Hawaii's Kilauea: Living with a volcano

The State of Hawaii has many islands. The major ones are Oahu (where Honolulu and Waikiki are), Maui, Kauai, Molokai, Lanai and the Big Island, which is also called Hawaii.

The Big Island is the biggest of the Hawaiian chain of islands. It is also the youngest, having been formed later than the other islands in the Hawaiian chain.  

The Big Island does not have the colorful theme parks, megashopping centers, huge zoos and museums, pulsating nightlife  and other attractions and distractions  major cities in the mainland have. What the Big Island has are spectacular natural  attractions that provide stimuli towards discovering the wonders of nature and thinking of our place in the universe.

If  famous Game of Thrones writer George Martin has a “Land of Fire and Ice,” the Big Island is a land of fire and ocean.   Like all Hawaiian Islands, the Big Island has spectacular beaches.  But unlike the other Hawaiian Island, the Big Island has at least two live active volcanoes – Kilauea and Mauna Loa.

Kilauea volcano is more active than Mauna Loa.  For at least more than three decades now, Kilauea has been oozing lava not from its main crater but from a vent on its side called Pu’u’O’o.  Through all that there has been no activity in the main crater, called Halemaumau, until about three years ago when lava below it became more active enough that in the dark a red glow above the crater was visible.

In the past several days, however, Halemaumau more than just glowed. A bubbling  lava lake  rose to the surface sending  spatters to the  rim of the crater.

 One nice thing about living on the Big Island of Hawaii is that it only takes a few minutes ride from anywhere to be near the ocean or the volcanoes. I live on the east side of the Big Island and from where I am,  a  good view of Halemaumau is only about 40 minutes away. 

The other evening, after a grueling day working on a volunteer community project and having heard that Halemaumau has been putting on a "show," I went with friends to the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to see for ourselves. It was close to midnight when we got to the crowded parking lot of the Jaegger Museum inside the Park where viewing of Halemaumau was best.  And the  outside temperature was in the low 50s.

I was glad I had anticipated the cold and had put on a thick jacket. But still the icy wind made me shiver and I didn't mind touching bodies as I inched my way through the crowd to get a good view of  Halemaumau.

Halemaumau was mesmerizing to say the least.  From afar, I could see fire floating on the lake and fingers of it jumping to the rim as if attempting to escape.

Since none of the photos I took turned out well, I am sharing with you the photos that others took.  I hope that they give you the same sense of amazement that many of us residents of the Big Island enjoy and are grateful for.

Afterall, how many have a live volcano in their own back yard that is "friendly" enough that it only  gushes lava, instead of exploding as many volcanos tend to do. 

Life on the Big Island is never boring!
 

 

 Photo by Alan Lakritz, Big Island.,  April  2015

Photo by Ken Boyer, Big Island, April 28, 2015

Photo  shows lava-spattering Halemaumau on the left and six water spouts above the ocean on the right. Photo by Bruce Omori, Big Island, April 28, 2015 

 A peak inside Halemaumau. Photo by Bruce Omori, Big Island, April 29, 2015

 A moonbow and a volcano. Photo by CJ Kale, April 28, 2015

 The spectacular lava lake in Halemaumau. Photo by Tom Kualii, Big Island, April 28, 2015 

Lava churns the lake inside the Halemaumau crater. Photo by Bruce Omori, Big Island, April 29, 2015

 Photo by Orchidland, Big Island resident Art Smith, who was among those I drove out with  to Volcanoes National Park, April 28, 2015

Links:

http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/news/local-news/lava-lake-overflows

http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/kilauea.html

http://www.hawaii247.com/2015/04/26/lava-lake-rises-to-within-13-feet-of-the-floor-of-halemaumau/

http://www.hawaii247.com/2015/04/28/explosion-in-halemaumaus-lava-lake-hurls-molten-lava-into-old-observation-area/



 Posted with Aloha

- By ARIEL MURPHY

Being present

A quote simply jumped out at me as I was surfing the internet wondering what to blog about.

Many times we're greeted with "how are you?" And we respond with "I'm fine. Thank you. And how are you?"  The other person says: "I'm fine thank you."

End of conversation.

And then there's another scenario which goes like this:

"Hello! How are you," says Madame X to Madame Y
Madame Y: "I'm fine thank you."
Madame X:  Where do you come from? My family is from Kona. They're a big family there. We all descended from King Kamehameha. And we have these huge acreage across the ocean. We have a multi-million trust fund set up. And I know all about law and psychology. Afterall I worked with lawyers and psychologists all my life. And I've been around the world 10 times. And.......etc. an ad infinitum abuse of bragging rights.

Finally, after listening to a 10 minute monologue Madame X simply  gives up, makes a lame excuse and walks away.

End of  conversation. End of a chance to really engage with another spirit in a meaningful way.

You get my point.

Posted with Aloha!
By ARIEL MURPHY

A case of the rubber meeting the road

I'm proud of myself. Why not? For someone  once described as "feisty" by a friend, I stayed unperturbed after receiving a nasty email the other day from someone I had helped (gratis et amore) but who associated me with a group that the email sender was not happy with.

I was hurt. I was indignant. I was insulted. I was ready to hit my email's reply button and counter attack with  a sarcastic and scathing response.

But I guess I'm "growing." I've always talked and even blogged about vibrating at a higher level; of raising my consciousness; of being loving. Easy to say; hard to do.

How do you love someone who attacks you without provocation? It's a no-brainer, isn't it? You just fight back! And immediately. 

Fortunately the better of me prevailed. I decided to sleep over my predicament. And I'm glad I did.

By the following day I felt less aggrieved. I had better control of my emotions. I had reined in my ego.

I no longer imagined the email sender as the most offensive person ever. I saw her, instead,  as another part of me -- fractured, vulnerable to mistakes, and with an ego as big as mine. I zap her I zap my own self.

The tequila helped too. The more I drank, the more my mind's vision of my tormentor's face seemed sweetly smiling and angel-like  and less of a demon with black wing, glaring eyes and hooved feet. It is a technique marriage taught me. Whenever I was upset with my husband I would imagine him as an angel trapped on earth and who has assumed both the good and the bad in a man. That would quickly cool me off.

I let the offending email remain answered. I  did not retaliate. Instead, I detached myself from my experience and looked at it as a test of my convictions. It was a choice between being inside of Love or being separated from it.

I'm happy with my choice and its ensuing feeling of having been unburdened and freed. I realize  that if I repeat the same process of transforming destructive emotion into good feeling with every person who upsets me, I will be furthering the wave of Love across humanity, even if only by an inch at a time.


I've got the power and so do you. Let's not just say it. Let's use it, especially when the rubber meets the road.

- Posted with Aloha

By ARIEL MURPHY

Being intuitive

Born and raised in Asia,  I learned English at an early age and excelled in it more than in my own native Filipino language. I remember that in grade school I  often passed my English exams  by asking myself if a sentence “sounded right” more than if rules of grammar and correct English were followed.

While Nicole Mayhew was at work one day, she had a strong feeling that she has to go home and check on her husband.  When she got to her house, she found her husband trapped under the vehicle that he was fixing. The car had somehow landed on his chest crushing some ribs and causing other injuries. The husband survived the accident only because his wife found him on time.

Just  one month  in 1991 before she was supposed to defend her doctoral dissertation, successful professional poker player Annie Duke suddenly dropped pursuing her  doctoral degree in cognitive psychology, ran away to Billings, Montana to marry a friend she has never dated before and started playing poker for money.  Annie Duke obviously decided well.  She won $2 million in 2004 in Las Vegas’ poker world series.

Some mornings my mother wakes up and announces over breakfast that a cousin or a close relative has passed on.  It doesn’t take long in the day for my family to get a call  confirming my mother’s news.

Maybe because intuition is not yet precisely understood enough to be called a science, it has various names.  Some  of those names are  gut feeling, hunch, discernment, clairvoyance, premonition, divination,  innate knowledge, sixth sense, etc. 

Even the field of psychology has diverging views about intuition.  Some psychologists say that intuition is really based on one’s knowledge and past experiences. Others say that intuition comes from one of two “operating systems” that  we have.  One “operating system” is subconscious and is controlled by the right part of our brain as well as those parts that man has had since pre-historic times.

The other “operating system” is logic- and reasoning-based and controlled by the left and other “newer” parts of our brain.

We may not be conscious of it but we’ve been using intuition through most of our lives.  Some business icons have used their “gut feeling” and not just logic to make piles of money speculating, buying or selling. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is said to be very intuitive.

Even scientist Albert Einstein acknowledges intuition.   He said: "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than any talent for absorbing absolute knowledge." Elaborating, he added, "All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge. I believe in intuition and inspiration.... At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason." Thus, his famous statement that, for creative work in science, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Still others believe that being intuitive is  yet another “app”  to man as he evolves from a thinking being to  one “in the flow.”

Can you imagine a world where everyone automatically intuits and knows about you or me, everybody, everything? 

Could that be a world where humankind has more in common than in differences? 

Could that be a more loving and peaceful world?

 

 

LINKS:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3502202/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/radical-remission/201405/the-science-behind-intuition

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/imagine/201003/einstein-creative-thinking-music-and-the-intuitive-art-scientific-imagination

http://www.soulinsights4spiritledliving.com/2011/06/thinking-beings-to-intuitive-beings-to.html

 - Posted with Aloha
By ARIEL MURPHY

Being good

Today I'm sharing an article by David Brooks from the New York Times entitled "The Moral Bucket List."

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/opinion/sunday/david-brooks-the-moral-bucket-list.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

Posted with Aloha!
- By ARIEL MURPHY

A feisty Hawaiian hawk, endangered species and Aloha

A news article I saw the other day talked about a new home for an injured Hawaiian hawk, an "Io."  Apparently the bird sustained shotgun wounds, maybe from a hunter traipsing about in a thick Hawaiian jungle who didn't know any better. It is said that the hawk's feistiness enabled it to survive after having been shot some three years ago.

I didn't realize that the "Io" has been declared an endangered specie since 1967  until I did some research a while ago. I thought that whoever shot the "Io" wouldn't have done so if he had recognized the bird as an Io and known that it is endangered.

The Hawaiian Hoary Bat is another endangered specie in Hawaii.  It was declared only three days ago last April 22 as Hawaii's official state land mammal. I hope that it does not suffer the same fate that the injured Hawaiian hawk did because people are not aware that there are precious creatures in the wild that should not be harmed.

How many, not just in Hawaii but even world-wide,  know about endangered species  in their own area enough to leave them alone?

Harmony with nature is part of "Aloha."  A "Kahuna," a Hawaiian elder says this:

"Aloha is being a part of all, and all being a part of me. When there is joy - it is also mine. I respect all that is as part of the Creator and part of me. I will not willfully harm anyone or anything. When food is needed I will take only my need and explain why it is being taken. The earth, the sky, the sea are mine to care for, to cherish and to protect. This is Hawaiian - this is Aloha."       

We observed Earth Day several days ago. It wouldn't hurt to be in Aloha spirit and conscious of Earth Day every day.

The photo above of the Hawaiian I'iwi  on an Olapa tree was taken by Big Island, Hawaii artist-photographer Ken Boyer.

Links:

http://hawaiitribune-herald.com/news/community/wounded-warrior-recovers

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/2014/02/21/hawaiian-hawk/

http://www.kitv.com/news/hawaiian-hoary-bat-now-state-land-mammal/32518988

http://www.hawaiianencyclopedia.com/native-and-endangered-species.asp

Posted with Aloha

- By ARIEL MURPHY

 

Photo Gallery: Looking at animals from a different light

I have not seen photos of animals that I could relate to more than those done by British photographer Tim Flach who recently published a book entitled "An Evolving View of Animals."

“How we treat animals is often dependent on how they display characteristics we think are human," said Flach in a New York Times interview.

Flach portrays  animals and other creatures as endearing and dignified instead of repulsive and frightening; amusing and friendly instead of wild and fierce. I could almost see myself  seeing them on the street and greeting them "Aloha."

In a continuing observation of Earth Day, I've posted below some of Flach's photos I found on Google.com.  Enjoy the portraits of our fellow passengers on Ship Earth. 

I hope that finding commonalities with the creatures  helps us better accept, respect and love them.

Which are your favorites?

 

Want to know more about Tim Flach? Please click on the following links:

 

http://timflach.com/work/more-than-human/

 

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com//2014/04/01/an-evolving-view-of-animals/

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Flach

- Posted with Aloha
By ARIEL MURPHY

On Earth Day

Let us celebrate Earth Day today by pausing for only a bit from whatever we are doing and  thinking of Earth as a sort of space ship on which we are all passengers.

Since thoughts are a form of energy, our collective thoughts will hopefully have a strong impact, of whatever sort or form, towards Earth's preservation as a stopover in our life journey.

The graphic below is in observance of Earth Day.

Posted with Aloha
- By ARIEL MURPHY

Of alligators and crocodiles

When I saw a blog written by a friend from the US mainland about alligators not being trust worthy, I wondered if  alligators and their crocodile cousins have the same "reputation" world-wide.

In the Philippines where I come from, people would derisively refer to some politicians as crocodiles.

A common joke in Manila goes something like this:  If you've never seen a crocodile before, all you do is visit Congress when it is in session and you will see many crocodiles.

I do not understand how crocodiles and alligators have come to be associated with deplorable behavior. Maybe it is for  the same reason why snakes are sometimes associated with treachery and vindictiveness.

In our desire to make sense of our environment, we attribute our own behavior to plants, animals, reptiles -- nature.

We see our own aggressiveness in crocodiles like we see in snakes our own tendency to be treacherous.  

Over in Hawaii where I live many see the volcanoes here as deities. When a lava flow that recently threatened to overrun a town un-explicably stopped a short distance away, people attributed it to Madame Pele's compassion for the local population. Madame Pele is the Hawaiian goddess of fiery lava.

 But crocodiles and alligators are  not always regarded as bad mojo. In fact, they are revered in some cultures. Ancient Egyptians, for example, named an entire town after crocodiles, calling it Crocodilopolis.

Everything has an upside and I do not believe anything sentient  should  be decimated wantonly and without justifiable cause.

But then the issue of what are considered sentient and what are not is another matter.  And"justifiable cause" are loaded words. Butchering cows, pigs and  chickens for food may be justifiable to some but not to others.

Life can never be boring. There is so much to understand.

The photo shows an entire town in the Philippines mourning the death of "Lolong," a nearly 20-feet long crocodile considered the largest in the world.

Links:

http://earthjustice.org/irreplaceable/american-crocodile?gclid=Cj0KEQjw6tepBRDLqLnxouaY_pkBEiQAPIOiBtTKrer8cg7Be_scAPD-89ETx56zejyC2BzfRiXor2EaAint8P8HAQ

/www.whats-your-sign.com/symbolic-alligator-meaning-and-crocodile-meaning.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2276791/Worlds-largest-crocodile-dies-Villagers-tears-Lolongs-death-Philippines.html


 

Posted with Aloha
- By ARIEL MURPHY

 

Amaryllis

 

Today I am sharing a photo I took of Amaryllis flowers in the yard. Our planet Earth is so breath-takingly beautiful I dread to think of a time when we could lose all the beauty in nature that we enjoy now.  

 

War, climate change, environmental degradation can change our vales and valleys into wastelands. Air and water can be too polluted to ingest.  But that's if we do nothing.

 

One can begin contributing to the cause of protecting nature by simply acknowledging and being grateful for the beauty around us.

 

 

 

This photo is dedicated to my good friend Carol!

Posted with Aloha!
- ARIEL MURPHY

Chimpanzees

I was attracted to an article that a Facebook friend had shared on my wall. The article was from phys.org about how Chimpanzees in Senegal have been observed to fashion spears out of tree branches.  Apparently the chimps use the spears to kill for food. The article on the website was dated April 15, 2015. Seems to me that after ___ years, the article corroborates what Jane Godall had found out in November of 1960: A chimpanzee was using grass as a tool to trap termites. 

Subsequently Godall discovered that chimpanzees were shaving leaves off tree branches and stems and using them to fish for insects. Until Godall’s discovery, the prevalent thought was that only humans has the intelligence to make tools.

“Now we must redefine tool, redefine man or accept chimpanzees as human,” said famed Anthropologist and Paleontologist  Louis Leakey in a congratulatory telegram to Godall.

Chimpanzees, more than the gorilla and any other animal, are said to be most like us.  Much like humans, chimpanzees have long-term affectionate and supportive relationships.

 National Geographic magazine says this about chimpanzees: “Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives, sharing more than 98 percent of our genetic blueprint. Humans and chimps are also thought to share a common ancestor who lived some four to eight million years ago.

Granting that we do share a common ancestor with the chimpanzees, are the chimpanzees slowly evolving and catching up with us?

Will they, like humans, discover that tools they use for obtaining food can also be used to kill for domination?

Or will they, in full awareness of the dangers of human aggression, ultimately evolve into a species superior to  humans in that they are at all cost supportive of one another, peaceful and loving?

 

Chimpanzees are an endangered species.  But so are we, humans. 

 

Unless we can save our mother ship and our fellow men from ourselves, we are in grave danger of annihilation, extinction or both.

 

Love.

 

 

For more information about chimpanzees please click on the following links:

http://phys.org/news/2015-04-chimps-senegal-fashion-spears.html

http://www.janegoodall.org/chimpanzees

Posted with Aloha!

- By ARIEL MURPHY

Reflections on abundance

After four real estate transactions that tanked recently, I admittedly started despairing. My faith in the Universe wavered.  But after I saw a post on social media about abundance I started feeling better.

The post quoted financial guru Suze Orman who said: "Abundance is about being rich, with or without money.

Many equate abundance with a fat bank account and a high number of investment assets.  I would rather think that abundance exists whenever one feels contented and happy. 

Abundance begins with an acceptance of one's condition, both positives and negatives, and trustingAbundance has nothing to do with wealth as measured by money but everything to do with acceptance of the present, having faith in the future, and trusting  in the goodness of the Universe.

There are those who may be considered wealthy but are stuck most of their lives  in increasing and preserving their assets.  These people work very hard and enjoy the fruits of their labors in the same passion they work for them.  They party hard. They have all their toys.

And before they really hear the bell tolling, they're gone.

They die rich yes but bankrupt in many other ways, such as  in having a view of one's place in the overall scheme of things.

Perhaps everyone should have two bank accounts. One account is with a financial institution. Another is with one's own spirit.

Nothing gives me feelings of abundance more than   when just before I close my eyes to sleep I revel in the comforting warmth of an arm draped around me and  a body against my back.

In the darkness of my room, I imagine being part of and loved by a great collective goodness. There is no place for disappointments and fears. Nothing matters except that all is good.

And in that moment, I am contented.

I have abundance and I am grateful.

Posted with Aloha!
By ARIEL MURPHY

Two men, a lady and synchronicity

Sometimes when I don’t know what to do I just let things take their course.  

 I didn’t know what to blog about and whiled away my time in front of the computer jumping from one site and webpage to another, depending on what took my fancy.

There was an article entitled, “Where are They?”  about why the  existence of extra-terrestials would be disastrous for mankind.  I was titillated by the author, Nick Bostrom, when he said:

 “For surely it would be the height of naïveté to think that with the transformative technologies already in sight–genetics, nano­technology, and so on–and with thousands of millennia still ahead of us in which to perfect and apply these technologies and others of which we haven’t yet conceived, human nature and the human condition will remain unchanged. Instead, if we survive and prosper, we will presumably develop some kind of post-human existence.”

Imagine a post-human existence!

On another site, I watched a video of a dolphin swimming for a number of days  with  its dead calf on its back. The image made be wonder about the capacity of other creatures to grieve

Can a dolphin really feel sorrow?

Here's the video of the dolphin:

 

 

After checking out the page about “18 celebrities with false teeth” – and I was getting sleepy at that point—I  realized there was something emerging from the webpages I’ve been reading.  To simplify things, let me just say that surely there was no coincidence when—let’s just say—that 3 among the 6  web pages I read shared a common theme.

Clearly, I was given a suggestion about what to blog.

Two men and a lady, in different parts of the world, stuck their necks and their pockets out in service to others and humanity.

I do not know what prompted Swedish millionaire Johan Eliasch to spend $14M of his own money to purchase from a logging company a chunk of the Amazon forest  for preservation but  I imagine that he was fully aware that keeping that forest in tact was never going to benefit his bottom line, except if we’re not talking about money.

In the United States, young and successful entrepreneur Dan Price was apparently not a fan of  Walmart’s economic philosophy (tighten your belt, drool and hang your tongue, business comes first!).

Apparently, Dan Price has a conscience and genuinely cares for his employees’ welfare.  He slashed his own salary by a hefty 93%, from $1million down to $70,000 a year,   so that he can raise that of his people. Price believesin living simply and things  that cutting back on non-essentials is not a big deal.

While riding a train in Sydney, Australia, young Stacey Eden bravely stuck her neck out against bigotry. She defended a Muslim couple from the merciless tirade of a  fellow passenger  who, obviously thinking  that all Muslims are the same, blatantly accused the couple of being  ISIS fanatics.  

I wonder if there is a profound beneficial impact on society if mass media reports more acts of goodness than the current diet it gives of distractive stories of celebrities and their love affairs and cosmetic surgeries.

In his article “Where are they?{,  Nick Blostom talked about the possibility of a post-human existence down the road.

Down the road?  People get past their humanity every minute and right under our very nose.

With each act of kindness and selflessness, we transform, even if only temporarily,  into  what we’re truly all about – beautiful expressions of God.

I  am  amazed at the synchronicity -- at how the Universe conspired so that in discerning the pattern and content of what came to me while I was surfing the net,   I am able, through this blog,  to amplify a message of hope for our strife-torn and environmentally deteriorating planet.

All it took were two men and a lady.

 

I am grateful.

 

 

 

A waterfall in the Amazon forest. Photo courtesy of Google.com
 

Please click on the following links for more information about the articles mentioned above:

 

(Nick Blostom's "Where are they?)

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/409936/where-are-they/page/6/ 

 

(Video of dolphin with dead calf on its back)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR680gr7PkM

 

 (About Johan Eliasch) 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Eliasch

 

(About Dan Price)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/14/gravity-payments-raise_n_7061676.html

 (About Stacey Eden)

 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/stacey-eden-muslim-man-racially-5529288

 

(About synchronicity)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

 

Posted with Aloha!

- By ARIEL MURPHY

So many Virgins: Just do it!

I was on my favorite Google+ community when someone's post attracted me. The post contained the photo of a man and a quote. I made a version of that post in the graphic shown below.

While I was making the graphic, I thought of adding: No wonder he has so many virgins!

Smile.

Nope Richard Branson is not a re-incarnated suicide bomber who was promised as many virgins as he wants in heaven if he would blow himself up and take with him as many as he could.    Besides, if this is heaven, then I'm Marilyn Monroe.

The nearest of heaven there is on earth is called Paradise, otherwise known as Hawaii, which Is where I live. And by the way, I'm  a licensed, experienced and very capable realtor. Want to buy a piece of paradise?  I'm your gal.

Now you understand. Somehow, somewhere one's gotta do what one's gotta do to make a living.

Smile.

I encountered my first Virgin in Paris, 1997.  The multi-story gleaming music store along the Champs d' Elysee just blew my mind.  Many years later I found out that Virgin Paris was called a megastore and the man behind it, Richard Branson.

The next time Richard Branson's name jumped out at me was about two years ago when I was doing some research for a blog. I found out then that  Branson had bankrolled a project to make possible commercial "human spaceflights." His purpose was for Virgin to provide the "Spacelines" for earth.

I was impressed by Branson's boldness considering that the galaxy is what  Starship Enterprise Captain James Kirk calls "the final frontier." For all he know, Branson may just be throwing $$$ down a black hole.

More recently, I learned that Branson may have inadvertently given  Apple's Steve Jobs the idea to create the ipod and iTunes -- two inventions that revolutionized the music industry. Reportedly, Steve Jobs talked to Branson about it. I have no idea if Branson ever shared in any of the royalties that fattened Apple's bottom line.

But I'm not about to delve  into who Sir Richard Branson is.  There is much in cyberspace about him that you can find at your own leisure. I have provided some links below.

For now, I'd say that whatever is on your mind; whatever you hesitate about,   if it passes the 4-way test (link below), if that teeny weeny voice of your intuition bugs you, then dump your doubts and heave your guts.

 

Links to sites about Richard Branson:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Branson

 

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245028

 

http://www.virgingalactic.com/human-spaceflight/

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four-Way_Test

 

- Posted with Aloha
By ARIEL MURPHY

Fawn and bobcat

It doesn't really matter whether or not the photo below has been photo-shopped. It's the same thing as it doesn't matter whether "photo-shopped" is considered proper English or not. What matters is the message that the photo conveys.

No matter the color of our skin, the gods we worship and the extent of our wealth or poverty; no matter how much we differ, we're just all witting or unwitting passengers on the same ship.

For now we want to make sure that we ourselves do not sink our own ship. And that means making an effort to overcome our tendency to slug each other over our differences. Believe it or not, one of  our on-going disagreements precisely has to do with whether or not our ship is really in danger.
 
The United Nations has this to say: 

     " Climate change is not a far-off problem. It is happening now and is having very real consequences on people’s lives. Climate change is disrupting national economies, costing us dearly today and even more tomorrow. But there is a growing recognition that affordable, scalable solutions are available now that will enable us all to leapfrog to cleaner, more resilient economies."

Conservatives, mostly associated with big business/capital,  argue that environmentalists are simply alarmists and that climate change does not exist.

Last night there was a documentary on television about supposedly the "strongest and most un-sinkable ship ever built."  Both first class and steerage passengers partied on the ship's maiden voyage. Nobody had a clue. By the time the ship's crew realized a huge ice berg was looming on the horizon, it was too late. It only took two hours after its collision for the Titanic to hit the icy cold depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

Do we earthlings have the luxury of time?

We need to stop fighting each other, whether in our own little circles, within our communities, or at the national level, in Washington and in the press.  The microcosm is but a reflection of the whole.

If the fawn and the bobcat shown below can co-exist in the face of a common danger, so can we,  of much evolved intellect,  rise above our own differences to fight for our very own survival.

Photo source: Facebook

 

Here are links to climate change articles:

 

http://www.un.org/climatechange/

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/opinion/paul-krugman-conservatives-and-climate-change.html?_r=0

- Posted with Aloha
By ARIEL MURPHY