October 8, 2007 archive

“You Are What You Eat”

So many people understand now that the food they put into their bodies becomes an integral part of them that “you are what you eat” has become a slogan. It is experientially logical that putting something into your system makes that something become a part of you and science has also proven this to be the case in detailed (and often alarming) ways. Therefore, many people also now agree, at least in theory if not in practice, that we should only put natural and healthy foods into our systems.

However, “you are what you eat” has a much broader meaning for our health than just whether or not we should eat an apple instead of a candy bar. What is less well known and much less accepted is that all of our experiences, thoughts, feelings, reactions, the energy or condition at the places we frequent, TV shows, what we read, all of our interactions, everything we say, think, do, inhale, watch, hear, smell and taste also become a part of us and leave a trail within us.

Cross posted at Pockets of the Future and Dkos

Update I left out this video

Monday Morning News

Ostentatious Magnificence Thread
US

Democrats See Wedge Issue in Health Bill
By CARL HULSE
Published: October 8, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 – Representative John R. Kuhl Jr. of New York received just his second telephone call ever from his state’s Democratic governor, Eliot Spitzer, last week and was not surprised at the topic: children’s health insurance.
“He said, ‘I am calling you to come over to the dark side,’ ” said Mr. Kuhl, who was urged by the governor to drop his opposition to health care legislation and join the effort to override President Bush’s veto of the bill.

It’s too bad they don’t see anything else as a Wedge Issue.

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

[Inside: Part III of America the Ugly]

The 2nd Half of the Equation!

A paraphrase:


—With the splitting of the atom, everything has changed save man’s way of
  thinking; and thus we drift toward unimaginable peril…

  paraphrase of Albert Einstein


With the splitting of the atom, humans took on the technological power which was once attributed only to the gods.  But the second part of the equation, man’s way of thinking, did not make a similar leap. 


Thus we are involved in balancing the second part of the equation.  We are involved in the evolution of consciousness.  This evolution is imperative

for the survival of the species. 


Survival depends on adaptation to this evolutionary imperative. 


Will we make it? I don’t know. 


Yet I do know that this is the challenge.


I will contribute more of my ramblings on this subject soon.  Thanks

Krugman: “My God, what have we done?”

Crossposed from the orange place

No, not a question for us, but Conservatives for themselves, at least, according to Paul Krugman.

Krugman’s provocative conclusion:

Mr. Bush is movement conservatism’s true, loyal heir.

This has been my opinion for some time, and today’s column gives every indication that Krugman’s next book will be a must read.

more

Blackwater Accountability Act Passes: Camoflage No More

blackwatercamoflage1000fr t

The Urge to Kill With Words

For years now, I’ve been watching people who post on blogs try to maim and kill each other with words. I’ve done the same thing, more often that I care to admit.

Many times, I’ve been flat out astonished at the depth of the viciousness: the no holds barred attempts to truly cause each other serious harm, in every way harm CAN be caused via the written word.  And I’ve been more than appalled to feel it within myself, on more than one occasion.

It happens so lighting fast sometimes: depending on my own stress levels, I can log on, read one comment from a total stranger, and feel an explosion of anger so huge it demands immediate release, and finds
it in ten angry fingers pounding on a keyboard, and in that satisfying moment of hitting “Enter” to launch that word bomb at what I HOPE is the most vulnerable part of my target.

Other times, I am much more controlled about it, and instead of exploding, I bide my time, and choose what is usually a more effective weapon: biting sarcasm designed to make my target look, and hopefully feel, like a fool, knowing full well that public humiliation is a deadly weapon. This has the added advantage of course, of having others who read it applaud my brilliance. Two birds, one stone.

Sometimes, this ends up being a totally satisfying experience for me: I come away feeling pretty powerful, even righteous. I did not silently comply with a wrong: I spoke up and I spoke out. Good for me. Yet, under that, was discomfort I like to ignore.

But sometimes, I end up with a strong urge to go take a shower. On the inside, I mean. And a curious sense of sadness: an emptiness of some sort.

It was time once again, for me to go weed my own garden. To see what was growing there that I did not plant, and do not wish to feed.

Big Oil in Burma: A Primer

Note: A more finely tuned version of this essay is now crossposted over at The Environmentalist here

This essay will provide an overview of the four, perhaps five, American big oil related companies that are still operating in Burma, which by their continued operation are assisting the oppressive and brutal junta, The State Peace and Development Council.

Only a few days ago Reuters published an article here that said, “U.S. energy companies are shrugging off pressure to end operations in Myanmar that critics contend help prop up the military junta and its hold over the country.” So far, the protesting on line and on the street is not moving them to change their policy and tactics.

Based on some discussions here about Chevron and other oil companies operating in Burma I ended up with several questions. This essay attempts to answer them.
It ends asking you the readers to come to some conclusions and share them. So keep that in mind as you scroll through this. 

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Jimi Hendrix


Are you Experienced?

Now Accepting Psalms, Books, Sermons, etc.

Religion, anyone can do it.  Even us. 

My esteemed felines and canine will form the judging body of the New Liberal Vatican located in my living room.  All submissions will be printed up on recyclable paper and strewn lovingly about the floor. Any submission endorsed by the pets will be included in the final work.  If you see a puff of smoke rising from my chimney, please call the fire department because I don’t have a chimney.

The New Liberal Vatican does not seek to replace the old tired Vatican just yet.  Instead we will seek tax-free goodness for all members and a nifty water bottle with a logo of some sort.

FAQ below the fold

Hitchens: Macbeth on the Oregon Strand.

Christopher Hitchens discovers from the LA times that his war-mongering influenced a now dead soldier to take up arms in Iraq:

Somewhere along the way, he changed his mind. His family says there was no epiphany. Writings by author and columnist Christopher Hitchens on the moral case for war deeply influenced him … “

The End Of The Beginning?

Inspired by buhdydharma’s The Big Picture Vol. 2

Originally posted at TalkLeft, Dec 10, 2006:
The End Of The Beginning?

In the nineteen sixties and seventies the western world was in the throes of a cultural and psychological revolution of awareness that at times threatened to bring down the governments and destroy the societies of some of the most powerful countries on earth, and terrified many who were unable to step outside of the structure and limitations of the worldviews they had constructed for themselves in the course of their lives.

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