Starbucks unveiled its new holiday design – a red cup with the green Starbucks logo – and sparked significant controversy due to its lack of Christmas symbols like reindeer and snowflakes.
Starbucks defended the blank holiday design as welcoming of people’s different stories.
Pink reveals her new role as a UNICEF ambassador on Good Morning America
Pink has been appointed a UNICEF ambassador.
And the proud pop star appeared on Good Morning America on Monday to share her big news.
The 36-year-old singer – who shares three-year-old daughter, Willow with husband Carey Hart – will focus on children’s health initiatives, including fighting global malnutrition, which impacts 159 million children.
“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest.
But for us, it’s different. Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.
The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience.
~~GRAPHICS SOURCE~~
Google Images
Facebook Timeline
~~GALLERY~~
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There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.
To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
Carl Sagan gives the best speech ever about humanity and how foolish we behave. Pale Blue Dot is one of the most important and reflective speeches about the human condition and our place in the Universe. The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers from Earth, as part of the solar system Family Portrait series of images.
Music
“The Earth Prelude” by Ludovico Einaudi, Antonio Leofreddi, Laura Riccardi & Marco Decimo
Celine Dion sings L’Hymne a L’Amour in tribute to Paris attack victims at American Music Awards 2015
The American Music Awards took a sombre turn on Sunday when Celine Dion sang in tribute to the victims of Paris’s terror attacks.
The Canadian singer covered Edith Piaf’s L’Hymne a L’Amour after actor-musician Jared Leto delivered an emotional speech about the deadly events.
Leto spoke about an impromptu show his band Thirty Seconds To Mars had performed at Le Bataclan in Paris, the scene where 89 people lost their lives in the attacks 10 days ago.
He said: “Seven months later that same venue was under siege, one of a series of attacks that changed the world forever.
“Tonight we honor the victims of the unimaginable violence that took place in Paris and around the world.
“France matters, Syria matters, Russia matters, Mali matters, the Middle East matters, the entire world matters and peace is possible.”
Introducing Dion’s performance, Leto added:
“Many of us here are the sons and daughters of immigrants and Steve Jobs, the son of a Syrian immigrant, and President Barack Obama.
“The American Music Awards wanted to show its support for the people of France and the entire world.”
At least 81 transgender people were murdered worldwide this year — and those are just the victims whose deaths were reported.
BY SUNNIVIE BRYDUM
NOVEMBER 20 2015
Today marks the 16th annual Transgender Day of Rememberance, after the first event was organized by Gwendolyn Ann Smith in Allston, Mass., to memorialize Rita Hester — a trans woman of color killed in 1998.
Every year since, growing numbers of trans people and advocates worldwide take a moment to pause and remember the countless lives lost around the globe to transphobic violence.
The somber occasion serves as a memorial event in which trans people and allies can mourn their dead, celebrate the lives they lived and as a popular hashtag in the wake of unabated anti-trans violence proclaims, #SayHerName.
~~GRAPHICS SOURCE~~
Facebook Timeline
Google Images
Human Rights Campaign
The Advocate Magazine
~~GALLERY~~
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As the names listed in the graphics demonstrate, certain nations — the United States and Brazil — have particularly acute problems with fatal transphobic violence. The number of trans women killed this year in the U.S., for instance, is nearly double that of the total killed last year.
But it’s also worth noting that in many countries around the world, no formal system exists to report the deaths of trans people, and repressive societies combined with oppressive policing worldwide often give trans people good cause to be wary of law-enforcement officials.
So while we mourn those whose names are listed below, take a moment to memorialize those whose names we will never know — because they, too, had lives, and loves, and passions that were extinguished because of hate.
Antoine Leiris wrote although the terrorists had taken ‘an exceptional life’ they would ‘not have my hatred’ Rose Troup Buchanan
Thursday 19 November 2015
Paris terror attack
Husband pays touching tribute to ‘love of his life’ in defiant message to attackers
The husband of a woman killed in the Paris attacks has written a touching message to the “love of my life” and promised to raise their 17-month-old son “happy and free ”.
Antoine Leiris, whose wife Helene Muyal-Leiris was among the 89 killed in the Bataclan concert hall attack on Friday evening, posted an emotional message on Facebook.
Mr Leiris, who first met his 35-year-old wife 12 years ago, told the attackers he would “not grant you the gift of my hatred.”
In a post – shared more than 60,000 times by Tuesday morning – Mr. Leiris said in French he would raise their son Melvil “happy and free” and that responding to “hatred with anger is falling victim to the same ignorance that has made you what you are.”
Antoine Leiris lost his wife Helene in the Bataclan theatre in Paris.
His Facebook tribute to his wife and challenge to her killers has since been shared thousands of times. Mr Leiris read out the letter to BBC News in Paris.
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I can’t believe that it’s already been two years. Time does fly when you are having fun.
This blogging adventure started one month after I retired from my full-time job. Almost 40 years working as a physician, it was time to hang up the white coat and change my tennis shoes to comfy clogs. That I did …. and here I am. I have “met” incredible bloggers along the way, I have learned about so many different topics and have shared some of my knowledge. Some have come and gone while others have steadfastly remained to be friends for life.
I must say I am very proud of this badge. It means a lot to me personally. I have managed to continue with this endeavor which I started by chance and didn’t know where it would lead.
To all who stop, comment, interact with “It Is What It Is”, I deeply thank you. You are teachers, educators and part of my inspiration. I hope to be as good as you are.
“Dr. Rex”
I’m originally from Puerto Rico. I was born in Santurce and raised in Rio Piedras. I currently live in Florida – since 1999. I have a doctorate degree in Medicine; completed in 1976. My Internal Medicine specialty was completed in 1979. Worked for Puerto Rico’s health system until 1985.
At this time, I’m happily retired after working for the federal government for almost 28yrs. I also worked for the government of Puerto Rico from 1979 through 1985 …. for a total of almost 40 years as a physician.
I want to offer any knowledge that I have to anyone “out there” who is interested. My views are liberal in almost every sense. My knowledge is “eclectic” – a bit of everything. Music and reading are my passion. Blogging has also become a very interesting endeavor.
Metaphysical topics attract me. I’m interested in news – reporting human issues like injustice, discrimination and abuse – the “wrongly” affected. My intention is to bring this knowledge to an understandable level and to help anyone in need. I’m open to questions and will answer them to the best of my ability. Currently working on an enterprise whose main mission will be to bring peoples of all walks of life together.
To be one …. since we ALL are ONE!!
The future looks bright and promising!!!
We ALL are ONE!!
This is how long it’s been … hoping for many more years!
It Is What It Is 