THOUGHT OF THE DAY:

“There is no path to happiness: happiness is the path.”

― Buddha

BIRTHDAYS:

1591 Jusepe de Ribera, Spanish painter and printmaker.

1597 François Duquesnoy, French sculptor

1628 Charles Perrault, French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale…

1711 Gaetano Latilla, Italian opera composer. Siroe, re di Persia, Act 1: “Se il mio paterno amore”

1715 Jacques Duphly, French composer and harpsichordist. “La Felix”, and La de Drummond, and Les Grâces, Rondeau en ut

1849 Jean Béraud, French Belle Époque painter

1856 John Singer Sargent, American painter

1876 Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as Il segreto di Susanna. Ouverture da “Il segreto di Susanna” e Intermezzo da “I gioielli della Madonna”

1964 Jeff Bezos, American businessman, media proprietor and investor. He is the founder, executive chairman, and former president and CEO of Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce and cloud computing company.

MISCELLANY:

Service.

I’m a longtime volunteer. I started in the mid 90’s when I was in between jobs, and someone suggested I try volunteering. She explained that you get to show off your talents, do some networking, and maybe even learn something. That seemed reasonable to me, so I took her advice and volunteered to work at a local charity fundraiser. It was only for three days: the Orange International Street Fair, sponsored by the City of Orange. I signed up to help The Sons of Italy – one of the dozens of charities represented. Then I did whatever was asked of me, 18 hours a day, for the next 3 days. About 6 hours of each day were devoted to cleaning and hauling things. I got pretty grungy. The remaining hours were spent mostly standing over a hot grill turning Italian sausages. One thing our customers liked was that I didn’t faint. Hint: don’t sip beer while standing over a 175 degree grill. Drink water instead. I guess someone was impressed, because soon after the fundraiser concluded I got a job offer — of sorts. I was invited to serve on one of the subcommittees for next year’s event. And it was only a one year commitment. For no pay. Well, they asked me nicely, so I accepted. Then the following year, they asked me to actually chair the subcommittee. Again, they asked me nicely, and again I accepted. Over the course of three years I actually did wind up demonstrating my IT skills (and other skills too). I got to meet and work with a lot of truly amazing people from dozens of organizations including charities, corporations, and government at the city, county and state levels. One of the City Council members (and future Mayor) asked me when I was going to run for office. Did I learn anything? You bet I did! I still volunteer, but for different causes. These days I rub shoulders with other amazing volunteers, and regularly meet truly remarkable and accomplished people. Oh, and I almost forgot. You don’t actually have to be unemployed to volunteer. Cheers.

ATTENTION STARGAZERS. January’s new moon welcomes Mercury as a ‘morning star’

FOCUSED PROTECTION: The Great Barrington Declaration

Yes, the following is on the website for the Bulgarian Association for Pathology (BPAP). As near as I can tell, the Canadian website was taken down.

SCIENCE, ETHICS, AND THE NUREMBERG CODE: Declaration of Canadian Physicians for Science and Truth

RELATED. Nuremberg Code