A "rare and radiant maiden" - full of life...
struck down
by the evil liar
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
just as surely as if he had personally put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
Shiri's mother: Everyone who met her admired her strong spirit. She was little, and looked very fragile, but still she was strong.
Shiri's sister Sharon: She had this way of walking, so... self-confident... like someone who knows where she wants to go, and what she wants to do. She never looked confused. And there was something royal about her - in her very long blond hair, and her amazing smile - that made people unable to ignore her.
[...]
And after she finished her service in the army, she could've just forget about them [some struggling people], but she just went to one of the big supermarkets there, and she asked the manager if he could help her. [...] She almost commanded him to help, because she said his neighbors needed him. And it wasn't even special for her. She never told many people about it. She never thought that she should be proud of it. It was just natural for her... to try to help as much as she can.
Shiri's cousin Sharona: She didn't have even one drop of wickness. She was always looking and searching for ways to help other people.
Sheri's sister Shely: She was very brave. I think that even by how she died you can see how brave she was. She act as if everything is okay: she didn't scream, she didn't shout anything. When the paramedics came to her and asked her what happened, she even smiled. So when they took her off, at the hospital, they were sure they will see her again. And she was taken into the surgery room, and she didn't come out. I thought that Shiri was so brave and so strong, that nothing could happen to her. I didn't believe anything could happen to her.Sheri's friend Ron: I don't remember her as someone who died in a terror attack. I remember her as Shiri-
Shiri's friend Hadas: As the winner
Ron: with a big smile, as the winner. As, um..
Hadas: As the winner
Ron: as the winner, that's the word. She was the winner.
Hadas: Yes
This website gives detail, including an inspiring YouTube tribute.
Shiri Negari's life stands as a rebuke to the evil Iranian Mullahs. May the beauty and liveliness displayed in this photo haunt them, one way or another.
The curious thing about life is we can never really, truly, actually know it's meaning and it's purpose. That is beyond our capability to understand.
We can postulate, but only at shallow levels:
That's all good stuff, yet it's necessarily shallow. Human capacity to understand is shallow.
Yet, reason tells us God acts in logical fashion. God is not a random prankster. Therefore exists a path of cohesive truth which stretches all the way to the very nub of the purpose of all existence. It's just that our brains are not strong enough to take the entire path.
Do we seek to get as far along the path as possible? For now, I think this: if it is your bliss, seek away!
"The American people must know we too lost a close friend and brother this day," said Iraqi Army Col. Ali Jafar, Commanding Officer of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Iraqi Brigade, who previously spoke at Manion's memorial service. "May his family know we too lost family, and we share their loss, our loss."
Iraqi soldiers have since named a combat outpost after Manion.
"The advisors on a MiTT team are very different from the other American forces in Iraq. They are choosing to live with us, in our ways, share the same hardships and dangers, and choose to fight alongside of us. Many days. Every day," said Jafar. "Their blood is spilled alongside of ours on the battlefield. It mixes with ours. This is why Mulazam (lieutenant) Manion was, and will always be, our brother."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At birth, our souls already have knowledge of God, and of a heavenly realm beyond human understanding. In transcendent spiritual moments, we can sense some of this knowledge. Only some. Hints, only.I suddenly understood everything. There are not human words to describe what I understood.Take a quiet moment to contemplate evil. Gaghdad Bob says existence is both horizontal (Earthly) and vertical (spiritual). Just so. Take a moment for verticle.
A generous heart will never care to go part way;
it won't be cowed
if there is passage anywhere,
but set out on the hardest road;
nothing can cause it misery,
and with faith soaring like a cloud
it feeds on something I don't know
that one may come on randomly.
- St. John of the Cross
Triumphalism, thy blogosphere name is Rathergate. Vanity, thy name is Dan Rather - especially because Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS is so clearly in vain. Beldar has the legal take.
Ironically, I referenced Rathergate, and Dan Rather's blind spot regarding it, only last Wednesday:
In that instance, blogs attracted expertise which almost immediately proved - to 100% certainty - that Rather's docs were fakes. It took some of the MSM weeks to catch on. Some of the MSM (including Rather) never caught on to what is absolute, 100%, scientifically verifiable proof. It was proof - not beyond a reasonable doubt - but beyond a shadow of a doubt - beyond any shred of doubt whatsoever.
It's easy to stand by those words. Facts are facts. A hallucinatory lawsuit is meaningless - except as demonstration of how silly we the people once were to invest large amounts of trust in TV personalities.
In present day, we make up our own minds about the probable accuracy of various bits of information. I judge Beldar's information is more accurate than Dan Rather's. Yet, even Beldar(!) is not invested with absolute authority.
I suspect Dan's Rathergate blind spot is a type of psychological defense mechanism. I suspect Dan's psychology can bear neither the jolt of acknowledging such a sloppily biased mess up, nor the jolt of acknowledging almost everyone in the U.S. knows he acted in such a sloppily biased fashion.
I suspect Dan Rather's life revolves around what people think of him. When his head hits the pillow at night, I suspect he experiences psychological agony. I can empathize, as most of my life revolved far too much around what people thought of me. I've been there. I still, sometimes, slip into old habits.
Here, I was going to recount how Dan Rather falsely claimed credit for breaking the story that JFK had died. And how it worked. Though the truth is widely known among broadcasting insiders: Dallas local CBS reporter Eddie Barker broke the story - via a contact inside the Parkland Hospital Emergency Room, Rather stole the story by refusing to properly credit Barker. Today, Rather is commonly given credit for breaking the story.
I was going to recount how Dan Rather slandered the city of Dallas via the willfully false report that schoolchildren from Dallas' University Park Elementary School had cheered news of President Kennedy's death. In actuality, the children were not told of President Kennedy's death. Having been kept in the dark about ongoing events, the children cheered when they were informed school would be let out at 12:30 that day. Rather knew this, and reported the false story anyway. He sacrificed the city of Dallas - via falsely stoking a nation's anger - for the sake of his own broadcasting career ambition. And it worked. Rather's career zoomed.
A link to a 2005 article about those stories by Weekly Standard's Philip Chalk, a 1974 graduate of University Park Elementary School.
Instead, I wish to consider bias and narcissism.
Bias
in this instance, means nothing more than having political views. There's nothing wrong with that. The ability to discriminate is the essence of rational thought. As humans, we cannot not discriminate amongst choices. It is hardwired into us.
News media - and Dan Rather is a champion of this - claim they report political news as if they have no political views. This is simply impossible.
One may report political stories as fairly as possible. One may not report political stories without one's own discriminatory rational thoughts seeping into some of the stories - via subtle characterizations and wording, if nothing else. A reporter, after all, wants accuracy in their stories. If "free markets work" is accurate, then that accurate framing and characterization will appear inside an economic story. If "markets must be managed" is accurate, then that framing and characterization will appear instead.
Journalists, and journalism schools, exhibit a collective blind spot about this reality. The blind spot is made larger via the circumstance of almost everyone in newsrooms and j-schools holding simpatico political opinions. Newsroom and j-school denizens begin to believe their collective political views equate to accuracy - and why wouldn't they, seeing as how every smart person around them thinks in the same way? Reporters often do not recognize bias in their stories. They succumb to groupthink:
It's not bias. It's what every smart person I know thinks - and therefore it's what every smart person thinks! It's accurate framing and characterization.
Reporting can be fair and biased. There is nothing wrong with this circumstance! Every sensible person has opinions. Some bias in framing and characterization cannot be avoided. Reporters have space considerations. They cannot turn 500 words into 2000 words, so as to fully describe the background of all political thought which surrounds the framing of a story.
What could be avoided, by smart publishers, are newsrooms in which 95% of reporters and editors hold identical political opinions. What could be avoided is reporters' and editors' lack of self-awareness about the standing and heft of their own opinions, relative to dissenting opinions.
Political Correctness has something to do with reporters' and editors' ignorance. As a conservative who bounces through blog comment sections, I have an excellent understanding of left-side opinion on the issues of the day. I can usually make the left-side argument as good or better than the lefty. The lefty, otoh, and the news reporter and news editor: do not understand my argument; cannot make my argument for me; and cannot accurately represent my argument in even the most shallow conversational fashion. They don't have to understand my argument. Political Correctness dictates that I hold my opinions b/c I am selfish, uncaring, sexist, racist, homophobic, and, lately, a Nazi. Why would they waste time trying to understand my arguments? I do not waste time studying the opinion of David Duke.
Newsrooms do not need diversity of race and gender so much as they need diversity of political understanding. Why did Dan Rather and Mary Mapes fall for the false Texas Air National Guard documents? Answer: because the documents confirmed their pre-existing bias about GWBush. Nothing is so wonderful as something which confirms one's pre-existing bias. Not one person existed in the CBS' newsroom to say: "Hold on. GWBush has not led a life filled with hypocrisy. Maybe we should check into these documents a bit more." Au contraire. Full speed ahead. No need to seriously, carefully validate the accuracy of those documents. EVERYONE in CBS' newsroom KNEW IN THEIR GUT that GWBush was an unexposed hypocrite. They also knew they were just the newsroom to expose hypocrisy which simply HAD TO BE TRUE, BECAUSE EVERYONE IN THE NEWSROOM SENSED IT WAS TRUE. This is how a major network came to stand behind an infamous explanation:
"Fake, but accurate."
The saddest part is, Dan Rather and Mary Mapes haven't even admitted to the "fake" part.
Narcissism
It's instructive to note how other people view you. It's helpful to have this feedback - as FEEDBACK - not as motivation.
It's misguided to let actions be motivated by desire to have other people view you favorably. It's psychologically agonizing. It's misery. It's shallow. It's not why we were put upon this Earth.
We get lost. We fail to recognize we are born to thrive; to love; to be love in action. We lose our way. We look for validation - not from God, not from the purpose for which we are born - but from the fallible persons of suspect motivation who exist around us. This way lies agony. Separation from God is agony. Looking to fallible, imperfect humans for validation is also agony. Other people can give us feedback - not validation. And we ought examine their feedback at a skeptical arm's length.
I suspect Dan Rather is lost. I suspect he looks to others for validation. I suspect he exists in a state of psychological agony. I empathize. I've been there. And sometimes I return.
This is reassuring to read. If Romo reduces his fumbles, I believe he will have an outstanding career.
Romo's always going to throw some crazy, Favresque interceptions. I'm no longer worried those plays will derail his career. Romo's always going to have plays where he looks like a flag-football athlete posing as an NFL athlete. I'm no longer worried about his physical capabilities.
Romo's intangibles - so far - look off-the-charts spectacular. When he fails, Romo has the guts to resume trying to stick passes into necessary places. This is the type of QB mentality most players yearn to play with. Romo can shrug the weight of failure off of his shoulders. His mental toughness is in the tradition of Roger Staubach; Joe Montana; Doug Flutie; John Elway; Brett Favre. Romo is a leader. If he can just control that fumbling thing, he could be - as Jason Taylor said "a very, very good quarterback." If he can just control that fumbling thing, Romo can be championship quality.
Note: Romo is half Mexican. Mexicans love American football. The Cowboys are "Mexico's team". This is one of the most fortuitous marketing opportunities of all time. Romo could become a huge, huge persona. Luckily, his head is squarely affixed to his shoulders. He can handle big hype.
Note II: The "Curse of Bobby Layne" is one season (2007) from coming to an end.
Before he was traded, Bobby Layne and high school teammate Doak Walker led the Detroit Lions to three NFL Championships.In 1958, the Lions traded Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Layne responded to the trade by saying that the Lions would "not win for 50 years". Since Layne left Detroit, the Lions have not won a championship and have suffered through many setbacks on and off the field.
"[T]he transformation of a Western-based individual to a terrorist is not triggered by oppression, suffering, revenge, or desperation. Rather, it is a phenomenon that occurs because the individual is looking for an identity and a cause and unfortunately, often finds them in the extremist Islam…"Daniel Pipes:
Interestingly, the NYPD acknowledges that it needed time to reach this level of sophistication: "Where once we would have defined the initial indicator of the threat at the point where a terrorist or group of terrorists would actually plan an attack, we have now shifted our focus to a much earlier point," when the process of radicalization begins.Melanie Phillips comments:
[...]
The outcome of the "war on terror," I submit, will have less to do with breakthroughs in avionics or intelligence coups than with the degree to which civilized people understand the nature of their enemy and join together to fight it.
[T]he NYPD has now realised that the threat to the west does not arise with the terrorist plot but far, far earlier, when the process of radicalisation begins. And it’s that process that the west has so conspicuously failed to address.Similar to the NYPD, our national focus must be on "the point where radicalization begins." This is why our enemy is not merely Al Qaeda terrorists who plan attacks - and that is where the left misses the point. Our enemies are underneath the terrorists - and are propping them up. Our enemies are
[L]iberal commentators repeat inaccurate claims about "all Americans" suffering from "a huge and profound ignorance about Islam" (as the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, just put it...)Radical Islam is not an unfathomable black hole which exists in some mysterious universe. Radical Islam is simple, and easily understandable. If an average American pays attention, he or she will understand it well enough - as many Americans already do. These Americans understand the threat is more profound than the latest terror plot; and the threat is more profound than the next 50 terror plots. Melanie Phillips:
It's the ideology, stupid.
to a degree the physical tools or minor league stats go completely out the window the first time you face Vlad Guerrero or Mariano Rivera. Only guys who can learn and use failure as a tool succeed in baseball long term.Re: the guys who never get it
[...]
it takes some guys 2 weeks to make their adjustment that lasts a career, while other guys never get it. Juan Dominguez had better stuff than [Robinson] Tejeda
[...]
Not to be overlooked is the body language of players while they're in the element. You can tell who is comfortable in their role by how they stand, walk around, fidget, breathe, and stare down the situation. Looking at Gabbard pitch through a bit of discomfort (and be really effective meanwhile) is an example of that- he's not intimidated by any situation- and a testament to his personal competitive drive.
Even more important to the young Albert Ellis was his shyness around women. He flirted with them in Bronx Botanical Garden near his home, but he never approached them. Instead he made up all kinds of excuses to avoid doing so because he was scared of rejection.Dr. Ellis could've fearfully and stubbornly insisted he was already as interpersonally competent and desireable as a smart woman might ever want. Thus he might never have accomplished the learning and growth, and he might have blamed an entire gender for failing to notice his wonderful qualities. And he might not have lived as full a romantic life as he - in his actual, rejection-filled life - did.
At the age of 19, he gave himself a homework assignment when he was off from college. He went to Bronx Botanical Garden every day that month, and whenever he saw a woman sitting alone on a park bench, he would sit next to her, which he wouldn't dare do before. He gave himself one minute to talk to her, calming his fears by saying silently to himself, "If I die, I die. Screw it, so I die."
He didn't die.
He found 130 women sitting alone that month on park benches. He sat next to all of them, whereupon 30 got up and walked away. He spoke to the remaining 100 — for the first time in his life — about the birds and the bees, the flowers, books, whatever came to mind.
Al later said, "If Fred Skinner, who was then teaching at Indiana University, had known about my exploits, he would have thought I would have got extinguished, because of the 100 women I made one date — and she didn't show up!
"But I prepared myself philosophically, even then, by seeing that nobody took out a stiletto and cut my balls off, nobody vomited and ran away, nobody called the cops. I had 100 pleasant conversations and with the second 100 I got good and made a few dates.
"I used techniques I later developed into Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy on myself by thinking philosophically and differently. Nothing [such as the pain of rejection or failure] is awful or terrible, it's just a pain in the ass. That's all it is.
"There's no horror in being rejected. I forced myself uncomfortably to do what I was afraid of, the opposite of what phobics do, because whenever they're afraid of innocent things, they beat it the hell out of there and then never get over their fears.
"They increase their phobias, as I at first did. In Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy I combined thinking and philosophy for the first time with feeling — emotion — and also with behavior therapy, which I got from John B. Watson, Fred Skinner and others.
It is our spiritual self that persists in the belief that the past can be redeemed. It is our connection with the spiritual essence of our lives that grants us the capacity for teshuvah--the capacity to "return" and retroactively transform the significance of past actions and experiences.
[...]
[For example,] you have an argument, lose your cool, and speak those unforgivable words. The next morning you're friends again, agreeing to "forget what happened." But you don't forget. You're horrified by the degree of your insensitivity; you agonize over the distance that your words have placed between the two of you. Your horror and agony make you realize how sensitive you truly are to each other, how much you desire the closeness of the one you love. You have reached back in time to transform a source of distance and disharmony into a catalyst for greater intimacy and love.
On the material surface of our lives, time's rule is absolute. But on its spiritual inside, the past is but another vista of life, open to exploration and development with the transformative power of teshuvah.
So, if I understand this:
You intend a fastball go to the outside part of the plate. Instead, it goes over the middle, and is hit for a game-winning, walk off home run. You were on the mound at the moment your team was defeated.
The next day, feeling a dose of guilt which a Rabbi could appreciate, you endeavor to learn from your mistake via analyzing the physical flaw in your delivery; and/or the flaw in your concentration; and/or the philosophical/religious/narcissistic flaw which led to tensely "guiding" your pitch - as opposed to naturally cutting it loose - and thus trusting the physical instincts and gifts God gave you, as well as trusting the plan God has for your life and for all existence. Hmmm. I believe that about covers it.
You correct the physical flaw; then improve your concentration; then revamp your purpose in life: from a narcissistic "what will other people think" fear of not receiving love and attention from others, to a grounded religious belief that God's love is always enveloping you - including an understanding that you express love for God via using your God-designed gifts to meet your God-designed challenges - and while having faith that God doesn't give us challenges we cannot handle.
This lifts the narcissistic plague which was causing you to - in complex sporting language: choke, ahem - just as bad as Doug Christie ever choked an open jumper. However, no longer! The pressure is lifted: you either have the God given talent to naturally throw pitches on the corner - which is wonderful; or you don't have that talent because God didn't actually intend you to conquer this challenge - which is also wonderful to know, because now you can get on with discovering the challenges God actually intends you to conquer.
Either way: the pressure is off. You get to play freely and naturally - without worry. Your enlightened state aids competitive concentration, as well as aiding the learning and perfecting of fundamental pitching techniques. Excellent! Or, rather: Praise God!
If I'm still understanding this:
You have reached back in time to transform a source of tension and failure into a catalyst for enlightenment and love.
on its spiritual inside, the past is but another vista of life, open to exploration and development with the transformative power of teshuvah.Judaism rocks - at least as much as Tony LaRussa. It would be excellent if you could accomplish this exploration and development and transformation in the twenty-four hours before the next game, as you might again be called on to pitch to Manny Ramirez in the ninth inning. L'Chaim!
little good ideas #6: fail
One of my favourite ideas is, if you don’t know failure then why have you been aiming so low?
Failure is a normal part of life. Life is about growth. The only way you can avoid failure is by only doing things you already know how to do. Hence, no growth.Alice's words remind me of something Steven Den Beste wrote about intentionally engineering failure as a pathway to success. Den Beste wrote that young engineers are sensitive about failure, for they are sensitive about being successful engineers who can be promoted to higher pay grades. Conversely, veteran engineers appreciate any other engineer for pointing out a failure or a glitch. Veteran engineers understand that failure is the pathway to success.Another of my favourite ideas is, you haven’t failed until you stop trying. Obviously with that one it’s important to have another skill, knowing when to give up. Some people don’t even realise that’s a skill.
It’s a good idea to consider the implications of failure before doing something.
Primary goal: do your best.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Victory is a secondary goal.
You accomplish your primary goal if you perform at or near your best possible level of performance.Or, if best possible performance if not the optimal goal, you can tweak:
Your primary goal can be to exceed your previous best performance. Failing this primary goal, your secondary goal can be to perform at or near your best ever level of performance, and you might still accomplish the secondary goal. Or not. It's challenging to perform at or near your best ever level of performance.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This cracked me. This guy is so white - so ... lovably and magnificently and virtuously organized, tidy, symmetrical, and infused with rectitude.
Snort.
... you have to let brilliant art flow over you.
Brilliant advertising, also.
(FYI: I declare this = sport)
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