Oxygen: Not enough or too much

When I was in my teens and early to late 20s I was a mountain climber so altitudes from Sea level to over 14,000 feet were something I was used to. Though I might feel sort of like a 5 year old at 14,000 feet because of the lack of oxygen I could condition myself and plan ahead so I didn't make a mistake that cost my life or other's lives at that altitude. But now I'm 63 and I'm finding that since I live at sea level now for about the last 15 years or so that when I go to higher altitudes I can get a headache (above 7000 feet) if I stay there more than 24 hours.

So, since I knew I was going to go to Colorado (which is mostly above 5000 feet in altitude everywhere) I decided to take a train so I could have more time to acclimatize to a higher altitude so I didn't have any problems while I was above 5000 feet consistently for about a week or more since I'm now over 60. So, my wife and I boarded the train in Emeryville, near Berkeley in California and booked one of the largest sleepers available with a sink, toilet and shower and electricity and two large berths for sleeping (upper and lower). So, after riding the Zephyr for around 34 hours or more we arrived at over 5000 feet in Denver after riding in the train to altitudes over 9000 feet through Winter Park, Colorado then through a 6.2 mile long tunnel (about 10 minutes to get through it) and down to Denver at about 5000 feet in elevation. Though I felt Denver at 5000 feet a little it was bearable even though I found myself winded a little if I went up stairs too  fast or tried to walk too fast when I first reached Denver. Then the next day my son picked me up in his car and drove me to Ft. Collins which is only at about 4900 feet and I felt I was breathing a little easier. But the air was incredibly dry and found I had to watch for chilblains and cracked lips which might tend to bleed. So, the cold and the dryness I found the hardest to adapt to in Ft. Collins since I live on the west coast pacific ocean where the air is always moist and clear blowing off the ocean and onto the land. Later we drove to Pueblo after my son had loaded up his stuff for the long drive back to the California coast. He chose Pueblo because it is only 4600 feet there as he was worried about me at these higher altitudes because of my age and not being adapted to them.

So, the happiest we both were as far as breathing went was at Pueblo, Colorado. However, the next day we decided to drive through Taos on the way to Santa Fe where I had booked a room online at the La Fonda a very historic and nice hotel in the middle of Santa Fe where there had been an Inn continually since about 1600 at that site. We both had trouble because of the 7100 feet altitude or so of Santa Fe and because we traveled all that previous day at or about 8000 to 9000 feet in order to drive through Taos on the way to Santa Fe. Because we were not doing well at that altitude and because a storm was coming bringing snow and very heavy winds to Flagstaff and points east, we decided to make a run for it to Winslow which is only at about 4600 feet so as not to get caught in the snow somewhere without a 4 wheel drive or all wheel drive car or truck. My son's car is a front wheel drive high mileage car that gets about 30 miles per gallon but very roomy for us and luggage. So, we stayed at the La Posada in Winslow which was highly recommended and it turned out to be quite an experience. It had been converted from a train station in 1930 into a very artsy hotel with art all over the place and quaint rooms and a restaurant as part of the hotel. It is a pretty amazing place. In fact, you can ride the train from Los Angeles to this La Posada hotel and stay there on its way to Albuquerque, New Mexico and points east. So, we both felt better at a lower altitude. We realized by looking at maps that both Colorado and New Mexico are both mostly above 5000 to 6000 feet in altitude. Where as northern Arizona is over 6000 feet but southern Arizona is much lower mostly in altitude. We decided that is why there is about 6 million people in Arizona and only about 2 million in New Mexico. And we agreed that we thought it is the high altitude combined with high winds and cold winters that kept the populations down in New Mexico. The next day we set out for the Arizona Meteor Crater which is a really nice experience about 20 to 30 miles west of Winslow on Highway 40.  After that, we took a scenic drive bypassing Flagstaff up to the rim of the Grand Canyon and luckily it wasn't snowing there because it sure was in Flagstaff as we could see in the distance and also was shown on my IPhone weather icon. Because the winds were picking up we decided to try to drive that evening to Needles, California and were very surprised the next morning to wake up to above 60 degree weather after seeing daytime temperatures from 30 to 50 for the previous week and night time temperatures down to 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit. So, it was warm enough to go wading in the Colorado River which we did. It was nice to be where it was warm (relatively speaking) in California once again and to be able to breathe more easily and not getting a headache from the altitude. I used to live at 3500 feet for many years in Mt. Shasta but the last time I did that it was about 1992. The really strange thing is that when I returned to the coast I now breathe incredibly slowly and if I breathe any faster it is like experiencing oxygen intoxication from too much oxygen. So, my body doesn't know what to do with all the extra oxygen here on the California Coast now. Life is pretty funny in the end I guess.

U.S. now exports more fuel than it imports

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203441704577068670488306242.html?mod=WSJ_article_forsub

BY LIAM PLEVEN AND RUSSELL GOLD

U.S. exports of gasoline, diesel and other oil-based fuels are soaring, putting the nation on track to be a net exporter of petroleum products in 2011 for the first time in 62 years.
A combination of booming demand from emerging markets and faltering domestic activity means the U.S. is exporting more fuel than it imports, upending the historical norm.
According to data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday, the U.S. sent abroad 753.4 million barrels of everything from gasoline to jet fuel in the first nine months of this year, while it imported 689.4 million barrels. end quote.

Though this is mostly caused by a cooling U.S. economy the fact that we now export more fuel than we import can only be a good thing.

Legally Declaring Bankruptcy is a way to Avoid Debtor's Prison

If you are a resident of one of the U.S. States that allows debtors to be arrested and put in jail (1/3 of U.S. states are like this) then filing bankruptcy is a way to prevent being jailed for your debts.

You might say to me, "I can't afford a Bankruptcy Attorney!"

Well. It works differently than you might think. I live in California so I can't vouch for what happens in other states but the way most attorneys who work in this state did it during the 1990s was to have the payment to them be a part of your ongoing bankruptcy payments.

For example, if you are declaring a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy in California you usually wind up paying 10 cents for every dollar you owe but filing a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy allows you often to keep at least one car for work or business as well as your home if you own one or are buying one(there can be many different ways all this goes). However, if you don't have a job or any income whatsoever likely you might want to declare Chapter 7. When you declare Chapter 7 bankruptcy you lose basically everything, house, car, and most possessions (depending upon your lawyer, and the state where you are going bankrupt). So, if possible a Chapter 13 is much more useful to most people with families, houses, cars, etc. because it is for a reorganization. A comparable bankruptcy for a Business is a Chapter 11 like American Airlines just filed for. IN a Chapter 13 or Chapter 11 you are reorganizing and it is usually more useful because a business can stay in business and reorganize doing a Chapter 11 and an individual can reorganize much more easily doing a Chapter 13 if he or she has enough income to do this kind of reorganization. Also, at any point if you lose your job or business you can always file a chapter 7 as long as you haven't filed a Chapter 7 recently. Here is more information about Bankruptcies from wikipedia. If you can find a bankruptcy lawyer you trust or are recommended to by a friend then go talk to a bankruptcy lawyer.

Chapter 7, Title 11, United States Code - Wikipedia, the free ...

Chapter 13, Title 11, United States Code - Wikipedia, the free ...

 

The Absurdity of Debtor's Prisons

There is a reason that debtor's prisons were abolished throughout the western world. The main reason is that "You can NEVER pay off your debts if you can't work at any business or job. And you can't work at any business or job while you are in prison."

So, debtors prisons become as a result sort of like when  Mafia Loans go wrong and someone breaks both the man's legs because he can't pay his loan. It is counterproductive because once the Mafia breaks the man's legs he will NEVER be able to pay off the loan because he can't walk or do business anymore.

So, debtor's prisons are a lot like the Mafia breaking a man's legs or killing him in that the loan then will never be paid by anyone except by broken legs or being killed.

Also, can you imagine how fast your creativity would dry up in regard to figuring out a way to pay off a loan if you thought you were going to debtor's prison or having both your legs broken or that you would be killed for not paying off a loan? It would likely cause many or most people to do something illegal to prevent their legs being broken, being killed or to be put in debtor's prison. So, debtor's prison then becomes an instrument of the increase of  criminal activity of all kinds.

The above was my reaction to the following article:

THE RETURN OF DEBTORS PRISONS: Collection Agencies Now Want Deadbeats Arrested

The Family Bed

I was listening to PBS radio as I drove my daughter home from school. I believe the city was Milwaukee, Wisconsin but I also could be wrong. They were trying to convince people not to share their bed with their children, especially infants. However, since the dawn of time humans have tended to keep their kids with them so that they survived. Even as recently as 100 years ago people kept their kids often in the same bed with them in case of fire or other calamity. It is only in the last 100 years or so that groups of people have tried to separate parents from their children and the main result is sudden infant death syndrome when the baby wakes up and no one is there and because to a baby time is different and Only when someone is there are they real and alive. So when babies wake up alone without anyone there they can freak out because they are alone and die from the terror of being alone and helpless.

So, as a result of this often having your baby near you and your body helps them know they are not alone and often prevents their unnecessary deaths in this way.

However, if the parents are heavy drinkers or drug users having the baby or child under 5 in the same bed might be injurious or fatal to the child. So, this is another element. So, having a baby or young child in the same bed is only useful if the parents are both intelligent and responsible. But another way to look at this is natural selection, because if the parents are not both intelligent and responsible it is possible that the baby or young child isn't going to survive anyway.

So, if you are drinking or using drugs if you share your bed during that period while you are out of your normal healthy mind you may accidentally kill your baby or young child or maim them so this is something to think about for all responsible parents and caregivers of young children and infants.

However, if you are a responsible, intelligent and caring adult sharing the family bed can be a good thing for all concerned. However, I would like to share some of my own experiences with sharing the family bed with my children and what you may need to know as a precaution:

The first experience can be funny but was also pretty scary for me at the time. My youngest daughter was about 2 years old when this happened. My wife nursed my daughter until she was 4 or 5 years old, so the easiest way for my wife to do this was to nurse our daughter to sleep in bed. Then after that, often my daughter would be between my wife and I so my daughter didn't fall out of the bed onto her head and break her neck during the night. One time it was a particularly cold night and my 2 year old had gotten cold because of 3 people tossing and turning all night so she had nuzzled up to my back as i was on the left side of the bed with my back to her. During the night I rolled onto my back and woke up suddenly horrified that my daughter was under my back. But when I jumped out of bed to check her condition she was blissfully warm and happy even though I was terrified I had smothered her accidentally in my sleep. So, it is very important if you are going to sleep in the same bed with your wife and child or children that you condition yourself to be aware that they are there even when you are asleep because accidents can happen. And it is very important that you don't go to sleep with them there if you have drunk any alcohol or taken and legal or illegal drugs before bedtime. Otherwise your child or children might not be alive in the morning when you wake up.

Another thing to consider as a parent is that often babies and children will have nightmares or night terrors (depending upon their ages and psychological states and physical health) so one must protect themselves from a heel to the nose (this is the worst as it could be fatal to the parent). So, the way I protected myself is to always sleep on my side with my back to the child. In this way you are less likely to be injured by your child as you sleep. The absolute worst position to be in is on your back. This leaves your face, and all vital organs exposed and often you will wake up to a black eye, broken nose, or being hit with a very painful force in your sexual organs and this can happen while all of you are asleep or when a child wakes up and wants you to immediately wake up too.

So, if you are going to share the family bed you must take precautions so both you and your wife and kids survive the night. But if you prepare properly it can be a positive experience for all concerned and be one small element  that helps create a bond of trust and mutual mental and emotional support between your whole family that continues on into adulthood if that is what you want for yourselves and your children.

However, there are many styles of child rearing and they all have their good and bad points. So, choose carefully, because you will have to live with the results the rest of your lives.

Obama's re-election chances are polling along with stock market

What is really interesting is that Obama's polls seem to follow the stock market
begin second quote from same source:

Pretty much since the day he was elected president of the United States in November 2008, Barack Obama has been the favorite on prediction markets like Intrade and Betfair to win re-election for a second term, as most incumbents do. That changed in September and October, when the budget stalemate and grim economic news turned Obama, for the first time, into an underdog.
But after bottoming out on October 8, when the prediction markets gave him a 48 percent chance of winning re-election, Obama has slowly and steadily climbed back to his August levels. His current odds, computed as an average of Intrade and Betfair, give him a 51.4 percent chance to win.
Obama's poll results and approval ratings are ticking up now, too. While it's tempting to credit scandals (exhibit C and G) or infighting among Obama's potential Republican rivals, or Republican stubbornness in the ongoing deficit reduction debate, the simplest explanation harkens back to the signature phrase of Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign, "It's the economy, stupid." end quote from:

 http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/signal/why-obama-underdog-october-favorite-once-more-190454967.html

So, if I'm reading this theory right, if the stock market is doing well around the Presidential election then Obama wins the next presidential election but if the market is in a slump and there is an alternative to Obama available that is acceptable to the voting public, he loses. It sounds pretty simple but often life is that simple. Amazing!

Jon Huntsman's Big Idea

This quote is from Joe Klein on page 25 in the December 5th 2011 Time magazine.
begin quote:
"We have to restore trust,"Huntsman said,"Trust in the Congress, the Executive Branch and Wall Street, where we can no longer tolerate banks that are too big to fail." end quote.

This idea is likely one that will resonate with voters everywhere if they actually have time to think about it. Because the banks have already been bailed out once. Because they have not really been reformed through useful new laws and restrictions,  we the taxpayers might have to bail them out again within the next 5 years or so. Since the taxpayers cannot afford to do that, banks too big to fail shouldn't be allowed to exist (at least in their present form). Because to do that might cause the financial ruin of the whole nation. (Hence the statement "too big to fail" since any one of these top 6 banks might take the whole nation down financially  if they were to fail)

Begin 2nd quote:
"Specifically, he wants to impose a stiff fee on the top 6 banks, which hold assets that equal almost 65% of America's GDP. The money would go to reduce corporate taxes on companies in the nonfinancial sector, part of Huntsman's larger plan to revive U.S. manufacturing."


So, the former Ambassador to China (2009 to 2011) from the United States and the Governor of Utah
(2005 to 2009) demonstrates his credibility to the voters in the U.S. because of this one idea. This likely is his most useful idea so far as a Republican Presidential candidate.

later: I found this article about several banks getting their credit downgraded by the S&P partly because of their exposure to Europe and the Euro. We may witness one of the too big to fail banks fail yet this year or next the way this sounds. I hope I'm wrong:

http://news.yahoo.com/p-downgrades-top-us-banks-credit-ratings-222321310.html

NEW YORK (AP) — Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has lowered its credit ratings for many of the world's largest financial institutions, including the biggest banks in the U.S.

Bank of America Corp. and its main subsidiaries are among the institutions whose ratings fell at least one notch Tuesday, along with Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co.

S&P said the changes in 37 financial companies' ratings reflect the firm's new criteria for banks, and they incorporate shifts in the industry and the role of governments and central banks worldwide. The agency did not release its evaluation of each company but said it plans to discuss the changes during a conference call early Wednesday.

Bank of America's issuer credit rating was cut to "A-" from "A," as were its Countrywide Financial Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. units, along with a series of related subsidiaries

Ratings downgrades are never seen as positive, but this round may be particularly damaging for Bank of America.

Concern already was growing Tuesday about whether B of A has enough capital to withstand another downturn in the U.S. economy or further trouble in Europe, and the bank's stock fell to a two-year low before the ratings announcement. end quote.

Sentient Artificial Intelligence

When most people hear of  Professor Jack Gallant of Berkeley, California and how his fMRI machine can turn people's thoughts into pictures they might think. "This is worse than a lie detector!" And that was my thought too. But then today I had another thought, "In regard to artificial intelligence since literally 1 picture is worth 1000 words, if you have a machine that can picture human thoughts then you have the seed machine necessary to create literally "Sentient artificial intelligence" by transferring the ongoing sequence of pictures of one brilliant mind over days and weeks into a receptor of artificial intelligence. This becomes then  literally "Biocom" of what I am writing about and eventually a real "Purple Delta 7" that I also write about. Eureka!

If you click on this and then scroll down to Chapter 9 you can read about what sentient artificial intelligence is all about. The beginning of it is something like the IPHone SIRI interface but the end result looks more like "Biocom" in Chapter 9.

dragonofcompassion - Memories part 8 and 9

Also, in case you are interested here is my archive about Purple Delta 7 as well

dragonofcompassion - Purple Delta 7

 

 

Understanding Saint Germain

There is what religions say and then there is what is actually possible. And for most these are two very different things. Religions were designed to pacify people like slaves by Kings and potentates down through the centuries. Whereas the actual founders of ALL religions were brilliant people that didn't want kings and potentates to do that to their flocks. The founders of all religions wanted only the best for their followers and would be saddened greatly at how perverted ALL religions have become as a way to manipulate and control people's minds and actions down through the centuries.

So, in understanding more about Saint Germain we find a more RECENT brilliant mind than the founders of most religions because most religions were founded and then almost immediately twisted by the leaders of those times mostly before 1000 AD. So, how are we to get to what was actually important to the Spiritual leaders then? And even if we do get to what was important to them does it have any relevance to now in everyone's lives?

So, for me, in studying about Saint Germain it makes all spiritual leaders down through the centuries come alive and it allows me to better understand all religions and what they actually were about by studying someone who actually lived during the last 500 years. For, to look for Saint Germain one only has to look to the manuscripts of the original Shakespearean Plays. For, Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespearean Plays anonymously and gave them to Shakespeare to bring to life before the people of his times. The Shakespearean plays exploded the consciousness of the common man in England directly into the Renaissance of the Elizabethan Era and beyond. Even the ideas necessary to found the United States of America came directly from Francis Bacon and his peers in places like England and France and throughout Europe to create our Bill of Rights, Constitution and even Declaration of Independence!

Concepts like "Freedom of Religion", the "Separation of Church and State" and "Free Trade" came directly from people like Francis Bacon, Voltaire, The Comte De Saint Germain(Francis Bacon's next name?), The man of who never died (also the Comte De Saint Germain) etc. He was also known as the Greatest Eastern Occult Adept in Europe during the 18th Century. He was friends with the crowned heads of Europe including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Napolean Bonapart etc. He came to America and helped the founding fathers create the Declaration of Independence etc. John Hancock's signature was inspired by his speech to that group and after that all the rest followed to sign that document even though many of them and their families would die because of it later. I still have a copy of the Declaration of Independence on a wall in my home today.

So, if you are naturally gifted like many around the world today understanding about your past lives and what you have actually been doing both in embodiments and out in heaven realms over the past millions and billions of years might be useful to you. For how can you know who you are and what you are doing here on earth if you can't remember who you have already been for eternity? And if you remember who you have been for eternity how can you then be afraid of your future eternity as a being?

Because once you remember who you really are no one can ever take that away from you because you then know for sure that this lifetime is only one more day in the long long long life of your soul. So, what are you doing here? What are you trying to accomplish for yourself and all other beings? What made you choose to be born on earth rather than somewhere else? Knowing this changes everything in your life ever after. After this moment your purpose is found and so is your destiny.

Voltaire

As I was walking through our kitchen I spied "Candide" by Voltaire. Since my daughter goes to a college prep school this is one of the many books she has to read there. Though I had heard of Voltaire before I had always assumed (wrongly so I discovered tonight) that he was a college Philosophy professor. However, I see now he was a sort of Shakespeare like person in Paris who was persecuted and sent to the Bastille more than once, held, beat up and finally released several times. He eventually was exiled from Paris and not allowed to live there anymore. And spent his final 20 years (he passed on in his 80s) near Geneva, Switzerland. What I knew of Voltaire before now was basically that he knew "The Comte De Saint Germain" and that he had said of him to a letter to Frederick the Great of Prussia that Saint Germain knew everything and never dies. Here is a quote about Voltaire from Wikipedia:

François-Marie Arouet (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃.swa ma.ʁi aʁ.wɛ]; 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire (pronounced: [vɔl.tɛːʁ]), was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poetry, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws with harsh penalties for those who broke them. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma and the French institutions of his day. end quote.

It is easy to see how people armed with Voltaire's philosophy eventually created the French revolution later in the 18th century  1789 to 1799 which basically wiped out the aristocracy of France if they were not able to leave the country either before or during the revolution.

It is also easy to see why the Comte de Saint Germain and Voltaire would be friends or acquaintances because of similar philosophies of freedom of religion, free trade, and the separation of church and state.

begin quote regarding the age of enlightenment from Wikipedia:

The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment or Age of Reason) was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in Church and state. Originating about 1650–1700, it was sparked by philosophers Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), John Locke (1632–1704), Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), mathematician Isaac Newton (1643–1727) and Voltaire (1694–1778). Ruling princes often endorsed and fostered figures and even attempted to apply their ideas of government. The Enlightenment flourished until about 1790–1800, after which the emphasis on reason gave way to Romanticism's emphasis on emotion and a Counter-Enlightenment gained force.
The centre of the Enlightenment was France, where it was based in the salons and culminated in the great Encyclopédie (1751–72) edited by Denis Diderot (1713–1784) with contributions by hundreds of leading philosophes (intellectuals) such as Voltaire (1694–1778), Rousseau (1712–1778) and Montesquieu (1689–1755). Some 25,000 copies of the 35 volume set were sold, half of them outside France. The new intellectual forces spread to urban centres across Europe, notably England, Scotland, the German states, the Netherlands, Russia, Italy, Austria, and Spain, then jumped the Atlantic into the European colonies, where it influenced Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, among many others, and played a major role in the American Revolution. The political ideals influenced the American Declaration of Independence, the United States Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and the Polish–Lithuanian Constitution of May 3, 1791.[1

If you are interested in reading "Candide" by Voltaire for free onlline, here is the place to do it like I did:

Candide - Literature.org - The Online Literature Library

My daughter had to take her book of "Candide" to school and so I read it online today at the above site. 

note: also if you begin to read Candide and don't know what the word Anabaptist means, here is part of the definition from Wikipedia:

Anabaptists (Greek ανα (again, twice) +βαπτιζω (baptize), thus "re-baptizers"^[1]) are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, and their direct descendants, particularly the Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites.
Anabaptists rejected conventional Christian practices such as wearing wedding rings,^{[citation needed]} taking oaths, and participating in civil government. They adhered to a literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount and believer's baptism.

 

Past Lives

Over the years(since I was born) many people have told me about their past lives. Some of their tales are believable and some are not because they sound too much like a sit-com and some I have to reserve judgement on. It is said that General Patton remembered fighting in many battles as a soldier, captain and general going back several thousand years. I myself remember being a Christian fighting Muslims and then being born a Muslim fighting Christians several times back and forth through at least 4 embodiments until I gave up fighting all together and then meeting Saint Francis of Assisi and Milarepa in the next two lifetimes. And in those lifetimes being first a Catholic Monk of the Franciscan order and then a Cave Yogi under the Tutelage of Milarepa. To the best of my knowledge I haven't had to be a soldier since about 1000 AD because of meeting them both because through deep  prayerful lifetimes I changed my karma.

note: (some people believe that St. Francis and Milarepa were two of the incarnations of St. Germain.)

I find it harder to remember female embodiments (even though I know there have been many). So, I tend to remember female embodiments where I was sort of masculine in attitude like being born in a Scandinavian Country and being about 6 feet tall and able to fight when necessary because I was trained in both hand to hand combat and with a bow. But I didn't try to go up against swordsmen or spearmen in that lifetime. I was mostly just interested in self defense of my family and tribe. So, obviously this also was before 1000 AD.

However, I also have realized since I remember all these lifetimes and incarnations that time means nothing at all to any soul. It is as if a soul manifests all lifetimes at once because time and space is like a hologram more than it is real. I was watching a PBS TV program where many physicists have come to the conclusion that reality is only 2 dimensional and that we live in a holographic universe that is projected somehow three dimensionally from this real 2 dimensional world. Well. That's what they say anyway. So, if you remember being a human or alien or tree or tiger or other animal or bird it is not as far fetched as you might have thought before. My stepson when he was 8 could actually talk to birds and would follow their instructions with great results. One time we lost his cat out the window of our then 1971 VW Camper van in the early 1980s near the beach.  The cats name was "pinky" and he was  a very big Garfield type orange male tom cat. So, my step son  cried because he was only 8 when this happened. Then we went to his grandparents house and the birds outside their house told him where his cat was. So, his mother drove over and got the cat from the monastery where the Catholic nuns had tied up the cat waiting for the owner to retrieve it. The nuns were tuned in too, obviously to have known to catch and to tie up the cat for my stepson's mother  to retrieve "Pinky" the cat. (He had a pink nose). True story. One of many.

People Gathering Mushrooms in the Woods

This is one of the times of the year that people gather mushrooms in the wooded areas of California, especially in the Coastal Range, Sierras, and Cascades from California north all the way to Washington and possibly even Canada.

Where I live the coastal forests of Northern California are a combination of Oaks, Ferns, Coastal Pine trees and Redwoods. As I was walking with my son and my dogs through the forest I noticed all sorts of sort of unusual people that one would not regularly see there. They were not only on the trail but walking off the trail through the woods everywhere. At first I thought they might be Geocachers searching with GPS devices sort of on a scavenger hunt. But then I realized they actually were gathering mushrooms as I noticed they all were carrying plastic bags to put their mushrooms in. I sort of worried that some of them didn't really know what they were doing as many people pick the wrong mushrooms and either get sick or die every year. Because many mushrooms look very similar even though many are also fatal. One of the worst is Amanita Muscaria which is a very bright red mushroom with white spots that often banana slugs eat(I wonder what their experience is) but often when humans eat even a little, they die or are permanently deranged. So, one must be very careful gathering edible mushrooms because one mistake often is fatal. I learned to gather Morels which have to be my favorite food variety of mushrooms I have ever eaten in the forests around Mt. Shasta. A friend of mine used to gather some mushrooms that were purple that were amazing cooked in butter too.

But as a cautionary tale when I was about 21 I was with my friend who was then a graduate student at UCLA and thought he knew everything. He saw edible mushrooms growing in a friend's front yard. So, because I sort of believed at that time that my friend knew almost anything, I helped him gather these mushrooms for our salad. However, after we ate them I found myself really worried for about 24 hours because I realize my friend might have been full of it as to whether these were good food mushrooms and not potentially fatal or might make one blind or something. So, ever since then I have never gone into the woods to pick mushrooms unless I knew I was with a real expert who actually knew for sure what he or she was doing regarding gathering mushrooms in the forest for food.

However, if you like mushrooms there is nothing like cooking mushrooms in butter and then either eating them by themselves or putting them on some other food you like after they are cooked in butter.

But please be careful if you are wandering alone in a forest and spy an interesting looking mushroom. If you put it in your mouth without being ABSOLUTELY sure what it is it may be the last thing you ever do.


Morchella esculenta
http://www.wild-harvest.com/pages/morel.htm

begin quote:

Morels are among the most highly prized of all the Wild Harvest Mushrooms. The reason is plain. Their taste is superb!

Their great value may also be found in their elusiveness. While they often grow in profusion they may be very difficult to see - especially for the inexperienced.

Morels grow in temperate latitudes around the world, in both conifer and hardwood forests. In North America they usually emerge first along the West coast in Early Spring and later in much of the forested East, from the Appalacians up through the Great Lakes region, with scattered harvests into Summer and Fall months.

Majority of harvest offered for commercial sale typically comes from Washington and Oregon with limited availability from Great Lakes and eastern states locations. end quote: 

I guess morels come out in the Spring starting in California Forests. The people searching for mushrooms are probably looking for other varieties of mushrooms that are ready now. 

Of Robotic Hummingbirds and Nanobots

As if the terminally scared in the world didn't have enough to freak out about now we not only have robotic hummingbirds to spy on all of us and potential nanobots in our food to control the way our bodies work and even how we think as well as 3d movies to give us headaches and seizures and to subliminally manipulate us in a host of ways. Yes. Most people just realize things are really f----- and just accept all this as the way things are and go on their merry way trying to survive in this world any way they can.

However, having actually grown up in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s when people actually had rights and didn't have cell phones so that the government could know where ANYONE with a cell phone was any day or night (even at a motel with their secretary) while their wife and kids were at home waiting for them to return from work. (One wonders how the government uses this kind of information to blackmail almost anyone at any time by the way). There is a movie about J.Edgar Hoover that is about how he blackmailed Presidents successively (and everyone else) in America with exactly this kind of information from the 1930s until he left as head of the FBI. In fact, this is how he stayed in power about 50 years as the head of the FBI.

So, I guess what I'm saying about hummingbirds that aren't really hummingbirds but instead flying video camera drones owned by the government and corporations of the world is that sooner or later all of our secrets will all be known by someone and those secrets WILL be used against each of us in some real and awful way. It is only a matter of time.

I would call this era: "The Terrible Era of the Death of All Privacy on Earth"

regarding J.Edgar Hoover here is a quote from wikipedia regarding his life and power:


John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.
Late in life and after his death Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive actions became public. His critics have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI.^[1] He used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,^[2] and to collect evidence using illegal methods.^[3] FBI directors are now limited to one 10-year term,^[4] subject to extension by the United States Senate,^[5] because of his long and controversial tenure.

Note: If you want to know more about the Hummingbird drone with a built in TV camera just look on the cover of the November 28th 2011 Time magazine and read the article "The Hummingbird Drone". While you are at it also  read if you are interested: "Mind reading computers" in the same magazine.

Eckhart Tolle

In the process of visiting England and Scotland in October 2011, part of my family (the 5 of us) went to Findhorn, Scotland on our way from Inverness towards Aberdeen where we were to stay with long time friends of my wife and I. My son just handed me a book that he said had changed his life and helped him to realize that there is no future or past really and only now. Though I have been trying to get him to see this point for most of his life you know how it is with kids. They just have to get it on their own and make it their own to fully be there. The name of the book he handed me is:

Eckhart Tolle's Findhorn Retreat Stillness Amidst the World which is a book and 2 DVD set which includes a 4 hour section of the retreat on DVD published by New World Library, Novato, California.

He was speaking to me of the problems of society, government and the world (my son) and mentioned that, for example, one of the reasons that Germans have been doing better than the U.S. is that they never totally bought into the idea of everyone having to own their own home with a mortgage. I said to my son, "Well. People all my life thought I was rich when I wasn't because I never bought into that idea either." He looked at me and said, "You were always rich with ideas, Dad. Many people have ideas but they don't act on them like you always did." I felt complimented by my son in this way.  I suppose I am still acting on my ideas still, whether it is blogging my latest ideas or reactions to the things I read so others can benefit from my ideas and reactions to things and blogging about my travels all around the U.S. and world now that I am basically retired. Because, after all, I have now had about 63 years to actually think about everything. 

Anyway, it seems that my son, my older daughter and my wife are all very impressed with the philosophy of Eckhart Tolle. I think I always have been impressed with the idea of living in the now rather than the past or future. If you REALLY live now both the past and the future seem to take care of themselves. I think this was Stephen Jobs very Zen point of view too and why he was so very successful in designing user friendly technology.

The American Dream Movement

The "Occupy" movement is slowly morphing into "The American Dream Movement" just like the Tea Party was just a bunch of very upset people at first. Both movements are populist driven "Grass roots movements" and both are changing the U.S. in a variety of ways and both will continue to do so. The tea Party is mostly older middle of the road angry folks and the "Occupy" or "American Dream Movment" is mostly the young, college age and disenfranchised and very angry. It is important to note that even though the "Tea Party" is somewhat more civilized and less scary to the public, the American Dream movement is very young and sexy as a movement much like the anti-war movement of the 1960s and 1970s and will likely grow as more and more educated people join its ranks in one form or another. This movement reminds me of the anti-war movement in the 1960s and 1970s which eventually led to the end of the Viet Nam War and removing Nixon from power. So, it is important not to underestimate the anger or staying power of college educated youth who can't get jobs now and into the future.
 
Until enough people get good jobs or can start their own businesses and get the banks to loan them money this movement will grow and grow. If banks don't find a way to help this movement then it is possible that banks (at least as we now know them) will eventually cease to exist much like Savings and Loans did 20 or 30 years ago. So, at the very least what banks are and how they work will likely change a lot over the next 10 to 30 years quite a bit as this movement grows.

Note: An important article if you want to know more about "The American Dream Movement" is called
'The Return of the Rabble Rouser' which is in the latest Time Magazine November 23rd 2011.

Rich often homeless during their rise to success

There is the story of "Jewel" the Country singer from Alaska who was living in her car before she was "discovered" in Southern California. Now, you may not consider her rich but you must consider her successful. This is only one of the many many stories of successful people that you should read about. Understanding what it takes to become successful is mostly about perseverance and hard work more than anything else. And homelessness is just a stage in all of this which becomes a stepping stone to success in itself. Though Jewel isn't mentioned in the following quote, hers is one of the memorable ones I remembered.

6 rags-to-riches millionaires

The rise to the top can be bumpy. In fact, some of the entrepreneurs we talked to were homeless during the early years of their companies. That's why they all agree that it's important to help others in need. All, including Radio One's Catherine L. Hughes and Life is good co-founder Bert Jacobs, give back to the community by volunteering time, donating to charitable organizations or running their own charities. end quote.

For me, the single most important thing in becoming successful is "Why?" you are doing it? If you are only doing it for yourself, often becoming successful becomes meaningless over time. However, many people I have spoken with have said to me something like, "It really wouldn't be worth it hanging on to wealth at all unless I could help family and friends with it. Making money is relatively easy for many folks. Holding on to it and making it grow is what is really hard. It takes a lot of time researching and making sure all your people working with you you can trust. Just making it and spending it is easy, but making it really grow and be helpful to all you know is a full time job!"

Live each day as if it were your last

I was reading that Steve Jobs decided to live this way when he was 17 by "Trying to live each day like it was his last". Though I also saw the usefulness of this way of thinking around this same age, life has a way of putting us through many remarkable changes throughout our lives. So, I think I was 50 years old and had almost died for 7 months before I actually lived like this every moment of every day all the time ever since. I must say it is a remarkable cure for "Middle aged crazy" which is caused by the deep realization that you are not going to live as a young person(under 30 or 40) forever. I have watched many people including myself become very sort of crazy during this time watching myself move towards some kind of ending or conclusion that I could no longer avoid in any kind of useful fantasy anymore. So, once again living each day as if it were your last is a sort of Zen kind of living. Here is a story that typifies this kind of thinking:

"There was a young Buddhist monk who was being chased by a Tiger and so the Tiger chased him over the cliff. He found himself looking up at one Tiger and at the base of the cliff there was another Tiger waiting for him to fall and eat him. The monk was hanging by a strawberry plant over the cliff that was slowly giving way and he spied a beautiful strawberry there before him. What did he do? He ate the strawberry!"

This is a story about living each day as if it were your last, because likely this was the last day of this monks life. By eating the strawberry we make the moment an important one. If all we ever do is run from the Tigers then the Tigers have won. But by changing the conversation and eating the strawberry, we win!

He will descend from the sky

http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-acknowledges-2nd-mayan-reference-2012-232405916.html
Begin quote:
However, erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible, though some read the last eroded glyphs as perhaps saying, "He will descend from the sky." end quote.

2nd quote from same article:

The Institute of Anthropology and History has long said rumors of a world-ending or world-changing event in late December 2012 are a Westernized misinterpretation of Mayan calendars.

The institute repeated Thursday that "western messianic thought has twisted the cosmovision of ancient civilizations like the Maya."

The institute's experts say the Mayas saw time as a series of cycles that began and ended with regularity, but with nothing apocalyptic at the end of a given cycle.

Given the strength of Internet rumors about impending disaster in 2012, the institute is organizing a special round table of 60 Mayan experts next week at the archaeological site of Palenque, in southern Mexico, to "dispel some of the doubts about the end of one era and the beginning of another, in the Mayan Long Count calendar." end quote.

For about the last 40 to 50 years I have been hearing about a public meeting between aliens and humans around 2012 to 2014 as the time when the "Galaxy" would induct our civlization into the Galaxy in a more formal way sort of like teenagers are inducted into adulthood with their driver's license or entry into college. Others may see this as a time for the return of Jesus or something like that. Either way I think the next few years should be interesting. Whenever humans deal with the unknown things usually turn out to be interesting in the end. However, remember Y2K when everything mostly turned out okay with nothing really to worry about. So, we'll just have to see what the next few years bring to us here on Earth.

Octopus walks on dry land at Moss Beach, California: video

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/video-octopus-crawls-water-walks-dry-land-150510810.html

I have never seen anything like this before. My wife was telling me about another incident where her ex-boyfriend picked up an octopus in this area and it crawled up his arm and directly looked at him eye to eye and her boyfriend got kind of scared because he thought he was going to get bit by the octopuses beak or something in Half Moon Bay nearby Moss Beach near San Francisco.

In this one the octopus just seems curious about the people photographing him. But I still find it amazing especially because of my experience years ago now in Hawaii with a time traveling Octopus that I call Flame.  If interested here is the address of what I wrote about Flame:

dragonofcompassion - Flame

Perspective

Everyone's perspective on life is colored by everything and everyone they are exposed to from birth. It is also colored by the race they are, the ethnicity they are and their family history. So, it is also governed by genetics and even colored by what your mother experienced while you are in the womb.

Understanding all this, you and I are going to have our own unique perspective on everything. But, it is important to realize that you and I don't have the only two perspectives on everything. My perspective is unique to my own life experience.

What is important to me about this is that all perspectives should be seen as equally valuable. There is no one perspective that is ultimately more valuable than any other, even though people often kill each other over this last point all over the world.

So, my viewpoint is based upon 63 years of experience mostly living in California but also through 8 years of college spread out from age 18 through my 40s. I majored in Computer Data Processing when I was 18 and worked a while as a computer operator and computer programmer, did tab wiring on accounting machines using the old punch cards around 1966 through the early 1970s.

Then I had my mother and her mother who were also intuitives like they trained me to be. Since my mother and grandmother were biologically completely Scottish, even though both were born in the U.S and my grandmother raised partly after age 12 in Scotland, they were also Christian Mystics and Celtic by nature. My father came from a more Kansas and more cowboy point of view from his father. However, his mother was from Texas from a wealthy family and so had been to a finishing school which is what women did so they could either work in the world or marry well around 1900 or so. This had an effect on my father of being a straight A student from junior high through High School and he won the highest marks in the state of Washington in any public school for mathematics and penmanship. My father's father was an electrical contractor and taught all three of his sons during the Great Depression to also be electricians. My father's older brother and also my father both eventually became Electrical Contractors as well. However, my father was always upset that his father didn't allow him to become an electrical engineer. My father never got over the resentment of his father sending both his sisters through college in the 1930s but not the three older brothers. It took me years into my 30s to really understand why my grandfather did this to my father and his two brothers. But it finally dawned on me that people with college degrees during the 1930s were hungry and penniless and homeless often. However, people who had a trade like Carpenters, Electricians, plumbers, painters etc. were almost always employed and had places to live, food, cars, wives etc. because people always needed their houses to be maintained and needed room additions for new babies and relatives moving in and the like. Factories needed repairs and modifications to their existing electrical systems and so my father, and his two brothers were never without work or money or cars and it allowed my father and his brother to get married and for his older brother to start his family. (I didn't come along until 1948 but my oldest cousin is still alive and is 9 years older than me that is the daughter of my Dad's oldest brother).

So all this contributed to my personal perspective as a writer and blogger. In addition to this my father was a vegetarian by choice since he was 18 in 1934. He studied about how unhealthy all the shots being given cattle were to fatten them up for slaughter that often made people sick and ill. He also read about hardening of the arteries and various other illnesses that people would get from being (meat and potatoes) men. And like me as I was 6, 9, 12 years and older I watched contractors start to die from heart attacks, strokes etc. starting about in their late 30s and early 40s. In fact, still today the average life expectancy for a building contractor is about 57 because of the wear and tear on one's body and if you are a meat and potatoes man only then you can't expect to live very long unless you have a very unique genetic pattern in your family.

So, because of all this I was raised to be a vegetarian like my father. He married my mother and they both were in a religion that was vegetarian not because of health reasons but because of religious reasons. But he then taught my mother about being a vegetarian for health reasons as well. I stayed a complete vegetarian until I was about 32. I was 32 in about 1980 which was a time like now when there was unemployment above 10 percent in most of the U.S. and it was sort of like this until 1984. During this time I got into being more of a survivalist in the sense that I believed that our economic system might collapse. So I did things like get a lot of food staples and bury it in 50 gallon drums on my land in case one could not buy food in stores anymore for one reason or another. However, I didn't realize then that the rest of the world NEEDED the U.S. to be stable for one reason or another and would loan us money to stabilize our country. Because in the late 1970s and early 1980s we were going bankrupt as a country like now. Only then it was from the overspending in the Viet Nam War and now it is because of the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan. So, money was loaned to the U.S. by other countries and so our economy stabilized. Then money was loaned to Mexico, Argentina and Brazil and other central and south american countries by our Savings and loans. When those loans all defaulted it caused many suicides here in the U.S. when people's savings were lost. And then there were no more Savings and Loans anymore. But what you need to understand is that there were almost as many Savings and Loans before this as there are banks now.

And so FDIC came to be stronger in Banks because then it only guaranteed 100,000 dollars in any bank for anyone. Whereas now that has grown to 250,000 in any bank and more if it is within a  portfolio of investments but then the government insurance is called something else. So, now the government insures people's money within banks and stocks and other investments against sudden loss by a bank or investment company collapse. However, the day to day value of any stock can be almost anywhere still.

So, anyway all these experiences of growing up a vegetarian, with an extremely intelligent father, a very common sensical and very intuitive mother and grandmother, and being raised in a Christian mystic religion mostly while growing up in Southern California after being born in Seattle, helped create me to be a very polite and gentlemanly person, very intuitive, very interested in nature and wilderness and wildness, and someone interested in becoming enlightened in every way so I could one day help others as many many others had helped me both in college and then in my travels in California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, India, Nepal, Thailand, Europe, Canada etc. all during my life.
I tend to be very ecumenical (including everyone and eveyrone's ideas and beliefs) at creating a synthesis for other people to benefit from of everything I have ever experienced. In this way more people will have a useful perspective that might help them survive better throughout their lives in every way. That is my intention in how I write. And so, enlightenment to me, is the enlightened way to approach everything in life. For example, college and learning can be like a hammer that you can build something with, or it can be a weapon of your own self destruction. All learning is like this. So it is important to take a moment and to think and feel and to experience life enough to make some sense of it before you make yourself crazy and die just because you don't have a wide enough perspective on things yet. Patience I have found to be one of the most important virtues if you want to live a long life. And especially in one's 20's unrealistic expectations that go with that time in life might be one of the hardest things to mentally and physically survive. I think that is why it is said for Americans "If you live to be 30 you can expect to be 90". However, that is only true if you can survive to be 30 in the first place. And it is my experience that surviving to 30 is quite a chore.

UC Davis Pepper Spray incident

To see the incident in question on youtube click on the following website
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&feature=related



To read a full article regarding the pepper spray incident copy and paste following article at nytimes.com:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/us/pepper-sprays-fallout-from-crowd-control-to-mocking-images.html

“The courts have made it very clear that these type of devices can’t be used indiscriminately and should be used only when the target poses a physical threat to someone,” said Michael Risher, staff attorney for the A.C.L.U. of Northern California.
To Kamran Loghman, who helped develop pepper spray into a weapons-grade material with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the 1980s, the incident at Davis violated his original intent.
“I have never seen such an inappropriate and improper use of chemical agents,” Mr. Loghman said in an interview. end quote from above article.

Since Pepper spray interferes with breathing and causes temporary blindness, unless someone is attacking a policeman or woman or man directly this pepper spray should never be used because if the agent isn't washed out of the eyes and nose and mouth and face of the one pepper sprayed immediately, blindness or death of the person might take place, especially if they are handcuffed as in this case. Blindness becoming permanent if the person sprayed isn't allow because of handcuffs to wash out their eyes, nose and face. Death could occur if inflammation of soft tissues in nose or throat become inflamed so the person cannot breathe. Another problem that could cause death is from an allergic reaction to pepper spray.

begin 2nd quote from above article:

Pepper spray — its formal name is oleoresin capsicum, or O.C. spray — finds its power in an inflammatory agent that occurs naturally in more than 300 varieties of peppers, including cayenne, and that vary by their degree of hotness. (Black pepper is not part of the capsicum family.) When sprayed in someone’s face, it causes an intense burning sensation of the eyes, resulting in temporary blindness, and restricts breathing, induces coughing and leaves the person at least temporarily incapacitated.
Pepper’s use as a deterrent dates to the ancient cultures in China and India, which sometimes used it in war, sometimes for torture. Because it was effective, cheap and widely cultivated, pepper persisted as a weapon through the ages, mostly for self-defense. Some Japanese women kept it tucked into their kimonos in case a man made aggressive advances. end quote.

So this weapon has always been used as a defensive weapon and not for offense really until this public situation. This is why it is drawing so much attention. If police continue to use it around the country in this way it is only a matter of time before a demonstrator dies in an unfortunate incident.

The following is a picture of one of the deaths at Kent State with the officer spraying pepper spray on a screaming grieving student finding a friend shot to death. This is the kind of reaction to the pepper spray being found on the internet now.
 

 http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/204351-casually-pepper-spray-everything-cop

Pepper Spray Cop / Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop

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4

The Future of Books

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-end-of-borders-and-the-future-of-books-11102011.html?campaign_id=rss_topStories
Begin quote:
Nashville might seem like an archetype of the death-of-the-bookstore-everywhere narrative, but its story turns out to be different. The cashier who checked me out at the Brentwood store, Nancy DeVille, had transferred from the Nashville location when it closed, and she said both outlets were constantly packed with regulars drawn to the sight, feel, and smell of books. David Beddow, a supervisor at the Nashville store from 2005 to 2008, remembered costumed crowds snaking around the corner for the release of the latest Harry Potter. He said revenue there had actually increased during his tenure, from $5.5 million to around $7 million a year.
Despite rising online book sales and digital downloads and the Great Recession, bookstores in the area were profitable—right up until they closed. Even Davis-Kidd, locally owned until the Joseph-Beth Booksellers chain purchased it in 1997, had been solvent, undone not by the collapse of the local market but by the bankruptcy of the parent company. (The local Barnes & Noble, at the Opry Mills mall, was closed after a 2010 flood.) Nashville lost its bookstores not because people there had abandoned physical books and retailers. For the most part, it lost them remotely, at the corporate level.
Nashville’s story is not unique. When Borders declared bankruptcy in February, more than 200 of its 400 outlets were still “highly profitable,” says its final chief executive officer, Mike Edwards. There’s no question that the book industry is in flux, with digital sales last year making up about $900 million of the $28 billion-a-year market and increasing fast. But a sizable portion of the book business is still taking place in actual stores. Barnes & Noble (BKS), the nation’s largest book retailer, hasn’t been forced to close its 700 locations. Thus, it wasn’t Amazon (AMZN) —or Amazon alone—that sank Borders. “When there’s a massive transition in an industry, the strong players make it through to the other side,” explains David A. Schick, a retail analyst who covers booksellers for Stifel Nicolaus Equity Research (SF). “What gets caught up in the change are the weaker players.” end quote.

My wife really like real books made of paper and love's paperbacks. She must read two or three a week. Since I got glasses I don't read books that much because I get headaches since I read with glasses when I read books. But I don't get headaches when I read things on a computer. So go figure. So, I read a lot of articles and research on the computer as well as several magazines even though I miss reading books. So sometimes my wife and I read to each other so I don't read long enough to get a headache in one session while reading a book made out of paper.

However, what is really important about the article I quoted above is that about 200 of the 400 Borders outlets were profitable. What this means in real terms is that there likely always will be independent bookstores being profitable in some areas. So if you want to start a bookstore you might want to research what locations were profitable when Borders closed. There will always be people who want to read and own books made of paper, even if they have to print those books out at home on their printer.

note: I only wear glasses for reading and no other time. For example, I don't need them for driving a car or riding a motorcycle or bicycle. A friend who has difficulty reading menus and things now liked my small blue case that I keep in my pocket with mini-glasses in them. So, if you only need glasses to read it is nice to either put them up on your head like my wife does and then only bring them down if you need to read something or just keep a mini-pair in you pants or shirt pocket for emergencies.  When my eyes first started to have difficulty reading small print I was about 45. I'm now 63. But at 45 I would carry a card sized magnifier in my wallet to read the things I needed to before I really needed glasses.

Angel of the Morning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzGMEfbnAw

One of my songs under "Dad's Song's" in our Itunes lineup used by my daughter and wife and I is "Angel of the Morning" by Juice Newton. One day I asked my wife if she wanted to listen to this song with me through my Ipod at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver as it had an Ipod ready speaker system there in our room to listen to songs through. She got kind of irritated because she is 7 years younger than I and from a slightly different generation than I. She said, "That song is about women who are with a man only for one night that they might love but know they might never see him again. Why do you like it?"

At first I was flabberghasted by her reaction because I really didn't expect this from my wife. So, it took me a moment to try to explain just how important this song was to me.  Though it didn't come out until 1981 about 12 years after I started living this way as a young man of 21 I said to my wife, "Well. At age 21 I was trying to just stay alive and if a girl loved me or cared about me whether it was for a night or a week, or a month or a year, it was enough for me to think I should try to stay alive for her because I really had no reason that I could think of to stay alive for myself from about 1969 until about 1973 when my live in girlfriend got pregnant and we got married. After that, I lived so I could stay alive to raise my son right so he wouldn't have some of the problems that I had had to deal with growing up.

My wife said, "If the idea of this song helped you stay alive until I met you then I understand because I really love you, Fred." And then I was pleased my wife finally got just how important this song is to me. For me, it is about how grateful I am to all these women who kept me alive. Because it reminded me of all the men who died during those times because there were no good women to keep them alive. So, I stayed alive to be a good father and good husband and a good person. So, this song is very important to me and always brings a tear to my eye whenever I hear it.

Note: When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s women generally were not raised to face the full harsh truths of life. This was done so that they could be a  comfort to men so men would not die directly or indirectly from the harsh truths of life before their time. Since then all this has changed and now there is no real difference between many men and women regarding facing the full harsh truths of life. So that now when two adults get together to share their lives they comfort each other through all the near death experiences of life and sometimes on into the real deaths of their partners. So, a lot has changed from when I grew up. But both now and then it is friends comforting each other through ongoing near death experiences both internal and external.

The Colorado River

The Colorado River while I was growing up in California from age 4 on was always the closest biggest river near to us and I always felt it was sort of our River, because big rivers don't exist much in southern California other than the Colorado. As a child I went and waded in the river while we were on our way to Arizona or New Mexico in the 1950s. I also waded and swam in the Salton Sea which was an engineering accident while water was being canaled in the early 1900s to the Los Angeles Basin by diverting part of the Colorado River.

But riding the Zephyr Train east I found it wonderful and amazing to follow the Colorado river for many many miles in Colorado up towards the Continental divide in the Rockies. I could imagine all the horses and men building the railroad back in the 1860s getting water from the river to keep on going as the camped nearby along those hundreds of miles. So, it is really beautiful to see the country by train because in some ways it is like it was in the 1860s before cars and trucks most of the way along. Though sometimes you parallel roadways with cars and trucks a lot of the time you don't and then you can see cattle, wild areas and miles and miles of mostly nothing along the way. A few times you see cities and settlements but it is really amazing through Nevada, parts of Utah and Colorado how much open undeveloped space there really is.

Next, a few days later I found my son and I going on our way back to California in his car visiting the Grand Canyon (which was cut over millions of years by the Colorado rive). This started to make me think and I realized that we would intersect on this trip a total of three times with the Colorado River. I sort of realized that this trip was going to be a lot about the Colorado River, from its headwaters that I saw along the train coming from the Continental divide heading westwards to the Grand Canyon that it had cut, to crossing the river into California at Needles to even being California's Eastern most border itself and then it flows on down into Mexico and into the Gulf of California next to Baja California in Mexico there.

So, after seeeing the Colorado River Headwaters in the Rockies and Visiting the Grand Canyon I found myself wading in the Colorado River in over 60 degrees air temperature while boy scouts landed their 5 or 6 boats that they were going down the Colorado river on there in Needles, California. I was amazed at how I felt about the spirit of this mighty River and Glad to be a Californian who was free and could travel to see this amazing country and amazing river!

Occupy Movement needs better Public Relations

Whether it is people who work in the Public Relations arena who volunteer their time to the movement or what, I think public relations consultants should help this movement get its message across in a better more efficient way. Here are some of the facts that would help them:

begin quote:

Opening a discourse on income inequality in the 21st century U.S. is no small feat, argued Nina Eliasoph, a sociologist with USC's Dornsife College.
"What's really interesting is the way they've forced open a line of questioning that people have found taboo ... This used to be a non-question - you were not allowed to ask why there's more inequality now than in the 1950s, especially if you were in media or a politician."
That opening has also generated more information and exchange among researchers and in the public sphere, Eliasoph said.
"Now people are coming out of the woodwork with data they had in some academic journal that they published years ago ... saying now it's even worse and no one paid attention to this inequality," she said. "So all these people who didn't know about each other's statistics are finding out about them."
Eliasoph calls some of that data astounding - like the fact that in the prosperous 1950s, the top 1 percent earned only 8 percent of the income. Today, the much-maligned 1 percent earns more than a quarter of the income, with taxes on their highest earnings capped at 35 percent - compared to over 91 percent in the 1950s.
In late October, the Congressional Budget Office reported that income distribution had become substantially more unequal since 1979: The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the country's income over the past three decades - their average real after-tax income growing by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007.
By contrast, the 60 percent of the population in the middle income scale saw just under 40 percent growth in the same category, while the "lowest" 20 percent averaged about 18 percent higher income in 2007 over 1979.
The upward trend in unequal distribution continued from 2005 and 2007, when income among the highest 20 percent exceeded that of the remaining 80 percent, the Office reported.
Such data compounded rage over corporate greed, the role of financial institutions in the Great Recession and the plight of unemployed and uninsured across the country, feeding the Occupy diaspora.

Read more: Occupy movement: A lasting effect? - Whittier Daily News http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_19385240#ixzz1eSh715dH

end quote.

Even the single fact that in the 1950s the top 1 percent only earned 8 percent of the entire U.S. income compared to the fact that it now earns 25 percent of U.S. income might be useful. Or that the highest earners had their income taxed at up to 91% in the 1950s compared to only 35% now.

Or "The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the country's income over the past three decades - their average real after-tax income growing by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007."

 

Nothing will compound the rage of the 99% more than all these kinds of facts. In a way educating the 99% will bring the nation back to balance. Because things are now so out of balance that if they get any moreso it could go to a French revolution scenario where the aristocracy(rich) are done away with. So, I think the "Occupy" movement by "equalizing" the wealth in the U.S. is preventing future death and mayhem upon the rich. So, even the rich should be grateful for the existence of the Occupy movement because it will help them stay alive in the future. Because bloody revolutions mostly just make a mess of everything and create situations where no useful leadership at all exists for often 20 to 100 years in that country.

There is no Normal only the Illusion of one

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203699404577044641783511780.html?mod=lifestyle_newsreel
Begin quote:
When "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1" opened at midnight Thursday night, the theaters were packed with giddy teenagers ready for the latest installment of the vampires-and-werewolves tale.
What is it about young adults and the supernatural?
As teenagers we exist in extremes. During those angst-filled years, emotions are raw and fresh, and life experiences are few, so every feeling is intense and unprecedented. It's easy to go blind within the brackets of our adolescent years; it's easy to forget that an entire future outside of high school still exists.
At 16, we're never the right color, the right shape, the right kind of rich or poor. We're unique, just like everyone else; we're misunderstood and stereotyped, just like everyone else. We're each very different and therefore exactly the same.
Supernatural and paranormal fiction mimics these feelings perfectly. Characters with strange powers, circumstances and destinies are different from their peers and, in being different, give teenagers someone to connect with.
In many ways, life is much harder in adolescence. We feel trapped as teens; we're too young to move away or get a job, and we're not yet articulate enough to tell the resident bully in our lives to go to hell.
The fantastical, on the other hand, provides the escape that young minds desperately seek: It takes our weird teenage quirks to extremes, creates hyperbolic situations wherein the protagonist (read: the person who always felt different and/or special) is transported from the ordinary into the extraordinary and, subsequently, catapulted into a life far more interesting than one might find in reality. These stories sustain us. In fact, it can actually hurt sometimes to be stuck in the normal world for too long. It can hurt to be forced to attend school every day while your fictional friends conquer evil without you. I would know.
In 1998, Harry Potter and I were both 11 years old when he got accepted to Hogwarts and I didn't.
I remember sitting in my room with that book clutched to my chest, thinking I knew too well what it was like to be left behind, feeling like I, too, lived in a cupboard under the stairs. I wore the ugly insurance glasses that didn't fit my face well. I wore my brothers' hand-me-downs that were five sizes too big for me.
I wasn't quite a teenager yet, but somehow I already knew I was terribly misunderstood (just like everyone else) and that I wanted, so desperately, to be accepted to Hogwarts (just like everyone else).
end quote:

In reality there really is no "normal". Normal is the ultimate illusion and all truly successful people realize this. The "normal" rules actually are for children that one is trying to discipline whereas adulthood is only about opportunities. Opportunities are only about whether you see these opportunities and act on them or whether you are so caught in a personal illusion that you miss real opportunities when they exist to move forward in your lives.

Part of the problem of our over specialized culture is that  it seems like everyone just has to only work at one trade for life. Whereas, statistically the average person has at least 5 different professions in the course of their working life. One's internal experience and external experience of life are usually different. However, if one actually begins to understand how things actually work one can manifest many of one's internal desires externally in a way in which one can feel it useful to go on living while watching for the next big opportunity.

I am presently 63 and have now been married 3 times with one biological child with each wife. I am on very good terms with all my children and am on good terms with my first and present wife. Before I got married I had many many girlfriends which I consider both a good thing and a confusing thing at the same time. However, knowing many women as a young man made me much more aware of the world in all ways. It made me more of a traveler both internally and externally. It made me grow up in ways I never would have otherwise. It showed me possibilities beyond my wildest dreams regarding world travel, spiritual travel, etc. I have watched people I knew stay with the same church they were raised in and marry the first girl they met and often they never went anywhere and still live in the same town. Sometimes they are happy and sometimes not. I have met people who have dated women all their lives and lived with 20 or more women and are now my age and traveled all over the world as musicians and they are no more or less happy than the people who stayed in their childhood church and married the first girl in their lives. Normal is an illusion. It is whatever you believe it is that works for you to survive your life. I know many people who likely if they married the first girl they met would have killed themselves by 25 or 30. I know many people who if they spent their whole lives traveling now would be single and very confused.

I guess what I'm saying is that there is no useful normal that fits everyone. Everyone is very different in the end and when people can't see that they  they tend to live in a very small view of reality usually. But then again that can be a good thing or a bad thing for then because normal is an illusion. It is whatever you think it is in the end.

For me, I tend to prefer to live in a very expanded view of reality that includes all philosophies and religions. My point of view is: As long as what you believe in doesn't hurt anyone you should basically believe whatever you want to that keeps you alive. Just wanting to stay alive can be a very difficult and complicated thing, especially in the western world. If you want another take on reality just travel to a third world country and talk to people there. The differences in how they perceive reality in comparison to how you do will definitely shock and surprise you. And maybe that would be a good thing for you to see as well.

People in the western developed world are very unhappy now because they perceive that they have less. And yes it is true that 75% of the wealth of Americans is in their homes they own and now 53% of that real value is gone since 2007. So yes, that much of their real wealth has disappeared. But if you still have the people you love, your friends and family, then you are one of the richest people on earth!