Music video by Billy Currington performing People Are Crazy with The Brads [Video Director], Rocky Bice [Video Producer] (C) 2009 Mercury Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

lolcats and funny pictures

This is Grenas after a bath ...LOL

THE PATH OF NON-ATTACHMENT

by Peter Morrell

[1] The Dalai Lama at Harvard, 1988, Snow Lion USA, p.37

[2] ibid., p.48

[3] ibid., p.76

[4] ibid., p.153

[5] ibid., pp.86-7

[6] Geshe Lhundup Sopa & Jeffrey Hopkins, Cutting through Appearances: Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, 1989, Snow Lion, USA, p.188

BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE OFFICIAL JOHN LENNON WEBSITE AT

http://www.johnlennon.com/html/biography.aspx

If John Lennon had only been one of the four members of the Beatles, his artistic immortality would already have been assured. The so-called "smart Beatle," he brought a penetrating intelligence and a stinging wit both to the band's music and its self-presentation. But in such songs as "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," "Rain" and "In My Life," he also marshaled gorgeous melodies to evoke a sophisticated, dreamlike world-weariness well beyond his years. Such work suggested not merely a profound musical and literary sensibility - a genius, in short -- but a vision of life that was simultaneously reflective, utopian and poignantly realistic.

While in the Beatles, Lennon displayed an outspokenness that immersed the band in controversy and helped redefine the rules of acceptable behavior for rock stars. He famously remarked in 1965 that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus" - a statement that was more an observation than a boast, but that resulted in the band's records being burned and removed from radio station playlists in the U.S. He criticized America's involvement in Vietnam, and, as the Sixties progressed, he became an increasingly important symbol of the burgeoning counterculture.

But it was only after the breakup of the Beatles in 1970 that the figure the world now recognizes as "John Lennon" truly came into being. Whether he was engaging in social activism; giving long, passionate interviews that, once again, broadened the nature of public discourse for artists; defining a new life as a self-described "househusband;" or writing and recording songs, Lennon came to view his life as a work of art in which every act shimmered with potential meaning for the world at large. It was a Messianic attitude, to be sure, but one that was tempered by an innate inclusiveness and generosity. If he saw himself as larger than life, he also yearned for a world in which his ego managed at once to absorb everyone else and dissolve all differences among people, leaving a Zen-like tranquility and calm. "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one," he sang in "Imagine," which has become his best-known song and an international anthem of peace. "I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one."

Such imagery, coupled with the tragedy of his murder in 1980, has often led to Lennon's being sentimentalized as a gentle prince of peace gazing off into the distance at an Eden only he could see. In fact, he was a far more complex and difficult person, which, in part, accounts for the world's endless fascination with him. Plastic Ono Band (1970), the first solo album he made after leaving the Beatles, alternates songs that are so emotionally raw that to this day they are difficult to listen to with songs of extraordinary beauty and simplicity. Gripped by his immersion in primal-scream therapy, which encouraged its practitioners to re-experience their most profound psychic injuries, Lennon sought in such songs as "Mother" and "God" to confront and strip away the traumas that had afflicted his life since childhood.

And those traumas were considerable. Lennon's mother, Julia, drifted in and out of his life during his childhood in Liverpool - he was raised by Julia's sister Mimi and Mimi's husband, George - and then died in a car accident when Lennon was seventeen. His father was similarly absent, essentially walking out on the family when John was an infant. He disappeared for good when Lennon was five, only to return after his son had become famous as a member of the Beatles. Consequently, Lennon struggled with fears of abandonment his entire life. When he repeatedly cries, "Mama, don't go/Daddy come home," in "Mother," it's less a performance than a scarifying brand of therapeutic performance art. And in that regard, as well as many others, it revealed the influence of Yoko Ono, whom Lennon had married in 1969, leaving his first wife, Cynthia, and their son Julian in order to do so.

The minimalist sound of Plastic Ono Band was significant too. Lennon had come to associate the elaborate musical arrangements of much of the Beatles' later work with Paul McCartney and George Martin, and he consciously set out to purge those elements from his own work. Co-producing with Ono and the legendary Phil Spector, he built a sonic environment that could not have been more basic - guitar, bass, drums, the occasional piano -- whatever was essential and absolutely nothing more. Lyrically, he turned away from the psychedelic flights and Joycean wordplay of such songs as "I Am the Walrus" and "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" - as well as his books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works -- and toward a style in which unadorned, elemental speech gathered poetic force through its very directness.

On his next album, Imagine (1971), Lennon felt confident enough to reintroduce some melodic elements reminiscent of the Beatles into his songs. Working again with Ono and Spector, he retains the eloquent plainspokenness of Plastic Ono Band, but allows textural elements such as strings, to create more of a sense of beauty. The album's title track alone ensured its historical importance; it is a call to idealism that has provided solace and inspiration at every moment of social and humanitarian crisis since it was written.

From there Lennon turned to a style that was a sort of journalistic agit-prop. Sometime In New York City (1972) is as outward-looking and blunt as Imagine was, for the most part, soft-focused and otherworldly. As its title suggests, the album reflects Lennon's immersion in the drama and noise of the city to which he had moved with Yoko Ono. And as its cover art suggests, the album is something like a newspaper - a report from the radical frontlines on the political upheavals of the day. His activism would create enormous problems for Lennon, however. The Nixon administration, paranoid about the possibility that a former Beatle might become a potent leader and recruiting tool of the anti-war movement, attempted to have Lennon deported. Years of legal battles ensued before Lennon finally was awarded his green card in 1976.

Lennon's political struggles unfortunately found their match in his personal life. He and Ono split up in the fall of 1973, shortly before the release of his album, Mind Games. He moved to Los Angeles and later described the eighteen months he spent separated from Ono as his "lost weekend," a period of wild indulgence and artistic drift. Like Mind Games, the albums he made during this period, Walls and Bridges (1974) and Rock N Roll (1975), are the expressions of a major artist seeking, with mixed results, to recover his voice. None of them lack charm, and their high points include the lovely title track of Mind Games; Walls and Bridges' "Whatever Gets You Through the Night," a rollicking duet with Elton John that gave Lennon his first number-one single as a solo artist; and the sweet nostalgia of Rock N Roll, a covers album that was Lennon's tribute to the musical pioneers of his youth. But none of those albums rank among his greatest work.

In 1975, Lennon reunited with Ono, and their son Sean was born later that year. For the next five years, Lennon withdrew from public life, and his family became his focus. Then, in 1980, he and Ono returned to the studio to work on Double Fantasy, a hymn to their life together with Sean. The couple was plotting a full-fledged comeback - doing major interviews to support the album's release, recording new songs for a follow-up, planning a tour. Then, shockingly, Lennon was shot to death outside the apartment building where he and Ono lived on the night of December 8, 1980.

Lennon's death broke hearts around the world. In the U.S., it recalled nothing so much as the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, an event for which, ironically, the arrival of the Beatles a few months later had provided a welcome tonic. In the twenty-five years since, Lennon's influence and symbolic importance have only grown. His music, of course, will live forever. But he has survived primarily as a restless voice of change and independent thought. He is an enemy of the status quo, a bundle of contradictions who insisted on a world in which all the various elements of his personality could find free, untrammeled expression. Innumerable times since his death Lennon has been sorely missed. And just as many times and more he has been present - evoked by all of us who find ourselves and each other in the music he made and the vision that he articulated and tried to make real.

-- Anthony DeCurtis

Recipe: Best … soup … ever

Every Friday is Health Tips Day at Zen Habits.

OK, I may have oversold this recipe in the headline a bit, but trust me, you'll love it. It's easy to make, it's vegan, it's healthy, and it is perfection. I can't get enough of it. Go out and buy the ingredients and make it today!

Ingredients

• Various veggies, diced (you can use any kind that you like, but I usually throw in squash (butternut, though any kind is great), celery, carrots, corn, fresh spinach and broccoli — zucchini would be another good choice)
• One yellow onion, diced
• A couple cloves of garlic, diced
• Vegetable bullion, four cubes
• 1 package pasta (any kind except the longer ones like spaghetti or linguini is good — I like the bow-tie pasta or shell pasta)
• 1 can each kidney beans and white beans
• 1 can stewed tomatoes
• water
• olive oil, a few tablespoons
• salt and black pepper and Italian seasoning to taste

Directions

• Dice all the veggies and open the cans of beans (and corn if you're using canned corn); be sure not to skin the squash — just scoop out the seeds and dice it up
• Heat up the olive oil in a large pot and saute the onion and garlic
• throw in all the veggies except the spinach; stir and heat up until veggies start to get a little soft
• Season veggies with some salt, pepper and Italian seasoning
• throw in the beans, pasta, stewed tomatoes, and enough water so that the pot is nearly full (not all the way!); heat on high until boiling, then turn down to medium heat
• mix vegetable bullion with warm water in a cup until dissolved, and pour into soup; boil until pasta nearly cooked
• throw in the spinach a couple minutes before the soup is done; when the pasta is cooked, the soup is done; be sure to season with more salt, pepper and Italian seasoning to taste — you know when it is seasoned right when you taste it and say, "Oh … my … God!"

Enjoy! You will love this. Serve it to friends, and tell them how you found this recipe on Zen Habits. Or do what I do, and pack it for lunch every day for a week. I never get tired of it.

Zen To Slim: A Simple, 5-Step Weight Loss Plan

Every Friday is Health Tip Day at Zen Habits.

I think this one will be a bit controversial — weight loss theories seem to be a bit divisive, judging from past posts on this topics, as people have very strong opinions about the right way to lose weight.

However, this post isn't going to explore any of those theories. It's meant to be a simple plan for people who have trouble losing weight.

These people don't need to go into the scientific theories, and they probably don't want to count calories or do any kind of complicated calculations. They just want a few simple steps that they can do, right now, that will work.

When I started running last year, and eating healthier (eventually becoming a near-vegan), I lost more than 20 pounds and kept them off. This year, my workout plan has been disrupted a couple of times by illness and then a back injury, but in July I've gotten back on track and can already feel the changes. I am confident that I'll have a fairly flat stomach by the end of the year, barring any future injuries or severe illnesses.

Anyway, I recently had a few readers ask me about my weight loss plan. Well, I don't diet, and I don't do anything too intense. I've just made some simple lifestyle changes, one at a time, and I feel much healthier as a result. The weight loss is slower than with some of the more drastic plans, but I feel that they're more permanent, because I'm in this for life, not for short-term weight loss.

If this sounds right for you, check out the following plan. Of course, you all know that I'm not a doctor, a dietician, a certified personal trainer, or in any way qualified to give advice. You know that you should see a doctor before starting a plan like this, to prevent any serious health consequences. However, this plan is based on the advice of experts much more knowledgeable than me, and I can testify that it works — for me, and for others I know who've done similar things.

There is nothing revolutionary in this plan. It's common-sense, and simple:

Zen To Slim Weight Loss Plan

Step 1: Begin gradual exercise. Instead of trying to change your entire life with an intense weight loss plan, we're going to start small. All you want to do is make a commitment to get yourself moving for at least 10 or 15 minutes each day for 30 days straight.

Some key points:

• Type of exercise. If you're already a runner or a cyclist or something similar, then begin a very, very modest program of resuming that exercise. Otherwise, walking, a treadmill, hiking, a cycling machine, rowing, or something similar would work. Mixing it up is a great idea, alternating different exercises on different days. The actual exercise you do doesn't matter, as long as you get moving.
• Most important here: start out really easy. People tend to start out with a lot of enthusiasm, and then burn out, skip a workout or two, and then the plan has failed. In this plan, you want to go short and slow. If you normally run 3-4 miles, for example, just run 1-2 miles. Go for about half of what you think you can do. You can always add more later.
• It's important that you try to do it every day. Mark your successes on your calendar — gold stars always work well — and try to keep the marks going every day. If you can do short, easy workouts, and mix up the exercises a little, you can do it every day.
• Set aside some time to do this every day. If you've had success working out in the morning before, use that time. Otherwise, do it right after work.
• Strength. Another point is that you can do strength workouts, but don't do anything too hard in the first couple of weeks. Just some pushups, crunches, lunges, squats, with no weights. That might sound easy to some of you, but the key, again, is to start out slow.
• Just start. Last key point: if you are feeling resistance to exercising, just tell yourself that you have to lace up your shoes and get out the door. How long you do it doesn't matter — even 5 minutes is good. I bet, though, that once you start, you'll want to keep going for at least 15 minutes.

Step 2: Replace fatty and greasy foods with healthier foods. You're not going to go on a diet. But take a look at what you eat, and try to slowly replace the greasier and fattier foods you eat (think: fast food, or fried food) with healthier alternatives.

Some key points for this step:

• Examples: if you cook fried chicken, try baked instead. If you eat burgers, try a veggie burger or a low-fat turkey sandwich. If you eat pizza, try making your own pizza, with a store-bought crust, pizza sauce, veggies, and olive oil, with no cheese. You get the idea.
• Gradual change: Now, you don't need to change all these foods overnight. But after you do the 30-day exercise challenge in Step 1, do a second 30-day challenge where you replace one fatty food a day with a healthier alternative. Slowly, replace more and more fatty foods with healthier ones. You'll get used to it over the course of a month.
• Exercise: Also continue the daily exercise in the second month, increasing the duration of your workouts a little at a time if you can.

Step 3: Eat smaller meals, more frequently. Once you start getting used to less fatty foods, try eating smaller portions, and eating 5-6 times per day instead of just 3 big meals.

Some key points:

• The 5-6 meals: A good schedule is to eat breakfast, then a mid-morning snack, then a small early lunch, then a second small lunch a couple of hours later, then a small late-afternoon snack, then a small, light dinner. If that's too much, just try adding a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack, and make the main three meals smaller.
• Snacks: Make sure that your snacks are healthy ones. Good ones include fruits, nuts, low-fat pretzels, low-fat cheese, low-fat yogurt, cut up veggies.
• Wait: For your meals, try eating just one moderate-size serving. If you feel like a second serving, wait 20 minutes, then see if you're full. It's important that you gradually reduce your portions, and learn to eat only until you're satiated, not until you're bursting.

Step 4: Intensify exercise slowly. Once you've gone a month or so doing very short and easy workouts each day, and your body is used to daily exercise, you can gradually intensify the exercise.

Some points:

• Duration: The first thing you should increase is the duration of your workouts. Without working out any harder, keeping the low intensity of your previous workouts, just add 5 minutes to your workout. Stick to this new duration for 2-3 workouts, then add another 5 minutes. Your goal is to get to about 40-45 minutes (although eventually doing an hour once a week is good too).
• Intensity: After your body gets used to going for longer, once a week or so, try a slightly more intense workout. First, make the duration of the workout much shorter for this intense workout. For example, instead of running or walking for 40 minutes, do 20 minutes. Second, go harder in intervals. For example, do 3-4 minutes at a faster pace, then go at an easy pace, then a faster pace, and so on. Be sure to warm up first, and cool down at the end. When you first start doing the intervals, do them only at a slightly higher intensity, gradually increasing that intensity as the weeks go by.
• Hard-easy: If you do longer or more intense workouts, be sure to follow them with an easy workout. For example, if you do a longer workout of 45 minutes, just do 20-25 minutes the next day. Or if you do interval workouts one day, do a short easy one the next day. Consider the longer or more intense workouts your "hard" days, and never have two hard days in a row — otherwise, you may get injured or burn out.

Step 5: Replace sugary foods with healthier treats. The next target food area is sugary foods. Just as you did with fatty foods, try to replace them with healthier alternatives one at a time. With the combination of lower fat and less sugar in your diet, and your exercise, you should start losing weight much faster by this step.

Some points to make:

• Challenge: Just like with the fatty foods, try another 30-day challenge with the sweets. See if you can go the whole month without sweets! Or try a more gradual approach, and have less each day.
• Cheat day: If you try a month without sweets, I suggest a cheat day. For me, it's Saturday, when I can eat whatever desserts I want. Interestingly, I don't eat as many desserts on my cheat days as I used to. It's not like I pig out, although I don't restrict myself either.
• Alternatives: Come up with a list of alternatives to sweets, stock up on them, and get rid of the sweets in your house. For example, if you usually have a candy bar for a snack, have fruits or veggies instead. Often we just want something to munch on.
• Drinks: If you drink sodas or juices, cut out those calories by drinking water, exclusively (except perhaps for a single cup of coffee in the morning).
• Whole grains: If you haven't yet, look for whole grain alternatives to things you might be eating, including cereal, bread, brown rice, etc.

Also see:

• 5 Powerful Reasons to Eat Slower
• 16 Tips to Triple Your Workout Effectiveness
• 20 Ways to Eliminate Stress From Your Life
• 7 Ways to Build the Exercise Habit&10;
• Beginner's Guide to Cycling
• 6 Tips for Commuting to Work by Bike
• Beginner's Guide to Running
• Top 42 Exercise Hacks
• Top 15 Diet Hacks
• Recipe: Best … soup … ever
• How to Get Back on the Exercise Train
• Trying to eat healthier? Make lifestyle changes, and have a weekly cheat day
• Health tip: Try eating vegetarian sometimes
• Recipe for a Flat Stomach
• Get Healthy and Fit, Part 2 - Exercise Edition

In a season where we cherish those around us, let us not forget our loved ones who are spending the holidays in a better place than we can imagine...

Christmas In Heaven


I see the countless Christmas trees
around the world below
With tiny lights, like Heaven's stars,
reflecting on the snow

The sight is so spectacular,
please wipe away the tear
For I am spending Christmas with
Jesus Christ this year.

I hear the many Christmas songs
that people hold so dear
But the sounds of music can't compare
with the Christmas choir up here.

I have no words to tell you,
the joy their voices bring,
For it is beyond description,
to hear the angels sing.

I know how much you miss me,
I see the pain inside your heart.
But I am not so far away,
We really aren't apart.

So be happy for me, dear ones,
You know I hold you dear.
And be glad I'm spending Christmas
with Jesus Christ this year.

I sent you each a special gift,
from my heavenly home above.
I sent you each a memory
of my undying love.

After all, love is a gift more precious
than pure gold.
It was always most important
in the stories Jesus told.

Please love and keep each other,
as my Father said to do.
For I can't count the blessing or love
He has for each of you.

So have a Merry Christmas and
wipe away that tear.
Remember, I am spending Christmas with
Jesus Christ this year.



*This poem was written by a 13 year old girl named Lysandra Kay Bencke
Lysandra had a seizure and was in a coma for five days before she died
on the anniversary of our Lord's birthday, Christmas Day 1997

Sure-fire ways to save on heating bills

It's getting cold out in most regions of the United States. That means it's time to turn on the heat.

This fall and winter you should try staying warm without also having a hot energy bill.

Excuse the pun, but there are some sure-fire ways you can save energy while maintaining your comfort, no matter how old your home is.

The average American household spends over $500 a year on heating, but this doesn't have to be the case. By paying attention to your building's envelope, your heating system, and your behavior, you'll be well on your way to saving dollars and carbon.

Sealing the envelope

Your home's envelope (the walls, windows, doors, foundation, roof, attic, etc.) matters a lot when it comes to heating.

Leaky envelopes mean cold outside air can easily seep inside and hot inside air can seep outside. Warming this inflow of cold air can account for 25 to 40 percent of the load on your heating system.

To improve your envelope, try:

Discovering where your leaks are.  A professional can administer a "blower door test" to find out where envelope leaks originate. For an inexpensive option, try holding incense near places where different materials meet, such as window frames and where the walls meet the floor. Watch where the smoke disappears to find gaps.

Caulking and weather-stripping cracks and holes. These materials can be found at any hardware store, and a store expert can guide you to the best materials for your needs.

Plastic-wrapping your windows. Not the kind that covers your leftovers, but a shrink-wrap version that stretches over window glass and frames to seal warm air in and cold air out.

Using door snakes. Less scary than they sound, door snakes can block air from traveling under your doorjambs. Try the traditional fabric-filled kind or rubber versions sold in hardware stores throughout the country.

For more information, check out RMI's Home Energy Brief No. 1: Building Envelope (PDF) or the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) website.

Looking to make bigger changes? Consider:

Replacing your windows. New energy-efficient windows sport higher levels of insulation.

If replacing windows is too expensive, consider storm windows. According to EERE, interior or exterior storm windows can reduce the heat loss through your existing windows by 25 to 50 percent.

Adding more insulation to your envelope. See how one of my employees upgraded her old Victorian house to be 311 percent more efficient with the help of insulation.

Enhancing your heating system

In addition to these measures, you can improve the efficiency of your heating system by:

• Insulating heating ducts. This keeps air warm and minimizes leaks while transferring air from your furnace to your rooms.

• Keeping your systems maintained regularly. When your air filters are replaced consistently, air can flow more freely. Plus, an expert can ensure your system is working at its optimum performance.

• Unblocking vents. Help the warm air travel throughout your house. Don't block air vents with furniture or drapes; doing so traps the air and doesn't let it circulate.

• If your furnace is older than 10 to 15 years or your boiler is older than 20 years, then a new heating system will be at least 30 percent more efficient and will pay for itself in 5 to 10 years. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy has detailed information to help you determine if you should replace your furnace or boiler and, if so, the council can help you find a good contractor, size your heating system, and calculate your return on investment.

Changing your behavior

Some of the most substantial energy savings can come from small habit adjustments like:

• Consciously setting your thermostat. Would you be comfortable if it were three degrees cooler? By paying attention to your set points, you can save up to $180 a year. If this seems tedious, consider a programmable thermostat. EnergyStar offers a calculator that estimates savings.

• It may seem obvious, but keep your windows and doors closed when it's cold outside.

• Layering! Though we can't grow a thicker coat of fur, we can wear layers of clothing, and add to or take layers off to suit our needs. This method of "adaptive thermal comfort" is easy to do, and lets you get more use of all those clothes in your closet.

We can use less energy and still get the warmth we desire.

Small improvements in efficiency and behavior will enable us all to enjoy more warmth for less money this season.

Allison Rutter is an analyst with Rocky Mountain Institute's Built Environment Team, BET.