It's 2015 and Beyond! Cuban Art is Booming!

In a previous post, shared a cherished personal memory at this site and titled it My Introduction to Cuban Art. It was humorous but this post is serious.
 

Almost every evening, our PBS station (Public Broadcasting Service) airs the news hour and many parts of the program are special segments. Very recently, President Obama upset quite a few people when he announced his plans to strive to normalize relations between the USA and Cuba. Whether people agree or disagree, it's happening . PBS' special segment is a series called “The Cuban Evolution”. My antennas went up when it was announced that there was to be a discussion of the current art scene in Cuba. Jeffrey Brown, Chief Correspondent for Arts, Culture, and Society , is the lucky bloke who gets to travel to Cuba on official business to cover the series. Here are some of the highlights from the segment:

• Havana Biennial Art Show is taking place (promotes “Third World” contemporary art)
  
• Cuban art market is booming and Cuban artists are making a mark on the international art scene
  
• There are still some restrictions on freedom of expression – nevertheless ...
  
• Savvy art collectors are buying now because the value of their collections is sure to increase in the near future
  

You can watch the entire report on the PBS YouTube Channel . For me this news is exciting. The Cuban culture is so wonderfully colorful and vibrant. The people have been suppressed for way too long!


Interesting Reading and Links of Interest:

• “ La Espada de Rusia" (the Russian sword) – A Reminder of Cuba's Ties to the Soviet Union
  
• Internet Access in Cuba is “Complicated”
  
• Guide to Cuba's Best Contemporary Artists, etc.
  

Cuba50 Celebrating Cuban Culture

Content previously published at PersonaPaper, June 2015.
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Photos on Friday: Peak Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin (Reblog)

Used to work in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C. And one of my best memories were when the cherry blossoms bloomed. One of my Facebook pals invited me to contribute to one of her group boards on Pinterest and when I visited her profile to see what else she was pinning, found the link to her main blog which highlights “Things to See and Do in the Washington, D.C.Metro Area”. Yep. It's springtime in D.C., so you can guess what some of her blog posts were about. Cherry Blossoms! YAY! My pal is also a very good photographer.  Combining tidbits from her blog with info from my various blogs.  Hope you enjoy this post!

Image credit:  Photos on Friday: Peak cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin

• History of the National Cherry Blossom Festival: The event is one that offers a tribute to the commemoration of 3,000 cherry trees gifted to the US from Japan's Mayor Yukio Ozaki in 1912. This exquisite gift offered just after the turn of the 20th century was given as a way to honor the ongoing friendship between the US and Japan. (Source: Everything you wanted to know about the National Cherry Blossom Festival )

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The Subaru Cherry Blossom Festival of Greater Philadelphia

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Blogging Tip : Mix and Burn

Used to write for a website called Squidoo. One of the fews sites where my online income earned was consistent. Seth Godin, the site owner decided to move on to other business adventures and the site was acquired by HUBPages, which is another excellent site for freelance writers, bloggers, work at home moms, and anybody else who wants to be a part of an online writing community and earn residual income.

Make a long story short. Squidoo used to have widgets provided to the users to enable them to enhance their content with additional material. One of my favorite widgets was the “RSS Mashup”. You could take several feeds, combine them and create one feed. Loved it!

HUBPages, for whatever reason, chose to discontinue allowing RSS feeds. So even though Squidoo is now under the HP umbrella, those nifty widgets evidently were not included in the acquisition deal.
Been searching for something similar and … Behold! Seek and Ye Shall Find!

Funny thing is a while back had tested this tool and then forgot about it. But since me and my bookmarks are BFFs (best friends forever), found my old “test mix”. The light bulbs in my brain started going off!

BLOGGING TIP:
Harness the power of two RSS tools:

• RSS Mix ( rssmix.com ) and
• Google Feedburner ( feedburner.google.com )

Step 1: Create the “RSS Mix” ( rssmix.com ). Gather the URLS for the feeds you want to combine together. In my example, it's all of my Tumblr blogs. Just go to the site and follow the extremely simple directions. Put the feed URLs in the box and click Create. No kidding. That's it!

Step 2: Use the URL of the mix feed that is generated and then burn a feed using the Google Feedburner ( feedburner.google.com ). If you have a Google account you have access to this tool. You may have never used it because you didn't know about it. But now you do, so … go for it! For those familiar with this tool, you know that once the feed is burned, there are many different ways to optimize / publicize the content. You choose what to do with it. 

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Sharing my “feed mix /feed burn” below as an example.

Blogs I Like ~ Mix and Mash

 

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Global Warming or Global Returning?

Happy last day of February!!  Yes.  It is still Monday.

The winter months here in Austin, Texas, have not been winter-like at all.  Started the new year this way.  Some days it was like 70+ degrees in January! 
 
My kids have grown accustomed to my standard excuse that I use to point the finger of blame at … everything! 
 
If something happens, no matter what … I say:

• “IDK! I blame global warming. Whatever! ”

So here is my Krazee with a capital "K" thought for today. (FYI.  This content was previously shared at PersonaPaper, Jan 25, 2016).

Have to write it down now because it might be forgotten by tomorrow. Have these momentary bursts on inspiration and … sometimes they don't stick. Brain neurons don't spark like they used to and I forget! 
 
Most of you know I believe/read the Bible a lot and as a result, my rationale and reasoning or explanations may come across to others as somewhat “peculiar”. Like this particular thought. 
 
THOUGHT: Suppose global warming is actually global returning?


Ah hah! Think about it. 

 
When the earth was first created, Adam and Eve used to walk around in their birthday suits. Naked! The reason they were given clothes didn't have anything to do with a change in the weather. Also, Noah preaching about a coming flood was disregarded by the masses because it had never rained before! Water had never come down from the sky! It would take faith to believe such a thing could happen. 
 
So if, in the beginning, man and woman were able to walk around au naturel , that must mean that the weather was terrific! All the time! Everywhere on planet earth !!

So today it like 72 degrees in Austin, Texas and it really should be a little chilly. After all, it's January!

• Maybe global warming is not disastrous.
• Maybe it's a good thing.
• Maybe … ? Our weather is just going back to the way it was in the beginning.
• Maybe … global warming is actually global returning. (O.o)

JAOOMPT! Just another one of my peculiar thoughts.


Good Day , Monday | Forward this Image

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

Chehre Jo Dekhe Hain - What's Your Rashee? | Priyanka Chopra

My previous post about Priyanka Chopra Music Crossover Efforts was well received by my blog visitors.  So I decided to publish another one.

This post shines the spotlight on a particular music video from the movie "What's Your Raashee?".  It is one of my favorites because it shows Ms. Chopra's character range and versatility as an actress/singer/dancer.  

What say you? Agree or Disagree.

In "What's Your Raashee?," Priyanka Chopra became the first actress in the world to portray twelve distinct characters in one film. https://t.co/8p9YV6FZgR

— Wikipedia (@Wikipedia) July 17, 2018

(Image credit:  Alchetron.com and MelodyBuzz.com)

What's Your Raashee (English Subtitled)

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WAH! On Top of WAH! Another Weekend!

WAH! WAH!! No. That's not my imitation of a crying baby. :) 
 
For the past couple of months my major work-at-home (WAH) project has been republishing content and updating links at my various blogs, especially incorrect affiliate links that redirect clickers elsewhere! Then on January 30, 2016, PersonaPaper (my favorite social blogging community) announced they will no longer be accepting members and plan to shut down. Tried to back up my posts and this is now another "To Do" project:  Find PP Content New Home.

"An online entrepreneur's work is never done."
Wonder who said that.  (???)  Oh!  Yeah!  It was me!

Have created several potential residual income streams – Tsū , myLot , my blogs at - Tumblr, BlogJob and Blogger (or Blogspot ), and online writing communities like  DailyTwoCents , HUBPages , Wizzley, etc.

Creating them is one thing.

Keeping up with them is another.

It's clear to me that my “To Do List” should be more organized, in order for me to accomplish more. So that's my project to help me with my home business projects. Create an organized achievable prioritized list of "I Will DO ALL of This!" items.
 
Great! Just what I needed! Another WAH project! :)
 
WAH! WAH!! :) 


glitter-graphics.com

Top Ten Popular Posts at My BlogJob Site

Criss-crossing the reports on my blogging adventures. (Plan to write a similar report of this blog's activities for my followers and friends at the other site.) Currently publishing a blog as a part of a global blogging social community. It was free to join. Members can participate in forums, groups, make friends, create multiple sites, etc. Found a review of this site dated May 2014 which supplies a really good description of how the community works.

"The site integrates a social aspect with blogs. It provides all the tools to setup any type of blog using WordPress compatible widgets and themes. … It's an amalgamation of social networking and blogging with a twist; the ability to earn points. BlogJob isn't the type of site where you'll earn a living, but it's an innovative idea, fun and completely free. ..." - See more at: *UPDATE* Let's review a freelance writing site: BlogJob

Blog Title: Cmoneyspinner Keeps on Blogging

Tagline: Let the blogging adventures continue.

User name: @cmoneyspinner

Post Archive Dates:  Sep 2015 – Feb 2016

Total Number of Posts: 55

As of today, Feb 23, 2016, these are my Top Ten Most Popular Posts ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

• Blogging Tips for Newbies: Blog Monetization

• Create a Free Website with Weebly.com
  
  
• Are young people worse off today than previous generations?
• Desserts Featuring My Secret Ingredient - Cool Whip!
• Free Images for Websites and Blogs
• From DIE-ary to Diary and Beyond!
• Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Inner Peace
  
  
• No I Don't Know! But I'm Not Running for President!
• Webnuggetz.com – The Other Shopping Channel
• Who Qualifies As a Talented Photographer?
  

Movie Reviews of 3 Days to Kill & Pompeii (Reblog)

This content moved to our partner blog.  Please visit.

Cool Down Up North - Dee's Dialogue - maa organics (Reblog)

Shared this lovely image (below) via Pinterest years back. Was reviewing some of my pins to my board for general healthcare and came across this one. The link had changed which sent me into full blown panic mode!  (Right.  A shared pin on how to relieve stress and I'm freaking out!) Searched for this diligently and found it. Corrected the original source link for my pin but as an added step and blogged this post. Don't want to lose it again! Australia is on my bucket list of Places I'd to Go and if I ever get there, will have to visit Tropical North Queensland. :)
 

FYI. The link that had changed led me to this nice lady's new blog maa organics. Fortunately her posts from her old blog were still available to the public. Love both blogs!! They're absolutely fabulous!

*  January 26th is  AUSTRALIA DAY!! *

Cool Down Up North - Dee's Dialogue

 

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StatsCrop.com - Web Analysis for Scoop.it

See on Scoop.it - Work From Home

Scoop.it stats - web age: 6 years, alexa rank: #589, load time: 2.468 seconds, server location: Europe, last updated: 19 Feb 2014.

Treathyl Fox's insight:

Would you like to know your site's SEO score? Would like to know how to optimize your site and improve its rankings? Have you ever heard of StatsCrop.com? Get help exploring your website's history and monitoring its performance plus get tips on how to improve and increase your SEO score. For a free analysis, the display of critical information is remarkably informative. Just put the word "scoop.it" in the search box. As a test, I asked for Scoop.it results. I wasn't proud enough to show the results for some of my own websites. But now that I found this helpful tool which suggested that a few things on my websites needed "fixing", one day my horn will be tooting real loud!

See on www.statscrop.com

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My Pick for Infographic of the Day From Manta.com - Freedom & Independence

Mea culpa! Mea culpa! Apologizing to Manta.com for not spreading the love. In my defense? 

• Excuse #1: A newbie (or inexperienced entrepreneur) to the world of online business.

• Excuse #2: Home business blogs were not up and running - at the time when my websites were listed in their directory back in 2011.

Four years later, on a roll with my homebiz projects and know enough now to let others know that if you are a small business owner, home business entrepreneur, WAHM, whatever! ... Take advantage of the resources and services this company has to offer. Sharing this gem from their blog, my pick as an "Infographic of the Day".

If you are an American small business person and don't get to watch CNBC (or any other business new channel, for that matter), then you should follow the Manta blog. It will keep you informed and current.

Isn't this infographic awesome?

2014, Millennials and the American Dream - Manta.com

NOTE: Content first posted Oct 2014 at a blog that is no longer published. Republishing at My Blog Stop! as it is still relevant.

What is a Subscriber?

See the little chicklet with the red heart? I use the Google FeedBurner tool to burn feeds for my various blogs. There are several ways to get people to subscribe to your blog feed. This little chicklet is just one of them.

I'm okay with the chicklet and I really really love the Feedburner. But I noticed something interesting about "My Feeds" almost right from the very start. The Subscriber count.


Yeah. (???) The number looks ... questionable? ... unreasonable? ... mysterious?


I'm going to settle on the word "squirrelly". Even though my spellchecker indicates that it's not a word.


The numbers don't make sense! So I'm thinking, they must be some sort of secret code and I've always had my theory about Rocky and Bullwinkle. So that's why I decided "squirrelly" was the best way to describe my subscriber count.


Anyway I found the answer to my puzzle, as to why the numbers look unreal.

• This is the Google Support Team's explanation to: What is a Subscriber? How does FeedBurner tally them?

I am so glad that I read the response, because it clarifies everything!!


Love the Feedburner tool. It is a valuable helpful tool and I will continue to use it until Google tells me it's no longer free or for whatever reason or for no reason at all, I just won't be allowed to use it. It's theirs. They own it. They can tell me to take a hike!


But I don't think I'm going to rely on the number of subscribers who supposedly hold their breath and wake up each morning checking their eMail messages or waiting to receive notifications that I've published another blog post!!


WHY? Because based on the response I read.

THE NUMBER IS BOGUS!! 

 

My Twitter Weekend Wrap-Up

Paper.li is a tool that helps you publish your own online newspaper. How cool is that? You can create and publish your very own "Daily Planet" with news items of interest to you that might be of interest to other readers also.

So far I've generated four different papers - covering topics like freelance writing, Pinterest, home business or work at home articles, tips, etc.

• Supplying the link to the April 26^th edition of My Twitter Weekend Wrap-Up.

Using the Paper.li publishing tool, each week (set to the date to every Sunday), a newspaper is published which summarizes my Twitter activity - not all, just some highlights.

This week's publication for Sunday, April 26, these are the headlines:

• 10 Businesses You Can Run from Anywhere on Earth (And Start Today)
• Confessions of a Cookbook Collector
• Naples: The Birthplace of the Modern Pizza
• Citrine Earrings
• The Best Thai in Middle Tennessee

You an also look at some of the previously published editions by clicking on the Archives. They aren't all Sunday editions. Tried different days and then finally settled on Sunday mornings. You can subscribe to receive weekly updates via eMail, if you like.

FOLLOW ON TWITTER:  By the way, if you have a Twitter account and want me to follow your tweets, feel free to leave your handle or Twitter name in the comments.

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