I'm Trying Out A New Look. What Do You Think?

We've Taken a Look at Our Habits Over the Past Few Years, and Identified Room for Change.

Occupy Your Democracy

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. 

We are the ones we've been waiting for. 

We are the change that we seek.

 - President Barak Obama.

Most Life-Changing Books by Women . . .

The Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction launched a campaign to find the novels, by women, "that have most impacted, shaped or changed readers' lives."

This list is the result:

1) To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
2) The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood
3) Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
4) Harry Potter – JK Rowling
5) Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
6) Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
7) Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
8) Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
9) The Secret History – Donna Tartt
10) I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith
11) The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
12) Beloved – Toni Morrison
13) Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
14) We Need To Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver
15) The Time Traveller's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
16) Middlemarch – George Eliot
17) I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
18) The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing
19) The Colour Purple – Alice Walker
20) The Women's Room – Marilyn French

Those titles in bold are ones I have read, while those in italic are sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. I was surprised at how few of the books on the list that I had actually read, as I try to go out of my way to support women writers.

After thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that the problem is the subject matter. Although a couple of them I'd not heard of (9 & 10), when I look at the unread books on this list, I see many deep and difficult subjects. And I am a wuss. You'd think that with all the murder and mayhem I consume, I'd have a stronger constitution. But you'd be wrong.

Over the course of my life I have had experiences (as have we all) that have left, well, scars; and I find I'm a bit gun shy of subjects that threaten to make me actually feel deeply. So, many popular and critically acclaimed books never end up on my night stand.

Are there subjects that you avoid? I don't mean for moral or ethical reasons (for the most rational among us often agree to disagree on such things), but for personal ones.


Source: The Guardian.

Quote of the Day

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.

- Charles Darwin.

If Graffiti Changed Anything . . .

BANKSY

LOOKING FOR SOME LAST MINUTE GIFT IDEAS?

"One of the paradoxes of living in a wealthy country is that we accumulate tremendous purchasing power, yet it’s harder and harder for us to give friends and family presents that are meaningful."

- The Gifts of Hope,
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, N.Y.TIMES

*Arzu (ArzuStudioHope.org) employs women in Afghanistan to make carpets for export. The women get decent wages, but their families must commit to sending children to school and to allowing women to attend literacy and health classes and receive medical help in childbirth. Rugs start at $250 and bracelets at $10, or a $20 donation pays for a water filter for a worker’s family.

*First Book (firstbook.org) addresses a basic problem facing poor kids in America: They don’t have books. One study found that in low-income neighborhoods, there is only one age-appropriate book for every 300 children. So First Book supports antipoverty organizations with children’s books — and above all, gets kids reading. A $100 gift will supply 50 books for a mentor to tutor a child in reading for a year. And $20 will get 10 books in the hands of kids to help discover the joys of reading.

*Fonkoze (fonkoze.org) is a terrific poverty-fighting organization if Haiti is on your mind, nearly a year after the earthquake. A $20 gift will send a rural Haitian child to elementary school for a year, while $50 will buy a family a pregnant goat. Or $100 supports a family for 13 weeks while it starts a business.

*Another terrific Haiti-focused organization is Partners in Health, (pih.org), founded by Dr. Paul Farmer, the Harvard Medical School professor. A $100 donation pays for enough therapeutic food (a bit like peanut butter) to treat a severely malnourished child for one month. Or $50 provides seeds, agricultural implements and training for a family to grow more food for itself.

*Panzi Hospital (panzifoundation.org) treats victims of sexual violence in eastern Congo, rape capital of the world. It’s run by Dr. Denis Mukwege, who should be a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. A $10 donation pays for transport to the hospital for a rape survivor; $100 pays for counseling and literacy and skill training for a survivor for a month.

*Camfed (camfed.org), short for the Campaign for Female Education, sends girls to school in Africa and provides a broad support system for them. A $300 donation pays for a girl to attend middle school for a year in rural Zambia, and $25 sends a girl to elementary school.

*The Nurse-Family Partnership program (nursefamilypartnership.org) is a stellar organization in the United States that works with first-time mothers to try to break the cycle of poverty. It sends nurses to at-risk women who are pregnant for the first time, continuing the visits until the child turns 2. The result seems to be less alcohol and drug abuse during pregnancy, and better child-rearing afterward, so that the children are less likely to tangle with the law even years later. A $150 gift provides periodic coaching and support for a young nurse by a senior nurse for a month.

*Edna Hospital (ednahospital.org) is a dazzling maternity hospital in Somaliland, an area with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. Edna Adan Ismail, a Somali nurse- midwife who rose in the ranks of the World Health Organization and also served as Somaliland’s foreign minister, founded the hospital with her life’s savings and supports it with her United Nations pension. A $50 gift pays for a woman to get four prenatal visits, a hospital delivery, and one postnatal visit. Or $150 pays for a lifesaving C-section for a woman in obstructed labor.

CHANGING EDUCATIONAL PARADIGMS

Here is a great video on YouTube.

~ I can't get the embedding to work right ~

so
you will have to go to the source


It is definitely worth it.