2777 Confused about food

Saturday, February 13, 2010

The price is what you pay, the value is what you receive.
-- Salada Tea tag line --

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In this recent post, http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2010/02/2772-cell-conspiracy.html, I linked to an article about research on the health dangers of cellular phones and towers. Now, there's this:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AI_chv7nCU]

I am horrified! Radar? Constantly bathing your body at close range?

Even when you aren't using your cell phone, if it's on it's periodically sending and receiving positional signals (using microwaves, which is essentially radar), but I suspect this is a much stronger signal. And it will not be broadcasting periodically. It will be constant. And anything that can go through a purse or pocket is going through to your hip bones.

I wonder if that guy would be willing to strap it to his infant daughter's forehead.

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After Thursday's visit to the nutritionist, I spent all of yesterday doing research. It's all very confusing. I'm supposed to have

• 6 servings of complex carbs
• 4-6 servings of protein
• 2-3 servings of fruit
• 2 servings of dairy
• 3 servings of vegetables
• 3 servings of fats

scattered over three meals and three snacks every day. But the nutritionist and the Mayo Clinic, among others, seem to differ on which classification various foods fall into. The nutritionist considered nuts to be protein, but Mayo put them in the fats group. The nutritionist wants me to have a protein with every meal and snack, but if I am to have 5 servings of protein a day, and one "serving" of beef, pork, chicken is 1 ounce (that's ONE!), I don't see how.

I discovered that you can't decide you're hungry, walk out to the kitchen and open the refrigerator or cabinet, and think, "What shall I eat?" When you have to parcel out what classes can be eaten in what combination, you have to plan the whole day's meals and snacks ahead of time. The diabetic diet isn't about simply avoiding sugars. It's about combinations and balance.

I looked in the pantry and refrigerator, and there's a lot of stuff I can't have any more. I should just get rid of it. I asked Daughter, and she doesn't want any of it. She said to give it to a soup kitchen or something, but they won't accept it because it's all been opened and decanted. Ever since an attack of nasty flour moths and some kind of tiny black beetle that could drill through soft plastic and cardboard, I've kept everything in glass jars and big plastic jugs. So there's flour, sugar, brown sugar, pancake mix, Basmati rice, dirty rice, five different kinds of pasta, dessert mixes, Bisquick, creamy soup mixes, on and on, almost all out of their original containers. I doubt anyone else would (or frankly, should) trust them.

I guess the raccoons and turkeys will be having a feast.

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Later - the chocolate will stay. A long time ago I mostly stopped eating regular candy chocolate and switched to unsweetened or semi-sweet baking chocolate to satisfy my occasional but powerful chocolate cravings, with the occasional Lindt truffle. It won't be cheating, really. The nutritionist said I could have one dessert a week.
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2776 No more baked potato?

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Dean Koontz, in The Face, paraphrased: When no one ever listens to you,
really listens, you can begin to lose the ability to tell whether or not you
are really making sense when you talk.

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I had a one-hour session with a nutritionist today. If I am not diabetic now, I am headed straight for it, so I figured it would be a good idea.

She says I am remarkably healthy for my age, that I've got the right ideas, based on what and how I've been eating and the supplements I take (she got all excited when I mentioned I take lecithin, and strongly approved of my fish oil capsules), but there are a few things we have to tweak.

She says I eat !way! too much fruit. I have to cut back to no more than three servings a day, and cut out fruit juice entirely.

"Cut out fruit juice? Howcome fruit is ok but fruit juice isn't? I buy the stuff without added sweetner...." "Because how many oranges does it take to make one glass of orange juice? How many grapes in one glass of grape juice?" "Oh. Ok."

I have to eat six times a day, and I should have protein at every meal and snack to balance the carbs. Protein isn't just meat. Cottage cheese, yogurt, peanut butter, low-fat cheese, tree nuts, etc. count as protein.

The part that hurt was "nothing white". Ok, doing without white bread and corn isn't all that bad, but she says that sticky white Japanese rice I dearly love, and my beloved white potatoes, are definitely out. I can have brown rice (yuck) and I can have those little red potatoes with the thin skins (oh, ok, I like them) and purple potatoes (available at Adams' Fairacre Farms). She says once I try the purples, I won't mind giving up the whites. I'm not big on pasta, so I don't mind being limited on that, and whole wheat pasta in moderation is ok.

She said to avoid wrap sandwiches. One wrapper is the equivalent of umpteen slices of white bread.

I can have my sweet liquors at about the same rate I drink now (about three a month), and for one dinner a week I can have anything I want (in reasonable portions). I can also have my favorite dessert once a week.

She wants me to keep a food diary, and I have to show it to her in a month.

Sigh.

Most of my freezer will have to be tossed. Seems like everything has white rice or potatoes in it. Maybe I'll take it all down to Daughter.
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2775 Magnesium

Thursday, February 11, 2010

In The Face, by Dean Koontz, the hero wants to arrest a motivational speaker
on "charges of felony cliché and practicing philosophy without an idea."

Oooo, I love that!
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The Plow Guy did somehow manage to go up the bank to the left of the mailbox. I'll find out what damage he did to the lawn when the snow melts, I guess.

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For many decades I've had either fibromyalgia or something similar. I have pain somewhere constantly. Not just little twinges. It's strong enough that I worry that I might someday have something serious going on and not know it.

Actually, that did happen once, when my gall bladder attacked me, and that's supposed to be bad pain, but I didn't worry about it until I started throwing up coffee grounds (that's partially digested blood for those who don't know). I drove myself to the ER in the middle of the night, and had emergency surgery two hours later.

On the plus side, I've delivered two babies completely without meds, and, "What pain? This is not pain. Hard work, yes. Pain, no."

Anyway, about four or five years ago I added magnesium to my daily supplements. I don't remember why I started taking it, but today it occurred to me that I've had very little random pain over the past several years. Sometimes I don't refill the weekly pill container, and I go without any supplements for a week or two until I get my tail in gear again, and --- surprise --- if I skip too long, the pain starts up again.

Hmmmm. If anyone out there has fibro or random pain, try magnesium and let me know what happens.
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2774 Driveway shock

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Mart Gross, biologist, on what behaviors get noted
or discounted : "Theory determines what you see."

That's so true. We tend to see what we expect to see,
and discount or explain away anything unexpected.
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All the weather sites and TV news I checked on Tuesday said we'd get 6 to 12 inches of snow yesterday (of course they didn't agree), so Tuesday afternoon I called Plow Guy and left a message that I'd need his services if we got 4 inches or more. At return from dinner Tuesday night, I left the car at the foot of the driveway so I could get out easily if we had a lot of snow. I figured I'd call Plow Guy and tell him to warn me before he arrived so I could move the car out of the driveway so he could get in.

The storm did shift southeast. The blizzard never arrived. When I went to bed last night, there were only 3 inches out there, so I didn't call Plow Guy.

Shock. I looked out the door this morning, and the driveway has been plowed.

How?!

At the foot, my driveway is one car wide. There's a steep uphill bank on the south side. On the north side, there's the mailbox on a small flat area, and then another downhill bank. This photo is from the ice storm last year, when I lost a bunch of trees. You can see the bank on the right and the mailbox on the left. Since the driveway is heading up, between the mailbox and the drive you can see a slope, and to the left of the mailbox the lawn rapidly gets steep enough to quickly get unmowable. My car is parked right there where the trees had fallen.
Now, how did Plow Guy, with his huge truck, get onto the driveway to plow it? Is my car still parked down there? (It was locked, so he didn't push it out of the way.) Is the mailbox still there? Did he chew up my lawn climbing the bank in the middle of the night?

And since we got only 3 inches total, why did he plow anyway? It's not insignificant. It's $55 per plowing.

I can't see the car from the house. It's below the brow of the hill.
I'll be going out after noon. Update and possible photos then.
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2773 Texting Haiti

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.
-- Isaac Asimov --

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Remember when "they" announced that you could text "Haiti" to a particular phone number, and donate $10 to Haiti relief? Well, wait for it. When the month's cell phone bills hit, you'll hear screams all over the country. Spanking will be reinstituted.

A lot of kids were unaware that the $10 would be added to the phone bill. They seemed to think that the money would come from some anonymous corporate benefactor, so they texted the code hundreds of times, proud of their texting skills.

Steel yourselves, parents.

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I had dinner last night with the Orange County Outdoor Singles Meetup group, at a new sushi restaurant on the Newburgh riverfront. I guess I shouldn't feel so bad about the no-shows with my groups - 12 people had RSVP'd yes, and only 7 showed up, and this is one of the more popular groups.

We were the only customers, the service and food was terrific (lots of extras), and we were there three hours, having fun.

The topic of tying knots with your tongue in cherry stems came up, and three of us claimed to be able to do it, so we asked the waiter for three stemmed maraschino cherries. The waiter brought a huge bowl full! We all had a chance to try at least three.

I left a little after ten, and the snow, which was supposed to begin after midnight, had already started, light flurries. When I woke this morning, I expected to find several inches, but it looks like about 2, and it's still just flurries. I guess the blizzard will be later today. I hope it'll swing south and east and miss us.

Well, I can hope....
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2772 Cell Conspiracy

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Consumotherapy - buying something because it makes you feel good.

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Please pass this link on: http://www.gq.com/cars-gear/gear-and-gadgets/201002/warning-cell-phone-radiation?printable=true. It's a long but well-written article on the various studies on the risks of cell phone/WiFi radiation, and why in the US even talking about the topic will get you labeled as a conspiracy nut.

"...most worrisome, though, are the preliminary results of the multinational Interphone study sponsored by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, in Lyon, France. (Scientists from thirteen countries took part in the study, the United States conspicuously not among them.) Interphone researchers reported in 2008 that after a decade of cell-phone use, the chance of getting a brain tumor—specifically on the side of the head where you use the phone—goes up as much as 40 percent for adults. Interphone researchers in Israel have found that cell phones can cause tumors of the parotid gland (the salivary gland in the cheek), and an independent study in Sweden last year concluded that people who started using a cell phone before the age of 20 were five times as likely to develop a brain tumor. Another Interphone study reported a nearly 300 percent increased risk of acoustic neuroma, a tumor of the acoustic nerve. "

The article makes the case that research has been stymied, shut down, and suppressed in the US because it is not in the interests of the telecommunications industry, the military, or the government. Consider who funds such research. Or, more appropriately here, who doesn't.

Did you know that it is actually illegal to attempt to stop installation of a microwave tower on the grounds of health concern?

Read it. The stories of the researcher's experiences are fascinating and illuminating. And if you can't get cell phone service where you sleep, rejoice.
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2771 There's no title that fits barrettes, choking, and consumerism.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

The north pole is in Lapland.

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You know you've screwed up when the second thing people say to you in greeting is "What happened to your hair?"

I've had a breakage problem. The top layer of my hair doesn't seem to grow past the bottom of the back of my head. I'd thought it was from overuse of heat straightening back in early 2007, but that should have grown out long ago.

I finally figured out it's because of those stupid "French clip" barrettes - the ones with the bar that goes up between two metal strips to hold the hair tight. I hated them when they first appeared on the store shelves a few decades ago because I knew they'd break hair, but they're about all you can buy now. I have many beautiful ones, and now I'm going to get rid of them all. I'll use scrunchies and simple bar barrettes from now on.

Two weeks ago I cut my hair to just above my shoulders, so it will all grow out together.

Males, in particular, don't like it short. They prefer it long, even if it is ragged.

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"The Doctors" today were demonstrating infant CPR. When Daughter was small, we weren't taught CPR for little ones. I was reminded of one day when I was going through the mail. Daughter was sitting on the floor next to me, and I was dropping the envelopes on the floor for her to play with.

Suddenly she began choking. One of the envelopes had a cellophane window, and she'd somehow managed to pull it loose and inhale it.

I couldn't see or reach it, it was pretty far down, so without thinking I turned her upside down, held her against my body by her legs, and pressed on her middle with the other hand, and ran for the front door. The next door neighbor was a retired pediatric nurse, so I ran to her door, holding Daughter upside down, punching her in the chest constantly, planning to ask the neighbor to call 911.

I rang the doorbell and kicked the door and shouted, squeezing Daughter upside down the whole time. Daughter managed to cough up the cellophane far enough that I could get to it, so I lifted her high by one ankle and reached into her mouth to scoop it out before she could inhale it again. Just as the woman opened the door, I got the cellophane out and Daughter started wailing.

The neighbor opened the door to me dangling a kicking squirming screaming child upside down by one ankle, in front of my face. The expression on Mrs. Tribble's face was priceless.

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I've been watching "The Age of Stupid" online. (I'm about 2/3 through it, and just now discovered it has been removed for copyright violations - which I don't understand because the distributors will give you a free copy if you agree to show it to multiple people.) It's a British production about global warming, supposed to get the message across better than "An Inconvenient Truth". (The producers seem to have an intense dislike of Shell Oil in particular.) All the pre-2055 clips shown are actually real archival footage from various sources, not shot just for this movie.

Anyway, one statement impressed me. Through the history of the world, there have been various religions, political systems, economic systems, philosophies that have come, gone, spread, affected life in good or bad ways. But none has been so pervasive, spread so widely, and is so potentially dangerous as consumerism, the idea that we must have more, bigger, newer, better to be happy.

I agree. Consumerism is, in the end, a very bad deal for everyone.

Let's stop listening to advertising agencies. We inherently know what we want and need. We don't need them to tell us.

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Along the same thought lines but from a different source is "proliferation". We usually hear the word in connection with "nuclear", but proliferation in general is very dangerous to the Earth, particularly proliferation of people. And consumerism.
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2770 SB Commercials

Monday, February 8, 2010

Most people can work with any insanity,
as long as it is consistent and predictable insanity.
-- Me --

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You can watch all the Super Bowl commercials at http://www.youtube.com/adblitz. Click on the button on the upper right to watch them one after another with no pause.

I guess some must have repeated, because there are duplicates, but you can skip to the end of duplicates by moving the bar at the bottom of the viewing screen.

I'm a bit disappointed. Nothing came up to the standard of the old Budweiser frogs. Or the young Clydesdale-in-training.

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I saw "Small Change" with the movie group last night. It was, as advertised, charming.
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2769 Mumps, Auction, Wealth

Sunday, February 7, 2010

If two people always agree on everything, then one of them is superfluous.

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Remember when I wondered if I might have mumps, back in mid-January? (Post 2748, at http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2010/01/2748.html.)

There's a mumps outbreak in Orange County, centered around Kiryas Joel, an Orthodox Jewish community. That's the general area where I go to a Mensa dinner the first week of every month. The timing's right. Damn. I bet it was mumps.

The article says that most of the kids who've come down with mumps were immunized, but that's not explained. Interesting. I'll bet a lot of adults who had mild cases weren't even counted. I know I didn't go to a doctor.

[http://vaccinenewsdaily.com/news/211359-mumps-outbreak-hits-ny-jewish-community]

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My singles' meetup group went to the auction last night. I had gone in Friday afternoon and reserved 8 seats for myself and the 7 people who'd RSVP'd. Three people showed up. Well, four if you count the guy who came without having RSVP'd (he did that at the dinner last month, too, showed up without advance notice).

I think the folks who did come enjoyed it, but I'm getting really annoyed at no-shows. It's not a rule, but I've noticed that many Meetup organizers kick people out after three no-shows. There's one woman who consistently says Yes to everything, and never shows up or cancels. She's supposed to come to the movie this evening, and if she doesn't, so help me, she's out. And no, it's not social anxiety - another member told me she's been to another group's games nights.

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Watching "Sunday Morning". Somebody just described the US as "the wealthiest and most generous country in the world". Sorry. Maybe most arrogant, but not most wealthy. There are several countries, especially in the middle east, that are absolutely more wealthy on a per-person basis. Several share the wealth with the citizens, so that no one has to work if they don't feel like it. They just hire foreign workers to do whatever needs doing.

Contrast that with here, where many families are struggling to feed and house themselves, where basic health care is not affordable for many, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and the rich aren't interested in helping the poor. They use and prey on them. Cattle. Where's that famous generosity? It's not at home....

[http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2010/01/2752-perspectives.html]

Ach.
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2768 Sand Painting

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Jay, during our very wet trip to England in 1995:
"The reason the Brits never had a space program is that they've never seen the sky."

---------------------------------------------------

I have posted this before, but it's making the rounds again, and it's worth seeing again. Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who recently won Ukraine's version of "America's Got Talent." She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and "sand painting" skills to interpret Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOhf3OvRXKg]

Fullscreen version: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=vOhf3OvRXKg
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2767 Static Lint

Friday, February 5, 2010

Reality is merely a consensus.

I really do believe that, by the way. Literally.

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I just realized I hadn't posted in three days. A little bit of winter doldrums, and a lot of nothing much to say. Nothing happening.

The two Meetup groups I started have grown to 30 singles, and 34 indy movie fans. Most of those people I haven't yet met, and probably won't for a while. The singles' group will be going to an auction tomorrow night, and the movie group has a movie Sunday evening. And then both groups will be attending a documentary movie and discussion at the college Wednesday evening.

Otherwise, all is blah.

I'm getting a little worried about that trip to Morocco in April. The Meetup organizer sent us all an email a few weeks ago listing four possible dates in early February to meet in NYC with the guide, and ask questions. She wanted us to decide which dates worked for us. I responded the same day, and have heard nothing more since. The first two possible dates were last week. The next two are this coming Tuesday and Wednesday.

I sent her an email a few days ago, and have had no response.

Uh, I've been sending her a few hundred dollars every month for quite a while now. The last payment for the trip is due next week. I'm worried that she has suddenly gone silent.

Oh, well. Either I go to Morocco, or I learn another lesson. I guess I'll find out which pretty soon.

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Something I've discovered about housekeeping - once you've gone a month without vacuuming or dusting, you don't notice much difference thereafter. It all seems to hit some kind of stasis.
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2766 Sun!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

When your hand is in the tiger's mouth, you have to pet the head.

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Oscar nominations were announced today, and for the first time in 65 years, I have seen most of the movies on the lists. I'm amazed that I saw so many of the nominees at our little local indy theater, the one I started the Meetup group for.

It's odd that in the past I'd seen so few movies. Jay's father got an Academy Award for technical achievement in the late nineties, and Jay liked movies, but it just didn't happen much.

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It's been in the single digits to the twenties here for the past week, but when the wind isn't blowing, it hasn't felt that cold. There were a few inches of snow on my driveway from the last storm, and yesterday I noticed that it has almost all melted. The only place snow remains is up close to the house, where it's shaded most of the day.

It's the sun! The sun is so very warm, warmer than expected. I'll go out and it's 9 degrees, but the sun is warm on my face and hands. Hat and gloves are not only not needed, but might even be colder.

Loving it.
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2765 Meltdown video

Monday, February 1, 2010

Help! I'm being chased by killer snails!

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Quick! Watch this video before it gets killed for copyright violation! It's a British satirical explanation of exactly what happened with the subprime implosion. It really does explain it well, in terms we can understand. And remember - it's British humor. It's a hair under 9 minutes. (There's a good description of it at http://consumerist.com/2007/11/the-long-johns-explain-the-subprime-meltdown.html, but their copy of the actual video no longer works.)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-oIMJMGd1Q]


On the credit crunch:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXBcmqwTV9s]
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2764 Feet Rant

Saturday, January 30, 2010

If we really believed in recycling, we'd sign our Christmas cards in pencil.

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Back in the seventies, during that period when I was playing suburban housewife, I took a lot of aerobic classes - those dealies where you'd learn a heart-pumping dance routine. The classes all insisted that you had to wear big, stiff, clunky running shoes, claiming that barefoot or in soft shoes you'd slip on sweat on the floor and injure yourself.

I hated that requirement, for two reasons:

1.) Balance. In a soft dance slipper I can feel what my feet are doing in relation to the floor, so I can feel a slip beginning and recover quickly. Maybe I'd slip less often in stiff shoes, but if and when I did, it's likely to be much worse. Since the likelihood of a slip in running shoes is not zero, I prefer having more control over my feet.

I was later proven right on this - a slip in running shoes is more likely to result in much more severe ankle injury than multiple slips in soft shoes.

2.) Heel function. Humans are not meant to come down hard on our heels. We are meant to come down on the ball of the foot, and the heel is meant to be a shock absorber and stabilizer. I walk on the balls of my feet. My heels touch the ground slightly later and lightly. Running shoes force you to come down on your heel first, and that just isn't natural. I objected to wearing stiff shoes for aerobics exercises because it's high impact, and my hips and lower back just couldn't take that much pounding.

It's one of the reasons I don't like high heels - it's difficult to walk naturally because the heel is going to hit first unless you take tiny steps.

Well, after 35 years, I have finally been proven right on the heel-vs-ball issue, too. See the article at http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/foundations/articles/barefoot-running-easier-feet-running-shoes.

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It's the custom in this country to put hard-soled shoes on a toddler as soon as he learns to walk, "so the foot will develop properly". Huh? Like, walking naturally on your foot will cause it to develop unnaturally? That makes no sense.

I was kind of lucky. I didn't get my first hard-soled shoes until I was in first grade in the north and the school insisted on them, because my feet were too small, and my mother couldn't find shoes that weren't so long they tripped me. So my legs, feet, and gait developed naturally.

According to the article above, walking ball first requires different muscle development in the calf and foot (so maybe that's why I have an unusually high instep and, uh, well-developed calves, to put it nicely). That makes it difficult for a heel-first walker to convert to ball-first.

Many hiking clubs require hiking boots that "support the ankle". I object to them for the same reasons as listed above. Plus, I can't walk in the damn things. I keep trying to point my toes, and the stiff ankle won't let me. They force a stiff heel-first flat foot. Very hard on my back.

And, again, a misstep in high ankle hiking boots might save the ankle, but is more likely to cause a more devastating injury to the knee.

I used to get into arguments with people who seemed to think they know better. I don't argue any more. It useless. People don't want to hear it. They already know what (the marketeers have told them) is true.

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And don't even ask about those stupid "earth shoes" with "negative heel technology". Here's their theory: "When you look at footprints in beach sand, you see that the heel imprint is deeper, therefore the natural way to walk is with the heel down, so the best walking shoe brings the heel down first and lower than the ball."

Save me from their distorted logic.

Like, it hadn't occurred to anyone that 1) the beach walkers' gait had already been distorted by wearing rigid soles all their lives, and 2) the heel, being narrower than the ball, sinks deeper in the sand even when the weight distribution is equal.

That's like saying that since most people prefer a Big Mac to brown rice with vegetables, the Big Mac must therefore be healthier and more natural.

Sigh.

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A bit of foot trivia - there's a reality show on PSB right now, a bunch of people who want to be vintners going through a bunch of exercises to avoid elimination and win an internship. They dumped grapes into a vat, whence they'd be fed into a crusher, and one over-enthusiastic woman threw a high-booted leg over the side of the vat and gave the grapes a stomp.

I'd have pitched her out right then and there.

Yeah, it's village tradition to stomp grapes with feet. Bare feet. Bare, not booted. Feet as opposed to any other tool because it's the yeast that grows naturally on bare feet that gives the wine a start on fermenting and a particular flavor.

I'd have thrown that woman out because although she knew of the tradition, she didn't know the why of the tradition, and that's basic.
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2763 Haiti, S.K.'s Roadwork

Saturday, January 30, 2010

There are better ways to get to the top of a tree than by sitting on an acorn.

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3 degrees F out there today. I hate winter.

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"The Doctors" yesterday had the four doctors in Haiti. The doctors worked in a tent, seeing people with horrific wounds that had gone days without treatment. They didn't have the equipment or medications they needed, had to make do with what was available. Many of the medicines were from other countries, and the labels were in some unknown language, and they had to assume it was whatever someone told them it was.

The camera didn't turn delicately away from injuries. Some were so bad I couldn't believe those people were walking, and many injuries had to be treated without anesthesia. The doctors had to go outside often to regain emotional control.

I'd seen a lot of photos from Haiti, and a lot of video clips, but this show affected me more than anything else. It wasn't a reporter standing on the street talking. It was the trenches.

From another direction, something I'd noticed that amazed me - when you see the Hatian people in the streets, or the tent villages, or even when they were turning up at the medical centers, the people are always wearing clean and neat clothes. Funeral attendees are wearing blinding white, without a smudge. I don't know how they manage that given the conditions - which, by the way, are not in the least exaggerated.

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I'm halfway through Stephen King's Roadwork. It's one of the old "Richard Bachman" non-supernatural books. In the story, Bart and Mary have been married twenty years, I guess (I'm not going to look it up), through the loss of their only child. A highway is being built through their neighborhood, and through the commercial laundry where Bart is a manager. Bart goes a little crazy, refusing to accept the inevitable, and doesn't close on the new laundry building or the new house by the deadline, thereby losing his job, and ensuring that he and Mary will be homeless within a month or so.

When Mary finds out, she leaves him. For me, this was a THUD in the flow of the book.

Duh? There was no indication of problems in the marriage, like that she was unhappy and looking for a way out. I cannot conceive of leaving as a response. I would express shock and anger I suppose, then I'd take over. I'd find a place for us to move to, I'd get a job, and I'd sit down and talk talk talk with my husband to find out what's wrong, why he has done something so very out of character, and get him help dealing with his problems. Obviously, he's really hurting, and I would take care of him.

Mary's response was more like "If you aren't going to feed, house, and clothe me, I'm outta here!" I have no sympathy for her any more.
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2762 XYZ Corp: "Call me MISTER XYZ!"

Friday, January 29, 2010

Huston Smith, on faith: "We may do things we think are wrong,
but we cannot believe things we think are false."

--------------------------------------------

The recent Supreme Court decision that corporations, being "persons", have the same rights to make campaign contributions as human people scares me. Future governments will pretty much be hand-selected by corporations, and eventually we peons will be governed by corporations. They'll get anything they want.

It's not only on the national stage. A large company that wants local concessions - taxes, prime residential real estate condemned for building a new headquarters, restrictive laws against smaller competitors - can just ensure that city or town candidates friendly to their goals will have huge war-chests with which to bulldoze the opposition.

I don't understand SCOTUS' thinking on this at all. They're supposed to address only constitutional issues, and I gather they think they're applying the first amendment to corporate personhood, but how can they possibly think that was the intent of the founders?

Congress has GOT to fix this, by changing the law that endowed corporations with "personhood". I think it had something to do with income tax on corporations. But given that they are more concerned with reelection than future effects, I doubt it. Term limits! It's the only way to make them honest!

Anyway, one corporation with a conscience (or maybe they're just worried about larger competitors legislating them out of existence, whatever) has taken the issue on, with humor.

"The progressive PR firm Murray Hill Inc. has announced that it plans to satirically run for Congress in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th congressional district to protest the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision. A press release on its website says that the company wants to “eliminate the middle man” [this is a link to Murray Hill's website, and it also is funny/not funny] and run for Congress directly, rather than influencing it with corporate dollars..."

The article is at http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/28/corporation-election/. It's amusing, and the short video at the end lays it all out. "It's our democracy. We bought it, we paid for it, and we're going to keep it." The longer video scared me a little.

Hey, Maryland - elect Murray Hill Inc.! At least they have a conscience, so they can't be any worse than what we've got. Send the message!

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http://murrayhillincforcongress.com/
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2761 Subdued snow

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Harvey Korman, on his using Viagra: "It would be like
putting a new flagpole on a condemned building."

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The weather guys were saying we'd get blizzard conditions this morning, but that total accumulation would be only 2-3 inches. I've got 2 now, and it's still snowing.

I hate winter.

I guess a lot of people must have heard only the "blizzard" part. I went to the grocery store, and the shelves were practically empty! Milk, eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese, bread (my shopping list), all the good stuff was gone.

I parked at the bottom of the driveway when I got back, just in case.

BTW - do not buy the Ronnybrook drinkable yogurt in mango flavor. It tastes good, but that flavor just doesn't go with the texture and color. It's kind of like eating blue meat. Just not right. Cringeworthy.

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The vet told me Jasper might be a bit subdued this morning, not eating, maybe even a bit of fever, from his shot yesterday. He hasn't played with his ball-in-the-tube, but otherwise he seems to be ok. Yelled for food and petting.

I have heard that the greater the reaction that one has to inoculations, the better the preventive effect, since a reaction indicates an immune system response. So I'd rather he acted sick.
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2760 Three days

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Ignorant men don't know what good they hold in their hands until they've flung it away.
-- Sophocles --

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I've been watching the Bear Cam (www.bear.org - works better on Internet Explorer). Can't see much, but the cub is very noisy - even over the constant hum. Little motorboat putter, punctuated by squeals and screams when he feels cold, has to go potty, or can't find the nipple. I haven't decided whether the cub is so loud because momma is dormant, or that mother nature makes the momma dormant so she doesn't kill the annoying little bastard.

I know I would have by now....

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I'm hearing more and more about relatively young people with jobs, cars, and ipods borrowing from their IRAs and 401Ks, just to pay off credit cards. That's scary.

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I've been educated. "She been knew that" is the past tense of "She be knowing that", therefore it's more correct than the more commonly heard "She done knowed that".

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Saw Precious with my Meetup group on Sunday. There were originally seven, then one woman canceled the day before, one canceled two hours before, and one simply didn't show up, leaving four. Then three of us went to dinner after. Good conversation - and if you see Precious, it's a good idea to talk about it after.

A lot of people have described it as depressing. I did not find it so much depressing as realistic. The story would have been much more depressing if she hadn't gotten pregnant. Her life would have just gone on and on without change.

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Dinner at Cafe Maya last night. I was a tiny bit disappointed because they didn't have the chicken dish I'd had before - it was a special that night - but they have another similar, with just spinach and mushrooms under the chicken instead of the mixed roasted veggies, so I was satisfied. Three of us stayed talking for almost an hour after the others left. A good evening.

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Jasper went to the vet today for his annual exam and inoculations. He always has fits when I first put him in the carrier. He actually tore his nose and upper lip on the door grid trying to get through it. But at the vet's he's very good. Lets the vet do anything (Miss Thunderfoot used to fight the vet), and hides his head under my arm when the vet's not poking at it. He was purring so loud the whole time that the vet couldn't hear his heart, and his behind was vibrating from the purring.

That part I don't understand. The purring when he was obviously stressed. He doesn't purr that much at home.
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2759 Thrum thrum

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.
-- George Bernard Shaw --

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My movie group is meeting this afternoon for "Precious" and dinner. Naturally, it's raining. There were seven people who signed up for this movie, but there's one woman who has signed up for everything so far in the two groups, and she has canceled (or not shown up) every time. As expected, she canceled again, so there'll be six of us.

Between the two groups (movie and singles') I have 53 members. The singles' group will be attending an auction the first weekend in February. After that, I don't have the faintest idea what to do with them next.

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Heard yesterday:

A guy saw his girlfriend with another man, "engaging in sexual orientation with him." The girlfriend denied that any "sexual orientation was going on". They said it several times. They confused me.

A woman said of another, "she been knew that". Not a slip of the lip as I first thought. Repeated.

Sigh. Our school taxes at work.

I watched some videos of the next crop of Amazing Race contestants. A married couple said that they had always wanted to do this, and "were humbled by" getting "this far", chosen to compete.

Humbled? I hear that a lot these days, that someone is "humbled" by something that pleases them enormously. I guess they're trying not to gloat. Trying to look (inappropriately) humble. I guess that's PC talk. The correct word is "honored". It's the fashion to replace "honored" by "humbled", I guess.

I also object to overuse of the word "hero". I seems to me that someone hired to do a job, trained to do that job, who does something well within the expected set of duties for that job, not outside expectations, is not a hero for doing the job. Sorry, Scully. You're one hell of a pilot, but not a hero.

A professional firefighter who goes into a burning building is not a hero. That's part of the job definition. A volunteer fireman who does the same thing might be considered a hero, because he didn't necessarily sign up for that. And so on.

I just fuss that calling anyone and everyone a hero because we are grateful for what they do, or because they survived some danger, dilutes the meaning of "hero".

Same thing with standing ovations. When people get them just for showing up, they no longer have meaning.

I'm getting meaner and nastier as I sit here. That mysterous far-off "thrum thrum thrum" sound outside is back today, and it's driving me crazy. I can't escape it. Even high volume on the TV doesn't cover it.

Next house is going to be deep in a valley.
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2758 Bear Cam!

Friday, January 22, 2010

The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but hold hands.
-- Alexander Penney --

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At http://www.bear.org/ you'll find a real-time web camera in a hibernating bear's den. She's giving birth today, they think.

Firefox seems to object to the necessary addons, but Internet Explorer works.
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