Photo Friday!

Here it is...Friday. And it occurred to me that I actually DO have pictures that are not a year old. I took some pictures on my beach retreat. Of course, they are all sunset pictures... But you won't mind my sharing one, will you?


Oh yeah...it's huge. But we can all look at it and wish we were (still) there.

GULF COAST SYNDROME

This link is courtesy of Cynthia and Mary Ellen on Facebook. Gulf Coast Syndrome in the Colorado Springs Independent. And remember that it's our current speaker of the house who attempted to reprimand the president for "picking on BP" when he insisted that the company put up some cash to support the costs of the clean up. Not nearly enough it seems. And BP is posting record profits this year. So, for what it's worth, I'm posting this link where ever I can think of.

Want a real kick in the face. The dispersant BP used over here in the colonies is banned in the UK.

Just Wondering...

Three days ago, this story made news:
Former Palin Aide Pens Scathing Tell-All

Less than 24 hours later, that article mysteriously disappeared from online news leaders, to be replaced by this one:
John Edwards facing Criminal Charges

I’m no huge John Edwards fan, and I’m aggressively uninterested in anything having to do with Alaska’s former governor. But we all know they represent opposite sides of the political spectrum.

And it seems to me it is no coincidence that the Palin story vaporized, and abra-cadabra, the Edwards headline materialized in its place.

Is there anyone out there who still believes that old “Liberal Media” bullcrap?

seriously...who could resist him?

I'm looking for the Dos Equis man.

Seriously, who could resist him?

Here are some of the phrases used to describe him:

His blood smells like cologne

His hands feels like rich brown suede

His beard alone

Has experienced more than a lesser man’s entire body...

His charm is so contagious vaccines have been created for it…

His personality is so magnetic he’s unable to carry credit cards…

He’s been known to cure narcolepsy just by walking into a room

He can speak French…in Russian (my personal fave)

Every time he goes for a swim…dolphins appear

The police often question him

Just because they find him interesting

He is the only man to ever ace a Rorschach test

Even his enemies list him as their emergency contact number...

When it's raining, it's because he thinks something sad...

He’s a lover, not a fighter...but he's also a fighter, so don't get any ideas...

He once had an awkward moment…just to see how it feels

He lives vicariously…through himself

If he were to give you directions, you'd never get lost

And you’d arrive at least 5 minutes early

He is...the most interesting man in the world...

Yep, that's the man I'm looking for.

Judging by his pic, I'd say he's about my age (I'm 61).

But if he's like many men my age, including former IMF head, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, age 62...he's probably not looking for me.

No, he's not looking for me; he's probably looking for a 30-something. And really, who could blame him? Almost all of us are better looking when we're younger; no one could deny that. So I understand looking at a younger person, and admiring their physical beauty. But here's where most women have so much more common sense than most men: as we get older, we realize that we've aged. When I look in the mirror, I'm happy with what I see, but what I see is a 61-year-old woman.

When Dominique Strauss-Kahn stepped out of the shower last Saturday and looked in the mirror, what did he see? Maybe he didn't see himself at all; just the reflection of the 32-year-old housekeeper, who had come into the suite thinking it was unoccupied...

His first story was that he wasn't there; he was having lunch with his daughter; it didn't happen.

But after a CSI team showed up and cut away a section of carpet said to contain certain...ahem...forensic evidence, the story has changed: it seems Monsieur Strauss-Kahn did indeed have (rough, oral) sex with the 30-years-younger housekeeper, but it was consensual sex...

Yeah, right.

Nevermind that the housekeeper has reportedly worked at the Sofitel for three years with an unblemished record.

Nevermind that she is a devout Muslim.

Nevermind that DSK is approximately twice her age.

Everyone knows that all women are attracted to powerful, older men. I personally have been longing to get together with a rich guy twice my age, but since I'm 61, I know the odds are against it. Shoot, even if I'd be willing to settle for someone 30 years older than I am now, what are the chances? But I digress.

I've been reading the comments people have left on the web about this, and I've learned quite a few things. It couldn't have happened because the housekeeper is apparently around 6 feet tall. I confess, I have absolutely no response to this argument, because I don't understand what her height has to do with anything.

It couldn't have happened, because DSK, being the powerful, attractive guy that he is, could have simply hired a woman for sex. Huh? He's accused of sexual assault, which has nothing to do with sex but everything to do with power, rage, subjugation...

It couldn't have happened, because he went to lunch afterward, before he went to the airport. Uh-huh. That doesn't prove anything, except maybe that he's a cocky, arrogant SOB who thinks he's above the law.

I could go on and on, but I won't, because I find it depressing.

But not everything in this story is depressing.

I applaud the housekeeper, for going to security immediately and reporting what happened.

I applaud her colleague, who had the presence of mind, when he got the call from DSK inquiring about his cellphone (which the colleague did not have) to lie and say yes, he had it in hand and would be happy to have it delivered immediately to DSK, just tell him where...which is how the police got the flight info

I applaud the Port Authority police, who boarded the Air France flight and apprehended DSK

I applaud the NYC police, who handcuffed DSK and took him into custody...

cross posted at Talking to Myself

Forks Over Knives, or How To Save Your Own Life

So, life (thank the goddess) goes on, and I seem to have less and less time or inclination to sit at the computer. Well, no, the truth is that I quite often have the inclination, but since for the past almost seven months now I have been exercising more and more often than in the past forty or fifty years put together, and have become convinced of the real dangers of spending too much time sitting in a chair, I don't very often act on that inclination. I do miss spending time writing things longer than emails or Facebook status posts however, and since we're all going to be raptured (or the Chosen will be raptured, and I guess the rest of us will just fall into the Great Void) when Judgement Day happens on Saturday, I thought I'd spend a little time on the old blog today (with frequent intervals to get up and jog around the house, mind you).

It's really too bad about that judgement day business, especially if it really happens.  Gail and I have been spending so much time and effort on getting healthy and fit at this late day in our lives, and wondering why we waited so long -  be a damn shame to waste it on getting tossed into la nada by worldwide earthquakes and so forth.  I personally would really like to go down a few more sizes and maybe run a 5K race for a worthy cause of some sort before it's all over.  Maybe even a marathon eventually.  Well, I guess we'll see.

In the meantime my more immediate goal is to be able to see a movie whose progress I've been following for a while now.  It's called Forks Over Knives, and it's about the benefits of exactly what Gail and I have been doing since her Coronary Artery Disease diagnosis in September, eating a plant based, nutritionally dense, vegan diet.  We've also been doing yoga, working out on the treadmill and weight machines at our local Y's, and as soon as the outdoor pool is open (Memorial Day, and we can't wait), swimming, daily.  The movie apparently doesn't deal much with exercise, according to Roger Ebert's review "...Although regular exercise, especially walking, is invaluable, the film shows only a little exercise and focuses singlemindedly on nutrition."  Ebert is most enthusiastic about this film, and says what we have found to be true during our Medical System Journeying after Gail's diagnosis: " 'Forks Over Knives' is not subtle. It plays as if it had been made for doctors to see in medical school. Few doctors seem prepared to suggest proper nutrition as an alternative to pills, stents and bypasses." No doctor has recommended the path we've taken; quite the contrary - the recommendations are all for invasive procedures and/or medications. The reactions to our telling them our plan has universally been snorts of derision. So, we took the initiative to read the very doctors featured in this movie, T. Colin Campbell and Caldwell Esselstyne, and embark on our own vegan adventure.

I've been writing about this adventure in this blog since we started, and think it's time for a little update. Gail, who was not really overweight to start withbut did have some of the dreaded belly fat,  has lost fifteen pounds, her cholesterol has dropped many points, her blood pressure is now very low normal, and she never has any angina, even when racing away at high speeds and inclines on the treadmill.  I, who was quite overweight, have lost almost fifty pounds and my blood pressure is closer to a good normal reading than it has been in my entire adult life.  I won't have a physical and tests until November (first apptmt I could get), but I am expecting my cholesterol to be lower than it has been since I started having it tested in my forties.  It has always been high, and doctors have wanted to put me on medication for years now. So, Gail and I are living proof of this movie's premise, laid out here by T. Colin Campbell himself: 

For more than 2,800 years, the concept of eating plants in their whole-food form has struggled to be heard and adopted as a way of life. However, recent evidence shows that more than ever a plant-based diet is not something to be ignored. In fact, eating a plant-based diet has become an urgent matter from several perspectives. Not only will it improve your health -- and the evidence behind this claim is now overwhelming -- but it will also dramatically reduce health care costs, as well as reduce violence to our environment and to other sentient beings.

The fact is our nation's economic stability, already crumbling due to the repeated bursting of bubbles such as technology and housing, has been hard hit by spiraling health costs that seem to have no end in sight. Despite this, as a nation, we are sicker and fatter than we have ever been. The epidemic of obesity and diabetes, especially in the young, forecasts an economically unsustainable public health challenge with the gloomy prophecy that today's children may not outlive their parents.

Who will protect the public? Not our government: The U.S. Department of Agriculture's nutrition pyramid is laden with food that will guarantee millions will suffer ill health. Not the American Dietetic Association, which is controlled by food corporations. Not the insurance industry, which profits by selling plans to the sick. Not the pharmaceutical industry, which pockets billions from chronic illnesses. And not the medical profession, in which doctors and nurses receive virtually no training in nutrition or behavioral modification, and are handsomely rewarded for administrating drugs and employing technical expertise.

What can save America is a plant-based diet, which will help individuals recover their good health, and which in turn will set our health care system right (as well as our economy). However, for this plant-based diet to take hold, the public must be endowed with nutritional literacy, the kind of knowledge that is portrayed in the new documentary, "Forks Over Knives."

"Forks Over Knives" focuses not just on the research that both of us have been engaged in over the last four decades, whether in China and Cornell or at the Cleveland Clinic; it also traces the journey of several Americans as they move from a lifetime of eating mostly animal-based and processed foods to a whole food plant-based diet, and the extraordinary medical results that follow. It is educational, entertaining, and literally life-saving.

See this movie if it comes to a theatre, or even a town, near you. It would be so great if this movie actually provided the impetus this country needed toget itself off the track of degenerative illness and onto one of real health care.(Cross-posted from Quid Nunc.)

Photo Not Friday

I will be too busy this Friday to post much of anything, I imagine...

But I'm posting this picture in honor of some things into which I will soon have a lot more time to invest.

This pic isn't from this year, but I've had the unusual pleasure of the company of his kind all during this past winter. They have helped get me through some bleakish months...

Something For Which We Have All Been Waiting...Or Not

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD: NPR

While I understand there is no way that this event can go unmentioned here at "Women On..."

I need to confess:

My first reaction was not "Justice has been done."

My first reaction was not "An evil man has been removed from this earth."

My first reaction was not "Glory Hallelujah!"

No.

My first reaction was, "Oh My God. It will be SOOOO interesting to see how this plays out for the president in the next few days."

I am at once hopeful...

...and hiding under my bed with my fingers in my ears.

Events of the past decade have led me to be almost certain that the media, politicians, pundits, and people of this great country are on the threshold of a Great Opportunity... to make total asses of themselves.

If only it could be some other way.

Shed a Tear for Wisconsin

Wisconsin's Political Split Hardens Into Great Divide

This is what happens when partisan legislators throw away the rules of "government by the people" and decide that the way to make policy is "my way or the highway."

Let's face it, folks...we have forgotten how our own government works. How it was designed to work from the very beginning. All this flap about what "the founders" had in mind when the Consitution was created... James Madison was one of those hallowed founders. And this is what HE had to say about the process of forming that document:

"No man felt himself obliged to retain his opinions any longer than he was satisfied of their propriety and truth, and was open to the force of argument." (Italics mine.)

There WAS no "my way or the highway" built into the foundation of our government. There never was intended to be. The Founders knew that government by the people promised to be a laborious process of proposal/debate/compromise. It took them four months of that precise process to create the document that now has everyone arguing which side has more honor and reverence for it.

Evidently, in someone's mind, Wisconsin wasn't adequately engaged in the partisan battle sweeping the nation. It appears that Governor Walker took it upon himself to rectify that situation. So now, the renegade actions of one strong-arm petty dictator have significantly deteriorated the quality of life in the state of Wisconsin.

Putting aside all the accusations and counter-accusations, not considering who might be wrong and who might be right in this situation, the people of Wisconsin should be asking themselves, "Is this what we elect a governor to do? To set us at each others' throats? To turn neighbors into enemies overnight?"

I'm thinking the answer is probably a resounding, "NO!"

THE QUAKERS PART I

As I work my way through these English immigrants I’ve discovered that there’s something you can’t escape. Religious history and political history are Siamese twins. You can’t understand the one without the other. And it’s our loss.

Each section of Albion’s Seed has maps that show which part of England the majority of the members of the migrating group came from. Most of the Quaker immigrants came from northern counties including Yorkshire and Lancashire. As I was looking the maps, the highlighted regions seemed awfully familiar. They were. The counties that were home to the majority of Quaker immigrants overlap the paths the Irish monks took on their way to Europe. A path that took them through what became northern France and southern Germany all the way to the heel of Italy’s boot.

Those monks and missionaries planted their respect for the Creator and their belief that the believer could have a direct and person experience of God. Perhaps that belief wasn’t so unusual in mystics like Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Ekhart and Francis of Assisi. They all spoke of the Inner Light. Quakers also taught the Inner Light, but they went further in their beliefs. For a Quaker no intermediary between believer and Creator was necessary. No ordained ministers, no bishops. And at that point they parted company with just about everyone else in England.

Like all new believers, the early Quakers were eager to share what they had experienced. They ran into immediate problems. They claimed the right to preach where they would and refused to tithe to the Anglican Church. The one got them pilloried or imprisoned. The other led to confiscation of crops, stock and property. Often the value of what was taken was more than they owed the church. Quakers also believed in equality before God and probably got into more trouble for refusing to remove their hats when the met up with social superiors. Most Quakers also refused to swear oaths either to the King or in court.

Enter William Penn. The son of an admiral in favor with the court of Charles II he converted in his early twenties. He managed to get himself arrested almost immediately for attending Quaker meetings. Young William traveled with George Fox not only in England but in Europe. He soon turned his hand to writing for the church. He turned out more than sixty pamphlets or short books, almost half of them on liberty of conscience.

One of the reasons I took more time with the Quakers had to do with a 1670 court case. Penn was arrested with William Meade and charged with preaching to a crowd of more than five people. They were denied the right to see the charges against them and the judge directed the jury to reach a jury without the defense being allowed to present a case.

The jury returned a not guilty verdict. They were “invited” to change their verdict. The jury refused. The impasse continued over several days. When the jury continued to refuse to change their minds, the judge committed the defendants and the jury to Newgate prison. Penn and Meade for contempt and the jurors because he could I guess. One of the juror’s petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus. After all he hadn’t committed a crime, he just refused to change his mind. Eventually, after some polite judicial back and forth over just which court he needed to go to for the writ, it was granted. The justices also ruled that juries had the right to be free of intimidation. The right to habeas corpus in cases of unlawful detention was also upheld. Even though the trial was held in seventeenth century England, these rights found their way into American law.

Cross posted in Walking With Hope.

a rant on work

I've been thinking about Wisconsin, and unions, and work.

I know that many good, qualified people are unemployed right now, through no fault of their own, and part of me knows I need to be grateful that I have a job...but some weeks it's harder than others to hold onto that thought, and this was one of them. Work is horrendous right now, for everyone, not just for me. We're in the midst of a takeover, with the result that management is running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off trying to decide what to do next, and every week, and sometimes every day, new decisions are made by those higher on the foodchain re how best to "manage" (HA!) the pesky help (of which I'm one). Although their decisions have direct impact on how I do my job, most of the time management doesn't seem to realize that to implement these decisions, those of us who do the day to day grunt work would actually have to be made aware of them...

But there are exceptions, and on Friday afternoon, the latest plan was announced. It's a very old plan that the company has been trying to implement for several years. It's never worked, but that doesn't discourage the fat cats, who dust it off and rename it and try again. It's called Cross-Training, a nifty plan whereby upper management, all of whom make enough to consider the prospect of tax cuts for the wealthy a terrorist act, downgrade the measly existing pay structures for grunts like myself even further, and then require everyone to learn everyone else's job. The goal is to have everyone able to cover everyone else at all times, so that if someone in investigational is hit by a bus, someone like me (I work in post-marketing) could leave my cube and go take over their work while they're out...the obvious question of who would then do my work doesn't appear to figure into this equation...and never mind that some of the products we manufacture are considered drugs, and some are considered devices, and some (the majority of the products I handle) are considered both drugs and devices (and thus subject to both sets of regulations), depending on where they're marketed. What I do isn't hard, but it's highly highly highly specialized, so I don't see how this "plan" will ever work.

I sat in that meeting and listened to this nonsense...did I mention that for good effect, the person delivering this news told us not to worry about it, but we should know that the company who is acquiring us outsources all of their case management to India, because they can pay our counterparts there less than they pay us...

Add road construction to get to work, and traffic...I've had better times earning a living. A couple of weeks ago on FB, in frustration, I posted, "I hate my job!" And a retired friend left a comment, "AGAIN?"

Yes, again. And this is why.

cross posted on Talking to Myself

COOKIES

My cousin posted this on his Facebook page. Several people liked it, didn’t leave comments. Of the comments that were left, about half were anti union. I hope he doesn’t mind if I run with the idea.

A public union employee, a Tea party activist and a CEO are sitting at a table with a dozen cookies in the middle of it. The CEO takes 11 cookies, turns to the Tea Party member and says "watch that union guy. He wants a piece of your cookie". Enough said.

That got me to thinking.

Suppose the CEO owns a chain of stores that sells cookies. He wants to use those eleven cookies to buy more cookies, but he wants to get as many cookies as possible for his eleven cookies. He discovers that there is a country that will make cookies for him. This country can make cookies that are so cheap that the CEO can undersell all the local cookie makers near his stores. The Tea Partier and the union member can buy a few cookies even they only have one cookie between them. The only losers are the local cookie makers who can’t sell their cookies that cheaply and their customers who can’t buy their good cookies anymore because they’re out of business. The CEO keeps building more stores, sells more really cheap cookies and more local cookie makers go out of business.

People notice that the cheap cookies don’t taste as good as the cookies they used to be able to buy from the bakery on the corner. They tell themselves that is doesn’t matter so much because the cookies made in the far away country are really, really cheap and they can buy a lot of cookies even though they don’t taste very good. The only unhappy people are the out of work cookie makers and their customers who loved those really good cookies.

And then there's the delvery driver who got his hours cut because he worked for the company that supplied all the ingredients and other supplies for the closed down cookie makers. That business is slower now. The driver and some of the other workers were able to find new jobs but they had to move to do it.

Some of the other closed down cookie maker's employees and laid off supplier employees were able to get jobs with the CEO's company,but with fewer hours and lower pay. The second shift baker is now selling shirts and blouses imported from wherever and moved back in with her Tea Party parents. The teacher lucky enough to find that first job close to her home town got laid off when the local elementary school closed and the fire fighter had his hours cut when the local station was closed and the community contracted with the larger department a few miles away for fire protection.

How many threads can we cut out of the fabric of our communities before it rips beyond repair.

Words to Live By

It’s a lost slogan, coined to keep the British people composed and focused as the threat of Hitler’s invasion became imminent. Though 2 million copies were printed, only a few were actually circulated. In someone’s opinion, the national disaster never reached the level that required this “big gun” of a philosophy to be rolled out. But the poster was recently rediscovered, and evidently speaks enough to the harried, hassled, hyped and horrified 21st-century everyman that it has become a cult sensation.

Imagine, if you will, a government encouraging its constituents to keep calm. Almost impossible to fathom, isn’t it, in today’s world of high-decibel hyperbole that calls us to just the opposite—to screaming frenzy, panic and all-encompassing anger?

And yet, if there was real danger… if true, tangible disaster threatened, “they” would be exhorting us to…KEEP CALM. Don’t panic. Chillax. No government wants to deal with millions of terrified, witless citizens AND a national catastrophe at the same time.

So when government, or someone inside the government, seems to be goading you to anger and fear; attempting to whip you into a fury about something that only “they” can fix…

You can pretty much conclude there is no real danger. A real threat would need you calm and focused.

Let’s all simply remember this, shall we? Chant it like a mantra, every time someone—the media or an elected official, our next-door-neighbor or an evangelist, or all of the above—tries to plant fear or anger in our hearts…

KEEP CALM
AND CARRY ON.