ken atchity door to door

CATFISH FROM HELL [via Vicki Hake]

For all those crazy guys who go 'noodling' for catfish and stick their arms down the fish's throat!! This would be 'all the catfish you can eat',

Each year, a few people were drowning or disappearing mysteriously in Huadu's Furong Reservoir. It was not until recently, when the son of a government official went swimming, in the reservoir and was drowned, that the secret was revealed.

It is a 3 meter (9.8ft) long man-eating catfish whose head alone is 1 meter (3.3ft) wide!

After cutting up the catfish, people were surprised to find the remains of another man inside!

Swimming in the reservoir is now forbidden because it is feared another similar man-eating catfish is still lurking in the waters

"Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night."

Philip K. Dick via Michael A. Simpson

ENTERING DALI’S BRAIN [via Nina Reznick]

Zoomquilt II: Flash zoom-through painting

The Zoomquilt 2 , a 2007 sequel to the jarring Zoomquilt of 2004, is an even more hypnotic Flash zoom-through collaborative painting with bits from more than 30 different artists.

GUEST POST: Winning Book Proposal

Linda Sivertsen

Are you avoiding your Competition section?

Maybe it’s because I’m an ex-athlete, but I love a good, healthy, vigorous competition. That’s not to say I don’t get insecure in life (cuz I do!), but give me a challenge, and I usually relish the opportunity to give it my all.

That’s probably why I’ve always had a bit of a sweet spot in my heart for the Competition section of any Book Proposal. It’s fun for me to compare and contrast existing best-selling titles to whichever one I’m selling. It’s like a puzzle, figuring out what made the masses fall in love with the former, and what I have to offer the marketplace that adds to what’s already out there. When I find the compelling, fresh, or cutting-edge ways to position my book, I get that much more excited about writing it!

This past weekend I learned that one of my most intelligent, hardworking, driven, and successful clients absolutely HATES this section! I was floored.

We were on the phone; I’d just read her proposal, and it was fantastic. Except around page 25, I hit the Competition section and the energy fell off a cliff. “Dead to bones,” as my son used to say in kindergarten. The summaries were dry and dull and in need of a total competition makeover.

It took me a second, but I gathered the courage to ask her why it felt so lifeless. “Oh. I have to admit that I didn’t write that section,” she said. “I hired someone else to do it. I didn’t even read those books!” I started laughing, relieved. “I thought this sounded different,” I said.

Turns out, she was over-the-top intimidated by this section for a few reasons (maybe you relate):

1. She didn’t want to criticize other titles (which, she didn’t realize, isn’t a good idea anyway)

2. She didn’t want reading the other books to cloud her “take” on her topic

3. She worried that she could even accidentally plagiarize thoughts or portions without meaning to

4. With both an agent and editor excited to see her pages, she didn’t feel she had the time to read those books anyway (a high quality problem).

While it’s IMPORTANT that you intimately know your competition (editors are BUSY and depend upon you doing this research for them), you may want to see what other people are saying about these titles, especially if you haven’t read the book(s) in a while. One suggestion that helped ease this client’s stress was to look at the readers’ comments for each title on Amazon. NOT to cheat or replace actually reading the titles herself (which she promised to at least skim). But many of the comments are well structured and insightful, and can highlight things you’ve missed.

Just be sure to run any comments by your own experience and intuition. You know, in case those “reviewers” didn’t read the book either!

To learn more, click here. www.WinningBookProposals.com/teleseminars

Can You Dance Like This?

[via Vincent Atchity]

Super Bowl Bacon Cheese Turtleburger

The newcomer to the zoo that is bacon-centric food experiments - please give a round of applause for the Bacon Cheese Turtleburger. Created the day the Saints made their first appearance at the big dance, these little guys are sure to be a fan favorite. Who doesn't love a lot of meat on Super Bowl Sunday?

Handmade ground beef patties are topped with sharp cheddar cheese and then wrapped in a bacon weave before the Hebrew Nationals are inserted as the heads, legs and tails. Place them on a rack, cover loosely with foil and then put them into an oven heated to 400 degrees. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the bacon is done - cooked through and a little crispy, but not too crunchy.

And voila! Perfectly cooked Bacon Cheese Turtleburgers.

Recipe, experimentation and photos courtesy of
MRD, the Marquis de Meat.

Irish Blessing

His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog.

There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman's sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved.

'I want to repay you,' said the nobleman. 'You saved my son's life.'

'No, I can't accept payment for what I did,' the Scottish farmer replied waving off the offer. At that moment, the farmer's own son came to the door of the family hovel.

'Is that your son?' the nobleman asked.

'Yes,' the farmer replied proudly.

'I'll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of education my own son will enjoy If the lad is anything like his father, he'll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of.' And that he did.

Farmer Fleming's son attended the very best schools and in time, graduated from St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.

Years afterward, the same nobleman's son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia.

What saved his life this time? Penicillin.

The name of the nobleman? Lord Randolph Churchill .. His son's name?

Sir Winston Churchill.

Someone once said: What goes around comes around.

Work like you don't need the money.

Love like you've never been hurt.

Dance like nobody's watching.

Sing like nobody's listening.

Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

VATICAN ADMITS 20TH CENTURY HAPPENED, MUSICALLY [via Nina Reznick]

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The Beatles, Michael Jackson, and U2 Make Vatican Newspaper’s List of Best Albums; Bob Dylan Snubbed


Pope Benedict XVI
Photo by Mimmo Chianura - Vatican Pool/Getty Images

The Beatles, Oasis, Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson and U2 may be one step closer to paradise. But Bob Dylan is still “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”

The Vatican has previously denounced rock music as the devil’s work but in a surprise change of tune on Sunday the Holy See’s official newspaper, L’ Osservatore Romano, published what it called “a semiserious guide” to the top ten rock and pop albums of all time.

The list included The Beatles’ “Revolver,” which was given the top slot, Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of The Moon”, Oasis’ 1995 bestseller “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” and Michael Jackson’s blockbuster “Thriller.”

“Some songs seem to have been written yesterday…. while others still send shivers down the spine for their illuminating simplicity and musical thrust” the writers of the article said about “Thriller.” Of Oasis’ record, L’Osservatore Romano said “the album was never equaled” in part because of the disruptive in-fighting by the Gallagher brothers, the leaders of the group.

The “little handbook of musical resistance” was published in an attempt to offer an alternative to mediocre and cheesy tunes that feature in Italian popular festivals like the 60-year old one of Sanremo, which starts Tuesday in the north-western Italian region of Liguria and is widely-watched on television.

The albums are perfect listening material for anyone who finds himself marooned on a desert island, the Holy See’s newspaper noted.

Other records that made the top ten include U2’s “Achtung Baby”, Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours”, Donald Fagen’s “The Nightfly,” Carlos Santana’s “Supernatural,” Paul Simon’s “Graceland” and David Crosby’s “If I Could Only Remember My Name.”

The article by Giuseppe Fiorentino and Gaetano Vallini said that Dylan was excluded from the list despite his “great poetic vein” because he paved the way for generations of unprofessional singer-songwriters who have “harshly tested the ears and patience of listeners” with their tormented stories.

In the last two years, under new editor- in-chief Gian Maria Vian, L’ Osservatore Romano has shed some of its serious image and taken a more open approach, finding merit even in popular movies such as the “Harry Potter” series and “The Lord of the Rings.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy

ANCIENT MAN GETS A RISE OUT OF MODERN WOMEN [via David Adashek]

WOMEN DRIVERS!?!

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Yoga Gives Back

Written by Kayoko Mitsumatsu

From Posture To Power: Microcredit Changes Lives On Both Sides of the Ocean

We can talk about making change. But affecting real change in the world comes from impacting the lives of individuals. It comes from empowering people to be independent and able to make a living on their own while at the same time being fully integrated in our interdependent global community. Sometimes it takes something that seems to be radical to make this change, but these shifts can be deceptively small. They can be even as small (or as large) as the cost of a Los Angeles Yoga class.

How could this be? In the practice of microcredit, lending seemingly small amounts of money to small-scale entrepreneurs allows them to succeed and change their circumstances. This is the fundamental basis of microcredit’s transformative power; it’s a revolutionary concept in finance. This practice shifts the emphasis from financial transactions being focused only about large loans and large scale businesses, which are out of reach of many one-person operations, institutions and organizations – to lending practices that actually make a positive difference in a person’s life. Microcredit practices based on social justice and empowerment operate through a combination of small-scale loans based on trust and community support, with structured repayment plans and programs that encourage savings. In these situations, people actually have the opportunity to solidify long-term change in their lives.

Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the Yoga Gives Back Team: Joel Bender, Leslie Hendry, Dr. Muhammad Yunus and Kayoko Mitsumatsu (left-right)

In 2006, economist Dr. Muhammad Yunus and the institution he founded, the Grameen Bank, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This award was in recognition of their revolutionary efforts to create this micro-credit model, support sustainable economic practices, and provide an alternative to what were exploitive norms. When a person is caught in a cycle of poverty, they may become trapped in the system, particularly since large banking institutions have historically ignored people without assets or credit histories, who are just starting out and who may not have already proven themselves. Most banks prefer to lend large sums of money that represent a greater profit margin and are set up only for large loans in order to make a profit themselves. And even making it more challenging, people at the bottom of the economic scale worldwide have had to rely on moneylenders charging usurious terms and interest rates to obtain funds to plant the next crop, buy inventory of new equipment, or upgrade a business in any way. Institutions such as the Grameen Bank and their affiliates are offering another approach. It’s one that has significantly impacted millions of people.

As Dr. Yunus described in an exclusive interview with Yoga Gives Back in May, 2009, “We started in 1976, and today within Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, eight million people borrow micro loans, ninety-seven percent of them women.” This represents an enormous potential for change and empowerment that just did not exist on a large scale in this form prior to 1976.

There is a social cycle in economics, and Dr. Yunus explained this: “Poverty is not inside the person. Poverty is forced from outside. Poor people are as capable [a] human being as anybody else. They have the same power and energy, same potential. But they are denied such facilities. They cannot express themselves. Money is one of the most important items missing in their lives. You need a dollar to catch a dollar. You cannot catch a dollar with an empty hand. So, that first dollar, nobody has given to her. So she remains dependent on someone else. She has to be hired, to slave; she has to work to make food available on the table. What we have done, we have put that first dollar into her hands as a banking proposition. Conventional banks never come to the poor people. They go to rich people to make more money. The person who does not have a dollar – she cannot get it. So we did it. We did it in a way that is affordable to her. Because we do not insist on collateral. There is no collateral.”

While that may seem like a radical concept, the Grameen Bank has proven that their success is much more than ideological. Dr Yunus cited statistics for us, “The repayment rate is almost 100%, without collateral or anything. This is the strength of microcredit which is now spread all over the world. There are by now at least 150 million borrowers in the world today. Bu it is still very small comparing to the need. We need more microcredit organizations in the world so that more people can be reached.”

Yoga Gives Back is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization begun in LA, with the goal to provide a way for Western Yoga practitioners to give back to India, the birthplace of Yoga, which has given us so much. We’re heeding Dr. Yunus’ call to reach more people through expanded opportunities for and awareness of microcredit and have targeted India and Indian families, women, and would-be entrepreneurs, who would be otherwise stuck in the cycle of poverty that Dr. Yunus described. Yoga Gives Back supports microfinancing operations in India, through the Grameen Foundation, headquartered in Washington, DC. Donations go directly to Grameen Koota, Bangalore, South India and our YGB awareness campaign focuses on the real stories of how poor women are changing their lives with small loans from Grameen Koota.

Ms. Vinatha M Reddy

Grameen Koota was started by visionary teacher and philanthropist, Ms. Vinatha M Reddy (pictured, above) in 1999, who learned about Nobel Peace Recipient Dr Muhammad Yunus’ microfinancing and immediately began exploring ways of replicating his work in her hometown. In 2000, she started providing small microcredit loans, averaging $25.00 a month, to fifty local women. Today, Grameen Koota’s work is reaching out to over 280,000 women in Bangalore, Mysore and many areas of Karnataka state, in South India, making real impact on these women’s lives as well as on the local economy.

Yoga Gives Back

The Los Angeles-based Yoga Gives Back has a worldwide reach and began out of the inspiration and dedication of my Yoga mentor Joel Bender and me. Our group has suddenly started growing almost daily and our mission is shared by a quickly expanding and loving Yoga community.

When I was growing up in Japan, which is a very middle-class society, I had never experienced or seen any real poverty, especially growing up in Tokyo in 1960s and 1970s, when Japan's post-war economic miracle was taking place. Then, I had a chance to live in Brazil in the late 1970s for two years, where as a teenager, I saw the divide between poverty and wealth, the reality of the real slums, kids on the streets begging every time you stopped the car at the traffic light, all very much like India. Social injustice hit me hard.

Once I started Yoga practice and feeling my life being so enriched by it , I felt a need to use my resources to help others. I was producing a documentary on Social Entrepreneurship and learned about microfinancing. I shared this information with Joel [featured in the teacher profile in this month’s issue of LA YOGA] who had been looking for the way he could give back to India since his first visit there – so we teamed up.

When I think about the growth of Yoga Gives Back thus far, I give a lot of credit to the entrepreneurship and volunteer spirit of Americans, willing to embrace and support a new grass roots campaign like ours.

Kayoko Mitsumatsu, co-founder of Yoga Gives Back, is a documentary filmmaker whose films deal with social justice issues, including First They Killed My Father a memoir of a Cambodia’s Killing Fields’ survivor.

A Life Changing Story of Microcredit: Jayashree

Jayashree

Jayashree lives in the suburbs of Bangalore and is married and the mother of two children. We visited her at her humble dirt floor one room home for the first time in 2007. We were touched by her warm smile and most generous hospitality, serving us hot tea and cookies.

Jayashree was born into a very poor family in Bangalore. When she was a child, her family’s financial situation became so severe that she had to drop out of school and work at a garment factory. She toiled throughout her childhood and after she got married at fifteen, her meager earnings had to support her ailing in-laws. She had two children. Her husband’s rickshaw business was not enough to pay her sons’ education or secure food for the family.

In 2007, Jayashree learned from her neighbors about Grameen Koota’s microcredit program and applied for her first loan. She was granted a first loan of 7,000 rupees ($175), and immediately bought her husband’s auto rickshaw. Owning their own rickshaw business increased their income significantly.

Jayashree was able to pay back her entire loan in one year and became eligible for her second loan in 2008. Having proven her diligence, her second loan amount doubled to 15,000 rupees ($375). This time, she bought a sewing machine and started stitching bags. The family’s earnings have now tripled and she is earning 150 rupees ($3.75) a day. In addition, she opened a small shop next to her house to sell her products which is earning her an additional 100 rupees ($2.50) a day.

She is sending her elder son to a medical school. Her son dreams of becoming a doctor and thanks his mother’s business for providing his education, their own home and daily food.

To participate in a Yoga practice where the proceeds support Yoga Gives Back and directly impact the transformation of not only your own life, but that of someone in India, start your Thanksgiving week at Yogaglo, Sunday, November 22, 10:00 A.M. - 12 noon. Some of the teachers include John Sahakian, Felicia Tomasko, Alexandra Aiken and Ally Hamilton; more to be announced. Yogaglo.com; yogagivesback.com.

For more information on Yoga Gives Back or to host a Yoga Gives Back class at your own studio or location, visit: yogagivesback.org or contact yogagivesback@earthlink.net.

WOW [via David Angsten]

How Dinosaurs became extinct. The very first "senior moment" [via Nina Reznick]