In a small, neglected garden,
Where flowers used to grow,
A weather beaten birdhouse
Shelters sparrows from the snow.
They greet the sun at dawning
With sprightliness and song,
Cheerful, uncomplaining
As the day is long.
In time of tribulation,
Whatever our lot might be,
Let God lift up the burden,
From heartache set you free;
And like the little sparrow
Find solace and release,
With song and prayer at dawning,
Enfolded in God's peace.

(Elsie Natalie Brady)

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http://www.motivateus.com/stories/letgod.htm
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In case you haven't been following my tell-all confessional — I mean Twitter feed — lately, I've been in Manhattan for the last few weeks. Hanging out in all the wrong places (read: painfully hip power hotels), I've had the questionable privilege of overhearing more than my fair share of Very Serious Conversations from the movers and shakers of the world.

And boy, have they been tedious: mostly, about eking out slightly sharper terms for deals for more yawn-inducing stuff (whether flicks, financial instruments, or kicks) that's destined not to matter.

"What was he thinking?" It's the familiar cry of bewildered parents trying to understand why their teenagers act the way they do.

How does the boy who can thoughtfully explain the reasons never to drink and drive end up in a drunken crash? Why does the girl who knows all about birth control find herself pregnant by a boy she doesn't even like? What happened to the gifted, imaginative child who excelled through high school but then dropped out of college, drifted from job to job and now lives in his parents' basement?Adolescence has always been troubled, but for reasons that are somewhat mysterious, puberty is now kicking in at an earlier and earlier age. A leading theory points to changes in energy balance as children eat more and move less.

If I Have Learned Anything:

I've learned that you can get by on charm for about 15 minutes. After that, you'd better know something.

I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do, but to the best you can do.

I've learned that it's not what happens to people that's important. It's what they do about it.

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed

When leaders make a mistake, they say, “I was wrong.”
When followers make mistakes, they say, “It wasn’t my fault.”

A leader works harder than a follower and has more time;
a follower is always “too busy” to do what is necessary.

A leader goes through a problem;
a follower goes around it and never gets past it.

A leader makes and keeps commitments;
a follower makes and forgets promises.

The explosion ripped through Building A5 on a Friday evening last May, an eruption of fire and noise that twisted metal pipes as if they were discarded straws.

When workers in the cafeteria ran outside, they saw black smoke pouring from shattered windows. It came from the area where employees polished thousands of iPad cases a day.

somebody is very proud of you.
somebody is thinking of you.
somebody is caring about you.
somebody misses you.
somebody wants to talk to you.
somebody wants to be with you.
somebody hopes you aren't in trouble.
somebody is thankful for the support you have provided.
somebody wants to hold your hand.
somebody hopes everything turns out all right.
somebody wants you to be happy.
somebody wants you to find him/her.
somebody is celebrating your successes.
somebody wants to give you a gift.
somebody thinks that you ARE a gift.

U.S. special operations forces swooped into Somalia on Wednesday and rescued two hostage aid workers after killing their nine kidnappers, a rare and daring raid in the Horn of Africa nation to free foreign captives.

American Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, of Denmark, humanitarian aid workers for a Danish demining group, were rescued three months after they were kidnapped on October 25 in the town of Galkayo in the semi-autonomous Galmudug region of the Horn of Africa country.

Coffee is one of the most pervasive drinks on earth, found nearly everywhere from Tucson to Timbuktu, from Beijing to Burundi. There is hardly a culture where it is not entrenched, one of the first things billions of hands reach for every morning. Like its main competitor, tea, it is said to have health benefits. Both have an active ingredient, caffeine, which helps to wake us up and keep us going. Coffee drinking, however, is a comparatively recent activity, far younger than tea or alcohol consumption.

Brewing coffee is as much of an art as it is a science. The history of coffee brewing equipment is rich, and methods of brewing are culturally dependent. Of the thousands of coffee machines and coffee brewing devices invented since the advent of coffee consumption, only a few have gained worldwide popularity. The coffee brewing methods discussed below are recommended since they have been found to maximize the extraction of the beneficial flavors of coffee, while minimizing the extraction of bitter coffee compounds and undesirable components.

Your early cups of coffee may now do more than simply clear the morning haze.

According to a group of Chinese researchers, a few cups of coffee per day may help prevent the onset of Type 2 diabetes. Funded by various Chinese authorities, the study has been published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

According to the Chinese scientist’s research, some major coffee components and metabolites are able to inhibit the toxic aggregation of hIAPP (human islet amyloid polypeptide) — which has a suspected link to the onset of Type 2 diabetes.

Reflective thinking involves personal consideration of one’s own learning. It considers personal achievements and failures and asks what worked, what didn’t, and what needs improvement (Given, 2002). It asks the learner to think about her own thinking.

“Reflection is the key that opens the door to understanding ourselves in relation to core ethical values” (Beland, 2003, p.15). Similarly, Lickona

(NaturalNews) Are your kids getting enough vitamin D? If not, they could be at a higher risk for depression. A new study from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom shows that children and teens with higher levels of vitamin D are less likely to experience depression than those with lower levels.

The study analyzed vitamin D levels in more than 2,700 children who were age nine, and then followed up with them again at age 13. Researchers found that children who had the lowest vitamin D levels were more likely to experience symptoms of depression.

There was a guy that was born with cancer. A cancer that has no known cure. He was 17 years old and could die at any moment. He was always at home, under his mother's care.

One day he decided to go out, even if it was just once. He asked his mother for permission and she agreed. Walking down his block he saw many stores. Stopping at a music store he looked in and saw a very pretty girl of his own age, it was love at first sight and he walked in.

I hired a carpenter to help me restore an old farmhouse. He had just finished a rough first day on the job: a flat tire made him lose an hour of work, the electric saw quit and now his ancient pickup refused to start. While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence. On arriving, he invited me to meet his family.

As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands.

When opening the door, he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss.

Afterwards he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.

It takes strength to be firm.
It takes courage to be gentle.

It takes strength to stand guard.
It takes courage to let down your guard.

It takes strength to conquer
It takes courage to surrender.

It takes strength to be certain.
It takes courage to have doubt.

It takes strength to fit in.
It takes courage to stand out.

It takes strength to feel a friend's pain.
It takes courage to feel your own pain.

The Psalms of Coffee
Caffeine is my shepherd, I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures:
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz:
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,
I will fear no Equal (tm):
For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.

In 1978, the farmers in a small Chinese village called Xiaogang gathered in a mud hut to sign a secret contract. They thought it might get them executed. Instead, it wound up transforming China's economy in ways that are still reverberating today.

The contract was so risky — and such a big deal — because it was created at the height of communism in China. Everyone worked on the village's collective farm; there was no personal property.

John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't, the girl with the rose. His interest in her had begun thirteen months before in a Florida library.

Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner's name, Miss Hollis Maynell.

The son of Greek immigrants, he was brought up in the 1920s in a predominantly black area of California. His decision as a young man to identify with black people and their music led him to develop an instinct for finding black talent, and he discovered Little Richard, Jackie Wilson, Hank Ballard — and Etta James.

“Yes, I chose,” Otis reflected in 1979, “because despite all the hardships, there’s a wonderful richness in black culture that I prefer.”

Etta James, whose assertive, earthy voice lit up such hits as "The Wallflower," "Something's Got a Hold on Me" and the wedding favorite "At Last," has died, according to her longtime friend and manager, Lupe De Leon. She was 73.


James was hospitalized in January 2010 to treat an infection caused by MRSA. During her hospitalization, her son Donto revealed that James had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2008, and attributed her previous comments about Beyoncé Knowles to "drug induced dementia".

Some recent reading crystallized two hypotheses that have been rattling around in my head for a while now:

Digital crowds work better than real-world ones For some things, nothing works except solitude

These formed after reading a great article by Susan Cain in the New York Times called "The Rise of the New Groupthink." The column is a preview of her new book  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking  (the title alone assures that I will buy it).

Last week I took my children to a restaurant. My six-year-old son asked if he could say grace. As we bowed our heads he said, "God is good. God is great. Thank you for the food, and I would even thank you more if Mom gets us ice cream for dessert. And Liberty and justice for all! Amen!"

Along with the laughter from the other customers nearby I heard a woman remark, "That's what's wrong with this country. Kids today don't even know how to pray. Asking God for ice-cream! Why, I never!".

"You know, there are some words I've known since I was a schoolboy: ' With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.' Those words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie as wisdom and warning. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on we're all damaged."

From Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Drumhead".

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jkXtf_FZKbA

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day.

Rich people can't buy more time. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend on another day.

Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.

Next time you are sitting in a meeting, take a look around. The odds are high that you will see your colleagues checking screens, texting, and emailing while someone is talking or making a presentation. Many of us are proud of our prowess in multitasking, and wear it like a badge of honor.

Multitasking may help us check off more things on to-do lists. But it also makes us more prone to making mistakes, more likely to miss important information and cues, and less likely to retain information in working memory, which impairs problem solving and creativity.

"We do so with the certainty that we don't have the faintest idea what we're doing at all, which can be a very frightening prospect in a world; in a world where the boundaries of nations and the balance of nature can change over night.

Except that the years that we have spent at (West Beverly) have given us the foundation to face that future. We haven't just learned facts and figures, logic and reasoning skills, but we have learned the value of friendship, loyalty, & love which will not be diminished just because we may not end up together.

(NaturalNews) Conventional wisdom about weight loss suggests coffee may be a good addition to a diet plan since it has minimal calories and no fat. While this seems logical, a more holistic view evaluates coffee from the perspective of its influence on the body's ability to metabolize the other food we eat. Recent studies suggest that despite its low calorie count, coffee may actually promote weight gain as well as type 2 diabetes by stimulating cortisol production and insulin resistance.

The Internet's largest and most popular general reference has gone dark. Wikipedia has joined a protest against something it believes is even darker: passage of the Stop Online Piracy and Protect Intellectual Property Acts.

SOPA and PIPA have not even made it to the Senate floor, but have already caused public outrage. Internet giants such as Google, YouTube, Yahoo, AOL and many others have likened the bills to China-style censorship. The bills, which are perhaps the most controversial pieces of proposed legislation in recent American history, were supposedly written to protect copyrighted material.

One spring morning a single woman in her thirties was sitting in her garden. The woman, mother of two, was depressed with life's challenges and thinking how hard it was trying to manage a career and raise two children on her own. She began to think of how strong her belief in God was, but still could not help feeling overwhelmed with the difficulties in her life. Her eye caught that of a rose bush in her garden and she began to look hard into the bush.

She started by looking at the base of the bush and how it was formed by one trunk coming up from the ground. She compared the trunk to the beginning of her adult life and how simple things seemed to her then. No grave responsibilities, just herself to take care of.

Months and months ago, when we weren't fortunate enough to have seen the first six minutes of "The Dark Knight Rises" or even a full-length trailer, one of the best pieces of info that we had about the conclusion to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy was that the film would circle back — thematically and perhaps story-wise — to "Batman Begins."

Since 2008, "The Dark Knight" and Heath Ledger have dominated most of the conversation around the series. The general feeling was that while "Batman Begins" was great, "The Dark Knight" transcended the superhero genre. That's why it comes as a surprise that when the trilogy ends, the underappreciated first film will play a big part.

(NaturalNews) Scientists from the medical sciences division at Penn State University have discovered that a compound in fish oil appears to target leukemia stem cells and could lead to a cure for the disease. The compound is a natural extract from EPA, the Omega-3 fat component found most commonly in fish and fish oil supplements. Known as delta-12-protaglandin J3, or D12-PGJ3, the molecule is shown to target and kill the stem cells of chronic myelogenous leukemia, a common form of the disease.

LONDON: Researchers have found a dramatic rise in injuries to people using headphones while walking on the streets and have warned of serious accidents involving pedestrians using electronic devices, such as iPods and mobile phones.

There is rising concern about the near trance-like state people can apparently enter while using mobile phones, MP3 players or electronic personal organisers, the Daily Mail reported.

The complete list of film and TV winners for the 2012 Golden Globe awards, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012.

MOVIES

Best Picture: Drama

Winner - The Descendants

• The Help
• Hugo
• The Ides of March
• Moneyball
• War Horse

(NaturalNews) A new study coming from a team of scientists at the Genesis Prevention Center, University Hospital in South Manchester, England reveals that intermittent, low-carb diets are more efficient in reducing weight and insulin blood levels than regular diets.

High levels of insulin are directly linked to the risk of developing cancer and other diseases. The results were presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, which was held December 6-10, 2011.

Success is often the illusion we see when we dream of what we think will make us happy. It is not the ideal, just an hallucination of the actual ideal.

But when we seize today and the significance we find that nothing else matters, because what else is there but those things that are significant to us??

I don't think all people will reach for excellence let alone ever achieve it. Many will live lives of "quiet ..." but in the end will have found some significance. Family, friends even strangers will be a part of that.

Sometimes when I look into the young faces of Batman fans eagerly talking about the final chapter of the Christopher Nolan Batman series, I feel both a sense of pride and anguish. These newly converted Batman lovers I speak of were either born in the late 1980s or some time in the 1990s. The Batman they know and love is the Batman worth knowing. He is troubled, complex and tragic. These young ones don’t remember that dark chapter in Batman history, when Batman became the laughing stock of hero movies everywhere.

(NaturalNews) Did you know that cherries can lower levels of inflammation in the body drastically enough to actually alleviate arthritis symptoms and reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes? It doesn't even take a super-powerful extract to feel the effect; powdered cherries alone have produced dramatic results. In at least one study, powdered cherry consumption actually led to a change in the functioning of inflammation-regulating genes in mice.

Cherries are also well known to help reverse gout -- a condition caused by too much uric acid circulating in the blood. (http://www.naturalnews.com/034479_cherries_gout_arthritis.html)

SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.

But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature.

Reduce career opportunities and a desire for greater control over one’s business is driving more people to running their own businesses.

No longer is an office, store or factory necessary instead a book or clothing seller can serve customers and receive payments through online transactions with the shipping or shipment company representative being the only one who has to leave home.

Coffee drinking has been linked with a reduced risk of diabetes, and now Chinese researchers think they may know why.

Three compounds found in coffee seem to block the toxic accumulation of a protein linked with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes.

''We found three major coffee compounds can reverse this toxic process and may explain why coffee drinking is associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes," says researcher Kun Huang, PhD, a professor of biological pharmacy at the Huazhong University of Science & Technology.

Outside my window, a new day I see,
And only I can determine
What kind of day it will be.
It can be busy and sunny, laughing and gay,
Or boring and cold, unhappy and gray.

My own state of mind is the determining key,
For I am only the person I let myself be.

Hunan - An innovative Chinese construction company mass produces sustainable, earthquake-proof skyscrapers that cost up to ten times less than conventional structures. Watch the amazing time-lapse video.

We’ve all heard the amazing and sometimes hair-raising stories about construction in China. This story just about takes the cake, but instead of some slapped-together monstrosity, we are looking at a 30-story hotel built to withstand a Magnitude 9 earthquake with purified air conditioning and, wait for it, erected from scratch in just over two weeks.

(NaturalNews) A team of scientists at the Faculty of Life Sciences (LIFE) at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark has discovered evidence that seaweed fibers have a high corrective impact on obesity.

Dietary fibers increase health status

Previous studies have already established the benefits of natural fiber intake. Diets with a high fiber content have positive effects on colon cancer prevention, they reduce insulin and glucose levels in diabetes patients, and they help digestive processes and lower blood sugar levels. Fermentable fibers will also increase mineral and vitamin absorption from dietary sources, as well as lower cholesterol levels.

There was a woman who had been diagnosed with cancer and had been given 3 months to live. Her Dr. told her to start making preparations to die. So she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss certain aspects of her final wishes. She told him which songs she wanted sung at the service, what scriptures she would like read, and what she wanted to be wearing.

The woman also told her pastor that she wanted to be buried with her favorite bible. Everything was in order and the pastor was preparing to leave when the woman suddenly remembered something very important to her.

This post is about innovation. But before we get started, imagine the produce area in your local supermarket.

Were you able to do it?

That seems like a strange question to ask. Of course you could. But the strangeness of the question says something fundamental about the way your memory works. Memory provides you with the information it thinks you need when it thinks you need it. When you are walking through the supermarket (or asked to think about it), information about food and shopping is easy to recall. When you are at a football game, your knowledge of the rules and types of plays is easy to think about, but the texture of fresh romaine lettuce is not.

A  young Law student, having failed his Law exam, goes up to his crusty old professor, who is renowned for his razor-sharp legal mind.

Student: "Sir, do you really understand everything about this subject?"

Professor: "Actually, I probably do. Otherwise I wouldn't be a professor, would I?"

Student: "OK. So I’d like to ask you a question. If you can give me the correct answer, I will accept my marks as it is. If you can't give me the correct answer, however, you'll have to give me an 'A'."

A link between eating processed meat, such as bacon or sausages, and pancreatic cancer has been suggested by researchers in Sweden.

They said eating an extra 50g of processed meat, approximately one sausage, every day would increase a person's risk by 19%.

But the chance of developing the rare cancer remains low.

The World Cancer Research Fund suggested the link may be down to obesity.

Several years ago, a friend decided she wanted to follow her passion. She loved the liberal arts and the academe. She was a talented graphic designer, a great writer, and was the president of a student club. But the prospect of working a nine-to-five job was never interesting. I can't blame her. After all, ours is a millennial generation proselytized to pursue our dreams. So she spent seven years getting a PhD, writing an award-winning dissertation in the process. It was a wonderful ride while it lasted, and she was among the happiest people I knew.

Sometimes, it is the smallest acts of kindness that are the most memorable. It was several years ago that this particular event occurred; the reason I remember it because it was my daughter Kathy's birthday.

My children and I were finishing the last minute preparations for Kathy's birthday celebration. At one store we had bought colorful helium balloon with Kathy's favorite character design on it. We had to make one more stop at another store to complete our purchases. I sent out my older daughter and her little brother out to our van while my other daughter and I were waiting at the cashier line.