24May 2011 by CJ

Not every man in society in a oversexed, cheating horn ball

Life & Living, Love & Relationships
It was a bad week for the reputation of men, with actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarsenegger and International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, both caught with their pants down, so to speak. Cheating on their spouses. Every time such infidelities appear on the news I always think to myself, “great – more ammunition for humanity to think every man walking this earth is a pig.” The conversationalists at the office (all woman) were having a field day bashing the male species for what they called “typical behavior”. They claimed women were the victims, caught up in men’s captivating charisma and overactive sex drives which leads to cheating. With all due respect, women have spent years fighting for equality and credibility, therefore I highly doubt they’re being charmed into…
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16May 2011 by CJ

A lack of tolerance in a democratic society is extremely dangerous

Life & Living
Robert Green Ingersoll was a Civil War veteran and famed orator during the Golden Age of Freethought - a time in history when people questioned the traditional ideas and thinking of the society they lived in. When narrow-mindedness was challenged and replaced with a more impartial way of looking at things - tolerance. Yet Ingersoll is rarely remembered for such powerful statements such as, “Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.” Tolerance is “a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one's own.” It’s a characteristic of the very democracy we all celebrate and appreciate on a day which has become more about barbecues and fireworks than our independence - The 4th of July. Though decades have…
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13May 2011 by CJ

The End of the World…here we go again with this topic

Life & Living
According to Christian activists, the end of the world is coming on Saturday, May 21st.  Mark your calendars folks. Thankfully, the NCIS season finale is on May 17th - so at least I’ll have finality on the continued port-to-port killer story line before we die. Such an apocalypse has been predicted countless times before and yet here we still are! But for argument’s sake, let’s just say the end of the world IS on May 21st. How do you think your life has turned out so far? Is the person you see in the mirror the person everyone else sees? Have you become a part of the materialistic generation or a generation of people truly trying to change the world and themselves? It’s naïve for us to think that our…
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11May 2011 by CJ

An exercise in silence is hard for many to do

Life & Living
Here’s a personal exercise you should definitely try, from everyone’s favorite neighbor, Mister Rogers. Go ahead, try it…you might be surprised how difficult it really is. “Here’s a gift you may not have expected. It’s a gift for you to give yourself. Sometime in your day today, try to turn off all the noises you can around you, and give yourself some “quiet time.” In the silence, let yourself think about something. Or if possible…think about nothing.” Sounds simple doesn’t it? But we’ve become a society that simply cannot function without continual audible distractions. It’s almost as if the noise in our lives serves as a kind of coping mechanism to cover up reality. I mean what other reason would people have for finding it so incredibly difficult to have…
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06May 2011 by CJ

Edison did more than simply discover the light bulb

Information & Education, Life & Living
Many would characterize Thomas Alva Edison as an ingenious inventor – holding 1,093 U.S. patents for such creations as the phonograph and most notably the electric light bulb. The life of an inventor is riddled with disappointments - sometimes requiring dozens, even hundreds of failed attempts before finally attaining success. But Edison refused to let failure define his life’s work. So instead he lived under the simple belief that anything was achievable with a little persistence and a lot of elbow grease. He once joked, “I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2,000-step process”. Obviously Edison was a card carrying member of the “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” club. But his life’s practices and optomisitc attitude are far from easy to apply in…
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