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When you think of Amish people, you think of horse-drawn buggies, plain clothes, barn raisings, farms and quilts. However, the Amish came rather late to the quilt making. Long after their neighbors were piecing quilts the Amish still used the old German featherbeds and coverlets. There was a good reason for this. Amish communities were formed so that the members could remain apart from the temptations of the modern world. At this time, quilts were considered something new and modern. But what is considered ‘modern’ changes over the years.

The Amish do gradually make changes as well, but often a few decades later. Amish quilt making is a good example of this. Very few quilts are known to have been made by the Amish before the 1870s. Then over 15 years quilting became quite common. It is now considered commonplace and expected in the Amish community.

As we follow the evolution of their quilt making we find that the Amish always used conservative styles compared to what was popular in quilting at any given time. The first Amish quilts were made in one solid color, of brown, blue, rust or black. Often worsted wools were used, and though the fabric was plain, the quilting done to hold the layers together was intricate and decorative. Swirling feathers, curves and grids were typical quilting patterns. So even though they had adopted the quilting process, they still did not do the modern art of colored swatches and patches.

Gradually some basic piecing and additional colors were added. For example a quilt may have had a large diamond in the middle of a dark fabric with only wide border around it. Fabric colors evolved to include pumpkin, olive green and an occasional dark red. These new colors were still deep and solid.

As the general population moved on to elaborate Crazy quilts the Amish adopted some of the more basic of the block patterns. Nine patch, Around the World, and Sunshine and Shadow were popular. Only solid colored fabric was used but with more varied colors. Amish quilts were made of wool or cotton, as popular silks were considered too worldly.

Most people assume that Amish quilts were done completely by hand but this was not the case. Many Amish quilts were pieced using a treadle sewing machine but the beautiful quilting was always done by hand.

Although most piecing was done at home, when the top was ready to be quilted it was often an occasion for women to gather around the quilting frame. This sense of community and the importance of complying with community standards had a great influence on Amish quilting.

Changes in how quilts were made occurred slowly and only with community approval. Interestingly, this also brought about a good deal of variety from community to community as each community had its own, often unwritten guidelines as to how things should be done. Pink or white fabric may have been considered unacceptable in a more conservative area, while drab browns may have been thought dull and old-fashioned in a more liberal one. A quilt made in one community might be put away or sold when the family moved to another one.

In the early twentieth century new brighter colors became available. During World War II natural fiber was hard to come by and the Amish had to turn to the synthetics available. As most of the nation turned away from quilting, considering it old-fashioned and a waste of time, the Amish continued the tradition.

The unique art of Amish quilting might have declined to utilitarian craft if it were not for the discovery of Amish quilts by the general population. In spite of so many buyers eager to purchase them, quilts are still made by the Amish for their own use. Women make quilts for weddings, babies, friends and fund-raisers.

For more information about Amish Furniture, visit:
http://www.amishfurnitureweb.com

On Cultural Incompetence, Dr. Amaal V.E. Tokars states: “When you look around your place of employment, would you be surprised to see a wide variety of nationalities represented? Many would not. Today, most companies try to preserve some degree of cultural competence, accepting and understanding the value of cultural diversity in the work environment. Employers boasting policies of “equal opportunity” pervade our society.

However, there is some evidence showing these companies only support cultural diversity to a certain degree –just enough to reduce their being liable for discrimination. Such employers are tolerant to a wide array of cultures and let them co-exist with the cultural majority, but only to the bare minimum. There is a subtle fear underlying this aversion to anything cultural, a fear of offending or being offended, a fear of what is different, a fear of disruption of the norm. So, despite the employees of various cultures being hired into companies claiming “equal opportunity,” in general, it seems to be desired that the semblance of mainstream homogeneity is preserved.

Why should we feel afraid of slipping out of the mainstream? Doesn’t our melting-pot society require it? There are several factors contributing to this form of cultural oppression in the workplace. The first is personal prejudice — the type of individual prejudice the cultural “other” experience in their daily lives. Every day people of different cultures and backgrounds are stereotyped for how they look, speak, and dress. The workplace is just one more arena for the culturally different to be categorized. This type of prejudice is common enough, though, to be targeted as a problem in the work environment. Frequent seminars are given to educate on ways to eliminate this type of prejudice.

Let’s get to the root of the problem, shall we? There exist certain systemic factors in our society that perpetuate something called structural racism. (Think of ‘white privilege’ for a moment.) This unintentional form of racism helps inequality seem the norm. Unrecognized, this problem continues on unchecked. Sadly, the discourse on diversity in workplace seminars rarely touches upon this type of prejudice and its connection to individual racism. Who is to blame for this exclusion? Fault could partly be placed on the presenters, who may not be well-versed in this type of prejudice.

It could also be that the culture of the particular workplace does not see this issue as important enough to discuss as a factor contributing to individual prejudice. Whatever the reason, our adult education is lacking for it. If employers want to teach their employees to be critically conscious of the world around them, aspects of cultural competence must be introduced into these seminars. In fact, it must be introduced into the climate of the workplace as a whole that we should value our diversity, not suppress it.

Breaking Down Barriers
How do we begin on the road toward a culturally competent workplace? The steps taken could be small –as simple as inviting employees to bring in dishes that reflect their cultural heritage, encouraging them to describe the cultural significance of the dish. The key is to create space for meaningful discourse, which will in turn create a more culturally open work environment.

1. Let your guard down: We must think of diversity as an asset, not a liability. Being culturally competent means understanding that every employee has an equally precious cultural heritage, and that one or two groups do not guide the reigns of diversity.

2. Take Action: Encourage employees to express themselves in a way that will familiarize others with their unique cultural and spiritual backgrounds. In this way, they will learn the value of different cultures and how they enrich the work environment, and the country as a whole.

3. Know you purpose: In educating for cultural competence, we need to understand its importance as part of continuing our adult education. Remember that we live in a country where diversity is ever present, and we cannot truly understand ourselves as Americans without understanding the value of the country’s diverse population. The workplace is a great place to start.”

Judi Lynn Lake resides in South Carolina, with her husband and 7 year old daughter. She successfully runs her own Advertising/PR Firm. Contact Judi at http://www.judilake.com. To learn more about Dr. Amaal V.E. Tokars’ mission at http://www.seducedbyfear.com

How do we move beyond our prejudices to distinguish what is sensible and what is nonsensical?

When Albert Einstein created the Special and General Theory of Relativity, initially it seemed like nonsense, because nobody had ever thought of things like that before, but both the logical consistency of his arguments and the proof that was later found made them sensible theories.

Understanding the difference between sense and nonsense is vital to your well-being. Unless you can draw some clear understanding of something, you will be confused, and when you are confused, you cannot orient yourself to the world you live in.

Something makes sense when it aligns with an organ of perception: you can see it, hear it, or feel it.

However, this is not always an accurate measure of what is sensible. A mirage appears to be water until you get close to it and realize that you experienced an optical illusion. A hallucinogenic drug creates unusual experiences, until the drug wears off and you revise your opinion.

Sense, however, did prevail. You revisited the experience, perceived anew, and revised your opinion on what it meant.

So far, living on the level of the concrete and experiential, it appears rather clear the difference between sense and nonsense. The mirage was seen as nonsense after you got close to it. The unicorn was seen as nonsense when you recovered from the hallucinogenic drug and saw that you were looking at a plain horse.

But as consciousness advances, it has to embrace abstractions. An abstraction is best described as a statistical generalization. As a child, when you saw your first dog and then other dogs similar to it, but not like it, you created a generalization called dogs. Through a survey of many dogs, you were finally able to see that both a Chihuahua and a German Shepherd are both dogs.

In Quantum physics, you can’t really see subatomic particles, but you can infer their nature and their properties through the statistics of mathematics and the impressions of white dots and streaks they leave on a photographic plate. Thus, you can distinguish between an electron and a positron. You can also tell when a complex interaction takes place. For example, through a sophisticated instruments of observation and interpretation, you know when a negative pi meson collides with a proton. You then observe how the two particles annihilate each other, creating a lambda particle and a neutral K meson. Further observation informs you how these unstable particles live for only a billionth of a second. Now the neutral K meson decays into a positive pi meson and a negative pi meson, while the lambda particle decays into the original two particles, a negative pi meson and a proton.

Now, although this entire description is beyond the senses, it is not nonsense. This is because observation took place. This was done through mathematical descriptions and the use of highly sophisticated measuring devices. You may not have been able to “see” in a literal sense, but various instruments did that for you and your task was to interpret what they were telling you based on past knowledge.

In the realm of the abstract, unless you can test the idea in some way, it has a high tendency to be nonsense. In fact, the more removed it is from sense experience and the less testable it is, the more nonsensical it is likely to be.

It may be well-argued nonsense, but that does not make it sensible.

Something is considered sensible if you can arrive at it through induction or deduction.

Induction is working your way up from particulars to a general idea. For example, all dogs are dogs, regardless of size and predisposition. You arrive at that by examining a number of different dogs and pooling a list of characteristics. You know the difference between dogs and cats, because while both are four-legged, hairy, and have whiskers, they also have other characteristics which distinguish them from each other.

Deduction is working your way up from a general idea to a particular one. This is basically breaking down something into smaller and smaller units. You know, for example, that plants originate from seeds, by observing the nature of plants, both in their dead form, through dissection, and in their live form, by observing their growth and decay.

Nonsense comes in when we have to rely on authority. When things are believed not because some evidence was gathered about it, but because someone in authority said it was true.

Human beings love stories, and the more unusual and compelling the story, the more they are likely to believe it.

One example is channeling. People claim to be channeling all sorts of entities, from God to spirit guides to ascended masters, or even whole teams of enlightened beings. The mediums appear to change personalities, taking on unusual vocal intonations, unfamiliar gestures, and speaking words of surprising wisdom. If you hook them up to various instruments, they may even show physiological changes.

Is this nonsense?

It is an appeal to a higher authority, in this case someone from outside the system, talking from the other side, who appears to be giving us clear directions. In addition, our scientific instruments may even indicate that a change has indeed taken place.

On the other hand, you can get the same results if you use the hypothesis that a multiple personality phenomena is in effect. It has been shown over and over again that in disassociation, the new personality has unique traits, including more intelligence.

Thus, someone who claims to be a medium can be (a) a fake; (b) a multiple personality; or (c) genuine.

In trying to sort out sense from nonsense, you can discern what is true from what is false not on the basis of the reasonableness of their statements, but through putting to the test some of the things that they are saying.

A perfect example is Edgar Cayce. After he went into a trance state and started dictating healing formulas, he uttered unusual remedies. These were surprising because they were (a) outside known medical treatments and (b) highly effective. In this case, despite the highly unusual nature of the entire phenomenon, it is possible to rule out fakery and a multiple personality disorder, simply because he arrived at answers that were not in general circulation. There is no way to prove this to be nonsense; hence, based on available evidence, the best hypothesis is accepting him as he claimed to be.

In religion, occultism, philosophy and politics, the abstractions, unless they can be proven through evidence, should not be taken at face value. They tend to be nonsense. They are not accepted as this, however, because of the credible way that they are presented.

Most human misery, as far as I can tell, is following a well-reasoned line of thought from authority. When you think from your emotions, rather than from induction or deduction, and when you rely on authority, rather than evidence, then nonsense may very well have replaced a sensible way of thinking.

The most dangerous nonsense is that which is subtle. In the case of something bizarre, like the Edgar Cayce story, at first blush it does appear to be nonsense, but upon closer examination, it is not possible to cling to that verdict. On the other hand, when a politician says something there is a tendency to believe, although a closer examination will reveal no substantial evidence of the proof of his or her statements.

Thus, the element of sensationalism or the lack of it, is not a proper criteria to distinguish between sense and nonsense. Something may be hyped up and still be true. Something may be toned down and appear reasonable and still be false.

Insanity is not easy to perceive. Some of the brightest people have fallen into it. Apart from organic damage to the brain and the sense organs, insanity is the inability to distinguish between sense and nonsense. The rise and power of the Nazi party could be considered an outbreak of pervasive social insanity.

The scientific method of observation and experimentation is the highest form of reason invented. All other forms of reason may be entertaining, but they do not warrant the stamp of truth. True reason is the ability to sort out sense from nonsense on the basis of logical consistency and evidence.

Without the Age of Reason, the era we live in today, of marvelous scientific advancement could not have been possible. Prior to that time, humankind thought about things in an emotional, often nonsensical way.

Reason is not something relegated to the province of the scientist or the philosopher. It is something that we all need to live fulfilling lives. And the most reasonable form of reason is one that distinguishes sense from nonsense on the basis of careful inquiry, patient observation, and the accumulation of evidence.

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas with you. Hunting everywhere for a life worth living? Discover the life of your dreams. His book, Never Ever Give Up is offered at no cost to stimulate your success. http://www.theempoweredsoul.com/enter.html

A First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army has taken a stand. Ehren Watada, a 28-year-old Hawaii native, faces a court martial next month and up to 6 years in prison. He is the first commissioned officer in the U.S. to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq.

Overy 100,000 people have commented on one of the blogs were this man’s story and interview was published. Many of his peers call him a traitor and a coward. Others think he’s anything but that.

It’s easy to take a position on this young man’s decision, and that’s one of the fundamental problems with the world we live in. Actually, the problem lies within our methods of thinking, our consciousness. Yesterday’s consciousness is insufficient for the world we face today with all of it’s accelerating change, globalization, the advancement of technology, etc.

Someone thinking with yesterday’s consciousness, the positionary mind of the past, rushes to judgment without much honest inquiry. Rather than look to understand the person or organization they judge, they simply attack. It’s usually in defense of a position they formed long ago.

This is a very emotional issue, especially for those who chose to stand for their country by risking their lives by fighting at war even if they objected to the war. To be inspired by this man’s stand, it’s assumed they’d have to turn on their own stand. They are proud of the stand they took to fight, and feel that those who stand for their country by not fighting are invalidating or dishonoring them.

Some soldiers, in going to war, might judge those who don’t as cowardly. This affords them more pride and confidence in their decision, but the judgment itself is what devolves their stand into a position.

In our eagerness to stand for something, we too easily form a righteous position, from which we can no longer think honestly about the situation.

Isn’t honesty the quality of not refusing to look at or think about something, when forming one’s thoughts, words or opinions? Yet, when we form our thoughts and opinions with yesterday’s positionary thinking, those very opinions become walls beyond which we cannot see. Beyond the walls of our position, we can not see the humanity, the courage, the stand taken by the other side. And then we treat and speak to them as less than human.

Is it any wonder the world is in such a state of crisis?

What we’re lacking is a new form of consciousness. A visionary consciousness, the likes of which have been rare throughout history. Gandhi is a great example of someone with a visionary consciousness. What we’ll need going forward, however, and what I see is fast approaching, is a much more sophisticated and developed visionary consciousness higher level thinking methods that facilitate visionary thinking and make it much easier and more common place.

Eventually, evolution to a new kind of thinking will occur. Indeed, it must if we are to survive and thrive in this world.

Some are courageously undertaking the quest to evolve their consciousness even now, and are seeking out training for living as a visionary. Right now, the world needs people willing to live their lives standing for humanity.
If you are willing to live your life as a visionary, as someone who stands, as a hero for mankind, there’s no time to waste. The world needs visionary parents, teachers, entrepreneurs, lawyers, politicians, activists, artists. The world needs you. Are you willing to stand?

Michael Skye, founder and CEO of VisionForce.com, works with a new breed of impassioned change agents around the world, who are giving their lives to stand for all of humanity. The Visionary Mind Shifts are available free at http://www.VisionForce.com/course.

One of the most remarkable inventions ever in the history of the human race is the invention of the World Wide Web.

In the middle of the 15th century Johannes Gutenberg a German goldsmith, invented the movable type printing in Europe.

His technology replaced books that had to be created by hand . Knowledge spread like wildfire and the human race became more rational and less superstitious. The result, of course, was an improvement in the evolution of civilizations and the speed with which they arose.

The availability of books made the Renaissance possible. It facilitated scientific publication. It resulted in the collapse of the domination of dogmas of Catholicism because Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, posted on the door of his church, were widely printed and circulated.

Similarly the invention of the World Wide Web by Sir Timothy John “Tim” Berners-Lee, KBE (born June 8, 1955 in London, England) is changing the face of our world. Knowledge is now literally at your fingertips. If you need to find out anything, from the weather to some obscure facts in a specialized field of study, just type in a search for it and with the billions of websites now available, you are bound to find the answer. The entire database of human knowledge has now become available to everyone..

He was born in London, England. Both his parents were mathematicians and were part of the team that built one of the earliest computer, the Manchester Mark I. He learned to use mathematics everywhere, including at the dinner table.

At Oxford University, he built a computer with a soldering iron and an old television.
Graduating in physics in 1976, he went to work for a company called Plessey Controls Limited in Poole that specialized in traffic lights. Then in 1978, he created a typesetting software and an operating system when he worked for another company in Poole, D.G. Nash Limited. Berners-Lee then worked as an independent contractor for CERN. The NeXT cube became the first Web server. He proposed the concept of hypertext to facilitate sharing and updating research information. He built a prototype system named ENQUIRE.

In 1989, Berner’s Lee saw how to join hypertext with the Internet. In his own words:
“I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the TCP and DNS ideas and ta-da! the World Wide Web.”

In 1990, working with Robert Cailliau, he produced a revision. He used ideas that were behind the Enquire system to fashion the World Wide Web.

He built the first web browser and editor called World Wide Web and the first web server called Hyper Text Transfer Protocol daemon.

CERN had the first web site in the world. It went online on August 6, 1991. It explained browsers, servers, and directories, and how to set them up.

Berners-Lee made his idea available freely. He did not reserve a patent or ask for royalties.

He has received numerous academic and business honors and awards, including USD $1.2 million by President of Finland, Tarja Halonen, on April 15, 2004, as the first recipient of Finland’s Millennium Technology Prize for inventing the World Wide Web.

He was also given the rank of Knight Commander (the second-highest rank in the Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II. This was part of the New Year’s Honors ceremony, on July 16, 2004.

The 1999 Time Magazine edition called him one of the 100 most influential people of the twentieth century.

Today he lives in Lexington, Massachusetts (USA) with his wife and two children.

The world wide web is literally an artificial global brain, where information is contributed by millions of people around the world and made publicly available to all.

The next step in the evolution of knowledge will be when the entire university system will be coordinated and organized and made available online at no cost, and anyone will be able to learn anything without having to worry about location, cost, admission standards or any of the other barriers that keep education reserved for the wealthier people in the wealthier countries. The future holds the promise that everybody, all over the world, will have the chance to be literate. The technology exists for that to happen.

As long as the internet is allowed to continue to grow without interference from controlling powers, knowledge will also continue to flourish organically and bring humans together in a common understanding of how to make this world a better place.

The invention of the World Wide Web is in our day what the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment was for people of an earlier era. It may even prove to be more of a giant leap for humankind than the landing on the moon.

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas with you. Hunting everywhere for a life worth living? Discover the life of your dreams. His book, Never Ever Give Up is offered at no cost to stimulate your success. http://www.theempoweredsoul.com/enter.html

Most people think that memory lapses are for the hopelessly disorganized. This is because some have systems. For instance, the keys go into the key jar.

The point is, compulsive list makers never come home from the supermarket without the items they intend to buy. Imagine their annoyance when eventually they take three trips between two places before they remember why they went from one place to another anyway!

A lot of us, faced with these glitches, worry that Alzheimer’s is just around the corner. Experts are reassuring us that memory lapses are part of the normal wear and tear that goes along with middle age.

No one is exactly sure why memory goes downhill. It may be that we lose brain cells as we age or the remaining cells do not communicate with one another as effectively. But, the result is well known: mental gaffes cause embarrassment and inconvenience.

For example, Linda, 35, went to her son’s school with a big cake thinking it was Family Day. As it turned out, the schedule of the Family Day is set on the next day. Her son was surprised to see her and overjoyed when she brought out his favorite chocolate cake. Of course, she had to bring the same thing the next day, this time for real.

Mental Congestion
Attention is the gateway to retention. Multitasking makes it hard to commit things to memory in the first place. If the information does not get in to begin with, forget trying to save it and access it later. If multiple activities crowd your day, do not rely on your recall skills. Make lists, take notes, and ask others to do the same.

Interestingly, people tend to blame age, rather the busy nature of their work for their slips.

Take the common lapse of forgetting someone’s name. It happens to everybody, young and old. Names are difficult to handle because they are abstract. The person’s face and his name are not logical ideas for the brain to link together. According to neurologist Barry Gorden, M.D., Ph.D., the older we get, the more data we have to sort through in our brains. Some mental lapses are nothing but congestion.

Also, we blank on names because we know too many of them. Anxiety makes it worse by creating more traffic. That is why the name often pops into our minds later when the mental traffic has died down.

Types Of Memory
There are three kinds of memory, with each one responding differently to the aging process.

Episodic memory is for recalling the name of a restaurant or a movie plot from last week. It starts to decline in our early forties.

Semantic memory is the type that gives us the ability to collect and retain new facts and figures. It holds up pretty well, which is why we know what a blog is but forget your dentist’s address.

Procedural memory is for tasks we do automatically, such as playing the piano or driving a car. This is fairly resilient. So, even if we can’t think of our friend’s phone number, we can press the right keys on the phone’s pad.

Is Memory Lapse An Illness?
Certain medical problems can interfere with our ability to recall. These may include depression, high blood pressure, thyroid disease, a concussion, diabetes, and side effects from some drugs. While these can affect how we recall things, it does not mean that we can treat memory lapses the same way we treat illnesses. Improving our diet and lifestyle can help us get back on track.

Let us manage our stress. Try whatever works for us is yoga, gardening, walking, etc. Not only does tension distract you, making it hard to learn and remember things, but it also takes a direct toll on the brain.

Be aware of the reasons for such memory lapses and we will be more understanding and tolerant of our selves.

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“Donate more to charitable causes and increase your own income at the same time…” said Mark Hendricks; a world renowned internet ‘GURU’, in a recent presentation.

Enriching the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves is a function that charitable organisations perform across the world and in some cases under extreme conditions. However, in order to maintain any level of service there has to be a constant and uninterrupted flow of donations. Maintaining a supply demand equilibrium of need to donations is an enormously complex task which requires meticulous planning. Even then it is fraught with difficulties. The associated costs of implementing any plan to increase donations eats into the funds being collected/donated.

Mark’s simple idea does away with all these unwanted costs… the supply management fraternity will call it a “Lean” concept without any fat. The costs of launching appeals and collection being the fat referred to in this instance. Here are the bare bones of the 90/10 rule:-

1)Decide on a figures which you can or are able to donate every year.
2)Donate that figures or amount to your preferred charity every year.
3)Then focus on increasing that amount.
4)Working to increase that amount will automatically increase your income.

This is how the idea works in practice.?

For this illustration, we have adopted a 90/10 rule. However, your rule can be 85/15, 70/30 or whatever goal you set yourself. (90/10… 10% being the figure which you have earmarked for donation to charities every year)

Using the above referred 90/10 rule, your charitable donation element is 10% of your annual income. Assuming an initial income level of $100,000 per year. Your pre-agreed donation; according to the 90/10 rule, is $10,000 per year. In order to increase that 10%, you need to increase your income… you could streamline your business by reducing and eliminating waste.. alternatively, you could improve your offer and increase sales revenue thereby improve your underlying profit.. As a direct result your annual income has now increased to $150,000 for the purposes of this illustration. The charitable element based on your new income level is now $15,000.

The chosen charity has gained another $5,000 in donations. The table 1.0 below shows how you as a contributor have benefited from this simple philosophy:-

Gross Income 10% for Charities Net Annual Income

$100,000 $10,000 $90,000
$150,000 $15,000 $135,000

Table 1.0

Increasing your 10% by $5,000, you have helped yourself because your 90% has now increased from $90,000 to a whopping $135,000. There is a net improvement of $45,000. This figure of $45,000 increase in your income is a testimony to the statement … if you help others the almighty helps you many times over.

Finally, to Mark Hendricks I say this…. Please please ‘Preach’ this idea to more and more people.

God helps those who help others. Helping others is the essence of charity and donations. Here is an idea for you at http://www.officialdonationsonline.com