This is the Marrian web site. Sad to relate Mrs Marrian wants nothing to do with it. Her watercolours are beautiful but she's shy. She has many talents but she's still shy. She can't get away from the brilliance of her school though
I'm asked: why do you want the world to read about you? I'm even asked this by people with Facebook pages and lots of friends. It's a good question and I sometimes wonder myself. With social networking sites, you can control who partakes of your offerings; here you can't. But, I don't want to select who might or might not read these pages. The world is full of unknown people. There is stuff here; admittedly, it is my stuff or assembled by me but some of it might be helpful to somebody, or of interest. This is how I communicate. I don't like socialising; I'm no good at it; never was one of the boys. I used to like listening to the grown-ups talk; still do; just listening, not talking. The fact is, though, that nobody reads these pages; that's what the stats tell me; it's not that they come here and never return; they just never come here; it's the serendipity of it that I like. But most of all, I'm open to the world because it disciplines me; the writing, such as it is, is more considered, more thoughtful and better for that. It is cathartic. It is not for nothing that every page has at the top "include yourself amongst those you love". I must learn to love myself and being proud of what I write helps me to do that
In my estimation, there has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material – and that definitely includes the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. Snowden's whistleblowing gives us the possibility to roll back a key part of what has amounted to an "executive coup" against the US constitution.
Since 9/11, there has been, at first secretly but increasingly openly, a revocation of the bill of rights for which this country fought over 200 years ago. In particular, the fourth and fifth amendments of the US constitution, which safeguard citizens from unwarranted intrusion by the government into their private lives, have been virtually suspended....
Obviously, the United States is not now a police state. But given the extent of this invasion of people's privacy, we do have the full electronic and legislative infrastructure of such a state.... Snowden reveals that the so-called intelligence community has become the United Stasi of America.
Daniel Ellsberg