Scene and Herd: 12-SEP-05

Pick of the Week: Sun and Shield. Martin LaBar is an interesting blogger who is back from his summer hiatus and just put up his 200th post. Martin writes on various topics, including science (that's close to my heart!), books, nature and travel. His 200th post has links to some of his best stuff. Congrats on your blogging milestone Martin.

Speaking Yodish: The first blogger in Bahrain, he was. The first now no longer is he. But a great post he has. Like Yoda you can speak, to Mahmood's Den go and learn.

Tikvah: Melinama has a great post here at Pratie Place in which she has some excerpts from Charles M. Stern's Looking for tikvah. Here's a little taster from the post:

"We are suffering from deficits in every area in our lives, but most of all in tikvah - hope.
... The wisdom of Judaism defines our responsibilities to other people as a moral obligation. The Torah states that we have the responsibility to sustain the poor regardless of whether they belong to our ethnic or religious community."

I differ from Stern in my focus on innermost motivations, but he makes an interesting point about the process of changing motivations. Wonderful post - it did me good.

He's been thinking... Scott Bridwell has just the sort of upside down view I appreciate in his post on the war on poverty. I'll let you read it - it's short and I don't want to be a spoiler.

Spotlight on Darfur: A huge thankyou to everyone who contributed to Spotlight on Darfur 1, and also to those who linked it. There's too many to mention individually - but it's greatly appreciated.

As you can see I've given the blog a new look. More on that in another post. Meantime, sage advice from Kaz Cooke's The Little Book of Stress on how to deal with the pressures of life:

"Make your own meditation tape using music and the sounds of nature: heavy metal, hyena roars, crocodile rattles and the noise of vicious aardvark attacks.

Volunteer to be the sexual harrassment counsellor at your workplace.

Burn relaxing candles and incense all around the house. This will set of the smoke alarm and create a vibrant soundscape art happening, especially when the fire brigade arrives."

Have a good day!