Dancing With Life (Clara's Update) --

Hello Dear Readers,

Apologies for my posting lapse.  Someone recently told me that "blogs are dead" and the only thing that people read now is Face Book.  I hope that isn't true.

Blogs, to me, are original by their very nature and, as I'm an innovative and mostly autonomous person -- I do like to set my own parameters.  Anyway, I was kind of set-back at having been told that what I'm doing is pass`e and disdained.

Often readers send me e-mail comments, which I enjoy and appreciate getting.  Sometimes I gently urge them to also send comments via Google's comment options (which include an anonymous feature), so that others can read them.

Always, your interest is appreciated.  If you're an animal lover, please check out the animal ministry blog at http://animalministry.blogspot.com. Also, I've updated my own website at www.claralandau.com.  My song player is now on the home page and has twenty songs on it.  I LOVE my most recently recorded original song "Dance With Me".  It's of course what I sing to my lover, but it's also what I sing to Life itself.  Life is a dance, folks -- it really and truly is.  Do we hold this partner stiffly and fearfully in our grasp? Or do we nestle in close, embrace it passionately and surrender to it?   Do we look off to the side, or do we gaze into the eyes -- of Life?  

Please let me know if you'd like a copy of "Dance With Me".  E-mail me at claralandau@yahoo.com; call me at (865) 659-5383.

Primal Stuff ...

Two primal emotional forces --  love and fear -- are experienced in personal relationships, of course, but also on a grand scale in terms of national and international relations.  I spent some time this afternoon trying to understand how fear (certainly not love) could be an operative in the current abhorrent mass killings in Iraq.  Some of the internet comments following the news article cite age-old cultural and religious hatreds as the cause. While I know this is true, to me the causative vibe is that of a seething, virulent offshoot of fear, perhaps one that can pass from generation to generation.  It was terrible to see all those young unarmed men being marched to their deaths where they were shot repeatedly by hooded executioners -- who are probably also young men.

I'm thinking, too, of the situation in our own country involving Sgt. Bergdahl, the recently returned American POW. Whatever the circumstances of his capture turn out to be, the overwhelming majority of news item comments lost no time in hurling judgement, condemnation, and hatred on this young man and his family.  I believe that this is a wrong thing to be doing.  

Moderated Comments

I’ve very recently re-set my Blog so that comments will come to me to be moderated before being posted on the blog. Comments can still be submitted anonymously (or with your Google or other account) ... the only difference is there will be a bit of time elapsing (during which I’ll review incoming comments) before they are accepted on the site. A few days ago, an anonymous person posted a website address (nothing else) as a comment to my post about pet and human food safety, food imports, and government and industry ties. I quickly removed the potentially dangerous web address, to protect readers from clicking on a site that could possibly carry some kind of malware. Now that I am moderating incoming comments, I have the ability to prevent any questionable web URLs from reaching my readers. As always, I welcome my readers' comments.