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POPSThe Tyranny of Niceness Related to passive-aggression as a cultural descriptor rather than an individual pathology. Fear of authority, chronic anger, bitterness, and the masochistic self-disempowerment of submission (see Fromm).
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POPSMechthild of Magdeburg - German Mystic, Poet, Beguine The Flowing Light of the Godhead. (Transl. by Frank Tobin) Even in her lifetime, Mechthild of Magdeburg gained some renown for her extraordinary book of mystical revelations, "The Flowing Light of the Godhead", the first such work in the German vernacular. Yet her writings dropped into obscurity after her death, many assume because of her gender. In "Mechthild of Magdeburg and Her Book", Sara S. Poor seeks to explain this fate by considering Mechthild's own view of female authorship, the significance of her choice to write in the vernacular, and the continued, if submerged, presence of her writings in a variety of contexts from the thirteenth through the nineteenth century. "Mechthild of Magdeburg and Her Book" offers new insights into medieval vernacular mysticism, late medieval women's roles in the production of culture, and the construction of modern literary traditions. amazon.de
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POPSThe Meaningless of Meaning <<<To Nabokov, skimming the Present without sinking into the Past is a miracle that befits only the most experienced: "Otherwise the inexperienced miracle-worker will find himself no longer walking on water but descending upright among staring fish" (if I may add) under the weight of past associations.>>> Thus do we think we have thought and felt and experience the One, the Abyss, the Edge, the Love.... yet the graceful lightness of being is elusive and we are weighed down always, especially 'Now' (oh, its 'Power'!) by the depreciating luggage of our conceptual memories and ossified identities.
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POPSThe Language of God Among Collins’s most controversial beliefs is that of “theistic evolution”, which claims natural selection is the tool that God chose to create man. In his version of the theory, he argues that man will not evolve further. “Scientifically, the forces of evolution by natural selection have been profoundly affected for humankind by the changes in culture and environment and the expansion of the human species to 6 billion members. So what you see is pretty much what you get.” “If one is willing to accept the existence of God or some supernatural force outside nature then it is not a logical problem to admit that, occasionally, a supernatural force might stage an invasion,” he says.
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POPSBlue www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LhwlsaA-Vc
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POPSClear communications in social media Dave Fleet has a great post on being more clear and approachable to the non-geeks on the topic of social media. There are many ways of communicating concepts and he's taking the lead on making it easier to understand. Kudos Dave!
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POPSIlluminating Beauty, Illustrating Harmony Interactive Show at the source. Illuminating Beauty, Illustrating Harmony: A Gallery celebrating the 25th Anniversary of The Institute of Ismaili Studies ...invites the viewer to the large and complex subject of the artistic and intellectual heritage of Islam. Ranging in date from the ninth to the nineteenth century, and produced in lands as far westward as Tunisia and as far eastward as China and India, the artefacts reflect the great diversity and range of a distinctive visual culture with its own unique artistic language. ‘Illuminating’ and ‘illustrating’ are appropriate from with the perspectives of calligraphy and the arts of the book, and are also linked to notions of knowledge and learning in Islam. A significant number of items in this exhibition are, therefore, related to the arts of the book, in particular the Qur’an.
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POPSUK educator decries domination of education by management-oriented language An Oxford professor examines the gradual takeover of all policy writing on education by the language of business management: "efficiency," "providers," "audits," "performance indicators," etc. This kind of thinking, he says, has gradually obscured any legitimate answer to the question of what education is really supposed to accomplish.
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POPSMusical Thought Thomas Carlyle described poetry, too, as ;musical thought'. Perhaps music, poetry, discursive thinking, art, concepts and ideas are all from the same 'place'?