Recently in Personal Category

If you have time in the coming days and weeks and months and years, browse the tributes to Tim Russert on youTube, and you'll be struck with two questions:

What kind of person am I?

How will I be remembered?

Tim Russert's impact and influence went well beyond his journalistic excellence. His greatest excellence was the lasting and positive and uplifting impact he had on his friends and his family. Tim was showered in love, because he gave so much to those he loved.

An old old Irish blessing and prayer: Remembered Joy

Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free!
I follow the plan God laid for me.
I saw His face, I heard His call,
I took His hand and left it all...
I could not stay another day,
To love, to laugh, to work or play;
Tasks left undone must stay that way.
And if my parting has left a void,
Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss...
Ah yes, these things I, too, shall miss.
My life's been full, I've savoured much:
Good times, good friends, a loved-one's touch.
Perhaps my time seemed all too brief—
Don't shorten yours with undue grief.
Be not burdened with tears of sorrow,
Enjoy the sunshine of the morrow.

Dear Reader of The Charters Of Dreams

TCOD is now a member of Smorty where bloggers can  blog for money -- from the smorty.com website:

Smorty is a bridge between bloggers and advertisers. Advertisers start campaigns with us and we deliver them to the right bloggers for publishing an opinion on their Blogs (http://www.smorty.com)

I like smorty's approach to advertising: great advertising isn't about selling you "X," it's about your relationship to "Y," and "X" either helps that relationship or makes it better!

For example, zoom in on the wife (ca. 1958) saying oh dear, my husband's shirt has this terrible stain, and he's got a big presentation to do tomorrow. What do I do? Pan over to another woman poking her head in the laundry room window an saying don't worry Beth, X will clean that spot right out, and the shirt will look as good as the day you bought it! Cut to Beth and her husband, and husband says Honey! the presentation went great! They loved it! Now we can afford to move into a bigger house! Oh . . . by the way, you didn't have to buy me this new shirt, but -- it's looks great! You're the best honey!

See -- it's not at all about "X," it's about sex and love, so when I write an post for smorty client, you'll never know that I'm doing it to get paid for blogging-- you'll think I'm writing about sex and love, but then . . . strangely, inexplicably, you'll start thinking about "X"  . . .

ah . . . Capitalism + psychology/human nature = money, and the Universe works!