After studying this issue of whether time travel exists or not for at least 40 years or more I reached a point where I could no longer usefully deny its existence in the here and now.
The year in which I could no longer deny its existence was 1990 in Mt. Shasta California.(Later: I realized this was a long time ago now and I think it was more likely the summer of 1992). I was washing dishes while my family was out shopping and I walked outside onto the Acre of land we were renting that the house was sitting on because of a terrible racket. I recognized the sound of helicopter blade tips breaking the sound barrier and the sound was just so loud that I went out to see which helicopter or helicopters were making such a terrible racket.
I saw three unmarked chinook helicopters. But what I wasn't prepared for was the silver flying saucer directly under their formation. Then the choppers stopped and remained stationary in the air. They remained like this for up to one minute at which time the UFO (silver flying saucer) soundlessly disappeared.
It was at this point when I began to realize that these moments had permanently changed my life in many ways. Because what I most likely had witnessed was U.S. time travel. I would like you to tell me how any object can just disappear soundlessly that is at least 30 feet across or more in diameter. The first explanation is that I witnessed time travel and the second is that I witnessed a military hologram. The third thing that might be noted is that neither the helicopters (other than being gray) had any numbers, designations or any other markings on them at all. None of the three helicopters had any numbers or marking on them. After the silver saucer disappeared without a sound the three double bladed Chinooks headed down hiway 89 towards Nevada and away from the Mt. Shasta area while in military formation.
I've had almsot 21 years to think about all this since then. And my conclusion that makes the most sense to me is that I did witness time travel and so if that is true the U.S. has time travel and has had it at least now 21 years or likely much longer. The other conclusion I have come to is the main reason people aren't told about these things is that time travel is thousands of times or more more dangerous to all life on earth than nuclear weapons have ever been or will ever be.
So, it is my personal conclusion that time travel existed before humans did on earth at this point which changes what earth would be perceived as by those who time travel regularly forward and backwards through time.
From this point of view Earth would be a dimension and in this dimension all time, past, present and future in this dimension of earth would be available. So, from this perspective earth being a planet isn't important at all. Earth governments of any time aren't important at all. Only the dimension of earth itself throughout all the time it exists would be important. And even the people of any one time on earth wouldn't be important only the dimension of earth would be important. So, the preservation of the dimension of earth throughout all times might be the most important thing of all to such time travelers of the dimension sometimes called Earth. This is what I presently believe now 21 years later.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Tea Party will shut the government down?
Op-Ed Columnist
Why Wouldn’t the Tea Party Shut It Down?
By FRANK RICH
Published: February 26, 2011
NO one remembers anything in America, especially in Washington, so the history of the Great Government Shutdown of 1995 is being rewritten with impunity by Republicans flirting with a Great Government Shutdown of 2011. The bottom line of the revisionist spin is this: that 2011 is no 1995. Should the unthinkable occur on some coming budget D-Day — or perhaps when the deadline to raise the federal debt ceiling arrives this spring — the G.O.P. is cocksure that it can pin the debacle on the Democrats.
Readers' Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/opinion/27rich.html
I don't think the Tea Party understands that if they shut down the government it will be the end of the Tea Party because even the Republicans will eventually blame the Tea Party to absolve themselves if they shut the government down like Gingrich did in 1995. Rhetoric is one thing but shutting the government down completely only harms the common man. And when that happens the average common man who might not be a Tea Party person is going to get very pissed off!
Hang on to Your Hat
I have been experiencing a type of forboding for the world. I have tried to eliminate any problems that might be coming in my own life or family's life. So, I'm left with what is happening to the whole world basically. It is what I have to do as an intuitive to keep myself and my family and friends alive first. Then, after I have tried to figure out why I feel something I begin like an investigator and try to figure out why I'm feeling something and it won't go away. So, the best saying is one out of the old west and it is the title of this blog, "Hand on to your Hat!" It is what people said while riding horses and either a very big wind was coming or they were going to ride for their lives and they were in danger. This is what I see for Earth now. I don't see a major world war because there is the United Nations and basically all big nations are just so incredibly economically interdependent upon each other a big war would mostly just be counter productive and ridiculous. But, that isn't true for smaller nations. right now there is instability in the middle east but I think we will see it spread all over the place. For now, places like China and Saudi Arabia are keeping it all in check but I don't know where all this is going. If people don't have enough food or rights some places they might explode in different ways around the world.
Anyway you look at it we are in a period of time that reminds me the most like the 1930s worldwide. Because we have the United Nations I don't think there will be any really big wars between the biggest nations any time soon. However, the instability of many many smaller nations could create a chaos equal to World War II in relation to starvation and instability worldwide. Now is the time for the biggest (and all sizes of nations) to band together for the common good of everyone. Batton down the hatches everyone a storm is coming. And it might last the next 10 years or more.
Anyway you look at it we are in a period of time that reminds me the most like the 1930s worldwide. Because we have the United Nations I don't think there will be any really big wars between the biggest nations any time soon. However, the instability of many many smaller nations could create a chaos equal to World War II in relation to starvation and instability worldwide. Now is the time for the biggest (and all sizes of nations) to band together for the common good of everyone. Batton down the hatches everyone a storm is coming. And it might last the next 10 years or more.
A Profound Dream
I don't know if my dream will have meaning to anyone born after 1960 but it might. But, for me, it was a complete breakthrough in how I see everything. I'm writing it down so I don't lose it by going back to sleep. It's in the middle of the night and the middle of my sleep cycle but I don't want to lose the benefit of this dream.
I suppose the dream could be titled, "It's about survival!"
Another subtitle might be, "It's not about whether one is gay or straight"
Also, I've never been interested in being Gay even though several of my friends now dead were. And some of them were in love with me which I found difficult to deal with and remain their friends. So, this dream was also important in helping me with this as well.
I woke up and thought, "It's not about Gay or straight! It's about survival!"
If you grew up in the 1950s as a child like I did if you were gay and open about it there was a high likelihood that you would be beat up every day in school and possibly killed by peers by adulthood. This was just a fact of life. But this was only true for boys. If you were a girl men might find you interesting if you were gay as long as you pretended to be straight most of the time and got married and had a family. They didn't really care then if you were attracted to your female friends as long as you remained married with family. That was how it actually was in the 1950s. It is still this way in most of the world for billions of people worldwide. It is for those people and for those who grew up in the 1950s and before that I write this. And for myself.
It might be a hard world for people to imagine here in the U.S. if you were born after the 1960s.
When I was in my 30s a friend and I studied with a medicine man named Crow. He said of my friend, "You are a complete contrary." And then he turned to me and said, "You are a half contrary." To a native american a Contrary means that such a one doesn't like the status quo of society or civlization and will fight it and try to create the world his or her way instead. So my being a half contrary meant that about half of the way things were in the world were okay with me and the oher half I would fight anyway I could to change. So, as much as possible I have been fighting everything that I thought was wrong with life on earth and civilization ever since. And my friend has been fighting the whole world in his way too. He became a very successful musician. I got married and had a family and began by 30 starting businesses. Now my friend and I are both world travelers, he in his late 50s and me now at 62. We still ski together on Mt. Shasta and kayak on Castle Lake, the Pacific Ocean, and Lake Siskiyou, and once we went to Nepal in 1985 where I met him there with my family. He flew there from Switzerland where he was visiting relatives.
I hesitate to write of the dream because it was so difficult to endure. I can see now it was a simile of life itself. In the dream there was a private club where males gathered. But the club in a sense was a fight club of sorts. Because if you lost you would be raped by other men just like happens in prison in real life. And for some people this is their everyday lives. If a man is straight it drives him insane or kills him directly or indirectly. If a man is gay he is either killed or enjoys the whole thing. But either way the struggle is what I experienced in the 1950s growing up.
But for the first time I experienced it not as a gay or straight thing but as "The Law of the Jungle". I saw all this dog eat dog sort of thing as pure animal survival. In other words the whole domination thing was more about being ruthless enough to wind up on top than anything else. And that all the gay stuff in the dream was really about seeing whether a person was a "Dominator" or was "Submissive" in the world of men. For the first time my dream was able to separate for me at a very deep level the whole gay and straight thing from simply what men do to survive anything, especially other men.
To be able to separate the whole Gay Straight thing from the basic "Law of the Jungle" of animals is incredibly empowering for any man or woman. It puts everything on a "Survival" basis and takes it away from the cultural contrivance of either being Gay or Straight which in the end is very artificial and confusing for everyone in multiple ways. It is almost like giving a definition of Gay and Straight to people disempowers the culture and makes everything artificial somehow and even more confusing than "The Law of the Jungle" is already for anyone anywhere trying to find a way to survive here on earth.
God helps us when we least expect it.
Later: It is now September 12th 2011. My thought is that it makes more sense to describe people as dominators or as submissives than it does Gay or Straight because even within the Gay community there are Butches and Queens in the male gay community and the Bulls and the Fems in the Lesbian community. I think eventually society will get around to the "Dominators and the Submissives". I know right now it would not be politically correct to speak this way. However, eventually it would make more sense if you were looking at humans within the "Law of the Jungle" perspective which I think would be a whole lot less confusing than what we have now. Clarity might save a lot of lives once the gay concept becomes safer and less fatal worldwide than now. Dominator is not gay or straight it is both. Submissive is not gay or straight it is both. So once societies stop killing gays around the world which likely will be in the next 100 years, the next step might be clarity.
I suppose the dream could be titled, "It's about survival!"
Another subtitle might be, "It's not about whether one is gay or straight"
Also, I've never been interested in being Gay even though several of my friends now dead were. And some of them were in love with me which I found difficult to deal with and remain their friends. So, this dream was also important in helping me with this as well.
I woke up and thought, "It's not about Gay or straight! It's about survival!"
If you grew up in the 1950s as a child like I did if you were gay and open about it there was a high likelihood that you would be beat up every day in school and possibly killed by peers by adulthood. This was just a fact of life. But this was only true for boys. If you were a girl men might find you interesting if you were gay as long as you pretended to be straight most of the time and got married and had a family. They didn't really care then if you were attracted to your female friends as long as you remained married with family. That was how it actually was in the 1950s. It is still this way in most of the world for billions of people worldwide. It is for those people and for those who grew up in the 1950s and before that I write this. And for myself.
It might be a hard world for people to imagine here in the U.S. if you were born after the 1960s.
When I was in my 30s a friend and I studied with a medicine man named Crow. He said of my friend, "You are a complete contrary." And then he turned to me and said, "You are a half contrary." To a native american a Contrary means that such a one doesn't like the status quo of society or civlization and will fight it and try to create the world his or her way instead. So my being a half contrary meant that about half of the way things were in the world were okay with me and the oher half I would fight anyway I could to change. So, as much as possible I have been fighting everything that I thought was wrong with life on earth and civilization ever since. And my friend has been fighting the whole world in his way too. He became a very successful musician. I got married and had a family and began by 30 starting businesses. Now my friend and I are both world travelers, he in his late 50s and me now at 62. We still ski together on Mt. Shasta and kayak on Castle Lake, the Pacific Ocean, and Lake Siskiyou, and once we went to Nepal in 1985 where I met him there with my family. He flew there from Switzerland where he was visiting relatives.
I hesitate to write of the dream because it was so difficult to endure. I can see now it was a simile of life itself. In the dream there was a private club where males gathered. But the club in a sense was a fight club of sorts. Because if you lost you would be raped by other men just like happens in prison in real life. And for some people this is their everyday lives. If a man is straight it drives him insane or kills him directly or indirectly. If a man is gay he is either killed or enjoys the whole thing. But either way the struggle is what I experienced in the 1950s growing up.
But for the first time I experienced it not as a gay or straight thing but as "The Law of the Jungle". I saw all this dog eat dog sort of thing as pure animal survival. In other words the whole domination thing was more about being ruthless enough to wind up on top than anything else. And that all the gay stuff in the dream was really about seeing whether a person was a "Dominator" or was "Submissive" in the world of men. For the first time my dream was able to separate for me at a very deep level the whole gay and straight thing from simply what men do to survive anything, especially other men.
To be able to separate the whole Gay Straight thing from the basic "Law of the Jungle" of animals is incredibly empowering for any man or woman. It puts everything on a "Survival" basis and takes it away from the cultural contrivance of either being Gay or Straight which in the end is very artificial and confusing for everyone in multiple ways. It is almost like giving a definition of Gay and Straight to people disempowers the culture and makes everything artificial somehow and even more confusing than "The Law of the Jungle" is already for anyone anywhere trying to find a way to survive here on earth.
God helps us when we least expect it.
Later: It is now September 12th 2011. My thought is that it makes more sense to describe people as dominators or as submissives than it does Gay or Straight because even within the Gay community there are Butches and Queens in the male gay community and the Bulls and the Fems in the Lesbian community. I think eventually society will get around to the "Dominators and the Submissives". I know right now it would not be politically correct to speak this way. However, eventually it would make more sense if you were looking at humans within the "Law of the Jungle" perspective which I think would be a whole lot less confusing than what we have now. Clarity might save a lot of lives once the gay concept becomes safer and less fatal worldwide than now. Dominator is not gay or straight it is both. Submissive is not gay or straight it is both. So once societies stop killing gays around the world which likely will be in the next 100 years, the next step might be clarity.
Madoff says government is a Ponzi Scheme
NEW YORK – Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff said in a magazine interview published Sunday that new regulatory reform enacted after the recent national financial crisis is laughable and that the federal government is a Ponzi scheme.
"The whole new regulatory reform is a joke," Madoff said during a telephone interview with New York magazine in which he discussed his disdain for the financial industry and for its regulators.
The interview was published on the magazine's website Sunday night.
Madoff did an earlier New York Times interview in which he accused banks and hedge funds of being "complicit" in his Ponzi scheme to fleece people out of billions of dollars. He said they failed to scrutinize the discrepancies between his regulatory filings and other information.
He said in the New York magazine interview the Securities and Exchange Commission "looks terrible in this thing," and he said the "whole government is a Ponzi scheme." end quote.
Actually, with the government presently operating on the basis of the "Foxes guarding the henhouse" I agree that if regular citizens allow the regulators of banks and wall street to also be wall street and bank insiders then "How can we expect any other result than the government being a Ponzi scheme?"
So, because the "Foxes have been guarding the Henhouse since at least 2000 or before that" in regard to Wall STreet and Banking in the U.S. it is only a matter of time before the whole system either collapses or Americans demand proper policing of their banks and Wall Street. Otherwise, it is only a matter of time before the 2nd Great Depression begins worldwide for real.
Later: My wife who has a Master's Degree in Business Administration and who was also the validictorian of her prep high school says that the problem of a 2nd Great Depression won't be in the next 5 to 10 years because everyone worldwide is watching. The problem will probably occur within 15 to 30 years from now when a 2nd Great Depression could occur because the real problems have not still been addressed in the banking industry or Wall Street not only in the U.S. but mostly worldwide as well.
"The whole new regulatory reform is a joke," Madoff said during a telephone interview with New York magazine in which he discussed his disdain for the financial industry and for its regulators.
The interview was published on the magazine's website Sunday night.
Madoff did an earlier New York Times interview in which he accused banks and hedge funds of being "complicit" in his Ponzi scheme to fleece people out of billions of dollars. He said they failed to scrutinize the discrepancies between his regulatory filings and other information.
He said in the New York magazine interview the Securities and Exchange Commission "looks terrible in this thing," and he said the "whole government is a Ponzi scheme." end quote.
Actually, with the government presently operating on the basis of the "Foxes guarding the henhouse" I agree that if regular citizens allow the regulators of banks and wall street to also be wall street and bank insiders then "How can we expect any other result than the government being a Ponzi scheme?"
So, because the "Foxes have been guarding the Henhouse since at least 2000 or before that" in regard to Wall STreet and Banking in the U.S. it is only a matter of time before the whole system either collapses or Americans demand proper policing of their banks and Wall Street. Otherwise, it is only a matter of time before the 2nd Great Depression begins worldwide for real.
Later: My wife who has a Master's Degree in Business Administration and who was also the validictorian of her prep high school says that the problem of a 2nd Great Depression won't be in the next 5 to 10 years because everyone worldwide is watching. The problem will probably occur within 15 to 30 years from now when a 2nd Great Depression could occur because the real problems have not still been addressed in the banking industry or Wall Street not only in the U.S. but mostly worldwide as well.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
I was watching Michael Lewis who wrote "The Big Short" on Fareed Zaharia GPS on CNN TV today.
I found his take on the last 5 years pretty amazing and astute. His end point about how Ireland and Greece couldn't sustain the loses but the United States could for now was very good. But his parting idea was that "What happens when the U.S. Fed runs out of ammunition in it's fight against U.S. debt and inflation: His answer was "A Real Great Depression like the 1930s" once again. So, if and when foreign nations decide not to buy U.S. debt the U.S. would fail financially.
Having remarked on his perspective, the most interesting topic he covered was the response he saw at the time he published "The Big Short." People were angry about the government subsidization of private banking debt without the requirements imposed on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Private banks were not required to make any changes, nor were they asked to refrain from lobbying their special interests in exchange for the bail out money. Under President George W. Bush, the government acted quickly but did not fix the problems in the banking system; problems which could precipitate the same failure again.
Michael Lewis saw that moment in 2008 as the beginning of the "Tea Party Movement" but somehow the public lost sight of the government failure to regulate big banks and instead a conservative movement grew in reaction to the financial problems. It was a surprise to him that the movement did not become a liberal outcry against big banking abuses and the failure of a conservative government to take a tough stance on a broken system.
Naturally, President Obama inherited this problem and there has been a very slow response to banking regulation and enforcement with very little funding to govern the banks. We recovered from the initial wallop of recession but the failure to re-regulate banking is contributing to the longer term after effects of the recession, slow recovery a sluggish employment and the continued real estate market woes.
I found his take on the last 5 years pretty amazing and astute. His end point about how Ireland and Greece couldn't sustain the loses but the United States could for now was very good. But his parting idea was that "What happens when the U.S. Fed runs out of ammunition in it's fight against U.S. debt and inflation: His answer was "A Real Great Depression like the 1930s" once again. So, if and when foreign nations decide not to buy U.S. debt the U.S. would fail financially.
Having remarked on his perspective, the most interesting topic he covered was the response he saw at the time he published "The Big Short." People were angry about the government subsidization of private banking debt without the requirements imposed on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Private banks were not required to make any changes, nor were they asked to refrain from lobbying their special interests in exchange for the bail out money. Under President George W. Bush, the government acted quickly but did not fix the problems in the banking system; problems which could precipitate the same failure again.
Michael Lewis saw that moment in 2008 as the beginning of the "Tea Party Movement" but somehow the public lost sight of the government failure to regulate big banks and instead a conservative movement grew in reaction to the financial problems. It was a surprise to him that the movement did not become a liberal outcry against big banking abuses and the failure of a conservative government to take a tough stance on a broken system.
Naturally, President Obama inherited this problem and there has been a very slow response to banking regulation and enforcement with very little funding to govern the banks. We recovered from the initial wallop of recession but the failure to re-regulate banking is contributing to the longer term after effects of the recession, slow recovery a sluggish employment and the continued real estate market woes.
Energy Independence? Diesel from Sun, Water and CO2
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_growing_fuel
Begin quote from above article.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A Massachusetts biotechnology company says it can produce the fuel that runs Jaguars and jet engines using the same ingredients that make grass grow.
Joule Unlimited has invented a genetically-engineered organism that it says simply secretes diesel fuel or ethanol wherever it finds sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company says it can manipulate the organism to produce the renewable fuels on demand at unprecedented rates, and can do it in facilities large and small at costs comparable to the cheapest fossil fuels.
What can it mean? No less than "energy independence," Joule's web site tells the world, even if the world's not quite convinced.
"We make some lofty claims, all of which we believe, all which we've validated, all of which we've shown to investors," said Joule chief executive Bill Sims. end quote.
If the above is true then biotechnology has found a way to literally grow diesel and/or ethanol directly from sunshine and water.
Later: My wife made an interesting point about the above article. She was concerned that so much fresh water would be used to grow our fuel worldwide when fresh clean water is at such a premium that people in the U.S. often pay 2 dollars or more per liter for water that tastes good from a store rather than drinking tap water almost anywhere. Though people often cook with reverse osmosis water out of a tap almost no one I know any longer ever drinks directly from a tap without first either boiling it or running it through reverse osmosis with a Culligan or other water purifying system.
With world water supplies becoming ever more polluted like this, what effects will genetic engineering plants have upon us humans and our water supplies? This question hasn't been properly asked(or answered). So, basically it goes like this. What's the point of being able to grow our own diesel or ethanol if it causes other health problems to our water supplies to do so? And are we vulnerable to new and still unknown problems from all this genetically modified stuff just like all the genetically modified grains like corn(patented as an insecticide), wheat, soybeans, rice etc. that appear to be killing and maiming many people who eat these genetically modified foods worldwide.(If the people only could prove that is what is killing them but they can't because they aren't told when they are actually eating genetically modified foods anymore because of company liability and bribes).(here in the U.S.)
Begin quote from above article.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A Massachusetts biotechnology company says it can produce the fuel that runs Jaguars and jet engines using the same ingredients that make grass grow.
Joule Unlimited has invented a genetically-engineered organism that it says simply secretes diesel fuel or ethanol wherever it finds sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company says it can manipulate the organism to produce the renewable fuels on demand at unprecedented rates, and can do it in facilities large and small at costs comparable to the cheapest fossil fuels.
What can it mean? No less than "energy independence," Joule's web site tells the world, even if the world's not quite convinced.
"We make some lofty claims, all of which we believe, all which we've validated, all of which we've shown to investors," said Joule chief executive Bill Sims. end quote.
If the above is true then biotechnology has found a way to literally grow diesel and/or ethanol directly from sunshine and water.
Later: My wife made an interesting point about the above article. She was concerned that so much fresh water would be used to grow our fuel worldwide when fresh clean water is at such a premium that people in the U.S. often pay 2 dollars or more per liter for water that tastes good from a store rather than drinking tap water almost anywhere. Though people often cook with reverse osmosis water out of a tap almost no one I know any longer ever drinks directly from a tap without first either boiling it or running it through reverse osmosis with a Culligan or other water purifying system.
With world water supplies becoming ever more polluted like this, what effects will genetic engineering plants have upon us humans and our water supplies? This question hasn't been properly asked(or answered). So, basically it goes like this. What's the point of being able to grow our own diesel or ethanol if it causes other health problems to our water supplies to do so? And are we vulnerable to new and still unknown problems from all this genetically modified stuff just like all the genetically modified grains like corn(patented as an insecticide), wheat, soybeans, rice etc. that appear to be killing and maiming many people who eat these genetically modified foods worldwide.(If the people only could prove that is what is killing them but they can't because they aren't told when they are actually eating genetically modified foods anymore because of company liability and bribes).(here in the U.S.)
Dealing with Death and Dying
There is a saying, "And his heart sank", or "And her heart sank". This actually typifies what one feels when someone, even themself, is dying and one becomes aware of it. It is not a feeling of terror for most, it is a feeling, for me, at least of falling through space and never hitting the ground. It is a sinking feeling in which even the brave have to learn to cope with. I am having this kind of feeling today of feeling very mortal because one of my best friends I realized this week is dying. I don't know when it will occur(6 weeks, 2 years or longer) but I know it is relentlessly coming and I am feeling it in my soul. My friend, Mike, I gave my Glendale News Press Newspaper bicycle delivery route to when I could no longer do it when I was 10 years old in Glendale. I saw him just two days while I taught him the route but even then I knew that he was a good person and that under other circumstances we could be friends. But then, we went to different grade schools and he lived more than a mile from me so that didn't happen then. However, my parents moved because of the Khaki Boys Gang at Roosevelt Junior High and they didn't want me to go to that school because of the gang. So we moved to Woodrow Wilson Junior High territory and we lived within 1 block of Glendale High School which I also attended later with Mike.
The first day in 7th Grade at Woodrow Wilson Junior High School I didn't know anyone but Mike, who I had given my paper route to 2 years earlier. We became friends immediately as he was a good hearted person like me. We had both almost died before age 5 (he by Polio and I by whooping Cough) so there was a grown up seriousness and maturity that often comes from almost dying as a child. (Unless one is grow up enough one often doesn't survive these kinds of experiences). So, we both shared the horror of having to grow up very young emotionally. So, though we tended to be adults in teenagers bodies we both knew what was important in life even then.
When I was 13 and he 14 he bought a 1940 Ford Coupe with a flathead 6 engine. It was a really beautiful black thing and I helped him work on the engine. By age 15 he had sold the 40 Ford and bought a 1953 Mercury with an automatic transmission. Mike was a natural mechanic and I helped him rebuild the automatic transmission on the Mercury. One day at his house after school (I was 15 or 16 at the time) either a Life or Look or Post magazine arrived in his mail with the Beatles on the cover. We were both excited because the Beatles music then in 1964 was just becoming the rage in California and across the U.S. Up until then it had mostly been about Elvis from the mid 50s but then it suddenly became about the Beatles and then all the Beatles (clones) from England like Herman and the Hermits, The Dave Clark Five, etc. etc. etc. I found it! It was this one and it came to Mike's house while we were rebuilding his 1953 Mercury's transmission in 1964. It was the 28th of August 1964 so it was summer vacation and I had just returned from my church conclave in Mt. Shasta California.
A year or two later Mike wanted me to listen to the Beatles Album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, he had just bought the record album. He was dating his first love then and owned a street racer that he had built up with racing slicks and a special street racing engine. I was also there when she left him and I don't think he ever got over her. She was a very pretty blue eyed blonde that looked really good riding inside his 57 Chevy with Chrome reverse wheels, racing slicks, and tuck and roll interior and the biggest engine he could fit into it for racing on the streets. We were sort of living at that time "American Graffiti" and a Surf movie both at the same time.
Then there was the Littlerock Dam incident where I thought it would be a great idea to climb up the iron ladder up the then face of the dam. However, about 50 to 100 feet up the ladder leaned out for about 10 feet before it returned to a vertical climb. But I wasn't afraid of heights (or most anything) at that time of my life and so I was waiting on top of the dam for Mike to join me. Anyway, Mike almost died there because he froze 50 to 100 feet up where the ladder went out of vertical. I had to finally as 1/2 hour passed and I knew that if I didn't do something my friend was going to fall off the ladder and die. So I climbed down over him and told him to climb down with him right above me so he wouldn't fall off and die.
However, strangely enough for years I thought it was me who froze on the ladder because I was so afraid of Mike dying. We were about 17 or 18 when this crazy thing happened. We did a lot of crazy things like outdoors boys did back then. We had spent one week in Yosemite together when I was 15 when his mother and sister got food poisoning and almost died hiking in Yosemite while an Air Force Corpsman who was a medic took care of Mike's mother and 17 year old sister. All three of them told us to go take a hike because we were 15 year old boys and didn't know anything about food poisoning. This was one of the most amazing outdoor spiritual adventures of both our lives, hiking to Vernal Falls, California Nevada Falls, exploring trails all over the place swimming in the river going through Yosemite, jumping into the river off of the stone bridges with hundreds of other children, teenagers, and 20 somethings. Then at night there were Cedar Firefalls off of Glacier Point which was like watching thousands of shooting stars fly down off of Glacier Point which were really Cedar embers. It was basically like watching a River of Fire pour down from Glacier Point and everyone who could took pictures and movies of it with 8mm cameras. we did this in 1963 while firefalls were still happening in the summers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXsA7E21ErQ&feature=related
This youtube will show you pictures of the firefall that was done from 1872 until 1969 and stopped because of ecological reasons. At about 1:40 in you will see the firefall narrated by Huel Hauser from PBS.
Mike and I had many adventures like riding over to Catalina on the Great White Steamship with our SCUBA Gear because we were both licensed SCUBA DIVERS. We also surfed at places like Malibu and Huntington Beach together and if the surf wasn't big enough for us we would go to Knott's Berry Farm or Disneyland as Disneyland was a great place to go dancing then. I danced with Gladys Knight and the Pips there for instance in 1969 and many other famous rock and roll groups there at that time.
While traveling over to Catalina to SCUBA dive we met 5 other guys doing the same thing. We decided to pool our resources and rent a speed boat together to go north to Emerald Cove which was the best diving Spot on the Eastern side of the Island back then. It turned out really great and a great day of Scuba diving was had by all. Another time Mike and I went to the Sunset Strip and went to a place called "The 5th Estate" which was a beatnik hangout. MIke played chess with people while strange movies played on the wall. I felt sort of out of place in my surf garb with Levi jeans with a white t-shirt and a Pendelton shirt but I felt safe there at that place. There was a kindness and helpfulness of those kinds of people that I never forgot. It was as if then in 1963 when I was 15 that Beatniks and the Free Speech movement out of UC Berkeley and Surfers all got together and their philosophies kind of all morphed into the "Summer of Love" in San Francisco in 1967. But Mike and I were pretty straight arrows and mostly street racers and surfers at that time. By 1966 MIke and I both had graduated High School. I had gone to school with Mike in public school for 3 years in Woodrow Wilson Junior High until the end of my junior year in High School. But because I had dated starting at age 16 first a 21 year old girlfriend for about 1 year and then by 17 I was dating an 18 year old girl who was a freshman at LA State in Los Angeles I was pretty fed up with high school by the end of my junior year. So I told my parents I was going to drop out of High School because I was bored with it. They convinced me to go to a private church school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This sounded like fun for me so I went to the snows of Santa Fe, New Mexico which really changed my life a lot. When I returned the following summer both Mike and I had graduated High School. He seemed changed a lot and was worrying a lot about getting drafted into the army and having to go to Viet Nam. So his plan was to get his Jet engine Certification at Glendale College so at the very least he wouldn't have to be on the front lines in the infantry. I was in a very different situation because I had had Childhood epilepsy until I was 15 so this made me a 4F in classification so I was very very unlikely to be called up by the draft unless our country was directly attacked by a foreign nation. This never happened so I was never called up.
But Mike went through with his plan to get his jet engine certification and joined the Air Force as a Jet engine specialist on Jet Fighters and was eventually sent to Thailand to a U.S Air Base there and worked on Air Force Fighters sent in to bomb Viet Nam. When he went into the Air Force his mother moved (I found out 20 years later) to Santa Barbara which I did not know. Also, late in 1969 I moved to San Diego because my parents had moved there and things were not going well for me alone in Los Angeles County. I eventually went back to college at Palomar College and married and had a son by age 26. However, neither Mike or I knew where the other had moved to so we didn't reconnect as friends until the 1990s over 20 years later. When I saw Mike again I realized his life hadn't gone as well or as relatively easily as mine. His life starting with Viet Nam and Thailand had started to become much more difficult for him. So, even though I had been married three times, he had never been able to replace his friendship with me. He was a lot quieter and shyer person than I and this had been difficult for him. Though he was married when I met him I realized his wife had had serious psychological issues since she had been institutionalized in her teens. Though I saw the relationship worked I knew if he wasn't making it work it couldn't work. So when he got a form of senile dementia or Alzheimer's in the early 2000s I watched his relationship with his wife become more and more dangerous to both of them. I felt helpless to do anything so it was worse than awful for me because I couldn't really help or save them in a useful way. Then he asked me to help him separate from his wife because she had knocked him unconscious with a silverware drawer that she broke over his head. So I tried but because he wasn't all there he couldn't follow through with this for more than 2 days. Since he wasn't non compos mentis (declared incompetent yet) there was nothing I could do but wait for his wife to kill him eventually. I told him, "Mike, if you go back to your wife I won't ever see you again as long as you are living with her. You understand that don't you?" So, I kept my word and only spoke with him on the phone which his wife encouraged as long as he knew who I was. Then last summer she left him naked on the floor of their home and left. A week to 2 weeks later a neighbor thought something was wrong and called the police. He was put into the custody of the state of California until his sister found out what had happened and sought legal custody of her brother. A month ago she called me to tell him he was in Bakersfield in a facility near her but could only say "Yes", "No" and "I love you" now.
So, today after hearing how he is now in a wheelchair and fading out of normal existence relatively fast I am left with a friend slowly fading out of existence. And I also feel a sinking feeling as I am left alone with my memories of my friend. If I go see him will he even know who I am anymore? I don't know. I feel and obligation to go but will that even help him or me in the long run, the short run. Remember, I just lost my mother in 2008 after 9 years of dementia and watching her slowly become stranger and stranger people until she didn't know me anymore in 2006. So, what is useful for us both? For now, I don't know the answer to that question.
The first day in 7th Grade at Woodrow Wilson Junior High School I didn't know anyone but Mike, who I had given my paper route to 2 years earlier. We became friends immediately as he was a good hearted person like me. We had both almost died before age 5 (he by Polio and I by whooping Cough) so there was a grown up seriousness and maturity that often comes from almost dying as a child. (Unless one is grow up enough one often doesn't survive these kinds of experiences). So, we both shared the horror of having to grow up very young emotionally. So, though we tended to be adults in teenagers bodies we both knew what was important in life even then.
When I was 13 and he 14 he bought a 1940 Ford Coupe with a flathead 6 engine. It was a really beautiful black thing and I helped him work on the engine. By age 15 he had sold the 40 Ford and bought a 1953 Mercury with an automatic transmission. Mike was a natural mechanic and I helped him rebuild the automatic transmission on the Mercury. One day at his house after school (I was 15 or 16 at the time) either a Life or Look or Post magazine arrived in his mail with the Beatles on the cover. We were both excited because the Beatles music then in 1964 was just becoming the rage in California and across the U.S. Up until then it had mostly been about Elvis from the mid 50s but then it suddenly became about the Beatles and then all the Beatles (clones) from England like Herman and the Hermits, The Dave Clark Five, etc. etc. etc. I found it! It was this one and it came to Mike's house while we were rebuilding his 1953 Mercury's transmission in 1964. It was the 28th of August 1964 so it was summer vacation and I had just returned from my church conclave in Mt. Shasta California.
A year or two later Mike wanted me to listen to the Beatles Album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, he had just bought the record album. He was dating his first love then and owned a street racer that he had built up with racing slicks and a special street racing engine. I was also there when she left him and I don't think he ever got over her. She was a very pretty blue eyed blonde that looked really good riding inside his 57 Chevy with Chrome reverse wheels, racing slicks, and tuck and roll interior and the biggest engine he could fit into it for racing on the streets. We were sort of living at that time "American Graffiti" and a Surf movie both at the same time.
Then there was the Littlerock Dam incident where I thought it would be a great idea to climb up the iron ladder up the then face of the dam. However, about 50 to 100 feet up the ladder leaned out for about 10 feet before it returned to a vertical climb. But I wasn't afraid of heights (or most anything) at that time of my life and so I was waiting on top of the dam for Mike to join me. Anyway, Mike almost died there because he froze 50 to 100 feet up where the ladder went out of vertical. I had to finally as 1/2 hour passed and I knew that if I didn't do something my friend was going to fall off the ladder and die. So I climbed down over him and told him to climb down with him right above me so he wouldn't fall off and die.
However, strangely enough for years I thought it was me who froze on the ladder because I was so afraid of Mike dying. We were about 17 or 18 when this crazy thing happened. We did a lot of crazy things like outdoors boys did back then. We had spent one week in Yosemite together when I was 15 when his mother and sister got food poisoning and almost died hiking in Yosemite while an Air Force Corpsman who was a medic took care of Mike's mother and 17 year old sister. All three of them told us to go take a hike because we were 15 year old boys and didn't know anything about food poisoning. This was one of the most amazing outdoor spiritual adventures of both our lives, hiking to Vernal Falls, California Nevada Falls, exploring trails all over the place swimming in the river going through Yosemite, jumping into the river off of the stone bridges with hundreds of other children, teenagers, and 20 somethings. Then at night there were Cedar Firefalls off of Glacier Point which was like watching thousands of shooting stars fly down off of Glacier Point which were really Cedar embers. It was basically like watching a River of Fire pour down from Glacier Point and everyone who could took pictures and movies of it with 8mm cameras. we did this in 1963 while firefalls were still happening in the summers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXsA7E21ErQ&feature=related
This youtube will show you pictures of the firefall that was done from 1872 until 1969 and stopped because of ecological reasons. At about 1:40 in you will see the firefall narrated by Huel Hauser from PBS.
Mike and I had many adventures like riding over to Catalina on the Great White Steamship with our SCUBA Gear because we were both licensed SCUBA DIVERS. We also surfed at places like Malibu and Huntington Beach together and if the surf wasn't big enough for us we would go to Knott's Berry Farm or Disneyland as Disneyland was a great place to go dancing then. I danced with Gladys Knight and the Pips there for instance in 1969 and many other famous rock and roll groups there at that time.
While traveling over to Catalina to SCUBA dive we met 5 other guys doing the same thing. We decided to pool our resources and rent a speed boat together to go north to Emerald Cove which was the best diving Spot on the Eastern side of the Island back then. It turned out really great and a great day of Scuba diving was had by all. Another time Mike and I went to the Sunset Strip and went to a place called "The 5th Estate" which was a beatnik hangout. MIke played chess with people while strange movies played on the wall. I felt sort of out of place in my surf garb with Levi jeans with a white t-shirt and a Pendelton shirt but I felt safe there at that place. There was a kindness and helpfulness of those kinds of people that I never forgot. It was as if then in 1963 when I was 15 that Beatniks and the Free Speech movement out of UC Berkeley and Surfers all got together and their philosophies kind of all morphed into the "Summer of Love" in San Francisco in 1967. But Mike and I were pretty straight arrows and mostly street racers and surfers at that time. By 1966 MIke and I both had graduated High School. I had gone to school with Mike in public school for 3 years in Woodrow Wilson Junior High until the end of my junior year in High School. But because I had dated starting at age 16 first a 21 year old girlfriend for about 1 year and then by 17 I was dating an 18 year old girl who was a freshman at LA State in Los Angeles I was pretty fed up with high school by the end of my junior year. So I told my parents I was going to drop out of High School because I was bored with it. They convinced me to go to a private church school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This sounded like fun for me so I went to the snows of Santa Fe, New Mexico which really changed my life a lot. When I returned the following summer both Mike and I had graduated High School. He seemed changed a lot and was worrying a lot about getting drafted into the army and having to go to Viet Nam. So his plan was to get his Jet engine Certification at Glendale College so at the very least he wouldn't have to be on the front lines in the infantry. I was in a very different situation because I had had Childhood epilepsy until I was 15 so this made me a 4F in classification so I was very very unlikely to be called up by the draft unless our country was directly attacked by a foreign nation. This never happened so I was never called up.
But Mike went through with his plan to get his jet engine certification and joined the Air Force as a Jet engine specialist on Jet Fighters and was eventually sent to Thailand to a U.S Air Base there and worked on Air Force Fighters sent in to bomb Viet Nam. When he went into the Air Force his mother moved (I found out 20 years later) to Santa Barbara which I did not know. Also, late in 1969 I moved to San Diego because my parents had moved there and things were not going well for me alone in Los Angeles County. I eventually went back to college at Palomar College and married and had a son by age 26. However, neither Mike or I knew where the other had moved to so we didn't reconnect as friends until the 1990s over 20 years later. When I saw Mike again I realized his life hadn't gone as well or as relatively easily as mine. His life starting with Viet Nam and Thailand had started to become much more difficult for him. So, even though I had been married three times, he had never been able to replace his friendship with me. He was a lot quieter and shyer person than I and this had been difficult for him. Though he was married when I met him I realized his wife had had serious psychological issues since she had been institutionalized in her teens. Though I saw the relationship worked I knew if he wasn't making it work it couldn't work. So when he got a form of senile dementia or Alzheimer's in the early 2000s I watched his relationship with his wife become more and more dangerous to both of them. I felt helpless to do anything so it was worse than awful for me because I couldn't really help or save them in a useful way. Then he asked me to help him separate from his wife because she had knocked him unconscious with a silverware drawer that she broke over his head. So I tried but because he wasn't all there he couldn't follow through with this for more than 2 days. Since he wasn't non compos mentis (declared incompetent yet) there was nothing I could do but wait for his wife to kill him eventually. I told him, "Mike, if you go back to your wife I won't ever see you again as long as you are living with her. You understand that don't you?" So, I kept my word and only spoke with him on the phone which his wife encouraged as long as he knew who I was. Then last summer she left him naked on the floor of their home and left. A week to 2 weeks later a neighbor thought something was wrong and called the police. He was put into the custody of the state of California until his sister found out what had happened and sought legal custody of her brother. A month ago she called me to tell him he was in Bakersfield in a facility near her but could only say "Yes", "No" and "I love you" now.
So, today after hearing how he is now in a wheelchair and fading out of normal existence relatively fast I am left with a friend slowly fading out of existence. And I also feel a sinking feeling as I am left alone with my memories of my friend. If I go see him will he even know who I am anymore? I don't know. I feel and obligation to go but will that even help him or me in the long run, the short run. Remember, I just lost my mother in 2008 after 9 years of dementia and watching her slowly become stranger and stranger people until she didn't know me anymore in 2006. So, what is useful for us both? For now, I don't know the answer to that question.
Coffee Beans up 100% , Wheat up 60%, Corn up 80%
And that is just in the last year! The result of this is that almost everything you eat or buy is up 28% around the world or around the average of 1/3 in price at this time and the next year looks just as bad.
Since this is one of the factors that caused the revolutions in North Africa(starving people) expect food riots among the poorer people's of the world worldwide to a greater or lesser degree in every country at this point. The problem of Global Climate change prevents enough of these products being grown at prices people can afford to buy them. Since this directly affects 50% of the population of earth and indirectly affects the other 50% this is a very problematic thing for all governments to deal with worldwide. Since this, (because of too much rain, too much drought and just too much bad weather of all kinds) food has become very very expensive to grow. And this is only getting worse each year now.
The Corn, Coffee beans, and Wheat statistics are quoted from Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN Sunday the 27th of February 2011.
Another statistic from the World Bank quoted on Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN the same day is that:
"1 billion people in the world are hungry" right now.
If you go back and study what has happened to worldwide grain reserves since about 2006 you might come to the same conclusion that I have. The present Great Recession actually began when we didn't have enough food at a low enough price worldwide and this began about 2007. This starvation panic led to all the others worldwide. If you study this you might come to the same conclusion I have.
Oil prices were simply the Coup De Grace to the world Great Recession. It started with not enough food at low enough prices. Once again oil prices might be a 2nd Coup De Grace and create a second Great Recession or an actual 2nd Great Depression worldwide. This is my concern at present because oil prices haven't been this high in February in two decades.
Since this is one of the factors that caused the revolutions in North Africa(starving people) expect food riots among the poorer people's of the world worldwide to a greater or lesser degree in every country at this point. The problem of Global Climate change prevents enough of these products being grown at prices people can afford to buy them. Since this directly affects 50% of the population of earth and indirectly affects the other 50% this is a very problematic thing for all governments to deal with worldwide. Since this, (because of too much rain, too much drought and just too much bad weather of all kinds) food has become very very expensive to grow. And this is only getting worse each year now.
The Corn, Coffee beans, and Wheat statistics are quoted from Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN Sunday the 27th of February 2011.
Another statistic from the World Bank quoted on Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN the same day is that:
"1 billion people in the world are hungry" right now.
If you go back and study what has happened to worldwide grain reserves since about 2006 you might come to the same conclusion that I have. The present Great Recession actually began when we didn't have enough food at a low enough price worldwide and this began about 2007. This starvation panic led to all the others worldwide. If you study this you might come to the same conclusion I have.
Oil prices were simply the Coup De Grace to the world Great Recession. It started with not enough food at low enough prices. Once again oil prices might be a 2nd Coup De Grace and create a second Great Recession or an actual 2nd Great Depression worldwide. This is my concern at present because oil prices haven't been this high in February in two decades.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Genetically Modified Foods are Everywhere in the U.S.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110225/ap_on_re_us/us_food_and_farm_biotech_crops
Begin quote from above news article.
WASHINGTON – You may not want to eat genetically engineered foods. Chances are, you are eating them anyway.
Genetically modified plants grown from seeds engineered in labs now provide much of the food we eat. Most corn, soybean and cotton crops grown in the United States have been genetically modified to resist pesticides or insects, and corn and soy are common food ingredients.
The Agriculture Department has approved three more genetically engineered crops in the past month, and the Food and Drug Administration could approve fast-growing genetically modified salmon for human consumption this year.
Agribusiness and the seed companies say their products help boost crop production, lower prices at the grocery store and feed the world, particularly in developing countries. The FDA and USDA say the engineered foods they've approved are safe — so safe, they don't even need to be labeled as such — and can't be significantly distinguished from conventional varieties.
Organic food companies, chefs and consumer groups have stepped up their efforts — so far, unsuccessfully — to get the government to exercise more oversight of engineered foods, arguing the seeds are floating from field to field and contaminating pure crops. The groups have been bolstered by a growing network of consumers who are wary of processed and modified foods. end quote.
The real problem is that genetically modified foods have been killing people for some time. However, this information is often suppressed. For example, how hard would it be to prove that genetically modified food killed people if the food isn't even labeled? Yes. That's right. It's impossible. But that is what is happening in real life.
First of all, if you do the research the so called genetically modified corn finding it's way into corn chips and into many other food products has mainly been patented as an insecticide. That's right. The innards of the genetics of the new corn has been patented as a living insecticide. And if it kills bugs that try to eat it what does it do to humans who eat it and don't know it is genetically modified? Think about it!
My neighbor's daughter got
Reference ranges for blood tests of white blood cells, comparing eosinophil granulocyte amount (shown in light red) with other cells.
Begin quote from above news article.
WASHINGTON – You may not want to eat genetically engineered foods. Chances are, you are eating them anyway.
Genetically modified plants grown from seeds engineered in labs now provide much of the food we eat. Most corn, soybean and cotton crops grown in the United States have been genetically modified to resist pesticides or insects, and corn and soy are common food ingredients.
The Agriculture Department has approved three more genetically engineered crops in the past month, and the Food and Drug Administration could approve fast-growing genetically modified salmon for human consumption this year.
Agribusiness and the seed companies say their products help boost crop production, lower prices at the grocery store and feed the world, particularly in developing countries. The FDA and USDA say the engineered foods they've approved are safe — so safe, they don't even need to be labeled as such — and can't be significantly distinguished from conventional varieties.
Organic food companies, chefs and consumer groups have stepped up their efforts — so far, unsuccessfully — to get the government to exercise more oversight of engineered foods, arguing the seeds are floating from field to field and contaminating pure crops. The groups have been bolstered by a growing network of consumers who are wary of processed and modified foods. end quote.
The real problem is that genetically modified foods have been killing people for some time. However, this information is often suppressed. For example, how hard would it be to prove that genetically modified food killed people if the food isn't even labeled? Yes. That's right. It's impossible. But that is what is happening in real life.
First of all, if you do the research the so called genetically modified corn finding it's way into corn chips and into many other food products has mainly been patented as an insecticide. That's right. The innards of the genetics of the new corn has been patented as a living insecticide. And if it kills bugs that try to eat it what does it do to humans who eat it and don't know it is genetically modified? Think about it!
My neighbor's daughter got
Eosinophilia
An increase in eosinophils, i.e., the presence of more than 500 eosinophils/microlitre of blood is called an eosinophilia, and is typically seen in people with a parasitic infestation of the intestines, a collagen vascular disease (such as rheumatoid arthritis), malignant diseases such as Hodgkin's disease, extensive skin diseases (such as exfoliative dermatitis), Addison's disease, in the squamous epithelium of the esophagus in the case of reflux esophagitis, eosinophilic esophagitis, and with the use of certain drugs such as penicillin. In 1989, contaminated L-tryptophan supplements caused a deadly form of eosinophilia known as eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome, which was reminiscent of the Toxic Oil Syndrome in Spain in 1981.
from genentically modified food. My son's best friend in his 30s had all his lower intestines removed likely from the same thing because he was going to die before this could be diagonosed. He will never work again and with a colostomy bag constantly against his belly to capture feces the rest of his life.
Luckily, my neighbor's daughter was a nurse oncologist and prevented the doctors from removing her lower intestines in time. She could only eat rice for one year's time but she lived and is slowly able to add more foods into her diet.
Though these two people I know didn't die, most die who are allergic to these genetically modified grains before they can be saved. These are but two examples. But how can people prove what has happened to them if they can't even be told when they are eating genetically modified food by the government of the U.S.?
Uncle Tommy
Uncle Tommy or just "Tommy" was my father's younger brother who supposedly died in 1942 in the crash of his private plane. The story I was told was that a pilot with two passengers flew up under him in another plane which sheared off both their wings and one of his and he spun down into a power line but was still alive and screaming for help. But the little old lady went to get her hose instead of getting him out of the plane and he burned alive.
However, my cousin told me a few weeks ago that wasn't what really happened. He said that Tommy was actually a military test pilot and had a certificate above from the government certifying this as true. I had heard the story from my Dad, Tommy's older brother that Tommy was a natural with anything mechanical and always had been all his life. And Dad told me how Tommy got in a plane and made a perfect 3 point landing with no flying lessons the first time he ever got into a plane. I was always a little like this as well just not to that degree where I would attempt flying never having done it before. But I did get on a horse and ride it without lessons and the same with a bicycle. My parents thought I was the reincarnation of Tommy and almost named me Tommy. My mother said she was in love with Tommy before he died and married Dad to be closer to Tommy after Tommy died. Both Mom and Dad were terribly traumatized by his death as well as the rest of Dad's family.
So, it isn't surprising really that Tommy has a military paper saying he died a military test pilot. What is strange is that my cousin never told me about this before. His mother might have been forbidden to talk about it by the U.S. Government while she was alive. This is my thought.
As an intuitive this is what I wrote about Uncle Tommy:
However, my cousin told me a few weeks ago that wasn't what really happened. He said that Tommy was actually a military test pilot and had a certificate above from the government certifying this as true. I had heard the story from my Dad, Tommy's older brother that Tommy was a natural with anything mechanical and always had been all his life. And Dad told me how Tommy got in a plane and made a perfect 3 point landing with no flying lessons the first time he ever got into a plane. I was always a little like this as well just not to that degree where I would attempt flying never having done it before. But I did get on a horse and ride it without lessons and the same with a bicycle. My parents thought I was the reincarnation of Tommy and almost named me Tommy. My mother said she was in love with Tommy before he died and married Dad to be closer to Tommy after Tommy died. Both Mom and Dad were terribly traumatized by his death as well as the rest of Dad's family.
So, it isn't surprising really that Tommy has a military paper saying he died a military test pilot. What is strange is that my cousin never told me about this before. His mother might have been forbidden to talk about it by the U.S. Government while she was alive. This is my thought.
As an intuitive this is what I wrote about Uncle Tommy:
dragonofcompassion - Uncle Tommy Travels Time
The Death of the Unions is the Death of the Middle Class
What is going on in Minnesota is the death of the middle class in the United States. If you kill the unions like they are doing there, you are killing what is left of the middle class of America. Do you really want things to go back to the way they were in the 19th century? If not, you must fight for the middle class of the United States by fighting what is going on in Minnesota against the Unions.
However, if union members want their unions to survive all this they must educate their members in how to help the nation survive what is presently going on. If they don't unions will not survive all this and 100 years of men and women dying for their unions to exist at all will be lost forever.
How things were before Unions:
No child Labor Laws. Many children died working 7 days a week and 18 hour days or they were maimed for life.
No safety rules so many children and adults were maimed or killed while working.
Many many died by clubs wielded by hired thugs hired by business owners to kill those union organizers. Most business owners during that time were not prosecuted for murder or maiming of the union organizers.
This is the real history of unions in the United States. To kill collective bargaining is to end unions entirely. Unless people understand this, they don't understand that to kill collective bargaining is the death of the middle class of the whole U.S. and the entryway into a 3rd world banana republic nation.
This will return us to the 19th century basically with no workers rights at all and back into a 3rd world nation like we were during the 1800s. If this happens Wild West here we come!
Unfortunately, if you study history one can see middle class rights and the right to organize unions IS a right worth dying for. All the benefits of creating a middle class came from organizing unions, passing safety laws, child labor laws and increasing wages over the years. The entire success of the middle class from 1930 to 2000 was founded upon the organizing of unions. To go back now to the 1800s is the beginning of the end of our democracy and all our rights as citizens that our ancestors fought and died for.
However, if union members want their unions to survive all this they must educate their members in how to help the nation survive what is presently going on. If they don't unions will not survive all this and 100 years of men and women dying for their unions to exist at all will be lost forever.
How things were before Unions:
No child Labor Laws. Many children died working 7 days a week and 18 hour days or they were maimed for life.
No safety rules so many children and adults were maimed or killed while working.
Many many died by clubs wielded by hired thugs hired by business owners to kill those union organizers. Most business owners during that time were not prosecuted for murder or maiming of the union organizers.
This is the real history of unions in the United States. To kill collective bargaining is to end unions entirely. Unless people understand this, they don't understand that to kill collective bargaining is the death of the middle class of the whole U.S. and the entryway into a 3rd world banana republic nation.
This will return us to the 19th century basically with no workers rights at all and back into a 3rd world nation like we were during the 1800s. If this happens Wild West here we come!
Unfortunately, if you study history one can see middle class rights and the right to organize unions IS a right worth dying for. All the benefits of creating a middle class came from organizing unions, passing safety laws, child labor laws and increasing wages over the years. The entire success of the middle class from 1930 to 2000 was founded upon the organizing of unions. To go back now to the 1800s is the beginning of the end of our democracy and all our rights as citizens that our ancestors fought and died for.
Useful References
My wife was telling me that I shouldn't use Wikipedia as references in what I write. She said, "The reason for this is that anyone can change anything in wikipedia because of their personal bias at any time. As a result of this my daughter's prep School (college preparatory high school) won't let her use Wikipedia ever as a reference. When I consulted with my daughter who is now 15 she said, "You can't use anything with .com or .net and expect it to be useful as a reference according to my teachers. You can only trust things that are .gov or .edu at the end. Otherwise all the other sites can be changed all the time in all sorts of ways and might not be credible or useful. I found this to be an interesting point of view that is now fostered by higher education in the U.S., especially private schools. So, if I am successful in finding what I'm looking for you might see more .edu and .gov sites that I use as references in the future. This might be helpful to you in your researches for your own articles and blogs as well.
Snow Falls in San Francisco
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/26/us-weather-sanfrancisco-idUSTRE71P1NH20110226
(Reuters) - Snow fell overnight in the highest spots of San Francisco, the Twin Peaks neighborhood, where elevations are about 900 feet above sea level, said AccuWeather.com meteorologists.
The snowfall coated the ground briefly, but quickly melted. No snow was observed in downtown San Francisco and AccuWeather.com meteorologist Dave Samuhel said the dusting would not count toward official records that show the last measurable snowfall in the area 35 years ago.
Trained spotters also reported snow in the San Joaquin Valley of California, according to the National Weather Service.
A storm system moving inland now could bring snow to areas of about 500 feet above sea level in Santa Barbara and outside Los Angeles flakes could hit the upper reaches of the San Fernando Valley and even the Hollywood Hills, said Samuhel.
In addition to the rare snowfall events, record cold temperatures are expected.end quote.
I live near the Bay area and on the morning local TV news there have been many accidents from "invisible" black ice which mostly never appears anywhere in this part of the state of California. Mostly this resulted in "Rollovers" of vehicles. People were told not to go to the snow locally as there wasn't help if they got in trouble that could actually get to them locally because we aren't normally prepared for this kind of thing because the last snowfall like this was 1976. So, likely between now and Sunday morning there will be many more accidents because the temperatures are supposed to be lower even than this by Sunday at daybreak.
At 10:49 am pacific time it is presently 42 degrees Fahrenheit in San Francisco which is way too low for this time of year and this time of day. Normal would be somewhere between the high 50s and the low 60s because of the nearby Pacific Ocean which usually keeps all daytime temperatures (from 10 am to 5 pm) above 50 and below 80 this time of year.
(Reuters) - Snow fell overnight in the highest spots of San Francisco, the Twin Peaks neighborhood, where elevations are about 900 feet above sea level, said AccuWeather.com meteorologists.
The snowfall coated the ground briefly, but quickly melted. No snow was observed in downtown San Francisco and AccuWeather.com meteorologist Dave Samuhel said the dusting would not count toward official records that show the last measurable snowfall in the area 35 years ago.
Trained spotters also reported snow in the San Joaquin Valley of California, according to the National Weather Service.
A storm system moving inland now could bring snow to areas of about 500 feet above sea level in Santa Barbara and outside Los Angeles flakes could hit the upper reaches of the San Fernando Valley and even the Hollywood Hills, said Samuhel.
In addition to the rare snowfall events, record cold temperatures are expected.end quote.
I live near the Bay area and on the morning local TV news there have been many accidents from "invisible" black ice which mostly never appears anywhere in this part of the state of California. Mostly this resulted in "Rollovers" of vehicles. People were told not to go to the snow locally as there wasn't help if they got in trouble that could actually get to them locally because we aren't normally prepared for this kind of thing because the last snowfall like this was 1976. So, likely between now and Sunday morning there will be many more accidents because the temperatures are supposed to be lower even than this by Sunday at daybreak.
At 10:49 am pacific time it is presently 42 degrees Fahrenheit in San Francisco which is way too low for this time of year and this time of day. Normal would be somewhere between the high 50s and the low 60s because of the nearby Pacific Ocean which usually keeps all daytime temperatures (from 10 am to 5 pm) above 50 and below 80 this time of year.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Difficult Paradoxes rising from childhood conditioning
First let me say that I have discovered that all culture and religion is a form of group hypnosis or conditioning fostered directly and indirectly upon children from birth (and even before in the womb). However, without it, civilization, cultures and even religions could not exist.
So, looking at it this way it is completely irrelevant to objective reality whether any or all of any culture or religion or none of it actually has anything to do with objective reality. However, to those fully hypnotized by their culture and or religion and unable to see this, "Them's fightin' words!"
So, even though I can see this quite clearly, most of humanity cannot and therefore it is my duty and the duty of all those who like myself can see this to have compassion upon those who cannot see this as well. Because trying to force this liberation on all might just cause insanity and death in many. No. People who are brave enough must face this one by one alone in their own timing. And hopefully most will survive this encounter with the raw and basic truths of life.
So, I find myself once again facing this kind of conditioning from childhood. I was taught to believe by my parents that everyone would never die and stay young forever that were in my religion. I would say I was about 10 years of age before I realized that this was complete bullshit. How much either my father or my mother actually believed it it is hard to say. However, it was sort of like believing in Santa Claus in it's effect on me. Paradoxically, my parents told me that Santa Claus was made up by my age 5 because they didn't want any lies between us to haunt our relationship into adulthood. I was actually on one level very grateful for that, even though I still believe in the spirit of giving embodied by Santa Claus even today at age 62.
However, even though I tend to be very rational and logical in my thinking this childhood conditioning affects me in my emotions at times, especially when relatives and friends near death. I find myself over long periods of time when dealing with dying to be emotionally incapable of dealing with the long term stress of people I am close with slowly dying or really slowly dying as in senile dementia or alzheimers disease(since these two both are fatal diseases). These things over a long time I find I cannot deal with very well. I can deal with almost any emergency without losing my cool, but this only lasts at most for me 1 to 2 weeks, after that I find that women only have the type of stamina to deal with the really crazy aspects of someone close to them slowly dying. I think this is just the main difference between men and women. We tend to be good at different things. Viva la difference!
Lately, I found out that my best high school friend was left alone to die naked on the floor by his wife. She had been institutionalized in an insane asylum as a teenager, so even though she was beautiful and very intelligent (eventually got a master's degree) I considered her criminally insane always.
When in 2004 and 2005 my friend started into either senile dementia or alzheimers she started beating him up by breaking the silverware drawers over his head and knocking him unconscious. He called me for help and I took him to his sister's in Bakersfield so he could stay there but he was slowly devolving towards complete incompetence and childhood ways. He could not maintain his resolution to stay away from his wife that I knew would kill him if he went back to her eventually. When after a couple of days he demanded to go back to his wife I said to him, "Mike, I simply cannot be a party to watching you die like this. I won't even see you in person ever again." And I kept my word. So, even though I talked to him several times over the years on the phone I wouldn't be a party to watching his wife kill him.
Since he had not been declared "Non Compos mentis" or incompetent to handle his own affairs there was nothing either I or his sister could do at that point.
As I was heading towards Death Valley with my son(now 6 years later) I got a call on my new IPhone4 that he had been left naked and alone in Buellton, Ca. in his double wide trailer by his wife and was left to die but a neighbor had been suspicious eventually (within a week or two) and called an ambulance and the police. The county and state became his legal guardian and he was placed in an old folks home. What I find the most sad about all this is that he is only now 63. This began in his late 50s.
I have wanted to visit him now that he is in Bakersfield in a rest home and now that his sister has custody of him I find it very difficult to move forward with going to visit my friend. I'm haunted by just how impossible it was to watch my own mother in a dementia facility near me wind down through childhood personalities to being in a wheelchair and finally into a coma with a death rattle and then death.
So, I'm wondering about how useful this will be to go and visit my friend Mike in Bakersfield in a dementia care facility. I remember how destroyed I was dealing with my mother's slow descent into incompetence and death. I'm told my friend no longer can speak except "yes", "No" and "I love you". So this will be very difficult if I go visit my friend. Also, this is about a 5 hour or more drive each way, so I will likely have to stay in a hotel before I return home. I want to go say "Goodbye" to my friend but how useful will that actually be to him?" So, maybe just going and saying "Hi!" to him is the best. Because regular life doesn't even exist even for him. His life is very altered from any we shared as kids growing up and learning to surf and SCUBA dive and fly planes together now. He eventually got his jet engine certificate from Glendale College and joined the Air Force so he wouldn't be drafted as a front line soldier in the infantry and die like the 50,000 did my age and his in Viet Nam or the 250,000 that were wounded and got Purple Hearts in that War.
So, the war sort of separated us in some ways at that time as I couldn't find him after the war so we didn't really re-connect as friends until we were both in our late 40s. I found him online through I think it was yahoo around the time I almost died of a Heart virus. We went to Yosemite and hiked up to Vernal Falls together. At the time I wondered why he was so afraid of the cliff trail leading up to Vernal Falls in Yosemite. Later I realized he was already losing confidence even then and slipping into either Senile Dementia or Alzheimers. So just after I didn't die he started to. So even though I had a miracle he at the same time began to die from either alzheimer's or dementia. I find it hard to cope with my second good friend of childhood beginning to die. My third good friend from Childhood is now in Asia for several months with his girlfriend. I asked him if he was coming back. More than anything this just shows my own insecurity of losing my last childhood friend.
No, the world is not going to end. We all just have to live on and find a way to cope.
My conscious adult spiritual life began when I was 15 in the summer of 1963 and visited Yosemite with Mike, his mother and his sister. His mother and sister got Tomaine poisoning or food poisoning from eating tainted tuna fish and mayonaise in sandwiches left too long in the heat while driving. Neither Mike or I wanted a Tuna Fish sandwich so we were spared.
An Air Force Coreman who was a medical technician in the next campsite took care of Mike's mother and sister (age 17) while they slept in the back of their stationwagon so they didn't die. Everyone told us to literally go take a hike for the next week, and so we did. We climbed Vernal Falls, California Nevada Falls and had the most amazing nature experience and freedom of our entire lives. This began for me, my personal experience with God through nature. All my adult spiritual experiences began during this week of hiking and being completely free from any parent telling me or Mike what to do. It was a really amazing experience. It was a time of Firefalls and street racers in Yosemite. The atmosphere there at night was a lot like Hollywood blvd. in Hollywood at that time. During the days we would jump off of the stone bridges into the water and swim with all the other teenagers and 20 somethings or hike the amazing trails with the bear and deer and animals and birds everywhere. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life and moved me to become a permanent outdoors person. I also trained my children to think this way too. It led eventually to traveling all over the world in many many different countries for me which also expanded my notions of what was real and what was actually possible here on earth.
Later my wife spoke with his sister and she told my wife that things had not gone well this week for either her or Mike. It seems that Mike is now not walking and is in a wheelchair so an ambulance had to be called to transport Mike to his doctor's office. Things just got worse because Mike's sister couldn't understand the Doctor because his accent was East Indian and she was not used to understanding this English accent though I would have because I have lived 4 months in India and Nepal in the past. Also, because of required breaks of the Ambulance driver they were left to wait in the cold at a bus stop and Mike became agitated and kept falling out of his wheelchair. It was likely "Transfer Trauma" which seriously affects all dementia patients whether they have alzheimers or dementia which are two separate but similar illnesses. Since it costs 400 a month to treat Alzheimers and there is nothing outside of diet to help dementia this is a very important consideration as we had my mother on Alzheimer's medicine for at least a year before we realized she had dementia instead. So, over $4000 in medicine's out of pocket later we found out.
At one point his sister got under him on the cement so he wouldn't be bloodied anymore. No medical personnel would help them because of liability but a good samaritan helped Mike up into his wheelchair once again. Both Mike and his sister were obviously very traumatized and very very cold from being outside in the present extreme low temperatures. MIke has developed a rash that I think is from non-allergenic detergent used in facilities to avoid infections and all the patients dying. There tends to be a lot of feces everywhere in these kinds of facilities as patients no longer understand what is going on so keeping things sterile enough for survival is always an ongoing problem. So keeping the patients regular bowl movement wise and keeping them from spreading the movements everywhere is an ongoing problem in dementia facilities. However, trying to keep a dementia patient at home in the U.S. can be liability wise impossible (at least with the present laws in the U.S). Because as the caregiver you become responsible for whatever they do. So, if when you aren't looking they walk out the door and in front of a car and die or people avoid them and all die in a car you are responsible for this. If they get a hold of matches and burn down your house, you are responsible for this etc. etc. etc.
So, looking at it this way it is completely irrelevant to objective reality whether any or all of any culture or religion or none of it actually has anything to do with objective reality. However, to those fully hypnotized by their culture and or religion and unable to see this, "Them's fightin' words!"
So, even though I can see this quite clearly, most of humanity cannot and therefore it is my duty and the duty of all those who like myself can see this to have compassion upon those who cannot see this as well. Because trying to force this liberation on all might just cause insanity and death in many. No. People who are brave enough must face this one by one alone in their own timing. And hopefully most will survive this encounter with the raw and basic truths of life.
So, I find myself once again facing this kind of conditioning from childhood. I was taught to believe by my parents that everyone would never die and stay young forever that were in my religion. I would say I was about 10 years of age before I realized that this was complete bullshit. How much either my father or my mother actually believed it it is hard to say. However, it was sort of like believing in Santa Claus in it's effect on me. Paradoxically, my parents told me that Santa Claus was made up by my age 5 because they didn't want any lies between us to haunt our relationship into adulthood. I was actually on one level very grateful for that, even though I still believe in the spirit of giving embodied by Santa Claus even today at age 62.
However, even though I tend to be very rational and logical in my thinking this childhood conditioning affects me in my emotions at times, especially when relatives and friends near death. I find myself over long periods of time when dealing with dying to be emotionally incapable of dealing with the long term stress of people I am close with slowly dying or really slowly dying as in senile dementia or alzheimers disease(since these two both are fatal diseases). These things over a long time I find I cannot deal with very well. I can deal with almost any emergency without losing my cool, but this only lasts at most for me 1 to 2 weeks, after that I find that women only have the type of stamina to deal with the really crazy aspects of someone close to them slowly dying. I think this is just the main difference between men and women. We tend to be good at different things. Viva la difference!
Lately, I found out that my best high school friend was left alone to die naked on the floor by his wife. She had been institutionalized in an insane asylum as a teenager, so even though she was beautiful and very intelligent (eventually got a master's degree) I considered her criminally insane always.
When in 2004 and 2005 my friend started into either senile dementia or alzheimers she started beating him up by breaking the silverware drawers over his head and knocking him unconscious. He called me for help and I took him to his sister's in Bakersfield so he could stay there but he was slowly devolving towards complete incompetence and childhood ways. He could not maintain his resolution to stay away from his wife that I knew would kill him if he went back to her eventually. When after a couple of days he demanded to go back to his wife I said to him, "Mike, I simply cannot be a party to watching you die like this. I won't even see you in person ever again." And I kept my word. So, even though I talked to him several times over the years on the phone I wouldn't be a party to watching his wife kill him.
Since he had not been declared "Non Compos mentis" or incompetent to handle his own affairs there was nothing either I or his sister could do at that point.
As I was heading towards Death Valley with my son(now 6 years later) I got a call on my new IPhone4 that he had been left naked and alone in Buellton, Ca. in his double wide trailer by his wife and was left to die but a neighbor had been suspicious eventually (within a week or two) and called an ambulance and the police. The county and state became his legal guardian and he was placed in an old folks home. What I find the most sad about all this is that he is only now 63. This began in his late 50s.
I have wanted to visit him now that he is in Bakersfield in a rest home and now that his sister has custody of him I find it very difficult to move forward with going to visit my friend. I'm haunted by just how impossible it was to watch my own mother in a dementia facility near me wind down through childhood personalities to being in a wheelchair and finally into a coma with a death rattle and then death.
So, I'm wondering about how useful this will be to go and visit my friend Mike in Bakersfield in a dementia care facility. I remember how destroyed I was dealing with my mother's slow descent into incompetence and death. I'm told my friend no longer can speak except "yes", "No" and "I love you". So this will be very difficult if I go visit my friend. Also, this is about a 5 hour or more drive each way, so I will likely have to stay in a hotel before I return home. I want to go say "Goodbye" to my friend but how useful will that actually be to him?" So, maybe just going and saying "Hi!" to him is the best. Because regular life doesn't even exist even for him. His life is very altered from any we shared as kids growing up and learning to surf and SCUBA dive and fly planes together now. He eventually got his jet engine certificate from Glendale College and joined the Air Force so he wouldn't be drafted as a front line soldier in the infantry and die like the 50,000 did my age and his in Viet Nam or the 250,000 that were wounded and got Purple Hearts in that War.
So, the war sort of separated us in some ways at that time as I couldn't find him after the war so we didn't really re-connect as friends until we were both in our late 40s. I found him online through I think it was yahoo around the time I almost died of a Heart virus. We went to Yosemite and hiked up to Vernal Falls together. At the time I wondered why he was so afraid of the cliff trail leading up to Vernal Falls in Yosemite. Later I realized he was already losing confidence even then and slipping into either Senile Dementia or Alzheimers. So just after I didn't die he started to. So even though I had a miracle he at the same time began to die from either alzheimer's or dementia. I find it hard to cope with my second good friend of childhood beginning to die. My third good friend from Childhood is now in Asia for several months with his girlfriend. I asked him if he was coming back. More than anything this just shows my own insecurity of losing my last childhood friend.
No, the world is not going to end. We all just have to live on and find a way to cope.
My conscious adult spiritual life began when I was 15 in the summer of 1963 and visited Yosemite with Mike, his mother and his sister. His mother and sister got Tomaine poisoning or food poisoning from eating tainted tuna fish and mayonaise in sandwiches left too long in the heat while driving. Neither Mike or I wanted a Tuna Fish sandwich so we were spared.
An Air Force Coreman who was a medical technician in the next campsite took care of Mike's mother and sister (age 17) while they slept in the back of their stationwagon so they didn't die. Everyone told us to literally go take a hike for the next week, and so we did. We climbed Vernal Falls, California Nevada Falls and had the most amazing nature experience and freedom of our entire lives. This began for me, my personal experience with God through nature. All my adult spiritual experiences began during this week of hiking and being completely free from any parent telling me or Mike what to do. It was a really amazing experience. It was a time of Firefalls and street racers in Yosemite. The atmosphere there at night was a lot like Hollywood blvd. in Hollywood at that time. During the days we would jump off of the stone bridges into the water and swim with all the other teenagers and 20 somethings or hike the amazing trails with the bear and deer and animals and birds everywhere. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life and moved me to become a permanent outdoors person. I also trained my children to think this way too. It led eventually to traveling all over the world in many many different countries for me which also expanded my notions of what was real and what was actually possible here on earth.
Later my wife spoke with his sister and she told my wife that things had not gone well this week for either her or Mike. It seems that Mike is now not walking and is in a wheelchair so an ambulance had to be called to transport Mike to his doctor's office. Things just got worse because Mike's sister couldn't understand the Doctor because his accent was East Indian and she was not used to understanding this English accent though I would have because I have lived 4 months in India and Nepal in the past. Also, because of required breaks of the Ambulance driver they were left to wait in the cold at a bus stop and Mike became agitated and kept falling out of his wheelchair. It was likely "Transfer Trauma" which seriously affects all dementia patients whether they have alzheimers or dementia which are two separate but similar illnesses. Since it costs 400 a month to treat Alzheimers and there is nothing outside of diet to help dementia this is a very important consideration as we had my mother on Alzheimer's medicine for at least a year before we realized she had dementia instead. So, over $4000 in medicine's out of pocket later we found out.
At one point his sister got under him on the cement so he wouldn't be bloodied anymore. No medical personnel would help them because of liability but a good samaritan helped Mike up into his wheelchair once again. Both Mike and his sister were obviously very traumatized and very very cold from being outside in the present extreme low temperatures. MIke has developed a rash that I think is from non-allergenic detergent used in facilities to avoid infections and all the patients dying. There tends to be a lot of feces everywhere in these kinds of facilities as patients no longer understand what is going on so keeping things sterile enough for survival is always an ongoing problem. So keeping the patients regular bowl movement wise and keeping them from spreading the movements everywhere is an ongoing problem in dementia facilities. However, trying to keep a dementia patient at home in the U.S. can be liability wise impossible (at least with the present laws in the U.S). Because as the caregiver you become responsible for whatever they do. So, if when you aren't looking they walk out the door and in front of a car and die or people avoid them and all die in a car you are responsible for this. If they get a hold of matches and burn down your house, you are responsible for this etc. etc. etc.
Some Snow at Sea Level in Northern California
I don't think this has happened since about 1976 in Northern California. However, the weatherman said this is a likely possibility sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning along the northern California Coast between Big Sur and Eureka including the San Francisco Bay. So if you live in or are visiting Northern California remember that most people here are not prepared for this kind of thing as it hasn't happened since around 1976.
Adele
My 14 year old daughter was listening to the first following song from Adele on youtube.com
The second one I found myself which also brought a tear to my eye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYEDA3JcQqw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAc83CF8Ejk&NR=1
I was looking at the family IMAC and saw my daughter was listening to the songs of Adele from England. Though she doesn't like to talk to me about these things (after all she's almost 15) she and her first boyfriend just broke up a few weeks ago. The generation gap appears to be just too wide between my daughter and I sadly(I'm 62 and she is only almost 15). I said recently that I started dating at about the same age whereas her mother didn't start dating until age 17. I said that she(my daughter) was a lot like me. (She didn't like that at all) because I'm 62 (and according to her too old to know anything). I find her the hardest of my children to raise because of her attitudes even though she works very hard to get good grades at her private prep school high school. Since I went to public school in the 1950s and 1960s in San Diego and Los Angeles Counties and my last year in private school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, my life experience more was like in the movies Grease, American Graffiti, and Beach Blanket Bingo than her preppy experience. and my childhood was more like the Oregon Story in the movie "Stand By Me". So we are worlds apart (my daughter and I) and yet in some ways we are exactly the same paradoxically.
There also was an actress named Adele from Germany that I knew and fell for in the early 1990s when she visited here in the U.S. I think our short relationship helped heal us both in some ways then or so I want to believe. Though I have been happily been true to my present wife now almost 17 years the amazing transitions of ones life sometimes are both indescribable in their brush with infinite life and infinite death at the same time. Truth once again is always stranger than fiction. I think this statement more than any other describes my life and many others. It makes it much easier for me to have compassion for all beings in the universe past, present and future for which I am infinitely grateful.
The second one I found myself which also brought a tear to my eye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYEDA3JcQqw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAc83CF8Ejk&NR=1
I was looking at the family IMAC and saw my daughter was listening to the songs of Adele from England. Though she doesn't like to talk to me about these things (after all she's almost 15) she and her first boyfriend just broke up a few weeks ago. The generation gap appears to be just too wide between my daughter and I sadly(I'm 62 and she is only almost 15). I said recently that I started dating at about the same age whereas her mother didn't start dating until age 17. I said that she(my daughter) was a lot like me. (She didn't like that at all) because I'm 62 (and according to her too old to know anything). I find her the hardest of my children to raise because of her attitudes even though she works very hard to get good grades at her private prep school high school. Since I went to public school in the 1950s and 1960s in San Diego and Los Angeles Counties and my last year in private school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, my life experience more was like in the movies Grease, American Graffiti, and Beach Blanket Bingo than her preppy experience. and my childhood was more like the Oregon Story in the movie "Stand By Me". So we are worlds apart (my daughter and I) and yet in some ways we are exactly the same paradoxically.
There also was an actress named Adele from Germany that I knew and fell for in the early 1990s when she visited here in the U.S. I think our short relationship helped heal us both in some ways then or so I want to believe. Though I have been happily been true to my present wife now almost 17 years the amazing transitions of ones life sometimes are both indescribable in their brush with infinite life and infinite death at the same time. Truth once again is always stranger than fiction. I think this statement more than any other describes my life and many others. It makes it much easier for me to have compassion for all beings in the universe past, present and future for which I am infinitely grateful.
A Buddha Would Say
I found something that I had put on stickies this morning a while back. If you have a Macbook Pro, or other Apple Computer you might have the "stickies option" which allows you to keep information that you can have across several types of media for convenience rather than to put it on a piece of paper manually or print it out for this function. So, things I want to remember I put on Stickies. So, I went up up to edit in Firefox and hit copy and then moved to this format and clicked "Paste". So here it is.
I was having an internal conversation with one of my teachers this morning. I was thinking, "I AM THAT IAM". My teacher was saying something like "You have moved forward from that." And then I thought, "May all beings have bliss and the Cause of Bliss". And then I realized that a real Buddha or Master would say it differently because of seeing the universe as it IS".
A Buddha would say, "All Beings ARE Bliss and the Cause of Bliss" and so would a true master. Because a Buddha would recognize that the natural state of all Beings.
The natural state of all beings is NOT Suffering it is Bliss and Enlightenment.
The reason for this is that neither Time nor Space is ultimately real. And because it is not ultimately real you are all the time with all beings that you love to be with including God. There is no real way to be separate from any being living or dead. So, Bliss is the natural state of Being and not Suffering.
Though 75% of Buddhists don't believe in God I am not one of these. I believe that even if God didn't exist that humans would have to invent God to choose to stay alive in a Body here on Earth. This is just a part of being a human here on earth. Why would anyone choose to stay alive without God? So, out of compassion to myself and all Beings I choose to Believe in God and to share that belief with others. Because otherwise I would have to commit suicide and if I did that many many others might too. As a responsible being in the universe I cannot start that chain reaction because I am responsible for all my actions and the consequences of all my actions. In this sense I am on the path to enlightenment and all who understand this are too.
I was having an internal conversation with one of my teachers this morning. I was thinking, "I AM THAT IAM". My teacher was saying something like "You have moved forward from that." And then I thought, "May all beings have bliss and the Cause of Bliss". And then I realized that a real Buddha or Master would say it differently because of seeing the universe as it IS".
A Buddha would say, "All Beings ARE Bliss and the Cause of Bliss" and so would a true master. Because a Buddha would recognize that the natural state of all Beings.
The natural state of all beings is NOT Suffering it is Bliss and Enlightenment.
The reason for this is that neither Time nor Space is ultimately real. And because it is not ultimately real you are all the time with all beings that you love to be with including God. There is no real way to be separate from any being living or dead. So, Bliss is the natural state of Being and not Suffering.
Though 75% of Buddhists don't believe in God I am not one of these. I believe that even if God didn't exist that humans would have to invent God to choose to stay alive in a Body here on Earth. This is just a part of being a human here on earth. Why would anyone choose to stay alive without God? So, out of compassion to myself and all Beings I choose to Believe in God and to share that belief with others. Because otherwise I would have to commit suicide and if I did that many many others might too. As a responsible being in the universe I cannot start that chain reaction because I am responsible for all my actions and the consequences of all my actions. In this sense I am on the path to enlightenment and all who understand this are too.
Peddle, Solar, Electric Car from Hungary
- I found this article at Time.Com
- http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2029497_2030622_2029708,00.html
- Transportation
Antro Electric Car
The car of the future, now coming from: Hungary. Yes, it sounds like communist propaganda circa 1967, but the Hungarian designer Antro might just have made a superefficient, supercheap car that could put Western manufacturers to shame. The Antro Solo can hold up to three people — a driver and two passengers, one on either side — who pedal to help drive the ultralight car. The rest of the forward motion comes from an electric motor that's partly powered by solar panels. If you need a bigger car, Antro has a solution: two Solos can be combined, Transformers-style, to create the family-friendly Duo. Look for it in 2012.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2029497_2030622_2029708,00.html #ixzz1EzaND3pP
102.5 m.p.g. ?
I found the following interesting vehicle called the Edison2 which gets 102.5 miles per gallon. It shows what can be built if oil and gas and diesel gets expensive enough so the average family can still survive in North America and Europe and around the world.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2029497_2030622_2029707,00.html
Edison2
Perhaps the easiest way to make a car more fuel-efficient is to make it lighter. The designers of the Edison2 concept vehicle have taken auto dieting to the extreme. The car — as aerodynamic as it is anorexic — weighs less than 800 lb., which helps it get 102.5 m.p.g. That was good enough to share the Progressive Insurance Automotive X-Prize, an award set up to encourage development of production-ready cars that are super-fuel-efficient. Sadly, Edison2 team owner Oliver Kuttner says you won't see the car at your dealer anytime soon. But it's a hopeful sign for an oil-pinched future.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2029497_2030622_2029707,00.html #ixzz1EzWGfNd6
Thursday, February 24, 2011
SLAA
I was reading the Times Magazine tonight and was looking at an article called: "The Truth About Sex Addiction". I thought maybe I could share some insights about all this from my own life.
I guess it all started really when I was about 16 and started dating a 21 year old. To make matters more interesting my parents approved of this relationship because the girl was a member of our church. And even though I spent more than one night with this girl and went steady one year together, we did not have intercourse until we had broken up and I had gone 2 years each with 2 different girls. But the 21 year old was my first that I went all the way with.
So, I guess what I'm saying is relationships at the very least are very confusing for almost everyone. However, then I realized that though the 21 year old was one of my very best friends that I was also deeply in love with the other two girls that I went steady with for 2 years. At this point I felt very very confused because, in a sense I loved all 3 girls just in different ways. At the time I really didn't want to be choosing anyone single person to be staying with my whole life. So, even at 21 I felt like I really wasn't ready to settle down with anyone and wondered if I ever would. Then, one of the two girls I felt really close with got married to a rocket scientist in Texas when she was 22 and moved out of California to Texas. Recently, I told her that I had loved her and she asked me why I didn't tell her then. I said, "I didn't know if or when I would be ready to settle down and I remember being married to you in a past life and I couldn't make you happy long term." This might have confused her more but you know how strange all our feelings are anyway.
At this point I felt destroyed by all three of these relationships that started at age 16 and all ended by age 21. Since I was still basically a virgin even though I had spent more than one night with my first girlfriend who was 21, I decided that I wouldn't try to date girls that I intended to marry and that instead I would only date girls that would sleep with me because I was really angry that I had been a perfect gentleman with all these girls and all it did was make me completely crazy and it was all for nothing.
To make some sense of this the years starting at age 15 would be 1963 and 21 would be 1969. So, if a girl wanted me and I wanted her that was good enough for me for the next 4 years from 21 to 25 when I started living with my girlfriend and she got pregnant so we decided to marry. So, for the next 4 years I was faithful to my girlfriend and then wife until she divorced me when I was 29 and I got custody of our son who was then 3 years old. However, relationships are mostly about precedent. What I mean by precedent is that once you know how to start relationships it is really quite easy to start another and another and another and it sort of becomes an addiction of sorts. However, once you become a parent your first responsibility is to your child or children. I never thought that my allegiance was to a girlfriend or wife. No. I always saw my allegiance to my children and my allegiance to my girlfriend or wife was just a part of the allegiance and a lifetime of commitment to my children. So, at least for me, I can see no reason at all to be married to anyone unless you are raising children or have raised children together. But that's just me.
So, the point of all this is that once you embark down the path of multiple sexual relationships before marriage, the precedent of doing that is hard to break. Just like riding a bicycle or motorcycle or flying a plane, once you know how to do that you can do that on a moments notice. And if you are married and raising children there is only one sure way to stop creating new sexual relationships as a man. You simply must stop flirting.
Flirting is playfully talking to women. I was always very very good at this but once you are good at this then if you are married raising children you just can't do it anymore if you want to stay married and raising your children. It's as simple as that. I now have been married 3 times and I was faithful to my first and 3rd wives, but not my 2nd because I just didn't learn the "No Flirting" lesson soon enough. But I have been faithful to my present wife since 1994 which is the longest time I have been faithful to anyone. Before my present wife the longest I had been faithful to anyone was the 4 years I was with my first wife. So, if you want to stay married and to raise your children your first rule absolutely has to be: "No Flirting" I know it sounds dumb and doing it breaks my heart and makes me feel empty inside. But isn't it worth the sacrifice to see your kids grow up with two parents, especially if you didn't?
By the way SLAA means (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous)
I guess it all started really when I was about 16 and started dating a 21 year old. To make matters more interesting my parents approved of this relationship because the girl was a member of our church. And even though I spent more than one night with this girl and went steady one year together, we did not have intercourse until we had broken up and I had gone 2 years each with 2 different girls. But the 21 year old was my first that I went all the way with.
So, I guess what I'm saying is relationships at the very least are very confusing for almost everyone. However, then I realized that though the 21 year old was one of my very best friends that I was also deeply in love with the other two girls that I went steady with for 2 years. At this point I felt very very confused because, in a sense I loved all 3 girls just in different ways. At the time I really didn't want to be choosing anyone single person to be staying with my whole life. So, even at 21 I felt like I really wasn't ready to settle down with anyone and wondered if I ever would. Then, one of the two girls I felt really close with got married to a rocket scientist in Texas when she was 22 and moved out of California to Texas. Recently, I told her that I had loved her and she asked me why I didn't tell her then. I said, "I didn't know if or when I would be ready to settle down and I remember being married to you in a past life and I couldn't make you happy long term." This might have confused her more but you know how strange all our feelings are anyway.
At this point I felt destroyed by all three of these relationships that started at age 16 and all ended by age 21. Since I was still basically a virgin even though I had spent more than one night with my first girlfriend who was 21, I decided that I wouldn't try to date girls that I intended to marry and that instead I would only date girls that would sleep with me because I was really angry that I had been a perfect gentleman with all these girls and all it did was make me completely crazy and it was all for nothing.
To make some sense of this the years starting at age 15 would be 1963 and 21 would be 1969. So, if a girl wanted me and I wanted her that was good enough for me for the next 4 years from 21 to 25 when I started living with my girlfriend and she got pregnant so we decided to marry. So, for the next 4 years I was faithful to my girlfriend and then wife until she divorced me when I was 29 and I got custody of our son who was then 3 years old. However, relationships are mostly about precedent. What I mean by precedent is that once you know how to start relationships it is really quite easy to start another and another and another and it sort of becomes an addiction of sorts. However, once you become a parent your first responsibility is to your child or children. I never thought that my allegiance was to a girlfriend or wife. No. I always saw my allegiance to my children and my allegiance to my girlfriend or wife was just a part of the allegiance and a lifetime of commitment to my children. So, at least for me, I can see no reason at all to be married to anyone unless you are raising children or have raised children together. But that's just me.
So, the point of all this is that once you embark down the path of multiple sexual relationships before marriage, the precedent of doing that is hard to break. Just like riding a bicycle or motorcycle or flying a plane, once you know how to do that you can do that on a moments notice. And if you are married and raising children there is only one sure way to stop creating new sexual relationships as a man. You simply must stop flirting.
Flirting is playfully talking to women. I was always very very good at this but once you are good at this then if you are married raising children you just can't do it anymore if you want to stay married and raising your children. It's as simple as that. I now have been married 3 times and I was faithful to my first and 3rd wives, but not my 2nd because I just didn't learn the "No Flirting" lesson soon enough. But I have been faithful to my present wife since 1994 which is the longest time I have been faithful to anyone. Before my present wife the longest I had been faithful to anyone was the 4 years I was with my first wife. So, if you want to stay married and to raise your children your first rule absolutely has to be: "No Flirting" I know it sounds dumb and doing it breaks my heart and makes me feel empty inside. But isn't it worth the sacrifice to see your kids grow up with two parents, especially if you didn't?
By the way SLAA means (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous)
The Singularity and artificial Mahasiddhas
If you have been reading my blogs or if you read the 2045 article in Time Magazine or if you watched the Jeapordy show with Watson or even know about it then likely you might understand what is meant by "The Coming Singularity" predicted for 2045 or therabouts for mankind. It is at this stage where Computer artificial intelligence goes beyond what any human or groups of humans are capable of. Yes. This does not apply to all things but only those things specific to what digital intelligence can accomplish. But by then the word "artificial human" or "clone" will not just be science fiction it will also be actual in everyday life. What we all do with this, hopefully, we all will have a vote on, so only those who own computers and robots don't control everything on earth and get all the jobs.
However, I was thinking in another direction. Since man was first invented some people have been trying to perfect themselves for the benefit of all life on earth. Some of people that immediately come to mind are beings like Jesus, Buddha, Confucious, Lao Tsu, Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King, etc. Many of us have tried to become enlightened so people wouldn't have to suffer so much and could live better lives.
I was thinking today that the coming singularity might also help to create "Immortal Mahasiddhas" whose lives would be lived to benefit all beings first on earth and then throughout the Galaxy. If one combines the path to enlightenment with the Singularity this could be achieved by many many beings.
The following is the definition of Mahasiddha from Wikipedia:
Robert Thurman contrasts the Tantric Buddhist communities within which the Mahasidda practiced and taught with the Buddhist universities such as Nalanda which flourished at the same time:
I also found at Wikipedia a list of the possible Siddhis that and enlightened adept can attain.
There is the concept of the Ashta Siddhi (eight siddhis) in Hinduism. These are:
However, I was thinking in another direction. Since man was first invented some people have been trying to perfect themselves for the benefit of all life on earth. Some of people that immediately come to mind are beings like Jesus, Buddha, Confucious, Lao Tsu, Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King, etc. Many of us have tried to become enlightened so people wouldn't have to suffer so much and could live better lives.
I was thinking today that the coming singularity might also help to create "Immortal Mahasiddhas" whose lives would be lived to benefit all beings first on earth and then throughout the Galaxy. If one combines the path to enlightenment with the Singularity this could be achieved by many many beings.
The following is the definition of Mahasiddha from Wikipedia:
Mahasiddha
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mahasiddha (Tibetan: གྲུབ་ཐོབ་ཆེན་པོ; Wylie: grub thob chen po; or Tibetan: ཏུལ་ཤུག; Wylie: tul shug; Sanskrit Devanagari: महासिद्ध; IAST: mahāsiddha, maha meaning "great" and siddha meaning "adept") is a term for someone who embodies and cultivates siddhi of perfection. They are a type of eccentric yogi in both Hinduism and Vajrayana Buddhism. Mahasiddhas were tantric practitioners, or tantrikas who had sufficient attainments to act as a guru or tantric master. A siddha is an individual who, through the practice of sadhana, attains the realization of siddhis, psychic and spiritual abilities and powers. Their historical influence throughout the Indic and Himalayan region was vast and they reached mythic proportions which is codified in their songs of realization and hagiographies, or namthar, many of which have been preserved in the Tibetan Buddhist canon. The Mahasiddha are acknowledged as the founders of many Indian and Buddhist traditions and lineages.Robert Thurman contrasts the Tantric Buddhist communities within which the Mahasidda practiced and taught with the Buddhist universities such as Nalanda which flourished at the same time:
The Tantric communities of India in the latter half of the first Common Era millennium (and perhaps even earlier) were something like “Institutes of Advanced Studies” in relation to the great Buddhist monastic “Universities.” They were research centers for highly cultivated, successfully graduated experts in various branches of Inner Science (adhyatmavidya), some of whom were still monastics and could move back and forth from university (vidyalaya) to “site” (pitha), and many of whom had resigned vows of poverty, celibacy, and so forth, and were living in the classical Indian saiñnyãsin or sãdhu style. I call them the "psychonauts" of the tradition, in parallel with our “astronauts,” the materialist scientist-adventurers whom we admire for their courageous explorations of the “outer space” which we consider the matrix of material reality. Inverse astronauts, the psychonauts voyaged deep into “inner space,” encountering and conquering angels and demons in the depths of their subconscious minds.[1]It was the Mahasiddhas who instituted the practices that birthed the Inner Tantras of Dzogchen practiced by the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. The other schools of Tibetan Buddhism and other Vajrayana Buddhists such as Shingon Buddhism practice Mahamudra meditation, also a practice initiated by the original Buddhist Mahasiddha. end quote.
I also found at Wikipedia a list of the possible Siddhis that and enlightened adept can attain.
[edit] Five Siddhis of Yoga and Meditation
In the Bhagavata Purana the Five Siddhis of Yoga and Meditation are described as below:- tri-kāla-jñatvam: Knowing the past, present and future;
- advandvam: Tolerance of heat, cold and other dualities;
- para citta ādi abhijñatā: Knowing the minds of others and so on;
- agni arka ambu viṣa ādīnām pratiṣṭambhaḥ: Checking the influence of fire, sun, water, poison, and so on;
- aparājayah: Remaining unconquered by others;[4]
[edit] Eight Primary Siddhis
Ganesha with the Ashta (8) Siddhis. The Ashtasiddhi are shown as attendants of Ganesha. Painting by Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906)
- Aṇimā: reducing one's body even to the size of an atom
- Mahima: expanding one's body to an infinitely large size
- Garima: becoming infinitely heavy
- Laghima: becoming almost weightless
- Prāpti: having unrestricted access to all places
- Prākāmya: realizing whatever one desires
- Iṣṭva: possessing absolute lordship;
- Vaśtva: the power to subjugate all.[5]
[edit] Ten Secondary Siddhis
In the Bhagavata Purana Lord Krishna describes the Ten Secondary Siddhis as:- anūrmi-mattvam: Being undisturbed by hunger, thirst, and other bodily disturbances
- dūra-śravaṇa: Hearing things far away
- dūra-darśanam: Seeing things far away
- manaḥ-javah: Moving the body wherever thought goes (teleportation)
- kāma-rūpam: Assuming any form desired
- para-kāya praveśanam: Entering the bodies of others
- sva-chanda mṛtyuh: Dying when one desires
- devānām saha krīḍā anudarśanam: Witnessing and participating in the pastimes of the Apsaras
- yathā sańkalpa saḿsiddhiḥ: Perfect accomplishment of one's determination
- ājñā apratihatā gatiḥ: Orders or Commands being unimpeded [6]
- end quote from wikipedia under the heading "Siddhis"
- I personally have either experienced some of these things myself or I have seen others (especially in India and Nepal) who could do almost all these things. This might be hard to believe for a person with a western materialistic mind, but I can say to you that all these things are possible without any electronic technology present. And some people on earth CAN and DO one or more of these things all over the earth.
- "There are more things in heaven and earth than have ever been thought of in your philosophy, Horatio" quote from Shakespeare in "Hamlet" (this was from my memory)
- There now follows an exact quote from Shakespeare:
- Hamlet:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. - http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/there-more-things-heaven-earth-horatio