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Lane Florsheim's interview with Melinda Gates.  Melinda Gates is reinventing herself at age 60 years. Born in the 1960's  and as part of the Gates foundation she now faces both the opportunity and the challenges ahead of her new effort with The Pivotal foundation, which replaces the effort she made at Gates, the launch of a new book to share her experiences with panic attacks and coming to terms with her own inner voice that said start over.  Here she describes her life in Seattle that starts with a cup of coffee at 6.30, and a chance for reflection in the early mornig hours. She goes out for a walk by 7.00 with three trusted friends she has gone out for walks for 20 years. Melinda describes her new life with her love of kayaking and her chance to do this without being recognized in Seattle. Her three children and her grandchildren live in the East coast. She likes poetry and instead of the frequent travel abroad in her first life, in this second life she can devote time to her passion for making life easier and better for women. She describes meeting women in Louisiana and other states and seeking solutions for better women's health and mental health. She has an objective view of the times, and faith in American democracy, and her new role in the discussions as her own self as a woman. ...

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We live in a period of anxiety, some anxiety is natural but when facing extended periods of anxiety for over 6 months causing distress and impacting day to day life, do something about it, says this expert. About 18 percent of people in America over the age of 18 will suffer from anxiety disorder each year, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. This increases to 28 percent in the course of a lifetime for Americans. Take a walk, reduce alcohol intake because of the association with anxiety, exercize, deep breathing, and yoga. Meditation is highly recommended and a natural way to combat anxiety and stress in life. As anxiety includes an excessive focus on future that we don't feel we control, it helps to let go. In meditation practice start with 5 minutes and deep breathing called pranayama in yoga. Yoga routine with simple basics can be part of the morning exercize. Any yoga studio can help or it can be done at home. Creating a safe space that is calm and healing helps a lot. Medical experts also recommend spending time with nature and natural surroundings. It takes away some of the stuff that is worrying oneself, and shifts attention to the  to the trees, nature outside. Turn off the phone ringer and put away the iPhone. Reduce other activities that crowd one's schedule to focus on calming activities such as these.  At other times read poetry or a book that relaxes, or a program showing scenery on television. Being with other people in settings such as volunteering to help others, and connecting with friends and family in a comfortable setting are also part of healthy living.   ...

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Meeting between prime minister Modi of India and prime minister Sharif of Pakistan is unlike anything that has happened between leaders in the region since independence in 1947. Sharif told NDTV: "I intend taking up threads from where Vajpayee and I left off in 1999." Modi says Sharif touched on some emotional things in his conversation. Sharif told Modi about his visits to his mother once a week, and how Modi's visit to his mother seen by Sharif when visiting his mother touched both of them deeply. Rarely has a visit been captured in poetry in the manner Sharif did in answering a question, when he recited an Urdu couplet: "cling to the tree and hope, for spring is in sight."

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Some useful comments from this discussion of Reti Samadhi by the author, the translator and the interviewer in BBC Sounds. Daisy Rockwell's translation- Reading a translation is like eavesdropping on conversations happening. On the topic of partition and how the book has no heaviness because it comes from the buried memory of the older woman, and her effort to visit the terrain she has gone through a second time. Now with some playfulness as she is trying to come out a different person with a positive frame of mind from having gone through it again differently. Sort of reinventing herself. The experience is universal though the culture and specifics are unique to where it happened.  For India and the regions of US and Europe eavesdropping on India and an Indian author in Hindi with stories to tell, the experience is a universal one of coming back a new person after getting tired of life. As Geetanjali Shree asks is the older woman in the novel tired of life and the past seen as a burden of some sort, or tired of the life she is living now so that reinventing herself is possible. It comes as India itself is looking at buried memories in new ways and nowhere more than today in Uttar Pradesh, where Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a poet and leader, set a new tone in his poetry and in "Kadam Milake Chalna Hoga." For the British, or American reader it is way to look at the language and culture of India in a new way that buries the distance the British kept from the local language and culture during the days of the Empire. Humanity and the stream of consciousness in Reti Samadhi provides a way of doing this. ...

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Bruni on the view that Obama has squandered his advantages of oratorical transcendence, poetry, serious thoughtfulness, in the U.S. presidential election of 2012. He does not mention the lack of a serious plan to turn the economy around, high rate of joblessness and declining incomes that are a basic issue in the 2012 election, and how oratorical transcendence has little correlation with getting the right policies implemented. The Des Moines Register's support in 2008 put Obama on the road to the presidency in 2008 with a victory in the Iowa primary. In 2012 it gave its endorsement to Romney to give him a chance to correct the problems with the economy and to do this with a new effort to forge the bipartisan consensus missing in the Obama first term.

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Russell Shorto visits the area around the Isle of Innisfree in County Sligo, Ireland, and finds it to be more rustic than he imagined. There are not many tourists around, and Shorto has time to reflect on the poem which starts with the lines "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree..and I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow... for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore." Lines that most Irish people can remember.

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A report on the Status of German Unity from the German cabinet, says the eastern part of Germany, formerly the German Democratic Republic, suffers from a declining population and could have benefitted from the addition of young people as immigrants. As it stands the area with the lowest number of refugees or immigrants is where most of the xenophobia anti-immigrant sentiment exists.  It says the eastern part of the country including cities like Dresden need to develop a more receptive culture to attract young people for economic progress.

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R.J. Barrett, Lieutenant junior grade Navy Reserve, his poem on New Year's Day 1975 on board the USS Coral Sea, Subic Bay- chosen from The National Archives by Captain Sam Tangredi.  "Our shipmates all have gone ashore, At twelve o’clock we heard the roar. So far away and yet so near;  Moored starboard side to Alava Pier. Lines 1 and 9 are strung out tight  The head and stern wires are set just right. The standard moor doubled is what you’ll see, As you walk along checking good ’ole 43. The commander of 7th Fleet’s carrier striking forces embarked aboard, Rear ADM D.C. Davis is the gentleman’s name. Down in the hole the snipes are doing fine Only IC boiler is in on the line. Five fire pumps are lit off and readyD.C. reports secure; water pressure steady. Shore cables fore and aft from the pier do reach In the harbor with us there’s quite a crowd A fleet to make any commodore proud The DESRONs and amphibs are represented well. Some of their names I’ll try to tell.Rathburne, Reasoner, Whipple, and Cook  Are all settled in and have grabbed a nook Knox and Stoddert are nestled in too, But that’s not all; these are just a few. Also in sight from the Coral Sea Are Dubuque, Vancouver, and the Tripoli. Peoria and Thomaston are also around. Some pretty fine vessels pound for pound. Taking one last look around the bay, There’s the Camden, Haleakala, and San Jose. Long Beach and Enterprise, make a special mark  Who could miss their shape, even in the dark? The Gurnard, Reclaimer, and the Grayback Are all included, though good rhymes they lack. And because soon I’ll be retiring aft. I’ll just say “and various other yard and district craft." With all this done, though before the watch’s conclusion I must record my New Year’s resolution. If any lesson over the past year has been learned, This single one, into my mind has been burned. As I stood here thinking of things to say, Twisting verse in every which way, I vowed to myself, if ever I did, That I’ll never volunteer for the New Year’s mid Sam J. Tangredi from the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island pulls out these poems from the National Archives which shows ship's logs and poems written on Navy warships in a regulated formula in standardized form. The entries are in strict official form about condition at sea, speed, mooring lines if in port. In the first entry on January 1 tne US Navy makes an exception as it is in poetic form. In 2020 the Naval History and Heritage Command revived the poetry contest. ...

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Results in the Saarland election show the AfD party with only 6.2% of the vote. The CDU is well ahead of the Social Democrats. This result shows that the support for the AfD is strongest in the east. With the refugee crisis not as big an issue as it was in 2016, and the larger effort put forward in push back by CDU/CSU and SPD in the western part of Germany, the AfD sees its support declining from the levels it had in 2016.