Afshine Emrani

The heart squeezes to pump oxygenated blood to the rest of the body creating the systolic pressure, and it relaxes to receive deoxygenated blood creating the diastolic pressure. Even in the so-called relaxed state, there is a pressure. No pressure is not compatible with life! The same is true of our lives. There is an optimum form of stress under which we thrive. No stress is not compatible with accomplishment.

Lori Winston Follis

I just gave this advice to a far away friend interested in starting a yoga practice. I’m posting it in case others out there are possibly thinking yoga for the new year.

As a senior at Kailua High School I was introduced to yoga and played around with it off and on for years. I became an instructor about 16 years ago. My advice to you is to find a studio that has beginner classes and as you take some classes seek out the instructors that hands on help you with your postures by gently adjusting your form. Take it slow and allow your body to become stronger and more flexible on its own while encouraging it with with focused breathing rather than muscling your way through. I always tell my students not to be body bullies. There are many forms of yoga so try different types to find the one that suits you. Don’t let one class at one place turn you off. Try several. Most studios have free trial classes. Go to different places and take as many free classes as you can to get the experience you need to decide where you want to spend your money buying a package or joining a month to month program. Yoga can enhance your life but you can easily injure yourself. Be careful and patient so you can relax and enjoy a lifetime of it.

Justin Amler

So John Kerry is unhappy with Israel.

John Kerry is unhappy that Israel hasn’t listened to him.
John Kerry blames Israel for the lack of ‘peace.’
John Kerry says Israel must choose between ‘settlements’ or ‘peace.’
John Kerry says Israel is heading to a place of danger, because they aren’t listening to him – a Secretary of State whose crowning achievement is a flawed nuclear deal with a terrorist regime.

Israel must choose, he says; Israel and not the Palestinians who reject every possibility of peace there’s ever been while inciting their people for a future driven only by violence and murder.

John Kerry, as usual, is wrong, driven by delusions of grandeur and self-importance.

For him to stand up and blame Israel for the lack of peace is not about facts, but about a journey into the absurd and the preposterous.

No country has done more to achieve peace in the Middle East than Israel. No country has reached out to the world in more ways the way Israel has. No state has shown a commitment to achieving a better future than Israel. No country has done more self-harm to itself in order to reach for a dream that is simply not achievable at this point in time.

So for John Kerry, who knows nothing about Israel, its people, its dreams, its goals, its reality – to stand and judge the State of Israel is simply  testimony to the foolishness and naivety of the way he views the world.

No country is perfect, and yet the State of Israel remains largely a successful country, despite the advice of John Kerry. The State of Israel continues to achieve, despite John Kerry‘s ‘lamentations.’ The State of Israel is getting stronger, despite John Kerry‘s ‘analysis.’

John Kerry fears for Israel‘s future, but fear not John, because a thousand years from now, the name Israel will be known throughout history, etched in the unbreakable stone of time, while John Kerry and his ‘warnings’ will be a footnote in an academic journal of the past, gathering dust in a lonely bookshelf that no one visits.

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