The definition of Success

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

Bob Dylan

Combatting Corona Quotes

“It’s in your hands how you look at it. I still have hopes and dreams. I don’t know when we will get back to normal and I don’t really care because I’m living right now. I’m making the most of it. I’m going to do my best to have a better future and an even better day tomorrow.”

Nadia Nadim, footballer, Paris Saint-Germain (fled Afghanistan aged 12)

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Polling Day (Stand up and be counted)

China evidently blocked access to Twitter two days ago, two days before the sensitive 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Other Internet services that seem to have become inaccessible include Hotmail, Flickr and search engine Bing.

In recent years, access to YouTube, Western media outlets and many other websites has also been blocked, often before or after ‘sensitive’ events. And now’s a good moment to remember those who blocked themselves.

A few days after the blog of artist and government critic Ai Weiwei was shut down, he simply opened a new one (which you can see here, in Chinese). Ai also uses Twitter.

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Only 22% of eligible British voters have declared their intention to vote in the European and county council elections today. In 2004 the turnout in Britain for the European parliamentary elections was 38.9%.

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Be irrepressible

Chat rooms monitored. Blogs deleted. Websites blocked. Search engines restricted. People imprisoned for simply posting and sharing information.

The Internet is a new frontier in the struggle for human rights. Governments – with the help of some of the biggest IT companies in the world – are cracking down on freedom of expression … learn more

• Got a blog or website?

  Undermine censorship by publishing fragments of censored material on your site

Freeing the People – track of the day

Track of the Inauguration Day:

Abraham, Martin and John – Marvin Gaye

They paved the way for TODAY

Martin

Songlines #2 – Rich Mix

What song means the most to you and why?

James aged 12 chose Dayenu (trad.)
HEAR HIS EXPLANATION HERE: Rich Mix MP3

“The Jewish perspective on thanksgiving is to magnify the kindnesses that God has performed for us. Thus, we dwell on each of the momentous things that He performed for His people as He brought them forth from Egypt. The refrain, dayenu, means that each of these kindnesses is sufficient to cause us to give thanks.”

If He had split the sea for us,
and had not taken us through it on dry land
— Dayenu, it would have sufficed!

Crossing the Red Sea

UPDATE Jan 09:

Conor McK from Connecticut gave a remarkably similar answer – he chose the song James Connolly

HEAR HIS EXPLANATION HERE: ws_10007conormck.mp3

The man was all shot through that came to day into the Barrack Square
And a soldier I, I am not proud to say that we killed him there
They brought him from the prison hospital and to see him in that chair
I swear his smile would, would far more quickly call a man to prayer
Maybe, maybe I don’t understand this thing that makes these rebels die
Yet all men love freedom and the spring clear in the sky
I wouldn’t do this deed again for all that I hold by
As I gazed down my rifle at his breast but then, then a soldier I.
They say he was different, kindly too apart from all the rest.
A lover of the poor-his wounds ill dressed.
He faced us like a man who knew a greater pain
Than blows or bullets ere the world began: died he in vain
Ready, Present, and him just smiling, Christ I felt my rifle shake
His wounds all open and around his chair a pool of blood
And I swear his lips said, “fire” before my rifle shot that cursed lead
And I, I was picked to kill a man like that, James Connolly

A great crowd had gathered outside of Kilmainham
Their heads all uncovered, they knelt to the ground.
For inside that grim prison
Lay a great Irish soldier
His life for his country about to lay down.
He went to his death like a true son of Ireland
The firing party he bravely did face
Then the order rang out: Present arms and fire
James Connolly fell into a ready-made grave
The black flag was hoisted, the cruel deed was over
Gone was the man who loved Ireland so well
There was many a sad heart in Dublin that morning
When they murdered James Connolly – the Irish rebel.