Happiness Readings and The Three Princes of Serendip

In culling out old links, I isolated Mind Shadows posts on happiness. They are an eclectic lot, about aspects of the subject.  What you will discover for yourself will be a case of serendipity, the term coined by Hugh Walpole about the story of the Three princes of Serendip, who discovered by accident. Enough of that. Enjoy the serendipity. Here are the Mind Shadow links:

What Happened to The Women Involved?: Feminism and Abu Ghraib

Feminism and Abu Ghraib Prison

England and Charles Graner
Give Thumbs Up

Of the seven U.S. soldiers charged with sickening forms of abuse in Abu Ghraib, three were women: Spc. Megan Ambuhl, Pfc. Lynndie England and Spc. Sabrina Harman.

Abu Ghraib tells us that as Barbara Ehrenreich put it years back in the New York Times,  "a uterus is not a substitute for a conscience."

Barbara Ehrenreich:

"The photos did something else to me, as a feminist: They broke my heart. I had no illusions about the U.S. mission in Iraq — whatever exactly it is — but it turns out that I did have some illusions about women.

Lost at Sea: Richard Halliburton's Wildly Improbable Life and Some Who Knew Him

Richard Halliburton's Wildly Improbable Life

In the human scheme of things, some are born lucky, some less lucky, and some unlucky.   None of us chose to be born nor did we choose the circumstances of our birth.

By accident Richard was born with a predisposition he valued highly, knowing he was lucky.  Of his "restless nature" he wrote, "I'm very grateful, because I wouldn't take $1,000,000 for it."  It was precious to him because he had visions of the possible where others saw only walls.

He was extraordinarily gifted in disposition—his life attests to that, as it is one that few are able to parallel.  People could only read about all he did and saw because they were bound to the morning coffee and evening newspaper of their days.  In Halliburton they found somebody who had slipped the bonds holding them and with sometimes wild energy delighted in a life that for them was not only improbable but impossible.

In the 1920s and 1930s Richard Halliburton was one of the most famous persons in America, even more than Amelia Earhart, and today he is forgotten.

Pancho Barnes' Wildly Unusual Life, Her Battle With US Air Force, & Richard Halliburton

(Not to mention that she knew John Wayne, General Jimmy Doolittle, Test Pilot Chuck Yeager, Aimee Semple McPherson, and many movie stars.Read on.)

The man who would pilot Richard’s biplane on their round-the-world flight, Moye Stephens brought Richard to Pancho Barnes' San Marino mansion. Stephens knew Pancho as a fellow pilot.

In a Sunday, November 20, 1932 letter from Hollywood, Richard wrote his parents that on Saturday afternoon he went to visit Pancho Barnes, “the woman flyer I’m so fond of, and she took me to Ramon Novarro’s, a lot of drunk movie people were there, so we left early.” Such a good boy, he. The line was clearly for mom and dad.

Stephens was about to marry an Italian contessa. Richard added that on December 4th he would be taking her to Moye’s wedding, although he would miss it, “an especially fine one.”

Richard had already met Hollywood’s Roman Novarro, who became another romantic interest in his life.

Slum Golf

"Anil Bajrang Mane grew up in a slum in Chembur, a suburb of Mumbai. His home – a single 10ft x 10ft room – was right over the wall from the 10th hole of the members-only Bombay Presidency Golf Club, which sprawls across 100 acres of land: prime real estate in a city where the average population density is 31,700 people per sq km.

When Mane was just 14, he dropped out of school to become a caddie on the other side of the wall. But it wasn’t until three years later, when he was 17, that he took his first swing, when a club member handed him a 7 iron and told him to have a go. The 150-yard shot changed his life, he says: he realised golf was his shot at fame and glory, the chance of a better life.

There was only one problem: the club didn’t allow caddies to play on the course, insisting it would detract from its “exclusivity”. Mane earned his livelihood in a world that wouldn’t allow him to participate. Every night, he would cross back from the verdant, genteel club into his own world of single-room tenements, corrugated tin rooftops and poverty.

'My mother’s health was frail and my father had suffered burns when a kerosene stove burst in our kitchen,” he says. “I had no option but to give up school and take up work.' " The Guardian

Jill Price: At What Cost Super-Memory?

In an old vaudeville routine, a straight man asks his partner, "Who was the lady
you were with at 7:18 pm on the night of July 23, 1903?" to which the comic, scratches his head, looks puzzled at the audience, then answers, "That was no lady. That was my wife."

The audience laughed partly because of the improbability of remembering specifics of an exact date and time, and partly because of the unexpected reply.

When Jill Price is asked such a question, unlike vaudeville audiences people don't laugh at all.  They are astounded by her memory.  She can recite details of the days of her life since she was fourteen years old, be they sad or happy. The details can be what she had for dinner or saw on the TV.