Many designers like flowers, and it shows in their work

Along with crocuses and daffodils comes another surefire sign of spring: florals in fashion.

The garden-party look is a seasonal classic, but there's been some updating this season. Look for artistic - almost abstract - brush-stroke technique, or realistic, photo-style prints. Other twists include tulip-style hemlines and fabric petals adorning everything from tank tops to ball gowns.

Flowers, say designers, are an endless source of inspiration because of their delicacy, femininity and beauty. And it turns out many fashion insiders are gardeners (or aspiring gardeners), too.

The AP asked designers who are offering florals in their spring collections about their favorite flowers:

Carmen Marc Valvo

Flowers creep into his clothes all the time, but there have been two specific flower-themed runway shows. One came after his treatment for cancer six years ago. He saw the rebirth of his peony trees as a hopeful sign, so he used pinks, chiffon petals and "dewdrops" of crystals.

A few years later he blew up Georgia O'Keefe-style flowers as prints.

"I was fixated by the way petals moved, and I started playing with organza like an origami rose," Valvo says.

The highlights of Valvo's actual garden include the Carmen rose and his peonies. Those peonies have taken him on a roller coaster of growing, thriving, shriveling up and once again blossoming. His orchids are also finicky, but Valvo now has a greenhouse for them.

"When they come back, it's very satisfying," he said.

Tracy Reese

Peonies are also a favorite for Reese. She said she likes that they evolve from such a compact ball into lovely layers as they blossom. They're also such a welcome sign of sunny days ahead after a long winter, Reese said.

In her work, though, Reese doesn't restrict herself to springtime blooms. Many of her fall collections, including the one just previewed at New York Fashion Week, will incorporate florals.

"It's hard to point to a season where we haven't used flowers for something - either shape, color, print," she said.

Florals are a staple of her wardrobe, and she likes to mix them with other prints.

"I'll wear florals and plaid, a striped sweater and a floral-print skirt, but sometimes there's nothing more beautiful than a spring garden dress."

Shoshanna Lonstein

Lonstein recently tossed the holiday paperwhites and moved on to cut gardenias and honeysuckle in the spirit of spring. Later in the season, the hydrangeas she planted will blossom. She loves having their cut flowers in the house.

She also grows tomatoes, but is a killer of orchids.

"I need to stick to the sturdier bushes," she saod.

You won't find watercolor florals in her designs either, but every collection has florals, including one lily of the valley print that was fashioned after her wedding bouquet.

She said florals look chic and sophisticated when they're anchored with black or on tailored pieces.

"You don't want too much fabric," she said. "Try sleeveless or the top part of dress that's floral with a black skirt or vice versa. If you pull one color out of the print and stick with it for the rest of the outfit, you'll have a nice balance."

Michael Smaldone, creative director at Talbots

"I'm a pink guy, but my favorite flower is an orange poppy," Smaldone said. "I love how they're both wild - with ugly leaves and hairy stems - and have a beautiful delicate flower."

His thumb is pretty green, he said.

"I like to get as tropical as I can in a nontropical location," he said. "My garden is very green, organic and has things with big leaves. There are poppies all over the place to give a burst of color."

He turned to a brush-stroke floral print for Talbots' spring line, though, because he thought that approach was very optimistic, something the fashion world needs right now.

But whatever the climate is for style trends, flowers always fit in, Smaldone said.

"You can do everything with them," he said. "They can fit into any trend: ethnic, watercolor, Impressionistic, pop art - you name it."

LeAnn Nealz, American Eagle design chief

Nealz said she loves white magnolias for their intoxicating scent, but ranunculus are her favorites because they're so cheerful.

"They look like they're made of hundreds of layers of brightly colored paper," she said.

Nealz interpreted sweet, small florals for spring onto a flirty daytime skirt as well as a day-to-night minidress. She used a more tropical flower for menswear on board shorts.

Janie Schoenborn, Lilly Pulitzer design director

Coming from a long line of gardeners - her father has a degree in landscape design, mom has a traditional English garden and Aunt Molly's specialty is tropicals - Schoenborn is trying to keep up the tradition with lilacs and syringas.

So far, she hasn't done a lilac print for Lilly Pulitzer, but a shade of lavender was just added to the label's palette so it probably won't be long until she tries one.

"Every spring is a floral bonanza for us," Schoenborn said. "We don't always do an exact replica of a flower. Right now we have an abstract orchid. There's a Queen Anne's lace that we hadn't done but will have for summer. ... We don't discriminate against any flowers, but we like 'pretty' so no cactuses, but we'll even do lemon and lime blossoms."

Peter Som

Som is yet another peony fan, and he also has a thing for green roses. There are some orchids in his house right now that he's trying to revive, but it's not going all that well.

"I wish I had a green thumb," he said.

His spring collection had an underlying vibe of Japanese woodcuts - and he found that all sorts of floral prints worked with it. The range included big-scale flowers to 1940s'-inspired painterly blooms.

"A flower is eternally beautiful," Som said, "and it really screams spring."

New baby marks sixth generation of Berks family

The baby that Mary W. Hahn held during a party earlier this month to celebrate her 100th birthday was particularly dear to her, as he represented the sixth generation of her large extended family.

Tiny Collin Podguski of Reading, who turned 1 month old the day of the party, rested peacefully in the arms of his great-great-great-grandmother, completely unaware of the significance of the event.

"He's so sweet," Mary said, as she cradled and rocked the baby.

Hahn, who lives in Sinking Spring with her 81-year-old daughter, Kathryn H. Styer, was feted at a party in St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Adamstown, Lancaster County.

More than 100 friends and relatives showed up to celebrate her birthday and the accomplishment of six generations of one family. They snapped photos, ate cake, drank punch and marveled at Hahn's long life.

She grew up in Alleghenyville and moved to East Earl Township in Lancaster County when she married her husband, Harvey, in 1929. She was married not quite two years when Harvey died as a result of blood poisoning, leaving Hahn pregnant with a son, also named Harvey. She also had a young daughter, Kathryn.

She never remarried and has lived with her daughter for 33 years. Hahn said she feels fortunate that she is in relatively good health and able to enjoy time with her family and friends. She and family members attribute her long healthy life, at least partially, to the fact that every day Hahn consumes the juice of a whole lemon.

"Every morning she cuts a lemon in half and squeezes all the juice out of it and drinks it," Styer said. "She's done that for 50 years, and that's what she says has kept her healthy."

Hahn also wears a copper bracelet to ward off arthritic pain.

"I don't have any pain from it, so I guess the bracelet works," she said.

The centenarian also is known for her healthy appetite. Family members observed that she keeps up with the younger folks when it comes to eating. In fact, she celebrated her 100th birthday in two different restaurants.

"We went to lunch at Shady Maple, and then in the evening we went to the Deluxe diner, and they had pie for me and sang 'Happy Birthday,' " Hahn said. "It was a good day."

Melo still eyes change for the better

Not long after George Karl made his triumphant return with a resounding victory over the Utah Jazz, the Denver Nuggets coach had an important announcement for the assembled media. Despite Carmelo Anthony’s(notes) well-chronicled efforts to push for a trade, Karl said, the Nuggets are ”going to keep him here whether he knows it or not.”

Anthony later laughed off his coach’s attempt at humor because that’s all it was – a joke. For all the goodwill inspired by the Nuggets’ season-opening rout of their Northwest Division rival, Anthony told Yahoo! Sports Wednesday night that he still doesn’t intend to sign the team’s three-year, $64 million contract extension.

Anthony actually considers these Nuggets more talented than the team he helped take to the 2009 Western Conference finals. But even that doesn’t seem enough to convince him to stay, despite the best intentions of Karl, Nuggets president Josh Kroenke and new vice president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri.

”They want to sit down and talk, but my thing is it’s way beyond this year,” Anthony told Yahoo! Sports after scoring a team-high 23 points in the Nuggets’ victory. ”It ain’t got nothing to do with the new GM, Josh, the players. For me, I feel it’s a time for change.

”If I do nothing now, I’m never going to do anything. I feel like my time is now to make a decision if I want to leave or if I want to stay.”

League sources still expect the Nuggets to try to trade Anthony rather than risk losing him for nothing when he can opt out of his contract at the end of the season. Denver’s options could improve after Dec. 15 when free agents who signed in the offseason can be traded. Sources close to Anthony say he is worried about being dealt to a team that has to gut its roster to acquire him. Possible trade partners also aren’t going to want to give up much for Anthony unless they receive some kind of assurance he’ll sign an extension. Another potential roadblock is the $1 million trade kicker Anthony has in his contract.

In July 2006, Anthony signed a five-year, $80 million contract extension that included an opt-out before the final season. He passed on taking a shorter deal like the ones that allowed his fellow draft class members LeBron James(notes), Dwyane Wade(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes) to become free agents this summer. At the time, Anthony called it a ”no-brainer” to take the guarantee of another year of salary – even though it limited his flexibility – because he still remembered how much his family struggled for money when he was growing up.

Four years later, Anthony no longer feels the pressure to take the maximum extension the Nuggets are offering.

”I can’t go out there playing and thinking like that,” he said. ”I won’t be able to be as effective as I can be out there thinking like that.”

Anthony has been interested in playing for the New York Knicks or Chicago Bulls, sources close to him said in September. The Bulls and Nuggets talked that month, league sources said, but the Nuggets didn’t have much interest in acquiring forward Luol Deng(notes) and his hefty contract, and the Bulls didn’t want to part with center Joakim Noah(notes). League sources also continue to say the Knicks don’t have the right pieces to put together a credible offer for Anthony.

The New Jersey Nets made a bid to land Anthony with a package built around rookie forward Derrick Favors(notes), but the Nuggets wanted to continue exploring their options. The Nuggets remain confident they can resume talks with the Nets at any time. One source close to Anthony, however, doesn’t think he has warmed much to the idea of playing for the Nets.

”Well, we have to see what happens,” Anthony said. ”I’m keeping my options open.”

Anthony didn’t have to endure any substantial heckling from Nuggets fans during the season opener. He heard ”a couple boos” when he missed two straight shots, but nothing that bothered him. When he wasn’t in the game, Anthony cheered for his teammates from the bench. With the Nuggets well on their way to routing the Jazz, he went to the sideline for good midway through the fourth quarter and received a strong ovation from the crowd.

Once the final buzzer sounded, Anthony walked to the locker room with his young son, Kiyan. Soon after, Anthony exchanged pleasantries with Ujiri.

”I looked at it like another game,” Anthony said. ”Another night.”

The question now: How many more nights will Anthony continue to wear a Nuggets uniform?

Hot car can be deadly for dogs

If you've ever left your dog in the car for "just five minutes" on a summer day, the officers of the Washington Humane Society want you to hear some cautionary tales.

"They all say the same thing: 'I never thought that this would happen,' " said Mitchell Battle, deputy director of humane law enforcement at the Washington Humane Society. " 'I was only going to be gone for two minutes.' "

But just running inside for a quick errand can be deadly to your pet - even if the weather isn't all that hot.

In one fatal incident Battle responded to, the temperature was only in the 70s. A woman stopped at home, parked in the shade and came out after what she said was 15 minutes. By the time officers got there, the shade had moved, turning the car into what officer Eve Russell calls "a solar powered Easy-Bake oven."

Everyone has opened a car door and been amazed by how much hotter it is than outside - but you may not realize exactly how hot a car can get. Check out the numbers at the Web site mydogiscool.com, a program of United Animal Nations. When it's 72 degrees, a car in direct sun can reach an internal temperature of 116. Even in the shade, a car can be 10 to 20 degrees hotter than outdoors, and cracking the window has almost no effect.

Veterinarian Cate Rinaldo, a volunteer with United Animal Nations, points out that dogs don't have sweat glands all over their bodies like humans do, so the main way they can cool off is by panting, which isn't very efficient.

Once a dog's body temperature gets over about 106 - normal temperature is around 101 - the result is "everything from nerve damage, heart problems, liver damage, systemic organ failure, and it happens fast, within a matter of minutes," she said.

Summer is also vacation season, and the Washington officers are often called to cases where people travelling with their dogs tried to use the car to extend their stay by a few hours.

"They check out of their hotel at noon and they still want to go to the zoo or a museum, and they leave Fluffy in the car," said officer Ann Russell.

Remember that one more museum isn't worth the risk to your pet's life - and that cars are not the only place where dogs can get overheated. Rinaldo said before she was a vet and knew of the dangers, one of her dogs collapsed from heat exhaustion after playing off-leash on a 75-degree day.

That dog survived, but not all are so lucky. One 90- degree day in the San Bernadino mountains, Andy Hoodward of Orange, Calif., was flagged down by a couple carrying their dog in a backpack.

"The woman explained that they had set out hiking in the morning but a couple of miles in, the dog had become lethargic, unresponsive and would neither walk nor drink," Hoodward said.

The couple were also in bad shape, and Hoodward drove them to a ranger's station, but it was too late for the dog, which died on the trip.

And officers say anyone can be the victim of inattention or miscalculation. Russell tells of one woman who worked with autistic children and was a volunteer guide dog puppy raiser - "the most responsible person you can imagine," she said. In an emergency with one of the children, the woman accidentally left a puppy in a car and it died.

Even indoors, it can get too hot for some animals. Battle tells of an elderly, overweight beagle that died of heat exhaustion in his own home; sadly, the house did have central air conditioning but the owners hadn't left it on since there were no people home.

Be especially careful if you confine your dog to a crate or one area of the house, and he's not free to seek a cooler spot. If you leave your dogs outside, even on a patio or deck, make sure they have shade all day and remember that the sun moves. Use a tarp or awning to shade the spot, and perhaps reconsider whether your dogs might be happier indoors.

"Go out there barefoot and step on the concrete where your dogs are," Battle said. "It's not as comfortable as you think it is."

Michelin Stars Draw Shots

Michelin's latest dining guide dished out heaping servings of three-star reviews to restaurants in western Japan—raising objections from Western and Japanese chefs alike and sparking grumbling over whether the high ratings are merited.
In a 511-page volume published Friday, the restaurant-review arm of France's Michelin awarded its highest rating to 12 restaurants in the Kansai region, a cradle of Japanese cuisine that encompasses Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe. That gives the three-city area more three-star ratings—haute cuisine's answer to the Oscar—than any place on the planet, ahead of Tokyo's 11, Paris's 10 and New York's five.

Though France overall still has the most of Michelin's highest-rated restaurants—26—that is likely to shift next month when Michelin publishes its 2011 Tokyo guide, said a person familiar with the matter. Soon, it will be official: Japan is the world's new gastronomic capital.
Or is it? The generous distribution of stars has prompted a snarky backlash among some Western critics and celebrity chefs, whose collective egos can be larger than a croquembouche. Some have said Michelin is showering stars upon Japan in an attempt to gain favor in a brand-conscious, France-loving country where it wants to sell not only culinary guides, but automobile tires.
"Is that good marketing for the guide, or what?" asks chef Daniel Boulud, whose Manhattan restaurant, Daniel, is one of New York's five three-star restaurants.
Many Japanese chefs, especially in the Kansai region, say they never courted this attention. Even a single Michelin star can be seen as a curse by the Japanese: Their restaurants are for their customers. Why cook for a room full of strangers? Even worse: crass foreigners.
"It is, of course, a great honor to be included in the Michelin guide. But we asked them not to include us," says Minoru Harada, an affable young Osaka chef. His Sakanadokoro Koetsu, a fish restaurant with a counter and 10 seats, just earned a single star, its first. Loyal customers have sustained the restaurant over the years, he says, adding: "If many new customers come, it is difficult."
There is nary a Philippe Starck chair in sight at Mr. Harada's homey restaurant. During lunch late last week, customers' bento boxes shared counter space with an enormous bunch of fresh maitake mushrooms, simmered vegetables left to cool in a giant Tupperware container and a newspaper-wrapped fish.

For a Michelin-starred restaurant in France, this could be perceived as an unhygienic assault on the senses. But customers here couldn't care less, chatting quietly with Mr. Harada while popping delicately seared bonito slices into their mouths.
"This is really amazing," chirps a middle-aged suited executive, a regular.
Amazing it may be, but detractors say the global tire giant has been generous with its ratings to pump up its primary business.
"It's easy: You win over the hearts of the Japanese by saying nice things about them, you get access to their wallets and you sell tires," said Pascal Rémy, a former Michelin inspector and author of the 2004 book "L'Inspecteur se Met à Table" (The Inspector Spills the Beans).
In an interview, Mr. Rémy alleged that since 2002, the guide has been increasingly used to raise Michelin's profile in foreign markets as its standards have fallen. Mr. Rémy's contract with Michelin was terminated in 2003.
Michelin says Mr. Rémy wasn't privy to its strategic plans and was gone well before the first Japan guide was launched in 2007. "It's ridiculous. It's not true at all," a spokeswoman said. She declined to provide reasons for Mr. Rémy's termination.
Jean-Luc Naret, the director of the Michelin guides, says Michelin's interests are purely gastronomic. "We never give stars to a restaurant just to sell a book," he said in an interview this week in Tokyo.

Top Western chefs are nearly unanimous in praising the quality of Japan's food and the unparalleled devotion of its chefs. But they say that while many Japanese chefs are innovative, they are best known for recreating their own ancient traditions or imitating the great international cuisines. Many U.S. and European chefs point out that they face challenges Japanese chefs often don't: Their restaurants are expected to break new culinary ground, and serve the result to a relatively large number of patrons.
Philip Howard, whose London restaurant, The Square, holds two stars, points out that some of Japan's top ratings go to small spots. Running a larger establishment, he says, "is a different kettle of fish."
Guy Job questions whether Michelin applies the same standards world-wide. Mr. Job, the deputy managing director of the Collège Culinaire de France, a group that promotes French gastronomy, recalls his disappointment at one Michelin-starred spot in Japan.
"It was next to a subway entrance. You couldn't even sit down properly," Mr. Job said of the restaurant, which he declined to name. "I know that I am a bit old school—but still, there are limits."
A Michelin spokeswoman said comparing Japan and France is impossible. "More stars in Japan does not mean that food here is better than that in France," she said, adding that Tokyo has 160,000 restaurants, compared with Paris's 15,000.
While Tokyo is known for its sophisticated international fare, Osaka has long been regarded as the country's culinary belly, featuring everything from street fare such as takoyaki—grilled balls of batter and octopus—to traditional kaiseki cuisine, with its multiple carefully presented courses that incorporate freshest seasonal ingredients.
Until Michelin released its first guide to the Osaka area a year ago, stars have meant little here.
"I had heard about the Michelin guide from friends who had studied in France," said Chef Hideaki Matsuo, who has served local cuisine, such as squid with apricot-pulp sauce, for 30 years. Last year, he received his first Michelin rating, two stars. Last Friday, Michelin upgraded him to three. "To be honest, I never thought I would be awarded with this honor."
Mr. Matsuo says his bookings have increased 10% to 15% since his inclusion last year. Now, he's bracing for more.
"One of my friends in Kobe said his phone was ringing off the hook after he was awarded three stars," he said. "I can see how chefs might be worried about that—because it gives you less time to focus on the food."

Life Story

As a pioneer in both financial investment and philanthropy, the late Sir John Templeton spent a lifetime encouraging open-mindedness. If he had not sought new paths, he once said, "I would have been unable to attain so many goals." The motto that Sir John created for his Foundation, "How little we know, how eager to learn," exemplified his philosophy both in the financial markets and in his groundbreaking methods of philanthropy.

John Marks Templeton was born on November 29, 1912, in the small town of Winchester, Tennessee. He followed in his brother's footsteps and attended Yale University, supporting himself during the Depression and graduating in 1934 near the top of his class and as President of Phi Beta Kappa. He was named a Rhodes Scholar to Balliol College at Oxford, from which he graduated with a degree in law in 1936.

Templeton started his Wall Street career in 1938 and went on to create some of the world's largest and most successful international investment funds. He took the strategy of "buy low, sell high" to an extreme, picking nations, industries, and companies hitting rock-bottom, what he called "points of maximum pessimism." When war began in Europe in 1939, he borrowed money to buy 100 shares each in 104 companies selling at one dollar per share or less, including 34 companies that were in bankruptcy. Only four turned out to be worthless, and he turned large profits on the others.

Templeton entered the mutual fund industry in 1954, when he established the Templeton Growth Fund. With dividends reinvested, each $10,000 invested in the Templeton Growth Fund Class A at its inception would have grown to $2 million by 1992, when he sold the family of Templeton Funds to the Franklin Group. In 1999, Money magazine called him "arguably the greatest global stock picker of the century."

But John Templeton's interests were never confined to the merely financial. An unfailing optimist, a believer in progress, and a relentless questioner and contrarian, he devoted the second half of his long life to promoting the discovery of what he called "new spiritual information." To his mind, this term encompassed progress in understanding not only matters usually considered religious but also the deepest realities of human nature and the physical world—that is, subjects best investigated by using the tools of modern science. Templeton was convinced that our knowledge of the universe was still very limited. His great hope was to encourage all of humanity to be more open-minded about the possible character of ultimate reality and the divine.

In 1972, he established the world's largest annual award given to an individual, the Templeton Prize, which honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension. Its monetary value, currently £1,000,000, always exceeds that of the Nobel Prizes, which was Templeton's way of underscoring his belief that advances in the spiritual domain are no less important than those in other areas of human endeavor. Templeton also contributed a sizable amount of his assets to the John Templeton Foundation, which he established in 1987. That same year, he was created a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II for his many philanthropic accomplishments. (In the late 1960's, he had moved to Nassau, the Bahamas, where he became a naturalized British citizen.)

Although Sir John was a Presbyterian elder and active in his denomination (also serving on the board of the American Bible Society), he espoused what he called a "humble approach" to theology. Declaring that relatively little is known about the divine through scripture and present-day theology, he predicted that "scientific revelations may be a gold mine for revitalizing religion in the 21st century." To his mind, "All of nature reveals something of the creator. And god is revealing himself more and more to human inquiry, not always through prophetic visions or scriptures but through the astonishingly productive research of modern scientists."

Sir John's own theological views conformed to no orthodoxy, and he was eager to learn not just from science but from all of the world's faith traditions. As he once told an interviewer, "I grew up as a Presbyterian. Presbyterians thought the Methodists were wrong. Catholics thought all Protestants were wrong. The Jews thought the Christians were wrong. So, what I'm financing is humility. I want people to realize that you shouldn't think you know it all." He expected the John Templeton Foundation to stand apart from any consideration of dogma or personal religious belief and to seek out grantees who are “innovative, creative, enthusiastic, and open to competition and new ideas" in their approach to the Big Questions.

Sir John's progressive ideas on finance, spirituality, and science made him a distinctive voice in all these fields, but he never worried about being an iconoclast. "Rarely does a conservative become a hero of history," he observed in his 1981 book, The Humble Approach, one of more than a dozen books he wrote or edited.

Sir John's death in 2008, at age 95, was noted around the world, with tributes that acknowledged the extraordinary breadth of his career and his vision. In an obituary titled "Maximum Optimist," the Wall Street Journal wrote:

As an investor, he always had confidence his picks would improve over the long term. Appropriately, the same "enthusiasm for progress," as he put it, also made him one of the world's great philanthropists. Life's spiritual dimensions were his abiding inspiration.

The Economist observed that

Sir John revered thrift and had a horror of debt. His parents had taught him that in small-town Tennessee, instilling it so well that in his white-columned house in the Bahamas, overlooking the golf course, he still cut up computer paper to make notebooks. But he made an exception for love, which needed spending. You could give away too much land and too much money, said Sir John, but never enough love, and the real return was immediate: more love.

Sir John's passing was also marked by Nature, the world's leading scientific journal:

Templeton was a deeply spiritual, although unorthodox, individual. He lived a life firmly rooted in the Christian traditions of modesty and charity. Yet he was also a great admirer of science, the undogmatic practice of which he believed led to intellectual humility. His love of science and his God led him to form his foundation in 1987 on the basis that mutual dialogue might enrich the understanding of both.

Life is Beautiful

When I was asked to give a write-up, on the topic “Life is Beautiful”  I smiled. I believed it was a simple topic with a very simple  proposition. With a firm belief in myself, I tried to pen a few words. I  found myself helpless as I had fiddled away precious time. Apparently  an innocuous proposition made me ponder, which began in a listless way  and later took a definite direction.
As my thought process gained some ground, I could not fathom the depth  of this topic nor scale the height of it. At one time I thought it could  be dealt by filling the write up with anecdotes of my life and thus  proving Life is Beautiful. The very next instance made me shudder, as a  serious topic should be dealt philosophically. A chain developed with  one approach giving way to the other.
“I think, therefore I am” – Life Philosophically
“Congito Ergo Sum" To quote Descartes this phrase translates into ‘I  think therefore I am’. Is Life a gift to us by ‘Him’, or a process,  which began with a Big Bang, when the entire cosmos emerged out of a  super-explosion? Is Life a sheer serendipity? Going back to Descartes,  Life is just what one thinks and I think it is beautiful. Evolution of  man from an insignificant microorganism to a thinking human being, Life  seems to be a fascinating process.
According to Hindu philosophy, Life follows a ‘Karma’ pattern. Every  human being gets the life he deserves, proposing an incremental  development with good deeds in present life presenting with a better  life.
Life is beautiful if we do our best within the boundaries and the destiny takes care of the rest.
“Sweet are the uses of Adversity” - Life Poetically
This approach closely follows the philosophical approach with a  beauty of its own. To appreciate the beauty of life one can relish the  works of artists and writers of renaissance period. Be it Da Vinci with  the ethereal Mona Lisa, Rembrandt or Monet with Water Lillies brought  out the essence of life.
One of my favorites William Shakespeare brought out the beauty of life  with comedies, and tragedies. One sonnet, which proves Shakespearean  essence, is a sonnet from the Play “As You like it”. This sonnet brings  out the beauty of life in ugliness, spark in coal, and silver lining  around a dark cloud.
It is from Act II Scene I Duke Senior, the banished duke says about Sweet uses of adversity.
To quote a part of it “Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the  toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And  this our life exempt from public haunt Finds tongues in trees, books in  the running brooks, Sermons in stones and good in every thing.”
A beautiful piece of poetry which, asks us to see good in everything.
Life through a Winner’s Eye
Life stories of some men make one succumb to their ingenuity. Some  people have proved and some are proving without a second doubt that they  are winners. Anybody, who has read “A Beautiful Mind” or has watched a  movie by the same name, can never remain untouched by the courage of a  schizophrenic Prof. Nash who overcame the disease by merely accepting  the haunting illusions and getting the coveted Noble prize for game  theory.
Political leaders, Writers, Economist, Musicians and Sportsmen have been a beacon to their fellowmen.
Life is Beautiful
“Laugh and be merry better the world with a song, better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong….” So goes a poem.
Life is as one experiences it. One has to drink deep of every moment. For the present moment is a past moment in the future.
After a serious contemplation if one can live a carefree life like Calvin and Hobbes and enrich it every moment then,
Life is fascinating, wonderful and Very Very Beautiful.