Daily Chai

Green poetry

This haiku was first published on Grist.org

A frog in water

Doesn't feel it boil in time

Dude, we're the frog!

Something I've realized

The only times in life I've been short on cash, were the times I denied myself.

The good life

"The good life is the middle way

Between ambition and compassion

Between action and reflection

Between company and solitude

Between hedonism and abstinence

Between passion and judgment

Between the cup of coffee

and the glass of wine.

Jay McInerney, on a Starbucks cup, 2007.

Liberal media?

If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me ... I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests. So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn't work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite? And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I'd enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been, as I'd assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job ... The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress...

--Gary Webb

"Let go of a few strangers every day."

In other words, introduce yourself to a few.

"It's a great way to make the world a smaller place."

Great advice from a great yoga teacher, Rusty Wells.

(Fair's fair).

On happiness...

"If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we'd have a pretty good time."

--Edith Wharton

Everything has a crack...

That's how the light gets in.

--Leonard Cohen

Good advice for painting. Great advice for life.

You're not the only one.

I just love these lyrics from Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty," which came up on my iPod today on the treadmill.

I look around for the friends that I used to turn me to pull me through

Looking into their eyes I see them running too.

One of those songs that becomes more meaningful the older you get.