[[ 24 ]] INTRODUCING: RIKA, THE MAGNANIMOUS

Salutations and Happy New Year!

This is just a short message to say -

To All the People who took Positive action & were awesome to their fellow man this year: Way to Go! Keep it up! Don't be discouraged - get involved, get informed - you are making a difference!

And to all the people who hosted negativity this year, and ended up bringing more strife, suffering and heartache to the world:
Please, get better. 
It's a new year. You don't have to inadvertently promote the very actions, viewpoints and reactions which inevitably conclude in your own unhappiness and spiritual death.
No way, man! You can choose to be better.Yes - just choose.
Its not always easy, but it starts there.

My New Years Resolution is to be magnanimous. Do you know what that means?  It's ok - hey... I didn't either. But ever since I looked it up a few days ago, I think about the concept and start to swoon. <3
That's some beautiful mojo, Jojo!  Wow. Who wouldn't want to swim with those fish?!!
I don't know that I have it in me, but I've seen it in others and my heart craves to wear it as my own. Magnanimous people are symmetrical souls.  Balanced. Peaceful, too.
I could use some of that.
We all could, brother.

Speaking of exemplary new beginnings, I'm pleased to announce the unveiling of Rika's Choice - a blog written by none other than the charming and delightful Rika Paprika! 

( And folks - I'm not just saying that because she's one-third of our dynamic trio! I actually believe it! )

Rika is short for "Paprika" -a nickname I gifted to this young woman after she came into the lives of Marie and I. Much like the flavoring you use in the kitchen, she's *just* a little spicy -- and tends to make a good thing even better.

But don't take take my word for it... please drop on by and see what she has to say!
You can visit her blog here: Rika's Choice  <-- clikkity, click, click right here!!
Please do so often and with good cheer. She's a really warm and loving individual, with some very interesting things to say!

Thank you.  
And if you can't be with the people you love tonight -
        - at least reach out to them and let them know that you do. 

This New Year will be a perfect opportunity to show it.

Live with fierce compassion and strive for undeniable joy,
- Charles Dashing

[[ [[  [[  TO ANY WITH COMPASSIONATE HANDS:   PEACE STARTS HERE   ]] ]] ]]

And now - just because I'm feeling 'magnanimous' ...hehe --yay!  Here's the 80's band Missing Persons, singing 'Words'.

Feel free to hop around and make silly. Go on... it's cool, babe. We're all friends here...  =)

Happy New Year you peoples of Earth ! 

Ted: "Something strange is afoot at the Circle-K...."

[[ 23 ]] HALLELUJAH

While I don't subscribe to any organized religion, I believe in the concept of Good.
I believe in real and sustainable Love and the value of Tenderness.
I'm aware how powerful and relevant Forgiveness is, and also - the healing grace of Understanding.

A creature of both logic and spirituality wears my skin.
           Practicality - but also, deep, wondrous sentimentalism.
Yea, I am a Scientist soulfully in love with the Beauty that this world presents. 

I am grateful
For all that I have been given, and all that I have been allowed to earn.
Grateful for the love which lifts me up
And the sorrows, which force me to stand on my own
I am grateful for the past that has melted behind me
And the hope of a future which grants us all another day
For this, I give thanks
For this life, I fall to my knees and give praise
For these things which mean Everything, I will devote my hallelujahs.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

- C.D.

Click here for more from the great and departed Jeff Buckley.
Here... another, with Grace

[[ 22 ]] TIRED OF EVIL

While hearing of innocent people being harmed is lousy, on any given day -- there's an angle which becomes almost maddening when those innocents are children.

The recent events at Sandy Hook left me pretty disenchanted with Humanity as a whole.
I know that so many decent citizens have come together to heal, cope and address the event. I take some solace in that.
Still, I'm feeling a little wrecked, to tell the truth.
Violence, always ugly - rarely justified... just seems downright evil sometimes.

Just sick about it. Tired of it. 
Tired of grown adults deciding that the most destructive, negative, senseless solutions are justifiable.

To you jackasses who choose to promote hate, violence and oppression as a means of enforcing your view of the world:
You're dead inside. ****ing dumb animals. Despicable empty vampires.



Not much else to say, really.

Here's another story. More of the same.

- C.D.

Marizeh, a 6-year-old wounded by the Taliban in Afghanistan, ahead of life-changing surgery at a hospital on Long Island.

OCEANSIDE (WABC) -- Even after all that little 6 year old Marizeh has been through, she still has a warm, welcoming smile. She waved to the cameras just about an hour before going into surgery at South Nassau Communities Hospital. Marizeh was brought here from her remote village in Afghanistan by Staten Island based Global Medical Relief Fund.

The Taliban ambushed her family last spring, murdering her father and brother right in front of her.
"She was being hidden underneath the feet of her father. They shot her in the face and they thought she had died she was there for about three hours until she was discovered," plastic surgeon Dr. Kaveh Alizadeh said.

"The bullet entered from the left cheek and the exit side was above the right orbit," Alizadeh said.
She lost her right eye and she has no ability to breathe through her nose because of the buildup of scar tissue.

"So our task today is going to be to take her to the operating room open up the scar the airwave and probably end up borrowing cartilage from the ear," Alizadeh said. They'll use that to reline the inside of her nose. It's a remarkable surgery for a remarkable little girl

"She does know she is having surgery and that she's going to be better," Elissa Montanti, Global Medical Relief Fund," said.
The procedure should restore Marizeh's ability to breathe through her nose so she can sleep normally again, and she will receive a prosthetic eye.

- Kristin Thorne, Eyewitness News
Source:  ABC Local