Getting a Flashlight

One of my cats is addicted to flashlight flicker games. She stalks the spot of light wherever it goes and tries to catch it -- but never does. This never seems to frustrate her, though. I don't believe it is because she is just a cat. I believe it is because she is wiser than humans and knows that something as ineffable as light (hope, faith, belief) can never be caught. It can just be accepted. That is something we humans haven't caught onto yet. We keep chasing those fireflies of ambition...
Until we stop, may we know peace

Tightropes

We all walk tightropes -- invisible ones. With faith, we can see the glimmering outlines of what holds us up.

Sad though

Looking at pictures of the World Trade Center back in the early 1970s...how little we knew. How beautiful it is that we have this documentary to remind us to seize each day, each moment, each tightrope.

Man on a Wire -- SunDance Channel

Man on Wire (2008)
Directed by James Marsh. With Philippe Petit, Jean Fran?ois Heckel, Jean-Louis Blondeau. A look at tightrope walker Philippe Petit's daring, but illegal, ...
This is a truly haunting and joyful documentary of the tightrope dancer who walked between the Twin Towers. Exquisite. Amazing cinematography. Plot Summary - Soundtrack listing - User comments - Awards
www.imdb.com/title/tt1155592/ - 11 hours ago - Cached - Similar -

Oh, the humanity

MPS (myofascial pain syndrome) and fibromyalgia suck.  The exhaustion and low grade pain rises before and during bad weather.  Ask me anything but don't expect me to be able to do it at times like those.  It is like watching a silent movie in my mind when the film breaks.  I look on line but all I find are articles about dementia when I search blankness.   When I search pain, I find cognitive impairment that is a subset of mps and fibro.  No doubt about it, MPS and fibro suck big time.

Soul Light or Why the Supremes Should Not Engage in Politics

It seems that decisions today are made by those heavy with money but light on souls.  How else to interpret the recent Supreme Court decision?  Corporations are not real people.  But, yes, Virginia, money talks.  Supreme Court, Corporations, Congress, Wall Street, Banks, Health Insurance and Credit Card Companies all know that.  So when the Supreme Court makes a decision that overthrows the Constitution and common sense what is the average citizen to do?  I wish I knew.

Until term limits are placed upon Supreme Court justices we will be stuck with bad law and judges who are not neutral.

Rupturing Democracy Using Pilpulism

I am a disaffected Kennedy democrat.  I am not pleased with the direction the democrats have taken in becoming more and more like the republicans.  It is tough to tell the difference between either party.  And as for the politicians?  Really disgraceful. All the senators and congressmen do is debate, filibuster and stall making decisions.  You cannot run a country by placating those who don't agree.  It is a rupture of the public faith.

Life after Corporations Can Make Direct Political Donations

We live in interesting times.  Way too interesting.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

I like the idea of having hearings on the Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to directly donate to political campaigns.  This has to be the worst decision ever.  I want to know whether the Court was influenced in its decision.    Follow the Money needs to be done now more than ever.

Tax Political Donations...Now

This ruling is going to radicalize the electorate if no one listens to us.  I liked one person's CSpan idea in taxing donations over $100.00 to cut the national debt.  That is actually a good idea. 

Betrayal

The word of the day is disenfranchised.  A second word of the day is disaffected.  A third word of the day is betrayal.  And the final word of the day is ennui.  I will start the discussion with the final.  Ennui is a generalized feeling of disconnectness resulting death like boredom.  Disenfranchised is the taking away of a citizen's rights.  Disaffected is a turning away from life.  Betrayal (such as the ruling of the Supreme Court in the Citizens Union case) is why voters in this country have given up.  The ruling only makes the individual's loss of power official.  We didn't have it before.  We now no longer have it at all. 

What Next

So what is next with the new senator from Massachusetts tipping the balance of the chicken little democrats in the Senate. Clearly not much. The leaders of that forum are backing and filling as fast as they can. What they don't realize it to let the process unfold. Let the debates come. The repubs don't have enough to veto -- only enough to continue in their current work as the party of no. Let them actually step up on the floor to filibuster and the voters will see that the repubs are a toothless party filled with fringe types. And the voters will be able to identify the fringe types and vote them out of office at the next election. Just let the process of debate weed the nopes out of office.

This is an opportunity that is ours to lose

Rebuilding Haiti could be a small scale project to show us how to rebuilt our own country.  I think it is important to look carefully at this.   Frankly while I am truly pleased with the way the administration has responded to Haiti it makes me sad that for whatever reason help for main street (and for those of us 55 and older who were displaced by the firms we counted on to retire from) has been slow to arrive.  Sigh.  But perhaps Haiti will re-ignite the way ...

An even cheaper idea for the modest proposal

An even cheaper idea for Haiti would be to fund container architectural designers to use the containers that are sure to pile up in Haiti with all the supplies being sent into the country to help.  If an architect could design the interior to hook it to the electricity, sewage and water then these units could be created cheaply and brought into the country with supplies inside and with local workers in Haiti being taught how to install the final changes in the design to hook them into the system. 

Meanwhile, many manufacturers would be able to open or reopen their plants.  Tax on those organizations could be waived so that jobs could be brought back from overseas and then tax on the profits that investors could be waived as well which would also help the charitable investor market as well.

Modest Proposal

A modest proposal concerning the death toll and infrastructure rebuilding needed in Haiti would be to create a jobs program for all the construction people who are out of work on the mainland.  Why not deputize them and pay for a jobs program to bring them down to Haiti to rebuild roads and other infrastructure like plumbing and water and electricity for the area.  Then hire architects to design buildings like those in Europe that are created in factories and then shipped to the site for hooking up to the water, sewage and electricity systems.  This would do several things.  I believe it would employ a lot of unemployed people.  It would create investment opportunities with good will included.  It would be able to develop further than the European model by creating "doc in a box" rooms that would contain beds, operating rooms, mortuary acjuncts and rooms for giving shots and doing emergency work.  This would go far in the field of medicine by stockpiling rooms like this ready to deploy as needed in disaster situations.

Sure Things

Senator Kennedy's seat in the Senate was the democrats sure thing.  As with all sure things, there axiom is that there are no sure things ever.  The last 'sure thing' was that throwing money at the biggest organizations that caused the financial meltdown.  Wall Street was supposed to settle their finances and free up credit to joe consumer.  So, how did that work for you?  It didn't work for me.  The credit card companies immediately jacked up my interest rate, dropped my credit limit and ruined my credit score.

Nice work for a 'sure thing'

Arrrgh

Ok.  Doc and I believe that cushioning the palm might help with the pain and swelling.  It could be a ganglion.  (doctor's thought)  Or it could be a trigger point which is one of the main characteristics of myofascial pain syndrome.  (my thought)   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_point  Trigger points develop wherever there is stress in the body.

Oh, joy.  Given the years of typing, the years of driving long miles, the past two years of writing y hand binstead of using a computer, it is no wonder my hands have been stressed.  So I will learn to cushion my hands and treat them as gently as I can.  And more,  I need to develop new ways of typing so that I can log into websites easier and being as careful as possible when I draft documents to make sure I don't make mistakes.  Thank goodness for the portable hand heaters.  Those are the best thing I have found so far for the pain.

To repeat the title, Arrrggh

In good hands, freedom and myofascial pain

The phrase 'you're in good hands' resonate with me.  I go today to my doctor.  I have been having trouble typing  passwords over the past year.  If I can see, then I can make changes.  But if I can't see them, I am unaware that I erred.  As a typist and as a websurfer, this is a career changer for me.  And it is unexpected.  So I go to the doctor today to ask them why the flesh at the bottom of my ring finger is spasming and why my hands are so very weak.  I will tell them that the reason I am coming is because I felt a lump at the bottom of each ring finger.  When I rubbed the lump, I felt that bone beneath the skin was loose and incredibly painful.

Since I have to drive to get to my job, I had a hunch that might be the problem so I logged onto google.  The most useful link is http://www.rsiclinics.co.uk/ and www.myofascialreleaseclinic.com/rsi.htm.  The clinic is in the United Kingdom and describes exactly what I am experiencing currently.  Sadly the cure scares me.  It involves release massage therapy that concentrates on the trigger point where the pain originates.  That trigger point for my hands is on my back and the referred pain is what is causing the ring finger and middle finger to feel like they are wrapped together.   I have heard how painful the treatment itself is and that keeps me away from treatment.  So my balance today rests upon pain or freedom.  It is something to think about Martin Luther King Day.  Freedom....or....Pain

Until then, peace

Phrases that Caught Me Today

From 'kneehigh to a duck' to a spoonerism I can't remember right now that involved the word 'thursday' it is a good day for cool phrases.  Now if I can only remember them.

Unnerving

Seeing that family move yesterday amidst all the foreclosure signs here is unnerving.  I see plenty of people in fancy cars at Walmart these days.  I see even more people in fancy cars going to but at the cut rate food and clothing places.  Spare change lost on the pavement?  Forget it about it.