Guerilla Gardening

More than a dozen people, some wearing orange protective gear, pulled rakes and shovels from a dingy shopping cart and started working on a parched patch of land along a busy off-ramp of Highway 101, the Hollywood Freeway.

It was a Saturday night and drivers whooshed past on their way to the Sunset Strip club scene.

But the crew was undeterred, and by the wee hours, the group had transformed the blight into bloom with green bushes and an array of colorful flowers.

City workers on overtime? Nope, no budget for that. These were "guerilla gardeners," a global movement of the grass-roots variety where people seek to beautify empty or overgrown public space, usually under the cover of darkness and without the permission of municipal officials.

"What we're fighting is neglect," said guerrilla gardening guru Richard Reynolds of London, founder of the Web site guerillagardening.org.

Going Green requires 1%

According to the Stern Review, compiled by Sir Nicholas Stern, Former Chief Economist of the World Bank, an investment of just 1% of the world’s GDP is required to mitigate the effects of climate change. If not done so we could face a recession of up to 20% of the Global GDP.

Most countries in the world today spend atleast 5-10% of their GDP on arms, military and defense equipment - and yet we excuse ourselves saying that we do not have the funding to invest in environment policies, alternative energy or in advanced technologies for reducing carbon pollution in the air.

All we need is 1% !!!

-- Chirag [via investwise]

The Experience Dividend

With millions of Baby Boomers poised to leave the workforce within the next decade, many of us want to find ways to contribute from our vast wells of experience and knowledge. We want more freedom of expression in our lives instead of continuing what might be a lukewarm commitment to a full-time job.

Willard Wigan

Willard Wigan MBE (born 1957) is a sculptor from Birmingham, England. He was awarded an MBE for services to art in July 2007.[1]

He is the creator of the world's smallest sculptures, often taking months to complete one, working between heartbeats to avoid hand tremors [2] "You have to control the whole nervous system, you have to work between the heartbeat - the pulse of your finger can destroy the work." Wigan uses a tiny surgical blade to carve microscopic figures out of rice, and fragments of grains of sand and sugar, which are then mounted on pinheads. To paint his creations, he uses a hair plucked from a dead fly (the fly has to have died from natural causes, as he refuses to kill them for the sake of his art). His sculptures have included a Santa Claus and a copy of the FIFA World Cup trophy, both about 0.005mm (0.0002in) tall, and a boxing ring with Muhammad Ali figure which fits onto the head of a match.

[via Donna spam]

cheap weed killer

Betty's caregiver (one of them) told me to use salt water to kill off koa. I figured if it could kill koa, it should be able to kill weeds. I wasn't sure if it was true, but apparently it is.

If there is an area where you don't want *anything* growing back, salt water is a great way to kill off weeds and keep them from coming back. I use 1 part salt to 2 parts water.

(And more)

*** [7/9/13] Just looked up natural weed killers recently and sure enough, I see this post from Roy on facebook.  The recipes are similar, but the first one recommends pickling vinegar since it has higher acetic acid.  But I didn't see it when I went to Foodland.  Maybe I'll try apple cider vinegar since we have an old bottle.

*** [5/7/14] more from facebook

*** [5/9/14] the truth about Natural Weed Killer exposed

[5/14/14] 9 Natural Ways to kill weeds (from Bob Vila.com)

[5/24/14] Weed-Be-Gone (similar to previous)

recycling shoes

As part of the Nike campaign, athletic shoes also may be dropped off at any fire station on Oahu between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m., if the companies are in, except for meal times -- noon to 12:45 p.m. and 5 to 5:45 p.m. -- said Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Capt. Terry Seelig.

Any brand of athletic shoe is accepted, as long as it does not contain metal, cleats or spikes. Also, make sure the shoes are not muddy or wet, tied together or placed in plastic bags, Seelig said.

The shoes are recycled into material used in sport surfaces, such as basketball and tennis courts and playgrounds.

what good is travel?

Travel shows us that Americans are among the haves in a have-not world. In contrast nearly half of this world's people live on $2 a day. And travel teaches you that, if you know what's good for you, you don't want to be filthy rich is a desperately poor world. It's just not a pretty picture.

[so that's how the world views the United States?]

-- Rick Steves, Costco Connection, February 2008

Hawaii's Best 2008

Now it's time for the one that really counts -- the readers' poll from the Star-Bulletin & MidWeek, the publications that combined reach more readers in Hawaii each week than any others.

We asked you to let us know your favorites in four categories: Shopping & Retail, Services, Entertainment, and Restaurants & Food. You let us know in the large numbers that give this poll authority and meaning.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to mark your favorites. It's because of you and your thoughtful participation that our annual poll -- and this is the sixth! -- receives all the attention that it does.

So sit back, relax and see how your favorites compare with those of other readers.

* * *

2009 Edition

2007 Edition

2006 Edition

2004 Edition

* * *

Hawaii's Best Restaurants

Best Restaurants 2006

Best Restaurants 2005

Best Restaurants 2004

If You Smell What Barack is cooking

And.. If You Smell What Barack Is Cooking

How Obama Inspires

Over the past several years, I have been interviewing, observing, and writing about business, academic, and political leaders who have the ability to influence their audience—leaders who fire up the rest of us. Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is one of them. For a look at what makes Obama's public speaking skills so effective, I outline four techniques he's mastered and explain ways to use them in your own repertoire. -- Carmine Gallo

* * *

We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come.

We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

(APPLAUSE)

For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.

It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.

Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.

And so, tomorrow, as we take the campaign south and west, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas, that the hopes of the little girl who goes to the crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A., we will remember that there is something happening in America, that we are not as divided as our politics suggest, that we are one people, we are one nation.

And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can.

(on the other hand)

Free books

Only Books World [link via frwr-news] has a few interesting books in pdf format. (Not totally sure how legal this site is though.)

Here's a few titles that caught my eye:

How Would You Move Mount Fuji?

50 Self-Help Classics

Living the 80/20 Way

* * *

Googling came up with this page of the Best Places to Get Free Books - The Ultimate Guide

*** [4/10/10 on a tip from pat@chucks_angels]

Free books you can read on the Kindle (or PC)

Jack La Lanne

Seventy-eight years ago La Lanne experienced a dramatic conversion to the simple yet arduous way of life to which he has faithfully devoted himself. Because he feels exercising and eating sensibly literally saved his life, he has little patience with health or fitness shortcuts. He advocates consistent exercise and eating well. He believes all other approaches are false doctrines that will lead to disappointment.

The simplicity of his approach to health and his infectious enthusiasm for fitness have won him millions of devoted followers. His charisma and his muscular body make his message palatable and convincing.

-- Costco Connection, January 2008

my new camera

After 9 years of using my Sony Mavica FD (which stands for floppy disk) I figured it was time for a new camera, especially with Christie graduating. (And actually I haven't used any camera for a number of months now.) Actually I had a Fuji FinePix too, but that ain't working well if at all now.

I was looking at the Amazon reviews at the cameras on sale at Circuit City, the Canon Powershot A470 in particular, I noticed somebody talking about the Kodak Z712. The feature that grabbed me is the 12x zoom. My Sony has a 10x and I felt that I didn't want to take a step back by getting a 3x which is what most of the budget cameras have these days.

Anyway, I'm still playing with it. But I like it so far. Though I'm somewhat disappointed at its performance at distance shots (or shots without flash) in low light conditions.

Here's the review at DC Resource.

Harvey Korman

Harvey Korman, an Emmy-winning comedic actor best known for playing the self-described "luminous second banana" for a decade on television's "The Carol Burnett Show" and for starring in such Mel Brooks films as "Blazing Saddles," has died. He was 81.

Korman, who had undergone several major operations, died Thursday at UCLA Medical Center of complications from an abdominal aortic aneurysm that ruptured four months ago, his daughter, Kate Korman, told The Times.

With a knack for physical humor and oddball accents, Korman was a master sketch comic who did his best-known work on Burnett's variety show beginning in 1967 in an ensemble that included Tim Conway.

children burn toy guns

GAUHATI, India -- Hundreds of children from a village in India's insurgency-wracked northeast have burned their toy guns in a symbolic protest against the violence that surrounds them, activists said Thursday.

The children, all younger than 13, held their protest Wednesday, carrying placards reading "We hate toy guns, We love football" as they marched to the local high school playground to light the bonfire.

Villagers said the protest was a reaction to the violence in Manipur, where at least 17 rebel groups have been fighting for independent homelands or autonomy. More than 5,000 people have been killed in the fighting in the past 10 years.

free online classifieds

The world's leading retailer is once again taking a stab at a hot online trend -- this time, free Internet classifieds. Taking a potshot at both Craigslist and eBay's Kijiji, Wal-Mart has turned to Oodle to power a platform for the sale of local goods.

Living with Less

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Earth cannot sustain our continuous overindulgence in its resources. We have grown to be a culture that figures out how much we can get away with instead of how little we can get by with. From eating super-sized meals, to driving gas-guzzling cars, to living in big homes and using lots of water and electricity, we tend to overdo it. By and large, we are relatively unaware how much we have and use.

While living in Africa serving in the Peace Corps, I saw how little most people survive on and what ingenious use they made of "trash." For example, they cut up metal cans to collect rain water from their roofs and fashioned sandals from discarded tires.

I greatly appreciate our comforts and abundance but am dismayed at how much we waste. I wish we could load up Matson liners with all the extra stuff we accumulate for garage sales and donate it to needy countries.

If each of us does our part to cut down our consumption, donate to others and share our resources in the spirit of aloha, the whole world would be more sustainable. Let's do more by using less.

Suzanne Hammer
Honolulu

Speed Reading

I don't know how good this Magic Speed Reading software is, but the site has some interesting articles on how to speed read. Or at least, how not to read so slow.

Steve & Barry's (my kind of store)

Steve & Barry’s, for the uninitiated, is to fashion what Tower once was to music. Steve & Barry’s is manna, a store that sells stylish celebrity-branded clothes at prices that are absurdly inexpensive, lower than those at Old Navy, H & M or Forever 21, undercutting even Wal-Mart by as much as half.

At its 264 barnlike stores in malls across the country, including the perpetually mobbed one at the Manhattan Mall in Midtown, Steve & Barry’s offers an assortment of flowery sundresses designed by Sarah Jessica Parker ($8.98), heart-printed hoodies by the Nickelodeon alumna Amanda Bynes ($8.98) and basketball shoes by the New York Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury ($8.98). Lines at the registers are often 20 deep.

The question on everyone’s lips: How do they make a decent dress or a jacket, with sleeves, or a pair of functioning shoes for $8.98?

Colin Powell on hard power and soft power

There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power -- and here I think you're referring to military power -- then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can't deal with.

I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.

So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world.

(Applause.)

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

Complete Transcript:
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/16869.htm

Colin Powell quote

You've Got Propaganda!

Irena Sendler

Fate may have led Irena Sendler to the moment almost 70 years ago when she began to risk her life for the children of strangers. But for this humble Polish Catholic social worker, who was barely 30 when one of history's most nightmarish chapters unfolded before her, the pivotal influence was something her parents had drummed into her.

"I was taught that if you see a person drowning," she said, "you must jump into the water to save them, whether you can swim or not."

When the Nazis occupying Poland began rounding up Jews in 1940 and sending them to the Warsaw ghetto, Sendler plunged in.

With daring and ingenuity, she saved the lives of more than 2,500 Jews, most of them children, a feat that went largely unrecognized until the last years of her life.

Sendler, 98, who died of pneumonia Monday in Warsaw, has been called the female Oskar Schindler, but she saved twice as many lives as the German industrialist, who sheltered 1,200 of his Jewish workers. Unlike Schindler, whose story received international attention in the 1993 movie "Schindler's List," Sendler and her heroic actions were almost lost to history until four Kansas schoolgirls wrote a play about her nine years ago.

The lesson Sendler taught them was that "one person can make a difference," Megan Felt, one of the authors of the play, said Monday.

"Irena wasn't even 5 feet tall, but she walked into the Warsaw ghetto daily and faced certain death if she was caught. Her strength and courage showed us we can stand up for what we believe in, as well," said Felt, who is now 23 and helps raise funds for aging Holocaust rescuers.

Sendler was born Feb. 15, 1910, in Otwock, a small town southeast of Warsaw. She was an only child of parents who devoted much of their energies to helping workers.

She was especially influenced by her father, a doctor who defied anti-Semites by treating sick Jews during outbreaks of typhoid fever. He died of the disease when Sendler was 9.

She studied at Warsaw University and was a social worker in Warsaw when the German occupation of Poland began in 1939. In 1940, after the Nazis herded Jews into the ghetto and built a wall separating it from the rest of the city, disease, especially typhoid, ran rampant. Social workers were not allowed inside the ghetto, but Sendler, imagining "the horror of life behind the walls," obtained fake identification and passed herself off as a nurse, allowed to bring in food, clothes and medicine.

By 1942, when the deadly intentions of the Nazis had become clear, Sendler joined a Polish underground organization, Zegota. She recruited 10 close friends -- a group that would eventually grow to 25, all but one of them women -- and began rescuing Jewish children.

She and her friends smuggled the children out in boxes, suitcases, sacks and coffins, sedating babies to quiet their cries. Some were spirited away through a network of basements and secret passages. Operations were timed to the second. One of Sendler's children told of waiting by a gate in darkness as a German soldier patrolled nearby. When the soldier passed, the boy counted to 30, then made a mad dash to the middle of the street, where a manhole cover opened and he was taken down into the sewers and eventually to safety.

Decades later, Sendler was still haunted by the parents' pleas, particularly of those who ultimately could not bear to be apart from their children.

"The one question every parent asked me was 'Can you guarantee they will live?' We had to admit honestly that we could not, as we did not even know if we would succeed in leaving the ghetto that day. The only guarantee," she said, "was that the children would most likely die if they stayed."

Most of the children who left with Sendler's group were taken into Roman Catholic convents, orphanages and homes and given non-Jewish aliases. Sendler recorded their true names on thin rolls of paper in the hope that she could reunite them with their families later. She preserved the precious scraps in jars and buried them in a friend's garden.

In 1943, she was captured by the Nazis and tortured but refused to tell her captors who her co-conspirators were or where the bottles were buried. She also resisted in other ways. According to Felt, when Sendler worked in the prison laundry, she and her co-workers made holes in the German soldiers' underwear. When the officers discovered what they had done, they lined up all the women and shot every other one. It was just one of many close calls for Sendler.

During one particularly brutal torture session, her captors broke her feet and legs, and she passed out. When she awoke, a Gestapo officer told her he had accepted a bribe from her comrades in the resistance to help her escape. The officer added her name to a list of executed prisoners. Sendler went into hiding but continued her rescue efforts.

Felt said that Sendler had begun her rescue operation before she joined the organized resistance and helped a number of adults escape, including the man she later married. "We think she saved about 500 people before she joined Zegota," Felt said, which would mean that Sendler ultimately helped rescue about 3,000 Polish Jews.

When the war ended, Sendler unearthed the jars and began trying to return the children to their families. For the vast majority, there was no family left. Many of the children were adopted by Polish families; others were sent to Israel.

In 1965, she was recognized by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust authority, as a Righteous Gentile, an honor given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Nazi reign. In her own country, however, she was unsung, in part because Polish anti-Semitism remained strong after the war and many rescuers were persecuted.

Her status began to change in 2000, when Felt and her classmates learned that the woman who had inspired them was still alive. Through the sponsorship of a local Jewish organization, they traveled to Warsaw in 2001 to meet Sendler, who helped the students improve and expand the play. Called "Life in a Jar," it has been performed more than 250 times in the United States, Canada and Poland and generated media attention that cast a spotlight on the wizened, round-faced nonagenarian.

After each performance, Felt and the other cast members passed a jar for Sendler, raising enough money to move her into a Catholic nursing home with round-the-clock care. They and the teacher who assigned them the play project, Norman Conard, started the Life in a Jar Foundation, which has raised more than $70,000 to help pay for medical and other needs of Holocaust rescuers.

Last year, Sendler was honored by the Polish Senate and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which brought dozens of reporters to her door. She told one of them she was wearying of the attention.

"Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth," she said, "and not a title to glory."

Sendler, who was the last living member of her group of rescuers, is survived by a daughter and a granddaughter.

For more information on Irena Sendler, or to contribute to the Life In a Jar Foundation, go to www.irenasendler.org

elaine.woo@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-sendler13-2008may13,0,4435918.story

Think Mental Models

How normal people become really smart

Most humans do much of their problem solving not by searching selectively, but through simply recognizing the relevant cues in situations similar to those they have experienced before (solution by recognition).

“The better decision maker has at his/her disposal repertoires of possible actions; checklists of things to think about before he acts; and he has mechanisms in his mind to evoke these, and bring these to his conscious attention when the situations for decision arise.” -- Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate

This website, inspired by the work of Charles Munger, provides over 100 checklists that can be brought consciously to mind to aid the thinking process.

Each model is described by at least one distinguished user. Examples include Warren Buffett, Richard Feynman, Robert Rubin and Peter Drucker, among others.

[from Dah Hui Lau]

Dalai Lama Renaissance

I saw in the Hi Life section of the 5/8/08 Star-Bulletin (evidently this section is not on the web) that the film, Dalai Lama Renaissance, was being shown at the Unity Chuck of Honolulu.

"Narrated by Harrison Ford, the 80-minute documentary tells the story of 40 of the world's most innovative Western thinkers who travel to India in the Himalayan mountains to meet with the Dalai Lama to try and solve many of the world's problems. What happened was surprising and unexpected, as an 18-person, five-camera crew documented much of the weeklong meeting and exploratoin of the future of mankind.

* * *

Actually I see this film opens one day after Indiana Jones 4.

I didn't know much about the Dalai Lama until I bought the movie Seven Years In Tibet at Safeway for 5 bucks. Then I bought 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama used at Blockbuster. Both interesting.

Then I saw recently two DVDs being sold at Costco: A Path to Happiness (I see some of it on youtube) and The Art of Peace. Oddly, Amazon says the latter DVD is due to be released on July 1.

Colin Powell's Rules

I found this old clipping in (one of my) stacks of stuff. I don't know how old it is, but the paper is yellowing.

Colin Powell has 13 rules by which he has collected over the years and written down on a small white card labeled, "Colin Powell's Rules." Many of his admirers in the Pentagon keep a copy at their desks or in their wallets.

1. It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.

2. Get mad, then get over it.

3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.

4. It can be done!

5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it.

6. Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.

7. You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.

8. Check small things.

9. Share credit.

10. Remain calm. Be kind.

11. Have a vision. Be demanding.

12. Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers.

13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.


A search on the net turned up Maureen Dowd's somewhat cynical revisions.

feng shui and clutter

The feng shui perspective recognizes clutter as a blockage to the chi -- or energy flow -- in your house or office. Blockages of any kind are seen as inhibiting growth, health and harmony, so de-cluttering is often the first step in implementing feng shui not only in a home, but also within yourself.

* * *

A great book dealing with this topic is Karen Kingston's Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui. I read it and proceeded to clear up some clutter. (Unfortunately, looking around I see I still have a long long way to go. But I think it's better than before. Still working at it. You may have better results. I like to do things the slow way, a little bit by bit.)

Lob Songs

I'm giving away my copy of Lob Songs (I believe I made two, but I don't know where the other one is).

Anyway, in case I want to make another one, here's the list.

1. Book of Lob 2:18
2. Dedicated to the One I Lob 2:03
3. Will You Still Lob Me Tomorrow 2:41
4. All You Need Is Lob 3:47
5. She Lobs You 2:19
6. All My Lobbing 2:05
7. And I Lob Her 2:27
8. You Can't Hurry Lob 2:53
9. When A Man Lobs A Woman 3:45
10. I Just Called To Say I Lob You 4:21
11. How Sweet It Is (To Be Lobbed By You) 3:33
12. Crazy Lob 2:58
13. Could You Be Lobbed 3:55
14. Can You Feel The Lob Tonight 2:56
15. Can You Feel The Lob Tonight / Elton John 3:59
16. I Just Can't Stop Lobbing You 4:13
17. Saving All My Lob For You 3:54
18. Greatest Lob Of All 4:48
19. Greatest Lob of All (Junior Vasquez Mix) 4:49
20. Lob You All The Time 2:37

Actually I tried to get William Hung's version of Can You Feel The Lob Tonight, but I think the CD is a little off and it couldn't be extracted.

The Ultimate Sinatra Documentary

Financial adviser Guy Steele knows a bit more than most people about legendary singer and actor Frank Sinatra (he wrote a time line of Sinatra's life that amounts to more than 1,000 pages), and he shares his vast knowledge with Hawaii Public Radio listeners Sundays at 5 p.m. on 89.3 KIPO.

This month marks the 10th anniversary of Sinatra's death, and Steele will honor the occasion with an overview of Sinatra's music and movies -- featuring plenty of Sinatra's most popular hits -- on his May 18 show.

Steele began "Sinatra: The Music and the Man" in 1998, just after Sinatra died. "I wanted to produce the ultimate Sinatra documentary," said Steele, whose interviews with musicians and arrangers such as Billy May provide behind-the-scenes anecdotes that supplement the music he selects for the entertaining hour. But Steele's approach is unusual in that every show over the past 10 years (except for a few repeats) reflects Sinatra's life and career in chronological order. The early 1998 shows brought listeners back to 1939. Now, in 2008, Steele has reached 1963. He covers "the good and the bad" from a tiny recording studio in his home.

Yawns

They drive hybrid cars, if they drive at all, shop at local stores, if they shop at all and pay off their credit cards every month, if they use them at all.

They may have disposable income, but whatever they make, they live below their means, in a conscious effort to tread lightly on the earth.

They are a new breed of Gen Xers and Ys, Young and Wealthy but Normal, or Yawns.

The acronym comes from The Sunday Telegraph of London, which noted that an increasing number of rich young Britons are socially aware, concerned about the environment and given less to consuming than to giving money to charity.

Yawns sound dull, but they are the new movers and shakers, their dreams big and bold. They are men and women in their 20s, 30s and 40s who want nothing less than to change the world and save the planet.

Free TV on the internet

While browsing with LocateTV, I noticed there are some free episodes of some old TV series at AOL video.

Among them are The A Team, The Addams Family, Adventures of Briscoe County, Jr., Adventures of Superman, Alias Smith and Jones, The Animatrix, Astro Boy. And that's just the A's!

A few more: Bewitched, The Bob Newhart Show, Charlie's Angels, F Troop, Family Ties, Fantasy Island, The Flintstones, Fractured Fairy Tales, The Fujitive, Gilligan's Island, Hawaii Five-O, Heroes, I Dream of Jeannie, I Spy, Ironside, The Jetsons, Jonny Quest, Kojak, Kung Fu, Late Nite with Conan O'Brien, Lost In Space, MacGyver, Magilla Gorilla, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Mary Tyler Moore Show, McHale's Navy, Miami Vice, Monk, Mr. Bill, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, My Favorite Martian, Numb3rs, The Office, Partridge Family, People's Court, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Simon and Simon, Speed Racer, Spider-Man, Star Trek, Three Stooges, Thundercats, The Tonight Show, Underdog, V, WKRP in Cincinnati, Welcome Back Kotter, What's Happening!, Wonder Woman. (To name a few.)

[5/14/08] I see that Star Trek is also available directly on CBS.com. I assume these are the new digitally enhanced episodes.  [10/10/14]  New link.  Also available at startrek.com.

[9/5/08] See also hulu.com.

[7/11/12]
King of Queens on youtube.  [10/10/14 link no longer active]
Mary Tyler Moore on youtube [first three season on hulu]
Dick Van Dyke Show at hulu
Bob Newhart Show at hulu
Green Acres at hulu [but not on hulu plus]

[4/7/16] It is with great sadness that we announce the closing of LocateTV. 

The website will be shut down on April 4th, 2016, with registered users no longer able to access shortlists, My Picks, or receive weekly digest emails. 

Born from a desire to find the new and the niche in telly, LocateTV grew from the tombstones of old to the wonderfully rich site it is today, with the unique ability to connect you with the TV you want to watch always at the heart of our mission. 

We are heartbroken that after just over seven glorious years it is time for us to hang up our TV guide hat. We are eternally grateful to everyone who had supported the site over the years, from vendors, content editors and developers, to our fantastic users — you made our passion a reality. 

Thank you.

My Philosophy

This Sally Forth comic strip kind of sums up my philosophy of life. "Leave the earth a little better than you found it."

Just try to do what you can to make things a little better step by step. (Others try to do it in big jumps.) But maybe my steps are too small.

Oddly googling the phrase brought little results. However Yahoo had a good answer.

[I remember remember reading something in one of my education books that you want to always have the feeling that you're making progress. Or words to that effect. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly where it was now.]

Age and Happiness

It turns out the golden years really are golden.

Eye-opening new research finds the happiest Americans are the oldest, and older adults are more socially active than the stereotype of the lonely senior suggests. The two go hand-in-hand: Being social can help keep away the blues.

"The good news is that with age comes happiness," said study author Yang Yang, a University of Chicago sociologist. "Life gets better in one's perception as one ages."

The Happiness Project

From Gretchen Rubin's blog, The Happiness Project.

I'm working on a book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT--a memoir about the year I spent test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study I could find, whether from Aristotle or St. Therese or Martin Seligman or Oprah. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will gather these rules for living and report on what works and what doesn’t. On this daily blog, I recount some of my adventures and insights as I grapple with the challenge of being happier. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will hit the shelves in late 2009 (HarperCollins).

No One Can Touch Her

While looking at some Longstreet videos with Bruce Lee at youtube, I noticed that komodragon, the guy who uploaded the videos, also uploaded the movie No One Can Touch Her. Also known as 13 Evil Bandits and Against Drunken Cat's Paws. This is a chop-socky flick starring Chia Ling aka Judy Lee. I guess she was never a huge star as I can't find her in Bey Logan's book Hong Kong Action Cinema. But it looked just funky enough to give to Joyce as a present.

Unfortunately, I don't see it on DVD at Amazon.com, but only some highly priced video tapes.

Looking around, I don't see that many Judy Lee movies. One candidate is Shaolin Invincibles which is available at Amazon. She's not the star of this movie, but the review sounds quite promising.

* * * [6/18/08]

Here's another candidate while browsing the Dragon Dynasty website. My Young Auntie. They have a few videos on youtube. Dragon Dynasty has now released the classic female kung fu movie, Come Drink With Me. Heroes of the East also looks interesting. And more.

[7/1/12 one more]
Shaolin Invincibles (featuring kung fu fighting gorillas)

Who Is Stef Wertheimer?

Early on, Stef Wertheimer, the founder of Iscar Metalworking, a manufacturer of industrial precision metal-cutting tools, decided that entrepreneurship was an answer to social and economic problems.

During the 1980s, Wertheimer spent four years as a member of the Knesset, Israel's Parliament. It was there that he came to the conclusion that he could accomplish more through industry and entrepreneurship than he ever could through government or politics. An early social entrepreneur (see BusinessWeek.com, 12/14/07), he launched his flagship industrial park, Tefen, based on his belief that creating jobs and economic prosperity in the Middle East would diffuse conflicts. Sitting in his office overlooking the Galilee, he says: "What makes peace? The answer is jobs."

The Last Lecture

The Lessons I'm Leaving Behind
By Randy Pausch

At many colleges, professors are asked to give a “last lecture.” In this talk, they ruminate on what matters most to them. As they speak, audiences mull the same question: What wisdom would you impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?

Last year, I agreed to give a last lecture at Carnegie Mellon University, where I’m a professor in the computer science department. A few weeks later, I learned that I had only months to live—I was dying of pancreatic cancer.

I knew I could cancel. I have three young children, I’m married to Jai, the woman of my dreams, and there were so many things to be done. But by speaking, I knew I could put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children, Dylan, Logan and Chloe. Here’s what I want to share.

-- Adapted from the book The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow. Copyright © 2008 Randy Pausch. To be published by Hyperion. All rights reserved

* * *

ABC News

7 Wonders of Hawaii

Kilauea Volcano

Diamond Head

Hanauma Bay

Haleakala

Iolani Palace

Na Pali Coast

Waimea Canyon

The seven sites were clear winners among the voters

I Am Your Brother

The highlight of American Idol season 7: Renaldo Lapuz Brothers Forever aka "I Am Your Brother"

Still he's no William Hung. (Who is?)

mysoju.com

Watch Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese Drama and Movies online at mysoju.com.

[12/27/11] I was playing around with the Roku yesterday at Best Buy. Not bad, though it sometimes pauses for long periods of time (I assume because of internet traffic and/or buffering). Anyway one of the choices was kdrama (korean drama). Looking it up on the internet now, it's not generally available for viewing over the internet, but as an Apple app.

Eating Places

Blazin' Steaks

Kahai Street Kitchen

Be Happier the Amazon way

Happiness can be elusive. We have many millions of people suffering from various anxiety and depressive disorders. There is rampant drug abuse and alcoholism, and the divorce rate is skyrocketing. Prozac, Paxil, Xanax, and Ativan are as likely to be found in homes as Tylenol and Tums. We are looking for happiness in all the wrong places. If you're unhappy, you're about to learn why and what you can do about it. If you're already happy, you're about to learn how to possibly be happier and experience more joy and peace of mind.

-- A guide by Alan Gettis "Author of The Happiness Solution, and, Seven Times Down, Eight Times Up"


[4/1/08] just about all of us would welcome being happier -- it's even a part of our Declaration of Independence: the pursuit of happiness. Fortunately, we needn't flounder alone. There's a growing body of research on the topic.

Mastah Preddi fell from the sky

Fred Hargesheimer was shot down in the southwest Pacific on June 5, 1943. A lifetime later, he sits in his quiet California ranch house amid the snow and soaring sugar pines of the Sierra Nevada foothills.

The light blue eyes, at age 91, can't see as well as they once did. But when he looks back over 65 years, the smiling Minnesotan sees it all clearly — the struggle to survive, the native rescuers, the Japanese patrols and narrow escapes, the mother's milk that saved him. He remembers well his return to New Britain, the people's embrace, the fundraising and building, the children taught, the adults cured, the happy years beside the Bismarck Sea with Dorothy, his wife.

"I'm so grateful for getting shot out of the sky," he said.

Handicapping American Idol

Rodney Ho handicaps the top 12.

1. David Archuleta
The former “Star Search” winner is only 17 years old but has oodles of experience. He’s performed mature, nuanced, yet captivating takes on John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Phil Collins’ “Another Day in Paradise.” Odds to win: 3-2

2. Jason Castro
The shy dreadlocked Texan got virtu-ally no airtime before the top 24, but he instantly stood out with his soulful blue eyes and equally soulful voice. He is a solid dark horse and could sneak up on Archuleta. Odds: 4-1

3. Syesha Mercado
This is clearly the year for the guys. But “Idol” has never had a top 3 with-out at least one gal. Syesha’s combo of stage presence, vocal chops and in-triguing looks could help her outpace her fellow female competitors. Odds: 7-1

4. David Cook
The Oklahoma rocker possesses both confidence and pipes. His take on Lionel Richie’s wimp ballad “Hello” looked like a disaster on paper, but he gave it surprising rock cred. Odds: 10-1

5. David Hernandez
The minor uproar over his gay strip-ping past didn’t keep him from making the top 12. He arguably has the purest male voice in the competition. Smart song choices that show off his range could land him into the top 5. Odds: 12-1

6. Carly Smithson
Off-camera, the Irish native is warm and gabby. On-camera, she becomes this diva-like songstress. But in a quixotic way, that warmth seems to go AWOL when she performs. Odds: 20-1

7. Brooke White
She’s a modern-day Carly Simon, with a sweetness and sincerity that translate well in her performances. She successfully inserted coffee-house-style melancholy into what is normally an intense Pat Benatar song. Odds: 25-1

8. Michael Johns
Former club singer and Aussie trans-plant makes women swoon in a way that evokes a bit of late INXS singer Michael Hutchence. But he lacks the swagger. Odds: 30-1

9. Amanda Overmyer
Her “Munsters” hairstyle and raspy Bonnie Tyler voice make her stand out. Unfortunately, her appeal seems nar-row. When she goes off the rails (“Carry on Wayward Son”), she goes way off. Odds: 75-1

10. Ramiele Malubay
She’s cute and her vocals are solid, but her onstage persona has been deathly generic. Odds: 100-1

11. Chikezie Eze
He exudes some R&B charm but not nearly as much as past contestants such as Season 2 winner Ruben Studdard or Season 3’s George Huff. Odds: 1,000-1

12. Kristy Lee Cook
Since her wonderful first audition of “Amazing Grace,” this country singer from Oregon has failed to impress. Asia’h Epperson should have made the top 12 in her place. Odds: 500,000-1

Kahai Street Kitchen

I tried it. Pretty good taste at a pretty good price. Parking is a problem though.

Thoughts can make you healthy

Some people still are surprised to discover that thoughts can control physical sensation. “The body responds to mental input as if it were physically real,” explains Larry Dossey, a physician and an advocate for mind-body study since the 1980s. “Images create bodily changes—just as if the experience were really happening. For example, if you imagine yourself lying on a beach in the sun, you become relaxed, your peripheral blood vessels dilate, and your hands become warm, as in the real thing.”

Similarly, under clinical hypnosis, someone who is told he is being touched by a red-hot object often will produce a burn blister, even though the object touching him was at room temperature.

* * * (also)

Foods that help you lose weight

How to live to 100

-- from Parade, March 9, 2008

clean sponges

Don't keep using germ-ridden kitchen sponges to "wash" your dishes--rid them of bad bacteria every 3 to 5 days using cleaning methods proven effective by researchers at the USDA's Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland. Of the four disinfection methods tested, two made the grade:

Wash this way
Microwave the sponge for 1 minute, which kills virtually all bacteria, yeast, and mold. Just make sure it's wet first!
Run the sponge through a complete wash-and-dry dishwasher cycle; it's nearly as effective as microwaving.

...Not this way
Soaking a sponge in lemon juice for 1 minute had practically no effect on bacteria, yeast, or mold.
Soaking it in a bleach solution killed more bacteria than did lemon juice, but not all--and it had next to no effect on yeast or mold.

Hawaii from above

Over the last quarter-century, NASA has accumulated a vast collection of Earth imagery, including many stunning photos of Hawaii. The photos here, a small sample, show the wondrous range of possibilities: glimpses from high at the so-called Forbidden Island, Niihau; the dark green slopes of the archipelago's rain-fed windward shores; ocean shallows where humpbacks gather to bear and rear their young.

Deepak Chopra

People often believe they will be happy if they have robust health, enough money, professional success or a meaningful relationship. But really, "it's the other way around," according to Deepak Chopra. "If you're happy, you'll be successful. You'll be healthy. And you're likely to have good relationships. And the most powerful way to achieve that bliss? Quite simply, to make someone else feel good.

helpful books

Parade has a few interesting book picks for 2008. One Year to an Organized Life by Regina Leeds. The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky. Helping Me Help Myself.

* * *

Parade Picks for 10/5/08:

Wise Guy
‘It was like going to grad school on the greatest generation,” photographer/director Andrew Zuckerman says of making Wisdom (Abrams; $50), a book featuring interviews and portraits of 51 actors, artists, thinkers, and leaders over age 65. Among the participants are (from top) Clint Eastwood, Vanessa Redgrave, Judi Dench, and Nelson Mandela. “These are people who’ve affected change in the world,” says Zuckerman. “We can benefit from their wisdom.” So, what advice do they have to give? Eastwood offers: “Take your profession seriously; don’t take yourself seriously.” And from Mandela: “Peace is the greatest weapon for development that any people can have.” See more for yourself —the book comes with a companion DVD of Zuckerman’s Wisdom documentary.

Secret Santa Lives On

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Susan Dahl had spent four months homeless in Colorado and just been on a harrowing 10-hour bus trip through sleet and snow. Hungry and broke, all she wanted to do was get back to family in Minnesota.

That's when a tall man in a red coat and red hat sat next to her at the downtown bus station, talked to her quietly and then slipped her $100 on that recent December afternoon.

The man was doing the work of Larry Stewart, Kansas City's original Secret Santa who anonymously wandered city streets doling out $100 bills to anyone who looked like they needed it. Stewart died of cancer at age 58 earlier this year, but his legacy lives on.

Christmas is just a day

As Christmas draws near, John Foster won't be decorating a tree, shopping for last-minute gifts or working on a holiday sermon for his flock. After all, it's been 50 years since Christmas was anything more than a day of the week to him.

He's one of very few American Christian pastors who follow what used to be the norm in many Protestant denominations — rejecting the celebration of Christmas on religious grounds.

Five Realities

Gautama awakened to five realities, which are significant in negotiating our life process. They are the truth of suffering in life; the principle of interdependence, the essence of life; the middle path of balance and moderation as the style of life; and the understanding that nothing has a fixed nature or value but is constantly changing. Finally, there is the eightfold noble path focused on realizing these truths within our own experience.

Ziggy Marley's religion

“My No. 1 issue is love and people not having the ability to love each other,"says Ziggy, the founder of U.R.G.E. (Unlimited Resources Giving Enlightenment), a charitable organization that benefits a wide range of children’s causes in Jamaica. “This is what causes everything else to happen - poverty, starvation, wars. It’s caused by us not loving each other. If we could learn that lesson, that would be the solution.So my biggest problem is people not loving each other and not understanding that within the concepts of religion, which controls so many people’s mentality on this earth, and which causes so much strife and negative energy. If we could get across to them that the message is love, it’s not about what religion you are or how you practice it. The hypocrisy and confusion of religion is common because every religion thinks it’s right. And in every religion, most people want to change somebody into their religion. But love don’t change nobody. Love is something that makes you change yourself.”

Akaka and Abercrombie defend the Akaka Bill

Washington Post columnist George F. Will's distasteful column on the Akaka Bill, published in the Star-Bulletin Friday, demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of Hawaiian history and insensitivity to the rights of native people in Hawaii and across the nation. It is disappointing and outrageous to compare the systematic atrocities of the Nazis against Jews to the efforts of our host culture to exercise control over their culture and their destiny.

Hawaiians, like our nation's other indigenous people, share a history as political entities, exercising governance on lands which later became the United States.

The U.S. government played a key role in this sad saga in 1893, when U.S. Minister to the Kingdom John Stevens formally supported Westerners seeking to overthrow Queen Liliuokalani by ordering armed U.S. troops to land in Honolulu and take up military positions at key government buildings to intimidate the queen. To avoid bloodshed, she agreed to step down temporarily, believing that the United States would restore her to the throne when it learned what had happened. And, in fact, after incoming President Grover Cleveland received a full accounting of the facts, he characterized the action of Minister Stevens and the U.S. troops as an "act of war" and called for restoration of the kingdom.

chained dogs

Question: My neighbor chains his dog in his back yard. I am on good terms with him; what can I do to help the dog without causing tension between our families?

stem cells from skin cells?

Separate teams of scientists on two continents revealed Tuesday that they have created stem cells from human skin cells - a development that eventually could allow researchers to sidestep the contentious moral issues that have hobbled early studies in a promising field.

The startling breakthrough was hailed by parties on all sides of the stem cell debate because it raised the prospect that the controversial destruction of human embryos and the need to harvest eggs from women donors might one day no longer be needed.

Marvel Comics online

[12/5/10] I notice in the latest Edward R. Hamilton catalog, they are featuring some of the Marvel Masterworks volumes for $9.95. I was especially interested in Avengers and X-Men, so those were comics I bought when I was first starting to buy comics and I missed buying the earliest episodes. I still hope to sell my old issues on eBay (maybe... I'm hoping they don't disintegrate when I take them out of storage). Then I'll still have the issues and can sell the originals. That's the plan.

Apparently there were both hardcover and paperback versions of these. And there's a pretty comprehensive website devoted to these books.

The Avengers might become pretty popular now with the upcoming movie. There's also a new cartoon series now running on DisneyXD with a lot of the characters/plots adapted from the early days.

***

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Marvel is putting some of its older comics online Tuesday, hoping to reintroduce young people to the X-Men and Fantastic Four by showcasing the original issues in which such characters appeared.

It's a tentative move onto the Internet: Comics can only be viewed in a Web browser, not downloaded, and new issues will only go online at least six months after they first appear in print. Still, it represents perhaps the comics industry's most aggressive Web push yet.

... The publisher is hoping fans will be intrigued enough about the origins of those characters to shell out $9.99 a month, or $4.99 monthly with a year-long commitment. For that price, they'll be able to poke through, say, the first 100 issues of Stan Lee's 1963 creation "Amazing Spider-Man" at their leisure, along with more recent titles like "House of M" and "Young Avengers." Comics can be viewed in several different formats, including frame-by-frame navigation.

Ring expects Marvel's effort to put a slight dent in the back-issue segment of the comic shop industry, where rare, out-of-print titles sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay and at trade shows.

Though most comic fans are collectors, some simply want to catch up on the backstory of their favorite characters and would no longer have to pay top dollar to do so.

Happiness, Bhutan-style

Is there anyone who would say no to happiness? Bhutan is a place where the government decided to make the governing rule about happiness - the Gross National Happiness.

After all, Bhutan, which is isolated high in the Himalayas between China and India, has lush waterfalls, green forests, quaint villages and an active farming community.

Local veteran filmmakers Tom Vendetti, John Wehrheim and Robert Stone were among the first western filmmakers allowed in the country to share the story of Bhutan, which previously issued only 500 visas a year. The Oahu debut of their film, Bhutan: Taking The Middle Path To Happiness, screens Nov. 17 at the East-West Center and Nov. 18 at UHManoa.

*** 4/25/14

[After blogging about Tom Shadyac] I wonder if there's any documentaries about Bhutan on Netflix or Hulu?  Nope, nope.  Snagfilms has Into The Thunderdragon which is about bringing extreme unicycling into Bhutan, not quite on topic.  HitBliss?  Nope.

Googling, I see there are several movies out there.

Bhutan: Taking The Middle Path To Happiness (available on Amazon Instant Video)
Happiness (article)
The Happiest Place: A Journey Across Bhutan (kickstarter)
Bhutan: a Kingdom of Happiness
Bhutan: The Road to Happiness

Apparently, except for the first, these are hard to find.  Not apparently.

Here's a short documentary on youtube called Bhutan: The Kingdom Where GDP Is Measured In Happiness.

Another short feature called Bhutan - The happiest on Earth - One Life

Gross National Happiness in Bhutan (which is excerpts from a film)

Bhutan: The Last Place (from PBS)

The big person

Confucius, that fountainhead of Chinese philosophy, often contrasts the big person with the small one. In his Analects, we read, "The big person sees a question from all sides; the small person, only from one."

Be a tough customer

Becoming a savvy consumer entails more than finding designer clothes on a sale rack. It means taking the initiative to obtain high-quality services and products at the best possible prices -- and then being assertive if you're dissatisfied.

Read Up

"Buy -- don't be sold -- products," says Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America. Don't just go into an electronics store and ask the salesman to suggest a digital camera; do research on available features and prices first. Web sites including ConsumerReports.org, ConsumerWorld.org and PriceGrabber.com make it easy to compare items by quality and user reviews and check prices across stores and Web retailers.

In addition, be careful when shopping via Craigslist.org or Facebook.com's Marketplace application, particularly for expensive items. Since the Web sites do not take responsibility for fraudulent transactions, do extra research on the product and seller. Craigslist.org's help forum suggests meeting the seller in person and cautions against giving out financial information like bank-account numbers.

Keep Up

When you bring home your latest gadget or garment, don't toss the receipt in the trash. By keeping receipts and documents and, in some cases, packaging, you leave the option open to return items. Also, many stores offer a low-price guarantee: they will issue a credit or give cash back if the item's price drops or if you find it cheaper elsewhere.

Web sites like Shoeboxed.com, FileMyReceipt.com and MakeLifeEasy.com offer free tools to help organize and store your receipts online.

Also, promptly review all phone, utility, credit-card and insurance bills, watching for unclear "miscellaneous" fees and making sure you are charged only for services you've authorized and items you've bought.

Making Peace

A professional peacemaker says the process of reconciliation after political and ethnic violence requires listening to the perpetrators as well as the victims of human rights violations.

Reaching peace starts by seeking to understand who is "the other," said Glenda Wildschut, who was named to the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995 by Nelson Mandela, the first democratically elected president of that nation.

Taoist photography

If Zen masters practice their philosophy through the art of calligraphy and flower arrangement, why can't a photographer exercise his Taoist sensibilities through his camera?

The answer is, he can. Philippe Gross, a research psychologist who had his first experience behind the lens at age 8, empties his mind of mental chatter while observing the world with camera in hand. It's all about staying present, he says.

Achieving peace in schools

Bullying behavior reflects a symptom of a larger problem that is common throughout society. By addressing it at the source, we have the potential for not only diminishing the level of violence in the schools, but we might also diminish the level of chronic diseases and drug use.

My suggestion returns to the concept of "peace begins with me" -- achieving inner peace and self-acceptance. Research on the mainland and in Canada shows that two programs can have a profound impact on creating inner peace and, in doing so, can transform the school.

The first program, mindfulness, teaches people to take an inner "time out," to become quiet inside and peacefully observe and experience the fullness of the moment they are in and the thoughts that float across the surface of their minds. Research shows that children become calmer, more responsive and less reactive. Conflict in the playground and the classroom is greatly diminished with children who participate. One classroom went from having the most behavioral problems in school to having no behavior problems -- in only three weeks of mindfulness instruction.

The other program teaches a grateful state of mind. It, too, is simple, goes to the source, is easy to learn and free of charge and has impressive outcomes.

By keeping a daily gratitude journal or starting off the day writing down five things they are grateful for, children experience both mental and physical benefits. They show increased scores of life satisfaction and optimism, feel better about life and about school and have decreased negative feelings. A study of middle-school children in Vancouver who were instructed in mindfulness and gratitude experienced almost immediate results.

-- Laura Crites

Around the world in 13 years

He was hit by a car in Colorado, attacked by a crocodile in Australia, detained as a suspected spy in Egypt and survived illness and periods of despair.

On Saturday, British adventurer Jason Lewis finally came home, completing a 13-year, 46,000-mile human-powered circumnavigation of the globe.

Conscientious have lower risk of Alzheimer's

A surprising study of elderly people suggests that those who see themselves as self-disciplined, organized achievers have a lower risk for developing Alzheimer's disease than people who are less conscientious.

A purposeful personality may somehow protect the brain, perhaps by increasing neural connections that can act as a reserve against mental decline, said study co-author Robert Wilson of Chicago's Rush University Medical Center.

Astoundingly, the brains of some of the dutiful people in the study were examined after their deaths and were found to have lesions that would meet accepted criteria for Alzheimer's – even though these people had shown no signs of dementia.

single-gender education

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - David Chadwell believes boys and girls can get through the awkward middle school years better when they're separated, learning in classrooms tailored to the learning styles of each gender.

As the country's first and only statewide coordinator of single-gender education, Chadwell is helping to make South Carolina a leader among public schools that offer such programs. About 70 schools offer the program now, and the goal is to have programs available to every child within five years, he said.

The theory is that by separating girls and boys _ especially during middle school years typically marked by burgeoning hormones, self doubt and peer pressure _ lessons can be more effective because they are in unique classroom settings.

Jellyfish.com

Jellyfish.com launched in the summer of 2006. It offered many of the same product-related search features you'd find on similar sites, like CNET Networks' (Nasdaq: CNET) MySimon.com, or Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Products -- the site formerly known as "Froogle." But unlike its predecessors, Jellyfish is a comparison-shopping website that eats like a loyalty program.

"Jellyfish is the ONLY shopping engine to directly share $ with you," explains the site. "As a Jellyfish member, you'll receive automatic savings on everything you buy. Think of us as a search engine for shopping, except we share at least half of every $1 we earn when you shop. I bet your search engine has never done that!"

no thumbs

Film critic Roger Ebert said he never gave a “thumbs down” to the use of thumbs in reviews for “At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper” during contract negotiations.

In a statement released Friday to The Associated Press, the TV show’s distributor, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, said Ebert had “exercised his right to withhold use of the ‘thumbs’ until a new contract is signed.” Ebert is a copyright holder on the signature “thumbs up-thumbs down” judgment that’s part of each film review.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic responded in a statement Saturday on his Web site, saying he “had made it clear the Thumbs could remain during good-faith negotiations,” contrary to Disney’s press release.

Narrowness of Perception

A recurring theme in experimental psychology is the narrowness of perception: how very little of the sensory clamor makes its way into awareness. Earlier in the day, before the magic show, a neuroscientist had demonstrated a phenomenon called inattentional blindness with a video made at the Visual Cognition Laboratory at the University of Illinois.

In the video, six men and women — half with white shirts and half with black — are tossing around a couple of basketballs. Viewers are asked to count how many times members of, say, the white team, manage to complete a pass, keeping the ball from the opposition. I dutifully followed the instructions and was surprised when some 15 seconds into the game, laughter began to ripple through the audience. Only when I watched a second time did I see the person in the gorilla suit walking on from stage left. (The video is online at viscog.beckman.uiuc.edu/grafs/demos/15.html.)

What's at the Heart of Happiness?

No, happiness isn't a lottery ticket away.

I am fascinated by academic studies of human happiness, because they bring scientific rigor to issues we all grapple with. We think more money will make us happier and yet studies suggest Americans are no more satisfied than they were three decades ago, when the standard of living was much lower.

So if winning the lottery won't do the trick, what will? Here are seven key lessons from happiness research. It is indeed possible to boost our happiness -- but it'll take more than a fat wallet.

1. What matters is what we focus on.

Those with higher incomes aren't necessarily happier. But when asked how satisfied they are with their lives, high earners are more likely to say they're happy.

Why? The question makes them ponder their position in society -- and they realize they're pretty lucky. The implication: If you have a hefty portfolio or hefty paycheck, you can probably bolster your happiness by regularly contemplating your good fortune.

Meanwhile, if you are less well off, avoid situations where you feel deprived -- and seek out those where comparisons are in your favor. Rather than buying the cheapest house in a wealthy neighborhood, settle for a town where people have similar salaries. When you think about your net worth, forget your well-heeled sister and focus on your cash-strapped brother.

2. Don't go it alone.

Studies have found that married folks are happier than those who are single.

"Marriage provides two sources of happiness," says Andrew Oswald, an economics professor at England's Warwick University. "One is sex and the other is friendship. Marriage has one of the largest impacts on human well-being."

Similarly, spending time with friends can boost happiness. Studies indicate that commuting is one of life's least enjoyable activities, that looking after the kids is more of a struggle than we like to admit and that eating is one of life's great pleasures.

But all of these things can be enhanced by adding friends. Commuting with others will make the trip less grim, playing with the kids will be more fun if there's another adult along and eating with others is better than eating alone.

3. We like to feel secure.

Midlife is a period of relative unhappiness. This dissatisfaction may stem from the lack of control felt by those in their 40s, as they juggle raising children and the demands of work.

By contrast, employees in senior positions, retirees and those with good job security often report being happy. One explanation: They have greater control over their daily lives.

"There's a profound link between insecurities of all kinds and human well-being," Prof. Oswald notes. "Supervisors are happier than those who are supervised. Job loss is an enormous negative and job security is an enormous plus to mental health."

4. We enjoy making progress.

Studies suggest we prefer leisure to work. But that doesn't mean work is always a source of unhappiness. We like the feeling of performing a job competently and being in the flow of work.

"There are definitely better and worse jobs," says David Schkade, a management professor at the University of California at San Diego. "If you're in the flow more often, that's going to be a better job."

But Prof. Schkade says work's real pleasure may come from the sense of accomplishment we feel afterward. "We know progress makes people feel good," he says. "You should design a life where you have that feeling of progress."

Work also has the benefit of making leisure seem sweeter, Prof. Schkade adds. This may be the reason seniors who set out solely to relax and have fun are often disappointed by their retirement.

5. We adapt to improvements.

In pursuit of progress, we strive for faster cars, fatter paychecks and winning lottery tickets.

Yet, when we get what we hanker after, we quickly become dissatisfied and soon we're lusting after something else. Academics refer to this as the "hedonic treadmill" or "hedonic adaptation."

We may, however, be able to slow the process of adaptation. If we go out and celebrate our recent promotion, we will hang onto the good feelings for a little longer. If we bought a house last year, we may recover some of the initial thrill by pausing to admire our new home.

We should also think about how we spend our money. It seems we get more lasting happiness from experiences than goods.

If we buy a new car, it will eventually go from being our pride and joy to being a scruffy set of wheels with an irritating rattle. But if we spend our money on meals with friends or vacations with family, we will be left with fond memories that may grow even fonder with time.

6. We also adapt to setbacks.

While adaptation can work against us when good things happen, it saves us from misery when bad times strike. If a close friend dies, we imagine we will never laugh again. But adaptation rides to the rescue.

Oddly enough, it seems we adjust more quickly if a setback is large or irreversible. If we become disabled, we will likely adapt with surprising speed. If our spouse is a slob, we may never get used to it.

One reason: We figure there's still a chance our spouse will change his or her slovenly ways.

7. We enjoy behaving virtuously.

If we volunteer, give to charity or behave politely, we usually feel pretty good.

Pure altruism? It may, instead, be our ancient instincts kicking in. Good behavior paid big dividends in ancient societies, notes Boston money manager Terry Burnham, co-author of "Mean Genes."

"Virtue is built into us because virtue was rewarded," he argues. "In small-scale societies, where you are well known, there are rewards for being a good citizen and severe punishments for being a rule breaker."

Still, whatever our true motivation, behaving virtuously is almost always a good thing -- and it will likely make us happier.

Jonathan Clements also writes the "Getting Going" column that appears Wednesdays in The Wall Street Journal. Write to him at: jonathan.clements@wsj.com.

Awaken The Dragon

Bruce Lee's classic martial arts film Enter the Dragon is getting remade by Warner Bros., reports the Associated Press. The redux, to be called Awaken the Dragon, will be written and directed by Kurt Sutter, a producer on the TV series The Shield.

The 1973 original had Lee traveling to an island fortress where a villain hosts a martial-arts tournament. Warner Bros. tells the AP that the remake will be about an FBI agent who is investigating a Shaolin monk and "underground kung fu fight clubs," so there seems to be some similarity in terms of story there.

It remains to be seen who will be cast to play the lead role, though filling Lee's shoes will be a very big job indeed. Lee died just prior to the release of Enter the Dragon in 1973.

Twenty Million

We were taught that the American Civil War was one of the bloodiest wars, taking nearly 700,000 lives. That seems like a lot, especially when you consider that fewer than 4,000 Americans have died in our current war. But according to a buddy of mine, A.J. Jacobs, who wrote a book about how he read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, at about the time of the Civil War, a war was raging in China that took about 20 million lives. TWENTY MILLION! The conflict is referred to quaintly, or bizarrely, as the Taiping Rebellion.

USA like Rome?

The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.

David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called “chilling long-term simulations”.

These include “dramatic” tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt.

Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.

[via pohick2@chucks_angels]

Jack Kirby revived

And now, 40 years later and 13 years after his death, the "Fourth Universe" is seeing the light of day again in swelligant new printings by DC. The first volume of "Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus" collects his first works for the company when he, of all things, reinvented the lame also-ran title "Jimmy Olsen -- Superman's Pal" as a parable of the shifting forces of nature and destiny, played out in startling, vivid style. It was dense, packed comics-izations, like eating a whole pizza.

The book and Kirby's work gets the full treatment here, and the printing is extraordinarily good. DC must have kept the original artwork. The colors are so densely printed they seem as solid as poster paints.

The book is not just a blast from the past, but a blast of the future.

The tallest country in the world

America used to be the tallest country in the world. From the days of the founding fathers right on through the industrial revolution and two world wars, Americans literally towered over other nations. In a land of boundless open spaces and limitless natural abundance, the young nation transformed its increasing wealth into human growth.

But just as it has in so many other arenas, America's predominance in height has faded. Americans reached a height plateau after World War II, gradually falling behind the rest of the world as it continued growing taller.

By the time the baby boomers reached adulthood in the 1960s, most northern and western European countries had caught up with and surpassed the United States. Young adults in Japan and other prosperous Asian countries now stand nearly as tall as Americans do.

Even residents of the formerly communist East Germany are taller than Americans today. In Holland, the tallest country in the world, the typical man now measures 6 feet, a good two inches more than his average American counterpart.

Compare that to 1850, when the situation was reversed. Not just the Dutch but all the nations of western Europe stood 2 1/2 inches shorter than their American brethren.

Belief and Disbelief

It matters what you believe. I mean, really believe. Not just think you are supposed to believe, or even wish you believed. If the concept has any meaning, it refers to the actual wellsprings of behavior, the assumptions you make about how things are and about how you actually respond as a result. Ultimately, it is only what you really do believe that matters.

If you are uncertain about this, ask yourself how you behave "as if" you believed. It is likely different from what you tell yourself, and others, about what you believe.

PBS is running a three-part series by Jonathan Miller titled "A Brief History of Disbelief." It had previously aired on the BBC. The series was introduced recently on the Bill Moyers program with an interview with Jonathan Miller.

For history buffs, and all of us with short historical memories, it is a rough romp through the history of the diversity of opinion on matters religious. It is also a review of the challenges to literalism and dogmatic orthodoxy in Western Christian history.

On a deeper level, it is about the curious human phenomenon of belief itself, about the ways in which rigid belief can shred lives and breed violence. It is a reminder of just how tenuous freedom of belief is and how peculiar the "modern" idea of religious pluralism is.

How to Be Happy Right Now

From the beginning of human history we have been searching for happiness. Most of our daily functions and overall desires all revolve around "being happy."

Some, the very adept, are able to reach that state of pure happiness through spiritual ascension, via ascetic practices. Going on retreat to the middle of nowhere and living in a monastery devoid of life's simple pleasures, does not seem like a practical option for a normal human being living in the 21st Century. For us, the normal human beings, spiritual ascension is a goal we might want but not at the expense of "living life to the fullest."

So we come to this statement:

More important than spiritual ascension is personal contentment.

Only with personal contentment can you ascend spiritually. Personal contentment does not mean material or sensory satisfaction. Personal contentment means to be truly happy with yourself right here and now.

From this state of personal contentment EVERYTHING is possible. Personal contentment brings peace of mind. That's why I have developed Gratitude-Bliss Meditation (GBM). Based on ancient philosophies and good old common sense, GBM is the perfect solution for 21st Century fast-paced life. This technique will put you in a state of contentment, guaranteed. Just like 1 + 1 = 2, following these instructions cannot fail.

Gratitude is one of the most powerful emotions a human being can experience. It alone can put you in a state of Bliss (contentment). A grateful mind is a content mind. A grateful mind needs nothing. When you are in a state of Gratitude, peace and overall contentment follows.

So from this we can say that...

Gratitude = contentment = True Happiness (Bliss)

-- By Urayoan Paz via Herbert Gordon

Keeping Dogs Friendly

In a pack, dogs communicate by barking, whining, tail-wagging, licking, and, once in a while, by biting. The trouble is, most dogs don't live in packs anymore -- they live with us. Yet they haven't learned to communicate the way we do. As a result, every year dogs bite about 4.7 million people, most of them children.

That number is on the rise despite ongoing efforts by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Veterinary Medical Association, and other groups to get the word out on bite prevention. A big hurdle faced by groups like these is that much of the popular wisdom on keeping dogs friendly is just plain wrong. Here are a few of of the most enduring myths and the correct information for understanding dogs and staying safe around them.

MYTH Approach the dog and stick your hand out so it can sniff you.
TRUTH Yes, it is important to let a strange dog smell you, but always let him approach you. Sticking your hand in a dog's face may be construed as a threat. Stand still with your hands at your side or crossed in front of you for protection, says Liam Crowe, dog trainer and head of operations for Bark Busters, an in-home dog training company with branches throughout the US and Canada. Always ask an adult owner for permission to pet before touching the dog. When you pet the dog, stroke him along his upper body or under his chin, which is less threatening than a strange hand coming at his head. Never allow children to hug a dog. Kids think it's friendly but, in a pack, a dog equates covering another's body with establishing dominance. A dog that disagrees may snap.

MYTH A wagging tail indicates a friendly dog.
TRUTH Tail wagging means a dog is excited, says Wayne Hunthausen, a veterinarian at Westwood Animal Hospital in Westwood, Kansas, and author of Handbook of Behavior Problems of the Dog and Cat. But that may be a good excitement or a bad one. "It is the quality of the wag that tells you what is going on."

If a dog is friendly, his tail will wag low (horizontal to or lower than his body) and his whole back end will move. Beware the dog that is holding his tail high and wagging stiffly.

MYTH Try to get away from a dog if it starts to attack.
TRUTH Stand tall and still and avoid direct eye contact. Do not curl up into a ball unless you have already been knocked to the ground. If so, stay quiet and cover your ears with your fists for protection. The dog may see this as submission and walk away.

MYTH Your family dog will never bite you.
TRUTH "Parents come into my office and brag about how tolerant their dog is, but all dogs bite when they've had enough," says Hunthausen. Never leave anyone under the age of 12 alone with a dog. Kids' small size and sudden movements can startle a dog into snapping its teeth. Unfortunately, all too many times the dog connects and it results in an injury that was never intended.

-- LORI NUDO, Better Homes and Gardens, May 2006

PACK BEHAVIOR
More and more, dog obedience schools are teaching owners using knowledge of pack behavior. Because these behaviors are hardwired into dogs, this kind of training makes it easier for your dog to learn, says Liam Crowe, head of U.S. operations for Bark Busters, a company that uses such techniques. A whole course can take as little as 2 hours. Learn more at 877/280-7100 or barkbusters.com.