The Gratitude Dance!

I had just come across this video on a blog that I found very interesting. The blog is called
Go Smell The Flowers and I have been intriqued enough to include a link to them on my sidebar!

When watching this video, I couldn't help but smile.

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"Candidate Match Game"

A fellow poster and Gentleman of Integrity of the forums I sometimes frequent, had put up a very interesting post regarding all the possible Presidential Candidates and where they stand on certain national issues including:

Experience, Global Warming, Tax-Reform,
Same-Sex Marriage, HealthCare,
Immigration, and the Iraq War

It takes you through several questions pertaining to the above topics. As you make your selections, based upon what you believe in, the graph moves to show which potential candidate is alligned with your political position.
Granted, this is all well and good, as long as each 'politician' stands behind what they 'promise', once he/she is elected into that illustrious postion!

I found this both interesting and enlightening. Why not give it a try yourself:

"Candidate Matching Game"

I took the poll, and surprise, surprise...I'm definitely a Democrat.

According to where I stood on each issue, my top three choices are as follows:

1) John Edwards

2) Hillary Clinton

3) Mike Gravel

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On my sidebar, I had posted two polls on May 14, 2007, regarding people's choices for winning the primary. As of today, the top 3 for:

Republicans are as follows:

1) Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor, NYC; with 9 votes

2) Mitt Romney, former Gov, MA; with 4 votes

3) Ron Paul, Representative, TX; with 1 vote


Democrats are as follows:

1) Hillary Clinton, Senator, NY; with 11 votes

2) Barack Obama, Senator, IL; with 4 votes

3) John Edwards, former Senator, NC; with 3 votes

I'm keeping up the polls till after the Primaries, so if you haven't voted yet on those two polls, please see my side bar..


~ZZ

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Right Brain VS Left Brain

The Right Brain vs Left Brain test ... do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise? If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa. Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

FUNCTIONS OF:

LEFT BRAIN.......................RIGHT BRAIN

uses logic..................................................Uses feelings

detail oriented.........................."big picture" oriented

facts rule...........................................Imagination rules

words and language....................Symbols and Images

present and past............................Present and future

math and science...................Philosophy and Religion

can comprehend...................Can 'get it' (i.e. meaning)

knowing...........................................................Believes

acknowledges............................................Appreciates

order/pattern perception................Spatial perception

knows object name.....................Knows object function

reality based..............................................Fantasy based

forms strategies..............................Presents possibilities

practical.............................................................Impetuous

safe.....................................................................Risk taking

(Article from PerthNow)

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If you are having a hard time making her 'dance' in different directions, I found it easier to accomplish this if after looking at picture, glance away but keep the picture in your peripheral view; and then move your eyes back to the picture. I was fascinated with this enough to play around with it for a few minutes. I can look at her dance a half revolution, switch and go the opposite direction for a half revolution, and then revert her back to the original direction.

What's interesting to me, is that I tend to initially view her dancing Clock-wise, which is "Right-Brained" Focus. However, I tend to be quite 'Detail-oriented', which is a "Left-Brained" Focus.

Sooo, When first viewing her dance, which direction do you usually see her??
Are you Right or Left-Brained focus????

~ZZ

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Hauntings....Revisited...2007

I had done a posting last Autumn about local areas that are 'supposedly' haunted. This has been, by far, the single most 'searched for' item on my blog. This has been hit on repeatedly all year long and from as far away as other countries.
Because of its popularity, I am again going to post the link to it here:
Hauntings In Syracuse

You'll also find information for local Hauntings at these links below:

• Local Hauntings at Strange Happenings, Ghosts and Hauntings Research Society.
• Haunted Places in New York.
• Unsolved Mysteries

For those of you who are *not* local to this area, the sites above also have info on many other states as well.
So, Get yourself a nice large travel mug of some Hot Spiced Cider, grab a friend and spend a wonderful Crisp Autumn evening doing some Ghost Hunting in your favorite spooky spot! ;)

~ElviraZZ

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Painting Prodigy: Little Picasso or Pretender?

"Sunflower"

"Glitter"

While I was perusing the news, I came across this interesting article. I was originally intending on adding it to the forum piece of my blog, as I haven't updated in there in a while. But while reading this article from ABC News, they mentioned this 'Child Prodigy' being from Upstate New York. Ohhhhh...Binghamton! Tiny little community just South of Syracuse. I lived there for a little bit, years ago.

(Click on picture below to watch trailer of movie about Marla that is coming out.)

'My Kid Could Paint That' Trailer


Below is the article:

Painting Prodigy: Little Picasso or Pretender?

New Documentary Leaves Questions Unanswered About 4-Year-Old Painter Marla Olmstead
Oct. 5, 2007 —

Marla Olmstead was only 4 years old when she took the art world by storm. Exalted as a painting prodigy, she was compared by some to Picasso.

Documentary filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev set out to tell the young painter's story and explore what constitutes abstract art. He spent countless hours with Marla and her parents, Laura and Mark, at their home in Binghamton, N.Y.

"We don't actively promote her art at all," Marla's mother, Laura Olmstead, told Kate Snow in an exclusive, live interview on "Good Morning America Weekend Edition." "The only venue to see her art work is a Web site. ... As far as us being here today, it's really just because we feel like we don't want 'My Kid Could Paint That' to be the last true and only word about our family."
The film, released Friday, did not turn out quite like anyone had expected, including Bar-Lev or the Olmsteads.

"The reality is it's a simple story," said Marla's father, Mark Olmstead. "The media takes a story and does what they will with it. Ultimately, there are regrets. ... I felt very much like the pressure that was put on us. And the pressure I put upon Marla, I regret that and I feel a lot to blame."

While he takes the blame for the pressure, Olmstead vehemently denies painting the pictures on his daughter's behalf.

Rise and Fall of a Prodigy

Bar-Lev documented the remarkable rise of the little girl whose paintings sold for tens of thousands of dollars.

He was also there months later, recording the Olmsteads' reaction to a "60 Minutes" report questioning whether Marla had actually painted the artwork alone.

"Either somebody else painted them start to finish or somebody else doctored them up, or Marla just miraculously paints in a completely different way than we see on her home video," said one of the experts in the "60 Minutes" piece.

Some suspected that Marla's father, Mark, who is also an artist, was helping her or completing the paintings.

When Snow asked Olmstead if he ever helped his daughter paint the pictures, he responded, "I think we should define help. I do have to be involved, and I have, because she is -- was -- a one-year-old, two-year-old, three-year-old. And I help her by priming the canvas, by lifting her up over the canvas when she was younger so she could reach certain points, doing the edges, helping her with the paints themselves, as far as getting them in ketchup bottles. From that standpoint, yes, I help."

But he insisted he never painted the canvas.
Laura added that Mark barely offers suggestions to Marla on her work.

"The strongest piece of advice I ever heard him give her, and I think she was 3, was to pull rather than push the brush," she said.

Mark said he's no Picasso either. He's a night manager at a Frito-Lay plant and he's painted a total of four paintings in his life.

Despite the questions raised in the report, the Olmsteads allowed Bar-Lev to continue filming with the belief that he was recording the truth about Marla and that he would tell their side of the story.

"When '60 Minutes' happened, my heart went out to them," Bar-Lev told ABC News' Cynthia McFadden. "But there was a side of me, you know, that said to myself, 'Wow, my documentary just got really interesting.'"

By the end of the film, Bar-Lev had become part of the cast, telling the Olmsteads on camera that he had doubts about whether their daughter painted alone.

When asked whether he thought Marla had painted the pictures, Bar-Lev still hedged.
"I wish I could give you a clear answer to that," he told McFadden. "In my heart of hearts, I have a very hard time believing that a 4-year-old did all of those paintings. But I want to add that I have a very hard time believing that her parents would be behind an exploitation of their kid."

Bar-Lev insisted he doesn't want it "both ways," but in the end, his film never answers the question.

Parents Not Angry

Laura and Mark Olmstead said that despite everything that has happened, they don't regret allowing Bar-Lev into their lives and are not angry with the finished film.
Bar-Lev said he was forthright with the Olmsteads about his doubts while making the film.
"As soon as my doubts reached a point where they were strong enough that it wouldn't have been right to keep them from the Olmsteads, I told them and that's the climax of the film," he said.

Laura has an emotional moment at the end of the film, where she says to Bar-Lev, "I need you to believe me."

Now, she says, she no longer needs him to believe, but she said, "I hope he does."
Laura said Marla has not yet seen the film, adding that she does not know when she will show it to her daughter.

"I think we'll take that as it comes," Laura said. "I think I can't give you an age right now when it would be appropriate. But when she's ready, we'll discuss it and we'll show it to her."
When asked if he thinks Marla will continue to paint, her father said, "Whatever she decides to do, we love our daughter, we love our son, we're going to support them -- whatever."
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

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They have a website dedicated to her with some very interesting stuff. You can check it out here: Marla.

There is debate on whether it is really her that's creating these works, of if her father or someone else is doing it, in order to gain the fame and attention that she has been receiving.

What do you think?

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