Questioned good.

A couple of weeks ago Bob Geldof gathered quite a few famous artists to record another version of the "bygone", 80s hit: "Do They Know It's Christmas". Again his aim was to use music and a few good household names to raise money for a worthy cause.
This time for the benefit of ebola victims. 

When we heard this event was to take place, we knew what to come next, people are so predictable: "Humiliating", says Liberia researcher Robtel Neajai Pailey to al-jazeera.

Stars like Bono, One Direction, Sinead O'Connor, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Paloma Faith and Coldplay's Chris Martin showed up in the studio in London to do their thing, and 36 hours later they were done. The CD single goes on sale December 8th.
Of course critical voices were raised:

The well-known and reputable TV channel al-Jazeera has been in contact with a number of African prominent and renowned scholars, activists and analysts questioned whether Geldof thus hanging out an entire continent as a black hole, completely unable to take care of themselves and depend on help from the rich part of the world.
- Nigeria and Senegal have had outbreaks of Ebola and handled this efficiently. As has Congo, says Abdullahi halakha, an analyst from Kenya.

He does not deny that he also believes that Ebola epidemic has been devastating, but a song recorded out of charity reasons does not solve the problem.

Robtel Neajai Pailey claims that this type of music is overbearing, redundant and out of date.

She points out that a number of artists from the Ebola-hit countries have written and published songs with a view to educate the population about ebola.

She tells Geldof to cut it out. It is great that They record and release songs to educate people, but... thing is: If an African artist, famous in Africa, releases a song which is educational about the disease and people listen and learn, and they raise money to secure research, medicines, medical personnel and additional care; Can they really afford to say no, thank you, to funds which will support and ensure further effort?

SolAbout Lemm, writes in an article that a study from 2001 showed that Bob Geldof's "Live Aid" project meant that 80 per cent of the British population only associate developing countries with poverty and misery.
I am sorry, but it is not new of date that many countries are developing countries. I refuse to believe Bob Geldof's "stunt" is what caused this perception. Western population was made aware, yes, but it was old news.

This new recording is the fastest selling song in the UK in 2014, and it sells faster and more than the original version in 1984. The online world shows its excellence in applicability; it is easy to download and play music we take an interest in. In other words: serious money are into the matter.

Isn't it flippin' annoying? Of course the cred police here at home feel the need to stand out and claim the song just isn't up to standards of good music. Too popular music never is, you know. Good, I mean.
Thank God we have people who take the task seriously and call a spade a caterpillar.
The most enthusiastic contribution here in Norway has probably come from "Dagbladet"'s music critic who gave the song a dice 1 under the heading "Totally f_ _ _ ed up!". She isn't satisfied with the artists who contribute and cuts right to the core: "What motives, those who spend their time doing this, really? They can't possibly care all the while the vocals are flat as a cookie?"

Since we are talking about glitterati artists, it is fair to wonder what the artists really care about in this project: is it the ebola or the image?" It is commonly known that when state of celebrity sinks in, the sense of empathy and social engagement runs out. Apparently, according to public scandalmongers.
And that's not all: several of the artists she has not even heard of. Why are they included in this elite of musicians? Well, all I can say is that if you are a music critic, but unwilling to follow the rising of up and coming artists, perhaps you should start writing your memoirs.

It never even crossed my mind that to feel a sense of capital liability, and spend effort, time, talent and fame to raise money in an attempt to do some good for somebody should be a bad thing.

If Ebola victims in West Africa only knew. If only they had known what lay behind the care they now receive. Had Ebola victims known that several of the artists who contributed are totally unknown to 40- and 50-year-olds in Norway, they probably would have thought twice before they agreed to get help and treatment. They would most likely go to see Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which treats people where the need is greatest. An international medical humanitarian organisation, probably run by love, care and air.

Taken ill the sorry way

Feeling very sorry for myself right now. I thought I had a cold, but that can't be right... not the way I feel, and for how long I've felt this way: I am sure I've got a flu. And it's bad. I am usually spared from tummy bugs, and I boast and behave overbearing when my coworkers have sickness absenteeism, but I am really not good at being sick myself. Actually I think I am perhaps the worst patient ever; I whine and moan and tell everybody polite enough to listen... or pretend to listen. I'm comforted either way.
I have barely any patience with sulking hypochondriacs myself, so I know they are far nicer to me than I deserve. Today I am well enough to realize that.

A week ago, on Saturday, I felt at unease, Sunday I got terrible muscle knots in my back and a temperature. I was pretty ok as long as I didn't move at all. I wasn't pretty ok much; those who live with kids know that staying immovable is not always an option... in fact: it's not an option at all.
I took a lot of muscle relaxing painkillers that day, not too many, mind you, but I maximized recommended amount of all the pills and mixtures I could find.

Monday I had a headache. My eyes were red and puffed and I looked as if I had cried my eyes out... all day. My students took one quick look at me and worked with their tasks in the most devoted way. They display lovely empathy some times.

To minimize the alert factor and avoid students asking too many questions I powdered my face regularly. As a result I looked as if I was wearing a strange mask falling off in layers and flakes. To be honest I'm not sure it improved my appearance any, it is possible I looked worse.

Yesterday I clogged up and my head felt like a pressure tank unable to explode. The outside world sounded muffled and wrapped in cotton, but inside my head I could hear these loud creaking noices and the sound of bubbles popping inside my nose. Much like thick ice breaking on a lake.
I used any remedy found in the medicine cabinet, and then some home remedies suggested to me in what must have been my friends' desperate attempt to shut me up. It was a quest of finding a cure allowing me to breath without gasping for air.
Something, or everything, or the combination of it all, and perhaps some time, must have helped.

Today I feel fine! A week of agony is over! I find myself cursing every day I feel great and take it for granted.
My coworkers greeted me good morning when I arrived for work this morning, like they do every morning, and when I greeted them back I got standing ovation.

appropriately moody

There are a so many attitudes inherent in us, but for some reason happiness is the one we refer to most often. That is the trend in attitude, and mood, we are supposed to strive for. Maybe it is part of the American influence on everybody, since it's mentioned in the United States Declaration of Independence, and all. Even those of us not even been to the States are tinted. We all want to be happy, even though we can't really say what it takes to be happy. Happiness is different to each and every one of us, depending on our values and beliefs.
We all have an attitude about everything; waking up, husband, children, laundry, work, working out and everything else we do, see, hear and experience.

I have written about happiness before, but I just can't let it be just yet, and knowing myself it will be subject for my ponderings and rambling ons yet again. Either I am totally off track, or there is something wrong about what we think happiness actually is. I have to admit that I had no clue the "pursuit of happiness" is a right specified in the Declaration of Independence; I didn't know! Not untill now, that is.

Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.[1] A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources. Various research groups, including positive psychology, endeavor to apply the scientific method to answer questions about what "happiness" is, and how it might be attained.
It is of such fundamental importance to the human condition that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" were deemed to be unalienable rights by the United States Declaration of Independence.
The United Nations declared 20 March the International Day of Happiness to recognise the relevance of happiness and wellbeing as universal goals. In 2014 Happy (Pharrell Williams song) became the anthem and inspired clips from around the world. (Wikipedia) 

This time my thoughts are not preoccupied with happiness in particular, I just happened to get a bit hung up on it... probably because I gave in to my propensity to associate and let my mind wander. Anyway, initially I was going to let my thoughts spin on the matter of attitude.

As a teacher I am pretty preoccupied with attitude, not my own attitude towards issues, mind you, but my students'. We all have attitudes, you see, but not all of our attitudes are quite like what we would prefer them to be. I don't have an attitude; I have good days and bad days, and that's it. As if, of course I've got an attitude... we all do!

We have bad attitudes and good attitudes, but not many really point out what is bad and what is good.
We can emit:
optimism, pessimism, confidence, interest
independence, jealousy, courteousness, cooperation
consideration, inferiorness, happiness, frankness
respectfulness, authoritation, sincereness, persistence
honesty, sympathy, realisation, faithfulness
flexibility, decisiveness, trust, thoughtfulness
determination, love, hostility, modesty
reliability, tolerance, humbleness, cautiousness
sarcasm, helpfulness, hard working
... and I am sure there are more.

Often when I talk, and mingle, with people who excel in  one or another field what strikes me is that they are so cocky. Hardly any exceptions: they talk with authority and are really bad listeners.
It is hard to keep up conversation if they are not allowed to stick with their own field of interest. My instant thought would be that they have severe issues regarding social behaviour, but when I draw focus away from me and try to understand their situasion, I can't say it's a bad attitude. It's how they need to be to be different and better and to keep the belief that what they do is important.
Their attitude is only bad as long as I focus on how I wish people around me are.
What we think, what we do and what we feel is what forms our attitude. While sometimes knowledge and experience form our attitude. And sometimes our attitude is based on our assumptions and beliefs.

A mood is not the same thing as an attitude. Attitude is your manners combined with your mood. It is how you feel and and position yourself to a person, a topic or a thing. It is how you carry your body in different situasions. The way you view something or tend to behave towards it.
Whether I regard people to have a bad attitude depends on my attitude. haven't really thought about that before, but now that I do think about it I find it right. A man is not an island, and attitude is not judged and perceived untill meeting somebody else.

A bad attitude make you seem unwilling and negative. You expose your family, friends and other people who cross your path, to this aura of no-ness. It's like they can't get across to you becuse you have shut down and locked yourself in a stubborn habit which is unpleasant to be around. Habit was maybe a bit harsh, but if you have accepted you can show a bad attitude and you don't care enough how you affect other people, it easily becomes a habit.
Or maybe you just don't realize you affect them, because you think you are not that significant.

Some say that changing your bad attitude and replacing it with a more positive way of thinking is just like developing any other virtuous habit. It takes persistence, planning and effort. Change attitude and be.... ecstatic! Thilled and over the moon at all times, every hour, every day.
Ok, maybe not that happy, but, well; happier.

I'm not quite convinced it's that easy. There has to be some kind of motivation and drive to do it, and I think that can only come from other people and their feedback.
Some are never satisfied. Others are depending on people to confirm what they have, and who they are, is good.

You have to be very close to someone to give feedback on their attitude.
Only time I do that, is when I get so annoyed I tell them off, and there's only one thing that is good for: to tear people down.

When you have it in you to have a good attitude you can't count on getting credit for it... which is really sad, because we all need a pet on our shoulder to keep going. Part of having a good attitude is that you don't gain self value from other people's unfortune.

I read an article in The New York Times about how Google works. Or, rather, the article is about a book written about Google.
I am sure they hardly ever experience employees having a bad attitiude towards work. They don't have a kind of company policy which actually allows that.

In many ways we live in a fantasy world, where people feel like a failure if they can't keep up with the successful lives of others. We display our happiness on social medias and in conversations while showing off our tastefully decorated homes... which are never untidy.

We have so much edited, filtered and touched up things coming at us every day. I get exhausted.
It is about time we accept our lives as they are. It doesn't mean we should stop doing the best we can and make things we are not happy about better. It means we change from "what we want everything to be like" to "something real".

I believe in selfworth and being the best version of ourself. It's not the same things to all of us, because we have different standards and values and resources, but it is important to be able to think good things about yourself. It doesn't mean things are always fine and dandy.

Art Linkletter defined a good attitude by saying: "Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out."

You know what? I demand the right to be appropriately moody, and still be percieved as a person with a good attitude. I will throw fits, create emotional fireworks, and some times just keep to myself... a lot of the time, actually. It doesn't mean I have a bad attitude, it means I am human and that I have feelings... but if that becomes a habit of mine, and all I ever do to others is to inflict my "no's" and "never's",  that's a totally different matter all together.

A cat-a-call.

A woman walks down the street, wearing what she considers to be ordinary clothes. It's a fine day, apparently lovely weather. She comes across as rather determined as she walks along; she doesn't stroll, she doesn't smile, she doesn't give any indication she is open for conversation.
Nevertheless she gets "catcalls".

I have learned that the "proper" dictionary some times give the general understanding of an expression, even slang, so when the Oxford Dictionaries tells me that a "Catcall" is:

"A loud whistle or a comment of a sexual nature made by a man to a passing woman:
women were the objects of catcalls when they walked by the men’s barracks.
This is mostly a stereotype, but some men shout catcalls at women on the street, especially when the men are in groups".

And the Urban Dictionary says a "Catcall" is:

"When a guy gives the wert whirl whistle or yells at a babydoll for the purpose of getting attention and in hopes of a future hookup. This is usually done out of the window of a car. Typically a Pontiac Firebird, or Camaro.
99.9% a hookup never arises and it's just the thrill that keeps these going".

I understand that it's indeed about the ancient chase of a flirty interlude, which may or may not lead to something (hopefully) memorable. Or so men, in particular, want to believe.

Of course I have talked to men, and women, about this ten-hour-documentary. Most online have some opinion about it; some more than others.
The men most often admit that some of the things they wouldnt say, but there is nothing said which seem bad to them.

I can relate to why they say that, but I also get what women say, which kind of boils down to the fact that women in many situations feel they are being objects, rather than having self value. We have struggled for quite a few years to get credit for what we know and what we can do.

When I point this out, men just give me a strartled look and go "Can't they be both?".

We all want to be appreciated for who we are, we desperately want the inner beauty phrase to be true, and when approached we want it to be genuine, you know?

I would think it would be nice to know that you have a certain beauty that men like. Yes, it is a shallow thig to say, but let's be honest: most women spend a lot of time and money to look their best, and we wish more men did the same.
Whether we go through the agony of beautifying ourselves for the sake of men or other women is disputable, but it is something we do to enhance our self esteem.  Most of what we do to ourself to feel and look great really doesn't show at all. (And when we feel it's not enough, we go to the extremes... but that's a totally different issue.)

It is a fine line, but when passers by just yell a random line at you, it feels like you are just there for their amusement, or letting steam off...

I don't like strangers to call me sexy. First of all I know it is a lie, so I get embarassed that others hear it and see my shortcoming. When called sexy in public, everybody size me up and I can literally hear their conclusion click in their heads. And it's never good.
And if I am wrong about men's intention, it doesn't matter, because it feels like they want me to feel something about myself, which isn't true... and i get cautious; almost waiting for them to throw that last line. which will be a joke on me.

On the other hand, if I knew I looked very fine, it would be a different story.... then I would straighten my back and walk that slow catwalk... If I knew how.

She is a very beautiful woman. Not just the face and the curves and the style, but she also has a posture a lot of women probably envy her. There is an aura of self esteem and strength I believe makes her even more attractive.
To be honest I really don't think the comments were all bad intentioned. Of course there is no way I can know that 100%, but I sincerely don't think they were.

What I do think is that the "10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman" started out with an agenda: To show that women get harassed and that the frequency of it is a problem. And I do agree that street harassment, when it occures, is a problem. Everybody should feel safe walking down any street, regardless of where.

And about the frequency... It's not like as if it's the same guy making the comments. There is, however, a guy walking next to her for several minutes not saying a word.... is it possible he was going the same way and that the speed was the natural speed for him to keep up? There is a chance. I'm not advocating his intentions, I am just asking if it is possible. He would have said something if he wanted to approach her, right?

There is a fine line between what we call compliments, a pick up line and what we perceive as harassment. I don't think anybody would perceive "Hey, beautiful" as harassment at a bar (... with the possible exception of if you were a mob wife and called Renee).

A friend of mine updated his status on Facebook:

"I really like the honey-flavored Jim Beam bourbon, but it's somewhat awkward buying it at the liquor store. Whenever the clerk asks me what I want and I say, "Jim Beam Honey," she thinks I'm asking her out."

I commented upon that saying: "Well, next time you should play along and have a coffee"

Little did I know that someone would come and torpedo my good intentions by adding the comment: "If she is a "looker" and receptive, go for it."

Okey... does that mean I would be worth asking out only if I were beautiful?
This, this right here.... the words you just read right now is the core of the problem:

We listen to people talk, but we only hear what we want to hear. We deliberately fail to misunderstand eachother correctly. We all have a lot to say, but we don't all know how to express it politically correct.
Maybe all men should start wearing a hat, and when expressing admiration, they should smile a little smile and greet the woman by touching the rim of his hat while keeping eye contact.

When people for some reason happen to say things out loud, and we feel it is the wrong timing, and they caught us in the wrong mood, we turn hostile.
Same phrase, different time and different place can make us smile and feel good about ourselves. But how to know?

Are the callings coming her way of sexual nature? I am not quite convinced. You could say she looks a bit sad, as she's walking along; maybe there is a chance some just wanted to cheer her up?Are the comments made out of genuine interest and good will? There is no way I can know that.

Best thing for you to do, if you want to avoid me snapping at you, is as following: when you think about wanting me to smile, you just whistle to yourself.