.

Public health experts say policies like these encourage many people with H1N1, commonly called swine flu, to report to work despite official warnings from the government and most companies that they should stay home.

Despite such recommendations, some employees say they have no choice but to go to work sick.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 39 percent of private-sector workers do not receive paid sick leave.