“You are beautiful. You are sunlight, breathing.” Quiet Lotus
You’re not obligated to win
You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying.
To the best you can do everyday.
Fasting detaches
“Fasting detaches you from this world, prayer reattaches you to
the next world.” Fulton Sheen
Fast latin
Novus: New
Civitas: State
Intellegere: To
understand
Brevis: Short
Remedium: Cure,
remedy
Good words to have
Pasha (PA-shuh,
PASH-uh, puh-SHAH) : A person of high rank or importance. From Turkish pasa,
from Persian padshah, from pati (master) + shah (king). Pasha was used as a
title of high-ranking officials in the Ottoman Empire.
Loquacious (Loh-KWAY-shus) full of excessive talk : wordy, given to fluent or excessive talk:
garrulous. Loquacious made its first appearance in English in the 17th century
and, with poetic license, stretched its meaning to include such things as the
chattering of birds and the babbling of brooks. In less poetic uses, loquacious
usually means "excessively talkative." The ultimate source of all
this chattiness is loqui, a Latin verb meaning "to speak." Other
words descended from loqui include colloquial, eloquent, soliloquy, and
ventriloquism.
Ayatollah
(ah-yuh-TO-luh) 1. A high-ranking religious leader of the
Shiite Muslims. 2. A person having authority and influence, especially one
who’s dogmatic. From Persian ayatollah (literally, sign of god), from Arabic
ayatullah, from aya (sign) + allah (god).
Moue: (MOO) a little grimace: pout. Moue is one of
two similar words in English that refer to a pout or grimace; the other is mow,
which is pronounced to rhyme either with no or now. Mow and moue share the same
origin—the Anglo-French mouwe—and have a distant relationship to a Middle Dutch
word for a protruding lip. (They do not, however, share a relationship to the
word mouth, which derives from Old English mūth.) While current evidence of
moue in use in English traces back only
a little more than 150 years, mow dates all the way back to the 14th century.
Moue has also seen occasional use as a verb, as when Nicholson Baker, in a 1988
issue of The New Yorker, described how a woman applying lip gloss would
"slide the lip from side to side under it and press her mouth together and
then moue it outward…."
Baksheesh (BAK-sheesh) A payment, such as a tip or bribe. From
Persian bakhshish, from bakhshidan, from baksh (to give). Ultimately from the
Indo-European root bhag- (to share) that is also the source of nebbish,
Sanskrit bhagya (good fortune), and words related to -phagy (eating), such as
onychophagia (the biting of one’s nails) and xerophagy (the eating of dry
food).
Engender (in-JEN-der)
1: beget, procreate 2: to cause to exist or to develop : produce 3: to
assume form : originate. When engender was first used in the 14th century, it
meant "propagate" or "procreate," but extended meanings
soon developed. Engender comes from the Latin verb generare, which means
"to generate" or "to beget." Generate, regenerate,
degenerate, and generation are of course related to the Latin verb as well. As
you might suspect, the list of engender relatives does not end there. Generare
comes from the Latin noun genus, meaning "birth," "race,"
or "kind." From this source we have our own word genus, plus gender,
general, and generic, among other words.
Dervish (DUHR-vish)
1. A Muslim monk of various ascetic orders, some of whom take part in ecstatic
rituals such as whirling dances or chants. 2. Someone who exhibits frenzied
movements. From Turkish, from Persian darvish (poor, beggar).
Squinny (SKWIN-ee)
To look or peer with eyes partly closed: squint.
“I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at
me?" So asks Shakespeare's mad King Lear of blind Gloucester, marking the
first known use of the verb squinny. It is likely that Shakespeare formed the
word from an earlier English word squin, meaning "with the eye directed to
one side." Shakespeare also uses the more familiar squint in King Lear:
"This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet.… He gives the web and the pin, /
squints the eye … mildews the white wheat, / and hurts the poor creature of
earth." Although this is not the first known use of the verb squint, it is
the first known use of the verb's transitive sense.
Prodnose (PROD-nohz) verb intr.: To pry. noun: A prying person. After
Prodnose, a pedantic and nosy character, who appeared in the columns of J B
Morton in the Daily Express. Earliest
documented use: 1954.
Penchant (PEN-chunt)
A strong and continued inclination; broadly: liking.
Like its synonyms leaning, propensity, and proclivity,
penchant implies a strong instinct or liking for something. Penchant, a
descendant of Latin pendere (meaning "to weigh"), typically implies a
strongly marked taste in the person ("a penchant for jazz music") or
an irresistible attraction in the object ("a penchant for taking
risks").
Ascetic (uh-SET-ik) 1: practicing strict self-denial as a measure
of personal and especially spiritual discipline 2: austere in appearance, manner, or attitude. Ascetic comes
from askētikos, a Greek adjective meaning "laborious." Ultimately, it
comes from the Greek verb askein, which means "to exercise" or
"to work." There aren't many other English words from askein, but
there's no dearth of synonyms for ascetic. Severe and austere, for example, are
two words that share with ascetic the basic meaning "given to or marked by
strict discipline and firm restraint." Ascetic implies abstention from
pleasure, comfort, and self-indulgence as spiritual discipline, whereas severe
implies standards enforced without indulgence or laxity and may suggest
harshness (as in "severe military discipline"). Austere stresses
absence of warmth, color, or feeling and may apply to rigorous restraint,
simplicity, or self-denial (as in "living an austere life in the country").
Calaboose
(KAL-uh-booss)
jail; especially: a local jail. Calaboose is Spanish in origin; it's from the
Spanish word calabozo, meaning "dungeon."
Suppose the strong had become master in everything
“Suppose the strong had become master in everything, even in
moral valuations. Self-contempt on the part of the weak would be the result,
and they would try to disappear and extinguish themselves. Would we really want
a world in which the influence of the weak with their subtlety, consideration,
spirituality, and pliancy was lacking?”—F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
“To laugh often and much; to win
the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the
appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To
appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to
know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to
have succeeded.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Robert F. Kennedy, Address, Berkeley Campus, University of California, October 22, 1966.
“…It is not enough to allow dissent. We must demand it. For
there is much to dissent from. We dissent from the fact that millions are
trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich. We dissent from the conditions
and hatred which deny a full life to our fellow citizens because of the color
of their skin. We dissent from the monstrous absurdity of a world where nations
stand poised to destroy one another, and men must kill their fellow men. We
dissent from the sight of most of mankind living in poverty, stricken by
disease, threatened by hunger and doomed to an early death after a life of
unremitting labor. We dissent from cities which blunt our senses and turn the
ordinary acts of daily life into a painful struggle. We dissent from the
willful, heedless destruction of natural pleasure and beauty. We dissent from
all those structures-of technology and of society itself-which strip from the
individual the dignity and warmth of sharing in the common tasks of his
community and his country.”
The best advice I've heard in a decade: This is well worth a read
Wharton’s No. 1 professor: 'Never
give up is bad advice. Sometimes quitting is a virtue.'
Catherine Clifford
When it comes to success,
unwavering determination is often revered as the secret to achieving your
dreams. If you have grit and just never give up, then you will, eventually,
win.
Not so, says Adam Grant, the No.
1 professor at top-tier business school Wharton, best-selling author and
management consultant to the likes of Facebook, Google, Goldman Sachs and the
NBA. Grant says there's a time when grit will get you nowhere but stuck further
in a hole.
"Never give up is bad
advice. Sometimes quitting is a virtue," says Grant in a speech he
delivered to Utah State University graduates.
Grant researched graduation
speeches before giving his and learned that most extol the importance of living
with generosity, authenticity and grit. And while he doesn't argue that these
are values worth respecting, he also offers a warning.
"If you're too obsessed with
any of these virtues, you might undermine your own resilience," he says.
"Virtues can be a little bit like vitamins. Vitamins are essential for
health. But what if you get more than your body needs? If you take too much
Vitamin C, it won't hurt you. If you overdose on Vitamin D, though, it can do
serious harm: you could wind up with kidney problems."
Grant does not dispute that great
success often requires determination in the face of rejection.
"Persistence is one of the
most important forces in success and happiness," says Grant. "There's
the author whose novel was rejected half a dozen times. The artist whose
cartoons were turned down over and over. And the musicians who were told
'guitar groups are on the way out' and they'd never make it in show business.
If they had quit, Harry Potter, Disney and the Beatles wouldn't exist.
"But that's only half the
story," he says. "For every J.K. Rowling and Walt Disney and Lennon
and McCartney, there are thousands of writers and entrepreneurs and musicians
who fail not for lack of grit, but because of how narrowly they apply it.
"Sometimes resilience comes
from gritting your teeth and packing your bags," says Grant.
For example, when Grant was
young, he wanted to be a basketball player. He dreamed of being in the NBA, he
says. And yet, despite his gallant efforts practicing as a kid, Grant didn't
make the seventh grade team or the eighth grade team. And when he got to high
school, he still wasn't even five feet tall.
He dropped his basketball dreams.
Instead, he picked up diving.
And while he wasn't an instant
champion — "My coach told me I walked like Frankenstein and his
grandmother jumped higher than me" — he did excel with time and hard work.
Grant qualified for the junior Olympic nationals twice and competed at the NCAA
level in diving.
"Grit doesn't mean keep
doing the thing that's failing. It means define your dreams broadly enough that
you can find new ways to pursue them when your first and second plans fail. I
needed to give up on my dream of making the NBA, but I didn't need to give up
on my dream of becoming a halfway decent athlete."
He also didn't have give up being
an author just because his publisher didn't want the first book he wrote. Grant
scrapped the original rejected draft — all 102,000 words — and started over
nearly from scratch. His new draft became "Give and Take," which went
on to be a New York Times bestseller translated into 30 languages.
"Don't give up on your
values, but be willing to give up on your plans," he says.
And today's weasel in the world is: NORWAY!
Norway
wants China to forget about the human rights thing and eat salmon instead
Echo Huang & Isabella Steger
June 14, 2017
Norway is the world’s biggest
producer of salmon. But hardly any of it goes to China, the biggest consumer of
seafood.
Since the Nobel Prize was awarded
to human rights activist Liu Xiaobo in 2010—at a ceremony in Oslo where the
award was famously placed on an empty chair as Liu was in prison in
China—Norway, and its fish, have been given the cold shoulder in China. In
2010, the country almost accounted for all of China’s salmon exports, according
to data from the Norwegian government and DNB Markets, a Norwegian bank. Since
then, its salmon exports to the mainland have plummeted, and by 2015 even the
Faroe Islands, Norway’s tiny Nordic neighbor, was exporting more salmon to
China.
So strained were relations that
Norway’s ambassador to China, Svein O. Sæther, remained five years longer than
the usual four-year tenure in his post for fear that a new ambassador may not
be confirmed by Beijing, according to Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten (link in Norwegian).
In December, the two countries
made a breakthrough when they normalized relations (paywall) after Norway’s
foreign minister visited Beijing. China said that Norway had “deeply reflected
upon the reasons bilateral mutual trust was harmed.” Norway’s foreign ministry
didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
Last month, Norway’s seafood
industry appeared to get the firmest sign yet that the Chinese market would be
fully opened back to them when a delegation visited China and signed a seafood
trade agreement, with the aim of exporting $1.45 billion worth of salmon to
China by 2025. The agreement came after Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg’s
visit to e-commerce giant Alibaba in April. Taobao and Juhuasuan, two Alibaba-affiliated
shopping sites, hosted promotional events for Norwegian salmon in May.
A Chinese state-owned company
will also deliver intelligent offshorefish farms—installations equipped with
advanced technologies—estimated to be worth around $300 million, to Norwegian
fish-farming giant SalMar, China Daily reported on June 5.
Ivar Kolstad, an economist,
calculated in a paper for Norwegian think-tank CMI that the freeze in
Norway-China relations cost Norway $780 million to $1.3 billion in exports and
said that China had become “too big to fault,” according to the Financial Times
(paywall). Norway’s annual global exports totaled $104 billion in 2015.
Norwegian fisheries minister Per
Sandberg, head of the delegation, said that Norway “speaks up about human
rights in many other circumstances,” and added “This time it is fish that
matters!” according to Aftenposten (link in Norwegian) and a statement from the
Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries.
A spokesman for the ministry told
Quartz that as part of prime minister’s Solberg’s April visit, Norway and China
agreed to regularly discuss matters including human rights.
A spokesman for the Norwegian
foreign ministry told Quartz that “the normalization of relations” would
“create major business opportunities for both countries,” with discussions on a
free trade agreement to resume. “Norway and China has agreed to establish a
consultation mechanism at political level between our foreign ministries, where
we can discuss all matters of common interest, both bilateral and multilateral,
including issues relating to the UN, human rights, and trade policy,” the
spokesman added.
In a counter view, more Norwegian
salmon may have been reaching Chinese consumers than the official numbers
suggest. In a paper (pdf, paywall) published last year, researchers at the
Norwegian University of Life Sciences, said Norwegian salmon likely made its
way around rules aimed at the product, possibly by entering the mainland via
Vietnam, which appeared to see a sudden surge in salmon imports from Norway
around 2011. The researchers based their conclusions on export figures in the
region and interviews with stakeholders.
In general, the overall impact of
the Chinese salmon freeze on Norway’s economy has been “negligible,” according
to an independent researcher on China and the Arctic who writes under a
pseudonym, adding that overall trade between Norway and China continued have
grown since the Nobel incident. Still, blocking salmon was an important way for
China to express its “Nobel revenge” in a visible way, he said.
It seems to have had results—in
2015, no Norwegian government members would meet with Tibetan spiritual leader
the Dalai Lama, who is labeled as a separatist by Beijing, when he visited the
country.
“The Norwegian administration
took some domestic criticism for submitting to Chinese pressure in recent
years,” said the researcher, and if a salmon deal hadn’t been achieved “all
that China-friendliness can be perceived as delivering no results.”
Visen Liu contributed reporting
The mighty serious business of face painting
What made me smile about this was how very serious the children in line were about the situation. There were several grave discussions on the pros and cons of a devil face drawing and the many drawbacks of a rainbow face.
The little girl in the last few photos was VERY upset because her sister, if I understood things correctly, was getting the face painting design that she intended to get but now she couldn't get it because her sister got it first.
The little girl in the last few photos was VERY upset because her sister, if I understood things correctly, was getting the face painting design that she intended to get but now she couldn't get it because her sister got it first.
