 | “Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig. I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.” – EPICTETUS |
Pipeline explosion in Lagos, Nigeria exposes NNPC criminal negligence after BBC Eye investigation says CAPPA
Reinforcing the need to hold the NNPC accountable for the Abule Ado incident, he insisted that NNPC needs to tell the truth.
This Day in History: September 28
1542 1542 – California “discovered”. Explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, known as the “discoverer” of California, landed this day in 1542 near what is now San Diego and became the first European to set foot on the west coast of what would become the United States.
1958 – Madagascar voted for autonomy within the French Community.
WE ARE VICTIM OF OUR OWN FEELINGS, EMOTIONS
No situation is good or bad, we often heard time is big thing and everyone should wait for the right time or time is a healer and many more depending upon everyone’s experience. But unfortunately they ignore the root cause which is feeling and emotions upon which they decide the event/situation/circumstances favorable or not favorable. If they understand the concept that everything revolves around their feelings and emotions attached to the event then picture will be different. Sadly, we have one permanent default mode setting of one feeling only be it any event/situation we are not going to change that default feeling and emotion. So help me to understand how is it possible to look at things from different perspective with same feelings and emotions always. Let us assume that default feeling and emotion is destination and event/situation/circumstances are different path to your destination.So it hardly matters wherever or whenever…
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CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS
100 dollar question is How to control emotions in general our behaviors are controlled by our emotions. When there is an emotional wave during certain moments just take few steps to calm your heightened breathe and quiet your uneasy mind. After that moment is over you will be grateful that you master the skill of controlling your emotions.
There is no doubt that our emotions dictate our thoughts, intentions, and actions. If we act on emotions quickly or we take action on the wrong kind of emotions sometimes we have to repent in the future for our actions based on specific emotions. Controlling the emotions never meant to stop celebrating joy, happiness, love, or success but it means controlling the negative emotions. It is only negative emotions that we need to handle with extreme care.
Our mind needs conditioning daily to recognize and control negative emotions. But the point is…
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Want More Blog Followers? Here’s What You Do…
Date: August 24, 2020 Author: Sasmita Patnaik
In our online journey, one of the first steps a lot of us have taken is our own blog. While it is easy to start a blog using either WordPress or Blogspot, keeping it relevant, and thriving with a loyal following is something that is quite tricky. In today’s post, let us examine ways and means by which you can optimise your blog. Optimise it in order to attract new followers, retain and re-market content to loyal followers and help monetise your blog, thus keeping it as a viable source of additional income.
1. SEO isn’t everything, but it counts for a lot.
We’ve all heard ‘experts’ talk about SEO and leave us more confused than clear as to what this is all about. In simple terms, SEO is strategic optimisation of your content by using short and long-tail keywords, which makes it easier for web crawlers of search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo, to scroll through your content and enable it to rank higher in online searches. So let’s examine how you can do this.
- When writing an article, the first step is to make it SEO worthy by integrating the keyword or keyword tail into your title. For instance this post is titled “Want more blog followers, here’s what you do…”, in this case, want more blog followers, is the long tail keyword as it addresses the reason people will be reading your article, and also the problem upfront. We have thus worked the keywords into the title, making it keyword rich.
- When working on your content, use paragraph breaks. When using WordPress, this is a lot easier, as it suggests different kinds of paragraph titles, in terms of Headline, Subheadline and other formatting options.
- Free plug-ins like Yoast SEO and others built custom for WordPress are invaluable. So once you’ve written your content, a quick look at the Yoast SEO plugin will tell you how you’ve scored. It’s colour coded, with red for bad, orange for okay and green for good. Edit your content to get it into the ‘green’ zone as much as possible. If it is either in red or orange, the plugin enables you to trim your content with helpful hints. It also helps you keep an eye out for faux-pas including unnecessarily long sentences, bad grammar, and tense mistakes etc.
- Post your content on social media
If content is fire, social media is the fuel. Well written, helpful content is the need of the hour on social media and can play a huge role in helping your blog attract new followers. Consistent updates on your social media handles, for content posted on your blog, will also impact your SEO score, as web crawlers also track how widespread your reach and posting frequency is. With just a little spend on social media websites including Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn you can also promote your blog to newer audiences. However if you do not want to spend money on FB ads, another way to attract more followers to your blog from social media is to post your blog content (with permission & only once) in influential groups. Just make sure you do so once, but in several groups. Oversharing can be considered spamming by group administrators and can have you banned.
- It’s called a headline for a reason
A headline is essentially what draws people into an article. Of course without the substance to back it up, the article will fall flat. A headline serves two simple purposes. It draws a reader in, and it bulks up your SEO score. So while you’re crafting a headline, a rule of thumb you need to remember is, less is more; with a caveat. That being that it needs to be interesting. Click bait headlines are amazing to draw in readers. Click-baits are over the top headlines that can arrest a viewer’s attention through the sea of information on social media. These are crafted for shock value and to gain attention. For instance, if your article is about diamonds, a worthy click bait would be, “She saw something sparkling on the pavement, you’ll never believe what she found!” The article then would have to be tailored to suit this ‘mini-story’ you’ve given in, at headline stage. Another way of attracting attention is a straightforward approach. A headline like, ‘10 amazing facts about diamonds you didn’t know!” Click bait or straightforward, headlines are powerful tools that you can choose to employ to drive traffic to your blog.
- Don’t let yours be the ‘Only’ voice on the blog
Variety is the spice of life, and nowhere is this axiom more apt, than in writing content for your blog. Keep an open mind about this. As writers we sometimes tend to be quite selfish when it comes to sharing space with co-creators. A healthy blog is home to several perspectives, oftentimes differing ones. For instance, if you run a blog about tech, you cannot just have glowing things to say about one type of mobile operating system. You can, but then again, it wouldn’t be a well visited site. However, if you have a perspective on one mode of tech, inviting fellow writers to voice their opinions on their favoured mode of tech, will suddenly give your readers something new and wholly complete to look forward to. Besides, collaborations open up your avenues of sharing content. How? Well you control the medium on which the co-creator has hosted his content. And thus he too will have to share links to this content on his social handles, doubling your chances of a new viewer coming over to your blog to read stuff there.
- Concentrate on User Interface
Being writers we can often skip on details like User Interface. UI as it is popularly known, is the way in which users interact with your blog. There needs to be a progression that they follow. It needs to be simple to navigate. It needs to have prompts, leading them to navigate from one page, seamlessly into another. Helpful blocks of content, with suggestions that can easily be programmed in WordPress by you, yourself, like ‘You may also like’ or ‘People also read’ make the site a lot more user friendly. Here’s a pro-tip: When starting your blog, spend a little bit of time and money and engage with a web-designer who has the chops for your preferred blog platform. Empower him to either choose the right theme for your needs or in consultation with you, scroll through various sites that you can use as a template.
- It is 2020, wake up to video
Video logging or Vlogging as it is popularly known is the future of blogging. Whether you choose to live stream your content or create a channel on YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion or simply host it on your blog, video is definitely the way to go. For starters investing in a good smartphone with a decent array of cameras is the best way to create your content. From a monetising perspective, whether through ads or subscriptions, video is definitely more lucrative than any other format. Video is also easily shareable on social media, can be repurposed from time to time and has more enduring engagement with viewers.
- Make your content easily shareable
This isn’t rocket science. Simple social badges for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn are a matter of hygiene and should always be incorporated into your blog. With a simple click your content can be shared with new potential followers by existing followers.
- Keep improving on your content
When you have written or recorded content, always ask yourself what’s next? If, for instance, you’re writing a blog post always check your blog stats, on Google or Yoast. The interactivity, click through rate, number of comments, bounce rate (how many and how frequently are visitors leaving the page) and other stats will help you optimise your content. Choose topics that you can research well. If you have a forte, like technology, lifestyle or any other domain, orient your content towards your strong suit. That doesn’t mean you cannot venture into other domains. It simply means you need to master them, one at a time.
- Interact with readers/viewers
Comments from readers or viewers are like manna from heaven. It means that people are interacting with your content long enough to agree or disagree with you. This is a dream scenario for any blogger. Leaving comments unattended either on social or your blog is criminal. Comments are a potent feedback tool and can help steer your content in a positive direction. They also mean that you’re doing something right. Especially content that probes you for more information can be used to generate blog topics for future posts.
Bullies Don’t Accept Anyone Different from Them. What is Hate-Transfer?
Chateau Cherie
You’ve heard of addiction-transfer- when an addict replaces one addiction with another (for example, the addiction to food is replaced with an addiction to alcohol). But what about hate-transfer?
Here’s an explanation. I’ll use my school bullies as examples.
Many of my bullies in high school were stone-cold racists. However, they couldn’t express that hate to minorities because even during the ’80s and early ’90s, open racism was taboo. So, they simply replaced that hatred with that of the mentally ill and disabled, the indigent and out-of-town people.
I know they were racists because, on many occasions, they bullied me because having been a military brat and been around people of all races and creeds, I had no qualms with associating with people of all races. I accepted everyone because I’ve always believed we are all one race- the human race!
However, in Oakley, Tennessee, people frowned on this and not only people of my race but others as well.
I also overheard many private conversations among girls in the bathrooms. They’d make disgusting racial slurs and put down other races among themselves within the privacy and secrecy of their group, then in public, smile and give a friendly pat on the back to the very people they put down earlier. Sheesh! They would act like they were their best friends.
But wait! There’s more!
However, they were openly hateful to the kids in the Special Ed classes, who they referred to as “the retarded kids.” They also publicly bullied kids who were dirt poor and kids who weren’t originally from Oakley. And if you were gay back then, you never let it be known at Oakley High School.
You see, people such as these have to have someone to bully. If they can’t bully other races, they will bully the poor and destitute. If they cannot bully transexuals, they will bully the mentally disabled.
But wait! There’s more!
However, they were openly hateful to the kids in the Special Ed classes, who they referred to as “the retarded kids.” They also publicly bullied kids who were dirt poor and kids who weren’t originally from Oakley. And if you were gay back then, you never let it be known at Oakley High School.
You see, people such as these have to have someone to bully. If they can’t bully other races, they will bully the poor and destitute. If they cannot bully transexuals, they will bully the mentally disabled.
That is what hate-transfer is.
It’s having a hatred of anyone different from you but staying in the “safe zone” by only discriminating against those who aren’t as “protected.”
Prejudice against anyone should be illegal, and it is. However, bias against the poor or mentally disabled isn’t near as evident as bias against someone from a different race because anyone from any ethnicity can be poor or mentally incapacitated.
And skin color can be seen with the eyes. Poverty and mental disability are sometimes invisible to the eyes. You can be poor or have a mental disability. People can even know or suspect you may be poor or mentally disabled. But you don’t necessarily have to look that way.
Sadly, to have legal protections, your uniqueness to the majority must be seen with the eyes, and even then, it’s no guarantee you’ll have those protections.
Understand that most seasoned bullies hate anyone different from them. But they only harass the groups who have less legal protections and are “safest” and more socially acceptable to bully!
The Dangerous New Iran-Qatar-Turkey-Hamas Alliance
Abbas has already damaged the Palestinians’ relations with some Arab countries by condemning the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain for signing peace treaties with Israel…. Now it appears that the Palestinians are also headed toward ruining their
Forgive And Forget
Many people think that to “forgive and forget” means we have to selectively delete the offense from our memories and pretend it didn’t happen. Obviously, that’s impossible because our brains aren’t computer hard drives or gig sticks, we can just wipe clean. That will be pretence.
Of course, the Bible doesn’t use the phrase “forgive and forget,” but the implied concept is one of continual forgiveness without holding grudges. That is, when you forgive someone, it’s like you’re giving them a clean slate. Why should we give anyone a clean slate? Because God does. He pardons our sins and overlooks everything we do against Him so that we can gain an eternal inheritance. “He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in steadfast love.” (Micah 7:18)
God forgives our sins constantly, so why shouldn’t we do the same? If a friend has hurt me, and I have granted him/her forgiveness, I can no longer hold the offenses against the person. Even though I remember the issue that was so hurtful, I remember it with no weight, no pressure to hang on to it. I try to let it go and move on with life. Yes, it’s hard to do. We really like to bring up old stuff sometimes because that can cause the biggest sting. But bringing up past pain is never helpful to a friendship.
Boko Haram Attacks Borno Governor’s Convoy Again – 2nd Attack In 3 Days
By 
Boko Haram insurgents have again attacked the convoy of Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum.
The latest attack, which recorded no death, happened when his convoy was returning to Maiduguri on Sunday morning from Baga.
It happened about two kilometers away from Baga.
This comes within hours after Boko Haram attacked Zulum’s convoy on Friday, killing 30 persons, mainly security personnel, according to AFP.
The attack was said to have taken place between Monguno and Baga areas of the state.
This is the third time the governor’s convoy will be attacked by Boko Haram fighters in recent times around Baga.
In July the governor’s convoy was ambushed by ISWAP outside Baga, compelling him to cancel his trip to the town.
My Awesome Fearless Blog 