What is a home, anyway?

Here are a few fine quotes expounding on the idea of 'home' ~

Every one of us needs a home. The world needs a home.
There are so many young people who are homeless.
They may have a building to live in, but they are homeless in their hearts.
That is why the most important practice
of our time is to give each person a home.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Home is any four walls that enclose the right people.
- Helen Rowland

My home…It is my retreat and resting place from wars,
I try to keep this corner as a haven against the tempest
outside, as I do another corner in my soul.
- Michel Eyquem De Montaigne, 1533 – 1592

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

and these gems ~

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night.
- Margaret Mead

Bring love into your home for this is where our
love for each other must start.
- Mother Teresa

I found these quotes in an incredible photographer's blog by Steve McCurry, one of the world's great travelers too. This journal of a lifetime of photos (so far) from an award-winning National Geographic photographer helps picture an "important world elsewhere".

Here are a few more I have found on my own, which I hope you enjoy ~

Who has not felt how sadly sweet
The dream of home, the dream of home,
Steals o’er the heart, too soon to fleet,
When far o’er sea or land we roam?
-Thomas Moore (1779–1852),The Dream of Home.


’Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there ’s no place like home;
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which sought through the world is ne’er met with elsewhere.
-J. Howard Payne (1792–1852)


Peace and rest at length have come
All the day’s long toil is past,
And each heart is whispering, “Home,
Home at last.”
-Thomas Hood (1799–1845, Home at last


Ay, now am I in Arden: the more fool I. When I was at home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.
-William Shakespeare (1564–1616), As You Like It. Act ii. Sc. 4.


And the star-spangled banner, oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
-Francis Scott Key (1779–1843), The Star-Spangled Banner.


From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut, our home.
-Nathaniel Cotton (1707–1788), The Fireside. Stanza 3.

Transit of Venus ~ NASA video

A Second, More Insistent Letter to Mrs. Assad

Dear Mrs. Assad ~

My last post was a polite request to stop the fighting in Syria.

So far, fighting has only increased in your country, from all formal and informal reports I have read.

If you and your husband cannot and will not stop it, then your country is out of his control and you should acknowledge the fact. Prove that he is in control. More important: stop the bloodshed. Doesn't matter what he looks like, only matters what he does.

Today, diplomats from leading countries are joining the worldwide effort to stop massacre and bloodshed in your country, since you and your husband seem to have given up responsibility or power to do so. You haven't many friends out there, if any.

On a personal level, you disappoint me with your lack of leadership in your country. You have not succeeded, so you might as well slink away in shame. Doesn't matter where.

Other countries, unlike yours, are promoting and participating in an enviable worldwide march toward lasting peace and prosperity.

Sincerely,

Shelley Seymour

The Importance Of Online Learning

There isn't any need to feel guilty about spending time on the internet. Our computers have become the new mecca where we can find almost unlimited resources. When we do one thing, we are not doing another, but we should try to find the best way to allocate our time. It's truly our most precious resource.

Read from new sites around the internet. Learn more about your personal interests. Become more well-read about world events. Google people you know and don't know, and discover interesting experiences others have had that can help you. Now is the time to learn everything you have always wanted to know but did not dare to ask parents, family, teachers, or anyone else by making use of the internet.

Socialize, too, of course, but allow time to grow and nurture the places within yourself in desperate need of attention. We all have areas we need to improve upon. Be humble enough to know it, and feel gratitude for all the benefits surrounding us in our daily lives.

Our minds are hungry and thirsty for knowledge. We need sound minds in sound bodies. Life isn't only about getting ahead for oneself. It's truly important to expend your efforts for others, to help at the appropriate time and in the best possible fashion.

When I awoke this morning, and noticed my familiar electronic appliances awaiting my attention, I thought of how much our lives have changed, fortunately for the better. If we control computers and use them as our slaves, we'll discover how much greater personal growth and higher learning benefits us as long as we don't allow computers to dominate us as human beings.

Passing through the day, I marveled again how much our world has changed and how important it is to keep moving ahead, and not fall behind. facebook - an online business focused on friendship and goodwill, without any visible products, funded by online advertisements - went public and made its founders fortunes. What would our great-great-great grandparents have thought of the idea as an investment?

I've been feeling very guilty about falling back on the frequency of my posts recently because of moving and all the annoying tiredness brought on my unpacking and the various employment hats I wear, as writer, and recently a real estate agent. This online newsletter is a purely voluntary effort on my part. When I look back at the over seven hundred posts in my blogs, I think of how much fun it's been to write them. If I can help one person answer a question they've had, it will all have been worth the time and effort. While I can't seem to stick to a schedule...some days I write three posts, and then am too busy for a few days to write another...I hope my readers forgive me, and use these words for personal purposes. If we all shared what we know, then we'd all know more.

Worthy Interiors

Easton Neston, Northampton, England

Architectural Digest

The venerable Architectural Digest has pictures online, and has photos of impressively-renovated Easton Neston, a former royal residence near Northampton, England.

Map of Northampton, England 

 
This is my idea of a beautiful interior, since it doesn't intimidate me the way some modern properties do. The entire appears comfortable and cozy. The incredible garden by itself, however, must require incredible maintenance.

The interior utilities have been been tastefully renovated, and I especially admire the kitchen. The kitchen can often be overlooked but is the most difficult in a house to refurbish. The result is a certain perfection rarely seen in the present day, when some consider carved woods a manifestation of slave labor rather than an art form.

For further interior design excitement, you might try Houzz, a new site rocking the design community with photos of thousands of home interiors. Well worth a few moments of your time, it's hard not to spend untold stolen minutes on this time-friendly site.

Will Body Scans Make Online Shopping Easier?

An interesting story has just come out on the Wall Street Journal about a technology that takes the clothes you have and predicts which of their clothes you will fit. You only have to somehow add the size, make and model of your clothes. Since clothes might not fit perfectly, and makes and models of clothes are quickly obsolete, it's automatically a difficult system to obey, but it suggests many new growth opportunities for sales.

In the comments on that article, someone said that "full-body scans" will soon be available.  I don't know whether the possibility is true, but it made me think. Online body scans are an interesting idea. Wouldn't it be great if we could have these scanned models of ourselves in our computers (privacy issues aside), and drag an article of clothing from a website onto our own personal model, and see whether it fits, and what it looks like? Maybe one could add several clothes to make up an entire outfit. Seeing brand new shoes, trousers, jackets, shirts, jewelry online on an exact replica of your body could create an imaginary complete wardrobe overhaul. 

It sounds like fun to switch variables, as long as it's not the only way to shop. Little girls would love to have the chance to have this technology for a video game, at the very least, I would think, if the technology isn't already available. They have loved to dress up their Barbie dolls for many years.

Most shopping sites would have to model their clothes differently so that each size can be available online for viewing in different sizes and from different directions. That doesn't sound so onerous an imperative if it's done with clothes direct from the factory. It would just create a different goal for photographic models of clothes.

I'm sure many sites would have to follow, because who could have predicted the Amazon would have the plethora of information about new books that it currently provides, or that Google would publish so many of them.

I think having a personal model of oneself online, and being able to try clothes on it would be a huge benefit for many shoppers.

A Letter to Mrs. Assad

Dear Mrs. Assad ~

You are involved in the making of news in Syria, and you can influence your country's leader as few in the world can.

I'm only an observer of the news, I don't make it, and I don't like to hear the trouble in your country.

I saw Barbara Walters interview Bashar. I saw a rich, privileged kid grown up, probably privately educated. I've heard you call him 'beautiful'.

Yet there is nothing 'beautiful' about the regime he heads that he denies is killing people.

He has no future with the respectable Western majority, and your name is now out in public about your involvement in the genocide and mass murders. Your emails will be exposed.

Please give yourselves up. Do it for me, for all of us who are subjected to the unnecessary violence in Syria we see on television and on the internet, everywhere we get current news.

Your husband's a tyrannical, despotic, dictatorial leader of a military machine that is doomed to failure, and you've been shown to be part of it, too!

You can help stop the mass, indiscriminate destruction we all know is happening to your country.

Thanks,

Shelley

(Updated Mar 19/12)

On the Constitutionality of Certain State Laws

Why doesn't America learn to over-ride silly, unbaked State decisions that will just have to be overturned someday anyway, whether it's yesterday's decision in Utah to ignore certain delicate gender matters, or today's focus on the constitutionality of the actions of maniacal Governors. To have the former Mississippi Governor's pardons upheld as valid by the state Supreme Court, while challenged by the state's Attorney General, shows something is not right in the States.

Haley Barbour, former Governor of Mississippi from 2004 to 2012, a lawyer-lobbyist by trade, made friends with court-convicted murderers, and officially had the power to pardon them, and free them for life. Big fail.

The mother of a victim killed by one of the criminals said on CNN, she thinks  Gov. Barbour pardoned them "because he could, and because he wanted to." 

Did the state Supreme Court blindly go along with his wishes, because it had to, legally? Where was the place of the larger legal and moral question of right and wrong? Why wasn't majority rule obeying a larger, international sense of justice?

What absolutely twisted paternalism of power put this insane, fat, white, brawny idiot of a power-happy Governor in office and supported his failed leadership?

Why can't the Federal Supreme Court or the President, or even the Mississippi State Supreme Court over-ride a Governor whose powers clearly crossed a legal line? Legal, that is, in a moral and actual sense, if his pardons happened anywhere else in the civilized world? 

This former Governor has passed beyond anyone's idea of legal propriety. He pardoned more than 200 criminals, twenty-four of whom were convicted murderers. CBS-TV says he did not spare anyone on death row, and made "pardons" to save money in state prisons. A spoiled, little boy grown old, and a crazy, powerful lunatic all at once.

The criminals the former Governor pardoned in Mississippi have been given clean personal histories. They can travel internationally, vote, own guns, get hunting licenses, and so on, as if they had never been convicted.

The families of their victims, in stark contrast, live in perpetual danger, looking over their shoulders, as their  nightmare memories of  family members being stalked, hunted, and killed, return.

It's not fair, to say the least. The remainder of the entire civilized world sympathizes with them, as we watch this unbelievably tragic perversion of justice. How can this be happening in 2012?

Shame on Limbaugh

Limbaugh's goal on the radio show he hosts was to silence the good name of an innocent female victim. 

I resent that someone so despicable can TRADE on slurs against women.

His apology is a fake-out. What source of fear stops him from doing the same again?

Please STOP him?...I don't suppose LESS  will satisfy most of the women  around the world who heard this lunatic's wild ravings, and who compose about half the general population.

UPDATE: 4/2/12. One month has passed, and according to Media Matters, Mr. Limbaugh has apologized for only one of the 45, yes, forty-five (!) personal slurs he has made on this one individual female.

I've never listened anyway, not even once to this poor, sorry man, and hope I never do.

Time for Politicians to Learn Immigration Realities

Listening to the Republican contenders in the CNN debate the other night for ten minutes, I was amused by their naivete and sadly unrealistic attitudes toward immigration before I turned off the television in distaste.

Being from Canada, and having lived here in the U.S. since 1980, I have been interested, shall we say, in the issue for a long time. I don't vote because there hasn't been any reason to get citizenship except to be able to vote, and in return I would have to serve on jury duty. Avoiding jury duty always wins. I don't think about jury duty, I only feel it. It's visceral, and comes from that reptile part of the brain that determines the fight and flight response.

That e-verify system sounds to me like it's not going to fly with a lot of homeowners, I would bet! Just saying...

The idea that having an e-verify system to solve illegal immigration is absurd and exclusionary, at best...Here's why: all Americans would have to be distrustful of every other American. Everyone would have to keep checking a website to check whether someone else is here legally or not...That's a mighty large responsibility for the notoriously inaccurate internet to do...Since websites can't get house prices right, how is it expected to have the legal status of all citizens updated at all times?

Does the government really think that every time every homeowner, in this land of homeowners, has some desperately pressing need to fix, and has taken a few minutes off work, inconvenienced others maybe to get the work done...is that homeowner really going to stop every one of those service providers, every plumber, carpenter, electrician, Roto-rooter man, handyman or gardener, and so on, to require proof of citizenship to fix the job, and ask them to wait outside while they check their existence on  their computers on e-verify? If their computer doesn't work or they don't have one, they might not be allowed to hire a service provider because they can't check e-verify. After all, if a homeowner asks one service provider, it's only fair to ask every provider every time they enter the house, or else some service provider, at some point, is going to complain in court about being an unfairly treated citizen. 

The idea of self-deporting is absurd. No one is going to temporarily spontaneously and voluntarily remove themselves from this country unless they want to or have to.  If they want to, it won't be for some general desire on the part of The Government to  cleanse the country of illegals. The people who should self-deport are here illegally and don't have papers, and they won't self-deport because they are perhaps persecuted wherever they're from and are always caught in a network of life (and employment) here. Otherwise, they would have waited to come here legally, by the books. Common sense to me.

These political contenders seem to be dreamers  not worth following if they think a  single tall fence is going to keep out intruders from central America bound and determined, like burglars entering a locked house, to get into the sometimes unlocked country of America. The politicians obviously haven't taken the time to pay their tuition for a basic education on the most basic fundamental laws and principles of immigration, and the need for more efficient  form processing.

 If they don't know immigration --- how to open and shut the front, back, and every door into the country --- how can they possibly be trusted to understand other issues? 

Those contenders should know more about immigration, and they should care about the issue and that Department of the Government  (ICE). They should make a rudimentary effort to try to understand. Not only is it sad not to, it's not respectable. Candidates lose credibility when they don't bother to know fundamental legal basics relevant to affected segments of the population.

But then, they seem too obsessed with women's private 'health' issues to have clear  minds and policies about public deficit and immigration topics they should do something about. They're not really worth my time, respect, or trust if they mess around with inaccuracies, even if they are,  admittedly, upholding a useful and important rite of democracies in running for election.

It might be useful and surprising for all residents of America if true immigration requirements, laws, and facts find the light of day. Otherwise, it's just the blind leading the blind in everyday discussions, political, business, and personal.

We all know the maxim. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

'Chronicle' (2012/I), the Movie: Go See It!

'Chronicle' (2012/I) is an excellent movie for those of us bewildered by big budget movies whose themes seem remote from our quotidian cares and concerns. As perhaps the most original of movies I've seen lately, I would urge you to see it. Don't leave it to teenagers. I did attend with one, despite having been warned the hand-held camera scenes might make me dizzy. They did, and the beginning can be a bit slow-going for those of us who are past our teen years. Here's a minor spoiler alert, when 'Chronicle' finally revs into gear, the story unwinds faster and faster and faster into an extended Tolkien-style adventure. This is where the special effects surge into high gear. I didn't hear the audience laugh as much later in the movie as much as they did during the more comical early scenes when the boys first discovered their rare powers. It's all good fun, and worth watching.

When the main likable characters, two teenage cousins and a so-called friend - one of whom decides to film his life - find literally a hole-in-the-ground in the woods, and follow it, Alice-in-Wonderland style, down to a Harry-Potter-esque underground cave, the boys experience mysterious transformations. They are bestowed with unique, transcendent powers. To the delight of the audience, these powers grow and grow, first wowing each other, and separately, their school friends at a talent show. (My daughter, a senior of similar age to the boys, was just about to attend a talent show at her school, too, by coincidence, directly after seeing the movie. None of them, with the possible exception of a Korean pianist who had played at Carnegie Hall, have supernatural powers).

These three were all new actors to me, Dane DeHaan plays Andrew, the cameraman, Alex Russell plays Matt, his cousin, and Michael B. Jordan plays Steve, their friend. They can fly with glee through the air and enlarge their powers in new ways as the story develops. Admittedly, some scenes were gory, and showed mangled, mutilated bodies, on fire, and gutted.

My favorite scenes were the flying scenes, without doubt, involving a plethora of fancy technological feats of engineering rather than the school and party settings, which nevertheless redeemed the story with a semblance of reality. With a single romance between one of the actors and a camera-toting, beautiful, blonde blogger, the story checks back into the cameraman's sorry home-life with a cancer-stricken mother where he ultimately exacts revenge on his cruel, pathetic, unemployed fireman father. His strength made this mother's heart beat harder with sympathy, and say "yes!" for under-privileged, abused teenagers out there.

The boys' new powers take them to places they (and the audience) wouldn't have dreamed of, and thrill everyone to the unexpected heights, social and otherwise, they achieve. Spectacular in vision and optimism, the good times finally turn, of course. The special effects meshed in a tightly-edited hip, mash-up style made me wonder how much of it was real, and how much possibly computer-animated. Certainly, in 'Chronicle', more than in most movies, ideas were freely lifted from other movies and from literature and blended, with good intentions, into an entirely fresh, new concept. Bravo to everyone involved in making it. Sequels might explain and enlarge on how they obtained their special powers, with kudos to the debut of Josh Trank.

'Chronicle' is well worth watching for spectacular special effects, directed by Josh Trank, and for originality of concept, written by Max Landis.

Rated: PG-13. 

Runtime: 84 min.Released: February 3, 2012.

Budget: $12M.  Opening weekend gross: $22M.

Filming Locations: Cape Town, South Africa. Vancouver, BC.

Toothless Tigers: Abortion and Homosexuality

The noisy foes of homosexuality and abortion baffle me. I live here in the northeast corner of the United States. We all constantly make choices about healthcare, vacations, home lifestyle, transportation, friendships, careers, and so on, as we go about our daily lives.

Why is there so much public hysteria about these essentially private issues?

Why do foes of those who are in favor of such issues believe they will ultimately somehow, some way, sometime pay the price for someone else's decision in favor of abortion or homosexuality?

Let's take these issues apart...I hope they decompose into smithereens on the scrap heap of triviality.

First of all, I don't want to imply these issues aren't important to individuals, perhaps of life-and-death importance. These are central issues to people deciding whether they need to have a third marriage to the same person, or whether or not to have an abortion.

My point is that those people should be able to choose and decide for themselves, just as people with money should be able to choose how to spend it (let's hope for good reasons), or any of the multitude of other lifestyle choices people make.

One theory I've heard is that the foes of abortion and homosexuality are running scared. Now, of what could they be frightened?

1. Perhaps they do not appreciate how new methods can solve old dilemmas. Homosexuality and safe, hospital abortions available for all, are age-old exceptions to the mainstream that have not been accepted by law until recently.

2. On homosexuality: perhaps people who are against homosexuality are frightened to accept them socially, even one at a time. Perhaps they have an us-them mindset, as if they were from a democratic society, and the others were Communists, so they call them different, worse, perverts, as if they were social predators. Perhaps they're worried it might spread, and society would fall apart if everyone did it, and there wouldn't be any babies. If so, they need to make themselves less frightened somehow, maybe read up on it and meet homosexuals.

3.On abortion: perhaps people are against abortion if they worry there won't be enough children like they used to be, as good as they used to be, whatever that implies, to replace themselves, spread their seed, their race, ahead of them into the future. Perhaps they are worried the cost will come out of their pockets.

Perhaps the extremists whipping up mass hysteria should confront the central question of their own immortality and sexuality. We are all humans, and we all have finite lives. Accepting the choices of others would go a long way to promoting peace if these toothless tyrants promoting mass activism would only care to listen.

The Problem With Syria

                            
SYRIA

Syria, a country about the size of North Dakota, is presenting an interesting problem to other world leaders. Interesting outside the country, but brutal and life-threatening to its own citizens.

It made me, and probably many people, wonder why the United States, or any other country, hasn't done anything effective yet to stop the bloodshed.

 Here's the written transcript of the country's leader being interviewed by Barbara Walters, and he sounds very elite and well-educated. He totally denied any wrongdoing. An article I have just read compares him to Hitler and similar genocidal leaders of the past.

The real answer, according to a reliable source who will not allow himself to be named is, it's not because of his lineage, or his beautiful, computer scientist wife (an Englishwoman with a Syrian doctor father), but because the United States is looking at Egypt. They are seeing the chaos that ensued after  the end of President Mubarak's leadership. Egypt has descended into chaos despite so-called military leadership, and hasn't made a peaceful transition to democratic leadership. American leaders believe  having a despot ruling a country works better than having chaos. How can Egypt make a peaceful transition?

Back to Syria, it's a waste on almost every imaginable level to see a civil war raging from afar. I can only hope and wish the Syrian problem will soon be over. My heart goes out to innocent victims of Syrian violence and bloodshed.

Russia is pursuing diplomatic channels...the European Union might sanction...Turkey is watching and waiting.

Will America react with force if provoked?

Try Chill-Out Music

If you want to add something new to your life, try it.  Imagine sipping an effervescent drink  on that beach...Sounds like that. Search YouTube: "chill-out". They're set with lovely background videos. 

I like to use it for background music. It makes me feel good, and that's the aim of all music, isn't it?

Princeton Study Finds Uninformed Participants Tend To Side With Majority

Here's an interesting point taken from the Princeton Bulletin today:

• "A Princeton-based research team found that uninformed individuals — as in
those with no prior knowledge or strong feelings on a situation’s outcome — can
actually be vital to achieving a democratic consensus. These individuals tend to
side with and embolden the numerical majority and dilute the influence of powerful
minority factions who would otherwise dominate everyone else. This finding
— based on group decision-making experiments on fish, as well as mathematical
models and computer simulations — challenges the common notion that
an outspoken minority can manipulate uncommitted voters and can ultimately
provide insights into humans’ political behavior. The research team was led by
Iain Couzin, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology."

The uninformed tend to side with the majority, rather than being manipulated by an outspoken minority. I find this news very reassuring and forgiving, whether it reflects another era, or today's divisive rule from Washington.

Maybe We Should Be Grateful

These last few days I have been watching the Costa Concordia ship lying submerged in the Mediterranean Sea near Giglio Island with great interest. It has not completely sunk, and for that we should be grateful.

I'm not exonerating the captain from steering the ship onto rocks and leaving it as soon as possible to save his own life, thus creating a shocking vacuum of power when it was most needed.

Perhaps the fact that the ship landed where it did, and was almost completely evacuated in two hours, is little short of miraculous. If the ship had been in open water, it might very well have sunk quickly, bringing catastrophic loss of life. As it is now, Carnival Cruises and Costa Lines will have to carry most of the financial burden.

How quickly people forget  these disasters. I went on a cruise, four of us in my family, around the Greek islands in March 2007, on the Louis Cruises Sea Diamond. One week after we disembarked, the very next cruise, the Sea Diamond, carrying about 1,537 passengers, hit rocks off the island of Santorini in the afternoon. We saw photos of crew members we had spoken to only days before. She sank overnight, fortunately after passengers were evacuated through rough waves, and only two passengers died.

Here is a good photo of the Sea Diamond:

Sea Diamond 

 Here is a photo of the Sea Diamond before she sank:

Sea Diamond, April 5, 2007

The point is, these incidents are disturbing, and yet neither involved loss of life, only loss of enormous, important ships. We could have been on it, but we weren't. For that we  count our blessings.

Here were three of us posing. We had a fabulous trip.

Dignify Your Students

According to this article, a public high school, somewhere in Texas, in a town called McKinney, has denied human and civil rights to students. School administrators have removed the doors from individual stalls in the bathrooms. Administrators assert that students cannot be seen sitting on toilets from the hallways, supposedly making the situation tolerable. 

They should have their awesome power removed.

To me this horrible situation sounds like a travesty of justice for students involved, and a breakdown of civil society. The administrators sound as if they are inhuman, incompetent, and just plain rude.

Shame on these administrators. How they injure the psyches of of the precious students who have been entrusted with their care.  If they are capable of such incivility, then I wonder how else their students are suffering. 

Students of all socio-economic backgrounds are supposed to be treated with respect and dignity. They are supposed to be inspired by example, not by clumsy, heavy-handed inhumanity.

Respect deserves respect. I feel the opposite for those administrators. I have called them and left two messages to protest because this subversion makes my blue blood boil.

Kneeling At The Sports Pedestal

Sports madness at The Ohio State University continues even after all these years, despite the "bowl ban"...How could it not?

In the wake of the Jerry Sandusky controversy at rival Pennsylvania State University, a news feature announced a new coach for the Buckeye Football Team, Urban Meyer. He was hired for a contract worth over $27 million for four years hard labor.

Okay, you might call it sour grapes. My husband used to be a mathematics professor at Ohio State, doing hard labor for peanuts, relatively, measured in the thousands of dollars, rather than millions. Yet no one in the entire world, not just America, could do the exact same academic discipline in mathematics as my husband could do because he invented it.

Back then, Columbus, Ohio, seemed football-crazy. All the traffic lights were green around the stadium after a game. Hotels filled, food sources benefited…Obviously, nothing has changed about the way the University rewards the sports program for tourism and entertainment reasons.

Which other country on the entire planet, at a major university funded primarily through taxes, had a group of people who agreed that a coach of a single sport deserved greater rewards of money and outside benefits than the most brilliant scholars at that same university and the President? The practice is widespread, I hear, and how crazy is that?

Imagine if this scenario were turned around. Supposing football became associated with the least prestige and monetary reward within the university? Suppose many of the players received life-threatening concussions from playing the sport? Woudn't decent citizens take pity on the players and, with a flash of decently good conscience, stop the program? I'm dreaming of utopia.

Ohioans and the parents of Ohio State University students keep cheering. They pay that much for a sports coach to the detriment, at the cost, of the primary university function -  the teaching and researching duet. They place him on an ivory pedestal. Professors aren't paid much, aren't on an ivory pedestal, because the sports program needs the money, or so the rumor goes.

What is the history of American football?

Modestly it expanded from a game history suggest was played between Harvard and McGill University in 1874, following an earlier 1859 game between Princeton and neighboring Rutgers University.

My point is that the sport of American football is new, unproven, and anti-academic. Paying astronomical rates to sports coaches at universities is also new, and completely newsworthy. Why have universities taken to rewarding sports at the expense of academic pursuits? It's crazy.

The idea that donors pay the universities on the strength of the football program and tickets sold can be discounted by searching Google for the endowments of private universities in general, which are far higher than those of public universities. Private universities do not focus on  popular football mega-events, not on the same scale.

I think universities are unbalanced when they reward sports more than the disciplines that they ethically, often with government funding, have the mandate to fulfill.

And exactly where are girls, women, females, children, and infants, in all this talk of football? Forgotten, irrelevant, useless, unnecessary???...

Music Relaxes More than Massage in Scientific Studies

Why not consider listening to music when you have an excess of tension and need to relax?

Many musicians have created "yawnfests"and they make wonderful lullabies. Some say they listen every evening, so this music, not surprisingly, has become popular for its therapeutic benefits.

One of them, called "Weightless" using biofeedback in laboratory studies, relieved tension by an astonishing sixty-five percent in women. That result alone makes it more effective and relaxing than a massage! Sustained tones, chimes, bring peace. The listener gets out of the way and relaxes at a deep level. Even better is to be able to listen in the bath, in bed, at the computer, wherever.

Apart from not listening while driving, how harmless can it be to listen to relaxing music with physiological effects on the brain? Better than another drink, I would assert.

Which music, of any era, do you find most relaxing---religious music, eastern, classical music, decades-old music?

If Helmets Aren't Enough To Protect Players, What's the Solution?

Dear National Hockey League Commissioner:

Picture of a canary bird and a coal miner

Why deny overwhelming scientific evidence that brain injuries in hockey players are caused by the sport? Why be so bold except to protect your future business?

More important: what is your solution?

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Today, an important article in the New York Times concerns the tragic death of a 28-year-old hockey star. Scientific proof has made into fact some suspicions deeply-held by many, that sports stars are dying in record numbers from degenerative brain diseases. Doctors who analyzed and studied his brain tissues and brains of similar sports stars believe there is no longer any doubt whatsoever that many sports cause and worsen health issues that can lead to needless premature death. Such brain diseases are diagnosed posthumously.

The business of sports in general continues to expand. At the same time lingering health issues of living players are ignored and categorically denied by bosses because players get   injured and treat themselves in different ways. The sports business depends on denying  such problems, but morally, it's wrong.  It's obvious to see the problems that degenerative health issues would imply for the world of sports.

I say SHAME on all those who profit from blood sports -- "blood" being contact sports that injure the brains and bodies of players for life outside the game. Pure greed is easy to recognize.

My best wishes and condolences go to those families who have made the ultimate sacrifice for any sport.

Luckily, this is not my personal problem. In my family unit, we prefer not to watch blood sports.

Does Driving Encourage Premarital Sex?

In countries where women have been driving for generations, the answer is negative. We wonder where the science could be behind that idea? We in the western world believe just as premarital sex encourages more premarital sex, driving encourages more driving....They are two different activities.

Does the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sincerely want more drivers? Perhaps that is the real issue in such countries that do not encourage women to drive.  Everyone has to be persuaded with good reasons, which I give below because I believe Saudi Arabia should encourage women to drive.

Driving is a good skill to learn and can make girls safer if they have the option of not entering a car with drivers they do not feel comfortable with, and so they will not be kidnapped. 

Driving for women is an important human right and a good idea, and of course, they need to have the option of driving lessons.

If women drive, they can, among other activities:

1) help drive their families for food shopping

2) drive sick and old women who feel safer with a young girl

3) drive cars to schools

4) take pets to veterinarians and drive horse vans

5) go shopping for food and clothing by themselves

6) girls can safely go to movies with their girlfriends

7) some women prefer to drive enormous trucks and help the economy

They might be safer at night in their own car than in a bus, walking, or driving in someone else's car. They can use their own car if the other driver is not a safe driver or does not wish to drive, or they do not wish to enter a certain car. Of course, they have to learn how to drive, follow the legal rules of the road, and practice safe, defensive driving.

As a mother of two girls in New Jersey, both of mine have learned to drive, and have their own cars. They learned to drive first in classroom lessons, and then instructor-led outings in a car with dual brakes. Rules of the road here are so strict that girls and boys cannot drive until they are seventeen, and only fully when they are eighteen. Many teenagers delay driving a little longer...Students growing up in New York City itself often do not learn how to drive at all.

We want what we want, and life doesn't always give us what we want even if we deserve it.

On Kirtan Chanting

Those of us privileged to attend a yoga/writer's retreat  in Vermont recently as I did also learned Indian chanting  during our evenings, and benefited from sing-alongs led by a lovely, talented singer usually known simply as Yvette, or sometimes Yvette Om.

Yvette

I have been learning her chants by heart, aided by her CD "Into the Arms of Love" which I highly recommend. It is available at her website to order online, and makes the perfect gift for any yoga enthusiast, or buy it as background music, for meditation...She sings haunting Kirtan lyrics with the aid of her harmonium, other singers, and other musical instruments, such as the violin and sitar. 

Yvette

Please take a moment to buy it. You will soon find yourself adding quick chants throughout your busy days, and probably long, slow, chanting meditations,  as well.... Songs with titles like Sri Ganesha, Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha, Hey Ma Durga, Om Narayana, Om Namah Shivaya..Yvette's lovely lyrics will relax you when you allow her music to move you...

Bliss Out With Yoga

My incredibly gifted yoga instructor at a recent  retreat  in northern Vermont was a top American yogini, or should I say a guru, precious Lilavati, owner of "Temple of the Lotus" a yoga center near Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia.

Lilavati

She has been learning yoga since the age of 15 and  has perfected her Ayurvedic practices ever since...She taught us yoga for hours each day. She now has lots of oils and nectars available at her website to use "as a protective sheath from Vatas dry chilling energy"  available to buy.

 

Lilavati

Best of all, for us, were her intensive training classes to yoga teachers around the country. I am hoping to use her special recipes to enhance my "strength, grounded~ness, health, and balance during the winter months." Be sure to contact her studio "Temple of the Lotus" where she teaches yoga, and talks about doshas and balance and  other such important yoga principles.

"Temple of the Lotus" Philadelphia's Ayurvedic Sanctuary is at 1527 South Street, Philadelphia, PA 19146 email: Lilavati@TempleoftheLotus.com 

Before I went to the writer/yoga retreat, I became convinced in my own mind I would fail at it. Lilavati assured me no one fails Yoga...If I can do a little yoga, anyone can!!!

Of course, I like yoga for the stress-reduction benefits, and "for positive effects on sleep anxiety, quality of life, and spiritual growth" W. Tranquility is, for anyone, a positive goal.  

Yoga also has a grand goal of freedom from illness, old age and death...As a physical, spiritual and mental discipline, however, yoga is a useful adjunct to our busy lives. I recommend it when you have the opportunity.

Lomography Brightens Emails With Eastern Philosophy

Recently, we ordered an Diana mini camera

Lomography.com

for my enthusiastic 18-year-old photographer's birthday. A whimsical automatic message immediately appeared in my Inbox from Lomography:

"We're seriously committed to making sure your Lomographic order arrives in the best possible condition. At the moment our holistic shipping experts are busy preparing your treasured cargo psychologically for the journey that lies ahead. After a bit of chanting and chakra balancing our packaging architects will set to work making your goods as comfortable as possible. Under the cover of darkness a no-messing security troop will escort your package to the post depot to ensure it departs without a sniff of trouble. It's at this point we release two pigeons of peace as a symbol of thanks for another successful shipment."

"chanting"..."chakra balancing"..."pigeons of peace"??? I have to say, I appreciated this message far more now than I would  have a month ago before my Ayurvedic weekend in northern Vermont...I am even learning Indian chanting now, not intending to outdo my teenager who is incidently learning Chinese...

Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Written by the immensely talented  and gorgeous Rebecca Skloot, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks traces the history of the biotech and gene therapy industries in America and makes it exciting.

Hela cells were used in research studies at Johns Hopkins University, and named after  a so-called donor, Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old mother in Maryland. Her cells evidently expanded and divided at an unprecedented speed. They were reproduced  and sent around the world for use in medical experiments. Her cells were used as building blocks  that created new products and ultimately led to the the expansion of the multi-billion-dollar  international pharmaceutical industry.  At the same time, Henrietta's family, after her death, did not make a penny and are currently deeply in debt.

The well-written, entertaining story is about so much more than one family, and yet learning about the Lacks family grounds the book in reality and gives the story urgency. We see how real people's lives were impacted by permissions they did, or did not give, for their tissues to be used in scientific experiments. We learn about how people have given up ownership of  the raw materials, their cells, blood, and body parts, whether voluntarily or not, in  medical procedures around the world.  Read this book to learn useful knowledge about the industry and about the world of medicine.

Listen to Rebecca Skloot describe her book, and be sure to buy it. I stayed up late reading  it, and was sorry when it ended. Don't worry, you will be in good hands when you read her book. She would make a very desirable friend...

Rebecca Skloot

Is Mormonism a Cult?

Today, I am missing Sunday services at Washington National Cathedral. I like to listen to them for the quality of the service, the sermon, and the music. I will miss Cathedral Dean Lloyd's leadership.

Please give generously to Washington National Cathedral as they make repairs following the earthquake and subsequent hurricane.

Is Mormonism a cult?

Cult: a system of religious beliefs and rituals regarded as unorthodox.

The latest assertions of a Republican saying that Mormonism is a cult has me thinking. Even though I am not a Republican, and it matters not who said made this accusation, I am a Christian.

I also believe church and state are separate entities and should remain such. Wars have been fought over that division. At the same time, this is my platform to discuss my views on Mormonism, and you are most welcome to visit.

Mormonism has certain givens up front, aspects many mainstream Christians, including me, find very disturbing:

1. It's not inclusive and diverse...as this picture illustrates:

Mormon Tablernacle Choir and Orchestra

Even if a few diverse groups have joined recently, I remain skeptical. Assertions to that effect wouldn't cut it with me.

2. Why is it not ever going to be truly diverse?

Mormonism is elitist at heart and in principle, and only allows certain people to join because of their genetics and family history. It does not allow those who simply want to join if they change their beliefs. Newcomers would not be accepted into the inner sanctums with their children. 

3. Mormonism believes in Prophets alive until recently. That doesn't happen in Christian denominations. All our prophets died thousands of years ago...

4. Some of the initiation rites, the marriage bed pictured in online photos, if true, and marriage practices of taking multiple wives, if true, are still  rumored to be going on.  These practices are illegal, and can be unconstitutional and hurtful to under-age or female participants.

5. Certainly, Mormons might consider themselves different children of God by choice and aspiration, but how free are they in the eyes of the world if they aren't allowed in principle to do normal American activities inside America? What's so wrong with drinking coffee or tea from Starbucks,  for example, or drinking a bit of wine?

6. No other church gets involved in uniforms and undergarments for general participants. To me, that makes it suspect and leaves it outside the Christian umbrella. God is supposed to love us at all times.

6. Mormons look at The Book of Mormon as their primary authority. Christian churches, in stark contrast, use the Holy Bible as their primary authority.

I am not going to delve any more deeply into the religion and invite quibbles. Any one of the above reasons would be sufficiently major to make most individuals around the world eschew it and take it out of consideration if they wanted to make a change.

Ultimately, I do not think Mormons are free enough to be happy and flexible,  either, even if they are children of God (as we all are), because freedom to change and join religions is an important and useful value.

To conclude, even if the religion works for some, and Mormons feel cozy in their beliefs, nevertheless, in my final analysis, yes, ultimately Mormonism is a cult as well as a religion. What it is not is mainstream Christianity, and most American Christians I have spoken to believe it is not Christian. What do you believe...Is Mormonism a cult?

Again, please give generously to Washington National Cathedral.

American Healthcare Systems Needs Overhaul To Focus on Fair Access and Healthy Futures

The world will read this blog post, and probably correctly call their own health care system superior to the American model, despite any improvements that may have already been enacted here.

Doctors in America work in a system in which they routinely and unwisely lose interest in their patients and get away with it. Medical doctors in America refer their patients around other doctor's offices without caring about outcomes just because they don't have to, and get paid for it.

They do not automatically, and only rarely, request a follow up return visit. They just seek payment for referrals of patients to other doctors and forget who matters. I have had doctors at all levels do that, and it makes me angry at their irresponsibility. They don't get paid for caring. They get paid more for other so-called services, like ripping people apart in surgeries, whether or not they have had their medical education in the United States.

They are in it for the money, and they are not supposed to be and should care more for their patients. They do not know if patients have followed up on their ailments and they don't care if  patients don't follow the recommendations -- sometimes because patients can't afford to. If patients don't get treatment, doctors wouldn't know or care. I know because I have been treated that way, too, and I supposedly have good insurance that covers catastrophic incidents.

American medicine is a joke for most Americans, even me, a vacuous hollow of the good health care system the country could have if it ever got its act together. It is an extremely poor, inefficient system, as it has been for at least thirty years since I have lived, fortunately healthily, for the last thirty years in this country.

Here's a good example of a gross inefficiency of the medical system overall...Someone who has insurance in one state has to pay the bills for health services rendered in another state.

That's exactly what happened to a good, old friend of mine, my former cleaning lady, who lives in Florida and pays health insurance there. When she visited her daughter on holiday, she had emergency gall-bladder surgery in New Jersey. A couple of months later, she has been billed for more money than she makes in a year in Florida.

A little background: she was visiting her daughters in New Jersey  when she was admitted. They looked after her when she was discharged from the hospital. She lives alone in Florida, so it was actually better for her to have the operation in New Jersey and stay afterward with her daughter's family. She also knew and trusted some of the doctors who performed the operation because she used to work cleaning the hospital for thirty years and felt familiar with it. Another of her daughters works at the hospital...

Which brings us back to the paperwork and the expenses  she submitted from  her New Jersey hospital that are now being rejected by her Florida insurer. Does this make sense to charge her to pay more for a required procedure than she can  make in one year? In her sixties, she labors in a job requiring a lot of physical effort. She might have spent a few more expensive days in the hospital in Florida had she done the procedure in that state. She would certainly had a lot more personal trouble since she hadn't anyone to help her post-discharge. She is understandably disputing her bills.

In an even more extreme case, an article called "Stuck in Bed for 19 Months, at Hospital's Expense" in the New York Times today tracks a case in an extravagantly inefficient American health care system that lacks accountability for long-term patients without insurance. The profiled patient had previously made $400 in cash each week, and been abandoned by his wife and children who could not afford his care, although he ultimately returned home.

"For the $1.4 million in services that [the hospital] had provided, total reimbursement to the hospital from Medicaid was $114,000...

If he had been insured or immediately eligible for Medicaid or Medicare, he might have gone to a nursing home after a week or two, where the average daily cost in New York is about $350 — and where he might have had steady companionship. Or he might have received a home health aide in his apartment, which could have cost even less, depending on the required hours. 

For hospitals---that treat many illegal immigrants, the health care plan enacted last year does nothing to solve this liability...During debates about reform, lawmakers insisted that the plan’s benefits not extend to the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants...Nor is this likely to change."

Hospitals keep patients and can't efficiently care for them; they don't automatically transfer them to less expensive  locations. This inefficiency is another example that hospitals fail to address. Even if hospitals say they don't have the money, by not improving this practice they have, in fact, consciously condoned it. They  actually allow patients  like him to stay at a place that normally charged over USD$2,000 a day instead of  forcing them to transfer to another  less-expensive alternative at $350 a day.  Why are the 'powers that be' not ashamed of this administrative malpractice. Why are they not held accountable for their inefficiency?

Either expense will appear nonsensical and outrageous to my international audience.  Yet, America lacks the business and political will to improve health care. Meetings between hospital, long-term care facilities, and the government should have taken place to care for this patient instead of making me, a taxpayer, help pay for his excessive bill and their mistakes. Let's face it, many mistakes have been made that have not been corrected yet. There should be financial incentives to reward results in the best interests of the long-term health and longevity of the patient. Successful diagnoses  obviously need to be followed through with intelligent treatments. Treatments and results matter to patients. America has a system where doctors are better rewarded for referrals and invasive surgery than long-term results, and have the wherewithal to sway politicians with graft.

If you are an international visitor, or on business, in the United States, and happen to land in the hospital, these extremely high bills will have to be paid.

What about patients who are airlifted to safety only to have to pay more than they can afford? They have no choice but to pay, unless covered by the appropriate insurance.

Instead of being an intelligent, broadly inclusive health care system, the bureaucratic rules are unintelligible at times, disconnected, and open to inconsistency and misinterpretation on an individual level. 

It should have made taxpayers in America revolt by now. Oddly, that has not happened. Businesses could not change the health care system; the inefficient American health care system has led giant car companies to bankruptcy.

Sensible rules to reward follow ups and make records of results need to be formed by the government,  as the British and Canadian governments did after the Second World War, or else all that is left is inefficiency and chaos. The rich might or might not pay for high end treatments, but every taxpayer loses overall in the American health care system. And that's not being caring, charitable, or compassionate to patients. For this reason, the American government must rule where businesses do not for the greater good of all patients. I just hope I don't get sick; the risks of getting sick are too horrific and expensive for me to imagine.

Washington National Cathedral Recovers

Washington National Cathedral is surely, off-site, preparing for  upcoming September 11 anniversary ceremonies. The Cathedral is ensuring the safety of worshipers and visitors, on-site, as seen in this video. Please give generously to the Washington National Cathedral to help fund recovery efforts. Thank you.

Video and article courtesy The Huffington Post

The  National Cathedral will host President Barack Obama, in our thoughts every Sunday in worship services,  Secretary Leon Panetta, Rhythm and Blues singer Pattie LaBelle, country superstar Alan Jackson, and renowned mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, during services throughout the entire weekend, marking the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Titled "A Call To Compassion:Honor, Heal, Hope, the special weekend will host concerts to honor the fallen, help the nation heal, and renew our sense of unity and hope.

R & B Singer Patti LaBelle


Country Singer Alan Jackson

Mezzo-Soprano Denyce Graves