Variety bites Archives - Page 14 of 16

Full circle: reflections on losing a friend

On losing a friend to death: Every day of our lives, causality is playing out, leaving no one behind. One day, we are working on causes; dealing with consequences the next. Some days, our past comes knocking back, just to see if we learned from it the lessons we were supposed to. Sometimes, the lesson is compassion. Sometimes it is self-love. In the last month, I've been pushed to look at the past twice, once to learn to forgive and the other to see where I would be if I hadn't learned my lesson. I learned the latter by losing…

Surrendering the ego for a true victory

We want to control our lives to have a better chance at happiness. But if happiness and peace are the goal, surrendering the ego is what we should strive for. I speak not of waving a white flag at life and giving up on dreams. I mean, bow to the presence of the moment, to enjoy it for what it is. The thought came to me last night while I struggled to get to sleep. Notice my language: I struggled. In fact, this is what most of us do daily: struggle, try to control, fight... to be happy. It occurred…

Three memories of 9/11

When it comes to 9/11, "We will never forget" is more than an empty phrase. I will never forget where I was that day, nor the memories associated with it: One. I was at the Executive Offices of the Intercontinental Hotel Santo Domingo (currently a Crowne Plaza) - just an ordinary day of Sales & Marketing work. I had three bosses in the five years I worked there. The third one was in charge on September 11, 2001. It was 9:02 a.m. and the hotel managers started to come in, as they did every morning, to gather in the conference…

The pot is really melting: how interracial families are changing the face of America

When I first came to the U.S. as a "cultural ambassador", my first class was Introduction to American Life. It taught me that "How are you?" actually means "hi" and that people asking may have no interest in hearing how I'm doing (a topic for a future post). I also learned that America was a "melting pot" in which people from different ethnicities, countries, and religions came together. This utopia sounded so beautiful, I struggled to understand why then the African American students at the dorm and the college cafeteria hung out by themselves, as did most everyone from their…

Doomsday Bunkers: Salvation for sale. Can you afford it?

I recently watched the Discovery Channel show 2012 Apocalypse. It shows people around the world making a living from selling doomsday bunkers at outrageous prices, as well as a wide range of survival gear. Other sites, usually blogs by self-appointed modern-day ¨prophets¨are selling e-books, DVD's and asking for donations to keep the 'cause' going. The cause being making more people aware of our imminent demise and 'preparing' them for it. Even the very people who tell you on their posts that they have been endowed by the Gods or powerful aliens to deliver this message want to charge you for…

The end of the world: the Rapture and other predictions

It's past 8 p.m. CST and the "Rapture" predicted by Harold Camping and much publicized by the media in recent days has not happened. Wait, it could have happened at 6 p.m. PST! Did California go down with a 9.0 earthquake? NOPE. No earthquakes in California, no noteworthy earthquakes anywhere. However, there is a volcano erupting in Iceland, the Mississippi River is cresting at 61+ feet and Sarah Palin has the "fire in my belly" for a presidential run. In other words, the world as we know it is over. It ended a while ago. Yes, that world in which…

Daytime moon

Yesterday morning, I was driving home from running errands when I noticed the daytime moon... a sight I'd never seen before. As I stared at it and eventually took photos, I was wondering if the moon was trying to tell us something by stubbornly hanging out at unusual times. I then realized that the moon is always there. We just can't normally see it during the day because of the sun. Yet, with the current world chaos and suspicions of more to come, I got this feeling that maybe it is we who are changing ... and seeing more, so…

Where is Rick Sanchez? A fan’s guide to following Rick

I miss Rick. That other people have bothered to google the keywords "Where is Rick Sanchez?" lets me know I'm not alone. The longtime TV anchor fired from CNN after calling John Stewart a "bigot" in October 2010 might have been colorful, in many ways unconventional and at times easy to make fun of... but he was great to watch. I belong to a big community of friends of Rick Sanchez who miss him and want him back. Rick's down to earth, pal-to-pal approach to news delivery was one of a kind. He is the first news anchor I watched…