Album Release Parties, Brunettes Going Blonde, and the Hottest App in the Country: News From Dave Temple, Ian Lara, Ricky Velez, Adam Ray, Ben Bailey, Scott Rogowsky and more!
Many Americans were outraged when the Wall Street banks paid out an estimated $18.4 billion in executive and staff bonuses in 2009, even while the economy was being cratered by the financial meltdown and the Great Recession.1 It seemed very unfair; the perpetrators were being rewarded while the victims were paying a terrible price.
Just happened to be scrolling through my Facebook feed and came across a suggested post, which is sort of an advertisement for the "iPhone School Of Photography." What was interesting was the fellow in the video was not trying to sell the school, but was actually giving real, usable information for free. I checked this all out and it all worked perfectly. (I always check out EVERYTHING I read on any social media because it is wholly unedited and therefore needs to be vetted carefully for factual information because there is a great deal of dis-information out there).
A year ago, I did a full bloodwork analysis with the help of my university health plan. The hospital billed me $3,641, which was fully covered by insurance. The number from the results that scared me was my glucose level, 105, above the preferred 100 max.
One of the important findings of the emerging, multi-disciplinary science of human nature is that humans do, indeed, have an innate sense of fairness. We regularly display a concern for others’ interests as well as our own, and we even show a willingness to punish perceived acts of unfairness.
We had an opportunity to interview Potter Greg Relaford and learned how the process of creating pottery can be the road map toward going inward to experience a powerful meditation. The motion of turning the wheel is repetitive and in that sameness a person can experience a powerful new revelation about one’s inner self. Turning the wheel is like taking one more journey around the sun.
The pursuit of a potter can be both artistic and metaphysical. The process of creating pottery can be the road map toward going inward to experience a powerful meditation. One of the most important stories in the bible is The Potter and The Clay, in which God is the Potter and we humans are the clay. Although the work of the potter presents as a powerful biblical story, the journey of the potter might not be religious at all and reside somewhere between the metaphysical and the contemplative. After all, the motion of turning the wheel is repetitive and in that sameness a person can experience a powerful new revelation about one’s inner self. Turning the wheel is like taking one more journey around the sun.
The United Nations now publishes an annual World Happiness Report, and it shows that the overall trend since the depths of the Great Recession, in 2008-2009, continues to improve. By the U.N.’s criteria, the world is getting happier. Likewise, the Gallup polling organization, which does an ambitious annual survey across some 140 countries of people’s subjective sense of well-being, reports that its metric is also rising.
It seems that happiness is busting out all over – like that famous lyric from the classic Broadway musical, Oklahoma. True, happiness is not much in evidence in our economy, or in our shrill and rancorous politics. But never mind. An explosion of research and a bumper crop of writings about happiness can be found -- somewhat incongruously -- in various academic journals these days, as well as in the bookstalls. A dozen titles were counted in a local bookstore recently without breaking a sweat.
