If you don’t know about the epics of blog soup, a deliciously OP (Over Powered) explanation follows. …
The comments below represent comments that I posted and those that failed to post to the websites, blogs, videos and streams that I visited. On occasion, they may represent Tweets, Replies, or Comments made on Facebook and other Social Media networks. Not everyone will appreciate the comments made to their post (I rarely suck up, brown nose or gush), but hopefully they’ll forgive me any offense (real or imagined) and, yes, they should absolutely love the rank-link juice to blog and Twitter. This is not a noob’s blog and some have even said that my seo game is fierce as it is sweet. …
More about blog soup at the end of this post.
Dear Phil Robertson and everyone else interested in this public scandal,
There will be disagreements, contentions and frequent temptation to act and speak in an unbecoming manner – especially in a multicultural society and that includes online communities. In this context, idle talk and memes can be a divisive device which begs caution, scrutiny and wisdom.
How shall we live, work and relate with each other in our diversity? How shall we enthusiastically collaborate toward the common good and our own separate, individual, nobel ambitions?
However our opinions may differ, each of us will find it challenging (more or less) to live in a world that includes those whose actions, opinion and political will contradict our identity and, perhaps, even challenge the living out of our intimate hopes and aspirations.
That is a challenge we must accept with several virtues. I speak of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
If each of us do not accept to meet this challenge with these several virtues, then we are not worthy of democracy, freedom, peace and/or happiness.
If we cannot agree these virtues are necessary or exercise these virtues with an enduring devotion, then communities and nations are doomed. For we will walk in darkness.
That is a bleak future that reminds me of the Prince’s warning and lament in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Yesterday, Seamus Heaney died at the age of 74. He was a poet. He was also the 1995 Noble Prize laureate in literature. In other words, he was a somebody.
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Yesterday, the drums of war were beaten. Lies and deception poured from the mouths of so called world leaders and statesmen. But the peoples of the world knew better. They knew the facts being presented were askew, the calculus was bogus, and the journalists – they are as outrageous as money changers in the temple.
Mr. President: The people long for history and hope to rhyme.
The Cure at Troy
by Seamus Heaney
Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.
History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
Within an hour, a white blanket covered the hills and valley of Cacica. And a peaceful quiet. Chickens did not cluck, dogs did not bark, and the world was still.
I should have received it as a gift. As a sign. As a blessing. Peace.
I am waiting. I am ever waiting to bring the world to the perfection that is longed for in hope, joy, and possibility.
Do you feel the same as I do?
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Enigma, Return to Innocence
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I await for greater forces (men, women or otherwise) of greater prudence, courage, self-control, justice and faith. I await their direction, their demonstrations, and crowd-roaring triumphs over impossibilities, danger, and humiliation.
I am waiting to do amazing things – more amazing than I can begin to understand or imagine. Because within me are beautiful, true, and good things. They move with such precision, certainty, and counterpoint. Like the heavens. Like celestial perfection. Like a clockwork of stars and galaxies.
I am not alone
I am not alone in these anticipations and aspirations.
And you are not alone in yours.
There is untested strength, courage, and beauty in our common will. So much unrevealed awesome in our common destiny.
Wait for no one
We need begin for the hour is late. We have lost ourselves in useless distractions. We have uselessly agonized over our unfulfillment.
We do not need more things. You. Me. We need less emptiness in our hearts. We need less dishonesty. With ourselves. With others.
We need to sanctify ourselves in love. Because we are nothing – if we, ourselves, are not love. Because love is, has always been, and will always be – what we are. Wait for no one!
Do I deceive myself when I allow myself to feel my deep hunger for love? Do you?
Has not love been everything for me- when I allowed myself to feel truly the things that I feel? You?
And yet, nothing I could do would purchase it and my happiness. With one single exception- love.
Consequences
Do you feel the same?
Or, maybe, my words fail to sue for peace against the armed gates of your heart. Maybe, the walls of your heart are proud and tall like the walls of Troy.
I am of no consequence to you. I do not pretend to have wisdom for you. But who are you?
You, yourself, are of consequence to you. This is indisputable. And your emptiness longs to be filled with joy. With you. With love.
Just as my emptiness must be filled with love.
And, quite possibly, we shall find joy together. In love. With love. Through love. In the unity of our common will and destiny to be ourselves truly and completely.
Together, we can be the change that we want to see in our world.
If you can do one thing just for you today… allow yourself to feel everything as you watch this short, uplifting video:
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Stan Faryna
25 June, 2011
Valley of the Roses (Kazanlak), Bulgaria
Mr. Faryna is the founder and co-founder of several technology, design and communication companies in the United States and Europe including Faryna & Associates, Inc., Halo Interactive, and others.
Stan Faryna served as a Global Voices author and translator. Global Voices is a non-profit global citizens’ media project founded at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, a research think-tank focused on the Internet’s impact on society.
Mr. Faryna also served as editor-in-chief of Black and Right (Praeger Press, 1996), a landmark collection of socio-political essays by important American thinkers including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Copyright
Copyright 1996 to 2012 by Stan Faryna.
Here’s my fair use policy for my content: If you want to share my content with your own audience, you may quote a brief excerpt, if and only if, you provide proper attribution (Source: The unofficial blog of Stan Faryna) with a direct link to the source. Generally speaking, as long as you are not acting as an agent or on behalf of a corporation or institution, I am not interested in any payment for the quotation or use of a complete article. Nevertheless, you may not republish or translate the entire article without my written permission. Send your request for permission via Facebook. Or tweet me up me on Twitter.
Where is the Love, The Black Eyed Peas
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Sucking in Syria
Syrian protesters are dying. Everyday, it seems. Maybe, eight were killed yesterday. Four, the day before. More Syrians will die, tomorrow. Through links on Twitter, I’m getting to see some videos of the dead and dying. There’s blood. Tears. Crying. There’s the crack of AK47s.
The protesters are demanding Freedom. Change. Opportunity. Reform. They want to make a better world.
Syrians are not just dying. They are being murdered. The killing is intentional.
Protesters are being murdered by soldiers or police who have been ordered to do so by their government. They might not look like you or me. They may not even speak the same language. But, unless, you are hopelessly all wrapped up in you, you know that other people are losing the people that they love and care about. In an instant.
In a gruesome, grim, split-second instant, love seems to be cancelled.
Times are changingby Bob Dylan ………………………………………………..
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The Inaugural Speech of President Barack Obama
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
My fellow citizens,
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.
Posted by Stan Faryna 
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