OMG! A "Twilight" sequel! (cartoon)

Amber Dorrian and my kid sister "Bela" not Bella (Wisdom Quarterly)

Breaking Dawn premieres. The forces of the Moon versus those badly affected by the Moon. "Twilight" is basically Dracula vs. Wolfman. Only the vampires are melodramatic and the wolves are so CGI. This series is a mess. But, melodrama can be good. Soap opera thrillers for tweens who need a romantic lead are keeping the mall theaters alive.

Giggly Bieber kids and gayish gothy teens are outnumbered by horndog moms. Fans everywhere are sure to keep this blockbuster going. And that's good. It's keeping "romance" alive. And there's nothing higher to live for. So get used to it.

The world needs more Harry Potter with heavy petting because Emma Thompson isn't doing anything to meet our need for sizzle. Taylor Lautner is pure peach fuzz for a hirsute leading man. Robert Pattinson is very, very Brit'ish. And Kristen Stewart's lesbian child molester kiss with Dakota Fanning was a real let down.

Klassikal Musik for Kids (video)

Comedy and classical music? Only on KUSC (Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles)

Tiger moms, listen up. A number of years ago, Richard Perlmutter was toying with the idea of creating lyrics set to masterpieces of classical music when one day, while humming Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the phrase "Beethoven's Wig is very big" popped into his head.



"It really resonated with my objectives because the words fit perfectly with the first eight notes of the symphony," recalls Perlmutter. "Besides, the wig is sort of like a mascot for classical music."







After dressing up the entire first movement with lyrics that are charged with "laugh out loud" humor that tickles funny bones of all ages, he turned to works of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, and other musical heavyweights.



Eventually, his muse led him to a studio where he created a groundbreaking recording, backed up by full symphony orchestra and four opera singers.







Perlmutter's first album, "Beethoven's Wig: Sing Along Symphonies," was released in 2002. Within a week of its debut, he was featured on NPR's All Things Considered, followed by an appearance on NBC's Today Show.



The album shot to the top of Amazon's Bestseller List, holding the #1 position on both the Amazon classical and children's music sales charts for four months. Over the next year, Beethoven's Wig received 15 national awards including a GRAMMY nomination for Best Musical Album for Children. (kmozart.com)



How to Parent (according to Tiger Mom)

• Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior - WSJ.com
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  Chua's daughter Sophia explains what life is really with her "Tiger Mom," an Asian father's gift: Permission to fail. Ms. Amy Chua (Mother Dearest) answers...
• Tiger Mom: Amy Chua Parenting Memoir Raises American Fears...
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  Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother author Amy Chua's proudly politically incorrect account of raising her children.
• Tiger Mothers: Raising Children the Chinese Way : NPR
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  Amy Chua, a professor of law at Yale, has written her first memoir about raising children the "Chinese way" -- with strict rules and expectations.
• TIGER MOM WINS: daughter gets into BOTH Harvard and Yale
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  The "Tiger Mom" who infuriated "American" mothers by ridiculing their lax parenting skills has another notch in her belt in the great parenting...
• Amazon.com: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
• Classical radio LA: KUSC.org (podcast)
• Can you eat these (supernatural) carrots?
  
  
• Tiger Mom Amy Chua says her controversial book is no parenting...

Videos on Tiger Mothering on ABC News

Poor Casey Anthony! (video)

Wisdom Quarterly, TheGrio.com

Hating hateful actions (like murder) or hateful actors (like murderers) makes us guilty of hate. Hate is toxic to all who harbor it, and it is not cured by vigilantism or revenge.

There are those who give free rein to hate when it arises like stampeding horses. There are others who pull the reins and control their chariot even when the horses are bolting. The Buddha called the latter "charioteers," whereas the former are merely holding the reins.

American hatred has grown so great -- animosity at a mother or a trial gone wrong -- that citizens are ready to lynch anyone named Casey Anthony.

Searching Facebook, many have found a man by the same name and tormented him. His response to the vigilante mob? "I can't change my name, ladies and gentlemen."

"Casey Anthony" is a 43-year-old African-American male. He lives in Darby, Pennsylvania, and just happens to share the name of a 25-year-old Anglo-American female from Orlando, Florida, who is infamous for being found not guilty of killing her 2-year-old daughter.

• PHOTO: The other Casey Anthony from Pennsylvania (NBC Philadelphia)
• She's to be released Sunday; some fear for her safety
• Casey Anthony gets and loses job in pornography

Mr. Casey Anthony has been bombarded on Facebook. He estimates that he has gotten at least 300 friend requests, messages, and posts, all targeting the other Casey Anthony.

"After the verdict that day, it went crazy. It was like everybody wanted to know and wanted to comment on this Casey Anthony situation," he explains.

The Antidote is the Opposite
There are Three Poisons of the heart/mind: greed, hatred (often expressed as fear), and delusion. It is wise to root them out at every opportunity. It is easier to transmute or transform them into something useful than it is to rid oneself of them.

But surely if they remain, they are serving as the basis of unprofitable karma (unskillful action of mind, speech, or body). Their "antidotes" are categories of opposite states -- nongreed, nonhatred, and nondelusion. Three immediate remedies are given as:

1. letting go
2. generating compassion
3. being mindful of the present moment.

Why would one even try to avoid or abandon hatred if it is manifesting as "righteous indignation"? Surely, that justifies it and strengthens us to act in opposition!?

No, what it does is obscure the mind, cause one to act in ways that result in remorse, that bring about suffering for us (when those actions later ripen), the bring humans down to subhuman states.

Hate helps no one. And those who say it does are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Transform it, transmute it, let it go, be freed from it, free others from it -- for it will surely drag us down, and we will only realize it too late.

• A man named Casey Anthony (thegrio.com)
• What if Casey Anthony were black?
• The notion of race and coverage disparity also applies to Casey Anthony herself. Would she have been so easily acquitted if she were a Black woman?
• Prof. Boyce Watkins: Would a black Casey Anthony been exonerated? Most blacks don't think so
  

UFOs filmed over London (video)

Mass sightings in New York were explained away with nonsense stories of "balloons." Never mind that the timelines did not coincide. And the craft over the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, Palestine (occupied by Israel), although simultaneously filmed by various witnesses, was turned into a joke by subsequent fake footage.



Pyramidal (not triangular) craft over Moscow and other cities, triangular UFOs over the US, lights over China... how much evidence does a skeptic need? It is not a lack of evidence that keeps people from believing. It is the fear of ridicule and expulsion (from a job, position, university, media outlet).

(

(EllasVirgo) UFOs over London's BBC Radio 1 Building. It took over a week but it was finally possible to capture these alien crafts (vimanas) on camera on a clear day and even get a close-up. The sighting was attracting a crowd as they appeared. Fortunately, this mass sighting cannot easily be debunked, for it was filmed from multiple angles by various witnesses, in addition to all the witness who did not film it.

VIDEO: A big part of history is missing

Bhutan's Queen Mother on Elvis, Buddhism

Margherita Stancati (Wall Street Journal, online.wsj.com)

Bhutanese author and conservationist the Queen Mother, Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, keeps a grip on the secluded nation's rich traditions while embracing the future.

Bhutan, the tiny, secluded Himalayan Buddhist country nestled between China and India, has long been known as the "Forbidden Kingdom."

First-time visitors could be forgiven for thinking that Bhutan's roughly 700,000 people, including its royals, were living in a time warp. After all, the Internet arrived here before television -- and that was in the late 1990s.

Men typically wear medieval-looking robes, known as gho, and women don a kira, the female equivalent. In their free time, the country's elite regularly gather for archery tournaments, Bhutan's national and widely practiced sport.

So outsiders would be justified to expect the members of its much-revered royal family to be as inaccessible as the country may appear. Meet Queen Mother Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, and you'll soon realize you couldn't be further from the truth.

True, Queen Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck is a real conservationist when it comes to her country's Himalayan culture and Buddhist heritage. But she is also well-traveled, a literary enthusiast and loves Elvis Presley.

Queen Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck is one of four sisters who married Jigme Singye Wangchuck, Bhutan's former king, who abdicated in favor of his eldest son a few years ago.

Today, the queen mother, a youthful 55-year old, embodies her country's efforts to reap the benefits of modernity while protecting its traditions.

Queen Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, who was schooled in India's region of Darjeeling, is the patron of Thimphu's Mountain Echoes literary festival that brings together Indian and Bhutanese writers.

An accomplished author herself, in Treasures of the Thunder Dragon: A Portrait of Bhutan she retraces the country's recent history... More

Bolivia grants Nature rights (video)

Bolivia's new Mother Nature Law

ZMEscience.com
Environmentalism is finally being taken seriously. Steps are moving in the right direction to protect nature and reverse climate chaos. One intriguing idea, spearheaded by Bolivia, is to give legal rights to natural systems: Bolivia’s "Law of Mother Nature" is set to pass, which will redefine the mineral riches as “blessings.” It is expected to lead to radical new conservation of these resources.

“It has to happen. We have to be able to give legal protection and consideration to the rest of the natural world,” said Patricia Siemen, executive director of the Center for Earth Jurisprudence. “It’s in the human best interest, as well as the larger natural world’s.”

The first article of the Mother Nature Law (translated from Spanish) states that every human activity has to “achieve dynamic balance with the cycles and processes inherent in Mother Earth,” with Mother Earth defined as “a unique, indivisible, self-regulating community of interrelated beings that sustains, contains, and reproduces all beings.” A Nature ministry will be formed and issues will be addressed thoroughly. More

Letting Go of Suffering (Now)

(Virtual) Church of Forgiveness.com

TAKE A MOMENT NOW

and experience yourself dropping your suffering to the ground.

Hear it sizzling as it cools,
passing its heat and melting away
into the vastness of Mother Earth

You’re feeling COOLER now.

RIGHT NOW decide to REALLY
RELEASE.

Then as you do so, click below.