There are many who observe My actions and start declaring that My nature is such and such. They are unable to gauge the sanctity, the majesty and the eternal reality that is Me. The power of Sai is limitless; it manifests forever. All forms of ‘power’ are resident in this Sai palm. But, those who profess to have understood Me, the wise, the Yogis (spiritually advanced persons), the Pandits (scholars), and the Jnanis (liberated persons) – all of them are aware only of the least important, the casual, external manifestation of an infinitesimal part of that power, namely, the ‘miracles’! My power is immeasurable; My truth is inexplicable, unfathomable. What I will, must take place; what I plan must succeed. I am Truth; and Truth has no need to hesitate, or fear, or bend. I am announcing this about Me, for, the need has arisen.
This is the inspiring story of Mr. Shyam Saran Negi, 97 years old, who is independent India’s first voter and a believer in the power of democracy since 1951.
If a 97 year old man, braving the winds and snow, can get inked, there’s no excuse that should stop us from following his exemplary lead.
Mr. Negi has pledged to cast his vote in the 2014 elections, have you?
In celebration of Earth Day 2014, EarthSky has brought together some of our favorite images of Earth received from friends in past years. Thank you all!
EarthSky is fortunate and grateful to have many talented friends on Facebook and Google+ who share their photos of the Earth, the sky and their surroundings. In celebration of Earth Day 2014, here are a few of our favorites from past years. We hope they help you enjoy Earth’s beauty and diversity. Our thanks to all who posted!
Bottom line: Best nature images, in celebration of Earth Day 2014.
Once a friend asked the famous sculptor from Italy, Michelangelo, “Why are you working so hard, chiselling this large piece of rock? Why don’t you go home and take some rest?” Michelangelo replied: “I am trying to release the Divine that is in the rock. I wish to bring out of this lifeless stone the living Divinity that is embedded in it.” If a sculptor could create from an inanimate stone a living Image of God, cannot human beings vibrant with life manifest the living Divinity that resides within them? What is the reason for this incapacity to realise the Divinity within? It is because we do not realise the soiled cover in which it is wrapped up. If our clothes get dirty, we change them because we are ashamed to appear in unclean garments. If our house is shabby, we try to clean it. But when our minds and hearts are polluted, we do not feel ashamed! To purify our hearts and minds, the first thing we have to do is to lead a righteous life. Our actions must be based on morality.
The first Earth Day – April 22, 1970 – marked the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Approximately 20 million Americans, especially on college campuses, participated in a national teach-in on environmental issues and protests against environmental deterioration on the first Earth Day. It’s hard to imagine it now, but the first Earth Day was a revelation to many, a way not only of raising consciousness about environmental issues but also of bringing together separate groups that had been fighting separately against issues including oil spills, pollutions from factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, the loss of wilderness, air pollution and more. Since then, Earth Day is always celebrated on April 22. But why April 22?
Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson is widely credited with suggesting the first Earth Day on April 22. It was a movement whose time had come, and Nelson wasn’t alone in 1970 in suggesting a grassroots demonstration aimed at protecting the environment. San Francisco activist John McConnell also asked Americans to join in a demonstration in 1970, and McConnell chose the spring equinox (March 21, 1970) as his date. Today, you can find Earth Day events on both the spring equinox and April 22.
April 22 continues to be the larger event, however, and the official date of Earth Day. Some say April 22 was chosen to maximize the number of students who could be reached on university campuses, and that’s undoubtedly true. But the April 22 date for the first Earth Day also stemmed from a much-earlier observance: Arbor Day, which began in Nebraska in 1872.
J. Sterling Morton was a Nebraska pioneer, a writer and editor for Nebraska’s first newspaper, and later secretary of the Nebraska Territory. He advocated planting trees in what was then a dusty and treeless prairie. At a meeting of the State Board of Agriculture in January 1872, Morton proposed that Nebraska citizens set aside April 10 as a day to plant trees. He suggested offering prizes as incentives for communities and organizations that planted the most trees. It’s said that Nebraskans planted about one million trees on that first Arbor Day in 1872. Ten years later, in 1882, Nebraska declared Arbor Day as a legal holiday and the date was changed to Morton’s birthday, April 22. Arbor Day grew to become a national observance. I can recall learning about it as a child in the 1950s and ’60s.
It seemed natural to schedule April 22, 1970 – Arbor Day – as the first Earth Day. Today, a common practice in celebration of Earth Day is still to plant new trees.
Bottom line: Why do we celebrate Earth Day on April 22? The date stems from an earlier observance, Arbor Day. And the date of Arbor Day was set due to the birthday of J. Sterling Morton, a Nebraska pioneer and journalist, who launched the first Arbor Day in 1872.
தமிழ்ச் சொற்சுவை உள்ளத்தே புகுந்து உணர்விலே ஒன்றி, கண்களில் நீர் கசியும் போதில்…
அடடா! அனுபவித்தவர்களுக்கே அதன் தரமும் சுவையும் புரியும். அற்றை நாளிலும் இற்றை நாளிலும் அடியேன் நாடுவது நல்ல நண்பர்களின் துணையை!
கவிஞர் நந்தலாலா – நெருங்கிய நண்பர்களில் ஒருவர். அவருடன் பேசிக் கொண்டிருந்தாலே போதும்… கவிச்சுவையும் தமிழ்ச் சுவையும் பண்டை இலக்கிய வாழ்வின் சுவையும் ஒருங்கே உளத்தில் புகும்.
ஆறேழு வருடங்களுக்கு முன்னர் பொதிகை-தொலைக்காட்சியில் ஒன்றாக நிகழ்ச்சிகளில் பங்கேற்றிருக்கின்றோம். அப்போதும் அச்சுவை பருகி மகிழ்வேன் யான்.
ஒரு நாள் காலை… பொதிகையில் நண்பர் நந்தலாலா சொல்லின் சுவையை தனிமையிலே எடுத்துச் சொன்ன வண்ணம் இருந்தார். கேட்டுக் கொண்டிருந்தேன் சுற்றுப் புறச் சூழல் மறந்து!
அற்புதமான நினைவாற்றல் அவருக்கு. காளமேகத்தின் சிலேடையை தொய்வின்றித் தொகுத்தளித்தார்.
சிறுவயதில் சொல் விளையாட்டு எங்களுக்கும் அத்துபடிதான். எல்லாம் நம் கிராமங்களில் பிறந்து, வளர்ந்து, நல்லோரிடம் தமிழ் படித்துப் பழகியிருக்க வேண்டும்… அந்த வாய்ப்பு கிடைத்தது நான் செய்த புண்ணியம்.
கவிஞர் நந்தலாலா சொன்ன ஓரிரு சொற்சுவையைக் கோடிட்டுக் காட்டாமல் இருந்தால் எப்படி?
அவருடைய சிறுவயதில் பெரியவர்கள் கேட்பார்களாம்… அந்தக் கேள்விகளுக்கு ஒற்றைச் சொல்லால் பதில் தரவேண்டும். இதுவும் ஒரு விளையாட்டு!
பெரியவர் கேட்பாராம்… “இலங்கை அழிந்ததேன்? இரவி மறைந்ததேன்?”
இதற்கான ஒற்றைச் சொல் பதில் – “இராமன் தாரத்தால்”!
அதெப்படி…? இலங்கை அழிந்தது – இராமன் தாரத்தால்! இரவி மறைந்தது – இரா மந்தாரத்தால்!
இன்னொன்று..
அக்ரஹாரம் கெட்டதேன்? விவசாயம் அழிந்ததேன்?
இதற்கான பதில்… “பார்ப்பான் இல்லாமையால்!”
பார்ப்பு எனும் வேதமோதும் வேதியன் இல்லாமல் அக்ரஹாரங்கள் கெட்டன. விவசாயத்தைப் பார்ப்பவன் இல்லாமல் அதுவும் அழிந்து வருகிறது!
தனிமையைப் பற்றிச் சொன்ன நந்தலாலா, ஒரு கவிதை நயத்தைச் சொல்லி விடைபெற்றார்…
இக்பால் சாகும்வரை உன் பிணத்தை நீதான் சுமக்க வேண்டும்!
– உள்ளத்தில் உழன்று கொண்டிருக்கிறது இந்த வாசகம்!
செங்கோட்டை ஸ்ரீராம் – in Dinamani…blog.dinamani.com
Once there was an Antartian that was down on his luck. In order to get some money he decided to kidnap a kid and hold him for ransom.
He went to the playground, grabbed a kid, took him behind a tree and told him “I’ve kidnapped you.”
The Antartian wrote a note saying “I’ve kidnapped your kid. Tomorrow morning put $10,000 in a paper bag and put it beneath the pecan tree next to the slide on the north side of the city playground. Signed, An Antartian.”
The Antartian then pinned the note to the kid’s shirt and sent him home to show it to his parents.
The next morning the Antartian checked, and sure enough a paper bag was sitting beneath that pecan tree. The Antartian opened up the bag and found the $10,000 with a note. The note said, “How could one Antartian do this to another Antartian?!”
A copy of John James Audubon’s Birds of America was sold at an auction in London for £7.3 million ($11.5 million), and thus became the most expensive book ever sold. The auction was a rare chance to own one of the best preserved editions of the 19th century masterpiece, with its 435 hand-colored illustrations. The winning bid was placed by London-based art dealer Michael Tollemache, who outbid three others during the auction.
Only 120 complete sets of Audubon’s 435 hand-colored, life-sized engravings of America’s birds are believed to exist today, with the majority (107) owned by institutions. The last full edition of The Birds of America, which went up for auction in 2010, sold for £7.3m at Sotheby’s, breaking the world record for a single book.
“Birds of America is most significant for its sheer beauty. It’s a masterpiece of illustration,” the words of Richard Davies, a rare and used books specialist. “Aside from being famous in the rare book world, Birds of America has also immense historical and ornithological importance. Some of the birds John James Audubon painted are extinct and he also discovered new species.”
Measuring over three feet in height and running to four volumes, The Birds of America was created by Audubon between 1827 and 1838. The illegitimate son of a French sea captain and his creole mistress, Audubon was an itinerant artist who traveled America’s wilderness drawing the birds he loved. He was insistent that The Birds of America was made up of life-size illustrations, and that it showed all the known species of north America, making the finished volume
Each of the printed book were colored by hand, and it was an extremely laborious process. Even by today’s standards, the vividness of its illustrations of birds is extraordinary but when it was being released in the 1830s it was mindboggling. Audubon employed a rather shocking technique to produce the book. He hunted the birds down and shot them before propping them up on wires to paint. Each drawing would take about 60 hours to complete. Ironically, many of his beautifully rendered subjects are now extinct, such as the Carolina Parakeet, Passenger Pigeon, Labrador Duck, Great Auk, Esquimaux Curlew, and Pinnated Grouse.
Picking up a copy of the “book” is a two-person job, said the dealer, who examined an edition at Sotheby’s once prior to an auction. “The (very nervous) resident expert and I (gingerly) turned the pages together, him at the top and me at the bottom, and peeled them back (respectfully) into just the right conjunction with the rest of the plates,” said Gekoski. “You have to be careful how you handle a gargantuan book worth more than 10 million dollars.”
Clever Bird Hunts Intelligently!
Birds, except for Parrots and a few other, are not considered to be very clever compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, which is where we get the term ‘bird brain’. But in this video (We believe this is a Heron hunting for Brill), we see another side to this animal. The bird patiently and cleverly fishes, much like humans do, using a bait for the unsuspecting fish. It’s truly a pleasure seeing such a clever hunter at work!
A man was just waking up from anesthesia after surgery, and his wife was sitting by his side. His eyes fluttered open and he said, “You are beautiful.” Then he fell asleep again. His wife had never heard him say that, so she stayed by his side. A few minutes later, his eyes fluttered open and he said, “You are cute!” The wife was disappointed because instead of “beautiful,” it was now “cute.” She said, “What happened to ‘beautiful’?”
Her husband replied, “The drugs are wearing off!”
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To tag birds migrating, the U.S. Department of the Interior used metal bands that bear the address of the Washington Biological Survey, abbreviated:
Wash. Biol. Surv.
Until the agency received the following letter from a camper:
Dear Sirs,
While camping last week I shot one of your birds. I think it was a crow. I followed the cooking instructions on the leg tag and I want to tell you it was horrible.
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A patron at a restaurant was continually bothering the waiter about the air conditioning: first he would ask for the air conditioning to be turned up because it was too hot, then he would ask it be turned down because it was to cold, this went on for about a half an hour. To the surprise of the rest of the customers, the waiter was very patient, walking aback and forth and very pleasant. So finally a customer asked; why don’t you just throw out the pest? “Oh, I don’t care,” said the waiter with a grin, we don’t even have an air conditioner.”
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Q. What would happen if you have a wooden car, with wooden wheels, a wooden chair, and a wooden engine?
A. It wooden start!
Take off with Natarajan 