Muse on Save

Save... It is an option on this webposting account. Either Publish Post or Save Now are the options. Bu the word save makes me muse on philogy and philosophy. The book I am reading, "Wrestling with Democracy," is wonderful. Well written, strong views expressed clearly and very thought provoking.  In 2008,  I listened to a story on C-Span or perhaps it was Democracy Now! about saving survivors of Nargis in Myamar (also known as Burma).  I will never know how bad conditions were in Myamar.  None of us will since news media were never allowed to come into the country to report.  That is not the situation in Haiti today.  We have reports from those literally on or under the ground....text messages, i-reports, videos sent from cell phones.  It is just another example of how we have changed.  For the good.

The pain, the discomfort, the sickness are what they are. We can always cope with the way life moves and changes. The mind of an enlightened human being is flexible and adaptable. The mind of the ignorant person is conditioned and fixed.-Ajahn Sumedho, “Seeing the Way” From "365 Buddha: Daily Meditations," edited by Jeff Schmidt. Reprinted by arrangement with Tarcher/Putnam, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

This is where I am today. If I focus on the soft tissue pain, the neck pain, the lower back pain, I am pain. If I focus on others, on rescue, on writing, on scheduling, on work, I am. I just am.....

Unemployment figures

Nationwide unemployment is at 10% but that is a statistical average.  Detroit has massive unemployment -- far above 10%.  And huge segments of our populations have 20% to 30% unemployment.  And no help in sight as yet.  The media could be covering this but they are not.  They could be focusing our attention upon starvation in America, but they are not.  We all know people who are homeless.  We all know that but for the grace of grace we could be those people who are homeless.  But the media gets hung up on issues of irrelevancy -- like the mis-spoken words of Harry Reid or what Bill Clinton said to Ted Kennedy.  Quotes that like sell books but don't feed the self esteem or bellies of those who have lost their jobs in this Great Recession.  We all of people who gave up hunting for jobs because there were no jobs to found or they were too old for the jobs that were around.  We know those people.  We do.  And does the mainstream media say a word about it?  No.  And I don't know why that is.  I truly don't.  The skeptic in me says 'oh, sure, the reporters don't know what to say and are afraid that they will be next to be let go since the news media as we know it is changing.  So the reporters are playing it safe.'  But I don't want to believe that.  I want to know that there are more people out there like Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! who are ready and able to talk about the unemployment figures in a meaningful way.

NPR had an interview today with Jesse Jackson where he kept being asked what he thought about the quotes I mentioned above.  And he was great at redirecting the conversation back to the main point.  It is the jobs, stupid.  The jobs

This one is for Dan

The reason I started this blog was to deal with the grief from the unexpected death of my brother-in-law. And the anger. And the fury at the cancer that killed him. Thank god he had health insurance but in his case it wasn't very helpful. The blog helped me remember Dan in my own way which was limited by the distance we lived apart. One of us in Boston, one of us almost inside the beltway in DC. Joined by a passion for my sister and politics and words and cats and justice. Justice says a lot about Dan. He was incensed by the local newspapers being bought up by conglomerates which never reported local news in depth. And never gave full facts. He took us to one of the historic villages in Massachusetts that made clothe in the 1840s. Humbling experience. I'd read about this town but seeing it was a revelation. How can people say we don't need unions or a voice for the workers when they look at places like that village. Here is the link to the town itself,

History of Lowell, Massachusetts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lowell, Massachusetts is considered the Cradle of the American Industrial Revolution, as it was the first large-scale factory town in America. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lowell,_Massachusetts - 71k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

I just wish I'd had more time to get to know him better. To talk with him about the election. To rage at the outrages of the politicians. May your apple grove be filled with blossoms and your fruit be sweet, Dan, where you are now. Amen

Taking the Long View

The current financial crisis (and the hurry-hurry of the world in general) bothers me. Everyone wants to have luck immediately. Everyone wants to be rich as soon as possible. The word "wants" is operative here. We all want stuff. I want my own home and not be bugged about how many cats I can have. I want to be a published writer of serenity tales and humorous drawings and not have to do mundane things like work full time to pay the rent. I want, I want, I want.....

Hah!  However, what I need is completely different. For a long time I have been confused about what is a want and what is a need. But I have figured it out.  My cats and I need food, a roof over our heads, and other things like clothes, catnip and grooming supplies. I need a car to carry around the cats and me on trips to the vet and a car to help get FOHA animals to the vet and do the at home checks prior to adoption.  I need a car to get to my consulting jobs.  I don't need much but I want the world.

May 2010 be the year that my needs truly become my wants....
Until then
peace

The History of Coffee

Here is a book I need to look for. It is the calendar, "History of Coffee." I listened to an interview with the creator. Things I never knew...coffee was funded by Lloyds coffeehouse patrons who also funded the ship masters who bought slaves in Africa and took them to coffee plantations. The creator said a phrase that has additional meaning ... 'taking the bitter with the sweet.' And isn't that a tale of just what life is about.

Catching Fire

Such an evocative phrase...catching fire. It is unpredictable though. Fire, I mean. Trying to start a fire with wet wood, a closed flue, a faulty draught is hard. My father taught me to light fires when I was eight years old. In those prehistoric days, it was common practice to take paper trash outside to the big stone open pit and burn them. We did the same thing with leaves and dead wood.

Starting a fire like that now would require so many permission slips and county allowances that the paper for one fire would be more than I used to burn each week. I wonder where I was when all these rules were passed to 'protect' me. I certainly wasn't paying attention.

I am a late bloomer. I caught fire late in life with the economic turndown. Just in time to appreciate the irony of being 58 and to young to collect from my IRA without severe penalties.  It just sucks that the administration didn't shift the rules to allow those of us who were let go in stealth 'let's get rid of the employees over 55' attitude that business has taken during this Great Recession.  It really does!

It seems a shame that we cannot get rid of the deadwood in Congress who refuse to realize this fact.

Thank God for YouTube

Watch this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp-yRI_HJoM

Take two laughs and call your representative in the morning

Things I never thought I'd say

I have just finished hearing the state of the state messages from California, New York and Massachusetts.  I can't wait for Virginia to weigh in.  All of these states are basically broke.  They have staggerly large budget deficits.  And in this kind of economic environment, the logical thing would be to cut back where possible.  So why is the government getting ready to pass out more foreign aid?  I don't understand.  I mean in good times I can understand giving money to countries who are less well off.  I truly can understand it.  But given the fact that much of the foreign aid never reaches the people it is meant to reach, it is not cost effective.  The Peace Corp is effective.  Working alongside people and teaching them how to grow better crops, how to survive in environments where water is scarce.  Those are useful endeavors.

So never thought I would say this.  I am against foreign aid.  I am against it until we are economically recovered.

Holding our Breathe

Since 9/11, I believe we all have held our breathe waiting for the next shoe to drop. Or for underwear to blow up.  Truly this is an irony my mom would appreciate.  She always said wear clean underwear since you never know when you may have to be taken to a hospital.  A collective asthma of fear grips us instead of the humor of the situation, though.

Personally, I believe that our security organizations are justifying their existence by coming up with new and expensive ways of checking people in.  New names for old things.  Hand pats are so much better and so much cheaper.  But we opt for new technologies that are expensive and fail us -- thus costing even more when people die.  And the organizations created to protect us?  Hah!  They continue to claim that the vertical stack of each organization is why they could not pass information along in a timely manner.  They haven't changed that whopper since 9/11.

If grassroot groups like animal rescue can set up and create successful animal rescue runs by posting them online and requesting drivers, then surely there can be no excuse for governmental agencies claiming that they cannot do the same thing.  So why don't these groups set up inter-intra-communications?  Because the process of sharing requires something secret keepers cannot do.  They cannot admit weakness.  And they view laterally reaching out as failure.  Put simply reaching out scares the hell out of these groups.  I have to ask, since when have we become so scared of our own fellow Americans who also have sworn oaths to uphold the United States of America?

And this asthma of fear on the governmental level is intolerable.  Surely, with the economic failures of the past year and the failure of the Bush or current administration to address it properly, there are plenty of people who are angry and frustrated.  This is not a good situation.  It certainly creates an environment friendly to those who would recruit suicide bombers.  It won't take long before we find attentat actions and anarchism in the country.  The hell with the foreign terrorism.  The U.S. has a long history of taking action for itself.  The killing of President Garfield?  A disgruntled favor seeker.  The blowing up of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City?  A disgruntled vet protesting the Waco incident.

It seems to me that progress is just renaming of things to sound new.  The writer of Ecclesiastes had it right.  See this link to the full quote as printed in Bartelby's  http://www.bartleby.com/108/21/1.html  This is wisdom literature that we, sadly, lack in this time of 24/7 news bites.  Nothing can be learned in this environment.  But perhaps we can change in 2010.  I pray that is so.

Happy New Year folks and may peace rain down softly upon us.

until then
namaste

Rescue Thoughts

It is hard to know who rescues
Whom when I care for my three
rescued cats.  Them or me...
Comfort food for the soul.

Gifts of Grace

Rescue Daily

I stop and pat my shy cat
She stops, purrs,  turns
and starts to eat


Comfort Food

Wish I May, Wish I Might have Sweet Dreams

Dreams...tricky things.  Currently I am on a medication that intensifies dreams while allowing me to be anxiety free while I am awake.  Still not too sure if it is a good thing to be dream-ambushed by anxieties I have chemically repressed during the day.  I feel much better than before but there is a lot to be said for the way I was before -- twitchy, perhaps -- but not a dream I could remember in the morning.

That is not to say that my sleep was that good before.  Now I sleep much better, even with the dreams and all the cats trying to wake me up in the middle of the night.

So be careful what you wish for and
sweet dreams

Until next time,
peace

Not being too ....

Not being too scattered this year.  Heck, it's only day 3.  It stands to reason I will be scattered one day soon but for now I am, thankfully, focused and looking into new kinds of work.  One of those is narrating audio books.  I need to find out what sort of equipment one needs to do this and record a sample to send places.  It is a cut-throat business -- more so than the regular publishing but with print books and newsprint on the decline, it may be the only avenue.  I always loved listening to Boris Karloff read the "Reluctant Dragon" when I was young.  I began reading for audiences 'way back in high school but got more interested in it when my kids were born.  And I got hooked on reading out loud after I heard the first audio tapes of children's stories back in the 1990s.  Wondrous stuff.  Truly made an impression on my reading style.

My current victims--ahem--listeners, are my cats.  They get pretty cranky some nights and reading really mellows them out.  So I will explore this and find out more.  Stay tuned.  Or as the radio announcer used to say on Laugh In...oh heck, what was it he used to say?  I will report on that later.

Until then
peace

Bird count so far

Fascinating year so far.  The first bird I saw was one low flying goose which is really odd since our area is chock full of crows and mourning doves.  Geese normally fly in squadrons to and from the area lakes.  So this one-fer was unusual.

The second bird was a low flying red tailed hawk.  At least I think it was a hawk.  It is sort of hard to ask them to identify themselves.

When it is raining cats

When I am out of sorts, I work with photos to cheer up. I have a camera cell phone and use it for all my pictures.

Get Rid of Bad Breath - wikiHow

Get Rid of Bad Breath - wikiHow

How to Get Rid of Bad Breath

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

There are many ways to cover up bad breath, but if you're tired of quick fixes and want to banish halitosis once and for all, take these instructions to heart--or should we say mouth?

Steps

1. Clean your mouth thoroughly, regularly. Two major sources of mouth odor are bacteria and decaying food particles. There are hundreds of nooks and crannies in the landscape of your mouth where these offenders can get lodged. Brushing is not enough.
   
   • Clean your tongue. Your tongue, unfortunately, is like a shaggy carpet where all kinds of smelly stuff can hide.[1] When you brush your teeth (which should be at least twice a day) use your toothbrush, the edge of a spoon, or a tongue cleaner to "scrape" your tongue.
     
     • If you have a sensitive gag reflex, you might not like this task. You need to clean your entire tongue, including the part close to your tonsils. Read How to Suppress the Gag Reflex for some tips.
       
     
     
   • Floss. Make it as much of a mindless habit as brushing your teeth. At first, your gums might bleed as you dislodge chunks of food that have "stuck" to your teeth and gum for who knows how long. But take a second to smell the floss after you pass it through your teeth, if you dare. You'll see (or smell) where the bad breath is coming from.
     
   
   
2. Keep your mouth moisturized. A dry mouth is a stinky mouth. That's why your breath is worse in the morning; your mouth produces less saliva as you sleep. Saliva is the enemy of bad breath because not only does it physically wash bacteria and food particles away, but it also has antiseptic and enzymes that kill bacteria.[1]
   
   • Chewing gum stimulates saliva production (in addition to covering up the odor with some kind of scent). Mints do not encourage saliva production.[1]
     
   • Drink water. It won't necessarily increase saliva production, but it'll wash out your mouth and it's good for you. See How to Drink More Water Every Day.
     
   • Dry mouth can be caused by certain medications and medical conditions. Ask your doctor about switching medications, or addressing the underlying condition.
     
   
   
3. Choose your gum carefully. As mentioned in the previous step, any gum will help with bad breath because the chewing action results in more saliva being produced. Some gums, however, have better bad-breath-fighting abilities than others:
   
   • Cinnamon flavoring seems to be especially effective in reducing bacteria counts in your mouth.[1]
     
   • Look for gum sweetened with xylitol. For one thing, sugar's not good for your mouth. Xylitol is a sugar substitute that actually works to prevent bacteria from replicating in the mouth.[1]
     
   
   
4. Eat a banana You probably already know to avoid notorious stink foods like onions, garlic, cheese, and coffee (or at least brush vigorously after eating them). But did you know that if you're on a low-carb diet, you might have "ketone breath"?[1] Basically, as your body breaks down fats instead of carbs for energy, it creates ketones, some of which are released in your mouth. Unfortunately, ketones smell bad, and so will your breath. If you're on a strict carb-restricting diet, or any diet that forces you to burn fat instead of carbs, consider throwing healthy carb-rich snacks into the mix, like apples or bananas.
   
   • This will also happen to anyone who fasts, whether for religious reasons, or because they are anorexic. If you are anorexic, bad breath is only one of the reasons to stop starving yourself. Read How to Cope if You Want to Become Anorexic.
     
   
   
5. Talk to a doctor. If you've followed the above steps diligently and the bad breath persists, you may have a medical issue that needs to be treated. Here are some of the potential culprits:
   
   • Tonsil stones. These are lumps of calcified food, mucus and bacteria that appear as white spots on your tonsils. If seen, they can be mistaken for a throat infection, although sometimes they are not visible to the naked eye. You might also notice a metallic taste in your mouth, and/or pain when swallowing.[2]
     
   • Diabetic ketoacidosis. If you have diabetes, it may be causing your body to burn fat instead of glucose, creating the ketone breath referred to in the previous step. This is a serious condition that needs to be treated as soon as possible.[3]
     
   • Trimethylaminuria. If your body can't break down a chemical called trimethylamine, it will be released in your saliva, causing bad breath. It'll also be released in your sweat, so persistent body odor might be an accompanying symptom.[3]
     
   • Constipation is also cause of bad breath. Constipation bad breath could be due to several causes from dietary to hormonal or be even a side effect of medications and anatomical. Incidentally, normal bad breath (that is, bad breath not caused by digestive problems) may also be due to a side effect of drugs you are taking, which could dry up the mouth, causing bad breath.
     
   • Treating constipation bad breath consists in treating the constipation itself. If the problem is dietary in nature, then changing your dietary habits, laxatives, and fiber therapy could help treat the constipation and in the process the symptom of constipation bad breath. Enemas and surgery though rare may also be used to treat acute cases of constipation.
     
   
   

Video

Tips

• Mouthwash is only a temporary fix. It masks the odor.[1]
  
• If bad breath persists after following these steps, see your Dentist for a professional cleaning and advice on other steps you can take.
  

Warnings

• Do not stop prescription medication without consulting your doctor first.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Fix Bad Breath on the Spot
  
• How to Keep a Clean Toothbrush
  
• How to Make Toothpaste
  
• How to Suppress the Gag Reflex
  

Sources and Citations

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/guide/change-your-breath-from-bad-to-good


2. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1213457/Bad-breath-It-nasty-case-tonsil-stones.html


3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/besttreatments/bad-breath-description

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Get Rid of Bad Breath. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Chlorox (or less is more)

I have thin skin.  Very thin and very easy to damage.  Bugs know this and feast whenever I am outside even if I am wearing the strongest bug-off lotion made.  I also don't heal easily.  The wounds fester, itch and turn green when scabs form.  I explain this primarily because I re-discovered an old trick I had for healing what are known as 'hot spots' on dogs I learned with the Newfoundlands we had for years.  A solution of 2% chlorox poured on and scrubbed into the wound works well.  The skin heals cleanly.  That's what I finally had to do and the skin is now healing and I am reminded of the old saying 'less is more.'

Truly less is more.  We are (at least I am) used to finding stuff that is new. Ads push us to react instead of act aying  'Buy this perfume, buy that cleaning supply, don't worry, you can put it on your credit card,' or 'we will bill you later.'  Or my personal favorite after 9/11 when we were told to buy, make American strong, buy even if you owe thousands on your credit card, buy, buy, buy.   And for a while, I did just that, thinking I was being patriotic and not a sap.  Sigh.  So now, while I am delighted to find cool stuff, I try to walk away from the new spatula, new cooking thingie, new things, period. 

So I am especially pleased to be reminded that chlorox heals not only the outside of me, but also the inside from its smell.  It reminds me of clean sheets and houses that welcome you home.  I find I can face the fears of thousands of dollars owed on my credit cards easier when I smell clean chlorox smells.  Go figure.

So, forget the white linen and nutmeg and fancy perfumes the stores and ads are pushing.  When I need to clear my mind, I will stick to the less is more idea.....

May all beings know peace.

Not just for Zen Contemplation --- Seeing

Eyesight...A lot of what I do from organizing, admin/clerical consultations, driving, caring for cats and yes, reading needs good eyesight.  Sigh.  I forgot all about taking care of my eyesight during the tumultuous events of the past year.  So now, I live with my glasses perched on top of my head and squint suspiciously at newsprint, boilerplate, instructions, menus and my beloved books.  I see better up close than I ever did before which tempts me to go without glasses entirely.  But, no.  My eyes are not that much better.  The middle distance and far distance hasn't improved that much.  So today I will call my optician and steel myself for the cost of new specs.  Yerg....I am sure with the cost of everything else going up the glasses will be more expensive and they were never cheap since I had the eye sight of a bat before.  Maybe I can work on my echo location....eeek, eeek

Organic Organizing...

Organic organizing...that's what I do.  It is not so much planned as evolved to see what will work within a person's habitual patterns and what will work with their own workroom layout.  Because it is organic, I cannot predict how it will eventually turn out but it will be easy to use and easy to find things since it is the intuitive manifestation of what works for each individual.  And in a lot of ways, it is recycling with a view towards re-purposing things that were left behind as bad ideas and stored in basements or attics.  Whole house, whole organizing, whole serenity and whole person.......