What bothers you most about someone else is often a clue about what you don't like about your own circumstances ... or, a political cartoonist could point it out instead.
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
Boehner
Turns Down Invitation to Visit Pope. President Obama invited John
Boehner to travel with Vice President Joe Biden to Rome to watch the Roman
Catholic Church install its first pope from the Americas in its 2,000-year
history. (WSJ Video)
How
Rich Is the Catholic Church? Nobody really knows, because religious groups
don’t need to follow regular accounting and disclosure rules. (Slate)
As we enter 2013, the world population has surpassed 7 billion people.
How can we get a sense of what it means ... and who we are?
One way is by statistically representing the world population as 100 people. That way, complex issues become more comprehensible and help us get a stronger sense of the big picture.
26 would be children
There would be 74 adults,
8 of whom would be 65 and older
There would be:
60 Asians
15 Africans
14 people from the Americas
11 Europeans
33 Christians
22 Muslims
14 Hindus
7 Buddhists
12 people who practice other religions
12 people who would not be aligned with a religion
12 would speak Chinese
5 would speak Spanish
5 would speak English
3 would speak Arabic
3 would speak Hindi
3 would speak Bengali
3 would speak Portuguese
2 would speak Russian
2 would speak Japanese
62 would speak other languages
83 would be able to read and write; 17 would not
7 would have a college degree
22 would own or share a computer
77 people would have a place to shelter them from the wind and the rain, but 23 would not
1 would be dying of starvation
15 would be undernourished
21 would be overweight
87 would have access to safe drinking water
13 people would have no clean, safe water to drink
If you want more information on this ...
The detailed research and source information can be
found here and the statistics provided by Donella Meadows in 1990 that originally inspired the 100 People Project can be viewed here. A different groups research is here. And the Snopes research is here.
As a gift to all of you, here is "The Chanukah Song," performed by comedian Adam Sandler on Saturday Night Live. It became an instant classic, since he first performed it in 1994.
The iPhone 5 is cutting edge ... and Siri is getting smarter. Too bad it can't answer the tough questions. Here's a cartoon that imagines what would happen if asked "Can the economy be fixed in the current political climate?"
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
I spent part of this week at the First Rate Performance Conference. It was held at the Four Seasons resort in Las Colinas, Texas (which is a pretty nice place for a retreat).
In addition to hearing industry experts and company representatives talking about equations, risk management, and regulatory compliance, the conference featured Terry Hershey, who wrote a book called The Power of Pause (Becoming More by Doing Less).
In the book, Terry counters the modern cultural decree of More-Bigger-Faster. His message was simple (and perhaps even easy).
One of the takeaways was that some things are tactical, some things are strategic, and some things are transformational. All of these things can be good ... but the quality of your life and the results results you get change as you spend less time with the tactical and move towards the transformational.
Each student came up with a list and shared with the class. As you might guess, students called out entries like the Pyramids, the Amazon River, the Grand Canyon, or the Taj Mahal. The teacher cheered them on and told them what a great job they were doing.
But one girl stayed silent. The teacher asked her about her list, and the girl answered, "I don't think I understand the assignment."
"Why?"
"I don't have any of the right answers."
"Well, why don't you tell us which you wrote on your paper, and we'll help you."
"Okay," said the girl, "I think the seven wonders of the world are ... to see, to hear, to touch, to smell, to feel, to love, and to belong."
Somewhere along the way, we tend to forget what we used to know.
How much of our daily experience is defined by what we shoot for and what we measure?
Life can be so "daily". That's a problem, isn't it? No wonder we're easily tempted by things that are urgent, rather than important. But it doesn't have to be that way ... and the first step is recognizing that it doesn't have to be that way. The second step is figuring out how you want it to be instead.
To see some of his messages in video format, click this link.
This take-off on the old joke about explaining world religions (using the same construct) was filmed at the 2012 American Economic Association humor session.
It's even a little funny that the AEA had a humor session.
Celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking knows more about the universe than almost any other person ever to walk the planet, but some answers still escape even him.
When asked by ABC News' Diane Sawyer about the biggest mystery he'd like solved, he said, "I want to know why the universe exists, why there is something greater than nothing."
Other topics covered include: how Hawking reconciles
the idea of religion and science; and what he considers the best
and worst decisions of our generation.
So, watch this video as the physicist discusses everything from the universe to family.
In my holiday greeting, this year, I chose the phrase: "I hope that you are grateful for the things that are great in your life, that you choose what you can use from the things weren't great … and that you invest those lessons in your future."
We can learn from history, so we don't have to repeat it (unless we choose to).
For Your New Year, Here is an Old Irish Blessing.
Here's to the bright New Year,
And a fond farewell to the old;
Here's to the things that are yet to come,
And to the memories that we hold.
May God be with you and bless you.
May the best of this year be the worst of the next.
Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading
So there is a new Pope. They probably didn't pick him this way.
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.
Lighter Links:
Trading Links:
Posted by Howard Getson at 04:02 PM in Business, Current Affairs, Just for Fun, Market Commentary, Religion, Trading | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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