The never ending pursuit of the beautiful -- part 2

This time around I give to you Bono. For those of you who may not know who he is, though I have no idea who you would be, here's a little info on him.

"Award-winning lead singer and front man for U2, one of the most successful and highly regarded rock bands in history, Bono uses his immense popularity and influence to draw attention to the crises of poverty worldwide and HIV/AIDS in Africa. Gaining access to the world's most powerful politicians he has almost single handedly drawn public attention to debt burdens in the poorest of countries, helping to get wealthier nations to forgive billions of dollars of debt. He also works tirelessly to build greater worldwide response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic facing Africa."

Bono is another beautiful life because he does not use his fame to promote Bono. Instead he seizes the ability to use that fame as a tool to help people in a real and tangible way. He has a proper view of celebrity by viewing his celebrity not as something to be grasped ahold of but something to be used as a means of helping others while not being condemning to those who don't. He also keeps politics out of the picture but instead calls on whoever will to help regardless of political persuasion. Yes, my friends, Bono is beautiful!

The never ending pursuit of the beautiful

Recent discussions with people that have a superficial view of what beauty is have led me to want to explain why in my profile I list the never ending pursuit of the beautiful as one of my interests. Like anyone else I appreciate an outwardly beautiful person, a layered sunset, a magnificent mountain, a colorful songbird, etc... That being said, I think that one of the greatest beauties on earth is a capable and intelligent life. In this vein I would like to start a series of posts about lives that I find to be beautiful.

For the first post I give to you Ina Garten. As a foody of sorts I have spent many hours with the Food Network. My personal favorite show is Barefoot Contessa. For those interested -- the original Iron Chef is a close second! Many judge people who are hobby cooks and family oriented as uneducated and non-productive. This could not be farther from the truth. Ina is a self-starter by nature and didn't learn cooking from her mother or from culinary school but rather from good old fashioned trial and error with cookbook recipes. Her hard work and kind spirit cause me to say she is beautiful beyond measure. Here's some things you may not know about her:

"On December 22, 1968, Rosenberg and Garten were married in Stamford, and soon relocated to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. She began to dabble in cooking and entertaining in an effort to occupy her time while her husband served his four-year military tour as a paratrooper during the Vietnam War; she also acquired her pilot's license, according to an interview she gave to the Raleigh News & Observer.[3] After completing his tour, the couple journeyed to Paris, France, for a four-month camping vacation that Garten has described as the birth of her love for French cuisine. During this trip, she experienced open-air markets, produce stands, and fresh cooking ingredients for the first time.[4] Upon returning to the U.S., she began to cultivate her culinary abilities by studying the volumes of Julia Child's seminal cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.[4] Her weekly dinner party tradition began taking shape during this time, and she refined her home entertaining skills when she and her husband moved to Washington, D.C., in 1972.
In Washington, Garten worked in the White House and took business courses at George Washington University, eventually earning an MBA,[5] while her husband worked in the State Department and completed his graduate studies. Originally employed as a low-level government aide, she climbed the political ladder and was assigned the position of budget analyst, which entailed writing the nuclear energy budget and policy papers on nuclear centrifuge plants for then-Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.[6][7] Strained by the pressures of her work and the serious, high-power setting of Washington, Garten once again turned to cooking and entertaining in her free time, constantly arranging dinner parties and soirées at her home on the weekends. Meanwhile, she was buying, refurbishing, and reselling homes for profit ("flipping") in the Dupont Circle and Kalorama neighborhoods.[6] The funds from these sales gave Garten the means to make her next purchase, the Barefoot Contessa specialty food emporium."

Tree Decorating Day

My little ones asking me to turn the tree lights on:

"Let's see the magic Daddy!!! Bring it, bring it!!!"

יום הולדת שמח

We'd like to take today to wish our caring and dear friend Yehudi01 Yom Huledet Sameakh!!! If you are inclined hop on over to Lion of Zion and leave him birthday geetings. I personally would like to remind him that he's older than me. :) As wisdom comes with age I have learned much from him and infinitely appreciate our friendship. May Hashem bless you with all good things today, my brother!!!

Just to make you smile!

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She'd scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
And though her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
And so it piled up to the ceilings:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the window and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy ends of ice cream cones,
Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,
Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts and withered greens,
Soggy beans and tangerines,
Crusts of black burned buttered toast,
Gristly bits of beefy roasts. . .
The garbage rolled on down the hall,
It raised the roof, it broke the wall. . .
Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,
Globs of gooey bubble gum,
Cellophane from green baloney,
Rubbery blubbery macaroni,
Peanut butter, caked and dry,
Curdled milk and crusts of pie,
Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,
Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,
Cold french fried and rancid meat,
Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.
At last the garbage reached so high
That it finally touched the sky.
And all the neighbors moved away,
And none of her friends would come to play.
And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,
"OK, I'll take the garbage out!"
But then, of course, it was too late. . .
The garbage reached across the state,
From New York to the Golden Gate.
And there, in the garbage she did hate,
Poor Sarah met an awful fate,
That I cannot now relate
Because the hour is much too late.
But children, remember Sarah Stout
And always take the garbage out!
Shel Silverstein, 1974

The Giving of Thanks

I would like to take a moment to give thanks to God who is the giver of every good and perfect gift. I am thankful to live in the United States of America. Thank you to the men and women of the armed services who keep this land safe and free. Thank you to the Police Officers, Firefighters, and ambulance drivers and medical technicians who come running to our aid in times of need. Thank you to the teachers in public school systems who do their best to teach our children. God has given us so many wonderful gifts of nature but even greater than that he gave us eachother. He gave us family and friends with which to share our lives and experiences. Thank you to all the friends we have come across here in the blogmosphere and the friends that we are yet to meet here. We enjoy reading about your lives and experiences and wish the best of times for you on this Thanksgiving day!!!

Award Winning Chili

Give this here a try. I guarantee you won't be disappointed. I just won a chili cook-off with this combination. This makes a really meaty chili with just a few beans. The spices hit you up front and are well balanced. If you add a little cayenne then the spice will hit you up front and stay on your palette as well.

1 lb. ground beef
1.5 lb. ground venison
1 lb. pork sausage
.5 lb. thick cut bacon diced
1 medium white onion
2 jalapeno peppers
2 small peppers w/seeds
1 tsp. cumin seeds
Kosher salt
Ground pepper
1 package Williams chili seasoning for 2 lbs. meat
1 box Emeril beef stock
1 can tomato sauce
1 can fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes with garlic, oregano, basil
1 can Bush's chili beans

Shameless pandering

Okay, so this is a little off subject for our normal posts. We were looking at our neo-counter and realized that we have no visitors from Africa or Antarctica. This, my friends, is unacceptable. This post is a shameless pandering for someone to find bloggers from Africa and Antarctica to visit here so we can have all 7 continents covered. PLEASE HELP US!!!

I sure wish we could have Teddy one more time!

Don't hit at all if you can help it; don't hit a man if you can possibly avoid it; but if you do hit him, put him to sleep.
- New York City
February 17, 1899

Measure iniquity by the heart, whether a man's purse be full or empty, partly full or partly empty. If the man is a descent man, whether well off or not well off, stand by him; if he is not a decent man stand against him, whether he be rich or poor.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

I believe in nationalism as the absolute prerequisite to internationalism. I believe in patriotism as the absolute prerequisite to the larger Americanism. I believe in Americanism because unless our people are good Americans first, America can accomplish little or nothing worth accomplishing for the good of the world as a whole.

I keep my good health by having a very bad temper, kept under good control.

Unless a man is master of his soul, all other kinds of mastery amount to little.

Let us speak courteously, deal fairly, and keep ourselves armed and ready.
- San Francisco
May 13, 1903

I would rather go out of politics feeling that I had done what was right than stay in with the approval of all men, knowing in my heart that I had acted as I ought not to.

Avoid the base hypocrisy of condemning in one man what you pass over in silence when committed by another.

It is both foolish and wicked to teach the average man who is not well off that some wrong or injustice has been done him, and that he should hope for redress elsewhere than in his own industry, honesty, and intelligence.

If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty... I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led diffcult lives and led them well.

A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user

To sit home, read one's favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men's doing.

If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.

Character is far more important than intellect in making a man a good citizen or successful at his calling- meaning by character not only such qualities as honesty and truthfulness, but courage, perseverance and self-reliance.

We must be doing something right!!!

I am very proud of this rating for our blog. Although we are in our thirties we pride ourselves in being oversized children. Jesus had this to say: "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." I hope that we always come to God to learn as a child. Children have so very much to teach us if we will only listen. Here's the lyrics to a Michael Card song entitled "The Voice of the Child"

I am an old rabbi
Where's the Child who was here only yesterday
How my heart start to beat as I sat at His feet
For the things He'd say
The questions I asked Him
Had weighed on my mind an eternity
But the self-righteous show
I had made my disguise
It started to slip as I looked in His eyes
So rather than stay, for my pride sake
I walked away

Come listen awhile to the voice of a Child
Stand in awe of the wisdom of God
Hear what He has to say
For the time is today
You can come or just walk away

Then late in the night I awoke to a voice
Deep inside of me
It was gentle and mild like the voice of a child
My mind's eye could see
It spoke of the promises
Made to my people through Abraham
And at once all the prophesy made sense to me
I'd studied them so long
Why couldn't I see
In one holy moment I knew the Messiah was He

Come listen awhile to the voice of a Child
Stand in awe of the wisdom of God
Hear what He has to say
For the time is today
You can come or just walk away

I am an old rabbi
Where's the Child who was here only yesterday
How my heart start to beat as I sat at His feet
For the things He'd say
I just got to find him
and tell him I'm sorry I walked away

Veterans Day

I want to say thank you to all the veterans who gave me the freedoms that I enjoy. Without those who died and without those who lived I wouldn't even have the right to speak freely on this blog. They lived and died to give us freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom to assemble, freedom of religion, freedom to a fair trial by our peers, and freedom to vote. We should always use these freedoms to uphold the brave men and women who fight in our stead. Honor veterans every day with your speech. Honor them with what you write for others to see. Honor them by assembling to hold the country together and not dividing it. Honor them by holding them in your prayers. Honor them by respecting and following the law. Honor them by electing officials that will see to their needs with their votes and with our money.

Thank You!!!

Thank you Lord of the harvest for providing good things for those who love and serve you. Thank you for a good hunt with good friends. Thank you for watching over me and returning me home safely to my family.

Honest Car Deals

I am a huge fan of honesty wherever I can find it. Someone who is not afraid to speak truth to power and peasants alike is a person that I would always call friend. I have found a person like this in the car industry. If you are needing a vehicle new or used please talk to this man. Whether he can help in your personal situation I don't know but give him a call and find out. I have found him to be a man of great integrity and tremendous character. You'll find a link to him on the right.

It's that time again!!!

I'm really looking forward to getting out into the woods this weekend in pursuit of some wonderful table fare. Shooting a whitetail deer is of course the payoff but there is so much more to the experience. There's something exhilerating about sitting in the cold morning air and watching the breath come out of your mouth. The anticipation of what might come your way is electric. The beautiful morning songs of the birds, the playful chasing of the squirrels, the breaking of dawn through the trees, and the sun melting the frost off the grass are all a beautiful dance that the fall mornings repeat and most days goes unnoticed. Not so on the opening day of deer season. All these things and more are relished by simple people who love the woods and sit in the cold in pursuit of whitetail. I pray for a good hunt for all law abiding hunters. Keep safe out there friends and don't forget to enjoy the woods and thank the one who gave them to us!!!

Thank You LORD

He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate - bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart. -- Psalms 104:14-15