“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.”
(Ecclesiastes 9:10)

Do It

9 Rules for Success from 1901

By Maria Popova, Brain Pickings


“Genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.”

The secret of success—like its very definition—remains amorphous and forever elusive. Still, those who have succeed—by their own definition, as well as history’s—might be able to glean some insight into the inner workings of accomplishment. From the 1901 volume How They Succeeded: Life Stories of Successful Men Told by Themselves (public library; public domain) comes a wonderful essay by British novelist Amelia E. Barr (1831-1919) who, despite the devastating loss of her husband and three of their six children to yellow fever in 1867, went on to become a dedicated and diligent writer, eventually reaching critical success at the age of fifty-two.

At the end of her essay, under a section titled “Words of Counsel,” Barr offers nine tips for success.

1. Men and women succeed because they take pains to succeed. Industry and patience are almost genius; and successful people are often more distinguished for resolution and perseverance than for unusual gifts. They make determination and unity of purpose supply the place of ability.

2. Success is the reward of those who “spurn delights and live laborious days.” We learn to do things by doing them. One of the great secrets of success is “pegging away.” No disappointment must discourage, and a run back must often be allowed, in order to take a longer leap forward.

3. No opposition must be taken to heart. Our enemies often help us more than our friends. Besides, a head-wind is better than no wind. Who ever got anywhere in a dead calm?

4. A fatal mistake is to imagine that success is some stroke of luck. This world is run with far too tight a rein for luck to interfere. Fortune sells her wares; she never gives them. In some form or other, we pay for her favors; or we go empty away.

5. We have been told, for centuries, to watch for opportunities, and to strike while the iron is hot. Very good; but I think better of Oliver Cromwell’s amendment—“make the iron hot by striking it.”

6. Everything good needs time. Don’t do work in a hurry. Go into details; it pays in every way. Time means power for your work. Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.

7. Be orderly. Slatternly work is never good work. It is either affectation, or there is some radical defect in the intellect. I would distrust even the spiritual life of one whose methods and work were dirty, untidy, and without clearness and order.

8. Never be above your profession. I have had many letters from people who wanted all the emoluments and honors of literature, and who yet said, “Literature is the accident of my life; I am a lawyer, or a doctor, or a lady, or a gentleman.” Literature is no accident. She is a mistress who demands the whole heart, the whole intellect, and the whole time of a devotee.

9. Don’t fail through defects of temper and over-sensitiveness at moments of trial. One of the great helps to success is to be cheerful; to go to work with a full sense of life; to be determined to put hindrances out of the way; to prevail over them and to get the mastery. Above all things else, be cheerful; there is no beatitude for the despairing.

Apparent success may be reached by sheer impudence, in defiance of offensive demerit. But men who get what they are manifestly unfit for, are made to feel what people think of them. Charlatanry may flourish; but when its bay tree is greenest, it is held far lower than genuine effort. The world is just; it may, it does, patronize quacks; but it never puts them on a level with true men.

It is better to have the opportunity of victory, than to be spared the struggle; for success comes but as the result of arduous experience. The foundations of my success were laid before I can well remember; it was after at least forty-five years of conscious labor that I reached the object of my hope. Many a time my head failed me, my hands failed me, my feet failed me, but, thank God, my heart never failed me.

***

RT News

Muslim holy site magically transformed into King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem tourism ad

Published: 02 February, 2013

Screenshot from YouTube user DannyAyalon

A tourism advertisement produced by the Israeli Foreign Ministry was banned before it could be released, as it showed the CGI destruction of the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim holy site.

­The video features Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon speaking in front of the mosque, when it collapses  - and from its ruins rises King Solomon's Temple, meant to postulate the presence of Judaism in the region before Islam.

The ad was aimed to promote tourism in Jerusalem, which Israel considers to be its capital despite international near-consensus that the country's capital is Tel Aviv. In the clip, Ayalon describes the Jewish history of the city and shows off its cultural sights.

It is the fourth in a series of films publicized by the deputy foreign minister and the Foreign Ministry's public outreach department.

In the original version, Ayalon attempts to show Jerusalem's ancient Jewish roots by placing a virtual temple atop the crumbling  mosque, the Times of Israel reports.

Foreign Ministry officials decided to replace the scene with a dissolving rather than destroyed mosque, expressing fears that a depiction of the mosque's destruction could cause discontent among Muslims.

The film was banned from official release and was uploaded only onto Ayalon's Youtube Channel.

However, the film was denounced as part of the Israeli government's agenda of destroying the Arab-Islamic identity of Jerusalem.

Ikrima Sabri, the head of the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, said in a press statement that the ad is "a part of the [Israeli] occupation plans to reveal its hostile intentions towards the holy shrine," Al Arabiya reports. 

According to Sabri, "the ad film shows that targeting the shrine is no longer limited to the extremist Jewish groups and that it is now vulnerable to many threats."

It's not the first time Palestinians have voiced concerns about about Israel's policy towards Muslim cultural heritage in Jerusalem.

The Dome of the Rock is a highly revered shrine for Muslims, among whom it is also known Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary. Located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, Muslims believe it commemorates the Prophet Mohammed's miraculous night journey into heaven.

It was constructed on the site of the First Temple built under Solomon, King of the Israelites, which was replaced by the Second Temple, destroyed during the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD. Jewish eschatology includes a belief that the Second Temple will in turn be replaced by a future Third Temple.

Previously there have been other scandals connected with the mosque. There were allegations during the Israeli elections earlier in the year that Knesset candidate Jeremy Gimpel publicly called for the destruction of the Dome of the Rock.

***

The Telegraph

Knights of Malta to open soup kitchens in Britain

They were once warrior monks who tended to fallen crusaders and sick Christian pilgrims amid the burning desert scrub of the Holy Land.

Matthew Festing, Grand Master of The Sovereign Military Order of Malta  Photo: AP

By Nick Squires, Rome

05 Feb 2013

But nearly 1,000 years later, the Knights of Malta, once known as the Hospitallers, are opening soup kitchens and shelters across Britain and the rest of Europe in response to rising poverty and homelessness caused by the economic crisis.

The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and Malta - as the chivalric order is officially known - is this week celebrating 900 years since it was given official recognition by the Vatican, with a 'bull' or decree issued by Pope Paschal II in 1113, in the midst of the crusades.

The order's 98,000 members and volunteers, who long ago swapped their chain mail and tunics for doctor's coats and emergency worker overalls.

They have traditionally provided humanitarian help in war zones, earthquakes and floods around the world, from Congo and Rwanda to Haiti and Afghanistan.

But they are now concentrating more and more on Europe, as austerity cuts and a deep recession swell the ranks of the jobless, the homeless and the drug-dependant.

The order, which is based in Rome and works in 120 countries around the world, identifies deepening poverty in Europe as one of its three main areas of concerns, along with the refugee crisis in Syria and the chaos in the Democratic Republic of Congo after years of war.

The knights - a Catholic organisation that is different from the more familiar Order of St John - is ramping up its activities in the UK, opening shelters for the homeless and mobile soup kitchens in Oxford and Brighton.

Similar facilities will be set up in London and Glasgow next month.

"We are observing with great concern the fact that the economic crisis is leading to greater numbers of unemployed, more homeless and more people falling through the social net," Albrecht Boeselager, a senior member of the order who carries the title Grand Hospitaller, told The Daily Telegraph in Rome on Tuesday.

"The number of people who come to our soup kitchens and medical clinics is increasing dramatically. In the 27 nations of Europe, there are now 26 million people out of work.

"We're establishing a stronger presence in Britain than ever before. Until now our main activity in the UK was to run homes for the elderly."

The principles upon which the order was founded in the Holy Land in the 12th century - charity and compassion for the sick and vulnerable - are now being applied to the British high street.

"We're adapting to current necessities, as we have done for a thousand years," said Philippa Leslie, a British spokeswoman for the order. "We've been doing weekly street runs in Oxford and Brighton for the past year and we are about to move into London and Glasgow."

After the crusaders' attempts to take Jerusalem failed, the Knights were forced to move to Cyprus, from there to Rhodes for 200 years, and finally to Malta, which they ruled as an independent sovereign state for three centuries.

Napoleon expelled the order from the Mediterranean island in 1798. It was eventually re-established in Rome as a sovereign entity - a state without any territory.

The order issues its own stamps, passports and coins and has diplomatic relations with more than 100 countries, as well as observer status at the United Nations.

The current head of the order is British - Matthew Festing, 63, a former Sotheby's auctioneer, bears the official title His Most Eminent Highness, The Prince and Grand Master of the Knights of Malta.

Despite being represented by an eight-pointed, crusader-style cross, the order works in dozens of Muslim countries, including Syria and Lebanon.

Its doctors and nurses still run a maternity hospital in Bethlehem, providing free care for a largely Muslim population, an abiding legacy of its original mission.

***

CNN

Body found under parking lot is King Richard III, scientists prove

By Bryony Jones

February 4, 2013

(CNN) -- DNA tests have confirmed that human remains found buried beneath an English car park are those of the country's King Richard III.

British scientists announced Monday they are convinced "beyond reasonable doubt" that a skeleton found during an archaeological dig in Leicester, central England, last August is that of the former king, who was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.

Mitochondrial DNA extracted from the bones was matched to Michael Ibsen, a Canadian cabinetmaker and direct descendant of Richard III's sister, Anne of York.

Experts say other evidence -- including battle wounds and signs of scoliosis, or curvature of the spine, found during the search and the more than four months of tests since support the DNA findings.

The skeleton was discovered buried among the remains of what was once the city's Greyfriars friary, but is now a council car park.

Richard III's remains will be reburied in Leicester Cathedral, close to the site of his original grave, in a memorial service expected to be held early next year, once analysis of the bones is completed.

Read more: Richard III: The king and the car park?

Archaeologists say the man they found appears to have met a violent death: There is evidence of a severe blow to the skull, and an arrowhead was found among the skeleton's vertebrae.

Investigators from the University of Leicester had been examining the remains for months. Others got their first glimpse of the battle-scarred skull that may have once worn the English crown early Monday when the university released a photograph ahead of its announcement.

"The skull was in good condition, although fragile, and was able to give us detailed information," said Jo Appleby, a lecturer in human bioarchaeology at the university who led the exhumation of the remains last year.

Supporters of the infamous king, including members of the Richard III Society, hoped the discovery would force academics to rewrite history, which they say has been tainted by exaggerations and false claims.

Screenwriter Philippa Langley, who championed the search for several years, told CNN she wanted "the establishment to look again at his story," saying she wanted to uncover the truth about "the real Richard, before the Tudor writers got to him."

"The trouble is we judge Richard by a pseudo-Victorian values system, but we judge others in the context of their time," she said.

"He was a medieval man. If you put him back into the 15th century, he's exactly as the others are -- princes, dukes, nobles, they're all doing exactly the same things, and he's better than some."

A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse

Meaning

One of Shakespeare's best known lines. The quotation is sometimes now repeated ironically when someone is is need of some unimportant item.

Origin

From Shakespeare's Richard III, 1594:

CATESBY: 
Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!
The king enacts more wonders than a man,
Daring an opposite to every danger:
His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,
Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.
Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!



KING RICHARD III: 
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!



CATESBY: 
Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.

***

***

Zero Hedge -

Argentina Freezes Supermarket Prices To Halt Soaring Inflation; Chaos To Follow

Feb 5, 2013

Up until now, Argentina's descent into a hyperinflationary basket case, with a crashing currency and loss of outside funding was relatively moderate and controlled. All this is about to change. Today, in a futile attempt to halt inflation, the government of Cristina Kirchner announced a two-month price freeze on supermarket products. The price freeze applies to every product in all of the nation's largest supermarkets -- a group including Walmart, Carrefour, Coto, Jumbo, Disco and other large chains. The companies' trade group, representing 70 percent of the Argentine supermarket sector, reached the accord with Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno, the government's news agency Telam reported. As AP reports, "The commerce ministry wants consumers to keep receipts and complain to a hotline about any price hikes they see before April 1."

Perhaps they will. What consumers will certainly do is scramble into local stores to take advantage of artificially-controlled prices knowing very well they have two short months to stock up on perishable goods at today's prices, before the country's inflation comes soaring back, only this time many of the local stores will not be around as their profit margins implode and as owners, especially of foreign-based chains, make the prudent decision to get out of Dodge while the getting's good and before the next steps, including such measures as nationalization, in the escalation into a full out hyperinflationary collapse, are taken by Argentina's female ruler.

As such expect photos of empty shelves from Buenos Aires to start popping up in a few days, comparable to how threats of a gun and weapon ban by the US government did more for the top and bottom line of US arms dealers than any military conflict ever could.

Economist Soledad Perez Duhalde of the abeceb.com consulting firm predicted on Monday that the price freeze will have only a very short term effect, and noted that similar moves in Argentina had failed to control inflation. Consumers shouldn't be surprised if the supermarkets are slow to restock their shelves and offer fewer products for sale, she added.

***

MailOnline

At last, the truth: Butter is GOOD for you - and margarine is chemical gunk

We have been conned into believing margarine was better for us than butter

The scientific evidence is totally at odds with decades of official advice

The profit-grabbing manufacturers have never been prepared to admit

By JOANNA BLYTHMAN

PUBLISHED: 19:52 EST, 6 February 2013

Like my grandmother before me, I have never had a tub of margarine in the house. Perhaps thanks to her, my gut instinct has always told me that butter is better for you.

Not only does butter taste incomparably better, it's a natural product that human beings have been eating and cooking with for centuries without ­damaging their health.

Why swap it for margarine, a highly synthetic and unpleasant-tasting concoction laced with additives and cheap, low-grade oils refined on an industrial scale?

The truth: Evidence shows butter is better for you than margarine despite decades of advice to the contrary

Especially, if I tell you that without colourings margarine isn't yellow at all, but actually an appetite-crushing shade of sludgy grey.

If my preference for butter began with instinct, in the past few years it's been supported by a growing body of scientific research that not only indicates that there is absolutely no reason to stop eating ­butter, but also leads to one inescapable conclusion: that decades of government health advice, particularly in regard to heart disease, cholesterol levels and the consumption of fats and oils, have been plain wrong.

It's so wrong, in fact, that I believe the health establishment now owes us an apology. 

We have been conned into believing that margarine was better for us than butter. The nation's morning toast has been ruined for decades by kind-hearted women thinking they were doing the best for their ­husbands and children by switching from butter to marge.

Confronted with such a bleak, butter-free future, there will be many who will have wondered whether life was even worth living.

That is why the latest news from scientists working in the U.S. will have been greeted with loud cheers at breakfast tables all over Britain — and, at mine, by a vehement 'I told you so!'

For, having reanalysed a study originally carried out in the late Sixties and early Seventies, the scientists have confirmed what many of us have believed to be the truth for years.

Margarine isn't better for you than butter. In fact, margarine is ­actually more damaging to your health than butter.

The scientific evidence is compelling and totally at odds with decades of official advice that we should all be cutting down on our consumption of animal fats.

Taking a sample of middle-aged Australian men who had either experienced a heart attack or ­suffered from angina, half were advised to cut their animal fat intake and replace it with safflower oil (which is similar to sunflower oil) and safflower oil margarine, while the other half continued to eat as normal.

If the unholy alliance of Government nutritionists and the food processing industry were right — and margarine really was better for you, as they've been claiming for decades — you'd expect the men who switched to safflower oil to live longer and have better health outcomes.

The exact opposite turned out to be true. Those who ate more of the safflower-derived products were almost twice as likely to die from all causes, including heart disease.

Suddenly, margarine isn't looking the healthy option that those expensive marketing campaigns claim it to be.

For a start, the once widely accepted wisdom that saturated fats are bad for you — an idea on which so much health advice is founded — is looking increasingly shaky.

So fast is the shift in scientific thinking that there is a growing belief that natural saturated fats — like those contained in dairy and meat, as opposed to those ­contained in marge — may actually turn out to be good for you.

Certainly, these fats have already been identified as key components of cell membranes, essential for the production of ­certain ­hormones and having an important role to play in the transport and absorption of certain vitamins and minerals.

Indeed, earlier this week, a meta-study (a study of studies, if you like) from America, covering almost 350,000 people, came to the sort of shock conclusion that a few years earlier would have made front-page news.

Now, however, it merely confirmed what a growing body of scientific opinion already believes — that there is, and never was, any good evidence linking intake of dietary saturated fats with blocked coronary arteries and heart disease.

It was, of course, in the belief that the exact opposite was true that millions of us were persuaded to give up butter and switch to margarine. Now, perhaps, you see why our public health advisers should be in the dock explaining themselves.

For so much of what we were told was gospel truth turns out to be plain wrong. Butter isn't bad for you; in fact, it's healthy, being high in vitamins, beneficial saturated fats, the sort of cholesterol that is vital for brain and nervous system development and various natural compounds with anti-fungal, anti-oxidant and even anti-cancer properties.

Margarine, by contrast, has always been much worse for you than its profit-grabbing manufacturers have ever been prepared to admit.

In the early days, it was made with 'hydrogenated fats', which were so dense that solid concrete couldn't have done a better job of blocking your coronary arteries. Honestly, this stuff was lethal.

Confronted with irrefutable ­evidence, the food-processing giants reluctantly went back to their laboratories and reformulated their product.

This time, they boasted, ­margarine would be made with 'interesterified' vegetable oils (a treatment that re­arranges the fat molecules under high temperature and pressure, using enzymes or acids as catalysts).

It made the oils less dense and therefore, they hoped, less ­damaging to our health.

Why we should believe the manufacturers a second time around I haven't a clue — especially as they never took responsibility for the tremendous damage they had done to global health with their hydrogenated fats — which are now banned in parts of the U.S. because of the concerns about the effects they have on our health.

The best part of 20 years on, the components of margarine, or 'spreads' as food processors prefer to call them, may have changed, but the arguments over their impact on health have not.

Take the so-called cholesterol-busting spreads such as Benecol and Flora ProActiv. Yes, they use plant chemicals — sterols and stanols — to reduce cholesterol ­levels, but they do so at a time when long-held beliefs on cholesterol are beginning to look as shaky as those about saturated fats.

There is emerging scientific evidence that overall health ­prospects may be better for ­individuals with above-average ­levels of cholesterol.

Once again, beliefs that have shaped official health diktats for decades are being turned on their head. More research urgently needs to be done, but that apology should precede it. 'We got it wrong — sorry,' would be a good start.

As for the so-called hybrid spreads, such as Lurpak Spreadable, for example — well, butter mixed with a little vegetable oil may be conveniently spreadable, but is fairly pointless in a country where, for most of the year, butter is spreadable when kept at room ­temperature in a good, old-­fashioned butter dish.

So the good news is that we can carry on eating butter (in moderation, of course) or even start eating it again if we were one of the millions duped into swapping it for unhealthy and unpalatable margarine.

But as we do, our faith in the ­official health agencies that shape our nation's health policies is melting away faster than . . . well, butter off a hot knife.

(“And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.” Isaiah 7:22)

***

CLN

Sitting All Day Is Killing You - It's Time to Stand Up For Health

Posted by clnews

Sunday, February 3rd, 2013

By Elizabeth Renter | Natural Society - February 3rd, 2013

We know our diet and activity levels have a significant impact on our health and even our lifespan. But as many of us spend more time sitting than we do sleeping or moving around, we need to realize that this activity is becoming a significant problem. It's time to add 'sitting' to the list of harmful and even disease-causing activities.

Due to TV watching, playing video games, work, and technology in general, many people are sitting for the vast majority of the day. If you work a regular full-time job and sit at a desk, it's safe to say you spend at least seven hours of your work day seated. Then, you might go home and sit down for dinner, followed by sitting and relaxing on the couch. A conservative estimate would be nine hours of sitting--and how much activity are you getting?

Nine hours of daily sitting, by five work days each week--that's 45 hours of sitting on your butt on Monday through Friday, not even including the weekends. We spend more time sitting than we do sleeping, and with sleep actually being a healthy activity, this imbalance is not good.

Sitting Causing Obesity, Cancer, Diabetes, and More

According to researchers, sitting is associated with an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and death. The strongest correlation between sitting and disease is with the risk of type 2 diabetes. What's more, sitting strikes approximately 92,000 people each year with avoidable cancer, namely colon and breast cancer.

It's estimated that obese people sit for around 2.5 hours more than thin people on any given day. So, sitting could be having a significant impact on the obesity rate, along with diet and lack of exercise.

It's what happens to our bodies when we sit down that encourages obesity and obesity-related diseases. According to NaturalNews, when we sit:

Electrical activity in the  legs shuts down

Enzymes that help break down fat decrease by 90 percent

Calorie burning drops to one per minute

Insulin effectiveness drops after 24 hours

Good cholesterol levels drop after two hours

If you sit for a living, your risk of developing cardiovascular disease is twice that of someone who stands on the job. Also, "sitting six-plus hours per day makes you up to 40 percent likelier to die within 15 years than someone who sits fewer than three, even if you exercise." There is a reason sitting is said to be as deadly as smoking.

For many people, finding a standing job just isn't an option. But there are simple ways to reduce your down time. Start by standing. Find a way to elevate your keyboard and mouse pad and stand to do your work. Or, invest in a standing desk if you work at home. Many people find this actually increases their focus and the quality of their work. If this isn't possible, move around. Anytime you take a break, no matter how short--stand up! Go for a walk or just stand in place as you read a report, dictate a memo, or organize a file.

Article Source: Natural Society

***

Until next week...keep on believing.

Almondtree Productions

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
(Galatians 5:1)