The Secret Of Happiness
- Joseph J. Mazzella
There once was a very wealthy and successful man. He had more money than he could ever spend and he was admired and looked up to by his community. Still, he knew that something was missing in his life. He wasn't happy. All his life he had pursued happiness and strived for happiness but had never been able to find it.
Then one day he heard about a hidden temple in Nepal that had a special room that contained the secret to happiness. He immediately sold all that he owned and set out to find this hidden temple. After many years of searching and countless hardships he arrived there. He was weary and pennyless, but he knew that none of that mattered now that he had found the temple. He asked a wise, smiling monk if he could enter the special room. The monk agreed and showed him the stairs leading to the room. He climbed them with legs shaking with anticipation and slowly opened the door. He stared into the room with sunlight streaming through the window and saw what he had come so far to find. There hanging on the wall was the secret of happiness. The man gazed at his reflection in the mirror and laughed.
It is time that we all realized that we are the secret to our own happiness. Happiness is a choice that we make within. God loves us and gives each one of us the ability to fill our lives with love, joy, peace, happiness, and oneness with Him We need only choose to do so moment by moment and day by day. It doesn't matter what our outer circumstances are either, because the Kingdom of Heaven is within us. Don't spend the rest of your life searching the world for happiness then. Just look in the mirror and laugh. Just let the happiness flow from your heart, mind, and soul until it fills your life and the lives of all those around you.
Girl : Do you love me ?
Boy : Yes Dear
around Big Sur, California, the driver was up in his truck shooting the shit with a cop who was also pulled into the overlook.
RAs Playing Twister at the local roller rink... Unfortunately they wouldn't let us play on our skates and the next time we went they had repainted the floor.
Every day, from 9-5, Sam stands outside a mattress store on Market Street in downtown Akron, OH, holding a sign that reads, "Will work for bananas." Passers-by honk their horns as Sam waves and dances in the middle of the sidewalk. He's very friendly, I promise. December 2005
Diane at Johnson's Shut-Ins, near Lesterville, Missouri, USA. The Shut-Ins is an incredibly unique swimming hole formed from the waters of the Black River. More: www.mostateparks.com/jshutins.htm
here is a look from the street. I took this during a little break. We have lots of plants that flower, which led to nice little streams of color flowing into the gutters.
Tomorrow brings a landmark anniversary for Rafael Benítez but it is not of the sort he will have marked up on his kitchen calendar. On January 22 2005 Liverpool were beaten 2-0 by Southampton, who had few other distractions of that sort as they homed in on bottom spot in the Premiership. The third defeat in a week cracked the manager's defences and there was a dam-burst of condemnation over all his doings on Merseyside.
It was unthinkable then that he would be held in such esteem as he prepares for tomorrow's away match with Manchester United. That defeat to Southampton was pored over and Alan Hansen wrote that the first-half display was "the worst I've seen in the 14 years since I left the club". The former captain decried Benítez's penchant for signing his fellow Spaniards and declared that Liverpool "are not going to win the Champions League".
Jeers for Hansen have to be stifled because every piece of opinionated punditry creates another batch of hostages to fortune and, above all, his views were shared by most people on the football scene. Liverpool overhauled a 3-0 deficit in the European Cup final but they have had to sustain the transformation in order to enjoy their current standing. With their all-round strength and consistency they will continue to be treated as the best-equipped team to keep pace with Chelsea in the years ahead, whatever the outcome against Manchester United tomorrow.
Liverpool's progress owes a little to signings and other alterations to the line-up. During the misery at St Mary's, Jamie Carragher played at right-back because the old and slow Mauricio Pellegrino was in central defence. There is no longer bed-blocking of that kind in the side. None the less, the more influential changes have occurred within Benítez himself, who has become far more flexible in his reaction to the idiosyncrasies of the Premiership.
The career of the Wales manager John Toshack includes two spells in charge of Real Madrid and three at Real Sociedad, giving him an appreciation of how odd English football looks to a Spaniard such as Benítez. "Everyone gets railroaded into 4-4-2 because if you don't play that way they call you negative," said the former Liverpool striker, conscious that such systems are somewhat alien to the Anfield manager. "There is no doubt that Rafa has adjusted, because he never used two outright strikers at Valencia."
In the defeat at Southampton and another by the same margin at Birmingham Benítez employed Fernando Morientes up front, with Milan Baros drifting deeper and wider until he reached vanishing point. At the moment Liverpool, when taking on palpably weaker teams, utilise the more assertive threat of Morientes and Peter Crouch, who made a painful impression on Benítez with his goal at St Mary's a year ago. "Against sides from the mid-table downwards he will have decided that he can afford to take more of a chance with his tactics," said Toshack.
The balance to be struck between caution and aggression is one that preoccupies every manager. Benítez would identify with the thinking of one of his Anfield predecessors, even if the idiom would not come so naturally to him. "Bill Shankly," recalls Toshack, "used to say: 'A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing.'" Benítez has always been aware that a certain huskiness is essential and the acquisition of Mohamed Sissoko added an athleticism to the destructive work of the Liverpool midfield, although the Mali international, who turns 21 tomorrow, still tends to be indiscriminate on occasion in the passes and tackles he attempts to make.
Benítez has always been very pragmatic and if he lets his men off the leash it will be because the method is logical. With Liverpool 3-1 down at Luton he swiftly converted to a devil-may-care 4-2-4 formation which overwhelmed Mike Newell's team. The switch was born of calculation, not romance, and even as a boy he was obsessively analytical in his addiction to a military board game called Stratego.
The lack of a career as a professional player meant that he had no prior status to draw upon in management and that must have deepened his conservatism. He could not afford to take risks. "He was the youth coach at Real Madrid when I was the manager there," said Toshack. "He has had to struggle through the ranks in Spain and he was a surprise appointment at Valencia."
Benítez won two Liga titles while at the Mestalla, as well as a Uefa Cup, and depended on a robust 4-2-3-1 formation. Though Toshack's Real Sociedad side beat them in the 2001-02 championship the Welshman recalls the formidable cragginess of Valencia. "It was as if you had to be in your 30s to play in their back four," he said, "and no one could get at the defence easily because of David Albelda and Rubén Baraja. Then they would counter-attack through Pablo Aimar."
Toshack is sure Benítez's approach is essential for success at the higher levels and he has England's generally dismal record in European football over the past 20 years to bear out his argument. "You can't play 4-4-2 against Juventus, Chelsea and Milan," he says of the clubs defeated by Liverpool last season. "If you do you will get outnumbered and cut up in midfield."
The secret of Benítez's progress lies not in any radical overhaul but in the small calibrations he has made to ensure that Liverpool are bolder against the teams they should dominate. Last season, while being unduly cerebral, they could be bullied in away fixtures where they had neglected to seize the initiative. At present, on the other hand, they are unbeaten in 13 games in all domestic competitions.
The tailoring of the tactics for specific, relatively minor occasions does not mean Benítez's principles have altered. "You won't see him using Steven Gerrard as a holding player beside Xabi Alonso because it's just not in his instinct to cover that area," said the Wales manager. As Toshack indicates, there are security measures further forward in the 4-2-3-1 structure.
"One of those three men will not really be an attacker by nature," he argues. "For example, John Arne Riise is quite often the player on the left and he is more of a full-back who will help to provide cover on that side." Just before the third of four unsuccessful attempts by a goalless Chelsea to defeat Liverpool in the Champions League, Jose Mourinho commented that his opponents "do not play with an open heart". Coming from such an arch-realist that must have sounded like a handsome compliment to Benítez.
"Why not stay 20 years here?" the Spaniard said cheerily yesterday. Why not indeed when he already has a team built to last.
FPF - Dec. 18th - 2005 - In an interview yesterday with british TV anchor David Frost, the former american Secretary of State Colin Powell said that quite some so called 'leaders' of European Union countries were lying through their teeth when denying the illegal waves of US torture flights a.k.a. 'renditions' that have plagued the world for years. In diplomacy 'a frank and open conversation' means: 'they fought but did not use arms'. And the by the propagandists of the BBC used word 'disingenuous' means: 'false and hypocritical'.*- And that's exactly what they every day prove to be.
'President' Chirac in France, the despicable and corrupt Berlusconi in Italy, the likwise corrupt Barosso of the EU, the worst traitor and foremost british criminal among the European US stooges: Phony Tony Blair, the hypocritical Schroeder and now Merkel in Germany - which operates huge US bases - like the Quislings of The Netherlands do with 'christian killer' JP Balkenende: all those overdressed liars have known and condoned the hundreds of inhumane rendition flights and the torture for years. Breaching all by them signed conventions concerning human rights.
Powell - who is one of the foremost war criminals himself should know, and clearly states in his TV conversation with Frost that all those liars on toplevel in the EU accepted the illegality of the Americans and their flying Gestapo, which have stooped so low that they have been dragging all others in the gutter for war criminals too.
BILLION $ AGREEMENTS ARE KEPT SECRET: SHUT UP AND PAY UP!
The agreements concerning the European governments and many of the by the US 'run' NATO and UN covered 'war missions' are kept secret: people in the EU countries do not even know how much of their tax-billions are spent on the illegal genocides which they are forced to pay for. It's only the propaganda by the media the warmongers own and blind, cowardly propagandists (not journalists) that this is made possible: never before - not even by Hitler with Propaganda Meister Goebbels - were so many people brainwashed and 'zombied'. Their media and media-people have made all the genocides possible, and hopefully all collaborators in warcrimes will soon be punished, before they succeed in another disaster, the nuclear war with Iran. - [http://tinyurl.com/c2g2q]
POWELL RAPS EUROPE ON CIA FLIGHTS
Yesterday the BBC wrote: "Ex-US Secretary of State Colin Powell has indicated that Europeans are being disingenuous* when they deny knowledge of the rendition of terror suspects. Mr Powell said the recently highlighted practice of moving people to places where they are not covered by US law was neither "new or unknown" to Europe. A number of countries where flights allegedly stopped have said they were unaware of their land being used. (?)
Talking to the BBC wrote Mr Powell also described his difficulties over Iraq. In an interview with Sir David Frost for the BBC World TV channel, he described his disappointment with the failings of US intelligence on Iraq, and his arguments with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the campaign.
'LIKE CASABLANCA'
He was speaking after his successor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, faced tough questioning about the use of rendition during a recent trip to Europe. She admitted that terror suspects were flown abroad for interrogation, but said this was "a lawful weapon", and denied the prisoners were tortured.
PUBLIC OPINION WORLDWIDE IS AGAINST US - COLIN POWELL
She refused to address claims that the CIA runs secret prisons abroad where suspects are interrogated without reference to international law. But Gen Powell was dismissive of the furore in Europe. "There's a little bit of the movie Casablanca in this, where, you know, the inspector says 'I'm shocked, shocked that this kind of thing takes place'.
"WELL, MOST OF OUR EUROPEAN FRIENDS CANNOT BE SHOCKED THAT THIS KIND OF THING TAKES PLACE...''
The fact that we have, over the years, had procedures in place that would deal with people who are responsible for terrorist activities, or suspected of terrorist activities, and so the thing that is called rendition is not something that is new or unknown to my European friends."
[HR: 'Global Terror by Secret US Death Squads' - http://tinyurl.com/6d9sa]
IMPRESSION OF UNILATERALISM
He accepted that Washington's moral authority was under pressure at the moment. "The United States is going through a period right now where public opinion world-wide is against us. "I think that's a function of some of the policies we have followed in recent years with respect to Iraq and in not solving the Middle East's problem and perhaps the way in which we have communicated our views to the rest of the world, we have created an impression that we are unilateralist, we don't care what the rest of the world thinks. "I don't think it's a fair impression"
Questioned on the evidence held up by the US as proof that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction programme, he said: "I was deeply disappointed in what the intelligence community had presented to me and to the rest of us, and what really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced up to us." [ ]
[FPF: POWELL - blaming the others] - "OFTEN MAYBE MR RUMSFELD AND VICE-PRESIDENT CHENEY WOULD TAKE DECISIONS INTO THE PRESIDENT THAT THE REST OF US WEREN'T AWARE OF. THAT DID HAPPEN, ON A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS."
Asked about post-war planning for Iraq, Gen Powell said his state department staff drew up detailed plans, but they were discarded by Mr Rumsfeld's defence department, which was backed by the White House. "Mr Rumsfeld and I had some serious discussions, of a not pleasant kind, about the use of individuals who could bring expertise to the issue. And it ultimately went into the White House, and the rest is well known."
[andend - BBC]
It speaks for itself that anybody considering her- or himself a 'journalist' in the real sense of the word, would NEVER EVER accept a medal, a title or similar from war- and/or other criminals. If the ususally criminal government makes such an offer, it only confirms that the journalist in question has not done it's job properly.
Story from BBC NEWS - Url.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/4538788.stm
NEW YORK - Sen. Hillary Clinton on Monday blasted the Bush administration as "one of the worst" in U.S. history and compared the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to a plantation where dissenting voices are squelched.
Speaking during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, Clinton also offered an apology to a group of Hurricane Katrina survivors "on behalf of a government that left you behind, that turned its back on you." Her remarks were met with thunderous applause by a mostly black audience at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem.
The House "has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about," said Clinton, D-N.Y. "It has been run in a way so that nobody with a contrary view has had a chance to present legislation, to make an argument, to be heard."
"We have a culture of corruption, we have cronyism, we have incompetence," she said. "I predict to you that this administration will go down in history as one of the worst that has ever governed our country."
A spokeswoman for the White House declined to comment and referred questions to the Republican National Committee
RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said: "On a day when Americans are focused on the legacy of Martin Luther King, Hillary Clinton is focused on the legacy of Hillary Clinton."
take one december afternoon and bitterly cold i remember for London. Used an orange sunset filter (save me from freezing) - this taken on the opposite bank to the Palace of Westminster near St Thomas's hospital
South Haven Lighthouse. East shore of Lake Michigan, one cold Sunday afternoon in December. The railings are for entry to the lighthouse once the ice becomes too thick to walk on the lower level
Sunrise at Chatfield State Park, southwest of Denver, CO, US of A.
One interesting thing is that at this time, just before sunrise, the lake is very calm. As the sun rises, wind starts to blow across the lake, giving rise to small waves. In fact, you can see the first ripples in the picture as the grey band interrupting the orange reflection - the first breezes headed towards me from the other shore. You can literally watch the wind move over the water.
