Lydia Schoch

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, photos, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web. (Photo credit – 7thsens from FreeDigitalPhotos.net.)

Spice Market in Old Delhi. Incredible photographs of an open-air market. I love the bright colours! Do people bring their own containers to take purchases home in? How does one keep spices or other light/heat/moisture-sensitive items fresh?

Anger Makes You Forget Other People Are People. Sadly true.

Pour Some Sugar On Me. Not all vices are created equal. It would be better, I think, to eliminate our cultural tendency to label every less-than-perfect habit as a vice. It’s too harsh a term for many of the activities it commonly describes.

Gumption. What it takes to write a book.

Keiko Fuduka Earns 10th Degree Black Belt in Judo. She’s the first woman and only the fourth person to ever accomplish this. Oh, and she’s 98 years old.

Brad Warner’s Sex, Sin and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between was an eye-opening read recently. I hadn’t know that Buddhism includes many, often conflicting, “denominations” (for lack of a better term)  or that it doesn’t teach the concept of sexual sin.

What have you been reading?

Thank you to everyone who filled out last week’s survey. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

If you missed the cut-off date use the comment section to tell us share your favourite aspects of this site and any advice you have for improving it.

Results

Participants were:

American or Canadian. This was exactly what I expected. Most of my visitors have always been from North America. Hopefully we will hear from people in other countries in future surveys, though.

40+. 75% of participants were 40 or older.  Now this was a surprise! I wonder if there is a correlation between age and willingness to fill out a survey?

Longtime Readers. Everyone who responded has been reading On the Other Hand for at least 7 months. I didn’t know what to expect when I included this question but does make sense that longtime readers would be more likely to participate.

You Wanted

 Pictures. Apparently I have not been including enough pictures in my posts. 😉

More posts about psychology, sociology, religion and philosophy. Done.

Humour. This one will take a little more work. Keep an eye out for lighthearted posts in the future.

A Dear Lydia column. What a fantastic idea! Those of you who receive my newsletter already know this but I’ve decided to give it a try. I’ll need your help, though.

Have you recently de-converted from Christianity and want advice from a fellow non-theist?

Do you want clarification on an old blog post?

Is there something you’ve always wanted to ask me?

Leave a comment on this post with your question or submit it through the contact form.

Questions on any topic other than medical or legal advice are welcome. If you wish to remain anonymous or use a  pseudonym include that information with your question.

Any questions not including these preferences will be published using only your first name.

I’ve been using an awesome WordPress theme called Headway for this blog. What I love most about this theme is that it has a drag and drop visual editor. Don’t worry if you don’t know what that means – the first section of the video below shows someone using one.

In layman’s terms it’s a way to make your blog look exactly how you want it to without using any HTML, CSS or PHP. (And if you do know how to code you can always play around with your theme to make it look even better.)

Headway 3.0 is due to be released later on this summer. I’m excited to see what has been done to improve an already amazing product. Here’s a sneak peek of what is to come:

Why am I bringing this up now?

Those of us currently using Headway 2 have paid a one-time-fee and get lifetime support and  free updates to all future versions. When version 3.0 is released Headway is going to become subscription based. While I’m sure it will be fairly priced, if you purchase it now you’ll get version 3.0 (and all future versions) without ever having to pay for anything again.

Check out the features page for more information.

If you decide to sign up for Headway, please consider doing so through this affiliate link as it will help support my writing.

On an unrelated note, my next post is about the survey I posted last week. In response to it I will be announcing something exciting tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

Forgotten Heroes is a series of posts about extraordinary men and women who are (probably) not remembered by the average person.  Previous heroes include Josephine Butler. 

If you know of a forgotten hero who should be included in this series let me know about him or her in the comment section or via my contact form. 

Time: 1873.

Place: Toronto, Ontario.

John Howard had a plan.

He and his wife, Jemima, had been living on a 160-acre property they called High Park for about 35 years. It was located in the County of York, west of Toronto. In 1873 they decided to deed their land to the city of Toronto with a few stipulations: the Howards could continue to live at Colborne House for the rest of their lives, alcohol could never be sold on the property, the name High Park would be retained, and the property would remain free for public use.

Toronto’s city council agreed. After John and Jemima’s deaths their house was eventually turned into a small museum.

138 years later High Park is the largest park within the boundaries of Toronto. A third of the land remains in its natural state. Without this undisturbed land, air and water many species would probably die out in this area of Ontario.

High Park is also a heavily used recreation area for the millions of people who live in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). An individual or group could spend all day experiencing the free dog park, playgrounds, zoo, pond, ornamental gardens, hiking and bicycling trails, tobogganing hill, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, picnic areas, and occasional guided walking tours.

If they were interested and had a little extra cash they could also visit the Colborne house museum, a small restaurant, food stands, a day camp for children, ice rink, outdoor swimming pool, and annual summer performances of Shakespearian plays.

An act of generosity performed generations ago has improved the lives of millions of people. Since 1873 the city has grown around High Park. Had the land not been set aside it would probably look like any other area of Toronto – a mixture of condos, apartment buildings, businesses, houses for wealthier families, and the occasional small strip of grass or flowers.

This isn’t only John’s story, though. If you live in a country that has parks there are reasons why that land was set aside. At some point a man or woman deeded that land to your community or fought for the funding to keep it maintained.

Respond

Sometimes there are plaques or small monuments honouring these individuals. The next time you’re at a national or local park keep an eye out them and then come back here and tell us what they had to say.

Final reminder – tomorrow is the last day to take the survey on this blog I talked about earlier this week. 

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, poetry, videos, photos and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

No. Sometimes all it takes is one person to stand up and say, “No.” What happens next isn’t as important as letting those around you know that not everyone agrees with what is happening.

Horn of Africa: On the Brink of a Humanitarian Crisis. I wish this photo essay could have included examples of what life was like in this area of the world before the drought. There are powerful photographs in this collection but it’s odd that those of us in the west almost never see examples of happy people in Africa. Stories about this continent are virtually always about war, civil unrest or starvation. It’s still worth checking out, though. Sensitive readers take note: a few pictures are of dead children.

Updating High School English. Now this is a thought-provoking debate: should the books assigned to high school students be updated to include more modern selections? While there is definitely merit to exposing adolescents to stories that have stood the test of time even this avid, lifelong reader knows what it’s like to slog through a dreary book. (*cough* The Great Gatsby *cough*).

Flashed Faces Distortion Effects. One of the best optical illusions I’ve ever seen is in the video embedded in this link.

My Beliefs. I love this.

Finally, the most beautifully mouldy peach I’ve ever seen (Photo credit Luigi Chiesa):

This week I inhaled Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival by Velma Wallis. I hadn’t heard of the Athapascan Indians before but this was a fantastic legend about two elderly women who are abandoned by their tribe during a long winter of starvation. It’s so rare for any story to portray older women as heroes instead of as people who need to be saved!

What have you been reading?

One year ago yesterday this blog was born.

Happy blogiversary to On the Other Hand! I can’t believe how fast the last twelve months have passed.

There are millions of other blogs out there. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this one. I still get a thrill when I open up my mailbox and read the comments you’ve left on recent (or not so recent!) posts.

Here are the top ten posts of the past year according to how often they’ve been viewed:

10. Has the Internet Destroyed Our Social Skills?

9. How (Not) to Solicit Charitable Donations.

8. Life After Faith: Now What?

7. Non-Theistic Morality.

6. A Cure for Nostalgia?

5. Does Privilege Corrupt Us?

4. Why is Violence More Acceptable Than Sex?

3. 5 Reasons Why You Should Stop Reading the News.

2. 6 Reasons Why I Don’t Wear Makeup.

1. What the Quiet People Are Thinking.

My all-time favourite post, though, is still It’s Never Just Gossip.

Survey

Would you take a short survey about this blog? Your answers will help me to improve On the Other Hand as we sail into the second year. If you’re interested in participating keep in mind it is only open through Sunday evening (August 7).

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, videos, charts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Aiming for Flow. If only finding your flow was as easy as creating a chart about it!

From The Importance of Manners:

You have the right to expect polite behavior from my child.  On that same note you have the right to expect polite behavior from me, and my husband, and your next door neighbor, and the guy with the weird emo haircut at the grocery store.  And we all have the right to expect the same from you.

Why Failure is Not Fatal. A long but excellent article on why and how failure can be a good thing. It includes multiple TED talks on the subject so feel free to only watch the ones you’re really interested in.

Wake-Up Call: Write Your Own Obituary. When I first began reading this I found the idea morbid. Writing your own obituary seemed bizarre- who are we to decide how those we wil one day leave behind remember us? There is something to be said for periodically looking at the big picture and figuring out if what we do is still in harmony with what we value and believe.

Our Therapy Dog. This made me smile.

What have you been reading?