GEMMA BLACK : ARTIST / CALLIGRAPHER

To say I am fortunate is an understatement. Time and time again I find myself in the most wonderful of situations that allow me to experience extraordinary things.  What I love most is I am always ... always learning something new. Today for example I saw my first driver less car.  Never!!!! I could barely believe it.  Some one reading this in fifty to one hundred years time may chuckle and say "cars had drivers?" .  I am in Pittsburgh after all. I guess you could say today is day two of this particular journey. Day one was spent on a series of aircraft to get me from Tasmania to Pittsburgh USA. The route I like to take when traveling to the US is Sydney - Dallas avoiding that horrible commuter nightmare, LA.  All the flights went well, reasonably on time and smooth transitions. I am getting to know Dallas/Fort Worth very well and would highly recommend it.  For me it is a suitable hub for flying in from Australia and connects me to pretty well anywher...

The sickness gripping the world is not about good and evil, I think it is about sickness and health.  Overcoming sick desires to kill and maim for purposes one has convinced themselves is in the name of a god, allah, deity, avatar ... name it what you will may be able to be curbed over time with education, counseling for those lost nobodies who support these criminal barbaric acts. I feel it is too late for the perpetrators of these violent crimes to be rehabilitated but it is not too late for younger men & women who find themselves with these violent tendencies. As it appears there are consistent barbaric events perpetrated in the name of Allah, not always but mostly, both home grown and not. I believe, more and more emphasis should be placed on prevention rather than cure. A true health analogy. There will be no negotiating with perpetrators, their sickness is so great they intend to die. As I heard it this morning can not more young counselors be employed to work wi...