If you have not met TED, you are missing out.

One of my friends named Mike sent me this nice link:
http://www.ted.com/talks/janette_sadik_khan_new_york_s_streets_not_so_mean_any_more.html

Yes, it is a long link. If you have trouble opening it, just contact me. DO NOT let sites tell you that you need to install software! The real pages should just work. If not, then ask you local Computer Guru.

I find it kind of exciting to hear the things that she says are being accomplished in New York and the outstanding results that she says they have. I realize that it’s a puff piece. By that I mean that she’s blowing her own horn and trying to put the best possible spin on it. But I really like the video and I believe what she says. More power to her.

For me, probably the best part, is that her successes are being emulated in many cities around the world. I always like it when people get smarter. It’s really frustrating when I see large groups of people rapidly getting dumber.

While we were in the states for the last three years, we had the use of an automobile. Sadly, in the US, you usually are required to have an automobile in order to function. However, for the majority of the last 40 years, I have been a pedestrian. There’s no place to keep an automobile on our boat. And, in a lot of the world that I have been, there’s no need.

In Portugal, like many other places that we been, it was really easier to get around without a car. Not always, of course. But, frequently.

I will spare you countless pages of examples of places that virtually require you to have an automobile in order to survive there. But, it looks like from this video that America might be beginning to scratch the surface of rethinking the whole idea of requiring that every household have at least one and preferably many automobiles.

If you have not seen very many TED broadcasts, you have really done yourself a disservice. A treat awaits you! They have something for everybody. Well, maybe not everybody. Probably no child pornography or snuff films, but really a vast collection of entertainment that is usually also very enjoyably educational. I strongly encourage you to set aside some time to snoop around in the list of available broadcasts. If you look around on my blog you will find several listed, but there seems to be a gigantic assortment of them. I have to keep it to a minimum because of my traditionally terrible Internet connection. But for most of you, I strongly recommend it.

Dave

PS

Also note here that I have modified this original post

One of my many wonderful cousins, Pam. Well, I guess were all cousins in some way or another. But, anyway Pam, posted an excellent comment to that TED post. I have heard that many of you have trouble reading the comments, and hers was so good that I incorporated it in the post. However, since you may not want to go back and skim through the original post to find the new material. I will include the new material here. I think the links are especially relevant in these troubled times.

It seems to me that religion, politics, and anchoring, are three things that get people really bent out of shape. It is common to find people who have such overwhelmingly strong opinions about those subjects, that although they are otherwise rational human beings, on certain subjects their mind is like a steel trap. An old steel trap. Closed and rusted shut.

Of course, they know beyond all certainty, that they have all the answers and that the other gazillion people in the world have it all wrong.

So, even though my many friends, are my friends, because they are quite rational and open-minded and above such lunacy, except perhaps on anchoring subjects, I worry that some stranger will find the blog and immediately jump to some sort of adrenaline enriched position, that I cannot imagine. I will just say, please don’t do that.

How will we ever solve anything, if we cannot talk about subjects, and positions that we may not agree with, but that are important. As Rumi said:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“Come, come again, whoever you are, come!
Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come!
Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,
Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are.”

Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi

1207 – 1273   see http://www.mevlana.net/

He also said:

“Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged”

― Rumi

“And watch two men washing clothes,

one makes dry clothes wet. The other makes wet clothes dry. They seem to be thwarting each other, but their work is a perfect harmony.

Every holy person seems to have a different doctrine and practice, but there’s really only one work.”

― Rumi

https://alegria1976.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/random-quotes-from-rumi/

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

And Pam said, slightly edited:

>>>>>>>>>>>>

Pam & David on October 14, 2013 at 3:49 pm said:

Thanks for posting this, Dave. If it’s helpful to folks, here’s a shortened URL: http://bit.ly/1gzOgwm that will take you straight there. (That link http://bit.ly/1gzOgwm worked fine for me (Dave).)

A TED talk that I like quite a lot (we all have our favorites), perhaps because I’m from Seattle, is this one:

And here she had a link, but I (Dave) removed her link because it took me to a page that wanted to install software on my computer. I recommend against doing that. Please try this link
http://www.ted.com/talks/lesley_hazelton_on_reading_the_koran.html

And I strongly recommend this related link
http://www.ted.com/talks/lesley_hazleton_the_doubt_essential_to_faith.html

Pam continues:

If you enjoy TED talks (and I do), you might also enjoy the many spoofs out there, easily found by Googling “TED spoofs.” There’s even one by a comedian who apparently talked his way into a TEDx event.

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