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Seen & Heard Today

This story from Kansas City is such a good view of innovation.  The US Prison in Leavenworth, Kansas has a farm. Quote: “Carefully screened volunteer inmates from Leavenworth’s minimum-security prison camp are allowed outside the secure perimeter to grow tomatoes, potatoes, sweet corn, watermelon, onions, radishes and other crops. Prisoners who work on the farm are serving time for a variety of non-violent crimes, including wire fraud, mail fraud and embezzlement.  “Last year more than 80,000 pounds of produce grown by prisoners went to help feed the needy throughout the greater Kansas City area. This year, estimates put donated produce at up to 200,000 pounds.”

Here is the great “Herding Cats” commercial.  No particular reason for posting it; just came across it at Michael Hyatt’s blog and decided to make it available here.  It is one of the best TV commercials ever made.

And, hey, as long as we’re looking at commercials, this one by Airbus will blow your socks off.  The future of air travel…I hope. So gorgeously innovative.

OK, one more; you really need to see this artist — Liu Bolin — who camouflages himself into his art.  He does it as a protest against the Chinese government.  They tried to shut him down.  Brilliant.  I guess his message to them is “You can try to destroy me, but I’m in the trees, the trash, and the telephone booths.”  Great artistic statement.

 

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Seen & Heard Today

June is Goat Trauma Awareness Month.

Michael Hyatt has one of the best blogs on the Internet.  Helpful, wise, and succinct.  He often uses guest bloggers.  Today’s is a fine essay on building trust.

Ever wonder why “Christian” movies and novels are so bad?  This essay from my friend, Tony Woodlief, on Bad Christian Art, is a very probing look at that.

Speaking of movies and novels, I highly recommend two movies.  The King’s Speech and The Rabbit Hole.  Of course, you don’t need me to tell you about the first one…Best Picture winner, etc.  But, please consider The Rabbit Hole too.  It is a very entertaining and engrossing meditation on grief.

And, I also recommend the novel, Innocent, by Scott Turow.  It is the sequel to his Presumed Innocent.  I could not put the thing down.  Pulls you in and does not let you go.

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Seen & Heard Today

This past weekend, I heard my friend Steve Fry preach at a conference.  Among other things, his message examined our therapeutic approach to God.  Great line: “Israel wasn’t healed from Egypt; they were freed from Egypt.”

I like gadgets. My iPhone 4 is one of my favorites. I plan to buy more; I really do want/need an iPad2. But, I also deeply resonate to this Washington Post article.

The relationship between humans and pets is such a profound mystery.  This story really throws a yard light on that mystery.  Touching.

These Moment of Impact photos will just blow your socks off.  In fact, I’m sure this guy could do EXACTLY that.

So an academic strikes up a conversation with a seat mate — a guy who has earthbound experience in this economy.  Really Good article by Stephen Carter in Bloomberg.  “Economic Stagnation Explained at 30,000 Feet.”

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Seen & Heard Today

My brother, Vernon, went to a funeral in Colorado last weekend. He so loved the simple pine box casket. Here’s the website. http://www.naturescasket.com/index.html

So, what could be better than wine or chocolate?  Having them together.  Seriously, this article sure convinced me that good health require eating chocolate while drinking wine.

This little gem from REASON — “Dear Congress, Your Credit Application Has Been Turned Down — is laser-guided, funny, and priceless.

I’ve now lost 20 pounds since January!  Just had to tell somebody.

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Seen & Heard Today

Every Saturday, the online Wall Street Journal carries a “Five Best Books” column. Written by an expert on certain themes, each one features his or her opinion of the five best books on that topic. I read it every Saturday. This past Saturday’s edition is on the essential reading of World War 2.

This Fred Astaire dance will blow your socks off.  5:38 long and obviously done in one long shot.  And, how on earth did he dance on the ceiling?  This was before sophisticated graphics and special effects.  Thanks to the Internet Monk for posting this.

Netspeak is a new (at least to me) website which helps you to find a phrase or quote when you can only remember part of it.  I thank Seth Godin’s blog for passing this along.

Elizabeth Scalia posted a very interesting essay on placing periods outside of quotation marks.  I too have noticed that periods are creeping outside the closing quotation mark.  The piece also diverts into semicolons.  Very entertaining.

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Seen & Heard Today

George Will has turned 70.  His column on the wonders of reaching three score and ten is a delight.

Nice piece on martinis.  Carries another version of Churchill’s recipe for martinis…glance at the vermouth while pouring the gin.

Good news: analysts expect gasoline to drop 75 cents per gallon by summer.  I paid $4.17 in Gatlinburg a few days ago.  Highest of my life.  The lowest, you ask?  14 cents per gallon.  1968.  Shawnee, Oklahoma.

This post from John Goodman’s blog on health care is one brilliant analysis.  Short version: we could easily spend ALL our national budget on health care.  So, what is the point where we have to cut back?

I spent some time in Boise, Idaho this week.  One thing I learned.  It is pronounced BoiSe, not BoiZe.

 

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Seen & Heard Today

This video of 300,000 starlings in flight is hypnotically beautiful.  It’s like catching a fleeting glimpse of God’s perfection.

Michael Hyatt’s blog is one of the very best.  His latest posting is so valuable.

I do not know Dan Bouchelle, but I appreciate this piece in his “Confessions of a Former Preacher” blog.  This particular essay is on resisting the urge to squash hope in the young.  Anyone over 40 should read it.

I really love Garrison Keillor’s “The Writer’s Almanac.”  A recent edition carried this gorgeous and evocative poem.

The tao of touch

by Marge Piercy

What magic does touch create
that we crave it so. That babies
do not thrive without it. That
the nurse who cuts tough nails
and sands calluses on the elderly
tells me sometimes men weep
as she rubs lotion on their feet.

Yet the touch of a stranger
the bumping or predatory thrust
in the subway is like a slap.
We long for the familiar, the open
palm of love, its tender fingers.
It is our hands that tamed cats
into pets, not our food.

The widow looks in the mirror
thinking, no one will ever touch
me again, never. Not hold me.
Not caress the softness of my
breasts, my inner thighs, the swell
of my belly. Do I still live
if no one knows my body?

We touch each other so many
ways, in curiosity, in anger,
to command attention, to soothe,
to quiet, to rouse, to cure.
Touch is our first language
and often, our last as the breath
ebbs and a hand closes our eyes.

“The tao of touch” by Marge Piercy, from The Hunger Moon: New & Selected Poems, 1980-2010. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Reprinted with permission

 

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