Happiness Challenge

Cortney posted this on her blog, and I'm going to take up the challenge because I think it's a great idea to think about what makes us happy:

Post 10 things that are going right in your life right now. I don't care how small. You're happy with your cup of coffee. You saw a flock of geese flying over. ANYTHING. Things that make you happy. Things that make you smile. Go:

1. Napping with my terriers
2. Being married to David
   
3. Running my own company
4. Doing work that helps people understand themselves and each other with more compassion
5. Bellydancing
6. Cooking with my CSA vegetables
   
7. Getting better at photography
8. White chocolate mocha and breakfast empanadas at Fair Bean Coffee
9. Remembering to meditate
10. Having great friends

Let me know if you post a list on your blog!

More Eye Candy

When David and I went to the park to take that last batch of photographs, there were a bunch of lotus flowers in the pool in the parking lot, but they were all closed. I went back yesterday with the D300 and macro lens and got some amazing shots. It's hard to take a bad photo of a lotus flower, they are so lovely.









A few other fun pictures:

Bokeh Eye-Candy

I've become obsessed with a photography style called "bokeh". It's macro photography, generally, which utilizes a large apeture (shallow depth of field) which results in your subject being very sharply in focus, and the background as blurry as possible. The smoother, the better. The people who are really good at it frame their shots so the composition of the subject, and the contrast with the background is almost like a visual haiku. I'm not at that level yet, but some of my attempts are not so bad:















I'm keeping track in a set you can see here.

But if you really want to see the masters, check out these people:
Naro

okiraku_diver

Yochi

*Sakura* Her stuff is AMAZING. Check out the frog and ladybug sets, particularly.

Capitalism as Religion

I've thought for a long time that the concept of the free market as a higher truth has reached biblical proportions. Some of my teachers in school, a lot of business people I know, and obviously our current administration seem to believe that if we allow our economy to function independent of regulation this "best possible world" Utopia where the greatest good for the greatest number would be the result. I've observed that this belief is often as dogmatic as any religious belief, and exists across many demographics.

I think any "perfect" ideology - socialism, capitalism, libertarianism - while really interesting from a philosophic standpoint, is doomed to eventual failure when it becomes dogmatic and inflexible. The world, societies, economies and other large systems are complex and diverse. It's the very flexibility of our system that allows it to remain intact during drastic internal and external change.

The Colbert Report picked up on the Capitalism as Religion theme:


Glad to know it's not just me. And he's way funnier.