Creator
He said I’m his Masterpiece “Call it Master P” O SNAP!
Vision is so much a part of us that we tend to take it for granted.
According to anthropologist Carleton S. Coon, “sharp-focusing eyes” are among the five physical gifts that have allowed human beings to rise to their present dominance of this planet.
Think about it? What if you had never seen one of the most natural phenomenon called the rainbow.
Some people say it’s one of the most beautiful sights our eyes can behold and it has been singled out in Genesis as a reminder of God’s mercy after the great flood.
There is another facet of human vision that has led not only to scientific knowledge of the way the visual system works but also to a global activity that is part art form and a money-making industry. Motion Pictures!
BEYOND THE LIGHTS
Though she’s been groomed for stardom all her life by an overbearing mother (Minnie Driver), singer Noni (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is having trouble dealing with her success. Feeling unable to cope any longer, Noni tries to kill herself, but luckily Kaz (Nate Parker), the police officer assigned to be her bodyguard, thwarts her suicide attempt. Noni and Kaz feel an instant attraction, but those in their orbit oppose the romance for fear the pair will stray from the course planned out for both of them.
S.n.a.p.(Stop Now and Plan) program in the Cayman Islands
An early intervention program for children as young as 6 has been pitched as a new tool to help prevent school troublemakers in the Cayman Islands from graduating to more serious crimes.
According to the Cayman Compass, the SNAP program, developed by Canada’s Child Development Institute, seeks to identify children with behavioral issues and help them develop self-control and conflict management skills.
Leena Augimeri, scientific and program development director for the institute, said the concept of the program, which has proven successful in Canada, is to identify young offenders early and address the causes of their behavior.
SNAP, which stands for Stop Now and Plan, involves a 13-week behavioral modification program that teaches children with anger issues new ways of handling conflict.
The program, which also involves sessions for parents and follow-up sessions with counselors, has been shown in peer reviewed studies to reduce the risk of young offenders going on to more serious criminal behavior.
The program is based on the principle that there are many opportunities to change the lives of children before they become involved in the criminal justice system. Ms. Augimeri said research shows that children who became involved in criminal behavior at 14 had, in most cases, been displaying warning signs, such as aggressive behavior in school, since age 7.
Michael Myles, government’s at-risk youth officer and a board member of Youth ACT, said he was frequently faced with young children who were displaying “chaotic behavior” in school and at home.
“It is not a matter of identifying the kids. There is not a teacher, guidance counselor, principal or psychologist in this country that couldn’t refer multiple children to this program.”
Michael Myles
He said the SNAP program could provide the answer for some children. He hopes it can become part of the school curriculum or the Extended After School Program, with a full-time program coordinator overseeing a team of trained community volunteers.
Mr. Myles believes Cayman needs to start making an investment in dealing with the root causes of crime instead of just dealing with the consequences.
He believes investment in treatment and crime prevention from an early age can steer them in a different direction before it’s too late.
GREAT ART AT IT’S BEST!
Great art has been created in motion pictures and television. Studio Productions like Miramax, Paramount Vantage, Marvel Studios …… just to name a few, and people like Charles Chaplin, Orson Welles, James Cameron, Gary Ross and currently one of my favorite producers, Rebel Wilson have enriched our lives over many years and still continue to do so.
Even Walt Disney and other motion picture cartoonists offer a clear example of timeless art in all its stages and glory!
In the hilarious new comedy, THE HUSTLE, Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson star as female scam artists, one low rent and the other high class, who team up to take down the dirty rotten men who have wronged them.
THE COMPARISON GAME
It is very easy to get got up in the comparison game, partly because we learn by observing those around us. If I asked you to stop whatever you were doing right now and describe the impact you want to have on those around you and the world after your gone, it’s only normal and natural that you would think of women you want to emulate. Having successful women to model after is a true blessing.
However, we all need strong role models and healthy mentors who nurture and inspire our success like Olympic runners passing the baton in a relay of faith.
So maybe in thinking about what you want to leave behind, you focus on the compassion of Mother Teresa, the courage of Rosa Parks, the beauty and determination of Halle Berry, the creative nature of Rosie Gordon Wallace, the authoritative and outstanding presence of Angela Bassett, Oprah Winfrey and so on.
Seriously, think about it! That sounds like a great recipe for success, doesn’t it? It’s like wondering through an art gallery or museum of great leading ladies and choosing colors and brushstrokes that you admire and want to incorporate onto your own canvas.
Happily, there are just too many for me to name them all!
The danger arises when you set yourself up to be measured on their scale without their life experiences and circumstances, talents, beauty or even their personalities.
There will never be another Angela Bassett (How Stella got her groove back) and how I am planning to get my groove back. Lol!
There will also never be another Rosie Gordon Wallace (http://dvcai.org/), Oprah Winfrey, Halle Berry, Beyoncé Knowles Carter, Gloria Jean Watkins a.k.a. “Bell Hooks” or any of the twenty-four Caymanian women from George Town, Grand Cayman who lead the charge for equal rights for women by writing to Commissioner Ivor Otterbein Smith on Election Day 1948, declaring, “That it is our intention to exercise our constitutional right to vote today, August 19th 1948 according to our conscience”.
Bell Hooks, author of Art on my Mind
“Without culture, without creative art inspiring to the senses, mankind stumbles in a chasm of despair and pessimism.”
Gloria Jean Watkins (born September 25, 1952), better known by her pen name bell hooks, is an acclaimed intellectual, feminist theorist, cultural critic, artist, and writer. She has authored over 30 books and has published works that span several genres, including cultural criticism, personal memoirs, poetry collections, and children’s books.
Her writings cover topics of gender, race, class, spirituality, and what she describes as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination. She also teaches and emphasizes the significance of media in contemporary culture.
The focus of hooks’ writing has been the intersectionality of race, capitalism, and gender. She has also published numerous scholarly articles, appeared in several documentary films, and participated in many public lectures. In 2014, she founded the bell hooks Institute at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. http://www.bellhooksinstitute.com/
We had or still have these amazing originals and don’t need replicas. Most important to note is that no one else can be you but you! Lol!
“People are born originals, but die copies”
John Mason, author of An Enemy called Average
You can observe and emulate without attempting to conform to someone else’s standards and achievements.
Let’s talk about MONEY baby
REAL MONEY
For instance, real money is considered money, usually coinage, as distinguished from paper money and is accepted as Legal Tender. Also called Hard Currency. Checks, drafts and other negotiable instruments would not be considered real money.
RATE OF RETURN
The yield obtained on invested capital also known as the Return on Equity (ROE), or Return on Assets (ROA), a measure of operating performance. Snap!
You have your own race to run, and while you can learn about pacing and breathing by studying those who have run ahead of you, only you can finish your race and reach the finish line God has established for your unique course.
QUADRATIC PRICING MODEL
The financial pricing model, indicating the optimal market for a new product or service, and the optimal price-yield of a new product. The highest profit potential is for a customized product made for a specialized group of clients, such as full-service brokerage, or private banking.
KEY MAN INSURANCE
Key Man Insurance Is an insurance policy protecting a small business or partnership against business losses from the death or disability of a principal owner. Lenders sometimes require partnerships of closely held corporation to take out such insurance naming the lender as loss payee before extending credit if they believe the loss of a key employee will hinder a firm’s ability to repay a bank loan.
KEY
Key is a set of instructions governing the encryption and decryption of electronic messages. Each financial institution participating in a wire transfer system or electronic funds transfer network, such as an ATM network, has a unique identification key, called an issuer’s key.
KEY CURRENCY
Key currency is currency used in international trade settlement, or as a reference currency in setting exchange rates. Key currencies are the U.S. dollar, or, more broadly, any currency issued by one of the GROUP OF SEVEN countries. Central banks hold a portion of their reserves in a key currency.
KEEFE BANK INDEX
Keefe Bank Index is composed of 24 money centers and regional banks compiled by Keefe, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, a New York investment banking firm specializing in bank stocks. The index is an unweighted index of banks and bank holding companies that track s earnings, dividends, and market price performance of the group. It is used by securities analysts to monitor the relative performance of individual holdings of bank stocks.
KEY MANAGEMENT
Key management in data processing and electronic funds transfer, the control of identification codes unique to each financial institution in a network. Banks never transmit a key in the clear, that is in unencrypted form, but use a commonly accepted encryption formula to prevent unauthorized access. Periodically, banks change their codes, called issuer KEYS, for security reasons.
QUIET TITLE ACTION
Quiet Title Action is legal action brought to eliminate any interest or claim in a property by others. It is the procedure used to remove title defects from a real estate title when a QUITCLAIM DEED cannot be obtained.
Healthy and Nurturing Relationships vs Unhealthy and Destructive Relationships
Be careful who you let into your inner circle of friends. Believe it or not, who your friends are says a lot about you. So, the question therefore is, who exactly are you and what do you stand for? If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything? Remember that!
The community to which we become tied will always give us direction and rules of conduct. The rituals we perform subconsciously ties us to the communities. If we say a certain prayer in private or public, it automatically ties us to the group or members of the community that uses and believes in that prayer.
If we sing a certain song, like our National Anthem of this British Overseas Territory, “God save the Queen” or the Cayman Islands National Song “Beloved Isle Cayman” which was written in 1930 by Mrs. Leila Ross-Shier, it will or should connect us to the group or country that also feels, responds and believes in the words written.
Unfortunately, sometimes we become involved in some addictive and destructive relationships and with these relationships it can be hard to see the dangers when you have become the person in the middle of the chaos.
If you don’t know me by now, you will never know me. I’m always studying something or reading a book about something and I’ve recently learnt that addictive and destructive relationships are very superficial and most of the time are very private.
The Addict inside does not care to be with people, but prefers to be alone or with other addicts who know, accept, and are not scared by their rites of addiction.
See my previous article based on other traumatic and addictive relationships:
Smooth Criminal/ Love the Way You Lie: Traumatic Bonding
Another example is:
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The alcoholic drinks alone or with “drinking buddies.”
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The sex addict watches pornography or visits prostitutes where they are alone in a private addictive world of their own. If there is acting out with someone, it often takes place without words, but with addictive looks to communicate who will do what in the addictive rite. Fifty Shades of Play: Happy Valentine's Day!
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The bulimic’s or anorexics rite is a private act, but in another way this ritual is still a tie to a community whose members are secret to each other. Perhaps they will only meet when they band together in recovery to help each other fight their common enemy, food addiction. https://teneishajohnson.wixsite.com/dream/who-you-are-vs-how-you-look
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The addictive gambler most often prefers to be alone, but can recognize other addicts by the way they act, the symbols they carry, and the places they meet. They often pass each other, recognizing each other’s presence in a silent way; if they talk, it is about their common interest in gambling.
Addiction is a negative form of worship through connection with one’s negative side, the Addict, at the expense of the Self. The “Self” or the person within witnesses the addictive ritual and is often sickened by what he or she is forced to participate in, but they are held captive by the power of the disease.
I’ve also learnt that it is very important for recovering people to understand their “Addict” has a preferred way of acting out and that there are dangerous areas, times and behaviors they need to avoid that may trigger another episode.
According to Abraham J. Twerski, M.D. and Craig Nakken, a recovering spending addict who has a ritual of acting out on Friday evenings, he or she will need to make sure they are around safe friends doing safe activities on Friday nights. A sex addict who use to cruise a certain part of town as part of his or her addictive ritual needs will need to stay away from that part of town.
Healthy rituals can also bind us to others, to family and to friends. Attending church as your able, volunteering your time or resources to one of the many great causes in our community and around the world etc.
If you think about it- healthy rituals bind us to people who care about us, where as addictive and sometimes destructive rituals are reverse rituals and their primary purpose is to isolate us from others.
Healthy rituals help us to have better relationships. They help us to feel pride about ourselves and others, addictive and destructive rituals cause shame.
Healthy rituals celebrate life, addictive and destructive rituals seek out death.
Rosie Gordon Wallace (http://dvcai.org/) says this,
“Women, know your calling and embrace the work that will change lives. Have courage to walk away from the false comfort of an unactualized existence. Master the grit and tenacity to act on and live through your deepest desires (let me ‘Teneisha’ also inject fears). Share your best self with future generations. Generations to come will see your path and take the necessary footsteps to follow in your honor.”
Rosie Gordon Wallace
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is universally recognized as one of history’s greatest creative geniuses. Excelling in a variety of disciplines-painting, sculpture, architecture, music, engineering, and physical sciences- he is often deemed the quintessential Renaissance man. Wow!
He is famously known for paintings The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa.
The Mona Lisa, it is one of the most famous paintings in the world, despite its relatively small size and simple composition.
The work which is painted in oil on a popular panel, measures thirty-one by twenty-one inches. Another interesting fact that I found out is Mona is a contraction of ma donna, Italian for “my lady” Love it!
Due to his genius and fame, da Vinci has served as a continuous inspiration for many artists. In more recent times, he has appeared as a character in a wide range of fictions, from the television series Star Trek to the best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code which also became a movie.
KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS: Was Keynes another Renaissance Man?
Keynesian economics is an economic theory originated by the British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), and his followers. Keynes maintained that governments should use the power of the budget to maintain economic growth and stability, and overcome the recessionary cycles common in most western economies.
Towards this purpose, Keynes argued, in his work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1935) that governments become active managers of the economy, by manipulating taxation and spending policies.
According to the Keynesian view, deficit spending stimulates private sector development in periods when the economy is under-performing.
Critics of Keynesian economics, especially the monetarists, say that economic stability is best achieved by controlling credit and growth in the MONEY SUPPLY. Monetarists fault Keynesian economics for relying too much on government spending and taxation policies, which they say over-stimulates the economy, causing high inflation rates and contributing to the boom and bust cycles in the economy that have occurred since the mid-1970s.
Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance artists five centuries ago also began using what was called the camera obscura (or pinhole camera) as an aid to drawing.
Some four centuries later, two Frenchmen, Joseph Nicephore Niepce and Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, hit upon the idea of placing a plate containing light-sensitive chemicals at the back of a camera obscura.
Photography was then born, and to this day we call the instrument we use for making photographs after the old Latin word for “chamber”: camera.
Photography has since then quickly found use in journalism, art, science etc.
Photographs record the everyday world and allows the general public to see faces, places and scenes from virtually anywhere in the world. Photography brings us images of war and beauty, famine and high fashion, art and nature, love and romance.
Instant Photography
Edwin Land demonstrates Polaroid color instant photography.
Fritz Goro/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images.
Created Camera which rapidly developed pictures. (Patent filed 3rdFebruary 1948 and published as US 2543180) “
The Inventor, Edwin Land was still a physics student at Harvard when he succeeded in producing the first modern filters to polarize light. This has applications in sunglasses, headlights and other requirements in reducing glare. He created both a camera and the special film required for the development of dry black and white photographs in about a minute.
In 1932, Edwin Land and George W. Wheelwright, III (1903–2001), a Harvard colleague, formed Land-Wheelwright Laboratories in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to manufacture polarizers and the company became public in 1937.
The company’s inexpensive polarizers were used in photographic filters, glare-free sunglasses, and stereoscopic products that gave the illusion of three-dimensional (3-D) images. 3-D movies were created by applying polarizers to projectors and viewing glasses.
The company also invented a new product called a vectograph that combined two still images taken from slightly different positions and printed as oppositely-polarized images; using polarized glasses, viewers saw a 3-D image of the subject.
For more interesting information
visit: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/land-instant-photography.html
Fundamentally vision provides ten times as much information as hearing and compliments the famous saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”.
However, none of what I’ve stated above, would have been possible without the above- mentioned people having an actual vision and the ability to not only conceive an idea but to bring it to life.
Vision is a gift!