Viral Video: Wedding Entrance Dance

From Denny: Enjoy this fun version of how to do your wedding day! It's gone viral on the web.

Your Choice: Overview of Today's Various Blogs Posts

Here's a run-down of what's happening on 5 of the various blogs today:

Romancing The Chocolate: Recipe: Sour Cream-Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze

* If you are a chocolate and peanut butter fiend, then you simply must make this special cake. "I'm just saying..." :)

The Social Poets: Libations Friday! 24 July 2009

* A Louisiana coffee recipe in the form of a coffee shake for this hot summer and an original dream sequence poem.

Ouch Outrageous Obnoxious And Odd humor blog: Video: 8 of 9 Worst Products of All Time - Toilet Paper Foam Moistener

* Yawn, yet another weirdo butt product for you to "enjoy." Who comes up with these things? They claim this advanced product will make your ordinary toilet paper rise to the category of extraordinary! (You have got to be kidding.)

Basically, this is the American convenience fast food version of the French bidet. After all, to quote the salesman hawking this product in the video, "You control the wetness." Enough said. Toilet humor is a bottomless pit of available jokes...

Comfort Food From Louisiana: Recipe: Shrimp and Grits

* Valuable information on how to roast your own grits before making the recipe. Never seen this offered on the web (uh, maybe because I'm the guy who finally wrote down the simple recipes for this...) as how to roast your own grits, spiced up grits version for lunch or dinner.

Beautiful Illustrated Quotations: How Do You Test a Person's Character the Most? Adversity? No.

* Truer words could never have been spoken by President Abraham Lincoln! They apply to politics, religion, employers and parenting. It is easy to abuse your power over someone - "because you can." After all, who is going to stop you?

That's why it is so very important to develop true personal discipline in the cultivating of emotional intelligence to protect yourself from becoming an abuser so despised by others - and God. Who wants negative Karma slapping you in the face when you are at your most weak or vulnerable? No one who is sane asks for that intentionally.

How do you cultivate emotional intelligence? Start with ...

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting Photo by kimberlykv @ flickr


chocolate cake, peanut butter, Chocolate, Baking and Confections, desserts, Society and Culture, Abraham Lincoln, Presidents, United States, humor

What We Think, Say or Believe Equals What?

From Denny: Every now and then I run into a political article on the web that is, well, disturbing. Yesterday I was on my beloved HubPages where I have a lot of fun and have acquired a lot of contacts and friends. Then I ran across yet another "ditto" article (they call them hubs) about how liberals are evil. I tried to read it all to give the writer a fair hearing but, frankly, it was nothing but confused, irrational, illogical hate speech brain diarrhea.

The main focus of the argument was to promote themselves as real Christians because they have decided that anyone who is generous and kind is evil. The real definition of the word "liberal" means "to be generous toward others." Since when did the Jesus Christ acts of compassion, generosity toward others and kindness get thrown into the dungeon of the "evil" column?

Something is terribly "rotten in Denmark" and "wrong in River City." Something is rotten to the spiritual core in America when this kind of thing is so widely promoted as well as tolerated without so much as a comment as to why it is wrong. Hate speech like this is as destructive to the writers and speakers as it is to the society and country.

Of course, it also begs the proverb: "Not all the crazy people are locked up!" The problem is that with harsh, scorched Earth politics it lets loose the underbelly of humanity to do as it wills. What it wills is to destroy all around it rather than build up, connect and cultivate better relationships.

A destruction mentality is unbalanced and just plain creepy. What these people are really saying to us (read between the lines) is that they fear everyone and everything in life to the point of hysteria and extreme paranoia. Since these folks are unable at present to truly embrace the true Love message of Jesus, then I suggest their only alternative is a psychiatrist and meds. These people are seriously ill to scream hate at the top of their lungs like this because they are so very fearful. Jesus Christ told his followers, "Fear not; trust Me!"

This brings me to today's quote where we can spout off what we think, what we believe or even what we think we know, true or erroneous facts, but we will be found lacking if we do not choose to do well by others in our lives. There are some acts, like this irrational hate speech, that are better off left unsaid and not done. Everyone benefits in the end.

Quote

"What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do." — John Ruskin

Photo by snuzzy @ flickr


Jesus Christ, Christianity, liberals, hate speech, republicans, conservatives, bullies, insane, Christian, John Ruskin, Earth, Religion and Spirituality, Denmark, Jesus

Millions Watch Solar Eclipse: Awe and Fear

Featured over at The Soul Calendar blog: Solar eclipse highlights, NASA video of eclipse time-lapse photography, article on religious and astrological significance from India. Just click on the title link to take you there! Thanks for visiting!

Photo by China TV

Video: Artsy Fascinating Ad for the PEN Series Camera

From Denny: This is such a joyful little ad and downright entertaining too! Thanks to the folks over at bestontube.com. It's a fascinating look at how you can employ still photos into a video and gives you a different perspective. Very artsy!

Here's the promo text: "A beautiful stop-motion ad celebrating the 50th anniversary of the PEN camera series."




Stop motion, International PEN, art, Video, Stop-Motion, PEN, Animation, Music video

Does Happiness Elude You?

From Denny: One of the beauties of coming from a family of very long-lived people is that you don't lose the institutional memory of historical events. Another plus is that you don't lose what former generations taught in the way of good character. What is in fashion in one generation is often out of fashion in the next and, so, we lose the cultural continuity of good values.

Like in any family there were those in mine who were, well, slugs, when it came to good character. To a person they lived miserable anti-social lives, unhappy the majority of the time because they focused too much upon themselves. In my book there is nothing wrong with being good to your self. Just try to make the same good faith effort for others as you would yourself and your life is enriched!

For instance, I enjoy writing all these many blogs. It gives me a creative outlet for color, design and writing about anything and everything that interests me in this world of awesome wonders. Writing these blogs also gives me a chance to share with others as if these blogs were the ultimate social site of sharing! By sharing with others a person can enrich the lives of others while they enrich their own.

Then comes the Joy as was taught in previous generations. This kind of Joy has lain dormant for the past 25 years or so, drowned out by business greed and the drive to unbalanced excessive and financial only success. There are a lot of facets to the concept of success. Monetary wealth and accumulation is only a small part of the equation. This much power and large wealth requires the learning of real wisdom in order to not be destroyed by such power. I could get into what the ancient Kabbalists have to say about the power inherent in money and how to prepare for basically trying to grab a tiger by the tail but that would be another very long post! :)

Perhaps it's time for global society to rediscover some of the ancient wisdom of past societies, learning to appreciate the success of others as well as their own. Happiness can be an elusive creature to those who are calculating and refuse to dig deep into their hearts and offer up greater generosity to those around them. Generosity of spirit goes a long way to creating a much happier life!

Funny Dog Photo by Phil Romans @ flickr

Goethe at age 69 Image via Wikipedia

Quote

“Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though t'were his own.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Playwright, Poet, Novelist and Dramatist. 1749-1832)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Money, History, Family, German language, Good faith, denny lyon, Arts, Kabbalah, Literature, Kids and Teens

Funny Video: I Just Want a Pizza!

From Denny: This girl, Justine, is so funny! She cold calls a bunch of stores asking to order a pizza. Most of them don't catch on to her snarky ways but one guy finally did and the exchange and how she gets out of it is hilarious! He really nailed her and his comments are unbelievable. Of course, her close-up facial expressions steal the show, enjoy!



comedy, funny videos, hilarious, IJustine.com

Bloggers Unite: Global Human Rights Abuses

From Denny: This is a post I ran over at The Social Poets Friday evening for the Bloggers Unite Human Rights Day post on 17 July 2009. Bloggers everywhere are all blogging on the same day about human rights.

***

Humanity is at a crossroads in our world history where we must make a profound decision. It’s time to live better.

Currently, human rights abuses are no longer exclusive to certain regions of the globe. There is a sharp increase in human rights abuses worldwide for decades now and situations are increasing in violence yearly.

Stories abound globally of the most heinous crimes to humanity. Nothing good is accomplished by mankind trying to annihilate mankind. Just what is going on in the world? Here are just a few areas:

• Hamas and Taliban Islamic terrorists and other terrorist groups worldwide are on a bloodthirsty killing spree with bombings of civilians, women and children in many places in the world.



Photo by azrainman @ flickr

• Rogue unstable governments, covertly cozy with terrorist groups, working feverishly to acquire the nuclear bomb so they can kill off their neighbors they don’t like because they are another religion, a different economic or another kind of social system – or just plain won’t give them what they want.

• Genocide in Africa because people of different tribes can’t work out their differences like civilized people.



• Jailing journalists - trying to report the truth - as political temper tantrums to get their own way: North Korea and Iran.

• Tortured prisoners worldwide with the most notable recent heinous acts perpetrated during the Bush years on terrorist suspects never given trials, mainly because there was no real hard evidence.



• Under Taliban Islamic law and culture women are still regarded as subhuman and not deserving of first class treatment like men.

• Here in the United States, during the Bush years, women were raped, often savage gang rapes, at our military universities yet went unreported.

• Then there are battered women worldwide from Islamic to Christian countries whose husbands will not stop pummeling them.



We, the majority, are allowing the few to terrorize us, our neighbors and our loved ones. We must mobilize to stop it. How? Education for starters.
In the end, in order for humanity to not come to an end, we must consider a working alternative to what exists today in the way of abuses. It is a basic human right to be loved. Loved, you say? Yes, loved. We all have the right to be loved.

Love comes in many forms. We have the human right to certain expectations of basic decency and civility. We have the human right to healthy drinking water and sanitation and affordable housing. We have the human right to expect our political leaders that are guardians of our country to be honest and get serious about addressing pressing social and economic issues.



Photo by alicepopkorn @ flickr

Human rights abuses worldwide, in our own countries, in our homes will continue until the average person stands up and says "No!" to it all. Human rights abuses will continue until we all get serious about connecting up to create a tsunami force to push humanity along until we all do better, choose better and, in the end, start living better. Now that’s Love in action! We all have the human right to be loved. Let’s give Love.

A few places you can go for education and plug in to help:

Bloggers Unite where you can help by blogging

Youth Movement For Human Rights - worldwide

Human Rights Watch

Amnesty International, dedicated to bringing world attention to human rights abuse


North Korea, United States, denny lyon, Human rights, Nuclear weapon, Africa, Amnesty International, Human Rights and Liberties, Sharia, The Social Poets