 
Delivered fresh on October 12th, 2009
Greetings!
My past collided with the 21st Century when I discovered the magic of Facebook. One of the things that I am enjoying the most is reconnecting with college friends that I have not seen or heard from in years, people whom I otherwise might never have had the opportunity to see or speak to ever again. I can't help but wonder what college life might have been like had we had all of this technology our disposal. Instead of cell phones, we used to share the hallway pay phone in the dorm and leave phone messages for each other on bulletin boards. Guys would leave little notes with the desk attendant if they came by to visit and you weren't home. These days, why take any chances? It's simple enough to track a girl down with a quick text message. Why not save yourself the time and trouble? And with Apple iEverything college today means being able to research anything without ever having to ever leave your room. Nobody ever has to actually go to the library anymore which is where so many great memories are made... I appreciate technology and the fact that it has altered our lives and equipped us to communicate more effortlessly than ever before. I love Facebook not only because it offers new and improved ways to connect, but because it has provided me with the opportunity to reconnect, to look back and to remember what is was like to really have to make an effort to connect. Dana DANA DELIVERED! User's Guide: 1) Open up your Dana Delivered! email. 2) Choose an article from the menu on the left hand side or just start from the beginning and read all the way through. 3) If you are reading an article and want to finish, Click on "Read More..." and you will be taken to our website. You can finish reading and while there, have a look around. Note: Dana's Dailies changes, well, daily so come back often. 4) Click on any of the words highlighted in red and you will be taken right to our site, DanaRoc.com. In INSPIRING PEOPLE: Dana talks with Author and Urban Farmer, Novella Carpenter. Novella manages to capture with humor and humanity, the adventures of farming in the middle of a big city, while offering encouragement for people to take risks to discover what is possible! Enjoy Dana's EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with Novella Carpenter and discover that if you just try, then you just might. Take a minute to read DANA'S WEEKLY INSIGHT and make sure that you listen to the AUDIO VERSION as well. There may be someone who needs you to pass that along. Check out DANA'S DAILIES for no other reason than to hopefully smile. And come back and visit the blog all week at www.danaroc.com/dailies. The special article FROM DANA'S GUESTS: this week is a speech delivered by President Obama. In his speech delivered in Cairo on June 4, 2009, President Obama demonstrates again why he was awarded the Noble Peace Prize. Read this speech! Check out AUGUSTE ROC'S MY TWO CENTS (For Whatever It Is Worth). There is something in it for YOU! While it may be "Two Cents" but you'll find it's worth a whole lot more. Feel free to email your comments to Auguste at auguste@danaroc.com. This week's THE GOOD LIFE : BOOKS selection is Notes on a Life by Eleanor Coppola. If you are easily captivated by the lives of those who have truly put it all on the line for the opportunity to really live, then you will love how Coppola shares about the very good, the very bad, the struggles and the reward. Read it! Something useful in THE GOOD LIFE : WEB SITES this week. Check it out! And there's more so sit back, grab a cup of coffee, relax and enjoy. As always, thanks for reading! Stay cool. Be hungry. Never look back. Always reach back. Fear not. Believe always, Dana Oh, No She Didn't
"Like water off a duck's back", is arguably for the birds. I, quite frankly, have not yet mastered that elusive ability to endure by shrugging my shoulders and walking off into the sunset when something happens that I don't like. I wish I could. Instead, I spend a lot of time thinking and re-thinking, tracing and re-tracing my steps, asking myself the questions that I hope will provide the answers that will help me to get over myself - and move on. I admire those ducks with their dry backs and thick skin. I envy their ability to repel. But I, I am of the absorbent type. I soak up my experiences thoroughly, especially the ones that "I would really rather not". I get tremendous value out of mulling things over and over again, trying to get to the other side of my discomfort, disappointment and pride, trusting that therein lies, for better or for worse, the opportunity to define myself and fine tune the melody of who it is I want to be. Her attitude landed in my reality like an uninvited guest at a party that was already off to a lukewarm start -- and now I was going to have to deal. "I didn't come here tonight to have my time wasted"! I stood before the group, poised and nervous in front of the mic, on the absolute coldest Monday night of the year and I struggled to absorb her frosty response. "This is not what I thought I was coming for..." Now, all I wanted to do was to go home to a hot bath and a couple of warm hugs. As she turned to sit down, I dutifully, if not sadistically, asked her to remain standing so that I could "hear more". "I'm thinking about leaving. I came for some answers and so far all you have been doing is asking us the questions. " Draped in her over-sized aqua blue sweater and matching pants, I watched her as she indignantly returned to her seat. I searched the other faces in the crowd, hoping for the slightest hint of sympathy, clear that I had better find my game face if I wanted to save face and make it out of this thing alive. I anxiously drew in a tentative breath and, in an effort to keep things moving right along, I invited her to "consider joining the conversation that I was having with the group". That's when she decided to put her coat on and leave, which is when I decided that dry feathers might indeed trump my thin skin. Don't you just wish sometimes that there was such a thing as a magic button that would allow us to stop the tape, rewind, erase and re-record; a button that would "white out" what we don't want to remain? Imagine. It is said that one of the strongest desires of human beings is the desire to be admired - more than to be loved even, and there I stood before this group wanting to click my heels three times in the hopes of ending up in that hot bath. What is it that I had failed to provide? How is it that I could have addressed her concerns? These are the questions that, way after the fact, I continue to try and dissect in an effort to get to the other side of my discomfort, disappointment and pride, trusting that therein lies, for better or for worse, the opportunity to define myself and fine tune the melody of who it is that I ultimately want to be. Dwelling in your own difficult inquiries, identifying what those inquiries are and then wrestling to discover the answers to your own questions, is worth much more to you then somebody else's Seven Secrets to Success. There are no assembly line solutions for winning in life. There is not a mass produced repackaged good idea out there somewhere that will help you achieve instant satisfaction. I don't have a magic formula or any fancy answers that will lead anybody down the road toward guarantees. But, what I do have is the discovery that - When I am willing to confront myself head on, to challenge my conventional wisdom by identifying and then asking myself some real questions; when I am willing to accept a new message from an unexpected messenger, then I am bound to discover another version of my very best self. And you? Have you been waiting for someone else to serve you up the answers before you've asked yourself the questions that only you can ask? Have you grappled and wrestled and struggled to identify what those questions even are; those questions that are uniquely and profoundly your own? Has an undistinguished, petty refusal to be open minded and generous, kept you from receiving what someone else might have to give? In my perfect world I would have all of the answers and no one would ever question me or why and what I choose to do. I would never be off my game. I would always be in control and everyone would always think that I'm GREAT... Could I have been better prepared on that cold and wintry Monday night? Could I have - should I have rehearsed over and over again my reason for being worthy of standing before a group of people who took the time out to listen to what I had to say, out of a sincere commitment to living a life that really matters? I am newly confronted -- head on. The ability to shrug it off, shake it off, dust yourself off, no doubt has value when the object of the game is to survive. But beyond mere survival is the opportunity to thrive. The willingness to suck it up and soak it up when something happens that you don't like, is the access to the kind of profound insight into your own particular way of being, and that access is the beginning of real freedom, intangible power, the opportunity to truly grow and the ability to effectively and melodiously - move on. Dana Have a great week!
  Author and Urban Farmer, Novella Carpenter
DR: Tell me about your book and about what led you to write it. NC: I wrote a book called Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. It’s about my adventures in urban farming in Oakland, CA. I moved to Oakland about six years ago, from Seattle. In Seattle I had been raising chickens and bees and I was doing some vegetable gardening so when I moved to California I wanted to keep doing that. What I found out was that in California winter doesn’t last nine months like it does in Seattle. I discovered that I was able to grow more things than I had ever been able to grow before. One of the things I had been thinking about was raising my own meat birds. So, I ordered a package of poultry through the mail, which anybody can do. I ordered turkeys and ducks and geese... DR: Wait. You actually ordered live birds? NC: Yeah. They send you live birds that are a day old. They are called hatchlings. After a chicken or duck or a turkey is hatched from an egg they have a lot of energy reserved in their bodies from digesting the yolk so they are good to go at that point. They can travel for a couple of days without any problem. DR: Wow. NC: Yeah. So you get this box of these beautiful peeping birds. You have to give them water and make sure they are okay and then they just grow up. If you don’t live in a place where you have access to chicks, this is a great way to start. There are actually businesses that cater to people who just want to have a couple of chickens. There is a place called My Pet Chicken and they will send you five chicks for you to just start off. Some companies require that you buy 25 chicks at a time... One of the reasons that I started doing this is, like so many people, I got swept up in the whole Michael Pollen mania. I read his article in The New York Times Magazine about steer; about the life of a steer in the industrial feed lot and I was horrified. I started thinking about all of the other animals that I was eating routinely, that I got from the grocery store, that probably had the same fate of being raised on a factory farm. That really started to change my perception and I wanted, not just to change by buying sustainable meat or organic meat, which is great, I wanted to actually see the first hand growth of a turkey from day one until the day that it was going to be prepared for the Thanksgiving table. So, that’s how I got started. The other thing is that my parents were part of this movement in the late ‘60s of going back to the land and raising your own food, building your own house, that kind of stuff. My father still does these kinds of things so it’s kind of in my DNA to be more self reliant. That is one thing I have been experimenting with on the farm. DR: I saw Food, Inc. recently and I too have been kind of caught up in the Michael Pollen movement and wanting to be much more intentional about the way that I eat and about the way that my family eats. But after I saw Food, Inc. this summer it took my interest to a whole ‘nother level. I started to mildly obsess over the way that animals are disrespected on the way to the table, among other things. Lately I have become really intense in terms of my interest in growing my own food one day but also, like you, I live in Urban America where that seems pretty difficult.
NC: It is totally happening. It’s interesting because when I was on my book tour one of the things that I found exciting is that in every city I went to – LA, New York, Seattle, Portland, there was...
 On the heels of President Obama winning the Noble Peace Prize take a moment to reflect on one of the President’s recent speech promoting peace in a land where peace has taken a back seat to war. President Obama promotes peace in the Middle East
President Barack Obama I am honoured to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning, and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. Together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I am grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. I am also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum. We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world – tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the west includes centuries of co-existence and co-operation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a cold war in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalisation led many Muslims to view the west as...
 Free For All
"It's going in one ear and out the other, Dad", Gussie shared with me one evening while doing her homework. It turns out that she had been examining Plato in Mr. Everdale's 6th grade history class. Both impressed by the fact that she was tackling Plato, and relieved that I actually have a thought or two to contribute to the conversation, I happily seized the opportunity to share one of my favorite Plato allegories (a drastically abbreviated version): Socrates is talking to one of his young followers. His name is Glaucon. He is sharing a fable with him to try and help him understand what it is like to be a philosopher and someone who loves wisdom. Imagine a group of men chained up everyday in a cave since childhood. Imagine that the only thing that these men can see are the shadows on the cave wall in front of them; images cast by people and animals and things moving outside of the cave. Isn't it understandable that these men, chained inside of this dark cave, would come to believe that the shadows they see are what is real, rather than mere representations of reality? And isn't it understandable that they would eventually conclude, logically, that all of the conversations and sounds that they heard were coming from these shadows, and to even eventually believe that they are in fact mere shadows too,? Now imagine that one of the men finally breaks free from his chains and escapes to see what really exists outside of the cave. He sees what things actually look like and returns to the cave to share this revelation, but to the men still in bondage it appeared as if he had lost his mind. Most people live in a world of relative ignorance. Our ignorance is all we know. And, it is not only that we have grown comfortable with our ignorance, it is that we actually like it and depend on it to survive. It is difficult to pursue truth because the pursuit of truth is scary. When faced with truth, many of us would rather just go back to our old lives; the way things used to be. But, if we are willing to muster up the courage to continuously seek truth, we will eventually reap its rewards. The more truth we get, the more we want. Once you've experienced truth and the benefits that it brings, it's hard to go back to being ignorant; it’s hard to return to the dark. That's my two cents (for whatever it's worth), Auguste Roc
 Recipe for Disaster
It was shocking at first and then I thought it was just plain —
STUPID. It wasn't smart business to do what they did. Infact, it was crazy. Were my eyes perhaps deceiving me? Nope, I was actually seeing what I thought I was seeing: 50% off - SUSHI! Two things that should never go together: SALE and SUSHI! "I'll take one of those and why don't you just deliver it to me at the emergency room because that's where I'll be after I dine..."  TheMorningNews.org
Why I am recommending this website: Smart and witty, The Morning News is one of the publications that makes the Internet a superior place to get news and to share ideas. If you like your news straight up with a little provocation then you'll want to bookmark this site. From the Web:
 Notes on a Life
Why I am recommending this book: Stories of courage always leave me challenged to take a look at my own life and how it would read if recorded on paper. Eleanor Coppola generously shares about her own life, offering the reader a peek inside the world that often looks like all glamour and no pain. She humanizes what we often idolize. Click here to purchase this book. Amazon.com Click here to purchase this book.
 
Finding yourself in the middle of what only used to seem like a good idea and one that you hope can still turn out okay, is a pivotal place to be. It's where we question why we ever said "yes" in the first place and it's often where we grow.
 
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