Last night was one of those nights where I just wanted to plop myself in front of the Haunted Fishtank (a wonderful phase for "TV" coined by a MDC mama) and zone out.
I saw at least one interesting show, something about the search-and-rescue team of Yosemite park. Pretty cool. But I soon lost interest and checked around for what other shows were on, and eventually gave up and turned off the TV.
While thinking about the fact that I want to watch TV yet I really don't, I came to realize that it is those damned commercials that really turn me off from watching anything that doesn't come from the DVD. Those dumb, flashy, seizure-inducing advertisements urging us to live a most un-holistic, un-eco consumeristic lifestyle. And this is how I feel despite the fact that I can't even hear what is said on the commercial unless it happens to be closed-captioned. Eek.
So my love for Netflix grows by leaps and bounds.
Hurry up and send me my next disc of "The L Word"!
(P.S. We have no plans to get rid of cable at the moment. Yet.)
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Not Just Politically Correct
Something that happened at a small park near our home today...
I was sitting on a bench while Urban Shaman and Il Tonino were some distance away on the grass, playing. A mail truck pulled up and stopped at one of the houses on the street. We could see someone moving inside, getting the mail.
Urban Shaman to Il Tonino: there's the mail guy!
Mail carrier gets out. Is wearing a skirt. Is obviously a female.
Urban Shaman frantically gets Il Tonino's attention and says: that's a mail carrier uhh.. person.
Me: laughing my head off at this.
I was sitting on a bench while Urban Shaman and Il Tonino were some distance away on the grass, playing. A mail truck pulled up and stopped at one of the houses on the street. We could see someone moving inside, getting the mail.
Urban Shaman to Il Tonino: there's the mail guy!
Mail carrier gets out. Is wearing a skirt. Is obviously a female.
Urban Shaman frantically gets Il Tonino's attention and says: that's a mail carrier uhh.. person.
Me: laughing my head off at this.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Food is Medicine
Wow, just wow.
Diet, Lifestyle Changes Effect at Genetic Level
Thursday, August 28, 2008 by: Maryann Marshall(NaturalNews) Dr. Dean Ornish, head of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, is a well-known author advocating lifestyle changes to improve health. Dr. Ornish is also affiliated with the University of California at San Francisco. He recently reported on the Gene Expression Modulation by Intervention with Nutrition and Lifestyle (GEMINAL) study. This study indicated that making positive changes in one's diet, exercise, and stress management can affect more than a person's weight. Dr. Ornish's study was published in the June 16, 2008 edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The study followed 30 men who had opted out of conventional treatment for low-risk prostate cancer. The men decided, before they were recruited to take part in the study, not to undergo treatments such as surgery, radiation, or hormone therapy normally advocated for the disease. The men were closely monitored for tumor progression through the duration of the study.
Instead, for three months, they made changes in their lifestyle: They ate a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products. They exercised moderately, walking for half an hour a day. Each day they spent an hour practicing stress management methods such as meditation. Additionally, the men participated in support group sessions.
As the study progressed, the men lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and cholesterol, and generally saw improvements in their health. Previous studies gave evidence of lowered prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels with dietary changes.
Biopsies taken at the beginning and end of the study demonstrated some more significant changes. About 500 genes evidenced changes in activity at the end of the study. 48 disease preventing genes were turned on. 453 genes which promote disease, like breast and prostate cancers, were turned off.
Dr. Ornish expressed excitement over the results in a Reuters interview. The implications of this study go beyond men and prostate cancer. People are not doomed by their genetics. They can make positive changes fairly quickly. In three months, genetic changes can be made through the choices we make in food, exercise, and the way we handle stress.
This is an area of study that merits further investigation, the researchers concluded.
Resources:
((http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080617/hl_...)
((http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/10...)
((http://ict.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abst...)
((http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1609...)
Thursday, August 28, 2008
No way would I vote for McCain
Hooray for Obama. I caught the last half of his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Very well spoken.
I'm still a bit bitter from both 4 and 8 years ago.
Dare I hope?
I'm still a bit bitter from both 4 and 8 years ago.
Dare I hope?
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Namaste
Just because it is a favorite of mine...
Namaste. I accept your humanness and mine. And I also bow to the divinity in each of us. I accept our absolute spiritual equality as beings. And I also accept that we each forget who we are.
I celebrate the fact that we are waking up together, and I appreciate the fact that, as each of us pushes up against our fear, we nod off to sleep.
I acknowledge both the absolute and the relative, for both are present here. The gentle voice of God and the passionate cries of the wounded child commingle here, in this mind, in this world. Joy and sadness commingle. Strength and tears, beauty and betrayal, silence and cacophony interpenetrate.
It is a simple world, breathing in and breathing out, approaching the divine and moving away. And it is also complex in its near infinite variety of forms.
Each self is the unqualified presence, yet each must approach God in its own unique way. Within oneness, paradox abounds.
Here we dwell together, my brother and sister.
Here in the silence, each of us with our unique heartbeat, our own dance, our own call for love and truth.
Yet despite the division into bodies, despite the fragmentation of the mind, only one heart opens here. And that heart includes yours and mine and that of all beings who have ever lived in time and space. That heart belongs to God. His patient heart. Her infinite blessing on us all. My wish for you is a simple one. May you find that Heart in your heart. May you find your voice in that silence. May you awaken to the truth of who you are.
Namaste!
Namaste. I accept your humanness and mine. And I also bow to the divinity in each of us. I accept our absolute spiritual equality as beings. And I also accept that we each forget who we are.
I celebrate the fact that we are waking up together, and I appreciate the fact that, as each of us pushes up against our fear, we nod off to sleep.
I acknowledge both the absolute and the relative, for both are present here. The gentle voice of God and the passionate cries of the wounded child commingle here, in this mind, in this world. Joy and sadness commingle. Strength and tears, beauty and betrayal, silence and cacophony interpenetrate.
It is a simple world, breathing in and breathing out, approaching the divine and moving away. And it is also complex in its near infinite variety of forms.
Each self is the unqualified presence, yet each must approach God in its own unique way. Within oneness, paradox abounds.
Here we dwell together, my brother and sister.
Here in the silence, each of us with our unique heartbeat, our own dance, our own call for love and truth.
Yet despite the division into bodies, despite the fragmentation of the mind, only one heart opens here. And that heart includes yours and mine and that of all beings who have ever lived in time and space. That heart belongs to God. His patient heart. Her infinite blessing on us all. My wish for you is a simple one. May you find that Heart in your heart. May you find your voice in that silence. May you awaken to the truth of who you are.
Namaste!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Yum, I love dead food!
So in my last blog post I got a *gasp!* SPAM posting from Donny regarding the recent news that the government and the FDA wants to start irradiating our food. Thanks, Donny :)
This is actually a very important topic. I had seen the news about this when it first came out, and it just made me shudder in disbelief. I mentioned this to my mom, who asked me what the concern was. WTF?!? Just the concept of radiation on our food should be enough to make anyone immediately want to go outside, dig up their grass and plant a lettuce and spinach garden. The thing with my mom is that she has the viewpoint that all authorities are right until proven wrong. Is this a generational thing? Because with all the fuck-ups that the government has had since I've been alive, the burden of proof should be on them. That is, they are WRONG unless proven they're doing something right. I think a large part of this comes from the fact that they have been ignoring science for so long, to the great detriment of our environment and the health of people, and for the benefit of corporate interests.
Anyway, back to lettuce. Irradiating our lettuce would reduce the nutritional value of it to zero. Zapping the lettuce (and anything else) not only kills all the bugs that they want to kill, but the enzymes and nutrients in the food itself. I don't know about you, but eating dead lettuce sounds like a waste of time to me, sort of like eating iceberg lettuce. I kid, I kid... sort of. I only go for the romaine or the leafy green or red lettuces or the cool multi-colored lettuces that show up at the farmer's market. But the reason we eat lettuce in the first place is to intake all the wonderful nutrients in it that actually prevent cancer and keep us healthy. Eating lettuce without all that stuff in it would be like eating cardboard. No benefits except for massive amounts of fiber. So why does the government want us eating dead food? Maybe they actually don't want us to be healthy, so they can keep their friends, the pharmaceutical companies, rolling in dough (that is subsequently passed back to them, in the form of campaign dollars). Instead of irradiating our food, it would be best to to adopt practices that prevent the food from being contaminated by things in the first place. It is possible, you know!
What this issue and numerous others are only serving to do is to show us that we, the people, need to take power back into our hands. Grow your own organic garden (and eat the resulting non-irradiated food). If you don't have a green thumb, the next best thing is to shop at your local farmer's market or get Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes.
What a scary issue. So go on, buy those lettuce seeds and get out into the dirt.
This is actually a very important topic. I had seen the news about this when it first came out, and it just made me shudder in disbelief. I mentioned this to my mom, who asked me what the concern was. WTF?!? Just the concept of radiation on our food should be enough to make anyone immediately want to go outside, dig up their grass and plant a lettuce and spinach garden. The thing with my mom is that she has the viewpoint that all authorities are right until proven wrong. Is this a generational thing? Because with all the fuck-ups that the government has had since I've been alive, the burden of proof should be on them. That is, they are WRONG unless proven they're doing something right. I think a large part of this comes from the fact that they have been ignoring science for so long, to the great detriment of our environment and the health of people, and for the benefit of corporate interests.
Anyway, back to lettuce. Irradiating our lettuce would reduce the nutritional value of it to zero. Zapping the lettuce (and anything else) not only kills all the bugs that they want to kill, but the enzymes and nutrients in the food itself. I don't know about you, but eating dead lettuce sounds like a waste of time to me, sort of like eating iceberg lettuce. I kid, I kid... sort of. I only go for the romaine or the leafy green or red lettuces or the cool multi-colored lettuces that show up at the farmer's market. But the reason we eat lettuce in the first place is to intake all the wonderful nutrients in it that actually prevent cancer and keep us healthy. Eating lettuce without all that stuff in it would be like eating cardboard. No benefits except for massive amounts of fiber. So why does the government want us eating dead food? Maybe they actually don't want us to be healthy, so they can keep their friends, the pharmaceutical companies, rolling in dough (that is subsequently passed back to them, in the form of campaign dollars). Instead of irradiating our food, it would be best to to adopt practices that prevent the food from being contaminated by things in the first place. It is possible, you know!
What this issue and numerous others are only serving to do is to show us that we, the people, need to take power back into our hands. Grow your own organic garden (and eat the resulting non-irradiated food). If you don't have a green thumb, the next best thing is to shop at your local farmer's market or get Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes.
What a scary issue. So go on, buy those lettuce seeds and get out into the dirt.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
And the winner is... not me! Yay!
In keeping with the theme that it is a crazy world... I am no longer going to Philadelphia next week. Whew.
My company had assigned me to a project for which there was a 2 day training in Philadelphia. Along with a day of travel all the way out there, that would have meant me being gone for 3 full, long days. I was having major anxiety about this -- the prospect of me leaving Il Tonino for that long, for the first time ever, did not fill me with thoughts of sunshine and flowers.
(I was also having anxiety about the food over there. During the training, breakfast, lunch, and dinner were to be provided, thus eliminating my ability to seek out a vegetarian or at least semi-vegetarian restaurant or natural foods store and fill up on good, healthy food. Visions of cereal with the rice milk that I brought with me, bread-and-lettuce sandwiches, baked potatoes with ketchup, and many, many energy bars packed in my suitcase does not make for a very appetizing 3 days.)
I'm off the project, not because they couldn't find an interpreter, but because they finally realized something that I noticed a few days ago -- they have 3 west coast monitors for 9 sites on the west coast. Typically one monitor will handle 9 sites! So that wasn't looking good and I wasn't sure how that was going to work out. They finally noticed that issue and decided to let me go. I am more than happy about that.
So now we'll wait and see what they find for me next and hope it is a much better fit. (And I'm hoping it is not cardiology, I much prefer working on infectious diseases!)
My company had assigned me to a project for which there was a 2 day training in Philadelphia. Along with a day of travel all the way out there, that would have meant me being gone for 3 full, long days. I was having major anxiety about this -- the prospect of me leaving Il Tonino for that long, for the first time ever, did not fill me with thoughts of sunshine and flowers.
(I was also having anxiety about the food over there. During the training, breakfast, lunch, and dinner were to be provided, thus eliminating my ability to seek out a vegetarian or at least semi-vegetarian restaurant or natural foods store and fill up on good, healthy food. Visions of cereal with the rice milk that I brought with me, bread-and-lettuce sandwiches, baked potatoes with ketchup, and many, many energy bars packed in my suitcase does not make for a very appetizing 3 days.)
I'm off the project, not because they couldn't find an interpreter, but because they finally realized something that I noticed a few days ago -- they have 3 west coast monitors for 9 sites on the west coast. Typically one monitor will handle 9 sites! So that wasn't looking good and I wasn't sure how that was going to work out. They finally noticed that issue and decided to let me go. I am more than happy about that.
So now we'll wait and see what they find for me next and hope it is a much better fit. (And I'm hoping it is not cardiology, I much prefer working on infectious diseases!)
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