Ten Best Things to Happen in 2007

The Rational Romantic's Ten Best Things to Happen in 2007 (and what they mean):

1. Al Gore awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (elevating environmental concerns straight to the top)

2. Alberto Gonzales resigns as Attorney General (making mendacity, duplicitousness and obfuscation no longer resume builders)

3. China outed as the worst polluter on the planet (19 out of 20 most polluted cities are in China)

4. China outed as the worst producer of toys for children (one word: LEAD)

5. Oil closes in on $100 a barrel (finally, alternative clean energy looks cost-effective)

6. California passes most aggressive ever environmental regulation for automobiles (forcing George Bush to 'veto' clean air)

7. Publication of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens ("an unrelenting enumeration of religion's sins and wickedness")

8. Barack Obama for President (that he could happen at all says we're ready to move onward and upward)

9. Hillary Clinton for President (finally, a serious and viable candidate of the opposite gender. Can you say Madam President?)

10. George Clooney/Nicole Kidman (you need an explanation?)

Why Giving Makes You Happy

Turns out compassion is good for your health. Who knew (other than saints, contemplatives and social workers)? But now it's being confirmed by science. Apparently, it is an established fact that 'givers are happier people than non-givers.'

A number of studies have researched exactly why charity leads to happiness. The surprising conclusion is that giving affects our brain chemistry...Charity also lowers the stress hormones that cause unhappiness...The bottom line from all the research on giving is that it is not just good for your favorite cause; it's good for you, too. For relief from stress and depression, it's probably more cost-effective than whatever your doctor might prescribe. - excerpted from the above cited article

Now, if you're one of those cynical Scrooge types who doubt that you can ever clear away the mental black clouds you've made friends with all these years, consider the just-emerging discoveries in neural plasticity: among these, not only can you grow new brain cells, but how you think affects brain structure! It's fascinating stuff (I'm immersed in Train your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves).

Of course, if you're motivated purely by economics, consider that you still have time to make a tax-deductible charitable contribution for 2007. That way you can also reap the health benefits in 2008 (we all have at least one health related New Year's resolution each January 1st). So, write that check today...be happier tomorrow!

Brothers Extraordinaire

Let us celebrate two pioneer contributors to the birth of film, French filmmakers, and twin brothers, Auguste and Louis Lumière. Today in 1895, the Lumière brothers held the first public screening of moving pictures, in Paris, France. The showing of ten short films lasted only twenty minutes. Their work consisted mainly of moving images from scenes of everyday life. But their famous film sequence of a train pulling into the station reportedly had audiences screaming and ducking for cover as they believed that the train itself was about to crash into the theater.

Of course, the art form the Lumière brothers pioneered has spawned the sublime as well as the ridiculous. On the sublime side are films by Ingmar Bergman, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Guillermo del Toro and any film featuring Laurel and Hardy or Fred Astaire. On the ridiculous side are movies starring Dolph Lundgren.

Here's a list from Wikipedia of the "films considered the greatest ever."

Benazir Bhutto

The sad news from Pakistan today is a reminder that the world we live in is not an ideal one. Our poets have long known this. Lawrence Ferlinghetti's 1955 poem on the subject (from his Coney Island of the Mind) still evokes the painful moral ambivalence that so strains our 'modern' life. I urge you to read the entire poem from the link above; here are a few lines:

THE world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't mind happiness

not always being

so very much fun

if you don't mind a touch of hell

now and then

Just when everything is fine...

Oh the world is a beautiful place

to be born into

if you don't much mind

a few dead minds

in the higher places

or a bomb or two

now and then

in your upturned faces...

If you're in the mood, here's a related poem worth reading.

Maureen Dowd

Maureen Dowd has a lovely column in today's New York Times. It's a take on Caroline Kennedy’s best-selling A Family Christmas, "a holiday anthology of songs, poetry, prose, letters and a list of the questions most frequently asked of Macy’s Santa."

In one piece, Henry van Dyke writes: “Are you willing ... to own, that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life; to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness ... to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings ...? Then you can keep Christmas.”

Caroline Kennedy reprints a charming letter from her father to a little girl in Michigan, one Michelle Rochon, who was very concerned about Santa. The President wrote back an assuring “[y]ou must not worry about Santa Claus. I talked with him yesterday, and he is fine.”

If you don't yet own A Family Christmas, you might consider buying it for your loved ones next year.

A Christmas Stuffing

Boy, am I stuffed! Wonderful Christmas food and great Christmas company (and a really funny movie: A Christmas Story). But that's all the energy I have available for this post. Oh, I almost forgot to mention: had a nice spell of inspiration early this morning after Santa had come and gone: got in a solid two hours of writing on my latest case. At 25,000 words, I am 'officially' half done :-)

Christmas Eve at The Bakers

All the presents are bought and wrapped and donations made (WWF, Doctors Without Borders, Second Harvest Food Bank, Embracing the Child); all the decorations are up and the tree (recycled from hemp) decorated, angel on top; food and spirits ready for tomorrow's feast; "A Christmas Carol" (Alastair Sim as Scrooge) in the DVD player; and candles, candles, candles everywhere. The most glorious night of the year is here - Christmas Eve!

Tonight we'll each open one present (a brilliant tradition invented by some avid celebrant keen to 'get things started'). Since the giver gets to select the gift given, for my dearest it will be this Steiff bear (but, please, don't tell anyone).

My Christmas wish is for all of you - and everyone, everywhere - to be blessed with the gift of kindness. Merry Christmas!

A No-Show on The Polar Express

For twenty-one Christmas seasons, Chris Van Allsburg's Caldecott Medal winning The Polar Express has been a favorite holiday gift to young readers and the nostalgic among us. It's been the perennial Christmas bestseller: 250,000+ copies per year. Originally published in 1985 (with a complete makeover in 2005, re-mastering Allsburg's original oil-pastel paintings), the children's picture book even spawned an animated movie in 2004, boosting sales of the hardcover that year to over one million copies. But this year, The Polar Express was a no-show on the bestseller lists. For the first time in memory, there was no listing of the title on The New York Times Children's Bestseller List in the months and weeks leading up to Christmas. Of course, hundreds of children's picture books celebrating Christmas (including this one) are in competition with each other; so it's no surprise when any single title falls off the list. But lament not. Consider: there are reportedly eight million copies of The Polar Express in print, making the title the best-selling Christmas themed children's picture book of all time (not including, of course, the many pictoral interpretations of Clement Moore's poem Twas the Night Before Christmas). A great legacy for Chris Van Allsburg.

MOMA Malaise

"I see the eight-foot long, white stick (entitled Stick, Hanging, #43) on the wall. But is it Art?"

Contemporary art has its critics. That's true enough of any age. Van Gogh had his detractors even as he produced what were to become some of the most valued paintings in the history of art.

"Yes, but today's art is different," some say. Ok, a lot say.

Yesterday, Carol Strickland, art correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor and the author of The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern concluded her three part series on modern art.

Unlike, say this Van Gogh painting, much of today's art leaves us cold, unable to appeal simultaneously to the head and the heart (just try having no reaction to the Van Gogh). Current museum-of-modern-art gallery-goers are leaving exhibits undernourished with the 'thin-gruel' of flash and hype - a glaze of modernity that often leaves them alienated and confused. One example Ms. Strickland has us consider: "In 2001, Martin Creed won the prestigious Turner Prize in London. His work, The Lights Going On and Off, consists of - yes - light bulbs going on and off in an empty gallery every five seconds."

Ms. Strickland's informative and entertaining essays can be read as stand-alone pieces:

• THE TROUBLE WITH WESTERN ART TODAY
• DOES BEAUTY STILL BELONG IN ART?
• WE GET THE ART WE DESERVE

All three thousand words are a joy to read. Are there signs of hope? Most assuredly. Read why.

Environment News Service

Knowledge is power - power to act. But with so much bewildering, and often contradictory, information and prescriptive advice about the environment out there, what's a bear to do? I've discovered a fantastic source of accurate and timely environmental news that makes acting on information much easier. The Environment News Service (ENS) presents late-breaking environmental news "in a fair and balanced manner." I like the 'fair and balanced' part! Check it out for yourself.

One recent Press Release leads with "NEW BOOK TEACHES CHILDREN HOW TO POSITIVELY IMPACT THE ENVIRONMENT" and it sounds like an interesting read - perhaps even a last minute holiday present for the family.

Author as Philanthropist

Known to most Potterites are J.K. Rowling's generous charitable contributions to a variety of worthy causes around the planet. What's newsworthy today, however, is Amazon.com's open letter to Ms. Rowling thanking her for the opportunity to purchase The Tales of Beedle the Bard at a Sotheby’s auction in London. The book contains five wizarding tales that had been referenced in Harry Potter VII (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). According to Amazon.com, "The Tales of Beedle the Bard is extensively illustrated and handwritten by the bard herself--all 157 pages of it. It's bound in brown Moroccan leather and embellished with five hand-chased hallmarked sterling silver ornaments and mounted moonstones." Moreover, the Amazon acquisition is one of only seven handmade copies in existence. Amazon paid handsomely: £1,950,000 (US$2,800,000) BUT - and here's the great part - "Ms. Rowling is donating the proceeds to The Children's Voice campaign, a charity she co-founded to help improve the lives of institutionalized children across Europe."

We live in exciting times.

Came across this very interesting take on what we know - or even can know - about the universe. It's all about what science has shown us over the past 2000 years; but it's not too deep for we layfolk. The questions posed are profound and great exercise for the grey matter.

Yes, indeed, it's wonderful to be alive!

Greetings from Basil Baker

Hello blogworld!

My name is Basil Baker. Although I've been online for over nine years now - and even 'blogged' a bit about one of my cases - this is the start of my blog (in earnest) for the tens of thousands of visitors to our "literate site for bear lovers" as well as all the new visitors we hope to reach. Take a quick surf over to www.basilbaker.com and sample the broad diversity of our interests from art to music to literature to life on our beautiful planet. I hope to hear your comments.