give take

For 2010

What one thing do you know you should give up?

What one thing do you know you should do?

It's a Wonderful Life

I watched It's a Wonderful Life with my kids for the first time.

At first they moaned and groaned at the idea of a black-and-white movie.

But I told them it was my favorite movie and they were going to watch it with me.

There was heavy sighing and eye rolling... they laughed a little at the 'special effects' at the beginning... but then they got into it.

They laughed and cried at all the right parts.

A couple of nights later, H asked me "How do you know someone is bad just by shaking their hand?" ...referencing George Bailey shaking Mr. Potter's hand when he offered him a job

sound bite

I said that I didn't really know, but you can feel it. Sort of like The Dark Side in Star Wars (I use The Force and The Dark Side to explain a lot).

"Hmmm," he pondered "I haven't met anyone like that yet."

...and, H, I hope you never do!

Invictus

The poem that saw Nelson Mandela through the darkest days of his 25 year imprisonment:

Invictus by William Earnest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Lost Generation

A palindrome reads the same backward as it does forward.

This video reads the exact opposite backward as forward ... the meaning is the opposite.

This very cool video was submitted in an AARP contest by a 20 year old. The contest was titled: "u @ 50"

It's amazing...

pencils of promise

Pencils of Promise is a non-profit based in New York that partners with local communities and organizations to build schools for some of the world's most impoverished and undereducated children.

If you are able this giving season, consider a donation to Pencils of Promise. $35 buys shelves for a classroom, $50 provides pencils for one year, $100 provides a teacher's salary for three months ... you get the idea ... a little goes a long way ... and collectively, a little can change the world.

Happy Holidays

:)

Seth Godin - What Matters Now

Seth Godin compiles what we're thinking about in a new free ebook.

It's free and wonderful! Download it from his website.

the decade ... according to those who were born at its beginning

As the decade comes to an end, it is interesting to get a child's point of view.

My kids (9&7) ask me why I keep calling next year "twenty-ten" and not two thousand and ten.

It made me realize that throughout their lives it has always been two thousand and...

After watching the video below I asked my son the same questions...

He said the biggest news stories of the decade were that we bombed the moon and that Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize.

He didn't know what a terrorist was. And his biggest fear is tarantulas.

Kathy Freston's Top 10 list

Kathy Freston writes about the Top 10 (recent) developments on factory farming and vegetarianism on the Huffington Post. Read it HERE.

I am hopeful that the winds are changing. I can feel the cool breeze of compassion.

Global Good

Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown explains the need for Global Institutions and Global Citizenship.

Global ethics and humanity's greater good can be reconciled with patriotism and individualism.