Whether or not there is a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred. Prayer can be a sacred ritual. There is something transcendent, beyond the everyday. It's possible that humans created this sacredness ourselves, but that doesn't take away from its power or importance.
Each day in 2009, I asked every person with whom I had a meaningful encounter to submit a record of this meeting through an online survey. These reports form the heart of the 2009 Annual Report. From parents to old friends, to people I met for the first time, to my dentist... any time I felt that someone had discerned enough of my personality and activities, they were given a card with a URL and unique number to record their experience.
Both players are above average with respect to almost every statistic. King James, though, does more. In fact, LeBron has done more across the past four seasons than Kobe has done in his four best seasons. And the difference is even bigger if we look at what each player has done in 2008-09.
We have thought erroneously of education
As the mature wisdom
And the over-brimming knowledge of the grownups
Injected by the discipline pump
Into the otherwise "empty" child's head.
I have learned to undertake
Reform of the environment
And not to try to reform man.
If we design the environment properly
It will permit child and man to develop safely
And to behave logically.
No sharp cleavage is found
Which identifies the boundary between life and non-life
Between the heretofore so-called "animate" and "inanimate." [...]
The DNA/RNA genetic code is essentially
A structural pattern integrity.
Such pattern integrities
Are strictly accountable
Only as mathematical principles
Pattern integrities are found
At all levels of structural organization in universe.
The DNA/RNA is a specialized case
Of the generalized principle of pattern integrity
Found throughout life and non-life.
Within the order of evolution as usually drawn
Life "occurred" as a series
Of fortuitous probabilities in the primeval sea. [...]
It seems more likely
(In view of the continuous rediscovery of man
As a fully organized being
Back to the ever more remote periods)
That the inanimate structural pattern integrity,
Which we call human being,
Was a frequency modulation code message
Beamed at earth from a remote location.
Man as prime organizing
"Principle" construct
Was radiated here from the stars― [...]
Possibly as the synergetic totality
Of all the gravitation
And radiation effects
Of all the stars
In our galaxy
And from all adjacent galaxies
With some weak effects
And some strong effects
And from all time.
And pattern itself being weightless
The life integrities are apparently
Inherently immortal.
You and I
Are essential functions
Of universe
We are exquisite anti-entropy.
I'll be seeing you!
Forever.
That’s a graph of readers’ paths through The Truth About the East Wind. The x-axis is elapsed reading time, in minutes. The y-axis is progress through the story; the higher you get on the graph, the closer you are to the end of the page.
And this tomato tinted tornado―me—
Swollen 24 fold to approximately 160 pounds―
Each day takes in and compoundingly processes
Approximately three pounds of foods,
Six pounds of water and
Sixty-four pounds of air―
From which it extracts six pounds of oxygen:―
Amounting at my seventy years
To a cumulative total
Of approximately 1,000 tons―
The weight of one United States Navy's
Word War Two destroyer,
Or 300,000 fold my arrival weight.
But the thousand tons
Is in effect the weight
Of a seventy years long
Thirty-six inch girthed "rope"
Twisted of imaginary strands
Of food, water and air molecules
Drawn randomly from all around Earth,
And twisted temporarily together.
Despite oppressive poverty (other than India, I've never seen anything comparable), there's simply a remarkable feeling there and most visitors to Haiti end up sharing this understanding with other Haitiphiles. I've long wished I could explain this.
The massive medical aid response to Haiti has got United Nations traffic managers worried that medical do-gooders will be creating logjams. [...]
Most of the hospitals in Port-au-Prince have been smashed beyond use. And there are tens of thousands of earthquake victims who urgently need surgery and hospital care, so it's natural that governments and humanitarian agencies around the world are rushing sophisticated pre-packaged field hospitals into the earthquake zone.
But the United Nations today said: Please stop.
This regional view of Port-Au-Prince, from January 15, 2010, shows the densely developed urban area and the limited number of transportation hubs available for bringing aid into the earthquake-hit nation.
I think our expectations (and even more so our attachment to them) are the source of most human problems. It's fine to want something and even to hope for it, but when you start to expect it, you're not paying attention to what's actually happening. You've checked out and put in a zombie as your surrogate. There are a lot of people sleepwalking in their relationships, their jobs, driving their cars, what they eat, and all the rest. This gift we've all had thrust upon us is too precious (for me) to waste it expecting things to be certain ways. I intend to poke and prod at life (myself) and see what it can and cannot do, all the while doing my best to see what actually happens, not just whether what I expected to happen did or didn't happen.
The TM followers insist they are not a cult. They all have normal jobs, for the middle of Iowa, and they are not out to recruit you. They just want you to know the option is there.
"It's not a religion. It's not against any religion, it's not mumbo-jumbo. It truly does transform life."
The first resolution of the city council was to announce the constitution of the city to the same as "the Constitution of the Universe—Total Natural Law—RK Veda".
UNIVERSITY PARK — An outstanding effort by Willie Argo carried the Illini to an 11-5 victory over the Nittany Lions on Saturday at Medlar Field.
Argo blasted two home runs for Illinois. He went 3-4 in the game with five RBIs and two runs scored.
Illini starter Will Strack struggled, allowing five runs in six innings, but the bullpen allowed only no runs and the offense banged out 17 hits to pick up the slack and secure the victory for the Illini.
The Illini turned the game into a rout with four in the ninth inning.
Strack got the win for Illinois. It was his fourth victory of the season. Strack allowed five runs over 6 2/3 innings. Strack struck out two, walked three and surrendered six hits.
Mike Lorentson suffered his sixth loss of the season for Penn State. He went four innings, walked none, struck out two, and allowed six runs.
Illinois closer John Anderson got the final seven outs to record his second save of the season.
The place started as a beer distributor in 1949. Alan Schafer's family business thrived as people traveled from dry counties in North Carolina to fill up on alcohol. [...] With its success, the beer stand evolved into a square-mile-wide, self-sufficient community.
"We're like a city. We have our own fire department and post office," Pelt said.
From the '50s to the early '90s, with the introduction of video poker, South of the Border was a booming business. But in 2009, [...] Many of the structures are in bad condition and the legendary motel, coined Pedro's Pleasure Dome, appears run down and deserted.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, originally from nearby Dillon, South Carolina, worked for a summer as a poncho-wearing waiter at South of the Border to help pay his way through Harvard.
On average, a master’s degree results in 20 percent more pay than does a bachelor’s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
