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For the discussion of all things random and absurd.

For example, did you know..."The word salami, as currently used in English, is actually the plural form of the Italian salame."?

Of course if it was Salome that would be something entirely different.

Madeleine L'engle wrote a lovely poem about Salome.

thanks, HRO-it was lovely.

Nice poem, especially the start. Yet I was thinking more along the (assumed) femme fatale for John the Baptist.

Maybe I have spent too much time on 'change a letter' games.

Possibly last post until Thursday, got my first and probably only, Munro to bag.

Hi Ho Ice and wife...

We made it, more of the saga tomorrow !

this is truly thrilling Ice. I hope you can post some pictures!

I am very proud of my wife, not just at surviving breast cancer for 15 years but also for overcomming 'The Ben' as it is locally referred to.

We may have been the slowest walkers on the mountain in both directions but we acheived it in good weather conditions, making lovely vistas.

On the day my wife overcame confidence in both her equipment and herself, as well as a minor but discomforting injury, and inflexible joints.

For me, I am my avatar and survived !

For 20 years - we might go to Hawaii - and look at some volcano's.

How wonderful for you both to be able to do this together.
Slow and sure is always my motto! Notice more that way.

Managed to 'copy' my Greg Bear comments, removing the comment, makes the topic unread - Ages,Past,Present and Future. However I had to do this from the 'unboxed' rather than the 'edit post', so all the links unlinked !

Will now see if I can delete the topic as its creator, otherwise this is a Moderator function.

It's one way to move the comments, other than flagging them off topic.

Midnight In Paris is such a lovely film! I wrote a post about it on my blog; you can read it .

Thanks Kink. Dinner was incredible! And, yes, that is Kathy Bates.

It is only a personal view but for me Paris would be nice without (some of) the people. The rest of the countrymen are ok. I accept that it is in an Englishman's upbringing (discounting the bits from Scotland and Yorkshire) that we dislike the French. Then of course not withstanding that the English are so cosmopolitan being mainly German, Norman (Viking) and now Indian.

Read an article on The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement which left me thinking about my grandson's generation and the possible world that he will grow into.

The continual import of American society into Europe (reverse colonialism) makes me wonder how all of you cope with life over there !

Ice wrote: "Read an article on The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement which left me thinking about my grandson's generation and the possible world that he will..."

Its so unfortunate that the worst bits of our culture are what seems to be taking root overseas. Macdonalds and 7-11.No smoking in bars.( well I guess this is seen as an advance, but it is not civilized or logical to divorce smokong from drinking)
I remember a whole village crowding around the one tv to watch Dallas back in the day.

I guess the worst thing we export is our lack of respect.

For all you republicans, (note with a small r)

HAPPY BASTILLE DAY

Vive la Revolution

..................

Ice wrote: "For all you republicans, (note with a small r) HAPPY BASTILLE DAY

Vive la Revolution.................."
mais oui!

just sneaking a few minutes here...deadline looming for a project application and this weekend, its our annual folk music festival so I will be lost and found there, rain or shine, dancing

We have had only minor trouble in Cambridge, just as well, most of our local police are in London.

Having lived in London I understand the tensions.

That being said I think we have brought this upon ourselves. There has become an endemic lack of respect and responsibility taken throughout society.

Sometimes I hate to admit it, but even I have been prone to being selfish, and too quick to judge.

Perhaps now, I am striving to make reading(knowledge) my God and not Money !

I like to view the glass as half full.

Striking a balance between the macro issues (population vs resources) and the micro issues (local community).

More 'love' (care and concern) as often expressed within this forum would be nice to see reflected into the wider world.

I like to view the glass as half full-the question for me is, half full of what?

Sorry-I'm even more sarcastic early in the day. And here I just meditated and all!

And Kinkajou, I do almost all my philosophizing early in the morning. Later in the day, I'm too busy to think!

I do believe that we are all intrinsically flawed-not bad, not good, just flawed. Some of us are wired better than others, some try harder. I don't think (with some exceptions) that we have no choice about how we live our life but I do think that we all battle with selfishness and loneliness and a yearning for meaning which we attempt to fill one way or another.

Ellie wrote: "I like to view the glass as half full-the question for me is, half full of what? ...
I do almost all my philosophizing early in the morning. Later in the day, I'm too busy to think!...>>

I'm with E on this on.
What a treat to find these wise and caring reflections first thing on waking.K, do you really think our need to dominate is stronger than our need for love?

I like to think that if we could just stop being afraid, of each other and of being left out in any way, then we wouldnt be so selfish. Our fatal flaw, I think, is our capacity for self-sabatoge.We're all primed for an apocolypse.

What Im wondering about London burning is what kind of discontent has precipitated this? Just like in the Vancouver riot, people are quick to roll out the cannons and call on more police as a solution, but the police fix nothing.

Riots are indicitive of a social structure in upheaval. This London one seems to have been organized by mafia types. When will we ever learn?

I am sure in London everyone will rush to point the finger, and thus avoid responsibility.

For me, it is a matter of personal choice, people have chosen to riot, steal, ..... they have no one to blame other than themselves.

Our poverty in the UK is riches in many parts of Africa and Asia.

What is worth noting, is the rise of the silent majority.

Ice wrote: "I am sure in London everyone will rush to point the finger, and thus avoid responsibility.

For me, it is a matter of personal choice, people have chosen to riot, steal, ..... they have no one to..."

It's pretty clear that people everywhere are fed up with systems that exploit and endanger us. There sure is a lot of finger pointing going on.

The solution is not to provide more policing but to provide meaningful choices for the masses of discontent, the unemployed and those who never even had a chance to develop their creative potential.

wish I knew how to post a link properly. Tried sending something here but it didnt happen.

There are ghosts in the machine.

It was. I fixed it. Any book marked "currently reading" instead of "to read" or "read" shows up on the home page.

Kinkajou wrote: "Although I do agree with Ellie that we are simply born flawed, as opposed to good or bad, I also believe that those flaws run deep and that those flaws will haunt us for a good long time. ..."

If you've got it, flawnt it....

okay okay sorry about that, I could not resist.

I believe we either face our flaws and work with them or else they become the fatal flaw that sabatogues our best efforts.
We all want to love, just not the people around us.

So we are not perfect, unless we can convince ourselves that we are perfect as we are, flaws included. As convoluted as that kind of reasoning may be, it seems preferable to the mindset that insists that our flaws will send us to hell.
Our flaws define us when we ignore them.
That must be why we accomodate ourselves to a seriously flawed system.

I'm perfectly flawed. I guess at skill level I am on the lowest floor, which means I support everyone else, which in turn becomes a skill to increase my floor level, unless everyone else's flaws are still less than mine in which case I move back to the deepest floor.
(I am in silliness ?)

Ice wrote: "I'm perfectly flawed. I guess at skill level I am on the lowest floor, which means I support everyone else..."

I think thats it...our flaws are perfect for us
and if we can see past our own impediments we can begin to support each other instead of always feeling the need to attack or defend against other peoples flaws.

Today is International Literacy day

apparently .......

Today is a day full of political line drawing as well, at least on my side of the Atlantic. Too bad literacy isn't the priority of our politicians.

Like children politicians like a sandpit, its easy to erase and move the line, if you can still see it under the posturing footprints.

This is Ground Control to Major Tom.

Can you hear me Major Tom?



Remember when we were all young and pretty?

And the drugs...

We could be heroes, just for one day.

I used to be a young American, but now I'm an old European...

This seems like as good a place as any to describe my little adventure in the wee hours on GR. First i noticed a brilliant review by my friend Trevor of a book id never heard of, nf i believe, about Aboriginal culture. Then i read some other reviews and altogether noted 3 people who had also written good ones, so i looked them up. I havent taken on any friends for a long while so i sent them messages. The catch is, 2 of them have more friends than books and probably 2 of them are sock puppets. I guess even a sock puppet can write a decent review, but whats with these peopel with 0-5 books, or ive even seen 0 books 0 friends and 0 groups?
Then this morning out of the blue i got friend request from a random gentleman who yesterday liked a review that i also liked. Go figure

I've gotten a couple of FR from people with 0 books, 0 groups, 0 friends (or hundreds of friends but no books). Unless they just joined GR, I ignore them.
I've gotten FR from people after liking a review. People really do read reviews & likes.
Mostly, though, I find that if someone likes one of my likes, they start to follow me, rather than friend me.

I’m always curious about those people with 0 anything. Also I’ve been getting friend requests from writers with 0 everything and you can’t even send them a message. I no longer accept their “friend�� requests

I don't accept friend requests from authors either, unless they belong to a group that I'm in. I'll always accept a request from a group member.

Me too. Since this is “random�� I’ll add that my computer crashed a couple of hours ago. I may have lost all the poetry for this workshop and maybe longer. I’m very shook up.

@Ellie OH no! That is terrible. I once lost so much with a crash I keep a storage of most of my stuff on an external hard drive which I replace every three years.

Oh no, Ellie! I hope you can retrieve your data. That's awful news.

Thanks I’m pretty upset. I should have had an external hard drive but I don’t so...All of my new poems seem to be lost. Oh well.

O Ellie that sucks big time. Let us all pray that your poetry is retrievable....

No no no
Let that machine know in no uncertain terms you want your poems back!
(You did try undo, once worked for me)

Tried. No luck with the work I’ve done in Jan/Feb but the earlier work seems to be there. At least some of it. Which is better than nothing.
Thanks though for all your support. It’s helped.

O i know the anguish. At least you got some back! Are you writing directly on the machine?

As for me i have been locked out of my laptop for months. No one seems to be able to figure it out.

Joys of technology :-$

I’m so sorry Magdelanye. That would just kill me. Yes I do everything on the computer.