For Tim Masters, the first Colo. murder convict freed by DNA evidence, everyday pleasures arrive as unexpected gifts. A home-cooked meal, an open road, a full tank of gas. Such simple joys eluded him for 10 years. But true freedom remains a challenge. He suffers PTSD symptoms but keeps rebuilding his life step by step. Read the article!!
read more | digg story
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
FDA Approves Stevia
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted GRAS approval for a natural, zero-calorie sweetener it once sought to wipe out from the U.S. marketplace. The sweetener is stevia. This is good because I swore off aspartame in Sept 2008, and was longing for a replacement. The article cites Dr. Betty Martini as a source, and her site is excellent!! While recently in the hospital, I discussed my decision not to ingest any more aspartame, and they were quite in agreement with me. I do have some of the symptoms and side effects of aspartame ingestion, including some of the worst.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Friday, December 19, 2008
Johnston's arrest for oxycontin
Yes Bristol Palin's baby daddy has a mother who was arrested for oxycontin charges. Bunch of comments at end of article trashing both the Johnstons and Palins by Alaskans. Palin may be yesterdays VP news, but she is still governor of Alaska, and not many there seem to respect her at all. No surprise here. McCain's wife had a oxycontin problem.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Johnston's arrest for for oxycontin
Yes Bristol Palin's baby daddy has a mother who was arrested for oxycontin charges. Bunch of comments at end of article trashing both the Johnstons and Palins by Alaskans. Palin may be yesterdays VP news, but she is still governor of Alaska, and not many there seem to respect her at all. No surprise here. McCain's wife had a oxycontin problem.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
First cases of touch-emotion synaesthesia discovered
If the feel of denim is depressing, corduroy is confusing, but tennis balls send you to heaven, you may have a newly discovered form of synaesthesia
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Doctor Finds Foot Growing In Newborn's Brain
A Colorado pediatric brain surgeon found part of a foot growing in the brain of a newborn, along with part of an intestine.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Cat Creates Photo Documentary of His Own Life
For one day a week over the span of a year, Cooper carried a camera around to document his travels around his Greenwood neighborhood. The pictures he brought back range from the mundane to the sublime: neighbors' yards, busy streets, plastic flamingos on the Cross' front lawn and one spot where he spent a lot of time bird-watching.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Dick Cavett on Sarah Palin--Hilarious!
I just have always loved Dick Cavett's wit. This is priceless, and well -- so true. (snicker)
The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla
By Dick Cavett
Electronic devices dislike me. There is never a day when something isn’t ailing. Three out of these five implements — answering machine, fax machine, printer, phone and electric can-opener — all dropped dead on me in the past few days.
Now something has gone wrong with all three television sets. They will get only Sarah Palin.
I can play a kind of Alaskan roulette. Any random channel clicked on by the remote brings up that eager face, with its continuing assaults on the English Lang.
There she is with Larry and Matt and just about everyone else but Dr. Phil (so far). If she is not yet on “Judge Judy,” I suspect it can’t be for lack of trying.
What have we done to deserve this, this media blitz that the astute Andrea Mitchell has labeled “The Victory Tour”?
I suppose it will be recorded as among political history’s ironies that Palin was brought in to help John McCain. I can’t blame feminists who might draw amusement from the fact that a woman managed to both cripple the male she was supposed to help while gleaning an almost Elvis-sized following for herself. Mac loses, Sarah wins big-time was the gist of headlines.
I feel a little sorry for John. He aimed low and missed.
What will ambitious politicos learn from this? That frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences that ramble on long after thought has given out completely are a candidate’s valuable traits?
And how much more of all that lies in our future if God points her to those open-a-crack doors she refers to? The ones she resolves to splinter and bulldoze her way through upon glimpsing the opportunities, revealed from on high.
What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”
My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.
And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”
It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.
(A cynic might wonder if Wasilla High School’s English and geography departments are draped in black.)
(How many contradictory and lying answers about The Empress’s New Clothes have you collected? I’ve got, so far, only four. Your additional ones welcome.)
Matt Lauer asked her about her daughter’s pregnancy and what went into the decision about how to handle it. Her “answer” did not contain the words “daughter,” “pregnancy,” “what to do about it” or, in fact, any two consecutive words related to Lauer’s query.
I saw this as a brief clip, so I don’t know whether Lauer recovered sufficiently to follow up, or could only sit there, covered in disbelief. If it happens again, Matt, I bequeath you what I heard myself say once to an elusive guest who stiffed me that way: “Were you able to hear any part of my question?”
At the risk of offending, well, you, for example, I worry about just what it is her hollering fans see in her that makes her the ideal choice to deal with the world’s problems: collapsed economies, global warming, hostile enemies and our current and far-flung twin battlefronts, either of which may prove to be the world’s second “30 Years’ War.”
Has there been a poll to see if the Sarah-ites are numbered among that baffling 26 percent of our population who, despite everything, still maintain that President George has done a heckuva job?
A woman in one of Palin’s crowds praised her for being “a mom like me … who thinks the way I do” and added, for ill measure, “That’s what I want in the White House.” Fine, but in what capacity?
Do this lady’s like-minded folk wonder how, say, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, et al (add your own favorites) managed so well without being soccer moms? Without being whizzes in the kitchen, whipping up moose soufflés? Without executing and wounding wolves from the air and without promoting that sad, threadbare hoax — sexual abstinence — as the answer to the sizzling loins of the young?
(In passing, has anyone observed that hunting animals with high-powered guns could only be defined as sport if both sides were equally armed?)
I’d love to hear what you think has caused such an alarming number of our fellow Americans to fall into the Sarah Swoon.
Could the willingness to crown one who seems to have no first language have anything to do with the oft-lamented fact that we seem to be alone among nations in having made the word “intellectual” an insult? (And yet…and yet…we did elect Obama. Surely not despite his brains.)
Sorry about all of the foregoing, as if you didn’t get enough of the lady every day in every medium but smoke signals.
I do not wish her ill. But I also don’t wish us ill. I hope she continues to find happiness in Alaska.
May I confess that upon first seeing her, I liked her looks? With the sound off, she presents a not uncomely frontal appearance.
But now, as the Brits say, “I’ll be glad to see the back of her.”
**********
PS: Lagniappe for English mavens: A friend of mine has made you laugh greatly over the years. David Lloyd is a comic genius (I can hear you wince, David) who wrote for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Cheers,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and me, not necessarily in that order. As a language fan, he has preserved many gems for posterity in his prodigious memory bank. Here comes my favorite:
A Navy lecturer was talking about some directives on the blackboard that he said to do something about, “except for these here ones with the asteroids in back of.”
Even David couldn’t make that up.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times
http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/the-wild-wordsmith-of-wasilla/
The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla
By Dick Cavett
Electronic devices dislike me. There is never a day when something isn’t ailing. Three out of these five implements — answering machine, fax machine, printer, phone and electric can-opener — all dropped dead on me in the past few days.
Now something has gone wrong with all three television sets. They will get only Sarah Palin.
I can play a kind of Alaskan roulette. Any random channel clicked on by the remote brings up that eager face, with its continuing assaults on the English Lang.
There she is with Larry and Matt and just about everyone else but Dr. Phil (so far). If she is not yet on “Judge Judy,” I suspect it can’t be for lack of trying.
What have we done to deserve this, this media blitz that the astute Andrea Mitchell has labeled “The Victory Tour”?
I suppose it will be recorded as among political history’s ironies that Palin was brought in to help John McCain. I can’t blame feminists who might draw amusement from the fact that a woman managed to both cripple the male she was supposed to help while gleaning an almost Elvis-sized following for herself. Mac loses, Sarah wins big-time was the gist of headlines.
I feel a little sorry for John. He aimed low and missed.
What will ambitious politicos learn from this? That frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences that ramble on long after thought has given out completely are a candidate’s valuable traits?
And how much more of all that lies in our future if God points her to those open-a-crack doors she refers to? The ones she resolves to splinter and bulldoze her way through upon glimpsing the opportunities, revealed from on high.
What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”
My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.
And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”
It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.
(A cynic might wonder if Wasilla High School’s English and geography departments are draped in black.)
(How many contradictory and lying answers about The Empress’s New Clothes have you collected? I’ve got, so far, only four. Your additional ones welcome.)
Matt Lauer asked her about her daughter’s pregnancy and what went into the decision about how to handle it. Her “answer” did not contain the words “daughter,” “pregnancy,” “what to do about it” or, in fact, any two consecutive words related to Lauer’s query.
I saw this as a brief clip, so I don’t know whether Lauer recovered sufficiently to follow up, or could only sit there, covered in disbelief. If it happens again, Matt, I bequeath you what I heard myself say once to an elusive guest who stiffed me that way: “Were you able to hear any part of my question?”
At the risk of offending, well, you, for example, I worry about just what it is her hollering fans see in her that makes her the ideal choice to deal with the world’s problems: collapsed economies, global warming, hostile enemies and our current and far-flung twin battlefronts, either of which may prove to be the world’s second “30 Years’ War.”
Has there been a poll to see if the Sarah-ites are numbered among that baffling 26 percent of our population who, despite everything, still maintain that President George has done a heckuva job?
A woman in one of Palin’s crowds praised her for being “a mom like me … who thinks the way I do” and added, for ill measure, “That’s what I want in the White House.” Fine, but in what capacity?
Do this lady’s like-minded folk wonder how, say, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, et al (add your own favorites) managed so well without being soccer moms? Without being whizzes in the kitchen, whipping up moose soufflés? Without executing and wounding wolves from the air and without promoting that sad, threadbare hoax — sexual abstinence — as the answer to the sizzling loins of the young?
(In passing, has anyone observed that hunting animals with high-powered guns could only be defined as sport if both sides were equally armed?)
I’d love to hear what you think has caused such an alarming number of our fellow Americans to fall into the Sarah Swoon.
Could the willingness to crown one who seems to have no first language have anything to do with the oft-lamented fact that we seem to be alone among nations in having made the word “intellectual” an insult? (And yet…and yet…we did elect Obama. Surely not despite his brains.)
Sorry about all of the foregoing, as if you didn’t get enough of the lady every day in every medium but smoke signals.
I do not wish her ill. But I also don’t wish us ill. I hope she continues to find happiness in Alaska.
May I confess that upon first seeing her, I liked her looks? With the sound off, she presents a not uncomely frontal appearance.
But now, as the Brits say, “I’ll be glad to see the back of her.”
**********
PS: Lagniappe for English mavens: A friend of mine has made you laugh greatly over the years. David Lloyd is a comic genius (I can hear you wince, David) who wrote for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Cheers,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and me, not necessarily in that order. As a language fan, he has preserved many gems for posterity in his prodigious memory bank. Here comes my favorite:
A Navy lecturer was talking about some directives on the blackboard that he said to do something about, “except for these here ones with the asteroids in back of.”
Even David couldn’t make that up.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times
http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/the-wild-wordsmith-of-wasilla/
Monday, November 10, 2008
The War on Brains, that is, down with the dummies in Washington
November 9, 2008
Obama and the War on Brains
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.
Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.
We can’t solve our educational challenges when, according to polls, Americans are approximately as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution, and when one-fifth of Americans believe that the sun orbits the Earth.
Almost half of young Americans said in a 2006 poll that it was not necessary to know the locations of countries where important news was made. That must be a relief to Sarah Palin, who, according to Fox News, didn’t realize that Africa was a continent rather than a country.
Perhaps John Kennedy was the last president who was unapologetic about his intellect and about luring the best minds to his cabinet. More recently, we’ve had some smart and well-educated presidents who scrambled to hide it. Richard Nixon was a self-loathing intellectual, and Bill Clinton camouflaged a fulgent brain behind folksy Arkansas aphorisms about hogs.
As for President Bush, he adopted anti-intellectualism as administration policy, repeatedly rejecting expertise (from Middle East experts, climate scientists and reproductive health specialists). Mr. Bush is smart in the sense of remembering facts and faces, yet I can’t think of anybody I’ve ever interviewed who appeared so uninterested in ideas.
At least since Adlai Stevenson’s campaigns for the presidency in the 1950s, it’s been a disadvantage in American politics to seem too learned. Thoughtfulness is portrayed as wimpishness, and careful deliberation is for sissies. The social critic William Burroughs once bluntly declared that “intellectuals are deviants in the U.S.”
(It doesn’t help that intellectuals are often as full of themselves as of ideas. After one of Stevenson’s high-brow speeches, an admirer yelled out something like, You’ll have the vote of every thinking American! Stevenson is said to have shouted back: That’s not enough. I need a majority!)
Yet times may be changing. How else do we explain the election in 2008 of an Ivy League-educated law professor who has favorite philosophers and poets?
Granted, Mr. Obama may have been protected from accusations of excessive intelligence by his race. That distracted everyone, and as a black man he didn’t fit the stereotype of a pointy-head ivory tower elitist. But it may also be that President Bush has discredited superficiality.
An intellectual is a person interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity. Intellectuals read the classics, even when no one is looking, because they appreciate the lessons of Sophocles and Shakespeare that the world abounds in uncertainties and contradictions, and — President Bush, lend me your ears — that leaders self-destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity.
(Intellectuals are for real. In contrast, a pedant is a supercilious show-off who drops references to Sophocles and masks his shallowness by using words like “fulgent” and “supercilious.”)
Mr. Obama, unlike most politicians near a microphone, exults in complexity. He doesn’t condescend or oversimplify nearly as much as politicians often do, and he speaks in paragraphs rather than sound bites. Global Language Monitor, which follows linguistic issues, reports that in the final debate, Mr. Obama spoke at a ninth-grade reading level, while John McCain spoke at a seventh-grade level.
As Mr. Obama prepares to take office, I wish I could say that smart people have a great record in power. They don’t. Just think of Emperor Nero, who was one of the most intellectual of ancient rulers — and who also killed his brother, his mother and his pregnant wife; then castrated and married a slave boy who resembled his wife; probably set fire to Rome; and turned Christians into human torches to light his gardens.
James Garfield could simultaneously write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other, Thomas Jefferson was a dazzling scholar and inventor, and John Adams typically carried a book of poetry. Yet all were outclassed by George Washington, who was among the least intellectual of our early presidents.
Yet as Mr. Obama goes to Washington, I’m hopeful that his fertile mind will set a new tone for our country. Maybe someday soon our leaders no longer will have to shuffle in shame when they’re caught with brains in their heads.
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, and join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09kristof.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Obama and the War on Brains
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.
Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.
We can’t solve our educational challenges when, according to polls, Americans are approximately as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution, and when one-fifth of Americans believe that the sun orbits the Earth.
Almost half of young Americans said in a 2006 poll that it was not necessary to know the locations of countries where important news was made. That must be a relief to Sarah Palin, who, according to Fox News, didn’t realize that Africa was a continent rather than a country.
Perhaps John Kennedy was the last president who was unapologetic about his intellect and about luring the best minds to his cabinet. More recently, we’ve had some smart and well-educated presidents who scrambled to hide it. Richard Nixon was a self-loathing intellectual, and Bill Clinton camouflaged a fulgent brain behind folksy Arkansas aphorisms about hogs.
As for President Bush, he adopted anti-intellectualism as administration policy, repeatedly rejecting expertise (from Middle East experts, climate scientists and reproductive health specialists). Mr. Bush is smart in the sense of remembering facts and faces, yet I can’t think of anybody I’ve ever interviewed who appeared so uninterested in ideas.
At least since Adlai Stevenson’s campaigns for the presidency in the 1950s, it’s been a disadvantage in American politics to seem too learned. Thoughtfulness is portrayed as wimpishness, and careful deliberation is for sissies. The social critic William Burroughs once bluntly declared that “intellectuals are deviants in the U.S.”
(It doesn’t help that intellectuals are often as full of themselves as of ideas. After one of Stevenson’s high-brow speeches, an admirer yelled out something like, You’ll have the vote of every thinking American! Stevenson is said to have shouted back: That’s not enough. I need a majority!)
Yet times may be changing. How else do we explain the election in 2008 of an Ivy League-educated law professor who has favorite philosophers and poets?
Granted, Mr. Obama may have been protected from accusations of excessive intelligence by his race. That distracted everyone, and as a black man he didn’t fit the stereotype of a pointy-head ivory tower elitist. But it may also be that President Bush has discredited superficiality.
An intellectual is a person interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity. Intellectuals read the classics, even when no one is looking, because they appreciate the lessons of Sophocles and Shakespeare that the world abounds in uncertainties and contradictions, and — President Bush, lend me your ears — that leaders self-destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity.
(Intellectuals are for real. In contrast, a pedant is a supercilious show-off who drops references to Sophocles and masks his shallowness by using words like “fulgent” and “supercilious.”)
Mr. Obama, unlike most politicians near a microphone, exults in complexity. He doesn’t condescend or oversimplify nearly as much as politicians often do, and he speaks in paragraphs rather than sound bites. Global Language Monitor, which follows linguistic issues, reports that in the final debate, Mr. Obama spoke at a ninth-grade reading level, while John McCain spoke at a seventh-grade level.
As Mr. Obama prepares to take office, I wish I could say that smart people have a great record in power. They don’t. Just think of Emperor Nero, who was one of the most intellectual of ancient rulers — and who also killed his brother, his mother and his pregnant wife; then castrated and married a slave boy who resembled his wife; probably set fire to Rome; and turned Christians into human torches to light his gardens.
James Garfield could simultaneously write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other, Thomas Jefferson was a dazzling scholar and inventor, and John Adams typically carried a book of poetry. Yet all were outclassed by George Washington, who was among the least intellectual of our early presidents.
Yet as Mr. Obama goes to Washington, I’m hopeful that his fertile mind will set a new tone for our country. Maybe someday soon our leaders no longer will have to shuffle in shame when they’re caught with brains in their heads.
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, and join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09kristof.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Friday, November 7, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
A light bulb that requires no electricity or battery power!!
The flicking of a light switch rarely elicits excitement, but a Boulder company is trying to bring back the thrill of lighting with a new bulb that uses no energy and has some people saying "that's the coolest thing I've ever seen." Can be used as a lantern, night light, or a safety light.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Great article by Maureen Dowd on Palin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/opinion/26dowd.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
McCain advisers have been scathing about the “sexism” of critics who dismiss Sarah Palin as Caribou Barbie.
How odd then, to learn that McCain advisers have been treating their own vice presidential candidate like Valentino Barbie, dressing her up in fancy clothes and endlessly playing with her hair.
The Republican's attempt to make the case that Barack Obama is hoity-toity and they’re hoi polloi has fallen under the sheer weight of the stunning numbers:
The McCains own 13 cars, eight homes and access to a corporate jet, and Cindy had her Marie Antoinette moment at the convention. Vanity Fair calculated that her outfit cost $300,000, with three-carat diamond earrings worth $280,000, an Oscar de la Renta dress valued at $3,000, a Chanel white ceramic watch clocking in at $4,500 and a four-strand pearl necklace worth between $11,000 and $25,000. While presenting herself as an I’m-just-like-you hockey mom frugal enough to put the Alaska state plane up for sale on eBay, Palin made her big speech at the convention wearing a $2,500 cream silk Valentino jacket that the McCain staff had gotten her at Saks.
At that point, Palin should have been savvy enough to tell those doing her makeover that she was a Wal-Mart mom.
McCain advisers have been scathing about the “sexism” of critics who dismiss Sarah Palin as Caribou Barbie.
How odd then, to learn that McCain advisers have been treating their own vice presidential candidate like Valentino Barbie, dressing her up in fancy clothes and endlessly playing with her hair.
The Republican's attempt to make the case that Barack Obama is hoity-toity and they’re hoi polloi has fallen under the sheer weight of the stunning numbers:
The McCains own 13 cars, eight homes and access to a corporate jet, and Cindy had her Marie Antoinette moment at the convention. Vanity Fair calculated that her outfit cost $300,000, with three-carat diamond earrings worth $280,000, an Oscar de la Renta dress valued at $3,000, a Chanel white ceramic watch clocking in at $4,500 and a four-strand pearl necklace worth between $11,000 and $25,000. While presenting herself as an I’m-just-like-you hockey mom frugal enough to put the Alaska state plane up for sale on eBay, Palin made her big speech at the convention wearing a $2,500 cream silk Valentino jacket that the McCain staff had gotten her at Saks.
At that point, Palin should have been savvy enough to tell those doing her makeover that she was a Wal-Mart mom.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Monday, March 10, 2008
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Being parent of your parent emotionally wrenching process
This isn't just the story of one petite brunette wtih terrific legs who was called "Shorty" by her husband, granddaughters and daughters. This is the story of millions of Americans caring for elderly parents and maneuvering in the murky worlds of medicine, law, hospitals, nursing homes, guilt, fear and family ties. You think it won't happen to you, but it can and does happen. We baby boomers are aging quickly, and our parents are going, going, gone. Next, our children will be handling our demise. And we are the biggest generation yet to hit this age. This article is a link to a several-part series of many things to consider, discussion boards, legal suggestions, and more.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
AFTER A PARENT'S DEATH, SOME PEOPLE BLOOM.
I could have written this myself. I was an only child, dominated by my mother. I spent a lifetime trying to get away from her, not just physically apart but freeing my mind of her condemntation and criticism. Many people are surprised when I say this. My mother was well liked by many. But few knew how she was "behind closed doors" with me. I personally allowed myself to bloom some years ago, even though she had not died, but the transformation to a halt when she purposefully moved to be near me. I summoned all the strength I had inside me to show her respect while still trying to be true to myself. I wasn't always successful. I began attending a church while she was my neighbor. I invited her; she told me it was a cult. It certainly was not, but that's the way she was. I rarely had the guts to go against her to her face. I tried to live my life and protect her from the things about me I knew she wouldn't like, my politics, my past addictions and later sobriety, my particular spiritual beliefs, and more. As the woman says below, it was a burden.
Another blooming period began when my mother slipped into Alzheimer's. But by this time, my health was wrecked, and I was losing my ability to work. Not much of a bloom developed, but at least I was free. She could no longer rip me with her tongue.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whose perspective you see it from, I was recently unable to attend my mother's funeral. It was fortunate for me in that I didn't have to deal with it at all. Unfortunately that left my two older daughters to deal with it. And unfortunately, not being able to attend meant once again I could not visit my dear daughters and grandchildren.
I consider my life pretty much wasted. Too much energy went into resisting my mother. Not enough left for my life as a whole. But I am certainly not alone. Read on:
(LifeWire) -- The death of a mother or father can be emotionally wrenching -- particularly for children who had a difficult or complicated relationship with their parents. But for others, it can also be a time for personal growth and renewal.
Carolanne Seeger is one such person. A health-food-store manager from Philadelphia, Seeger says she finally felt free to be herself after her parents died. "I was my mother's best friend," she says, "and sometimes it was a burden."
Her parents' marriage wasn't great and they didn't have friends, so Seeger was their lifeline. "I was an only child and very co-dependent. I didn't have the courage to go against them, so I didn't spread my wings and fly when others did."
Seeger's experience isn't unusual, says New York City-based psychotherapist Jeanne Safer, author of the upcoming book "Death Benefits: How Losing a Parent Can Change an Adult's Life -- for the Better."
"We think it's unseemly to 'profit' from a parent's death, as though it means we're glad they're dead," Safer says. "But research shows that a majority of bereaved adults report significant improvements in their lives after they have grieved for their parents."
Emotional freedom
Writer Mark Louis Lehman of Cincinnati also blossomed after his dad passed away. Lehman's father, a salesman who grew up during the Depression and started working to support his family at age 16, had little respect for his son's artistic aspirations, and it was a bone of contention for them. After his father's death, though, things changed for Lehman.
Writer Mark Louis Lehman of Cincinnati also blossomed after his dad passed away. Lehman's father, a salesman who grew up during the Depression and started working to support his family at age 16, had little respect for his son's artistic aspirations, and it was a bone of contention for them. After his father's death, though, things changed for Lehman.
He felt a new sense of freedom to pursue his goals. Immediately he took a job as a writer and copy editor for a music magazine. Then he wrote and published his first novel, "Mocky's Revinge," a thinly veiled account of his relationship with his father that touches on issues of revenge and forgiveness.
Safer says the intensity of the parent-child bond gives parents extraordinary emotional power over the feelings, thoughts, assumptions and identity of their children, and that it may take the death of a parent to allow adult children to feel liberated and do things they never dared when their parents were alive.
"They can understand their relationships with their parents in a radical new way now that they are no longer literally interacting with them," says Safer.
"Some (children) get married, some get divorced, some change jobs or become religious or atheists. They feel emotionally liberated when they no longer are dominated by someone else's values or have to be emotional caretakers ... the list goes on and on," she adds.
It doesn't work out that way for everyone, of course. A year after the death of her father, Debra Epstein, who works in museum education in New York, still feels conflicted about her relationship with him.
"It's complicated," she says. "I am less angry toward him than I was at various times in my life, but really I just feel a hole, no liberation."
Where to begin
It doesn't have to be that way, Safer says. In her book, she explains how to begin the process of transformation after the death of a parent:
It doesn't have to be that way, Safer says. In her book, she explains how to begin the process of transformation after the death of a parent:
• Make a conscious decision to address and learn from your parent's death.
• Allot some private time each day to think about their personalities and your relationship. Look at family photos and possessions that affect you, actively recall the best and the worst moments you had together, and try to remember your dreams about them.
• Construct a narrative of your parent's history as objectively as possible.
• Create an inventory of your parent's character, determining what to keep and what to discard.
• Think seriously about both the positive and negative impact your parent has had on your life. For example, recognize that both your sense of humor and your quick temper come from your father, or that both your pessimism and your sensitivity to other people's feelings are your mother's legacy.
• Remind yourself that you don't have to follow your parents' ideas of how you should look, feel or act ever again; you're free to question everything they taught you and decide what's right for you without worrying about offending them.
• Identify your guilt and realize it's healthy to feel liberated when even a beloved parent dies.
• Seek new experiences and relationships to support the changes you desire.
For Seeger, the transformation began with seeking therapy, which her mother never would have approved of while she was living.
"After my parents died, I could finally pursue what I wanted to for my own sake," she says.
LifeWire provides original and syndicated lifestyle content to Web publishers. Heidi Sarna is a Singapore-based freelancer who writes about travel and lifestyle issues.
Find this article at: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/03/07/parents.death/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail
LifeWire provides original and syndicated lifestyle content to Web publishers. Heidi Sarna is a Singapore-based freelancer who writes about travel and lifestyle issues.
Find this article at: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/03/07/parents.death/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail
Friday, March 7, 2008
Canned Pancakes Make Breakfast As Easy as Spraying Whipped Cream
You want pancakes, but the idea of adding water to powder and stirring it around just seems like too much effort. Enter Batter Blaster, the pancake you just point and spray. Gastronomic genius? Or sign of the apocalypse? Shake the can firmly before spraying. Clean up: Rinse the nozzle under running water after using. The product is organic. Sounds kind of silly, but I'd try it!! Environmentalists worry about the product being in a can. But it is similar to cheese in a spray can and obviously the spray whipped creams. Still, it is funny.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Migraine paintings by sufferers
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/02/28/opinion/20080222_MIGRAINE_SLIDESHOW_index.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Absolutely accurate depictions. Those squiggly, jagged lines? Oh yeah.
Absolutely accurate depictions. Those squiggly, jagged lines? Oh yeah.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Living tree sculpture aka arborscupture
Oh WOW! This is about the coolest stuff I have seen about gardening ever. This is something I'd just love to do if I had the land to do it on. Very, very cool. Check out the sites, please!!!
The last image is a Ficus House on Okinawa at this site: http://www.arborsmith.com There are many more very cool pictures there.
The other three images are from: http://www.pooktre.com
This is what their site says. They are from Australia.
In 1986 Peter had the idea of growing a chair. Nine years later Peter & Becky became partners. Pooktre was born. Together they have mastered the art they call Pooktre, which is the shaping of trees as they grow in predetermined designs. Some are intended for harvest to be high quality indoor furniture and others will remain living art.
NYT article: My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)
I hope you are as mad as I am once you read this article of ridiculous governmen meddling in our local farmers' markets, even as we realize food prices will be soaring this year.
March 1, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables)By JACK HEDIN
Rushford, Minn.
IF you’ve stood in line at a farmers’ market recently, you know that the local food movement is thriving, to the point that small farmers are having a tough time keeping up with the demand.
But consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and vegetables not just at farmers’ markets, but also in the produce aisle of their supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal government works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food movement from expanding. And the barriers that the United States Department of Agriculture has put in place will be extended when the farm bill that House and Senate negotiators are working on now goes into effect.
As a small organic vegetable producer in southern Minnesota, I know this because my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand have been severely hampered by the Agriculture Department’s commodity farm program. As I’ve looked into the politics behind those restrictions, I’ve come to understand that this is precisely the outcome that the program’s backers in California and Florida have in mind: they want to snuff out the local competition before it even gets started.
Last year, knowing that my own 100 acres wouldn’t be enough to meet demand, I rented 25 acres on two nearby corn farms. I plowed under the alfalfa hay that was established there, and planted watermelons, tomatoes and vegetables for natural-food stores and a community-supported agriculture program.
All went well until early July. That’s when the two landowners discovered that there was a problem with the local office of the Farm Service Administration, the Agriculture Department branch that runs the commodity farm program, and it was going to be expensive to fix.
The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables. Because my watermelons and tomatoes had been planted on “corn base” acres, the Farm Service said, my landlords were out of compliance with the commodity program.
I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.)
In my case, that meant I paid my landlords $8,771 — for one season alone! And this was in a year when the high price of grain meant that only one of the government’s three crop-support programs was in effect; the total bill might be much worse in the future.
In addition, the bureaucratic entanglements that these two farmers faced at the Farm Service office were substantial. The federal farm program is making it next to impossible for farmers to rent land to me to grow fresh organic vegetables.
Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California, Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself. Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states, they have been able to virtually monopolize the country’s fresh produce markets.
That’s unfortunate, because small producers will have to expand on a significant scale across the nation if local foods are to continue to enter the mainstream as the public demands. My problems are just the tip of the iceberg.
Last year, Midwestern lawmakers proposed an amendment to the farm bill that would provide some farmers, though only those who supply processors, with some relief from the penalties that I’ve faced — for example, a soybean farmer who wanted to grow tomatoes would give up his usual subsidy on those acres but suffer none of the other penalties. However, the Congressional delegations from the big produce states made the death of what is known as Farm Flex their highest farm bill priority, and so it appears to be going nowhere, except perhaps as a tiny pilot program.
Who pays the price for this senselessness? Certainly I do, as a Midwestern vegetable farmer. But anyone trying to do what I do on, say, wheat acreage in the Dakotas, or rice acreage in Arkansas would face the same penalties. Local and regional fruit and vegetable production will languish anywhere that the commodity program has influence.
Ultimately of course, it is the consumer who will pay the greatest price for this — whether it is in the form of higher prices I will have to charge to absorb the government’s fines, or in the form of less access to the kind of fresh, local produce that the country is crying out for.
Farmers need the choice of what to plant on their farms, and consumers need more farms like mine producing high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables to meet increasing demand from local markets — without the federal government actively discouraging them.
Jack Hedin is a farmer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/opinion/01hedin.html?ex=1362114000&en=798dd09f9dd9f25b&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
My brain
The Brain Test
My Result: Balanced-brained
When you need to explain a complicated process to someone, or plan a detailed vacation, the left hemisphere of your brain, which is responsible for your ability to solve problems logically, might kick in. But if you were critiquing an art opening or coming up with an original way to file papers, the right side of your brain, which is responsible for noticing subtle details in things, might take over.
While many people have clearly dominant left- or right-brained tendencies, you are able to draw on skills from both hemispheres of your brain. This rare combination makes you a very creative and flexible thinker.
The down side to being balanced-brained is that you may sometimes feel paralyzed by indecision when the two hemispheres of your brain are competing to solve a problem in their own unique ways.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Girl, 16, gives birth to triplets - for the SECOND time
"A teenage girl from Argentina has given birth to female triplets - for the second time. Named only as Pamela, the girl had her first set of female triplets aged just 15, giving birth to the second set a year later." She ALSO had a single son when she was 14. Lord, Lord have mercy. Her mother cleans houses to support her daughter and children. They receive some type of government assistance and will be asking for more. Perhaps someone should assist this 16 year old with birth control? I just CANNOT imagine being age 16 with SEVEN children. Hopefully, with all these children now she won't have time for sex anymore!! They live in a remote village, and certainly it will take a village and perhaps a government to raise these children. I wonder if she ovulates multiple eggs making fraternal twins or if they are identical? It doesn't specify in the article. But it does say this:"All seven children were born prematurely but without any kind of fertility treatment. While doctors say the three newborns and their mother are well, the case has sparked debate across Argentina, the BBC has reported. In bars, cafes, and newspapers, there has been widespread criticism of Pamela's alleged promiscuity."
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, February 25, 2008
Books I am Reading Right Now
The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, edited by Maria Tatar
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hossein (author of Kite Runner)
T Is For Tresspass by Sue Grafton
Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder: And Other True Cases by Ann Rule
Thursday, February 21, 2008
MONEY FOR WOMEN VICTIMS OF CRIME GOES MISSING DUE TO BUSH
THIS IS AN OUTRAGE! BUSH HAS STOOPED TO A WHOLE NEW LOW! READ ON:
Money for women victims of crime goes missing
By Cheryl O’Neill
Published: February 19, 2008 04:38AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the news lately, there have been a couple of high-profile cases in which women have gone “missing.”
Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, a pregnant Marine from Camp Lejeune near Jacksonville, N.C., went missing in the middle of last December. She disappeared just days after her meeting with a group of military prosecutors to talk about her allegation that Marine Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean had raped her.
Charred remains of a woman and unborn child were found in Laurean’s backyard on Jan. 11. The woman was identified as Maria Lauterbach.
On the same day that Lauterbach was found dead, Leta Lynn Cordes, from Orange County, Calif., went missing on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. The story of her disappearance is still confused, and she has not yet been found.
These stories are tragic and frightening — but sadly, they are commonplace. In fact, the Department of Justice tells us that because of domestic violence alone, about three American women each and every day are murdered. In other words, they go “missing.” Pregnant women are not protected from this level of violence. In fact, homicide is a leading cause of traumatic death for pregnant and postpartum women in the United States, accounting for 31 percent of maternal injury deaths.
The story you may not have heard, however, is about the $1 million that has gone missing in Oregon this year. This is money that should have provided support to victims of crime and helped to end domestic and sexual violence. But money for the Victim of Crime Act has been cut back across the nation. These cutbacks translate to a potential loss of more than $100,000 in Lane County alone.
Even at current funding rates, the National Network to End Domestic Violence reported that, on the single day of the network’s One Day Shelter Count for 2007, nearly 8,000 adults and children had to be turned away because of a lack of adequate resources. In Oregon, the report tells us that there were 212 unmet requests for service that day due to lack of resources. Programs in Oregon reported a critical shortage of funds and staff to assist victims in need.
The tragedy of this is that the missing money should have come from the Victim of Crime Act’s crime victims’ fund, a fund that has been created through fining criminals specifically to support victims of crime. No taxpayer dollars are needed to maintain stable funding for victim support, but political maneuvering is threatening that stability. This is money that should simply not be up for grabs.
Next year looks even worse. In the budget that has been proposed by the executive branch for 2009, even more money will go missing — a devastating amount of money. The cap on allocations from the law’s crime victims’ fund will be the lowest in six years.
Even more shocking, the $2 billion reserve in the crime victims’ fund will, essentially, be stolen from the victims it was intended to protect. The White House also is recommending a $120 million cut in Violence Against Women Act. or VAWA, funding, reducing it by nearly a third.
Over the past 20 years, VOCA and VAWA money has been a major factor in the significant drop we have seen in domestic violence deaths across this nation. When this money goes missing, domestic violence shelters go missing, sexual assault hot lines go missing, access to protective orders goes missing, investigation and prosecution of crimes go missing, prevention programs go missing — and more importantly, women go missing.
Don’t let your voice go missing as well. Speak out in defense of victims of crime. Share this information with a friend or neighbor. Let people in your church or service club know what is happening to our services for crime victims. Take a minute to e-mail or call your representatives and ask them to support full funding for VOCA and VAWA.
HHHH
Cheryl O’Neill is executive director of Womenspace.
http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/dt.cms.support.viewStory.cls?cid=66648&sid=5&fid=1&p=print
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2007 — The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA
Sunday, February 17, 2008
~Boulder Jane Doe~
~Boulder Jane Doe~: "Jane Doe's murdered body was found in April 1954. It is estimated that she was born between 1934 and 1937. She would have been in her late 60s or early 70s if she were still alive today.
If YOU lost a sister, aunt, or friend prior to April 1954, get out your photo albums and compare your lost relative's or friend's photo to Jane Doe's reconstructed face, created by noted forensic sculptor Frank Bender. With DNA from a family member, the identity of this murder victim can be confirmed, and her remains will be returned (at no charge) to the family to whom she belongs."
If YOU lost a sister, aunt, or friend prior to April 1954, get out your photo albums and compare your lost relative's or friend's photo to Jane Doe's reconstructed face, created by noted forensic sculptor Frank Bender. With DNA from a family member, the identity of this murder victim can be confirmed, and her remains will be returned (at no charge) to the family to whom she belongs."
Colorado Town Fears Avalanche of Water
More than 1 billion gallons of contaminated water — enough to fill 1,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools — is trapped in a tunnel in the mountains above the historic town of Leadville and threatening to blow. === If this water blows out, it would be a disaster for Colorado on so many levels. I can hardly comprehend it. My daughter used to attend college in Leadville. I am so relieved she is no longer there. But what of the residents who live there? Living with this tension must be incredibly difficult. I understand there is a plan underway to drain it. I sincerely hope it works. Then, maybe they better think about how to fill up that tunnel so this doesn't happen again.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Saturday, February 16, 2008
For ‘EcoMoms,’ Saving Earth Begins at Home
I guess I'd say I've been an "Eco Mom" for a long time. I started carrying cloth bags to the grocery store a long time ago, to use instead of paper or plastic. My latest project is to compost as much of my trash as I can, to reduce what I send to the landfill. Additionally, I do not own a car, by choice. We ride the bus, our bicycles, or I have a motorcycle. For chores that absolutely need a car, I pay a friend for gas to take me. I don't have to make car payments, don't have to pay for insurance on a car with a loan, don't have to wash my car and waste water, and much more. I live in a car driven state, believe me, not a big city with lots of public transportation. I cannot say how much I love not having to worry about gas prices. The motorcycle gets 70 mpg, so that's cheap. I grow vegetables in a garden in summer and also in my house during the winter. I make it my goal to keep making more environmentally friendly choices as often as possible.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Relationship Survey
the two partners identify the strengths and weaknesses they bring to the relationship. A person's particular characteristics, and attitude toward life, have an impact on relationships with others. Some may not be focusing on the strengths that may help their romantic relationship. To work as a couple, both need to know how, individually, they can benefit the whole.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Two Go Home -- One Comes Home
5:38 PM -
Two loved ones have gone home to God. The first was my dear, beloved white doggy Angel, on January 24, 2008. She was only 8 years old and had a lot of life left, yet she was taken from me by an unknown thief, and left to die on a road. Completely senseless. Yet, I believe she is in heaven waiting for me, with all my other beloved pets who have passed on. A nurse I knew years ago convinced me of this with scriptures from the Bible, which I won't go into here; I'm just thorougly convinced that heaven wouldn't be heaven for me unless my pets were there.
Two loved ones have gone home to God. The first was my dear, beloved white doggy Angel, on January 24, 2008. She was only 8 years old and had a lot of life left, yet she was taken from me by an unknown thief, and left to die on a road. Completely senseless. Yet, I believe she is in heaven waiting for me, with all my other beloved pets who have passed on. A nurse I knew years ago convinced me of this with scriptures from the Bible, which I won't go into here; I'm just thorougly convinced that heaven wouldn't be heaven for me unless my pets were there.
On February 9, 2008, my mother's body passed away. I know that sounds weird, but she had been afflicted with Alzheimer's, and in my humble opinion her spirit and soul had been gone long ago, with only her "vehicle" (body) left here. My mother and I had our differences all our lives, but I know this for sure: She went to heaven and is joyous and happy now, healed, healthy, intact, as a spiritual being. She is there praising God along with my father, all her brothers and sisters, and all others who were special to her, including her beloved pets too. My mother had a long and full life. In her retirement years, she enjoyed traveling to Europe (to work at a mission), to Hawaii (with her church seniors group), and various other activities such as attending the annual Scottish Festival in Estes Park, Colorado. She was 90 years old when she passed onto heaven, and surely no one can complain about living such a long life, with only a few years at the end in poor health. In some ways, I envy her. I wonder all the time what heaven is like, what waits there for me, and how it will be to be in the presence of God. Not that I'm anxious to go at any time soon!
Because, I have adopted a wonderful little needy dog, Coco. She has been in a rescue foster home for the past few months. (I always adopt rescue dogs.) Coco is a 6-month-old Pomeranian mix, and her foster mother and I believe she is mixed with American Eskimo, which is the breed Angel was. What funny, crazy, noisy, loving little dogs they are!!!! Coco is still afraid of strangers and will need lots of time to feel safe and secure with me, and I have plenty of love and time to give her.
I have also been thinking of my other late, great dog, Sophie. Sophie was also an American Eskimo, most probably mixed with Cocker Spaniel. Sophie died of old age in June of 2006, and she is still warmly remembered, loved, and missed.
My mother knew and liked Sophie. I wonder if they have seen each other yet up there? I hope so!!
So rest in heavenly peace, Mom, Angel, Sophie, Dad, et.al.
And welcome home to Coco!
Currently listening : Living With Ghosts By Patty Griffin Release date: 21 May, 1996
Spring Will Bring A New Beginning, Mercifully by Natalie Costanza-Chavez at http://www.gracenotescolumn.org/home.html
Spring will bring a new beginning, mercifully
February 10, 2008
Somewhere, something poetic must be happening. Monks pulling a tight cord, tied to brown old bells that ring over a hilltop dotted with sheep and eucalyptus trees, each leaf barely green and red-veined and turning in prayer toward the dayrise.
Or classical music sweet with piano, clean white sheets worthy of Martha, edged in some sort of difficult lace, ironed neat and pillows stacked high, as though anyone can sleep on them like that, coffee in a white china cup, sugar cubes, the tinkle of a spoon -- everything clean.
But this daybreak, my daybreak, is not poetic: January and still dark outside.
The dog, her internal clock working better than mine, is butt-high in a swoop-stretch before I even consider footfall. The clip clank of wooden bedrails next and the top bunk slats rattle with a limber child dismounting. Whump. Thud. Fall. Boy-noise abounds and one of them uses a sheet to whip-zing his brother. Shower water running over voices, the dog chasing the balled-up sheet that now needs to be washed, the radio stirring with advice, the smell of coffee a flicker of hope.
Blankets back like a pendulum caught mid-rise and I am up, breath high in the throat. Morning again and though the night has fallen, and risen up and away like fog, most of us are still tired somewhere deep in our bones.
January, and all the fa-la-la-la-la has gone away.
I breathe in and spy my day. About my business I will go. Check the paper for what is mad in the world, who is starving or hungry or hurt, who is full of vinegar and spit, and who has not changed a bit. I sip, gulp and feed those closest to me, put milk and weather stripping on the grocery list, head out the door.
The store is always open. I get milk and duct tape (they don't carry weather stripping and anything can be fixed with duct tape). The boxes of holiday cheer and peppermint have all gone in the back room, to roost until next day-after-Halloween.
Pink love birds are now perched beside the clementines, the snow scrapers, the mittens and hats. Valentine's Day is the next big buy -- as if there is nothing else to think about, nothing hard-edged about the shoe-pounding rush of our days, the emotional leftovers of loss from a December gone again, or the insistent way the world just keeps on trudging on, without ever letting us rest for heaven's sake. We're tuckered out and trying hard to balance evenly on our heels and the balls of our feet, toes gripping and fierce. We don't want to slip on the ice.
January can be tiresome and the bears have it all over us on this one. They hibernate. They know there is no point in looking for berries and apples when the trees are bare and the ground splinters like glass if you rap hard. They turn inward, conserve and sleep the winter off.
And perhaps, too, a part of us is trying to hibernate -- and because we can't, because we must run and balance and fetch and fix, we begin to drag.
This is a culture that respects nothing about slow.
Even so, our internal clocks, hard-wired and as ancient as our histories, will try to still down, settle down, wind down, move low down when the days are short, when darkness comes early, while the air is cold and getting colder.
We need to go easy on ourselves.
We need to pray ourselves into a quiet cave, even if just for a moment. There we need to do nothing and expect nothing and only push away the edges of the day: make a clearing in the cave. Then, in our heads and in our bodies we will have made a circle for rest. Into that space God will swirl, because suddenly there is room to feel Him.
Breathe deep. Refuse to beat yourself up for lists gone tickless and breezy duct-taped doors. Sleep some when you shouldn't. Drag a little slowly and pull it up around you.
Spring will come soon, with turtles and light.
Natalie Costanza-Chavez is a writer who lives in Fort Collins and welcomes your e-mail. You can reach her, and read past columns, at www.gracenotescolulmn.org, or e-mail her at grace-notes@comcast.net.
read more digg story
February 10, 2008
Somewhere, something poetic must be happening. Monks pulling a tight cord, tied to brown old bells that ring over a hilltop dotted with sheep and eucalyptus trees, each leaf barely green and red-veined and turning in prayer toward the dayrise.
Or classical music sweet with piano, clean white sheets worthy of Martha, edged in some sort of difficult lace, ironed neat and pillows stacked high, as though anyone can sleep on them like that, coffee in a white china cup, sugar cubes, the tinkle of a spoon -- everything clean.
But this daybreak, my daybreak, is not poetic: January and still dark outside.
The dog, her internal clock working better than mine, is butt-high in a swoop-stretch before I even consider footfall. The clip clank of wooden bedrails next and the top bunk slats rattle with a limber child dismounting. Whump. Thud. Fall. Boy-noise abounds and one of them uses a sheet to whip-zing his brother. Shower water running over voices, the dog chasing the balled-up sheet that now needs to be washed, the radio stirring with advice, the smell of coffee a flicker of hope.
Blankets back like a pendulum caught mid-rise and I am up, breath high in the throat. Morning again and though the night has fallen, and risen up and away like fog, most of us are still tired somewhere deep in our bones.
January, and all the fa-la-la-la-la has gone away.
I breathe in and spy my day. About my business I will go. Check the paper for what is mad in the world, who is starving or hungry or hurt, who is full of vinegar and spit, and who has not changed a bit. I sip, gulp and feed those closest to me, put milk and weather stripping on the grocery list, head out the door.
The store is always open. I get milk and duct tape (they don't carry weather stripping and anything can be fixed with duct tape). The boxes of holiday cheer and peppermint have all gone in the back room, to roost until next day-after-Halloween.
Pink love birds are now perched beside the clementines, the snow scrapers, the mittens and hats. Valentine's Day is the next big buy -- as if there is nothing else to think about, nothing hard-edged about the shoe-pounding rush of our days, the emotional leftovers of loss from a December gone again, or the insistent way the world just keeps on trudging on, without ever letting us rest for heaven's sake. We're tuckered out and trying hard to balance evenly on our heels and the balls of our feet, toes gripping and fierce. We don't want to slip on the ice.
January can be tiresome and the bears have it all over us on this one. They hibernate. They know there is no point in looking for berries and apples when the trees are bare and the ground splinters like glass if you rap hard. They turn inward, conserve and sleep the winter off.
And perhaps, too, a part of us is trying to hibernate -- and because we can't, because we must run and balance and fetch and fix, we begin to drag.
This is a culture that respects nothing about slow.
Even so, our internal clocks, hard-wired and as ancient as our histories, will try to still down, settle down, wind down, move low down when the days are short, when darkness comes early, while the air is cold and getting colder.
We need to go easy on ourselves.
We need to pray ourselves into a quiet cave, even if just for a moment. There we need to do nothing and expect nothing and only push away the edges of the day: make a clearing in the cave. Then, in our heads and in our bodies we will have made a circle for rest. Into that space God will swirl, because suddenly there is room to feel Him.
Breathe deep. Refuse to beat yourself up for lists gone tickless and breezy duct-taped doors. Sleep some when you shouldn't. Drag a little slowly and pull it up around you.
Spring will come soon, with turtles and light.
Natalie Costanza-Chavez is a writer who lives in Fort Collins and welcomes your e-mail. You can reach her, and read past columns, at www.gracenotescolulmn.org, or e-mail her at grace-notes@comcast.net.
read more digg story
Excerpt: ‘What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love ...’
When it comes to love and relationships, can people be trained just like animals? Author Amy Sutherland suggests that if exotic animals can be tamed, then perhaps those same training techniques can be used on your partner. In “What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage: Lessons from Animals and Their Trainers,” Sutherland explainsexplains how positive reinforcement, not nagging, can help you have a stronger, better relationship: I wrote a column for The New York Times about how I had improved my marriage by thinking like an animal trainer. To my surprise, the whole world sat up and took notice. After being ignored by my friends, I was suddenly besieged with interview requests from around the globe My column shot to the top of the list of most e-mailed stories at the Times, where it remained for days, then weeks, and eventually became the most e-mailed story of 2006. When the dust settled, I had a movie deal and a contract to make my Times column into a book.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, February 4, 2008
I've always just been on my own
2:55 AM - I’ve just always been on my own-- Notes about my mother
Well, dang. I spent the weekend getting blown away by my family. Specifically, it has come to my attention that my mother dearest has told me some fairly whopper lies during her lifetime. With my mother, everything and I mean everything had to be a great big secret. When I was little, "Why do you fight with your sisters, Mom?" "That is not for you to ask. Don't talk. There's nothing to talk about. It's not your business," she'd reply. And there was the usual, "Children should be seen and not heard. Now don't talk." "O.K." I'd say to myself, and stuff some more things down deep inside. "What was it like when you were growing up, mom?" "There's nothing to tell. Everything was fine. Don't talk," she'd scold.
Well, dang. I spent the weekend getting blown away by my family. Specifically, it has come to my attention that my mother dearest has told me some fairly whopper lies during her lifetime. With my mother, everything and I mean everything had to be a great big secret. When I was little, "Why do you fight with your sisters, Mom?" "That is not for you to ask. Don't talk. There's nothing to talk about. It's not your business," she'd reply. And there was the usual, "Children should be seen and not heard. Now don't talk." "O.K." I'd say to myself, and stuff some more things down deep inside. "What was it like when you were growing up, mom?" "There's nothing to tell. Everything was fine. Don't talk," she'd scold.
My mother and her sisters were always glad to see each other at holidays, funerals, etc. It would only take about 15 minutes, however, for the screaming to begin. It would be so loud, I'd never hear individual words, just screeching. These were college educated women, a remarkable fact seeing as they were born in the 1910s. Any and all cousins of mine who were present were quite a bit older than me, absorbed in their own little personal hells, I'm sure. I never had anyone to ask about this stuff. Nobody. So, I'd just stuff these things away in my mind and heart, and deal with it alone.
The goal of my entire childhood was to move away from home ASAP. I took summer school classes, not because I needed to. I just wanted to get in my credits. Oh how my mother was so thrilled I was so dedicated to school. School was my solace, my place away from home. "Can I go to a dance Friday night in the gym at school, Mom?" I'd ask. "NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT," she'd scream. Nothing would change her mind. My father would read away in his horse books, silently in the living room, apparently ignoring it all. The December month I turned 17 I was finished with high school, and I made sure I was on my way out the door.
I did make it to dances and such anyway. I'd just ask to spend the night at one of my friend's house (friends she approved of), and off we'd go! But I never got to go home and share any details of the fun I'd had with my mother, never got to share any dreams or desires. My desires were only to be her desires for me.
According to her, I was to be an ethereal, tiny-waisted and very slender girl, who would be a concert pianist and most likely an earth shattering scientist who would prove the Creation Theory correct once and for all. Never mind if I was not cut out for such feats. I took my piano lessons dutifully for 9 years and practiced. I could play the notes like a robot, but there was no soul, no joi de vive, in it. Because I was not allowed to have emotions.
So I stuffed it all down and waited and got out at age 17. Not in a good way, but that is a story for another time. Because if I wanted to go to college with them paying for it, I didn't get to leave and live on a campus. Oh no, I'd have to live at home and take courses at the IU-PU extension in Fort Wayne. I couldn't possibly handle that, I mean not even for a year.
Once I was gone, I was really gone. I mean that if I was sick or in need, there would never be any help from my mother at all. Everything I wondered about, how to raise my children, how to be married, how to have a job and family and do it all, I had to figure out on my own. I remember begging her, pleading with her, to help me (in person, not by phone) a few times. She would say no and turn her back and walk away. She would sometimes help with money, but that is a cold comfort when you really need a mom.
I never had brothers and sisters, so I really was all on my own. And people wonder why I made mistakes. Hmmmmm
But now, this weekend, I learned that loneliness was in fact sometimes actually orchestrated by my mother. She kept me isolated from my relatives, and this got worse and worse as time went on.
My question is why? Why would a mother do this? Maybe I'll never know.
In my heart, I have always resolved to do the best I could and I feel I have. Oh, there have been terrible shortcomings and regrets for my various actions. But I learned to go on and be stronger. My career, finances, and health have all turned out pretty bad. I will come to an impoverished end, barring any miracles. I had the smarts, but I never had the emotional stability to get anywhere. There was always too much stuff stuffed way down in me.
Eventually I worked out much of this stuff in therapy, but it took most of my 30s and 40s to do that. (And I must inject here, that I think I was quite insane during my 20s.) My head is straight now, but when you have lost your health, it hardly matters whether your head is on straight or not. People tell me, "Oh, you are such a survivor, how great." "Survivor?" I think. "I just didn't die. I just didn't die." Is that survival really?
So here I sit, most times numbly sitting alone in the living room, with my husband sitting in the other room, doing his own soul searching I guess. It is soooooooo hard for me to reach out and tell people I need help. Because surely they'll say no, won't they? By the time I can get myself to ask, I'm in such a bind that what I need help with is almost too overwhelming, even with help. But I always talk to God, my Heavenly Father, his Son Jesus. That is the key there, why I have made it. When you absolutely have no one else, He is there, and He will tell you what to do in that little voice in your head, in your heart. You just have to listen for it. And you have to be willing to do what He says. I give thanks to God Almighty in heaven for caring for a girl like me.
Well just some notes to myself. Looking forward to going to heaven whenever it is my time. I will have peace then. These things I have written are just the tip of the iceberg, but enough for me to have marked this important time-- the day I found out many truths my mother didn't want me to know. But will I ever know why?
Thursday, January 31, 2008
FOXNews.com - Attorney: New Photos Might Be of Missing Woman Stacy Peterson - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News
FOXNews.com - Attorney: New Photos Might Be of Missing Woman Stacy Peterson - Local News News Articles National News US News
Attorney: New Photos Might Be of Missing Woman Stacy Peterson
Thursday, January 31, 2008
An attorney for Drew Peterson has turned over new photos exclusively to FOX News that he says might be of Peterson's missing fourth wife Stacy.
The lawyer told FOX News' John Gibson and Heather Nauert of "The Big Story" that he got the pictures from a retired police officer who said he saw Stacy Peterson in Thailand.
Drew Peterson says he can't be 100 percent sure that the photos are of his missing wife, who vanished in October and is presumed dead. Peterson is a prime suspect in her disappearance.
Also Thursday, Peterson, a former Illinois police sergeant, said he wanted to divorce Stacy. He has insisted that his wife is alive but ran off with another man.
Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio, died under mysterious circumstances in 2004, when she was found in a bathtub. Her body was exhumed for further forensic analysis, and officials have reclassified her death as a "homicide staged to look like an accident."
See link for picture. I say it is NOT!!!
Attorney: New Photos Might Be of Missing Woman Stacy Peterson
Thursday, January 31, 2008
An attorney for Drew Peterson has turned over new photos exclusively to FOX News that he says might be of Peterson's missing fourth wife Stacy.
The lawyer told FOX News' John Gibson and Heather Nauert of "The Big Story" that he got the pictures from a retired police officer who said he saw Stacy Peterson in Thailand.
Drew Peterson says he can't be 100 percent sure that the photos are of his missing wife, who vanished in October and is presumed dead. Peterson is a prime suspect in her disappearance.
Also Thursday, Peterson, a former Illinois police sergeant, said he wanted to divorce Stacy. He has insisted that his wife is alive but ran off with another man.
Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio, died under mysterious circumstances in 2004, when she was found in a bathtub. Her body was exhumed for further forensic analysis, and officials have reclassified her death as a "homicide staged to look like an accident."
See link for picture. I say it is NOT!!!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Angelina glows and shows
Angelina and Brad shown in several pictures, Angelina wearing a lovely tie dye "tent" strapless gown. Also pics of them smooching!
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Author of an EXTREMELY good book who everyone should have
"The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker
Gavin de Becker (born October 26, 1954) [1] is an American specialist in security issues, especially for governments, corporations, and celebrities.
He is designer of the MOSAIC Threat Assessment Systems used to screen threats to Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, members of United States Congress, and senior officials of the Central Intelligence Agency. Along with the United States Marshals Service, he co-designed the MOSAIC system currently used for assessing all threats to Federal Judges and prosecutors.
He was twice appointed to the President's Advisory Board at the United States Department of Justice, and he served two terms on the Governor's Advisory Board at the California Department of Mental Health.
de Becker is the author of three best-selling books, The Gift of Fear, Protecting the Gift, and Fear Less.
He is Senior Fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs and a Senior Advisor to the Rand Corporation on public safety and justice matters.
He was the owner of a Los Angeles house at which George Harrison died of cancer in November 2001.
Gavin de Becker (born October 26, 1954) [1] is an American specialist in security issues, especially for governments, corporations, and celebrities.
He is designer of the MOSAIC Threat Assessment Systems used to screen threats to Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, members of United States Congress, and senior officials of the Central Intelligence Agency. Along with the United States Marshals Service, he co-designed the MOSAIC system currently used for assessing all threats to Federal Judges and prosecutors.
He was twice appointed to the President's Advisory Board at the United States Department of Justice, and he served two terms on the Governor's Advisory Board at the California Department of Mental Health.
de Becker is the author of three best-selling books, The Gift of Fear, Protecting the Gift, and Fear Less.
He is Senior Fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs and a Senior Advisor to the Rand Corporation on public safety and justice matters.
He was the owner of a Los Angeles house at which George Harrison died of cancer in November 2001.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Empire State Building Dead Zone
In the shadow of the Empire State Building lies an “automotive Bermuda Triangle” - a five-block radius where vehicles mysteriously die. No one is sure what’s causing it, but all roads appear to lead to the looming giant in our midst - specifically, its Art Deco mast and 203-foot-long, antenna-laden spire. Is the truth stranger than fiction? Or is this just fiction? Hmmmmmmmmm?
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Sunday, January 27, 2008
ABC News: Parolee Charged With 1997 Rape, Killing
DNA snags Uraguayan suspect in horrific murder of Susannah Chase in Boulder, Colorado in 1997. Originally from Boulder, I remember this horrific crime well and am heartened there will be justice for this beautiful young victim after all this time. I don't know for sure if Colorado still has the death penalty, but if they do this is one suspect who after trial ought to get it. He has been in prison in Wyoming for other violent crimes and was back in Boulder recently, having been arrested by Boulder and Aurora police officers. Keep this disgusting subhuman off the streets forever.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Saturday, January 26, 2008
A President Like My Father
We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960. We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Barack Obama. I hear Caroline Kennedy's words loud and clear!!! I am clearly impressed with her reasoning and writing.
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read more | digg story
Friday, January 25, 2008
'Angelina Jolie is pregnant and expecting Brad Pitt's TWINS'
Hmmm, I wonder if it's true. And how long it will take to refute or confirm this report. Maybe she has just regained some weight she lost after her mother' death. I would like to see them have twins!Angelina Jolie is pregnant with twins, a US magazine has reported.The Tomb Raider star is said to have been given the joyful news this week. Angelina, 32, was the subject of pregnancy rumours at the Critics' Choice awards earlier this month when she looked to have put gained some much-needed weight.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, January 24, 2008
A Little Nostalgia, a Long Fork and Lots of Cheese
Fondue is as simple to make as a toasted cheese sandwich, but more satisfying. I used to fondue back in the 70s and 80s. It sounds so good now! I believe I will start again, just using my cast iron pot like this author did. Definitely a high calorie meal, but oh so good on these terribly cold days. It was -8 degrees in my town this morning. Not mentioned in the article is melting chocolate in your fondue pot and dipping in various things like strawberries, orange slices, marshmallows, graham crackers, etc, just really anything you think you'd like to taste with chocoate!!!! We also used to clarify butter and use it for fondue, dipping in slices of meat. If you use this, you need to make sure the butter in the fondue pot is hot enough to cook the meat, if you use raw pieces of meat, which is how we always did it. Otherwise, you could just precook some meat and dip in the clarified butter. Again, not a low calorie, low fat meal, but a splurge now and then can't hurt!!! Very impresssive to dinner guests too.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
ABC News: THE NOTE: New Year, Same Tight '08 Race
The last pre-Iowa numbers that mean anything at all are certain to shape perceptions, expectations, and overall mood in the final sprint to Iowa. Yes, the same folks who are blasting the methodology would be trumpeting the victory if they were on top.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
First Day
Most likely the blogs in this will begin with political stuff. After the presidential elections, this blog will turn to other subjets.
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