Monday, April 22, 2013

EARTH DAY

     
Tucson Weather Today


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April 22 is Earth Day

Earth Day is an annual day on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection. Earth Day is observed on April 22 each year. The April 22 date was designated as International Mother Earth Day by a consensus resolution adopted by the United Nations in 2009. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and is celebrated in more than 192 countries every year.


Lyrics for the Earth Day Anthem set to "Ode to Joy" by Ludwig van Beethoven are provided below:

Joyful joyful we adore our Earth in all its wonderment
Simple gifts of nature that all join into a paradise
Now we must resolve to protect her
Show her our love throughout all time
With our gentle hand and touch
We make our home a newborn world
Now we must resolve to protect her
Show her our love throughout all time
With our gentle hand and touch
We make our home a newborn world


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Recently I read a quite interesting article in Boston Review regarding  extreme cases of moral virtue

It is titled Lives of the Moral Saints and is an interview with Larissa MacFarquhar, staff writer at The New Yorker, by former philosophy professor David V. Johnson.

 

excerpt:
For instance, I’m writing about  a couple in Philadelphia who’ve adopted 20 special needs kids. There aren’t many people like that floating around. When I mention this couple to people, often the response I’ll get is either, “Who do they think they are, that they think they can bring up 20 kids?” (in fact it’s 22 children because they had 2 biological children), or, “Surely that must be damaging to those children to have so many siblings. How can they possibly make it work as a family?” I’ve come to realize that this is one of the dividing lines between the people I’m writing about and regular people. For a regular person, caring more for your own child than for other children is not only morally permissible, it is required, and not doing so is kind of monstrous; but the people I’m writing about don’t feel that way. An ordinary couple considering whether or not to adopt a new kid would ask themselves how this would affect the children they already have. The couple I’m talking about do ask themselves that question, but they also ask themselves how the potential adoptees will be affected. The answer might be, well, it might reduce the quality of life of the children I already have somewhat. But will it increase the quality of life of the children I adopt? Enormously. And that thought is going to win. Most people don’t think that way.

The reason why this  interview interested me is because some of the information it reveals can help provide some verisimilitude (some motivation)) for a character in a story I am outlining at this time. And, of greater importance, I learned a great deal from reading the piece.
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WORD FOR TODAY

Utilitarianism
noun
-  The doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority.
-  The ethical doctrine that virtue is based on utility, and that conduct should be directed toward promoting the greatest happiness of the greatest number of persons.

Utilitarianism is a theory in normative ethics holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes utility, specifically defined as maximizing happiness and reducing suffering. Utilitarianism has often been considered the natural ethic of a democracy operating by simple majority without protection of individual rights.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS


John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson
(born April 22, 1937)
 
Jack Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer, and writer. Nicholson has twice won the Academy Award for Best Actor, for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and for As Good as It Gets. He also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the 1983 film Terms of Endearment. Nicholson is well known for playing villainous roles, such as Frank Costello in The Departed, Jack Torrance in The Shining and the Joker in 1989's Batman. Notable films in which he has starred include Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, Chinatown, The Passenger, The Shining, Reds, Wolf, A Few Good Men, The Pledge, About Schmidt and The Departed.




Glen Travis Campbell
(born April 22, 1936)
 
Glen Campbell is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. During his 50 years in show business, Campbell has released more than 70 albums. He has sold 45 million records and accumulated 12 RIAA Gold albums, 4 Platinum albums and 1 Double-Platinum album. Of the 74 trips up the country charts, 27 landed in the Top 10. Campbell's hits include John Hartford's "Gentle on My Mind", Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston", Larry Weiss's "Rhinestone Cowboy" and Allen Toussaint's "Southern Nights".

His movies include Baby the Rain Must Fall,The Cool Ones, True Grit, Norwood, Any Which Way You Can, Uphill All the Way, and Rock-A-Doodle




Edward Albert Heimberger
(April 22, 1906 – May 26, 2005)

Eddie Albert, was an American actor and activist. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1954 for his performance in Roman Holiday, and in 1973 for The Heartbreak Kid. Other well-known screen roles of his include Bing Edwards in the Brother Rat films, traveling salesman Ali Hakim in the musical Oklahoma!, and the corrupt prison warden in 1974's The Longest Yard. He starred as Oliver Wendell Douglas in the 1960s television situation comedy Green Acres and as Frank MacBride in the 1970s crime drama Switch.




Marilyn Chambers
(April 22, 1952 – April 12, 2009)
 
Marilyn Chambers was an American pornographic actress, exotic dancer, model, actress and vice-presidential candidate. She was best known for her 1972 hardcore film debut Behind the Green Door and her 1980 pornographic film Insatiable. She was voted #6 on the list of Top 50 Porn Stars of All Time by AVN, and ranked as one of Playboy's Top 100 Sex Stars of the Century in 1999. Although she was primarily known for her adult film work, she made a successful transition to mainstream projects. She has been called "porn's most famous crossover."

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Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.
--Francis of Assisi
    

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