[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]
In 1998, says Monica Lewinsky, “I was Patient Zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously.” Today, the kind of online public shaming she went through has become constant – and can turn deadly. In a brave talk, she takes a look at our “culture of humiliation,” in which online shame equals dollar signs, and demands a different way. TED Talk: "The Price of Shame" [22:26].
Enjoy the things you already have. The problem with many of us is that we think we’ll be happy when we reach a certain level in life – a level we see others operating at – your boss with her corner office, that friend of a friend who owns a mansion on the beach, etc. Unfortunately, it takes awhile before you get there, and when you get there you’ll likely have a new destination in mind. You’ll end up spending your whole life working toward something new without ever stopping to enjoy the things you have now. So take a quiet moment every morning when you first awake to appreciate where you are and what you already have.
I have an older sister and a younger one. Additively they are two; the stress level they bring to my world is exponential.
8th & 9th of 18 Photos from The Smithsonian’s “Wilderness Forever” Photo Contest:
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| Snowy Owl, Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness Area, New York [Image credits: Scott Joshua Dere] |
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| Banner Peak Alpenglow, California [Image credits: Brad Goldpaint] |
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — If a glue did not stick to the inside of the tube or bottle, you might think it must not be a very good glue.Why did the scarecrow get promoted? He was outstanding in his field.
On the other hand, clinging glue has annoyed generations of parents and children attempting to scoop out the remaining bits with their fingers.
This is one of life’s little problems. LiquiGlide, a company started by a [mechanical engineering] professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [Kripa K. Varanasi] and one of his graduate students [J. David Smith], has come up with a solution: a coating that makes the inside of the bottle permanently wet and slippery. The glue quickly slides to the nozzle or back down to the bottom....
The shift from industrial applications to packaging started when Dr. Varanasi’s wife was having trouble getting honey out of a bottle and asked him, because he was an expert on slipperiness, whether he couldn’t do something about that.
Meanwhile, M.I.T. was sponsoring a $100,000 contest for entrepreneurial ideas. Mr. Smith and Dr. Varanasi decided to enter. Over a weekend, Mr. Smith developed a prototype of a ketchup bottle. Using a video of ketchup sliding out, they were the runner-up and won the Audience Choice Award. Then they started LiquiGlide. (Mr. Smith has not finished his doctorate but said he planned to.)
The art of snow:
The morning after the party:
In the Sahara Desert, there is a town named Tidikelt, Algeria, which did not receive a drop of rain for ten years. Technically though, the driest place on Earth is in the valleys of the Antarctic near Ross Island. There has been no rainfall there for two million years.
Teachers can learn new things too:
Why can't you hear a Pterodactyl go to the bathroom? Because the "P" is silent.
The Sleeping Dog. This one is easy. Find a dog. Imitate the dog.
Nanosecond photo:
The two-letter English word "up" has more meanings than any other two-letter word. It is listed in the dictionary as an adverb, preposition, adjective, noun, or verb.
It's easy to understand up, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake up?
At a meeting, why does a topic come up? Why do we speak up, and why are the officers up for election (if there is a tie, it is a toss up) and why is it up to the secretary to write up a report? We call up our friends, brighten up a room, polish up the silver, warm up the leftovers, and clean up the kitchen. We lock up the house and fix up the old car.
At other times, this little word has real special meaning. People stir up trouble, line up for tickets, work up an appetite, and think up excuses.
To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed up is special.
And this up is confusing: A drain must be opened up because it is blocked up.
We open up a store in the morning but we close it up at night. We seem to be pretty mixed up about up !
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of up, look up the word up in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes up almost 1/4 of the page and can add up to about thirty definitions.
If you are up to it, you might try building up a list of the many ways up is used. It will take up a lot of your time, but if you don't give up, you may wind up with (up to) a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding up. When the sun comes out, we say it is clearing up. When it rains, it soaks up the earth. When it does not rain for awhile, things dry up. One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it up, for now...My time is up!
Oh...One more thing: What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night?
U p!
Did that one crack you up?
Don't screw up. Share this with everyone you look up in your address book...Or not...it's up to you.
Now I'll shut up!
Limerick of the week:
Working with a muse can be worrying;
she ambles along without hurrying,
she plays, she takes her own time;
when you try to make her climb,
ideas will likely go scurrying.
| Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean |
A timely article in the NY Times, "Monica Lewinsky Is Back, but This Time It’s on Her Terms," provides background on Ms. Lewinsky's TED talk.
ReplyDeleteThanks as always to my correspondents: Monica Lewinsky is back - on her own terms, enjoying what we already have, two siblings can be exponential, Shell battles for Seattle, dolphin stampede videographed by drone, wilderness photos, nonstick bottles, scarecrow promotion, snow art, mornings after, driest places on Earth, chilling glimpses, lessons for teachers, Pterodactyl silence, brass disinfection, sleeping dog position, cats, two-letter English word with the most meanings, proceeding without the muse....
ReplyDeleteGreat fish !! Especially enjoyed learning about the word up.
ReplyDeleteMonica Lewinsky reinventing herself is a little strange don't you think?
ReplyDeleteOverlooking her telling a so called friend everything and that friend knowing to record the phone calls---there is the dress. The president ejaculates on her dress which is then put in a bag for safe keeping. A dress no one knew about but her and her mother. The president was wrong in what he did, but the whole thing has always sounded like a setup to me.
Ed, if you accept that Ms. Lewinsky was devastated by the publicity and shaming she underwent, then I don't think there's anything strange about it at all. In fact, unless she were just to die and resign herself to defeat, the only option she had was to reinvent herself somehow. More power to her.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't find it at all implausible that she would have treasured that dress. As she says in her TED speech, she may have been one of many thousands of young people who fell in love with their boss that year, but she was the only one whose boss was the President of the United States.
Well Morris if it had been your dick she sucked how much money do you think people would pay to hear about that? We will never know the whole story, but ask yourself this, how did she get into the West Wing? Somebody, got her cleared, somebody made sure she and the president were alone. Bill wasn't eyeballing pages and said. "Hey have the chubby chick sent to my office." Somebody picked her and they had a reason for doing it.
ReplyDeleteGosh, Ed, are you trying to sound like a conspiracy-theory nut or something? If so, surely you have a name or two to propose for the supposed pimp?
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