The Astonished Tamale! | Notes from Stonehaven by Gary L. Matthews
Time 2021-10-11 12:35:39Web Name: The Astonished Tamale! | Notes from Stonehaven by Gary L. Matthews
WebSite: http://astonishedtamale.com
ID:201566
Keywords:
Tamale,Notes,The,Astonished,from,Gary,Matthews,Stonehaven,Description:
keywords: description:A bit more than a year ago, I created a website called Heart to Heart HD: http://hearttoheart.bahaiteaching.net/.
During the ensuing year, Ive paid no attention to hits, visits, or other web-traffic statistics. But shortly after the sites first birthday, I peeked and was stunned to learn that it has evolved into one of the most-used, most-visited Bahai sites on the Internet.
You can read all about it here:
http://garymatthews.com/2013/04/heart-to-heart-bahai-site-year-in-review/
And then, please leave your comments in the form provided. Id love to hear from you.
Theres a new book from Stonehaven Press: Abdul-Baha, Einstein and Ether by Gary Matthews. (That is, by yours truly.)
Please note the quotation marks. This volume isnt technically new, but its a vastly expanded second edition with so much new material, and so much formatting improvement, that it might as well be new.
Read my introductory article here, at GaryMatthews.com. Or find ordering-and-purchasing information here, at StonehavenPress.com.
If youre interested in the connections between science and religion, reason and revelation, then this book may well appeal to you. Designed for the general reader, its a popular, non-technical overview of quantum physics and general relativity, in their relation to something called luminiferous ether.
And of course, to the Bahai Faith, since Bahai sacred texts contain statements about ether that sometimes raise eyebrows.
In print form, Abdul-Baha, Einstein and Ether is 72 pages, perfect-bound, and illustrated. The earlier version was a 28-page booklet.
This also is the first Stonehaven book to be published as an ebook. (More coming soon!) Its available both in Kindle-compatible form (MOBI) and everything-else-compatible form (EPUB). Please note at the moment its solely on the Stonehaven Press site. This means that if you download the MOBI version, youll have to transfer it to your Kindle yourself. We should soon have the electronic version available at Amazon, so you can download it directly to your Kindle account.
We believed it was time to create the expanded, updated version because in recent years (after the original publication in 2000), a wealth of new material on the topic has come to light. This includes a large number of recently unearthed or translated statements by Albert Einstein.
Einstein has for many years been thought of as the physicist who discredited and discarded the whole ether concept. That was true for a short time. But he changed his mind, and spent most of his later career revising and clarifying his original stance.
Even if you arent interested in the science-and-religion interplay, this book is an easy introduction to what once was a hot topic in physics and seems to be becoming a hot topic again. You heard it here first!
Your online accounts are about to be hacked.
Again.
Once they are, the hijackers will be able to take over your computer, drain your bank accounts, run up charges on your credit card, buy Amazon goodies in your name, lock you out of your email and cloud storage, read your sensitive business and personal documents, and snarf those embarrassing photos.
If youre lucky, the bad guys wont do all that (though some of them will, and all will have that option). What they mostly will do and I know, because theyre already doing it to my friends is steal your contact list. Then theyll send scummy spam, in your name, to everyone you know.
Some of you have had to buy new computers, open new accounts, change passwords, and run new anti-virus software, because you already were hacked. But none of that will help if you walk into the next trap the new trap thats now being laid for you. So heres how to avoid it:
Do not please, please do not ever sign into any website using your log-in codes from a different website!
In other words, dont use your Facebook username and password to sign into Instagram (or vice versa). Dont use your Microsoft username and password to sign into Skype (or vice versa). Dont use your Yahoo username and password to sign into Flickr (or vice versa).
Sure, you can do all these things, and more. The biggest web companies are encouraging you to cultivate this habit. But its a terrible habit! Convenience notwithstanding, its better to create a different account, with a different username and a different password, for each web service you use. Write them down in a notebook if need be, and keep it safe.
Now I know its a royal pain to keep multiplying usernames and passwords. I probably have more than most of you. And I know how strong the temptation is to recycle log-in codes, using the same ones in multiple places. Saves work for us. Saves a whole lot more work for the crooks looking to steal our lives. The convenience isnt worth the risk.
The seeds of this log-in apocalypse have for some time been spreading and germinating. It works like this: Facebook buys Instagram, and thus wants you to use your existing Facebook username and password to sign into Instagram. So suddenly every Facebook account is also an Instagram account, and vice verse. Facebook enjoys a massive upsurge in its already bloated user base.
Microsoft does the same with Skype. Yahoo does it with Flickr; Google, with YouTube. Please note: These are legitimate log-ins, or would be if they stopped there. But theres a problem
A problem thats especially exacerbated by the worst offender: Facebook now is signing up legions of other companies, all over the web, with deals to let you use your Facebook log-in for their websites. This lets Facebook track you and sell your private profile to other companies, which then follow you around the web with personalized ads.
Web stalking, though, still isnt the problem. Here it is:
All the webs largest companies now are conditioning us to feel that its okay that its normal and expected to use their log-in codes for other, smaller companies. Even companies weve never heard of. But that isnt okay.
This new online culture is so pervasive we cant possibly keep track. We dont really know, and cant remember, which usernames and passwords we can legitimately use with which other websites. Just yesterday, this risky practice would have raised red flags and set off clanging alarm bells. Today, it suddenly feels like the safest, most natural habit in the world!
Until we use, say, our Gmail log-in to enter a friendly-looking website really run by the Mafia. Or by a teenage hacker in Estonia, or Nigeria, or lets see, whats really scary? Knoxville, Tennessee.
What Im already noticing is how crooked websites having no connection with Google now invite unsuspecting visitors to sign up using their Gmail login. Or sites not affiliated with Facebook tell visitors to log in using their Facebook credentials. Sites having nothing to do with Microsoft brag how you can join using your passwords for Outlook, Hotmail, SkyDrive, Skype, or other Microsoft accounts.
The moment you fall for this, theyve got you. They can now read all your email and learn where you bank, where you shop, where you store your medical records, and what all your other passwords are. Even if you dont store passwords in the cloud, they can use your email log-in to reset your passwords for accounts they couldnt otherwise access. (Remember how the I forgot my password business works?)
Cases in Point
This sting has caught, so far, only two of my friends; but Im reading online about scores of other people falling for it. It wouldnt surprise me if this becomes the next big web scandal.
I spotted this this trend after receiving a private message from a good friend, supposedly sent through a web outfit called Zorpia. I could click here to access my message. I didnt click, because I knew if my friend really wants to send me a private message, he has my email and phone data.
My friend assures me and I believe him that he never heard of Zorpia. Apparently he was simply in the contact list of someone else who fell for Zorpias come-on: Sign up using your Gmail log-in! Zorpia promptly stole that other persons address book, which included my friend. Hes now being used, without his consent, to spam Lord knows how many more people.
The Zorpia spam-note ended with a list of other Zorpians waiting to meet me. Two alluring females, plus two handsome guys, one of them with a womans name. In terms of blatantly sexual enticements, Zorpia seems bent on covering all bases.
Wikipedia says Zorpia is a social networking service, popular in India and China, that uses unethical methods such as spamming, scamming and phishing to recruit users. Read the details here. But are such methods effective?
Well, Alexa Internet ranks Zorpia among the 6,000 most frequently visited websites in the world. Considering how there are millions (or is that by now billions?) of websites, Zorpia is among the largest. Probably in the upper one percent, and rising. It operates out of Hong Kong and despite its sleazy tactics may even be breaking no laws.
Another friend finds her name being used to send invitations from something called Flipora. Which she, too, assures us she never heard of! Yet shes being blamed by angry friends and family who are being pestered, or taken advantage of, by Flipora. (The latter apparently is too new to have a Wikipedia expose, at this time.)
Both Zorpia and Flipora, from what I read on the Net, are like bulldogs that wont let go: Once they get their teeth into you, its over. If you have an account with them, you cant delete it, which makes sense since they probably opened it in your name without your knowledge. Ditto for any software they install on your machine: Good luck rooting it out.
But Zorpia and Flipora may well be mosquitoes, compared with the horde of zombie hacker-spammers approaching. All of them crooning: Sign in with Gmail! Sign in with Hotmail! Sign in with Yahoo! Sign in with Facebook!
Please! Just. Dont. Do. It!
Do any of you have experience with Zorpia, Flipora, or other spam sites trying to trick us into giving up sensitive log-in details? Has your contact list been harvested without your knowledge? Please share your thoughts using the comments box.
Dear friends and readers,
Happy Valentines Day to you all. You are one and all loved by at least one very Astonished Tamale! Heres hoping every one of you also is loved deeply and intensely by someone you love just as much.
Speaking of astonishment:
Were pleased to note that for the second year in a row, Knoxville Tennessee home of The Astonished Tamale! is Americas Most Romantic City. We know this because Amazon.com, the universally acknowledged authority on such things, says so in this press release.
Amazon figures this out by tracking sales data of romance novels and relationship books (Kindle books and print books); romantic comedy movies (digital and DVDs); a collection of romantic music from Dean Martin, Barry White, Luther Vandross, Maxwell and Miguel (CDs and MP3s); along with sexual wellness products.
Meanwhile, the famous Real Age website has just named Knoxville the nations Number Three city for a happy marriage trailing close behind Salt Lake City, Utah, and Greenville, South Carolina. Plus, Knoxville is still Real Ages choice for the nations Best City for Sex for Women. (For men, their metrics rank Knoxville the eighth worst. If anyone can explain this paradox, please enlighten us in the comments below.)
Last year, Knoxville won the Amazon top spot despite being Real Ages pick as Americas oldest city in terms of aging too fast through poor health practices. (The Astonished Tamale! reported that news here.)
New York City can rejoice in the news that Amazon no longer considers it Americas least romantic city. That bottom spot now goes to (drumroll!) Boise, Idaho.
Is this true? Well, nothing trumps a scientific test: Just yesterday I sent an electronic Valentine Card to a couple in Boise, and instantly received (from the husband) this reply: Were fine but Feb 14 is just another Hallmark holiday we dont bother to celebrate.
So there you have it. May all of you my dear Boise friends included have a deliciously loving year ahead.
Several long-term projects coming to fruition:
Please take a look at the all-new Stonehaven Press website at stonehavenpress.com.
This site, the storefront for the publishing company Cheri and I own, has been in the works for a long time. Way overdue, but we havent had the time needed to bring it into being.
Also its companion site, GaryMatthews.com. My personal author site, where Ill talk about my writing, my books, publishing, book design, web design, and other topics. That site does not replace this one The Astonished Tamale! which is more for general-interest topics.
For me, the most satisfying thing about GaryMatthews.com is that its my own name the simplest, most straightforward version of my name, and the one people actually use in conversation. For a few months Ive had a similar site, GaryLMatthews.com. (That still is running, though now I may redesign it for another purpose. Or maybe just redirect traffic from it to the new one. Havent yet decided.)
For a long time, Ive wanted to call my website GaryMatthews.com, but couldnt. Someone else already owned the domain name: In fact, its been off the market for more than 15 years, even though no one was using it. For the story of how I finally acquired the right to use the name, click here.
Both the Stonehaven site and my writing blog need tons of work. Much more content to come contact pages, background stuff, utilities, loads of stuff. Please make allowances for how unfinished they are. But at least you can get a good look at them and see what is in store.
Finally, if you havent recently checked out our associated website, Heart to Heart HD, please do so now: hearttoheart.bahaiteaching.net. With the help of Heart to Hearts author, Zabine Van Ness, weve added a lot of useful content and functionality recently. More exciting stuff on the way.
Happy Valentines Day to all!
As I write this, AIG American International Group is meeting to consider filing a lawsuit against America for
Thats right. For bailing it out.
By loaning $182 billion to AIG, back at the start of the Obama administration.
Just so you know, here is what The Astonished Tamale! thinks of that:
As the above video demonstrates, the letters of American International Group transpose to spell:
An amateur, reptilian crooning.Im an ungenial, incorporate rat.I am unrelenting, paranoiac rot.Ignorant manipulation career.Alarming, uncertain operation.I am a large, incontinent uproar.Neurotic, ignorant apeman liar.Alienating, un-American torpor.un-American rat, reptilian goon.Reptilian mountain arrogance.A repugnant, irrational income.Our nice, loan-pirating mean rat!Please note, the lawsuit already was filed by former AIG CEO Hank Greenberg. The suit originally was dismissed in November by a Federal court, but is still pending in the US Court of Federal Claims. Greenberg now wants the company and its shareholders to join him in the suit and in his appeal.
According to news reports, the company is seriously considering doing exactly that.
Greenbergs claim is that the Obama administration, in saving the company from bankruptcy, charged too much interest. Now I dont know the official interest rate, from the standpoint of technical finance. But after the loan was repaid, US taxpayers did make a profit of $22 billion. Is that excessive?
Lemme see (Hmm. carry the two ) Okay, that represents a profit of 12 percent. A 12 percent profit over a period of four years. In other words, three percent per year.
Now riddle me this: Do you imagine that YOU can borrow money from AIG at a rate of three percent per year? No, I didnt think so either. And we certainly couldnt do it without putting up some sort of collateral, like our home or some other trinket. (Can you say foreclosure?)
It appeared, at the time of the bailout, that we the people would lose, if not all of the $182 billion, at least a great deal of it. The deal was a risk that no private entity certainly not AIG would have undertaken.
But at a meager investment return of three percent per year, we saved AIG from bankruptcy. Last year alone, AIG stock rose 52 percent, three times the rate of the SPs insurance company index.
Gratitude, AIG style. Go figure.
To my stark amazement, I love Windows 8. Let me count the ways.
But first why am I weighing in?
Because various tech experts, including two I know, are recommending we skip this latest version of Microsofts operating system. At least (the advice goes) we should hold off till were forced into it by the purchase of a new PC.
I couldnt disagree more. My advice: If youre buying a PC, and you have a choice between Windows 7 or 8 go with 8.
Heres why: (a) Windows 8 is easy to master. (b) Its substantially faster. (c) Its much more secure and stable. (d) It automatically backs up all your stuff your data files, your software, even the operating system itself. (e) It has a ton of useful new features and utilities. (f) Its dirt-cheap.
So true are these statements that even if you already own a Windows 7 machine, you should in my opinion download and install the Windows 8 Pro upgrade. Direct from Microsoft, this costs $40. Unless you purchased your Win7 system after June 2, 2012. Then it costs only $15!
Either price is a steal, but theyre good only till January 31. (In the past, Microsoft has made operating system upgrades prohibitively expensive for individuals, which is why we usually acquire them only as we replace machines.)
But whats the debate about? Lets turn to specifics:
How Windows 8 Works
Windows 8 is Microsofts latest attempt to embrace tablet computing. (Think iPads, Android slates, and smartphones). This requires a radical new look-and-feel. Microsofts mission impossible is to establish a tablet-oriented operating system (OS) that also works better than ever on traditional desktops.
The tablet side is the one weve all seen in the ads: a start screen covered with brightly colored active tiles. These new-style tiles lead, typically, to new-style apps optimized for tablet computers such as the new Microsoft Surface. On many models, thats all youll have.
But for traditional laptop or non-mobile computers, the start screen is one click away from your traditional Windows desktop! There you install and run all your familiar apps: Office, Photoshop, Skype, solitaire, whatever else you already do. The new Windows. Just like the old Windows.
Except hey, wheres my start menu? The one I used to find at the lower left, where Id click start to turn my computer off? Or to list all programs so I could find the ones I installed but then lost? Or get to the control panel so I could do whatever one does with that?
Turns out, the old start menu has morphed into the new start screen. Both are activated by the familiar Windows key. You can also conjure up the start screen by a variety of mouse clicks or (for touch devices) finger gestures.
Its startling to see the old start menu replaced by a special screen that constitutes the entire user interface for the forthcoming crop of Windows tablets. Some call this duality schizophrenic. I find it brilliant. (Of course, brilliance and schizophrenia arent mutually exclusive.)
The Learning Curve
Critics of Windows 8 complain that its learning curve is too steep. Any minor improvements (they say) just arent worth the pain of unlearning and relearning.
What pain? I would suffer far, far greater pain sticking with Windows 7 or any earlier version. The so-called learning curve mostly involves features that didnt exist before, and which we dont have to use till we want them. Were free to go on doing everything in the way we know, for as long as we like.
Your familiar desktop remains, and it works exactly as before. Your programs also work exactly as before. As noted above, the main new feature is that the windows key pops up a start screen in place of the old start menu.
But the old start menu was a convoluted, confusing mess. The beautiful new screen that replaces it is logical, natural, and intuitive. I started using it right away, without any instructions. The old menu is one I still struggle with, whenever I must go back to any computer running Win7 or earlier. (But do check this out for yourself; dont take my word!)
Ive also heard that familiar programs now work differently, and not as well. This hasnt been my experience. Mine all work the same, except faster. Thats amazing, considering Im still using some software I first installed under Windows 95. (For those who werent yet born, Windows 95 was the first real Windows, replacing the even older DOS command line. I was there.)
One program Ive lost was my beloved MARS Multiple Author Refer System a search engine for Bahai scripture. But that was already unworkable under Windows 7, hardly the fault of Win8.
The Speed Difference
Go to Google (or any search engine) and type in Windows 8 speed comparison. Scores of tech sites will pop up, reporting real-world benchmark testing. Their collective verdict is in: Windows 8 (out of the box) is faster than Windows 7 (out of the box) even on identical hardware! For some functions, the speed differences are dramatic. Nor are they confined to obvious bottlenecks like booting up.
But out-of-the-box comparisons miss the larger story. A chronic Windows failure has been this: Over time, all versions of Windows have tended to run slower and slower, bogging down, becoming buggier and more clunky. This was true even when no new or extra demands were being placed on the operating system, and with no new software being installed. It was true no matter how many virus scans one ran, how many updates were installed, or whatnot.
This problem, though under-reported, is well-known: John Dvorak, the cranky PC Magazine columnist, calls it operating system rot. The causes are various. Sometimes the problem is malware (viruses, ad-bots, and other scum). Just as often, its the critical security updates Windows always is downloading and installing into itself. Plus every other program on your computer also is updating continuously. All the updates bloat your system and eventually break down into incompatibility.
Windows 8 is the first system whereby Microsoft acknowledges this problem (albeit tacitly) and does something about it. In addition to the old system restore function (now much improved), there is a reset function that returns Windows to its out-of-the box, factory-fresh condition. Better yet is a refresh feature that returns it to a like-new state without destroying your data files.
Finally (and best of all), you can install all your favorite apps, set up your system just the way you like it, and identify that state as your permanent target for refreshing. (Click here for an article on how to do this.)
Security
All earlier versions of Windows have been highly vulnerable to hacker attacks. Windows 8, by contrast, has anti-virus protection built in, and turned on by default if no other protective software is running.
Much more important, the core system elements have been totally redesigned to be as bullet-proof as possible. Is it perfectly invulnerable? No. But the experts agree that hackers will have a far, far harder time taking over your system than they had before. Witness this article by PC Magazines security specialist, Neil Rubenking:
Windows 8: Secure at the Deepest Level
The articles conclusion: any attack or exploit that worked against Windows 7 will fail against Windows 8.
Elsewhere, Rubenking quotes Black Hat authorities who concede that Windows 8 can indeed be broken by a sufficiently trained and talented hacker. But they expect only one tenth of one percent of the current hacker community ever to attain such prowess and most of those (they say) will end up working for Microsoft anyway!
Automatic Backup
We all hate doing backups. Its a painful chore, and even those of us who do it, do it grudgingly. What a nuisance! But if we dont, we lose valuable data files.
Windows 8 has a nifty feature called File History. You plug in an external disk (most likely one of those USB drives you see everywhere nowadays, that hold oceans of stuff), and Windows asks if you want to use it for File History. You say yes, and from then on, Windows uses that drive to keep copies of all your files. Or rather, all the ones in your libraries and you can easily mark any of your folders as libraries.
But better yet is the history part: Windows automatically saves different versions of your files. So after youve screwed up your budding novel and now wish youd kept those old chapters you rewrote, guess what: Windows has them! And will give them back to you with a mouse-click or two. Just think how many times that will save your bacon over the next few years.
Admittedly, File History isnt yet as good as the Time Machine feature that Apple Mac enthusiasts love. But its good, and will only get better.
New Features
I mentioned Windows 8 has a ton of useful new features. Heres just one:
If you have a CD or DVD, you can copy the whole thing to your hard disk as a single file (disk image). (Its called an ISO file.) Once its on your disk, you can double-click it, and Windows treats that file as a virtual drive assigning it a drive letter and running it as if it were a disk in a physical drive. Except that it runs it an awful lot faster: no spinning and whirring, no read-write errors. This is a terrific way to back up your priceless software disks, for example. Youll think of many other uses.
Price
Did I mention that Windows 8 is dirt-cheap?
Some Closing Perspective
Anyone who, over the years, has heard me rant knows I am not a shill for Microsoft. Ive long berated the company, griping that it had lost its way and betrayed its core constituency.
I built my first computer (the cult-classic Sinclair) with a soldering iron, from a pile of diodes and capacitors. Back then, the two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) were cobbling together the Apple I in a garage. Bill Gates and Paul Allen were designing the BASIC programming language I came to love.
So I remember Microsoft back when it was an upstart start-up. It was the little guy, David taking on the corporate Goliaths on behalf of all us little guys. Between them, Apple and Microsoft brought vast computing power to the masses, power formerly reserved to large corporations. (Other companies, including Radio Shack, Texas Instruments, and Commodore, also played important roles and are under-credited.)
But Microsoft eventually became a mega-corporation itself, and started acting like one. One side effect is that Windows, when it arrived, never had the lean-and-hungry sleekness of Microsofts earliest software.
I kept hoping Windows would improve, but it seemed to get buggier, more bloated, more mediocre with each new version. Yet I kept using it (instead of, say, Macintosh) because it had the applications I most depended on.
Windows 8 is the first version of Windows about which I can be really enthusiastic. Dont get me wrong: Its far from perfect, but its a start.
And even if the only thing Windows 8 does is scare the living daylights out of Apple and Google, that will be a good thing. The fireworks will be fun to watch.
Have you upgraded to Windows 8? What is your experience? Please share by posting your thoughts in the comment section below.
Whats going on with the Tamale?
Thus inquired my friend Patricia, just last night. As a subscriber to this blog, she no doubt was puzzled at not having gotten any updates for the past four-and-and-half months. Okay, fasten your seat belts:
It was May 8-9 when Zabine Van Ness and I returned to Seattle from Hanoi, via Seoul, Korea. (See the previous article, Seoul Pancake.) I spent most of the next two weeks in Seattle as a guest of Zabine and her husband, Peter Van Ness, pictured at left.
A highlight of this visit was Seattles celebration of the 100th anniversary of the visit to America by Abdul-Baha, son of the Bahai Faiths founder, Bahaullah. And for me, the chief highlight of that celebration was being its keynote speaker one of the highest honors of my life.
Finally finally! got back to Knoxville May 22 (having left April 24). Got back to Cheri. My dear, sweet, beloved Cheri. In our 26 years of marriage, wed never been apart for a whole month. As great an adventure as this Vietnam/Seattle trip was, the physical distance from her made it one of the toughest months of my life. Maybe hers too.
From that moment this till, Ive been immersed in book-publishing stuff, web-publishing stuff, writing, trying to mow faster than our lawn can grow. And yes, there’s a lot more to log here by way of specifics. Please stay tuned.
To all the wonderful folks I met, and the many new friends I made, on this trip-of-a-lifetime thank you for being there. Cant wait to see you all again. Hopefully, next time, accompanied by Cheri, so the trip-duration wont matter.
Apologies to Rainn Wilson for the pun on his wacky, wonderful website. But facing a 13-hour layover in Seoul, Korea, I was ready to disclaim any further responsibility for anything.
Then Zabine and I got a clue: We remembered our Vietnamese home-stay host telling us of a terrific five-hour tour of Seoul we could take from the airport. Even if this tour hadn’t been a once-in-a-lifetime prize (and it was), we’d have seized it just to pass the time. (Do the math: Our 13-hour wait was sandwiched between a five-hour Hanoi-to-Seoul flight and a 10-hour Seoul-to-Seattle flight. Sleep, sorta-kinda included, but not really.)
Seoul is vibrant, high-tech, bursting with life and color. Koreans love balloons and bright paper lanterns. We visited a downtown river restoration project, the palace compound of ancient Korean kings, and a Buddhist temple. The palace struck me as harsh, austere, and lifeless. By contrast, the river and the temple were kaleidoscopic in their beauty.
Our tour included lunch at a vegetarian restaurant where most of our group ordered – beef. (Yeah, I know.) Their loss, my gain: I went with the brown rice and steamed vegetables. Not only was the dish indelibly yummy, it even provided protein, in the form of a raw egg yolk perched right there on top. Speared it with my chopsticks, I did. (At least there’s something I do deftly with chopsticks.)
Please note below the photo of Zabine with Haechi, who symbolizes the City of Seoul. If you click the thumbnail, then zoom in close enough, you can even read the fine print: “Haechi, Seoul’s symbol, is an imaginary creature that helps realize justice and enhance safety and happiness.” Count us in!
May 9, 2012 (Tuesday) – Most of the past week – another blur. Our official reason for being in Vietnam ended with last weekend’s celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Hanoi Baha’i community. Normally we would have headed for home immediately. Did I explain that the earliest return flight turned out to be more than a week later?
Highlights of the past week include taking out our host families to dinner at a wonderful Hanoi lakeside restaurant, La Tre Place (aka The Bamboo Restaurant); dinners at the homes of various Vietnamese friends; a water puppet show; and a breakfast excursion at an exceptionally wonderful cafe called Tea Talk.
But the biggest highlight was the almost daily opportunities to teach people about the Baha’i Faith. One (or sometimes more) of the young Vietnamese college women who expressed an interest in Zabine’s Heart to Heart multimedia slideshow kept coming back to learn more. One of them gave a good 15 hours of rapt attention over the course of several days. (This is not a strictly Asian phenomenon: Using Heart to Heart, Zabine routinely elicits similar levels of engagement in Seattle and elsewhere. That’s another story.)
Come Tuesday night, our Bahai shepherds, Binh and Duyen, whisked us to the dazzlingly modern Hanoi airport with plenty of time to spare. They then hung around with us to make sure we didnt get stuck because of some airline hitch, language glitch, technical difficulty or whatnot. Words dont exist to say how kind and wonderful these folks are.
Instead of trying to narrate a day-by-day account, I’m posting below a few of the several hundred photos I took over the past week. Please note that as before, clicking on any thumbnail will display a much larger and more detailed version:
Please visit also
Heart to Heart - HD
Gary
Matthews.comMy author blog
Notes from Stonehaven by Gary L. Matthews Recent Articles Heart to Heart: Year in Review New Ether Book from Stonehaven Log-in Apocalypse? Happy Valentines Day New Websites Recent CommentsGary Matthews on Visiting VietnamDermot McHugh on Visiting VietnamGary Matthews on Visiting VietnamDermot McHugh on Visiting VietnamEllen Frew on Visiting VietnamArchives April 2013 February 2013 January 2013 November 2012 September 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 Categories Bahai Books Health Inside Interfaith Knoxville Language Misc Tech
TAGS:Tamale Notes The Astonished from Gary Matthews Stonehaven
<<< Thank you for your visit >>>
Websites to related : Biopolymer Conference | Bioplast
keywords:Biopolymer Conference, Bioplastic Conference, Biopolymers 2020, Bioplastic 2020, Best Biopolymer Conference, Best Bioplastic Conference, Poly
Fullers Earth from Jaxon Filtratkeywords:Fullers Earth, Clays, Sorbents Menerals, Fuller's Earth, Diatomaceous Earth, Bleaching Clays, RVM Clay, Bentoniete Clay, Activated Charcoal &
Институт химии и keywords:
description:
Об инс
keywords:
description:
HOME PAGE DEL SITO: www.adorna.it Lunedi, 11 ottobre 2021 ore 06:3
keywords:
description:
Please Use Our Air Freight Quote Calculator
keywords:Living, Revolution, be, change, love, God, inclusive, inclusive spirituality, heal the world, heal, heal each other, help, search, of, loving
Baltimore Museum of Art keywords:
description:
Menu Our site is in beta. Help us keep improving! Share Feedback Exhibitions Events Current Exhibitions Programs Events
keywords:
description:The site home page
keywords:
description:What is a words-ending-in-er, definition of words-ending-in-er, meaning of words-ending-in-er, words-ending-in-er anagrams, word
keywords:雨漏り修理
description:雨漏り修理
雨漏り修理 雨漏り修理
Hot Websites